Category: 2010’s

Directed by Colin Ferguson [Other horror films: N/A]

Look at the plot of this Syfy TV movie, and you can probably tell that it’ll be bad. Awful, even. Which is what I thought when I first saw it some years back (probably around when it first aired). Seeing it again, though, I have to admit, I find the movie somewhat, well, comforting.

The strong point here isn’t in the CGI dinosaur skeletons which are causing all the havoc, as they are just overly ridiculous and nonsensical (how can a skeleton growl without throat muscles, or sniff?). In a way, it a fun concept – a Native American spell brings the bones to life to protest development on traditionally tribal land, but come on, the skeletons look terrible.

What appealed to me about Triassic Attack were the characters, though. There’s some retroactive appreciation here, to be sure – one of the stars is Emilia Clarke, who began playing Daenerys Targaryen in the ultra-popular series Game of Thrones. Seeing the Mother of Dragons play a moderately bratty teenage girl isn’t something I got to experience the first time I saw the film, and that certainly adds a little something.

Even ignoring Clarke, though, there are some solid performances here, such as Steven Brand (who consistently reminded me of Ben McKenzie) and Raoul Max Trujillo. Christopher Villiers and Gabriel Womack made for fine comedic characters, but Kirsty Mitchell was somewhat shaky throughout.

The family dynamics between Brand, Mitchell, Clarke, and Trujillo actually got me invested, though, despite the silly story. One brother who believes in traditional Native American religions and another who is much more the modern, integrated one made for some good drama. And I don’t know why, exactly, but it worked.

If you look online, many people give this movie quite a low rating, and I can certainly see why people would give it such, especially since I used to be one of them. But I found Triassic Attack entertaining, probably more entertaining than I should have. The question is, would this be a movie I’d buy on DVD and pop in on a rainy night to watch, and the answer is yes. It’s not one of Syfy’s better offers, but I cannot deny that I enjoyed it, and ultimately, that’s all that matters.

7/10

Directed by Christopher Ray [Other horror films: Reptisaurus (2009), Megaconda (2010), Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010), 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012), Shark Week (2012), Mega Shark vs. Kolossus (2015), A House Is Not a Home (2015), Circus Kane (2017), Minutes to Midnight (2018)]

This follow-up to the disaster that was 2-Headed Shark Attack is a marginal improvement, but make no mistake, it’s still pretty awful. The best I can say is that there are actually a few memorable characters here, and it didn’t feel nearly as shallow as the first one.

Even the story is a bit better, what with some of the main characters actually being scientists as opposed to just college kids who want to party and have carnal relations. While the underwater base was likely impractical, I actually thought it was sort of cool in a Jaws 3 type of way. The movie goes down a more generic route once the facility gets destroyed by the shark, which was a shame, though not a surprise.

Before I talk about the quality of performances overall, I want to speak specifically about Danny Trejo for a bit. Possibly one of the most well-known and prolific Latino actors, I’ve seen a handful of his films. I enjoyed Machete, and a few other roles of his. But the fact that he seems to accept any role offered to him doesn’t much endear me to the guy. In this film, he’s basically used the same way Carmen Electra was in the first one – to have a big name to draw people in. As it is, I liked Trejo’s character here, for the little he appeared, but his arc is exactly what you’d expect, and ultimately, he was pretty pointless as far as the film goes.

For other performances, you have a few that legitimately did okay, such as Karrueche Tran, Jaason Simmons, and Rob Van Dam. Jena Sims was rather attractive, and I somewhat liked her character, but she didn’t really amount to much, which actually caught me a bit by surprise. Generally, though, this movie, much like the first, seems more concerned about showing girls with impressive breasts in bikinis as opposed to crafting an even halfway decent story. While I won’t deny that some of the girls in question are beautiful (such as Brianna Ferris), it doesn’t add anything to the story being told.

In reality, while the movie was pretty terrible, it did improve a bit upon the first one (but honestly, given that I rated the first one extraordinarily lowly, that really isn’t saying much), and it seemed to want to be a better movie. It didn’t reach anywhere near average, but 3-Headed Shark Attack is a movie I could almost see myself re-watching at some point, which is definitely something I can’t say about the first one.

4/10

Directed by Brett Simmons [Other horror films: Husk (2011), The Monkey’s Paw (2013), Animal (2014), Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear (2014)]

For a modern-day slasher, this was refreshingly innovative and ultimately a pretty fun take on what generally is a far too played out story.

Told in a non-linear narrative, much of it in flashback with a framing sequence, this comedy-horror mix was pretty fun. While laugh out loud moments weren’t really all that common, the humor here was still pretty enjoyable, and there was enough decent gore, though not the focus, to also keep slasher fans happy.

The structure of the narrative ends up making the film not only more unique, but more memorable also. I enjoyed how the beginning was told via flashback, but then we sort of caught up to the present, and went from there. It helped greatly with Alyson Hannigan’s inactive role, and gave her, despite lack of action, a lot to contribute.

Of course, Hannigan’s presence is perhaps one of the reasons this movie’s gotten more attention than it otherwise might have. Hannigan does great here, and while I basically only know her from the American Pie movies (I’ve never seen any How I Met Your Mother), I think she gave a great performance. As a lead, Franz Kranz (Marty the stoner from The Cabin in the Woods) was fantastic also, and brought a fun performance to the film. Brittany S. Hall and Jenna Harvey did well also, Harvey especially as the innocent, final-girl type.

At times, the humor was a bit much, such as the final few seconds, but even that was foreshadowed, so it didn’t come across nearly as bad as it otherwise would have. Really, for a modern-day horror-comedy, this was a pretty solid mix without the comedy coming across as either overbearing or too still, which was sort of nice.

The director of this film, Brett Simmons, also directed a flick called Husk from 2011, which had been one of the few scarecrow horror films I’ve found worth watching (along with the more classic Dark Night of the Scarecrow and Scarecrows), but that film, as much as I recall liking it, didn’t reach the unique level this one did, so it’s great to see the director’s improving his craft.

You Might Be the Killer may not win any awards, but it’s a movie with a solid main cast (most of the cast not mentioned are interchangeable, but that sort of fits with the nature of the film), an occasional retro-feel, enjoyable humor, and most importantly, an innovative narrative. Definitely a movie I’d recommend to any slasher fans.

8/10

Directed by Krisstian de Lara [Other horror films: N/A]

So this movie took me moderately by surprise, but it wasn’t a surprise that by any means made the film better. At a cursory glance, I was expecting a found footage film, and while there are elements of found footage here, Investigation 13 is more ambitious than that. Like I said, though, it doesn’t make for a better viewing experience.

I have a handful of problems with this one. Most importantly, and most damning, I didn’t get the sense that the actors and actresses had their heart in the script. It felt soulless, and that can be a hard detriment to overcome, primarily because my perception may be off, and that colored my view deeply of the film.

Also, Investigation 13 utilized some rough animation sequences when going into the origins of the antagonistic Mole Man (no, not the classic Fantastic Four foe). I don’t mind throwing in animation for stylistic variety, but none of the animated portions (including the post-credits one) really did much in the way of moving the story along. I guess we got an origin, but it didn’t really matter whatsoever.

Another thing that bothered me – this group of paranormal investigators have done twelve previous investigations into the supposed supernatural. The twelfth is brought up a handful of time as a failure, yet never does the film go into what went wrong with it, which just bugged me. Why bring it up at all (multiple times) if you’ve no intention on touching on it later in detail?

Stephanie Hernandez didn’t do great, but she was the only cast-member who is even partially memorable. I don’t really blame the performances for my dislike of the film, because had the story been better, or more interesting, or different (and sorry, animated origins spread throughout the film don’t classify as sufficiently different), it might have been worth something, but that’s not the case.

I didn’t much care for the Mole Man here. I guess he got an okay kill in near the end (complete with a scalping), but he’s pretty forgettable, and that ‘twist’ near the end (which isn’t really explained that well) didn’t help matters out.

However, I will give it this much credit – they easily could have made this fully in the found footage style, and had that been the route they took, I think the movie probably would have been worse and even more generic. That said, it’s not like the way they ultimately went was all that more original, but hey, there are worse movies out there.

When all’s said and done, Investigation 13 just felt hollow, and while the setting is okay, and maybe the story had some potential somewhere, the movie just wasn’t anywhere near what I’d call good, or even average.

4/10

Directed by Kelton Jones [Other horror films: N/A]

I went into this one hoping for the best, and I liked aspects of the first half, but in the last twenty minutes or so, Dry Blood really started to irk me.

To be fair, I was irked earlier on also. So the main character (Clint Carney) is a drug addict trying to get clean, so he goes to a rather secluded cabin he partly owns in order to dry out. So far, so good. He asks a friend (Jaymie Valentine) to come to the cabin to help, and she does, so he now has support.

Here’s the issue – apparently even before he got addicted to drugs, the main character has a history of hallucinating, and so when he goes into withdrawal, the stuff he’s seeing could be caused by multiple issues (including, by the way, drugs he brought with him that he may or may not remember taking).

All of this is to say that we have a super unreliable narrator in Carney, and come the conclusion of the film, it’s hard to say what the true events of his stay at the cabin actually are. Did he kill some people, including a cop, or was that another vision? Even with that reveal in the last few minutes, I still don’t really know. Was the cop hounding him, as it seemed? Did his ex-wife come by? I have no idea, because with the drugs and hallucinations, nothing is clear-cut, and when they throw in possible flashbacks, it’s even worse.

Little in Dry Blood wowed me to begin with. I guess some of the special effects are decent, the cabin itself is a perfectly acceptable setting, and sure, the idea in of itself was interesting, but what we have here is mostly a ‘Oh, is it supernatural, hallucinations, or a combo?’ thing going on, and at that point, who knows what’s actually happening.

I went into Dry Blood with little expectations (assisted by the fact that I had never heard of this before starting it), and honestly, the first thirty, forty minutes of the movie were pretty solid. Once we are faced with more visions/dreams/drugged artifacts of the mind/supernatural stuff, though, I became more frustrated than anything.

Now, it is possible that everything is there in order to make sense of the story. Maybe with a close re-watch, the story of what really happens at that cabin emerges. It’s possible, and it would be unfair of me to discredit that. However, with this first-time watch, that certainly wasn’t the case, and while the movie does do some things right, and the basic idea is worth considering, I didn’t much care for this final product.

6/10

Directed by John Liang [Other horror films: N/A]

I’m not going to go as far as to say Recovery is a perfect movie. In fact, it may not even be a great movie. It is, however, very strong at certain points, and while the different aspects of the movie don’t always blend together the best, I was overall quite happy with this one.

At times, Recovery’s an emotional ride. On the surface, that might be expected, given that the plot revolves around patients at a heroin treatment center, but this throws in some bonus points in that the new patient Ronnie (played fantastically by Stephanie Pearson) was a soldier, and so you have some PTSD action going on.

Not only that, but the main doctor (Hope Quattrocki) had a brother who was also a soldier, and developed addiction problems when he got back, giving her a deeper insight into Ronnie’s situation. The two of them share a fantastically emotional conversation about a third of the way into the movie, and boy, when this movie did something right, they really do it right.

Combining a very well-developed drama with a slasher made sense in the context of the story, but I’m of mixed views on it. On the one hand, I really think this movie would have been stronger had a different direction been taken (not even a non-horror one, just a non-slasher one), but then chances are lower that I’d actually see it, which would have been a shame.

Also, and perhaps I’m being nit-picky, but when the killer is revealed, I wasn’t always overjoyed with their performance. At times, it was really good, emotional even, but others, it felt like the caricature of a psychotic killer, which was a bit disappointing.

Recovery isn’t a film I want to harp on much, though, because I really thought it did something special. It’s true that some of the characters sort of faded into the background, and when they died, it didn’t mean much to me (and I confused Ariella Hader’s character with Andi Rene Christensen’s for a bit, which confused things), but that’s more on me than anything.

If I could have changed one thing, it would have been to give each character a little more time toward the beginning to really get their face and name clarified, which wouldn’t have even been a drag, because there’s not a bad performance in here.

Though it’s been said once, I’ll repeat myself: Stephanie Pearson does fantastic in this. Her character is quite complex, and though I felt pity toward her, I also felt a deep sense of respect. When she was comparing soldier to civilian life, about the lack of a purpose that civilian life boasts that life as a soldier had in spades, I definitely felt for her. She was a strong character, and incredibly memorable and well-acted.

No less impressive was Hope Quattrocki, playing another complex character. At times, I really thought she was going about events the right way (the approach taken by her superior, Mike Starr, seemed much less personal), but you could definitely argue she made some mistakes here (especially superimposing what she knew of her brother’s situation onto another patient simply because both were soldiers). Still, Quattrocki did well throughout, and when talking about her brother with Pearson – again, fantastic.

Others who definitely warrant a positive mention are Liz Fenning and Arielle Hader (who played a very loving couple really well), Mike Starr (when he’s yelling at Quattrocki’s character, you could tell that he felt up against a wall), and Aily Kei. Kei’s best moment may not be until the end, but she was good throughout.

As for the kills, there’s nothing really amazing here, but I did like a quick slice of the Achilles’ tendon (I cringed at that one, and it was well-shot), and there was another scene in which a character got stabbed through the neck. The kills here weren’t much the focal point, but they got done what they had to.

Like I said at the start, Recovery isn’t a perfect movie, and it may not even be that great. Really, the plot itself isn’t all that original; it’s just that the setting and characters made the film a lot more memorable. I know this much, though – despite not being as great as it could have been, Recovery deserves more than a single watch, and I applaud it for what it got right.

7.5/10

Directed by Griff Furst [Other horror films: I Am Omega (2007), Wolvesbayne (2009), 30 Days to Die (2009), Lake Placid 3 (2010), Maskerade (2011), Arachnoquake (2012), Ghost Shark (2013), Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators (2013), Starve (2014), Cold Moon (2016), Trailer Park Shark (2017), Nightmare Shark (2018)]

I first saw this some years back during an October Challenge I took part in. As such, I barely remembered any of the specifics, and the movie came across as new, which is probably a good thing, as overall, aside from a somewhat fun cast, this is the normal, sub-par Syfy fare.

It’s some of the performances here that give the movie’s otherwise stilted story and terrible effects more heart than it should. None of them are names I particularly know, but Kristy Swanson (who was in Deadly Friend back in 1986, along with Flowers in the Attic in 1987), Jeff Chase, and D.B. Sweeney all bring a little something to the table. For eye-candy, you have Ashton Leigh (who was in later Syfy films such as American Horror House, Ozark Sharks, and Mississippi River Sharks) and Sophie Sinise (honestly, she actually does pretty good, so she’s definitely more than just ‘eye-candy’). Jason Rogel’s character doesn’t have the character arc I was hoping for, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t see Robert Davi as anything other than a cheap Tommy Lee Jones clone.

So, as one can see, there’s a lot of performances here that, at the very least, stand-out, which is a good thing, given that every other thing the movie does is somewhat laughable.

Really, it’s the special effects that are the worst, though – just look at the scene where the shark jumps up and rips the guy’s head off. The unfortunate thing is that it was probably one of the few scenes of note in the film. I have to give it to the story writers that they did come up with an interesting way to finally kill off the shark (as ridiculous as it is), but that Jaws-inspired scene, I could have done without. The movie’s titled ‘Swamp Shark,’ for God’s sake, it’s not going to be anywhere near Jaws’ level.

Compared to other Syfy shark films, Swamp Shark might actually be a little better, if only because I sort of had a fun time with the group of characters going shark-hunting, and the whole ‘we have to hunt down this shark to save our restaurant’ theme they had going for it. It’s still a below average film, and although I don’t remember how I felt about this one the first time through, it’s one of those movies that I think’s okay, ultimately, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find again.

6/10

Directed by Peter Sullivan [Other horror films: Summoned (2013), High School Possession (2014), The Sandman (2017), Cucuy: The Boogeyman (2018)]

I’ll first say that this will be a shorter review than usual – I’ve seen Ominous twice now, and really, it’s not worth extrapolating on. Really, there’s only about one reason to see it, and that’s for a hilariously bad death scene. Everything else had been done before, and ultimately, this made-for-TV flick is just bland and pretty God-awful.

The cast is almost wholly poor. Mark Lindsay Chapman (who played Nick in The Langoliers, a fact I didn’t realize until after the movie finished) was the best of the bunch, and he had a solid, moderately sinister presence. None of the other performances did anything for me. There’s a few interesting names here, such as Barry Watson, who starred in 7th Heaven for quite some time, and Esmé Bianco, who I know mostly as a supporting character from Game of Thrones, but their acting didn’t come close to wowing me here.

A lot of the fault, though, can go to the uninspired plot. I just don’t get why anyone would want to see this film, in which bereft parents make a deal with the devil to raise their recently-deceased son from the dead, only to discover he’s the Antichrist, when they could stick with a classic like The Omen, or even a different take on the story, like the 2017 Little Evil. It’s a bad, low-budget television movie (which really shows in it’s special effects failures), so I just don’t get why anyone would opt into watching this willingly.

Admittedly, I’ve seen it now twice. Luckily, there are a few terrifically horrible scenes that make at least portions of this film bearable. In a classic sequence, a priest gets clobbered over the head by a falling cross, and then set on fire. In another, multiple people die from flying projectiles at a park. And then we have the bird attacks at the end – while slightly better-looking than Birdemic (which isn’t actually praise, believe it or not), the birds were horribly rendered, and it just looked so God-damned awful.

Which, when it comes down to it, is what this movie is. Ominous (which, by the way, is a terribly bland title) just sucks hard. It’s one of those modern-day television flicks which just reeks of pointlessness. As fun as some of the sequences are, it’s definitely not worth it to watch the whole of this film.

3/10