Tag: 2018

Directed by Sylvain White [Other horror films: I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)]

Slender Man surprised me a bit. I definitely wasn’t expecting much, especially after seeing the low rating of 3.2/10 on IMDb, but for a good chunk of the movie, I thought there was definite potential. It’s with the second half of the film, though, that this is all flushed down the toilet and instead we’re left with jump scare after jump scare (assuming you can make out what’s going on), along with some pretty bad CGI. In a way, though, I’m in the unenviable position of feeling I need to defend this.

I didn’t think the main performances were particularly bad, but I also don’t think they were that memorable. Joey King was perhaps the best here, but Julia Goldani Telles, Annalise Basso (who is utterly smoking here) and Taylor Richardson all do reasonably. I didn’t see the point in Alex Fitzalan’s character, but I guess he did okay also.

What starts somewhat decently, especially regarding the mystery of one of the girls’ disappearance, turns into a really generic and jump scare-filled movie, and what tops it off to make it worse is that it has that glossy Hollywood look that just gives Slender Man such a tame feel.

Does the Slender Man design generally look fine? Sure. The CGI is really spotty at points, but the Slender Man himself wasn’t God-awful. It’s most of the other effects that fail, such as a few wild dream sequences, little of which looked appealing in any way.

Had they gone a different route, I think this could have been decent. I didn’t love the story past a certain point, but I did mostly like the characters, so with the budget they had, it’s just sad they couldn’t have come up with something better. At the same time, I don’t think Slender Man is near as bad as some of the ratings seem to indicate. I don’t think it’s good, but to me, it falls much closer to forgettable than it does memorably awful.

5.5/10

This is one of the films covered by Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss this classic.

Directed by Nick Simon [Other horror films: Removal (2010), The Girl in the Photographs (2015), 2 Lava 2 Lantula! (2016), Truth or Dare (2017), Untitled Horror Movie (2021)]

For a Syfy release, Karma’s okay. It’s not particularly good, and I suspect it won’t be particularly memorable in the months to come, or even weeks, but it’s nowhere near as bad as other Syfy films such as Dead in the Water and Grave Halloween.

Story-wise, it reminded me a bit of It Follows, where, instead of a dark force following someone after sex, it follows them after they commit a terrible act. It’s not really original, but I liked some aspects of what Karma tried to do with it, though, and this perhaps wouldn’t come as much a surprise, the jump scares struck me as mostly unnecessary.

When it comes to concerns, there are quite a few that Karma poses. For instance, only three of the performances in the film really stand out (being Tim Russ, despite his horrible character, Mandela Van Peebles, and Brytni Sarpy, who was also in the likewise unmemorable 2017 Syfy flick Truth or Dare). None of the other actors and actresses do particularly bad, but they’re just sort of there. And much could be said for the story itself – like I said, I enjoyed some of the aspects (such as Peebles’ attempts at removing the curse from himself during a feel-good montage), but ultimately, Karma felt pretty bland.

Once everything’s said and done, that’s the biggest problem with the movie – it was completely unremarkable. It did boast one death sequence I rather enjoyed (involving a saw blade and a hammer, in a very Final Destination fashion), so it wasn’t completely without gore, but generally, there was little of interest here, and the conclusion felt a bit off, along with being somewhat anticlimactic.

Syfy has so many better movies, such as House of Bones, Neverknock, Cucuy: The Boogeyman, and even Stickman. Karma isn’t the worse that they’ve done, but it is both tepid and ultimately forgettable, which is the main issue. I’d pass on this one.

5.5/10

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 Stephen Cognetti [Other horror films: Hell House LLC (2015), Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019)]

The second film of this planned trilogy doesn’t really change a significant amount as far as the style or story goes, but at the same time, it doesn’t set itself apart from the first one that much either, and toward the end, sort of goes a bit overboard on explaining some things.

Pretty much everything decent about the first movie is decent here – the multiple media forms (such as YouTube videos, a morning talk show, interviews, etc), the subtle creepy scenes, the setting itself – but there’s little here that wasn’t in the first movie, and the stuff that was added doesn’t much help the film a whole lot.

I think the biggest problem is toward the end, in which a sequence takes place that throws all subtly out the window, and instead makes obvious what could have mostly been inferred already. The scene felt unnecessary to our understanding of the story, and it was just too much. Instead of that, if they had thrown in some more creepy clown scenes, I think I would have been happy.

I do like all of the references to the characters from the first movie, and the fact that they expand a bit on one of the unanswered questions the first movie brought forth. Shining a light a bit on Alex’s motivations, both in the middle of the film and with the flashbacks at the conclusion, really add something that I thought was actually relevant.

Personally, I feel that if you’re a fan of the first movie, as I definitely was, this isn’t really all that different. True, I feel the first movie has a more mysterious and creepy, uneasy vibe to it, especially given that in this film, most people agree that the hotel isn’t the safest place to be, and it dampens the suspense. Still, it’s mostly a clone of the first film, which is both a good thing, as it does many of the same things right, but it also doesn’t seem to try and be more.

If you liked the first one, you’ll possibly like this one, as apart from the unnecessary sequence toward the end, there’s not a whole lot of differences.

7.5/10

Directed by Shaquita Smith [Other horror films: N/A]

While not a necessarily good movie, this was nowhere near as bad as the title or rating on IMDb (3/10 when I first wrote this review, and it’s a 2.4/10 right now) led me to believe. Still, it did come across as rather soulless, which is it’s biggest problem.

The story isn’t really that unique. Combining elements of past films like Truth or Dare (2012) and Most Likely to Die (2015), this flick felt as though it had been done before. That said, for a lower-budget movie (the estimated budget is around a million dollars), it had a decent production, and I sort of liked what they did with the flashbacks in the movie.

Worth noting, the movie, while only an hour long, has a somewhat ambitious plot, and probably more characters than necessary (there’s Michelle, John, Chiggy, Claudia, Egypt, Rashad, Lucas, Juan, Felicity, and Alex as the main characters). It didn’t take much to figure out who was who or what relationships they had with each other, but given the first twenty minutes of an already short movie were devoted entirely to showing these characters, it felt a bit much.

As said, the story’s generic, and while some actors and actresses do decent, others are pretty cringe-worthy. Those who did well include Jake Levin, Jillian McLendon, Caleb Spivak, and Alyx Libby, Spivak and Libby perhaps being my favorites. Austin Chunn and Drew Stephenson didn’t do much for me, but both were moderately competent. Gina Hiraizumi (who is probably one of the most-accomplished cast-members) didn’t work for me, though, and Tevon Plunkett was laughably over-the-top at times. I’m torn by Maia Kavchak – she did well at times in her role, but she also did horribly during a few scenes.

That said, the failures of acting isn’t what brings the movie down the most. It’s that the story, while somewhat well-constructed (despite pathetically weak kills), felt utterly soulless. Some movies of a similar plot, such as the aforementioned Most Likely to Die, Don’t Go to the Runion (2013), and ROT: Reunion of Terror (2008) all had more feeling (Reunion of Terror wasn’t that good, but for an indie horror, it knew what it was going for). This one had a decent story, if not derivative, but I didn’t get the sense that those involved loved what they were doing. It felt a bit stale, especially compared to Don’t Go to the Reunion, which was a clearly made-for-horror-fans-by-horror-fans flick, made for about $18,000.

You could do worse than making a movie without feeling – like I said, there were some good performances here, and the way the story was told, especially regarding the flashbacks, was somewhat inspired. But I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to watch this again if I had those other previously mentioned movies at my disposal.

5.5/10

Directed by Peter Sullivan [Other horror films: Summoned (2013), High School Possession (2014), Ominous (2015), The Sandman (2017)]

This is definitely one of the better flicks I’ve seen on Syfy in the last few years, surpassing my admittedly low expectations of it rather easily.

Focusing on the Latin American-based mythology of Cucay or the Sack Man, the movie had a strong Spanish feel to the film, which is something that I generally don’t care for. Here, however, they made it work, a big part due to the characters themselves who were mostly solid. It helped too that the story was pretty well-done, especially for a television flick.

Bella Stine did pretty good for as young an actress as she is. Both Marisol Nichols and Pedro Correa did commendably also, though it did take a bit for Correa to grow on me. The star of the film, and also the strongest performance, was Jearnest Corchado, who came across quite well as a strong teen fighting for her sister.

Another somewhat surprising aspect of the film is that the design of the titular Cucay isn’t that bad. At first, it does look a little ridiculous, but like Correa’s character, it grew on me after a while. I’m somewhat reminded of the 2017 Syfy film Stickman, in which the story was decent, but the design was terrible. Here, luckily both the story and special effects are superior.

So too is the ending. Instead of tacking on a hideous downer ending in the last two seconds of the film, they do something a bit differently, and though the effects of the specific scene I’m referring to are sketchy, I really liked the implications.

Most modern-day television movies don’t blow me away, and this one didn’t either, but I certainly recognize it as clearly one of the stronger efforts in the last few years (the only other one that really comes to mind is Neverknock from 2017). For a television movie, you could certainly do worse than this one, and though it doesn’t really add much to the genre, I was happy with the final product.

8/10