Review: Little Monsters (2019)

Stars: Lupita Nyong'o, Alexander England


Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Abe Forsythe

Zombie movies are slowly shambling off the mortal coil so to speak, walking dead is done comic wise at least so i can't see the TV show lasting much longer either.
But that's for another report I may write in the future.

This is a zombie film and a romantic comedy mixed up into one movie. Sometimes the mix goes a little off but I found this film to have good amounts of everything going on at all times.
fantastic acting from Lupita brings this film up a few notches more than it deserves too. Alex who plays Dave is not bad either but the character is slightly unlikable and you don't 100% route for him.
That is until he comes out as totally truthful, then we see a bit of a corner turned by his character. Even the children actors seem half decent, though what they were like on set I cannot find.

So we meet Dave a typical stoner type in a relationship that's going no where fast with a woman that is not his type at all. They break up and he goes to live with his sister, sleeping on her couch still being a stoner. Dave is a musician, he had a band that split up we learn later in the film too. He's just a plain lazy bum really, BUT there is a reason for a lot for his hang ups we learn later on.
There's a funny scene where he uses his nephew dressed as Darth Vader to go back to his exes apartment to try get her back (the nephew is a star wars fan). Only to walk in on her having sex with some older balding guy.

His sister blows up on him for taking his nephew out at silly o'clock in the morning and for him seeing them have sex. She threatens to throw him out, only pleading from the nephew (Felix) and Dave saying he will change makes her stop it.
One change is he helps a lot more, so in the morning he takes his nephew to school, there he see's Miss Caroline (Lupita) instantly falling in love with her. He blags a lot about random things just to talk to her for a while.
A parent then drops out of helping look after the class while on a trip the next day, Dave instantly opts himself to help out. More to be close to Miss Caroline than through anything else.

The next day while on their way to the farmland park we see a nearby army base. It appears that some previous zombie experiments have broken free. The base is seemingly quickly overrun by them, The bus with Miss, Dave and the kids speeds past the base after it broke down.
We had a nice rendition of Taylor Swifts song  shake it off then too, a less better song performed by Dave lying to Caroline he's still in a band.
At the park we see a TV personality all the kids love is also visiting shooting an episode for his TV series. One Teddy McGiggles, you just a get a weird bad vibe from him right away. Anyway the kids go on a trip around the farm on a tractor Felix has a strangely unhealthy obsession with tractors too.

The zombies quickly take over the farm eating killing and transforming others into more zombies. The army finds out and sends in more troops very fast, The kids, Miss Caroline and Dave make it to the farm gift shop. Miss Caroline has told the kids it's a big game and not to be afraid so as to make them less afraid.
Teddy has taken over the gift shop refusing to let them in, Dave manages to break in through the roof then beating up Teddy and letting them all in. Teddy confesses he hates kids, only doing what he does to have sex with the mothers and an alcohol problem too.
Dave not realizing feeds his nephew some crisps/chips that set off an anaphylactic shock in him, Caroline then goes to get the medication after Dave wrongfully uses an epi-pen stabbing himself.

That night Dave has a heart to heart with Caroline telling her the truth about everything, his lies, the band and his relationship also why he is why he is. father troubles from when he was young and he's afraid to turn out like him and he just turned bad, he very quickly turns over a new leaf here, bit to quick really but that's the run time I suppose. Caroline tells him about her relationship and that she's really single too, she just wears a ring to keep lecherous dads away.
They decide the next day to escape due to there being a lack of food, elsewhere the army are planning to bomb the whole farm. While escaping Teddy is killed when he doesn't keep his word about helping them with his van.

Well that's about as far as i'll go as theres not much left of the film and the ending is pretty good and heartfelt just like the majority of the film. I'd put this a bar less than Shaun of the dead but certainly up there with some other zombie/comedy films. I did laugh a good many times while watching this as well going aaawww at certain other moments too. It just felt rushed with some character development and the ending.

THN awards Little monsters a solid 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Underwater (2020)

Stars: Kristen Stewart, T.J. Miller

Budget: $50-80 million?

Directed By: William Eubank

Underwater, underwater, hhmm a tricky one this was some good things was some bad things. I will say the blinding obvious thing that most people have.
It's an underwater alien/aliens clone, more so alien. There's not much in the way of story-line, character development and build up is minimal too.
Not to say there isn't any there but it's like we join a story that's halfway through being told. All the people know each other well and the way it's acted is very believable too, except that means we get little to no further development between them over the course of the movie.
We feel like we've arrived late to the party and everyone else has clicked already.

Now this does mean we get straight into the story right away. The base is immediately in peril. effects wise the film is awesome, the tense scenes are very tense and I even, yes ME, I even got jump scared once!

Acting wise Kristen Stewart is Kristen Stewart as usual bland, nonchalant and lazy eyed lol, kind of fits the character though, she's (and fittingly so as the main character) the only one that gets most character development, though her development is still minimal and VERY predictable.
T.J. Is as always one of my favourite people in the film his dry humour is what I like despite him possibly being a bit of a dick IRL. The rest of the fodder are very predictable in their roles, the stalwart captain who just wants to keep his crew alive (but with a secret).
The couple who really love each other, the comedy relief and the guy who self sacrifices himself early on. On with the film review then.

we join Stewart's character staring blankly into a mirror as she brushes her teeth, the lights blink she frowns as if she feels something we didn't. stepping out into the corridor she is hit by a drip of water which makes her realise something is up.
Suddenly there's a loud explosion and the place starts to shake and fall apart. She meets another survivor as she's running who i'll call self sacrifice man or ssm. they make it to a door which needs to be sealed or they'll die just as two more people are seen running up the corridor. Unfortunately as things go in these types of movies, these nobodies get iced right away as the bulkhead seals. Obviously it's no ones fault and remorse is only felt for a few mere seconds.
Stewart then saves TJ from under some rubble and the crawl into a new section of the base looking for escape pods.

In the escape pod room they see the captain fussing over things in the sealed room, he's clearly sent off all the escape pods and stayed behind himself, like a proper captain. After getting in the room the captain says they need to make it to the submarine. On the way they find mr&miss in love in the communication centre. the plan obviously fucks up the first moment it can forcing them to get to new escape pods, This means they have go for a walk in the water.
Mr SSM selects good gear for everyone else but obviously chooses a defective helmet for himself, causing him to implode as soon as the door is opened and the pressure hits them. While on their way they get a distress beacon from a pod, going to investigate it they find a corpse. a weird little creature leaps from it attacking them. They think they kill it then a bigger one attacks the lift thingy they are in they think that's mother creature.

While walking across the bottom of the ocean to the other section the old section explodes breaking Mr In loves air purifier on his suit. He gets some poisoning due to this. In the new place they regenerate their suits air and batteries but Mr in loves is broke so they will have to go slow so as not to overload the scrubber and poison him. going through a tunnel TJ's Mr comedy relief is killed by a creature in a flooded section.
They get outside Mr in love is dragged off, the captain rescues him, is dragged off himself Stewart's character tries to save him. His suit is compromised by being dragged to the surface by one of the creatures to fast, Stewart's almost too but the captain cuts her free. She's separated from Mr&miss but finds her way to a decommissioned part of the base.
While there she changes her suit gets a flare gun discovers the captains secret about his daughter that was mentioned fleetingly earlier then goes to reach the base the were heading for again.

Almost there Stewart finds Mr&miss with miss dragging an unconscious Mr, they make it to the base but the door is blocked by many, many sleeping thingies. of course Kristen accidentally wakes one up she uses the flare gun to kill it. The flare gun then reveals the true terror of the water, the small creatures are part of a giant creature that's been tearing the base apart. They make it to a pod room, there's 3 pods one of them faulty Stewart reassures them she'll fix it and be right after them.
We then get her reveal of the film too.
There's a little left here but we don't spoil endings at THN as you know, this is a very standard film with very alien like vibes, maybe a bit of cloverfield thrown in too. It's saved by some TJ Miller, good effects and some genuinely tense moments. The best we can say is it's very average so we give it a strong 2 it could be a weak 3 but we don't do half marks here either so 2 out of 5 it is.

Review: Ready or Not (2019)

Stars: Samara Weaving, Andie MacDowell

Budget: $6 million


Directed By: Tyler Gillet, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin

Nice, a more recent film for a change this one staring Samara Weaving. A girl who I am gaining large respect for in acting chops. Despite her being a clone of Margot Robbie, who is in a turn a clone of Jaime Pressly, I really believe this to be true, the blonde frowning look is just way to much of a coincidence.

Tinfoil hat aside she does an amazing job in this film with an equally amazing script. Only let down by the overly predictable ending, though it still has some spectacular character development.
A nice, for me at least, return to the screen for Andie MacDowell too. A modestly low budget used to great effect with some very comedic moments. Also some very tense moments thrown into the mix too.

heard the directors have some very up and coming scripts in line in their future too, all I can say is I look forwards to what these guys produce next.

So we start the film with and old rich family clearly chasing someone down, some kids are also running about the older brother hides the younger in the nearby closet in the hopes of sparing him seeing things.
Cut to the future we join Samara Weavings Grace marrying into the La Domas family, a family famous for it's board gaming empire. She is marrying Mark O'Briens Alex, with all the typical your family hates me stuff because of reasons.
It gets a little weird when after Daniel, Alex's brother comes in warning of marrying into the family Alex does warn Grace and give her an immediate out. She chooses not too then goes through with the wedding, just beforehand she does talk with Alex's mother (MacDowell) who seems to like her she also asks Grace to try and make him stay with the family again.
So later that night she has to choose a game to play, it all seems a little ominous but Grace does admit she's not scared of a little chess or backgammon.

Unfortunately there's one card you don't want to get which is hide and seek, unfortunately after the story of how the family got their wealth in the first place, Grace does get the hide and seek card. This means she has to be hunted by the rest of family then sacrificed so they can keep their wealth and not die a horrible death. It's seemingly tied to devil worship too.
Samara does an amazing job of very quickly going from thinking it's a bit of fun, to disbelief and then finally fighting back against the deranged family.
Comedy is on point with the boys (Daniel and Alex) sister (a clear coke head) accidentally killing the hired help. Alex just wants out and Daniel is fed up of the family practices up until now, they also don't believe the curse is real.

It's a lot of fun with some great performances, good character development dragged down by a little bit of a predictable ending. Of which us here at THN don't spoil ending here unless the film is completely abysmal. THN enjoyed Ready or Not awarding it 4 out of 5 stars.