Tag: USA

Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis [Other horror films: Blood Feast (1963), Monster a-Go Go (1965), Color Me Blood Red (1965), A Taste of Blood (1967), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), Something Weird (1967), The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Gore Gore Girls (1972), Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002), The Uh-Oh Show (2009), Herschell Gordon Lewis’ BloodMania (2017, segments ‘Gory Story’ and ‘The Night Hag’]

A couple of days ago, I revisited the 2005 film 2001 Maniacs, and as it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original film, I wanted to come back to this one and see how the story was originally portrayed. And I have to say, I’m impressed by some aspects here, especially the finale, and I can now say for a certainty I enjoy this film over the 2005 remake.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen this, I entirely forgot how this one ended. I said in my review of 2001 Maniacs that the supernatural ending they threw on (though I was coy with the term ‘supernatural,’) was solid, but I believe they do a better job here. They give the finale more time to breathe, along with giving the characters a sympathetic police officer and an overall somber tone. We even see a bit of perspective from the townsfolk of Pleasant Valley, so this finale was rather impressive in my view, especially coming from H.G. Lewis, who I don’t generally associate with stellar story-telling.

Naturally, when people hear H.G. Lewis, they generally think gore, given, of course, that Lewis is the Godfather of Gore. And the gore here is solid. I don’t think it’s great – there’s no doubt in my mind that his later effort, The Wizard of Gore, was far more extreme – but it is pretty fun.

You have a woman getting their arm cut off (and that’s after she gets her thumb cut off), a giant rock smashing a woman, horses pulling someone apart (which is a death recreated in the remake), and perhaps most subtly, the barrel roll, in which someone’s thrown into a barrel, nails are hammered into it, and they roll the barrel down a hill. It’s not a very bloody death, but it is the one I remember best. Because the film’s in color, that goes a long way to allowing the gory scenes to stand out.

I was also impressed by a few performances and characters. Jeffrey Allen as the mayor was a fantastically fun character. Allen (who’s only other horror film appearance was Something Weird) felt exactly like how I’d expect an old-time southern mayor to feel, and I loved it. William Kerwin (Blood Feast, God’s Bloody Acre, A Taste of Blood) was solid too, and actually had a good head on his shoulders. Not only did he realize something was odd in the town early on, but when he was attempting to call a friend for more information, he disguises his voice in order to throw off anyone listening in. Fun character, and good performance.

Honestly, the people here were far more in-the-know when it comes to the potential danger of the town. Michael Korb’s character was no fool, and playing his wife was Yvonne Gilbert, who said, “There’s something so unwholesome about this centennial.” Compared to the characters in the 2005 remake, these people had some actual brains, which was nice to see.

I’ll fully admit that Gary Bakeman was a bit much for me. He was just way too goofy, and his antics, I could have done without. I did really like Stanley Dyrector, who had that Southern good-ole boy feel to him. Connie Mason (Blood Feast) was solid, Andy Wilson surprisingly decent in his limited role, and both Jerome Eden and Shelby Livingston had something going for them too.

It should be mentioned that this came out in 1964, during the time of the Civil Rights movement. Unlike the remake, there’s absolutely nothing in this movie that deals with, or even references, race. Even so, highlighting a southern town that kills Yankees due to actions committed during the Civil War still seems, to me, liable to hit a few nerves. From the little I read, this film did decently in the south, though, so perhaps they enjoyed their vicarious revenge. No matter what, I find the plot a fascinating one, and so along with the characters and the effects, the story too really does this one justice.

Despite not having seen this in a long while now, when it comes to H.G. Lewis movies, I’ve always placed Two Thousand Maniacs! near the top. The Wizard of Gore is gorier, but I also think it’s a bit of a mess, plot-wise, and because of that, nothing quite competes. Sure, Blood Feast is a solid film for its type, but Two Thousand Maniacs! does far more, and I think it does it better.

Honestly, I enjoyed revisiting this one more than I thought I would. It’s sometimes too goofy, and the quality of the film is rough at points, but if you want a solid slice of 60’s horror, and you’ve not seen this one, I’d recommend you check it out.

8/10

Directed by Tim Sullivan [Other horror films: Driftwood (2006), 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010), Chillerama (2011, segment ‘I Was a Teenage Werebear’)]

I’ve not seen this one in at least 12 years, if not longer, so I was eager to revisit it. As it is, while this remake of the classic H.G. Lewis film was somewhat fun, I’d have a hard time saying that it was that great of a film. It’s certainly serviceable, if you’re into a gory time, but it’s not something I entirely loved.

I should say that it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original 1964 movie (though I think I’ll throw that on next), so I can’t say with certainty whether the ending they had here was also in that version, but I was generally happy with the finale of this one. For the longest time in the film, we don’t really know why the folks of Pleasant Valley, Georgia are killing these young people, aside from the fact that they seem to hate Yankees. And honestly, though I’d seen this before, I wasn’t sure if we were going to get an explanation at all, but we finally did, and I appreciated that.

Two points in the movie’s favor are the gore and Robert Englund. The special effects here are decent, and while the kills don’t always land (such as those metal teeth), they’re usually pretty solid, and live up to the moniker Guts and Glory Jubilee (though I’m somewhat disappointed they didn’t recreate the knife barrel I remember so clearly from the original).

As for Robert Englund, well, naturally he’s a big name in horror (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Phantom of the Opera, Kantemir, Eaten Alive, Galaxy of Terror). In fact, if you’re a horror fan who doesn’t know Englund, something went wrong, brahs. He’s obviously having a lot of fun hamming it up in this film, and when Robert Englund has fun, I generally have fun too.

Englund aside, we did have some other performances that worked out, including Lin Shaye (Dead End, Insidious), who took a more prevalent role in this one. Of the younger crowd (Jay Gillespie, Dylan Edrington, Matthew Carey, Brian Gross, Marla Malcolm, Gina Marie Heekin, Mushond Lee, and Bianca Smith), the only ones that really stand out are Gillespie, Malcolm, Carey (Hollows Grove), and, to an extent, Mushond Lee. Oh, and Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Lost World: Jurassic Part II, Bruiser) pops up for a bit.

Still, being a horror comedy of somewhat questionable humor, I didn’t entirely love the jokes here. Some of it was a bit much for me, such as the guy who was chasing around his pig (as he engaged in carnal relations with the animal), or some of the dialogue. No doubt some of it was pretty funny (“if I supply the peaches, can you supply the cream?”), but it was very much mixed, in my view, and not altogether my type of humor.

Despite my issues, I still largely found 2001 Maniacs fun. The finale had issues, but it was decent, and I appreciated how they pulled some things together and gave us some answers. I didn’t love all the humor here, and it’s a pretty simple movie, so I’m leaning around average with this one, if not a little lower. Loved Robert Englund here, though.

6.5/10

Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi [Other horror films: Within (2005), The Fourth Kind (2009)]

It’s been some years since I’ve seen Evidence, but I recall enjoying it a decent amount, and despite remembering important plot points of the finale, I was looking forward to revisiting this one. Despite not packing the same punch it did when I first saw it, I still feel that Evidence does a decent amount right.

The style of the film is certainly interesting. About 60% of the film is done in the style of found footage, with the other 40% being police investigators watching the footage. Because of this, the movie’s approachable even if you’re not generally into found footage films. Of course, it’s also worth mentioning that some of the film seems a bit much – there’s a sort of freeze-frame thing that happens a couple of times – and the finale does strike me as being a bit too dramatic, but still, it’s fun.

Because I remembered (generally speaking) the ending of this one, I wasn’t surprised by much. I sort of found it funny how the red herrings that are brought up are sort of thrown aside as soon as the perfectly-timed “new” evidence pops up in the videos – it just struck me as awfully convenient. Also, while I enjoy the twist in this one, I sort of wish it had been executed a bit differently, because, as I said above, the finale does feel a tad over-dramatic. I’m also not entirely sure I buy the motive of the antagonist, which is something that perhaps could have been fleshed out more.

Caitlin Stasey (Fear, Inc., Kindred Spirits, All I Need) and Torrey DeVitto (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, Killer Movie) made for decent focal points, though I have to admit that when neither of them spoke, I couldn’t tell them apart (Stasey’s Australian, so that did turn out to be helpful). Stephen Moyer (The Barrens, The Caller) was good, and though we didn’t see much variety from her, Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black, The Darkness, Rogue, The Crazies) was solid also. Others who merit a mention include Harry Lennix (Cruel Will, Suspect Zero), Svetlana Metkina (Trackman), Nolan Gerard Funk (Bereavement, The Coven), and Barak Hardley (Mockingbird).

Because much of the film was done in the found footage style, there wasn’t really a ton of special effects here. The killer’s design looked grand – imagine a figure in a welder mask with a blowtorch – and that was fun. We did see a kill in which a blowtorch apparently dismembered someone, so that was brutally fun. Generally, though, I feel the movie’s mystery was more interesting than the effects and kills they had going on here.

Evidence isn’t a great movie, and I can understand some of the lukewarm reaction this has gotten from the average person (while I find some of the downright negative reception it’s gotten from critics somewhat questionable), but despite its flaws and a couple of loose ends, I generally had fun revisiting this one. It won’t work for everyone, but personally, I had what the kids call a good time.

7.5/10

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: Bloodlust (2016), Little Red Riding Hood (2016), The Obsidian Curse (2016), Playing with Dolls: Havoc (2017), 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 known about Playing with Dolls for a long time, and because of the little I knew about it, I avoided it. Well, after seeing it, I wish I had kept avoiding it, as it really is quite awful.

To be sure, the movie is not without it’s strong points. The killer, for instance, uses a sledgehammer to kill two people, and that was sort of fun. Uh, perhaps Natasha Blasick had a few moments in which she was quite attractive. Um, the trees were nice?

Okay, there’s not many strong points, and on the flip-side, a whole lotta negative ones. For instance, it seems that little really happens for the first hour of the film. Sure, we get the set-up, but once Blasick’s character is at the cabin, we get nothing for forty minutes save “creepy” scenes of her being followed and watched while not knowing it. It was just tedious and often boring, in my view.

I don’t want to harp on the performances. It’s true that I found pretty much everyone’s acting stilted, including Natasha Blasick (Death of Evil), but I don’t really blame them for it. The story was pretty damn bare-bones, so it’s not like any of these people had much to work with. Blasick looked cute now and again, which was something. David A. Lockhart (The Dead and the Damned) seemed rather weak, but again, I’m hesitant to blame him. Richard Tyson (The Fear Chamber, Flight of the Living Dead, Big Bad Wolf) literally had no character, but boy, was he great at staring at a computer screen menacingly.

There’s also not a real ending here. Sure, where things leave off with Blasick’s character, we’ve seen before, and that’s all well and good, but what happens to Lockhart’s character? What happens to the killer? We literally have no idea. I would hope that this is picked up immediately in the following film, being Playing with Dolls: Bloodlust, but given the quality of the story, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.

All-in-all, Playing with Dolls (or, as an alternative title, Metalface, which is the God-awful title I saw this under on Tubi) was pretty bad. When it wasn’t dull af, it was beyond mediocre, and the lack of story doesn’t do this one any wonders. It’s not like the kills make up for that either, which is all the more disappointing.

I wasn’t surprised that this movie didn’t do much for me. Perhaps some out there would enjoy something about it, but it was just terribly bare-bones, in my view, and not at all my type of thing.

3/10

Directed by Justin Shilton [Other horror films: N/A] & Rob Zazzali [Other horror films: N/A]

I have to be honest: Shark Girl surprised me.

To be very blunt, I wasn’t expecting to care for the movie. I just didn’t think it’d be my type of thing. The production looked good, but I was worried the story would be its downfall, similar to Truth or Double Dare (TODD), which had a solid production, but it has what I feel is a soulless story.

Here, though, while the opening does look a bit on the cheap side, we generally have a pretty solid story, and even when things move a different direction around 47 or so minutes in, they keep things engaging enough to work. Hell, even the finale, with a little bit of sequel bait, was pretty fun, and that’s not something I see done well all that often.

Before carrying on, I do want to state for the record that I watched this upon request. One of the directors contacted me, wondering if I’d be interested in reviewing it. To my embarrassment, for a variety of factors, I didn’t actually see this email until something like a month after it was sent – I mean, you play with the Jiggy, you get the delay. In all seriousness, I felt bad, so I was committed to watching whatever it was, regardless of my personal interest.

Obviously, that’s playing with fire, but luckily, it didn’t matter this time around. Shark Girl surprised me – I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy it, but I had a lot of fun with this. I thought the tone would be campier, but they kept things mostly played straight, save Alexandra Corin Johnston’s role as a young influencer, Heidi, who, through no fault of her own, gets attacked by a shark and finds herself craving human flesh. A role like that does need a certain amount of ham to it, and I thought Johnston did a great job.

In fact, I found her story quite interesting anyway. Sure, she’s an influencer, but her attitude generally seemed decent (despite Ryan Bertroche’s opinion that she’s toxic, in a line that legit made me laugh), and once she gets these urges, with it comes increased independence – she’s not going to settle for her boyfriend pushing her to the side for other models, or treating her poorly. In fact, in one of my favorite sequences, after a photoshoot goes astray because John Griffin’s character is an utter asshat, Heidi goes after him for berating an intern. That, and what follows, was very much just desserts, in my view.

Had it stopped with Heidi going after only those who were utterly insufferable (to be fair, her first victims, a couple on the beach, don’t fit that bill, but that was before Heidi had any real idea of what was going on), I doubt that many people would care. It’s beyond her control, though, as these urges become stronger, and she finds herself going after those closest to her. Still, there’s a sense of liberation in Alexandra Corin Johnston’s performance, and I appreciated that.

In fact, I’d say most of the central characters here were pretty solid. Alexandra Corin Johnston (Dead List), I’ve talked about at length, and it seems that she had a lot of fun in this role. Ryan Bertroche’s character was an utter tool, but luckily, we’re not forced to spend that much time with him. More interesting are both Sumayyah Ameerah (Confined) and Nick Tag, who I think worked quite well together. Ameerah’s character was important anyway, given the marine biology background (which I want to touch on briefly later), but she was also quite good here overall. Both John Griffin (Deadlock) and Delaney Hogan did well playing utterly insufferable characters, so kudos there.

Lastly, I wanted to mention Brian Guest, who was sporting a Gotham-era Donal Logue attitude. Guest (Infection: The Invasion Begins, Evil Unleashed) doesn’t get a lot of time here to shine, but he’s certainly able to with his brief time on-screen, which I dug.

I was worried about how they’d attempt to tie up the ending. A character winds up dead, and it’s almost set up as though it’s an assassination. I wasn’t sure if they’d be trying to bring in some type of government cover-up angle, or exactly where it was going, but I think they handled it pretty well. Somewhat related, Sumayyah Ameerah’s character has a dream nearing the finale, which sort of clues her into where Tag’s character disappeared to.

Normally, a random dream revealing a piece of the puzzle to a character wouldn’t do it for me, but in this case, I actually thought it made perfect sense. Given her background in marine biology, it makes sense that perhaps her subconscious might relay to her information she knows, but hasn’t been fully able to process into this situation yet. It doesn’t really matter, but the fact that the dream can be explained, and it’s not just some random occurrence, does help things. If it had been another character, like Tag’s, who had this dream, than that would have been a problem.

Oh, and this is also worth mentioning, and it ties partially into why I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. After reading the plot on IMDb, it got in my head that this would be a body-horror type situation – that, over the course of the film, Alexandra Corin Johnston’s character would slowly turn into a shark. I have always had personal issues enjoying body horror elements (how I got through Contracted, I’ll never know), but the movie doesn’t really go that direction, which I appreciated.

Because of that, there’s not necessarily great diversity in the kills, but at the same time, it’s not like people watch a movie like Mississippi River Sharks or Malibu Shark Attack to see some creative deaths, so that’s not really a barometer you should really use. There’s some blood, some chunks of flesh ripped out by bites, but it’s generally pretty tame, and far from the focus of the film.

I’ve said time and time again that I don’t know the details of what goes down when making a movie. I sit here and watch the final product, and can only imagine how difficult the process of filming a movie is, not to mention all the post-production editing that I imagine most movies do. I’m not a behind-the-scenes guy; I watch a movie, and sometimes it works for me, other times it doesn’t.

In Shark Girl’s case, it worked for me, and I really didn’t think it would. It’s a fun movie (without veering anywhere close to becoming too goofy) with decent characters, occasionally some amusing pieces of dialogue, and solid performances overall. It’s a movie I could easily see myself revisiting in the future, and save for that hideous club music that plays throughout, Shark Girl is a movie I think is worth seeing at least once.

7.5/10

Directed by Robert Kurtzman [Other horror films: The Demolitionist (1995), Wishmaster (1997), Buried Alive (2007)]

I’m sure I’ve said this before in recent times, but I feel I’ve grown more cynical in the last couple of months.

I say that because at one point in time, I probably would have given this movie some mild props. To be sure, I still will – some of the special effects were quite solid – but I think that, in the past, I would have been more forgiving. Now, though, I can honestly say I thought that 95% of this film was utter trash.

To be fair, zombie movies have never been my biggest interest. Plenty are quite good, such as 28 Days Later…, Dawn of the Dead, The Return of the Living Dead, and Zombi 2, but it’s never been a subgenre that really turned me on.

That said, I can appreciate plenty of zombie films, but there’s also quite a lot of them that are abysmal, and I think The Rage is a good example of that. Some of this disdain comes from the fact I find the story absolutely terrible, and some comes from how terrible some of the CGI is, but no matter from whence my displeasure arises, I just know it’s there.

I won’t spend too long on the good, naturally. Like I said, some of the special effects are decent. There’s a mangled corpse of a little girl, and I appreciated that they had the guts to show that (as I can imagine plenty of bigger-budget movies wouldn’t have wanted to offend people’s sensibilities). Of course, said girl was mangled by hideous CGI birds, but more on that shortly.

The fact is, about half the special effects here are commendable. It’s very rarely the case, though, that good special effects make up for a failure in every other department. I don’t want to say it’s impossible – I can’t honestly say I’ve never given a movie a decent review solely because of the special effects – but it’s far from common, as I find the plot of a film much more important.

Naturally, that’s where the problem comes from. Elements of the story are interesting – Andrew Divoff’s character has a background that could have lent to a decently fun zombie movie. There’s an element here of trying to destroy the capitalist system of the USA, and as a socialist myself, I love the idea of destroying capitalistic systems. Not only that, but shots are also taken at the pharmaceutical companies and for-profit medical industry, which is all fair (as I 100% believe that, if the cure for cancer was found, those industries would do all that they could to suppress the information).

None of those elements, though, make up for how terrible the story generally is. It’s possible that, if they went in a more solidly comedic route, maybe some of this could have worked. Comedic elements are present during the last thirty minutes (much of it coming from some dwarf character), but it seems that it’s largely played straight with some campy performances (such as Andrew Divoff’s), and I don’t think it does the movie any wonders.

On that note, I don’t think any of the performances were great. Actually, I’d say the best performance in the film was Reggie Bannister (Phantasm, The Mangler Reborn), and he only really gets one scene, so that’s all the more disappointing. To be fair, Anthony Clark wasn’t bad either, but he wasn’t exactly what I’d call inspired. Ryan Hooks and Rachel Scheer were more on the generic end than anything else.

Sadly, most of the focus is on Erin Brown, Andrew Divoff, and Sean Serino. On Divoff (best known for Wishmaster), I can say that I’ve enjoyed him in the past, and I’m not averse to his hammy acting, but I just didn’t care for it in this movie. Erin Brown (Lust in the Mummy’s Tomb, Splatter Beach, Lust for Dracula, Cannibal Doctor, Satan’s School for Lust, An Erotic Werewolf in London, Holocaust Cannibal, Strip Club Massacre) isn’t at much fault here, but I wasn’t wowed by much of what she brought. Sean Serino (The Dead Matter) was given some really bad pieces of dialogue to play with (“Is God punishing us?!”), but she probably did what she could.

Another thing I have to mention – the CGI vultures were shit. There was a lot of bad CGI toward the finale, such as fire and blood (and no, nothing as grand as GRRM), but those vultures were the worst things I’ve seen since Birdemic, and I’m not much exaggerating. Just atrocious.

The plain fact here, though, is that I didn’t have fun during this. Some of the locations looked nice – apparently this was filmed entirely in my neighboring state of Ohio – and some story elements had potential, but overall, I found this a pretty terrible time. I imagine some people could get a kick out of it. Mushroomhead popped up a little toward the beginning, so maybe that’s enough to pull some people over. For me, though, I found this a struggle.

3.5/10

Directed by Tobe Hooper [Other horror films: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Eaten Alive (1976), The Dark (1979), Salem’s Lot (1979), The Funhouse (1981), Poltergeist (1982), Lifeforce (1985), Invaders from Mars (1986), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Spontaneous Combustion (1990), I’m Dangerous Tonight (1990), Night Terrors (1993), Body Bags (1993, segment ‘Eye’), The Mangler (1995), The Apartment Complex (1999), Crocodile (2000), Shadow Realm (2002), Toolbox Murders (2004), Djinn (2013)]

I’ve seen Mortuary at least twice before, I believe, though it’s easily been ten years since the last time I set my eyes on it. I remember not being overly fond of the film, and after revisiting it, I can definitely see why that’s the case.

It’s a shame, too, and not just because Tobe Hooper directed this. Of course, Hooper is one of the big names in horror, but truth be told, there’s only a handful of his films that I actually care for (among them Poltergeist and Eaten Alive). More so, though, the first half of this movie, while not exactly good, is perfectly serviceable, and it’s only around 48 minutes in or so when things go terribly off the rails.

Tonally, the film is a bit of a mess. It seems that out of nowhere, they wanted Mortuary to become some type of comedic zombie movie. I mean, I guess that’s what they wanted – it wasn’t exactly clear to me how intentional the comedic aspects were. Still, it took a decent story and completely turned it around, with zombies vomiting and infecting others, and the fact these zombies can still speak cringe

Mortuary really had potential early on, and I was sort of surprised, given my limited memory of this one, that I was digging the film. But when it goes off the rails, it really goes off the rails, and it just ends up a major disappointment.

I didn’t have a big problem with the performances. I do wish that Denise Crosby (Dolly Dearest, Itsy Bitsy, Pet Sematary) had a bit more to add to the story, but otherwise, I thought she was solid. Dan Byrd (The Hills Have Eyes remake, Salem’s Lot) didn’t make for the most interesting character, but Alexandra Adi was fun enough, and Rocky Marquette (Triloquist) was okay. The trio of Bug Hall (The Shadow People, Arachnoquake), Tarah Paige (Otis), and Courtney Peldon (Skin Walker) could have been fine if handled differently, but boy, they weren’t handled well at all.

Past a certain point, I pretty much lost all interest in the story here. I still paid attention, of course, but my engagement was certainly not what it used to be. I can say that I don’t think aspects were tied together that well – Bobby Fawler didn’t seem to be infected, for instance, but still worked with the black mold/infected zombies for some reason, apparently? I don’t know, I thought they had a potentially fine story here at the beginning, but something got screwed up along the way (which I keep repeating, but I can’t possibly stress enough).

Overall, I can’t say that Mortuary was a particularly enjoyable watch. Seeing it again was interesting, but as a whole, the movie definitely has some issues. I’m sure this one has some fans out there, but I can’t say I’m one of them.

5/10

Directed by Lin Oeding [Other horror films: N/A]

I need to preface this review with something personal – I’m writing this on January 20th, 2023. God knows when it’ll be posted, but that’s when this is being written. My mother died December 30th, 2022, and this is the first horror film I’ve seen since her death. I wanted to say that as to frame this review in proper context.

With that depressing sentiment out of the way, I can say that Office Uprising is a movie I had mild hope for – it has a decent score on IMDb (5.7/10 with 17,700 votes), and I thought that was optimistic. Unfortunately, more than anything, I found this a rather generic experience, and I’d be flat-out flabbergasted if I ever get the urge to sit through this again.

Not that Office Uprising is a particularly bad movie. It’s just generic. Think Zombieland, or perhaps even Cooties, with less soul. Zombie comedies aren’t easy to master, and I’m not the biggest zombie fan anyway, so this really isn’t my cup of tea. I can say that I was able to watch this alongside a friend on Discord, so at least that helped a bit.

The movie does look nice. There’s a definite sign of high production value behind this. There was even a scene transition that I found somewhat cool. Sadly, though, if a movie doesn’t feel as though it has soul, these positive aspects don’t lend a whole lot to the overall product. And I’m not saying that those involved didn’t put their hearts into this, of course – I can’t know that. I can just say that the story here felt generic and lifeless, with dashes of ridiculousness (that robot suit groan), and it wasn’t my vibe.

Brenton Thwaites (Ghosts of War, Oculus, along with playing Dick Grayson in Titans) didn’t do much for me. I mean, his character wasn’t bad, but it just felt, again, generic. His love interest, played by Jane Levy (Don’t Breathe, Evil Dead) didn’t really have that much of interest to do, and the pacifist character played by Karan Soni (Creep 2, Corporate Animals) just felt like an overlong gag.

A few others did make an impression, though, such as Zachary Levi (Blood Fest), who had some amusing lines (such as his dialogue about the correct usages of both “i.e.” and “e.g.”), and generally had a decent presence, along with Ian Harding, who appeared only a few times, but was okay. Gregg Henry (Bates Motel, Just Before Dawn) felt somewhat lifeless, Kurt Fuller (The Wolves of Savin Hill) felt pointless, and Sam Daly, despite being the son of a personal favorite (Tim Daly), didn’t add much either.

As far as the special effects go, they were fine, in an overly-stylized and Hollywood way. Honestly, while I didn’t find The Belko Experiment great, if you want a horror film of quality that takes place in an office building, I’d likely point people that way. Still, the effects here were okay, but it’s a zombie comedy – someone crushes a soda can and turns it into a ninja-star type thing, and decapitates someone with it. It’s just too silly for me, and even when it wasn’t, too stylized.

Oh, and another thing I didn’t dig at all – these zombies. Because when I say ‘zombies,’ I don’t mean the walking dead people might expect from 28 Days Later…, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, or The Plague of the Zombies. Those infected here have increased rage (and strength, of course), but are capable of holding conversations, harboring grudges, and retaining other personality traits that you’d associate with, well, people with personality. These zombies are far too human-like and coordinated for me, which I couldn’t get into whatsoever.

For plenty of reasons, Office Uprising didn’t hold up it’s end of the bargain. A few scenes entertained me, a few pieces of dialogue were amusing, but in general, I was woefully unimpressed with a lot of this, and while Office Uprising might work for some people, as far as a zombie comedy goes, I can think of plenty of other films I’d prefer to spend time with, and while I don’t have a strong view on the Stegosaurus, I have a feeling examining their bones would be of more interest than watching this one again.

5/10

Directed by Joey Stewart [Other horror films: N/A]

It’s been some time since I’ve last seen this one – if I had to guess, likely around 10 years. I remember enjoying The Final when I did see it, though, so I was definitely interested in revisiting it with fresh eyes.

I do think it’s a decent movie, though I also think it’s fair to say that it’s not particularly special in many ways. While I remembered the movie as violent, the gore here strikes me as somewhat tepid, and while the general plot is okay, a few elements aren’t touched on enough (such as the identity of some others involved in the revenge plot of the main characters).

And on that note, let’s get into the plot – a group of bullied kids decide to fight back against those who have bullied them for years. They get them together, drug them, and begin to torture them, both mentally and physically. Before that, we see snippets of their encounters with these bullies, along with a little bit of their home life.

Now, before I make any judgments, I should say that I was never really bullied in high school. I could have been – I was the quiet, wallflower type, with a speech impediment to boot – but I wasn’t, which I am grateful for. That said, I do feel a deep sympathy with the main characters here, and while their vengeance is questionable, I can’t pretend that the stereotypical jocks and pretty girls got much in the way of pity from me.

Even so, though, the movie is pretty tame. Sure, there are a few violent sequences, such as someone getting paralyzed and then stabbed with acupuncture needles, someone getting a couple of fingers cut off, a girl getting her face eaten off by acid. Violent, sure, but the focus isn’t the gore at all, so though there are some disturbing scenes in concept, it’s really not that hard to watch at all.

I also wish we got a bit more characterization for all involved, bullies and bullied alike. I do like the little bit we get from both Vincent Silochan and Eric Isenhowers’ home lives, and what little we get from Lindsay Seidel’s background was decent too. Even so, almost all of the bullies here felt stereotypical, and while I understand the point, it was sometimes hard to take them seriously.

When it comes to performances, I do think that the three I’ve mentioned, being Vincent Silochan, Eric Isenhowers, and Lindsay Seidel, do the best. It’s true that we don’t get a whole lot from Isenhowers’ character, insofar as personality is concerned, but he had a cool look to him, and his banjo picking was classy. Travis Tedford didn’t really make much of an impression, and while Marc Donato (Haunted High, Bad Kids Go to Hell) had some strong moments, he got a bit preachy for me. Otherwise, the only other performance really worth mentioning is Jascha Washington, and it’s not even that his character was that great, but it was nice to see a character who we can actually root for without feeling bad.

I think, though, that the movie’s decent even without the best characterization. True, the opening scene struck me as somewhat pointless (reminding me a bit of Terrifier’s opening), and I’d have liked a bit more focus on the others helping with the revenge scheme (which, according to IMDb trivia, was planned, but the scenes were later cut, leaving only a reference or two to their identities), but it’s still a pretty painless movie.

It’s not necessarily great at all, but it’s not a bad time to spend an hour and a half. It might be a smidge above average, but it’s close – either way, The Final’s not something I think would blow anyone away, but it can be an okay time.

7.5/10