The Bad Ben Series Part Two

BAD BEN: THE MANDELA EFFECT
(2018)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

Four titles in and the Bad Ben series seems to be deliberately taking one step forward and two steps back as Bad Ben: The Mandela Effect ignores everything that was established in the previous and often hysterical Badder Ben.  As the title would suggest, the film has a déjà vu premise where Tom Fanslou seems stuck in a loop, buying the series' haunted house at a sheriff sale, filming himself arriving there, and then freaky stuff starts happening that varies in how similar it is to what happened in the first movie.  The fact that it feels as if you have accidentally pressed "play" on the initial Bad Ben from 2016 is no accident then, but patient viewers will notice the subtle differences which give way to a handful of scenarios that all get Fanslou into the basement so that the screechy demon kid or whatever thing can attack the shit out of him.  The premise works to a point, and Fanslou squeezes some more mileage out of simple found footage gags where our eyes dash around lingering shots waiting for something unnerving to spring into action.  It succeeds in this respect, delivering some chills as well as laughs, especially by the end where even our humble and lone character seems to be picking up on the fact that he has been down this road before.  On that note, the movie does have a scraping the barrel feel to it and proves that you can only make the same film so many times, even if you are making fun of the fact that you are making the same film so many times.

 

THE CRESCENT MOON CLOWN

(2018)

Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

For any viewers that have stuck around with the Bad Ben franchise five entries deep, we are proven with The Crescent Moon Clown that it is best to ignore words like "continuity" and "logic".  Series creator and usual lone actor Tom Fanslou restricts himself to an appearance in the last set piece which is when the movie finally takes the piss out of itself, instead dedicating the rest of it to one unfortunate evening for Jhetta Tionne Anderson to endure.  Playing a college student that has the entire haunted house to herself, Anderson exclusively exhibits "stupid people in horror movies" behavior that is bound to make every audience member yell at the screen.  A sometimes ghost/sometimes flesh and blood person in a Spirit Halloween clown costume lurks around, a sometimes ghost/sometimes flesh and blood person in a Spirit Halloween grim reaper costume also lurks around, lights turn off and on, doors open and close, things make noise, bloody messages get left on the kitchen floor, and Anderson goes about her night saying "Hello?" about a billion times while only seeming mildly concerned.  The pacing is dreadful, (at one point we get an extended sequence where clown man gives us a tour of the entire house on Anderson's cell phone; an entire house that we have explored every nook and cranny of by this point), and the final goofy bit at the end is embarrassing.  Fanslou seems to be having fun churning these out one or two a year, but at this rate, some of them are bound to hit a brick wall.

 

BAD BEN: THE WAY IN
(2019)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

 

Making a "Here we go again..." joke when another Bad Ben movie comes out is kind of like complaining about a new Mountain Dew flavor; they are inevitable and many people will try them despite other's eyeball rolls.  Bad Ben: The Way In continues the mostly linear path of the series and serves closest as a direct follow-up to 2017's Badder Ben, which ended with Tom Fanslou/Nigel Bach/Tom Riley's schlubby protagonist getting a second wind in battling malevolent supernatural forces and deciding to launch his own paranormal investigator business.  Tasked by the new owners with ridding his own former house of the now nine official entitles that dwell there, (though there are bound to be some more added before this series wraps up, if it ever does), Fanslou is once again the only guy on screen save for that stupid Spirit Halloween clown that is still lurking around.  Outside of the first movie which worked as both a parody and an unsettling entry into the found footage genre, the rest of the Bad Ben franchise is at its best when it takes the piss out of itself, and thankfully this is the case here.  The most intentionally humorous installment yet, there are laugh-out-loud moments and jump scares aplenty, even if the lore is getting more nonsensical and the shtick is unwavering and bordering on stale.

The Bad Ben Series Part One

BAD BEN
(2016)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: GOOD

 
The first in a to-date fourteen deep movie franchise, (plus a short film and a video game), the initial Bad Ben is a hilarious and creepy work in found footage that acts as both a parody of and a legitimate installment in the sub-genre.  Tom Fanslau, (under the pen and screen name of Nigel Bach), shopped his concept around to potential producers with no bites and ergo decided to make it himself, shooting the entire project for only $300 in his own home.  Equipped with a cell phone, security cameras, and a couple of convincing effect shots, the DIY results are commendable in and of themselves.  Thankfully though, Bach's efforts are engrossing besides their practicality.  As the only fellow on screen, he has a shlubby charisma ala Brian Posehn while he endlessly talks to himself, poking fun at the "Why do I feel the need to document my whole life?" trope in such movies.  The subtle yet undeniable comedic angle allows for his character's behavior to be questionable in one sense, but his stubborn and humorous determination to not be driven out of his newly purchased home by unfriendly entities gives the plot just enough plausibility to work.  Best of all though, the simple and familiar set up does not get in the way of some hair-raising spookiness.

 

STEELMANVILLE ROAD

(2017)

Dir - Tom Fanslou

Overall: WOOF

 

While Nigel Bach aka Tom Fanslou is a likeable bloke and his initial Bad Ben film was one of the best micro-micro-budgeted found footage movies perhaps ever made, its follow-up Steelmanville Road, (Bad Ben: Steelmanville Road), is an almost exclusively embarrassing work.  A prequel that leads right up until when the first installment begins, it has a promising opening where a newlywed couple moves into the series' haunted abode to experience a few subtle paranormal episodes, some of which the cameras catches yet the characters do not.  Right from the get-go though, we are given some flimsy reasons for the events to be filmed in the first place, and this becomes more sloppily handled throughout, including close-ups and wide-shots being edited together from the same wall-mounted security cameras.  Yet this is only one of many blunders, since Fanslou regrettably chooses to show physical manifestations of ghosts this time in the form of a backwards talking kid in heavy eye-shadow who looks like he is right out of a nine year-old's YouTube video.  The story is a laughable cliche-fest, made much worse by atrocious acting and a need for Fanslou to explain almost every ambiguously creepy detail from the first movie.  Instead of making for some engrossing mythology, this only messes up what was already a spooky scenario.  In other words, it "fixed" something that was not broken, falling down the stairs in the process.

BADDER BEN

(2017)

Dir - Tom Fanslou

Overall: MEH

 

Three entries in and Tom Fanslou made the wise choice to lean into the more comedic angle that he displayed in his first Bad Ben installment, with Badder Ben, (Badder Ben: The Final Chapter), being more intentionally ridiculous than its awful predecessor Steelmanville Road.  It is still a mixed bag though.  This time we meet some chipper paranormal investigators who have seen the first two movies and decide to find out what all of the hullabaloo is about, bringing along Fanslou for the ride who is back to do battle unwillingly against the force or forces that have taken over his would-be flipped home.  The unsettling scare tactics are jettisoned for more of a lampoon-heavy approach where no one on screen seems to be taking things seriously, with many laugh-out-loud results along the way.  Each of the four characters, (particularly Fanslou's who has an understandably hilarious chip on his shoulder now), provide some knowingly goofy moments, plus the franchise's lore becomes officially convoluted, which is appropriate in this more lighthearted context .  Everyone also behaves like an idiot at regular intervals, the plotting is flimsy, and there are some abysmal digital effects that are not played for chuckles, but it is still an enjoyable entry that is introduced as being "for the fans" so in that respect, it is difficult to hate.

The Blackwell Ghost Series Part Two

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 5

(2020)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: WOOF

The first major misstep in Turn Clay's mico-budgeted faux documentary series, The Blackwell Ghost 5 makes the faux pas of dragging things out to redundant and unwatchable levels.  Continuing the arc of the previous two installments, (neither of which has anything to do with the Blackwell Ghost of the title), Clay jumps right back into the same Florida haunted summer house and also right back into the same ghostly shenanigans, as well as his way of trying the audience's patience.  What little information arrives could have easily been given to us in the two movies that proceed this one, (let alone the ones that follow), and Clay fails to come up with any interesting new bumps-in-the-night sequences on top of the narrative brick wall.  The phone still rings at 2:47 for nothing decipherable to ever happen on the other end, the banging on the walls is incessant, and the revelation from the last movie leads to nothing but another revelation before we are given a "to be continued..." tag.  Again.  A shower faucet turning on and a hole in a closet is hardly enough to warrant the seventy-two minutes that we spend here, plus Clay keeps piling on more scary music to break verisimilitude with each release, probably because he realized that nothing frightening is happening otherwise.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 6

(2022)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

 

A much needed break was taken in Turner Clay's Blackwell Ghost series to drop the arc of the previous three films which even though were left on yet another cliffhanger, are thankfully jettisoned to only partially reference them here.  The Blackwell Ghost 6 takes a bold move by killing off Clay's wife, leaving him with two toddlers to take care of and because ghosts, also gives him a new haunted house angle.  This time it is his own home that starts experiencing unexplained occurrences around his wife's old keyboard which randomly pops back into his life.  Though it is comparatively better than its skippable and immediate predecessor, it still suffers from the usual ailments.  The use of scary music was and is always a problem in found footage, and Clay indulges in it more than most, actually layering it over the naturally captured audio of the supernatural things going down.  Another persistent issue is the monotonous feel and dragged-out randomness of those supernatural things that are dished out maybe one or two a night, disappearing entirely for weeks, and then repeating themselves later while itching to a reveal at a snail's pace.  Clay's ethereal wife, (presumably), sure is taking her sweet time trying to convey whatever it is that she is conveying from the beyond, but at least the emotional hook is more prominent this time, plus it all seems to be heading somewhere that may be interesting if Clay would only trim the fat already.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 7

(2022)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

In the mockumentary framework that filmmaker Turner Clay has used throughout his Blackwell Ghost series, he has so far created enough plausibility to warrant each new installment as something that his fictionalized self would offer to the masses.  That all changes with The Blackwell Ghost 7, which takes a hard left turn and ups the ante with few if any supernatural occurrences, but instead has a masked serial killer who toys with our do-good narrator.  Which poses the immediate question; why in the hell would Clay's on-screen persona cinematically edit and then release a finished film about a psychopath harassing him and his kids?  It is a ridiculous pill to swallow and despite some gasp-worthy reveals, (as well as some predictable ones), as well as arguably Clay's best performance on screen to date, the entire thing collapses under its very premise.  The franchise is still keeping its toes wet in the found footage genre, but Clay's penchant for continuous scary music and more shots than ever which scream "Who is filming this?" interrupt the otherwise realistic agenda.  It is as if we are watching a fully-formed, professionally made true crime documentary done by the victim of the person committing the crime, as it is happening.  If one can ignore such an elephant in the room though, it is compelling enough stuff.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 8

(2024)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: WOOF

Continuing in the about face taken in the previous installment, The Blackwell Ghost 8 pushes plausibility further than ever, which is saying something since this is coming after several entries where ghosts banged doors, made phone calls, and played with balls.  All of the issues that were front and center with 2022's The Blackwell Ghost 7 which ushered in a new serial killer angle are intensified here.  Not only is Turner Clay still making a documentary about the psycho who is sending him clues to where bodies are being delivered while simultaneously terrorizing his house, (which is absurd enough), but he, the killer, and the police all behave like buffoons.  Some could question the choices made by Clay and those whom he interacted with before, but in trying to tingle the spines of the viewer and deepen the lore here, he insults the audience.  Why would a guy put himself in constant danger of an admitted murderer?  Why would the police refuse to have his back at every step of the way with armed guards?  Why would the killer stand right behind the hapless dope in his own house, just counting on him not turning around, (which of course he fails to do)?  In addition to these narrative blunders, Clay bizarrely continues his trajectory of making sure that the viewer is questioning where each of the shots are coming from.  In one sequence, we have drone footage of him driving his truck, getting out of his truck, and walking up to a clue out in the middle of nowhere.  Good thing that he decided, (while terrified), to operate said drone on his investigation just to make sure that we have some cinematic scenery to enjoy.

The Blackwell Ghost Series Part One

THE BLACKWELL GHOST

(2017)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

 

The first in the mockumentary series The Blackwell Ghost sets up the framework that would be adhered to from here on out, introducing us to our frustrated indie filmmaker who decides to take a break from making low-budget zombie movies and instead becomes a paranormal documentarian.  Writer/director/everythinger Turner Clay is just such a filmmaker, and he has a smug yet acceptable level of charm as the guy who we are primarily stuck with throughout the proceedings, narrating his escapades into a Pennsylvania property that experiences unexplained things like lights turning on, footsteps going up the stairs, a blurry white shape floating past the camera, and, (in the "thrilling" finale), water faucets running and a toy ball showing up somewhere creepy.  The problem with a movie like this is not so much in its execution which is presented as any documentary would be, (conventional editing, some scary musical ambiance, etc), but in the material itself.  Simply put, nothing that happens here is remotely frightening.  Since ghosts are not real, a film examining such a phenomenon in a manner that would fool dummies into thinking that this was not all smoke and mirrors, (i.e. actually being "found footage"), faces an uphill battle to begin with.  In this case, it only generates mediocre results.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 2

(2018)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

The plot only thickens by an incremental margin in Turner Clay's The Blackwell Ghost 2; an apply titled follow-up to his previous year's The Blackwell Ghost that features Clay visiting the same house with the same outcome.  As far as deepening the lore of the title spectre, this is gotten out of the way in the first half when he uncovers some clues that give him an excuse to venture back to the haunted abode, but all of these narrative tidbits prove inconsequential, coming off more like fail-safes to be elaborated on in future installments.  Clay rides solo more here since his wife only makes a small appearance, the owner of the Pennsylvanian home is nowhere to be seen, and a distant sort-of relative of the sinister Ruth Blackwell is mentioned yet only shown in photographs.  This is agreeable considering that we are talking about a micro-budgeted found footage movie, and the less speaking parts that you have, the cheaper the end result will be to produce.  The bump-in-the-night stuff gets underway eventually and is yet another series of doors, chairs, and electronic appliances doing things via invisible influencem and they are once again more scary in theory than in execution.  Even with its tacked-on coda that extends the movie to a longer length than is necessary, plus some footage of Clay's own Racoon Valley feature that was released the same year, it is still an adequately and cheaply made bit of would-be spookiness for those that are looking to kill an evening.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 3

(2019)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

 

Switching gears narrativly, Turner Clay's The Blackwell Ghost 3 in fact only briefly touches upon such an otherworldly entity, instead introducing a new paranormal mystery about a haunted Florida vacation house where a serial killer once murdered eighteen women there decades earlier.  The story has more of a true crime angle to it than the one explored in the first two installments, and it is more interesting by comparison.  Still, the plot barely moves as the bulk of the running time is spent watching Turner Clay say the same things and do the same things that we have already seen him do before.  Granted there is a method to such ghost hunter's shtick, even ones that are unconventional as Clay jokingly points out by getting drunk on the job, smirking his way through his anxiety-ridden narration, and half-assing his approach to uncovering a mystery by simply waiting long enough for stuff to happen.  Some of this is amusing, but Clay loses us with a monotonous structure where a phone ringing at 2:47 AM that has no one saying anything on the other line, (of course), and banging noises coming from the backdoor that no one is ever at, (also of course), are the extent of the spooky bits.  Things end on a cliff-hanger to be picked up in the following year's inevitable sequel, but this particular detour would have been better suited in a condensed form instead of stretched out as long as it is.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 4

(2020)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

Another mixed bag effort from indie filmmaker Turner Clay, The Blackwell Ghost 4 picks up right where the previous year's installment left off and even ends with another "to be continued..." tag, signifying that the current mystery that has nothing to do with the mystery of the title has yet to be wrapped up.  A difference right out of the gate is how increasingly cinematic the franchise is getting, presumably due to the series turning enough of a profit to get more fancy with its presentation.  Shots and editing maneuvers that have nothing to do with found footage are given noticeable mileage here, and Clay throws more scary music into the proceedings than ever before, which is always shame as it destroys verisimilitude when we are watching the spooky stuff caught on camera.  As far as said moments go, they are relentless and monotonous instead of frightening, even if Clay's portrayal sufficiently conveys a man who is struggling with his own questionable life choices and frustrations in not being able to help the spirits that he is justifying such a project on.  This segment works better as an examination into the psyche of its host than it does as a proper spookshow, but the mystery itself is gradually picking up steam and would make for a compelling true crime documentary if any of it was real.  This is far from a flaw, in fact it is the opposite since it means that the story is hitting the right level of intrigue while the supernatural elements are unfortunately grinding things down.

2024 Horror Part Thirteen

NIGHTBITCH
Dir - Marielle Heller
Overall: MEH

 

A not-really werewolf movie for the moms, Nightbitch is the latest from writer/director Marielle Heller, adapting Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel of the same name.  What the film gets right is its relentless agenda to un-romanticize motherhood.  Amy Adams plays a woman two years into raising her first child, still has not dropped the baby weight, figures "Why bother?" when it comes to wearing makeup, puts her artistic career on hold, and hunkers down in her suburban house while her well-meaning yet clueless husband gets to travel for work and bring home the bacon.  Adams spends her days trying to keep her little tyke entertained, going to those horrendous sing-a-long things at libraries full of other moms who have nothing in common with each other besides the fact that they procreated, going to the park, going to the grocery store, and letting her child sleep in the same bed as her which guarantees that actual sleep is always off the menu.  It is no wonder that she gradually unravels to the point where she displays bestial qualities, all after we witness numerous fantasy sequences where she spouts her true feelings as narration.  Adams is great, and there is plenty of on-the-nose humor and relatable moments that any struggling couples can relate to in the early stages of parenthood, but the story treats its fantastical elements as an afterthought and eventually abandons them with no payoff or explanation.

 

THE RULE OF JENNY PEN

Dir - James Ashcroft

Overall: MEH

 

New Zealand director James Ashcroft adapts his second Owen Marshall short story in full-length form with The Rule of Jenny Pen, a psychobiddy movie where instead of female actors in their twilight years battling it out with each other, we have Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow.  The best/only good thing about this is the casting.  Both Rush and Lithgow look and behave older than they are as two unlikable men who are waiting to die in an old folk's home, and the film is nothing more than a hundred and four minutes of their squabbling plight.  In this sense, it is unpleasant for unpleasantry's sake, presenting itself as a quasi-black comedy where elder abuse inflicted by elder people is played for laughs, gross-out effect, and depressing disturbingness.  Lithgow has made a career out of being either the charismatic family man or the charismatic villain, and he seems to be enjoying himself with a doll puppet on his hand and a down under accent, terrorizing Rush and the other residents while gleefully, (and more to the point, annoyingly), getting away with it.  The plot never bothers to explain why Lithgow's antagonist has seemingly been at this particular old folk's home for decades on end and has presumably never been reprimanded or even suspected of foul play by any of the staff.  Here lies the issue though since anyone watching this, (whether they are of an age to relate or have had family members in such dire straits), will be persistently uncomfortable by the proceedings.  If the movie was clever or went anywhere then maybe this would be tolerable, but it does not, so it is not.

 

THE DEAD THING

Dir - Elric Kane

Overall: MEH

 

Director/co-writer Elric Kane's The Dead Thing is a confused musing on the type of social detachment that can plague young adults who go through the motions in menial jobs, with casual sex, and desperately find themselves in relationships that are no good for either party.  Exploring all of this via a ghost story is an adequate idea, but this concept only holds together for the first act.  After that, it becomes increasingly lost in gaping plot holes and vague supernatural logic, meanwhile everyone on screen remains at a distance from both each other and the audience.  This latter ingredient is no doubt intentional, since Kane and co-scripter Webb Wilcoxen have an agenda to show how impossible it is for people to find connection in a world of online dating and unfulfilling distractions.  The characters are no fun, but they are relatable if one can look past how broadly they are presented.  What is worse though is how the plot meanders after its initial set up, presenting moments that are implausible either with or without a dead Tinder hookup who is lingering around, distorting time, and murdering people without anyone noticing.  Then again, maybe none of these moments are what they seem, but it is all too murky to successfully pull off any kind of psychological trippiness.  Even though her protagonist is stuck in a one-note depression, Blu Hunt still manages to excel as someone who occasionally tries to snap herself out of that depression.  Sadly, the film that she is in cannot decide on what to do with either her or with any of the head-scratching scenarios.

2024 Horror Part Twelve

HERETIC
Dir - Scott Beck/Bryan Woods
Overall: MEH

 

There is a stink, (Perhaps blueberry scented?), to the latest genre excursion Heretic from the writer/director team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, another theological thriller where the nature of faith and/or the lack thereof is endlessly pontificated upon.  As the characters themselves point out, culture continues to turn its back on religion, especially in the age of information where it is not only unhip to believe in a higher power, but also impractical.  Sadly, nothing profound is either discussed or discovered here since the movie has a conventional enough framework to merely offer up another lunatic who kidnaps people with a cartoonishly elaborate plan that dooms everyone on screen except for the obligatory final girl.  That said, there are several agreeable touches to the film.  Famed South Korean cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon pulls off some flashy moves, even if his setting has a type of textbook creepiness full windows that are too small to escape from, apocalyptic rain storms, rustic decor, timeworn books, and wet, dark, and stony basements that lead to even more wet, dark and stony basements.  By channeling his trademark stuttering charm, Hugh Grant proves ideally suited to be a sinister presence, with a calm demeanor and perpetual politeness that leads the hapless Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East to his nihilistic thesis.  The third act loses its momentum with revelations that unnecessarily confuse things, but Beck and Woods stage some tense moments and give their excellent actors plenty to do up until then.

CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS
Dir - Alice Maio Mackay
Overall: MEH

 

Another neon-colored and admirable DIY genre work for Australian indie filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay, Carnage for Christmas sees her throwing her hat in the holiday horror ring, an over-saturated sub-genre with an egregious amount of killer Santa movies amongst its heard.  In some respects, Mackay's film follows the bog-standard trajectory, where our main protagonist returns home for the holidays, only to find a string of murders being committed by a guy in a jolly ole Saint Nick suit that eerily resemble another string of killings that happened decades earlier.  It is in the details though that the movie differentiates itself.  Jeremy Moineau is a true crime podcaster and ergo the perfect person to be caught up in a small town murder spree.  She does indeed solve the mystery and has a cocksure attitude that is finely-tuned after having to deal with a lifelong string of discrimination amongst herself and her social circle.  This is because Mackay's films deal with the queer community, and the struggle that is faced by her trans protagonists is one that is persistently done in an empathetic and respectful manner, never painting everyone as mere victims who are helpless against the oppressive outside world.  The case is no different here, and it is easy to champion her movies not just for their unique point of view, but also because they are stylized, fun, and deliver the type of R-rated pizazz that genre hounds gravitate towards.  Sadly, the story here is persistently weak and bares too many hallmarks that Mackay has better explored before, but it is still something that is impossible to hate.

 

BLACK EYED SUSAN
Dir - Scooter McCrae
Overall: MEH

 

The latest from writer/director Scooter McCrae, Black Eyed Susan has a deliberately provocative agenda, yet it is undermined by embarrassing Skinimax production values and the type of stiff acting and cringe-worthy dialog that is found in such movies.  To be fair, the performances are more uneven than uniformly lousy.  Marc Romeo is terrible in all of his scenes, Damien Maffei is terrible in half of them, and newcomer Yvonne Emilie Thälker, (a dead ringer for Angela Bettis), is good in all of hers, which is fitting since such wooden enunciation and mannerisms actually work in her case, considering that she is playing a fully-functional sex robot.  There lies the crust of the story, which explores the darker aspects of AI technology, which in this case is being utilized to provide the most realistic punching bags for the most sadistic of clients.  It gets even more icky than that in the final act "twist", but through and through, the film has a bottom-barrel aesthetic that never gels.  Soft piano music plays uninterpreted throughout the whole thing, it is dialog heavy which showcases the bumpy acting, and we even get some wretched CGI fire in one scene.  If looked at as a full-length episode of Red Shoe Diaries meets The Outer Limits, then it can be seen as something that gives the ole college try at being provoking with its disturbing themes.  But in 2024 and up against so many other also independent and minimally-budgeted genre films, it is noticeably cheap and awkward and ergo must be evaluated on such a level.

2024 Horror Part Eleven

SMILE 2
Dir - Parker Finn
Overall: MEH

 

Writer/director Parker Finn returns to the Smileverse with Smile 2, a sequel that has enough conceptual juice to justify its existence, a knock-out lead performance by Naomi Scott, some inventive set pieces, and is an overall better movie than the one that came before it.  That said, it also suffers from the same problems as the first Smile, namely too many jump scares, (all of which are obvious, as jump scares inherently are), willy-nilly adherence to its own supernatural rules, and a sloppy ending.  The story once again follows a young woman who is increasingly plagued by hallucinatory episodes of people grinning at her, (amongst other things), that drive her to the point of full-blown madness, but the culprit this time is an already overwhelmed pop star, throwing in a differentiating layer to just more ambiguous demonic mayhem for ambiguous demonic mayhem's sake.  By being such an prominent celebrity, Scott's protagonist has only the most desperate avenues to turn to when her world is turned upside down, and the burden of everyone demanding her attention and professionalism to launch a comeback is something that successfully ups the ante for a movie that otherwise sticks to its creepy trajectory.  Finn seems to have written himself into a corner though since the topsy-turvy nature of the material has to escalate to such proportions that it becomes unavoidably messy, meaningless, and even silly.  Still, Scott handles the assignment wonderfully and Finn shows successful restraint here and there, just not as much as would be agreeable.

FRANKIE FREAKO
Dir - Steven Kostanski
Overall: WOOF

 

For people who hate comedy, the latest abomination from throwback filmmaker Steven Kostanski may be your favorite movie ever made.  Frankie Freako comes after such desperate-from-each-other outings as Psycho Goreman, The Void, and The Editor, and it fails right out of the bat with a "Huh?" premise that is the antithesis of funny.  Things only get more and more off the rails from there, and when your jumping off point is so flimsy and head-scratching, an uphill trajectory is set.  This is to say that the movie is relentlessly juvenile and in-your-face, trying to nail gag after gag that treat the audience as stupidity as it does its characters, scenario, and premise.  Kostanski is going for Gremlins, (or more accurately, The Garbage Pale Kids Movie), high jinks where it is supposed to be amusing in and of itself that tiny puppets cause endless mayhem.  Yet in order for this to work, everyone on screen has to behave as if they are mentally ill cartoon characters, as much if not more so than the cheap puppet monsters running around farting, cackling, and wanting to party.  There is nothing worse than an endless series of not-at-all-funny scenes that have a purposely tacky yet bombastic tone to them, setting up nyuck nyucks as if they are clever in-jokes or are so outrageous that any audience will just bask in their, well, outrageousness.  Instead, this is just an eighty-five minute, insufferably annoying trainwreck.

THE SOUL EATER
Dir - Alexandre Bustillo/Julien Maury
Overall: MEH

 

For their seventh full length The Soul Eater, (Le mangeur d'âmes), French director team Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury collaborate with outside screenwriters for the first time, (newcomers Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre, and Alexis Laipsker, respectfully), on a relentlessly dour and lifeless police procedural with equally subpar supernatural elements.  We have bodies being discovered that are mysteriously mutilated, a traumatized kid that speaks cryptically of a boogeyman, and two detectives that arrive on the case who have the personalities of dead fish.  What they uncover is plenty disturbing and ventures into the realm of the abduction and torture of minors, so it is no surprise that not one second of screen time is dedicated to anything within miles of humor.  As is always the case with anything in the New French Extremity movement though, (which some of Bustillo and Maury's past works indulged in more than others, this one qualifying as far as subject matter goes), the question is begged as to who a movie like this is for.  It is a miserable watch, performed by actors who seem like they would rather be anywhere else in the world than on screen under such conditions, and the puzzling thing is that this is fitting for the type of film that they are in.  It presents a dark and unforgiving world where evil festers, horrible things happen, and no one is remotely happy.  A few jump scares and creepy pagan masks hardly provide enough to either distinguish it from the herd or justify it as a worthwhile excursion.