Tag: 2017

Directed by Rene Perez [Other horror films: The Dead and the Damned (2011), Demon Hunter (2012), Alien Showdown: The Day the Old West Stood Still (2013), The Snow Queen (2013), The Dead the Damned and the Darkness (2014), The Burning Dead (2015), Playing with Dolls (2015), Playing with Dolls: Bloodlust (2016), Little Red Riding Hood (2016), The Obsidian Curse (2016), From Hell to the Wild West (2017), The Dead and the Damned 3: Ravaged (2018), Cabal (2020), Cry Havoc (2020), Legend of Hawes (2022), The Vampire and the Vigilante (2024)]

I’ve had the misfortune of sitting through both the first and second movies in the Playing with Dolls series. Neither one was something I’d personally call a good time, but I was told that the third is a better film. IMDb ratings back that up – the first has a 2.6/10, the second a 2.5/10, and this one, a 3.7/10. The question then, of course, becomes whether this movie is actually better.

And the answer is: Yes and no.

As far as an engaging story goes, I’d have to admit that they do a better job here. See, a woman and her maid are going up to her husband’s cabin to surprise him, and meet the husband’s mistress; said mistress didn’t even know the guy was married. So because of that emotional material, certainly this portion of the film is at least watchable – some of the acting is just terrible, of course, but the material itself is still entertaining.

On the other hand, absolutely nothing about the horror aspects of the film are better. We still have the killer – apparently called Havoc – who we know next-to-nothing about. He seems to enjoy ripping spines out, as he does that more often. We still have Richard Tyson (in a single scene), who is another character we know next-to-nothing about. I’ll give the movie mild props for changing things up a little – instead of the killer following Tyson’s directives, he breaks out of captivity and hunts on his own. It doesn’t change a damn thing, but at least it’s different?

This movie had pretty much the same problems the previous movies did. Sure, the production value looks nice, and they try insofar as the gore’s concerned, but I can’t describe how disinterested I am in a killer I know nothing about chasing down women and interrupting conversations that I actually find mildly interesting. When I say that the horror aspects of Havoc are the worst parts, I’m not at all lying brahs.

Not that the performances here really bring weight to the aforementioned emotional material. Nicole Stark (Little Red Riding Hood) was generally weak throughout, Wilma Elles little better, and Kyle Clarke largely a non-entity. I did sort of like John Scuderi’s character, but I don’t think he leaves near as much an impact as one would to tilt this film in a positive direction.

As I often say, though, bad performances rarely destroy movies for me. With what these actors and actresses had to work with, I don’t blame them at all for whatever performance they happened to give. You can’t make gold out of toxic sludge; the performances could have been stellar, and it wouldn’t at all have made up for the failures of the plot and dialogue.

I’ll give Havoc one last kudo for the opening of the film. Don’t get me wrong, most of it was absolute shit, the type of thing I’ve come to expect from director Rene Perez. It was, however, filmed in the Lake Shasta Caverns – an underground network of caves in northern California. That was a nice filming location, and though what was actually filmed there was pointless drivel, it did at least look unique.

Is Playing with Dolls: Havoc a better film than it’s predecessors? Sure. There’s some mildly entertaining emotional drama going on, and there’s actually an ending here that didn’t make me want to slit my wrists. Given how much I despised the first few movies, though, that praise can only do so much. So sure, it’s better, but this film is still a long ways from good, and still not a movie I’d recommend even to fans of slashers.

4.5/10

Directed by Misty Talley [Other horror films: Zombie Shark (2015), Ozark Sharks (2016), Santa Jaws (2018)]

I’ve seen Mississippi River Sharks once before, and it’s a movie I doubt I’ll watch again. It’s not exactly terrible – while terrible Syfy shark movies do exist, most can usually be entertaining – it just lacks anything that really allows it to stand out. That, coupled with both atrocious CGI sharks and a bothersome character, makes it so this one just isn’t really worth that much.

The story is pretty much like every other atrocious shark movie, only there’s not much here that’s that memorable. Trailer Park Shark was worse than this one, but at least that had character (albeit awful character). Swamp Shark was more stable than this, and Jersey Shore Shark Attack, while still a worse movie, had personality of it’s own. I didn’t really get that sense from this one, and it’s not a Syfy original that I think will be all that memorable.

Naturally, the special effects are terrible. I mean, just terrible. The sharks look shit, the kills are shit, everything is just awful in this movie as far as the effects go. It’s nothing new – when it comes to awful CGI in movies, who do you trust more than Syfy? – but it’d be nice to see Syfy actually try when they make a shark film, as opposed ot make it look as terrible as possible for the lulz, which I imagine has been their business plan since 2-Headed Shark Attack came out.

Cassie Steele (The Dorm) made a fair lead, and reminded me of Jordan Hinson’s character in Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators (only better, as I liked where Steele’s story went). Tahj Vaughans (Backwoods) was largely inoffensive, but didn’t really add that much. On the other hand, Dean J. West, whose character was almost entirely there for ‘comedic effect,’ got real old with his hero worship act of Jason London really quick. London (Sutures, Greed, The Rage: Carrie 2) himself was a bit annoying, playing a generic actor from a string of bad shark movies (sound familiar?), and didn’t work with me.

Others who were at least decent include Miles Doleac (the guy who directed the pretentiously annoying The Dinner Party), Marco St. John, and Jeff Pearson (The Inherited). I wish that Doleac had more to do throughout the movie, but his character was one of the few straight ones. St. John was over-the-top ridiculous, but in a fun way, unlike both London and West. Admittedly, Jeff Pearson’s character never had a lot to do, but his straight-laced nature spoke to me.

Overall, though, Mississippi River Sharks doesn’t have that much to offer. Sure, it’s marginally better than some Syfy shark movies, but it’s still not great, and it doesn’t feel special, or noticeable, in any way whatsoever. Definitely a below average film, and not one that I think I’ll visit a third time.

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), Swamp Shark (2011), Arachnoquake (2012), Ghost Shark (2013), Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators (2013), Starve (2014), Cold Moon (2016), Nightmare Shark (2018)]

And yet another Syfy original shark film. Trailer Park Shark is a film that I didn’t care much for when I first saw it, because, as you might be able to tell by the title, the movie is a bit silly. I can deal with some levels of humor in my movies, but I just couldn’t get into Trailer Park Shark, and it’s not my idea of a good Syfy effort.

Of course, the right audience might have a different perspective, but personally, I don’t really care to see a bunch of redneck stereotypes fixing things with duct tape, calling each other skanks, and fighting sharks. Well, technically, it’s one shark, but to sweeten the deal, the shark is electric, so that’s fun, right? I just don’t care for the stereotypes they have in the film, and it doesn’t really give me many characters to root for.

The thing I did appreciate about this was the little political element. See, the land the trailer park is on is owned by a Mr. Deconnard (played by Dennis Haskins), and because he wants to drill on the land, he wants the trailer park, and the people, gone. So what does he do? He has the dam blown up, which is how the shark gets there in the first place, and naturally, how the whole trailer park becomes flooded. He did it for money, and I can’t fault a movie for showing capitalism as the negative force it is, so I dug this element.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be too much to enjoy here. The shark has a few electrical powers – it can send out electrical pulses in the nearby water, which, if it catches someone off guard, will stun them. Apparently this happened because a character early on tried to defend themselves with a powerline, and the shark soaked up the electricity for his own needs, which I guess is what science has been warning us against all along.

There are some really ridiculous elements to the movie, which don’t help matters. I don’t mind a tongue-in-cheek movie every now and again – I liked, and gave a good rating to, Lavalantula. It’s just too much here, from the whole running gag of a horse named Duke (“I’m doing this for my big, brown Dukey” – yes, that was said with a straight face) to one of the characters mocking another named Daisy by singing a clever parody of SpongeBob Squarepants titled “Daisy Skankpants.”

Oh, and someone said there was a shark nearby, and another character said, “The weather report didn’t say anything about tornadoes.” Clever, Syfy, clever. I see what you did there.

Thomas Ian Nicholas was okay, and I thought he had solid moral character. Though he only got a scene at the beginning, we also had Ritchie Montgomery (Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators) here, who was nice to see again. Lulu Jovovich didn’t really impress me, nor did Dennis Haskins, or anyone else. Most of the others played goofy stereotypes, and I couldn’t get into them.

Trailer Park Shark is one of those Syfy movies that I look on with regret. Obviously, the movie would appeal to some people – maybe I’m just not a fun enough guy. It wasn’t my type of comedy, though, and while it’s not as bad as Syfy’s worst shark films (2-Headed Shark Attack and Shark Week, for instance), seeing this twice is enough.

4.5/10

Directed by Richard LeMay [Other horror films: Blood Bound (2019)]

I wasn’t really expecting much from this remake, but I was pleasantly surprised, at least for a bit. It certainly had the chance to be an okay slasher/mystery, but it sort of loses my interest as soon as overt supernatural events come into play.

To be clear, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original Dementia 13. I thought it made for an okay proto-slasher, and it did have a better, more gloomy atmosphere than this did, but there was room for improvement. This movie looks like it’s going in that direction, but then throws in ghosts and such, which is not what I call an improvement at all. It could have remained a grounded slasher-mystery and I’d have been content, but that ending, along with the small supernatural stuff sprinkled in along the way, just spoils everything, as Sansa would say.

Before it shoots itself in the head, though, Dementia 13 is okay. I thought most of the performances were decent, the film had a few hints of humor throughout, and the setting was pretty good. It didn’t have the same charm or ominous nature the original did, but it was doing well for itself.

Steve Polites had virtually no character. To be honest, it took me a little bit to figure out he wasn’t a child of the mother and actually one of the daughter’s husbands, which isn’t anything against him as an actor, but his character just didn’t have much to give us. Ana Isabelle was pretty stereotypical, which I’m guessing was called for in the script. She was attractive, though, so there’s that. Lastly, on the negative side, Julia Campanelli didn’t really do much for me, and came across as generic.

The others did reasonably well, though. Channing Pickett had the good-girl look down solid, Christian Ryan had a somewhat predictable but fun arc, Roland Sands made for a decent red herring, and Donal Brophy needed more character, but he was pretty solid the time he was on-screen. Marianne Noscheze and Ben van Berkum were my favorite characters here. Noscheze started off being a bit of a brat, but Berkum’s character throughout was good humor value.

Most of the kills here weren’t really that great, and I don’t think that this would have been a new-age classic had they gotten rid of the unnecessary supernatural elements, but I do think it could have been a decently enjoyable and competent slasher that I wouldn’t hesitate to revisit.

With the addition of ghosts (which is something that horror remakes don’t need to do – the 1999 House on Haunted Hill wasn’t any better than the original because they added ghosts, and the same is definitely true for this), though, just makes the film ultimately blah, and not really worth going out of your way for, which is a damn shame.

5.5/10

Directed by Craig Tudor James [Other horror films: Granny of the Dead (2017), Solar Impact (2019)]

I recorded this off Syfy some time ago, and before I started to finally watch it, I looked it up on IMDb to gauge some feeling of what I was going to watch. At the time I read this movie’s entry, though, it had an astonishingly low 51 votes, which blew me away then and still surprises me now. How can a movie that was on Syfy a handful of times have such a low amount of ratings? Are people that tired of zombie films? [I have delved deep, though, and after my review, have found the answer].

Well, no matter the reason, I feel that the now 52 of us who have actually rated the film were the unlucky ones, because Survivorz is almost intolerably a pointless movie.

Everyone’s seen zombie movies (apparently everyone outside the characters in this movie, I guess) that are just following all of the expectations and adding nothing of their own into it. It’s for this reason that, to me, many zombie films just seem repetitive and harder to really come into their own and feel enjoyable. Some movies can definitely manage it, such as 28 Days Later… and Zombieland, but I feel that easily 60% of the zombie movies that have come out past 2000 have been on the other side of good, and this movie has to be one of the worst offenders of that.

Certainly this movie had the budget to have some potential. I don’t know exactly how much they had to play around with, but most of the shots in the film look well-shot, and though the special effects aren’t great, this film wasn’t made by a bunch of teens on a camcorder (and in all fairness, most films like that have more heart than Survivorz does). So it had potential, but the story and characters? Oh, fuck me with a whirling lawnmower.

Listen, I liked the setting, at least. A bunch of younger American kids in London meant we still had to deal with a mainly-American cast, but seeing a slightly different locale added maybe a little spice to the movie. It didn’t make any difference, as the story done here would have played out exactly the same in the States, but hey, spice.

Here’s my problem. Early on in the film, a woman comes stumbling in from the street, and she is visibly wounded (she was bit in the early stages of the zombie outbreak). Now, they don’t know she’s been bitten, of course, and they try to help her, but of course she turns and attacks them, and they rightly defend themselves. That’s fine.

Later on, one of the guys in the group, Gabe, gets bit. It’s bothersome when they keep telling him “it’ll be okay” when he’s obviously showing the same symptoms as the woman before, but it’s been a few hours, and he’s a friend, so I get it. When he starts attacking them, though, and is killed, one of the guys is like “Oh, I wish you were alive” or something bullshit like that. What, he wishes the zombie was alive so he could too be infected and/or eaten?

Then Benny gets bit (sorry for the spoilers, by the way, but this movie doesn’t exactly set out to surprise anyone, as the two people who make it to the end are the exact two people you would expect), and his girlfriend is like “oh it’s okay” and the others are like “oh, it’s okay” and the fact that they care so much means that he won’t actually be infected.

That’s a joke, because he is infected, and he eventually does the smart thing and locked himself in a room before he starts attacking his girlfriend. On a side-note, it took Gabe maybe five minutes before he became a mindless zombie, but it took Benny at least ten minutes (long enough for him to propose to his girlfriend, and then hide with her from another zombie, then talk to her for an additional few minutes), so that’s great. But when he locks himself in the room, his girlfriend wants him to come out, and the others too find it a hard pill to swallow that he’s protecting them from himself.

All of this could be explained if no one in this universe has ever seen a zombie movie, which has got to be the case, because I feel like if something like an onset of zombies were happening here (which, this is written in 2020, so let’s not jinx it), I would know immediately after the first person bitten and turned that “Hey, it’s a lost cause. Sorry you were bit, but we need to kill you.” It’s harsh, but there’s no other options unless they can be locked in a room and wait for a potential cure (more on that soon, though). But no, these people must think the power of friendship will prevent their friends from turning into zombies after being bit, and it annoys the fuck out of me.

Later on, they meet a guy whose wife was bitten. Now, he can’t kill his wife, so he has her tied up in her room with the hopes that a cure can be found and she’ll be fine. This isn’t a bad idea as long as he is upfront and tells everyone to not go into that room, and ensures the room is secure. He goes into the room himself, though, because that’s where he keeps his firearm, and lo and behold, his wife breaks out and bites him.

Earlier on in the movie, the group of friends see a zombie woman with a baby carrier around her neck, and the two women (played by Penelope Shipley, the one British group member and Lucy Aarden) want to “save the baby.”

Slams head on desk and dies, then revives to finish shitting on this movie

If there is a zombie apocalypse, and there is no safe way to save anyone, it sucks, but if you care about surviving, you cannot set out on a lost cause to save people. It’s a fucking baby. It would only be a hindrance, and they don’t even know if it’s actually alive (plot twist – it’s not, it’s some freaky zombie baby, because of course it is), so why even discuss trying to save it? 

Takes a deep breath

So obviously, I have some problems with the story here. What I will say is that I actually rather liked the hopelessness that this movie showcases. Even though there are three survivorz at the end (the third one, if you’re wondering, is the sister of Shipley’s character, who was miraculously alive), there’s not a hell of a lot of hope for them, because they’re trapped on a church tower with no food or water and hundreds of zombies surrounding them, so they’re probably screwed.

Unless they’re shot down by the helicopter, because that ending even made things more suspenseful somehow (??????) why

Survivorz was almost entirely pointless. I thought that there was some potential, and the fact that only 50 others had taken the time to rate it (and on average, the rating at the time I watched this was actually a 5.4/10) added to the mystique, but I look at a movie like Isle of the Dead, which I abhorred, and I at least can admit to myself that that movie tried to do something almost interesting. This movie really didn’t. Fuck it. Fuck life. Fuck zombies.

3/10

And now for the spicy research.

Up near the director’s name, I list another movie he directed, being Solar Impact (2019). Now, it’s important to note that the IMDb entry for Survivorz doesn’t list the director – I got that information from Moviefone.

Solar Impact is the same movie as Survivorz. Sort of. I mean, I’m guessing it’s mostly the same – I watched the trailer and I recognized most of the scenes. Under alternate titles of Solar Impact, Survivorz is listed as an ‘working title for the UK.’

Here’s the rub – IMDb lists Solar Impact as 2019, and I know for a fact that I recorded Survivorz off Syfy in either 2017 or 2018.

I don’t know why the movie is listed twice. I don’t know if Solar Impact adds anything. It could simply be a mistake. But as far as I’m concerned, until IMDb addresses this, these are two separate movies.

Also, while Survivorz does only have 57 total ratings, Solar Impact has 637, which is something I found worth addressing.

This has been IMDb delving with Jiggy. See you next time there’s an issue with multiple entries of movies.

Directed by Christopher Landon [Other horror films: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Freaky (2020)]

When I say that this movie was one of the biggest surprises in the last few years, I totally mean it. This was a pretty big movie when it came out, and beforehand it garnered quite a bit of hype, but after glancing cursorily at the plot, I didn’t find it interesting. Having finally seen the movie, though, I can definitely say that I had quite a fun time with it.

I mean, there was just a lot of hilarious stuff here. The montage of death sequences, concluding with Jessica Rothe’s Tree character stating that Israel Broussard’s Carter’s plan “totally sucked” was funny, but even more amusing was Jessica Rothe’s character turning into Emma Stone’s from Easy A. Strutting around naked just because, or convincing the closeted gay guy to be himself (her reaction when she discovered he was gay was really funny, too), or pushing back on the sorority chick for fat-shaming another girl, or her dialogue while trying to get arrested (“I’m drunk. Wasted. And I’m high, ya know, pills, weed. You name it, man, I’m on it”), Rothe’s character here was fantastic in the latter part of the film, and it’s no stretch to say I had so much fun with this.

Happy Death Day is more than that, though. There’s not a whole lot of great timey wimey based horror films (Timecrimes comes to mind, and maybe Triangle, but really, what else has the genre got?), so that in itself was unique. And starting with a stereotypically terrible sorority girl, and over the course of the same multiple days turning her into a sympathetic character with depth (her conversation with her father on one of her last days before the loop broke was fantastically emotional) was a fantastic idea.

Central among important characters are those played by Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard. Though it takes something like forty minutes for the two of them to really make a connection, I think it’s definitely sweet when they do, because Israel’s nice-guy attitude is so far removed from Jessica’s crass and loud personality, though at that point, she’s desperate for help wherever she can find. After the karma discussion with Carter, Tree attempts to make amends for the life she’s been leading, and it’s just heart-warming, especially the aforementioned discussion with her father.

A lot of the kills here aren’t that great, but there’s a few ones worth noting, such as the car explosion and taking a baseball bat to the head (which leads to a pretty good scene transition to Tree waking up again, still in the loop). I won’t say many others are amazing, but it’s the story of the film and the characters that make this such a good movie, and it certainly works.

The one weak portion here is the identity of the killer. I do prefer it over Tree’s original idea of it being a random serial killer who happens to be in the area, but the justification behind the killer’s actions strikes me as weak. That said, it could accurately be stated that the killer is somewhat psychotic, so though the reason seems somewhat small, it still makes sense.

Regardless, I enjoyed this movie so much more than I thought I would, and it’s a definite winner in my eyes. It’s just a shame that it took me as long as it did to see this one.

8.5/10

Directed by Alex Merkin [Other horror films: No Escape Room (2018)]

For a Syfy original, I think House of the Witch is decent. It’s not great, by any means, but I do think it transcends much of the crap that they’ve put out in the last seven years.

There’s not much in the way of plot – a group of teenagers go to the local haunted house for a small Halloween party, but shortly after arriving, things begin to happen, such as entities appearing in mirrors, and the doors lock, trapping them all inside.

Despite this, I generally found the film enjoyable, albeit easily on the average side. I think a large part of my tepid enjoyment was due to the six central performances all being reasonably decent. Starring Jesse Pepe, Coy Stewart, Michelle Randolph, Darren Mann, Arden Belle (who is probably the weakest link), and Emily Bader, I found most of them acceptable and decently realistic, so while the story itself isn’t overflowing in creativity, it comes together nicely.

Most of the special effects are your average Syfy fair, but there was one decent scene in which one of the characters had a few of their fingernails pulled our – definitely a painful sequence to watch. Another thing I enjoyed was the idea that breaking the windows of the house didn’t lead outside, but into something else (what that could have been wasn’t explained, but I liked the way they went about it).

House of the Witch isn’t the most inspired Syfy original, but I do think it was decent enough to be thrown an around average score. It’s not as good as Neverknock was, but it blew films like The Sandman and Truth or Dare (all three Syfy films from 2017) out of the water.

7/10