Review: Psycho Goreman (2020(2021in the UK))

 Stars: Nita-Josee Hanna, Owen Myre

Budget: $670,000 US

Directed By: Steven Konstanski

Have you ever wondered to yourself, what would power rangers mixed with David Cronenburg to a banging heavy metal/synthwave soundtrack film with neon colouring be like?

Well think no more Psycho Goreman is here to answer and possibly satiate that hunger.

Made for 670k US or 850k CA dollars it's amazing to see only 50k (CA) of that went into the special effects of this film.

Do things sometimes look rubberised and floppy? of course they do but that all adds to the charm of the film.

Now I do have a confession to make I tried to watch this film once before only got about 20 minutes in and I hated it, not one likable character to route for everyone was despicable in some way.

I genuinely must have been in the wrong mindset for this film. I listened to my friend about giving a bit of time and to actually accept there's no nice main character in this film then gave it a second go, i'm glad I did.

Now yes you heard me right it does take a little while to get going in this film but when it does it's one hell of a funny joyride. I loved parts where sometimes Goreman will go off on a spiel about some things he's done and they either don't listen to it or interrupt him.

So a frightfully unlikable girl (Mimi) is playing a made up game called crazy ball with her brother (Luke) who is a simpering boy who does everything she says. She bullies him quite a bit, this annoyed the hell out of me first time I went to watched this but I kind of accepted it as that was what it was meant to be, a dysfunctional family.

They end up finding something strange sealed with a mysterious pinky/purple gem, Mimi takes the gem and the kids go inside. That night a newly freed Goreman goes to an abandoned shoe factory where some lowlifes are hanging out. They stupidly start on him and he horrifically yet amusing kills them in a variety of gory ways.

The kids find him the next day and Mimi realises she can control him with the stone, he explains his situation that he was a slave on a planet called Gigax and then found the stone and did an uprising vs the controlling Templars faction. Except he didn't stop there he was consumed with rage and went on a killing spree, the Templars eventually caught him and imprisoned him.

It gets a little slow for a while as the kids question him about things then try to name him something better than his real name. It's amusing that he changes one of their friends into a big brain with eyeballs and no-one seems to care. As for the rest of the family, the mother freaks out about PG, but their loser father seems strangely okay with the 'new friend'. Again amusing as Mimi is saying he won't kill them, but PG (they shortened Psycho Goreman to PG) keeps contradicting her saying he'd flay them alive if she didn't have control over him.

The last Templar catches wind the PG has escaped their imprisonment, despite seemingly being the good guys in PG's story it's pretty clear that they are just the lesser of two evils too. They leave PG in the shoe factory with a TV which he uses to communicate with his ex-lieutenants to come help him retrieve the stone from Mimi. From here on out lots of cool fights ensue and one of the most funniest bits of the film involving a melted face police officer.

I won't spoil anymore other than to say a plot point heavily leaned on in the film comes into play near the end. 

THN really ended up enjoying Psycho Goreman a lot, we give Psycho Goreman 2020 A strong 4 out of 5 stars, just give it a chance past the 15-20 minute mark.

Review: Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Stars: Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd

Budget: $75 million

Directed By: Jason Reitman

This has been a long time coming and boy was it worth the wait. We had the 2016 dumpster fire that didn't understand what the film series was all about and just perverted it's main story.

I won't go anymore into it because I mean no ill to anyone who was involved with it or anyone who likes it, it was just not for me.

Now I was scared for a long time with this, especially how it's kids taking over and i will say that's a prejudice I do have. Throughout time kids actors haven't been exactly great, but i'm slowly coming around to the fact I think that has been maybe just maybe the writing.

Especially as of the last 5 years people like Wolf Finnhard, Hard Finnwolf or whatever his name, (that was a joke btw) have really shown some great acting chops lately. Mckenna grace is by far the standout here, Phoebe is an amazingly complex character, but easy to love and follow.

So evicted from their apartment Phoebes mom and her brother have to move to their grand dads old farm, nicknamed dirt farm by the locals because he never grew nothing but dirt there. Callie the mother is looking for anything money wise to help with the bills but also lies to the kids about staying there for longer than they expected. Phoebe joins a summer school and despite being awkward makes a friend. Trevor (Wolfhard) lies about his age to both get a job and to impress a girl.

They start to unravel things about their estranged grand dad and find out he was Egon Spengler from the OG ghostbusters line up. Their mother hasn't spoken about him because she believes he ignored her over science.

Something is showing the kids certain things, when Phoebe finds an old trap, her along with Paul Rudds teacher Mr Grooberson open it and release something back into the mountains where the original metal used to make the top floor of the apartments where Gozer showed up back in 1984.

Make of that what you will. It gets midway and the kids have their first ghost bust and trap the ghost but also get arrested for destroying half the town.

I really don't want to spoil anymore of the film other than speak about some points that I DID have gripes with and some things I've seen it have criticism about that I think is unfair.

Firstly the over use of nostalgia, I admit this can be a very bad thing if not done RIGHT, in this film it's done very right, there's familiarity for long term fans and done so as not to alienate anyone new, this also works with the new stuff, enough new things to entertain new folk and to introduce a new generation to us older cranky buggers.

Speaking of older cranky buggers, from the trailer, so I won't see this as a spoiler you know Ray is in the movie due to the trailers, Ackroyds acting is a little wooden, but hell he's old and hasn't been in much lately. The ending is truly a love letter though and had me in tears and only through the Reitmans being close friends with the Ramis's would that have worked.

So final thoughts, This is probably one of the best sequels I've seen in a long time and probably one of the best films i've seen in a long time too. THN for the first time in quite a while, Gives Ghostbusters: Afterlife a FULL 5 out of 5.

Review: Chucky S1 Ep04 (2021)

Stars: Brad Douriff, Devon Sawa, Zackary Arthur

Well well well, what a hit start button and don't stop this episode was.

After last weeks fire we see the aftermath of it when most of the children are in hospital for smoke related illnesses. A lot happened in between the blackness of last week and now, Lexy survived, her sisters in a really bad way from smoke inhalation.

Junior is doing better but his throat is bad and he can't run for a month, which has irked his dad. Everyone pretty much blames Lexy even her parents. We learn Oliver died but not of the fire like most people believe it was stab wounds from Chucky. 

We see more of the flashbacks which are still some of my favourite parts.

So yeah the action really ramps here after me complaining last week its seemed a little slow, he's outed to a few people now too now, lets see how it goes from here!

THN awards this episode 4 out of 5

Review: Chucky S1 Ep03 (2021)

Stars: Lexa Doig, Brad Douriff

After his anger at Lexy starts to subside a bit and he begins to doubt being able to kill her Chucky tells Jake about his times killing people. He says it's difficult but you never forget your first time.

The flashbacks are cool in this episode, they are some of my favourite parts learning more about young Charles.

He attempts to kill Lexy a few times but is thwarted somehow each time, once by junior who thinks he's stalking him. The policewoman is getting more suspicious of Jake too so bans he boy from seeing him.

When Lexy's sister asks for Chucky, Lexy is forced to apologise to Jake which makes him falter in killing her again.

Near the end of the episode we get Chucky getting Jake to give him to Lexy so he can kill her for him/

Overall an amusing episode, some Charles backstory but no real main story line stuff, i'm hoping we start to see what his main objective is in the town soon, as well as some Tiffany, Andy or others. Still possibly best episode so far. 3 out 5 stars

Review: Chucky S1 Ep02 (2021)

Stars: Lexa Doig, Brad Dourif

This episode seemed to pass quick yet also seemed empty in a lot of ways. It's a week later it see's Jake still living with his aunt and uncleSeems like after killing Jakes father Chucky has his sights set on Lexy the bitchy bully schoolgirl now. He seems to be making out that he's doing it to help Jake but we all know Chucky by now He's obviously got some other sinister plan.

So the Kids go to school and for some reason Chucky take a dislike to the maid, possibly after she sprays him with cleaning fluid, he kills her, then the cops get involved again. Here was a particular weak piece of writing for me, Jake and cousin were clearly at school all day, the cops even say the porch security footage see's them coming home. Yet they still point the finger at both, well okay mostly Jake for the 'freak' accident, I'm sure the school and both the coroners report would also put he death waaay beyond them being there.

Anyway after getting an invite to the popular kids halloween party Jake doesn't go until he notices Chucky missing and goes to stop him from killing Lexy, does he succeed?

THN awards Ep02 also a decent 3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Halloween Kills (2021)

Stars: Judy Greer, Jamie Lee Curtis

Budget: $20million

Directed By: David Gordon Greene

On the whole i generally hate it when a movie series goes back and branches off a new continuity.

Now Halloween 2018 did that with ignoring everything from part 2 onwards. Suffice it to say I did enjoy 2018. Now this was meant to be released last Halloween, but due to c19 it got delayed until now, or Oct 15th.

I have to admit the trailer didn't wow me and actually set off a few alarm bells when I heard mention of Micheal becoming stronger with each kill. I immediately dreaded they were going to use the most silliest of plots again: the cult of thorn. More on that later.

The film as of writing this has made over $50 million, amazing for an 18/R rated film. This is of course the middle offering of a trilogy so yes I will say here the previews saying it does just 'end' are right but come on theres going to be a 3rd one to finish it off.

The music score is beyond brilliant with John carpenter working on it and remixing some of his OG Halloween tunes.

The last one ended with a lot of people wounded or dead and Micheal hopefully being crisped up in Lauries basement. Well this opens with Lauries grand-daughters boyfriend finding a wounded Hawkins and basically saving his life from the neck stabbing he got in 2018.

We are then given a closer look into what happened after Loomis 'Shot him 6 times' in a flashback to the night 40 years ago.

The film goes pretty much the way any Halloween film goes but the first few kills are a bit silly especially the killing of some of the OG older cast when they are in the car, especially the their new friends of the doctor and nurse combo.

Laurie gets mended in the hospital as does Hawkins there's some more flashbacks where Hawkins explains he stopped Loomis from killing Micheal back then. Some of the other kids from back 40 years mentally scarred from that night gather a mob to kill Micheal, this backfires at one point where one of the other mental patients gets confused for Micheal and I think that's some commentary on how mob mentality can get. Once a gestalt entity forms like that it's hard to separate again. This was one of the pet peeves I had with the film though was the writing seemed a little repetitive and basic at times, with the mob chanting evil or He dies tonight all the bloody time. Again I get it, I get why but it was just to much for me.

Now there is a certain invincible quality to Micheal in this movie and he takes a beating on occasion and just takes it in his stride. I think this is what Laurie is referring to in the trailers and said in this film too, thankfully it doesn't seem at least in this movie to be anything to do with the cult of the thorn again, I a\m interested to see if that gets any kind of tying up in the next film we'll just have wait to see.

Laurie doesn't do much in this film, not for lack of trying, she gets put back to bed a few times by her daughter, but she is an old woman with a stab wounded gut, what do you expect.

The kills are often brutal and I won't spoil anymore, This is a decent midway point now, i'm interested to see where it goes, I've heard the next one is a time jump, though I thought I remembered them saying this was going to take place over 1 night originally but again maybe C-19 has changed those plans.

Halloween kills is by far not perfect, it's a great midway point with a few flaws THN awards Halloween Kills (2021) a strong 3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Chucky S1 Ep01 (2021)

Stars: Lexa Doig, Brad Dourif, Devon Sawa

I was both looking forwards to this and dreading it. The reason for this being it's a straight up continuation of the Child's play films, the original ones. But it's also SyFy channel and they have a thing about not being that good. Not only that it was a kid centric role and also well you know how things can get these days, a foul mouthed man doll might not be looked upon kindly.

BD comes back to voice the eccentric killer doll too which is good. I didn't realise until the end that the guy playing (two roles) the dads was Devon Sawa too, he looks so different from Final Destination days.

Now let get onto the things that I didn't like. Now i'm not to hot on how small town american places are but is that really how backwards they are with sexuality?
If so give what i'm about to mention here a pass, the main boy is blatantly gay but he's bullied and the attitude of nearly everyone is like nineties backwards. Like I said I don't know if this is the norm in this situation or just if it's written in that way to inflame the situation.

BUT this is where it comes into it's own though as everything is pivotal on that, When he buys Chucky from a garden sale he's wimpy by even the end of the first episode he's gaining confidence after Chucky, for some unknown reason at the moment is helping him. Albeit it in his own twisted way.
From showing his bullying father a thing or two, to showing up the bitchy, bullying schoolgirl too in a most amusing ventriloquist act. It does culminate into something I rather enjoyed from the second half, if it keeps that up it'll be a winner for me.

THN awards Ep1 a strong 3 out of 5 so far

Review: Escape Room Tournament of Champions (2021)

Stars: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller

Budget: $15 million

Directed By: Adam Robitel

I like to bunch anything where torture to characters in movies as a 'saw' type film. being one of the daddies of the franchise, though I know there were things before it but Saw really made them popular.
Along with the likes of Hostel which made the torture people for money angle more popular. 

Making almost $50 million on a $15 million budget still made this a reasonable hit in our day and age, especially up against the abysmal space jam 2.

A sequel to the last Escape Room where the two main protagonists that survived that film return again in this film to take revenge on the company that trapped them in the first. There's some twists and turns, though I did ask myself the obvious question that why didn't the just leave well enough alone. Though thankfully they do bring this up in the film and answer it adequately too.

So we join Zoey and Ben (Taylor&Logan) some time after the first film, all healed in body but obviously still not in mind. They are planning to find where the head on the Minos Corporation is then get proof of their dastardly dealings in trapping and killing people for rich peoples amusement.

No we get a bit of a hoodwink AND a look at the people behind the creation of the rooms as Zoey and Ben are about to board a plane. In what seems like some kind of parallel the Minos Corp leader Henry (James Frain) working on a room seemingly based on an Aeroplane. Seems like it's trying to trick you into thinking the two are going to be in an escape room when they board,
Zoey seemingly foils this when she gets to scared to board the plane due to her fears of flying, They then get a rental to drive to the area they know of.

In this film we also get an insight into the family life of the people who make the trap rooms for these faceless millionaires too. The daughter is seemingly trapped by her father after her mother and her seemingly try to leave him a few years back, which we see in a flashback.
Unfortunately this gave away a massive secret to me as I watched as I'd seen something like this before in other films. I won't spoil it here though as it's an end of movie thing, which you know don't spoil unless the film is abysmally bad.

So doing their investigations Ben and Zoey get trapped once again by Minos on a subway train, trap room they quickly learn that everyone onboard is a survivor of one of the previous games, making this of course the Tournament of champions. They do say the thing I mentioned about why you'd ever go back to, or start looking for all this shit if you survived but then they do intelligently say it seems like they would have made them all return whether they were looking for them or not. Zoey along with a mysterious benefactor helps an ever shrinking team escape each room, as well as try to get proof to bring down the Minos Corporation.

So what did I think? Well it was decent, it was a good sequel, especially after the sequel baiting of the first movie. Was it needed? Probably not but if you were clamoring for more it'll fill that gap.

THN awards Escape Room ToC (2021) a good 3 stars out of 5

Review: They Live (1988)

Stars: Roddy Piper, Meg Foster

Budget: $3million

Directed By: John Carpenter

Based on a VERY short novel by Ray Nelson called Eight O'Clock in the Morning. This awesome 80's film has come almost full circle in meaning since it's original release.
I was never a big wrestling fan but the days I did watch it was back in the Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior days who were both my favourites.

You know I watched this film a long time ago like ten years old give or take a year. I didn't like it then, the fight was stupidly long and I didn't get it either.
Of course I like it now and I get it's an allegory for when people just want to bury their head in the sand and not see whats truly before them just to live an easy life.

This means SO SO much these days, I don't want to get political or drop some of my beliefs or truth bombs on you but I do believe we as a people go to far to extremes these days. I'm pretty much a centrist so extremes both sides really alienate me.

Anyway on with the film, we join a drifter played by Roddy, he doesn't really have a name He's just credited as Nada, which i'm sure is just like nothing, you know nada, nowt, zero etc. America is in a massive economic crash and finding work is hard. The every man is hitting rock bottom but the rich are getting richer and more powerful.
But it there's an insidious reason for this, a reason no one can see. After befriending Frank a fellow worker he's taken to a shanty town where he get a bite to eat and rest so long as he helps out there. While watching TV that night the broadcast is interrupted by some hackers.
They warn that people are being controlled by them! and we need to see it, when the interruption is fixed, people complain about a headache. Nada later see's the leader of the shanty town sneaking off to a church and follows him. He watches them moving boxes around and is then discovered by the blind preacher who oddly feels his face all over.

Police come later on, they destroy the shanty town and burn out the church. Nada sneaks into the church later on the next day to see what the resistance were hiding. He retrieves a box and runs to an alleyway to check it's contents. Finding nothing but sunglasses he takes a pair and hides the rest away in a trash can.
Sticking them on the world turns black and white, a second time Nada actually starts looking around seeing where billboards are there's hiding messages in them like OBEY, CONSUME etc. Not only that he notices that some normal looking humans are actually gross metallic eyed skinned aliens.
Apparently they were meant to look like decayed humans, like the decay of society. He starts to point things like this out to normal people, they of course think he's bananas.

Some of the aliens cotton on that he can see them though and start to report him, that he 'can see' them which gets him stopped by cops. He kills the cops takes their weapons then strides into a bank where he utters one of the most memorable lines in movie history.
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and to kick ass, and I am all out of gum"
Killing only aliens Nada escapes by taking a channel employee Holly as hostage, at her home he tries to make her believe in the aliens. She thinks he's nuts and ends up pushing him through her patio window to the floor below.

He meets back up with Frank, Frank doesn't turn him in but tells him to get out of there after murdering a bunch of folk. Frank follows Nada to give him a last paycheck to go hide, Nada had recently retrieved the sunglasses that got thrown onto a trash truck. He explains to Frank, who doesn't want to know any of it or have any part. A big fight breaks out between them that you can see the two men still like each other and appreciate each other but each trying to push home their reasoning. He does force them eventually and they both end up joining the resistance.

I'll leave it there as there's still a few twists and turns I don't want to spoil ending either. They Live is another John Carpenter masterpiece whether you appreciate it for the time it was filmed in or that the themes the film has seem to be coming full circle again. THN awards They Live 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: 2067 (2020)

Stars: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ryan Kwanten

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Seth Larney

Well first up this film came under the heading of horror, no idea why. There certain some tense and dire themes in this movie but nothing scary or jump worthy.

Secondly it was made in Australia I also can't find any budgets anywhere. Also seen this listed as Chronicle 2067 in some places too.

So we have some actors i've never seen before in anything else, Kodi (Ethan) who seems to do watery eyed whining pretty well. Then there's Ryan (Jude) who seems like a cut price Christian Bale with about half the acting skill.

In fact Ryan is pretty much the stand out actor in this piece with more facial expression than anyone put together.

The plot is pretty nonsensical Time travel rubbish that DOES come together but only at the VERY end of the film which you are forced to sit through despite pretty much having worked out whats going on as soon as Ethan is sent to the future. It very terminator dialogue heavy with fate this and fate that being thrown in every time they talk about changing something.

So the actual film plot, in 2067 all plants have died out the earth is low on oxygen and pretty much everywhere is dark/dead. Except an Australian city with an underground nuclear generator. There's 'fake' air being doled out to people but some people's lungs can't seem to process it well and people are just dying off.

Ethan who initially seems like a nobody is in fact the son of a scientist who disappeared years back He gets called in to be shown an experiment his dad was working on, like a time tunnel affair. Ethans father also rammed some kind of techy bracelet on his son on his 8th birthday.

Anyway thing conspire that Ethan needs to sent to the future because someone there asked for him to be sent. Like a total idiot in a world he's not used to Ethan blunders about. He discovers, somehow, his own skeleton hundreds of years dead shot in the head.

Anyway after eating some poisonous hallucinogenic berries, Ethan is dying when cut price Bale also fazzams out of the past to save him with an anti-poison jab. A little later on Jude pulls a gun and it's pretty obvious that this is where dead Ethan gets his extra air vent from if you know ANYTHING about foreshadowing in movies.

Anyway they have to fix the nuclear generator in 24xx because it'll nuke them if they don't. The plot descends timey wimey wibbly wobbly guff from here on even more than had before. 0% of it is Ethan screaming all teary eyed that he's already dead so what does it matter and Jude spouting about fate every 5 five minutes.

Something happens to Jude near the end which is like WHY did that need to happen?

The plot is the weakest part of this film with a lot of nonsensical things thrown in too, a guff plot with Ethan's wife that they use to move the story along at points too that coupled with the ending is almost totally pointless.

It's not bad but it's not good either, it's a little overlong too at 114 minutes long i'm no editor but I could cut 20 minutes of this and still get the point across. THN awards 2067 (2020) 2 out of 5 stars.

Review: Phantasm (1979)

Stars: Micheal Baldwin, Bill Thornbury

Budget: $300,000

Directed By: Don Coscarelli

One of those proper gems you come across from time to time. Though today this series definitely has it's own cult following.

Made for a minuscule $300k which even back in that time wasn't a lot of money. mainly due to practical effects still costing a pretty penny then.

wouldn't exactly call it a micro budget film but it is definitely bordering on that.

On the subject of effects this film does spectacular amounts on the budget it has. One of the most iconic being the flying ball with drills and blades.

this film also does what a lot of franchise films did back then too. have a recurring character, that being Reggie, played by Reggie Bannister who would show up as his character in nearly every chapter of the franchise. Despite seemingly being killed in some of the previous films.

Also iconic film monster the Tall Man is of course introduced as the films series main bad guy.

so we see in the beginning of this film a young lad having sex with a good looking woman, who subsequently kills him. Though to most the mind scarring knowledge that the woman is the Tall Man.

At his funeral people think Tommy has committed suicide, so obviously it's been set up to look like that. Even his two friends Reggie and Jody think he has.

Later on Jody's younger brother (Mike) see's the tall man easily lift the coffin with one arm, which kind of freaks him out. So much so he tries to keep tabs on him.

This eventually leads to Mike being chased by one of the films 'short guys'. stumbling on and catching his older brother Jody about to have sex with the tall man in woman form, in the cemetery. His brother (thinking he's been cock blocked) is annoyed and doesn't believe Mike.

Mike keeps looking but is caught by a caretaker, who is then killed by the steel sphere, Mike then just about escapes the Tall Man cutting off some of his fingers in a door.

Mike uses one the fingers to convince his brother of the Tall Mans doings, Reggie also joins after seeing the finger transform. In an action scene with the short men they find one of them is a shrunken Tommy. This reveals some of the Tall Mans plans.

The rest of the film is pretty much a push and pull between the heroes and the Tall Man, which is pretty funny as the gang find out the rest of the Tall Mans plans.

This film took an amazing $12 on its tiny budget, which screamed sequel, we didn't actually get one until 1988, just over 8 years later. Part 3 was 1994, part 4 was 1998 and then we didn't get another one until 2016, each to varying degrees of success. I may well get around to reviewing them at some point too. As for this film It's a fun romp, not one of my favorite franchises but a franchise none the less which as you all know hold a space in my dead heart.

THN awards Phantasm (1979) a strong 3 out of 5 stars with a recommendation to watch.

Review: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Stars: Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Travis Stevens

Wow what can I say, I short Jakob's Wife is about marital problems exacerbated by vampiric infection.

Star long time scream queen Barbara Crampton, who like a vampire never seems to age. If there's one thing I can still say about her in this film is that the woman is still smoking hot with everything still able to back that up too!

But there's a lot more to her and the film than that.

The acting from nearly everyone is brilliantly on par with anything these veteran actors have been in before. Both Babs and Larry knock it out of the park with performances their performances.

Larry a slightly overbearing pastor husband Jakob to Babs slightly downtrodden wife Anne.

When Anne is bitten and transformed into a half vampire she starts to lose all the tendencies that made her subservient to Jakob.

We then get some amusing scenes later where they are trying to work things out between them as Anne starts to feel more empowered by the change.

Jakob soon learns that Anne is infected and seeks to cure it, Anne on the other hand, along with whispers of 'the master' (the vampire who turned her) is unsure if she wants to go back to being normal her. She does however seem to really love Jakob as she saves him and resists feeding on him a few times out of her feeling for him.

The ending was a little weak who it kind of boils down to a bit of misogyny on the master vampires part. True if she's really old then yes her times would have indeed been bad for her and Babs former life was as I stated quite downtrodden. But that's the thing these days and something the movie does show at points too, it's all about sitting down and talking. Though judging by the ending I don't know how well that went!

Some other good points the soundtrack is awesome, really reminded me of older horror films with the plinky plonky of pianos to the dun dun dun dun of something like the beginning of The Thing. The effects were great, realistic blood no CGI shit, as far as I could tell. The masters effects were very nosferatu vampiresque again a nice throwback.

Some minus points, the film can be slow in certain acts, seeming a little over stuffed with nothing going on or just things that weren't really needed. The pacing and theme were also a little off, with somethings moving at bullet speed to others just taking it's time. The theme was horror and the musical score solidified that mostly, but there was strange moments of comedy and satire that didn't gell well with the rest of the movie, they just stood out more due to this.

Overall though I really did enjoy this and most things the Babs is in gets high praise, Jakob's wife is no different, though not just for her but also some stellar supporting cast. THN awards Jakob's Wife (2021)

A solid 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987)

Stars: Micheal Ironside, Lisa Schrage

Budget: $2.5 million CA

Directed By: Bruce Pittman

Wow this film was totally out of the blue, it is a bizarre sequel to the original Prom Night film. It very little to do with it in sequel terms though.
Taking cues from later additions to slasher flicks such as magical or other worldly forces, Prom Night 2 is straight up supernatural horror.
Taking cues from everything in that genre, from Evil Dead camera rushes and even sound effects in the score too. Too almost dream like killings and an end sequence that is ripped almost from Carrie.

The film Stars a slightly younger looking Micheal Ironside, though i'm sure the guys had the same amount of hair and scar tissue face since an infant. He puts in a great performance in here as a man with secrets (from everyone else not the viewer)
The films not rocket science and is cratered with plotholes the size of the moon. With said plot being about as thin on the ground as you could possibly get.

Having said that theres a weird kind of charm and all of the rest of the cast seem to be having a great time acting out their part. Nearly everyone is a dick in some way or another though and you don't really route for anyone other than may be feel a bit sorry for the main protagonist and her boyfriend, oh and possibly her bewildered father. There's some very graphical frontal nudity in a locker room scene too, my does Vicki have a banging body.

So we join Mary Lou after she mocks a priest in a confessional stand. Yeah she's a doozy this girl about as likable as triple bypass surgery. It's 1957 and she's had one guy take her to the prom but she cheats on him with another guy. She of course very pretty which nets her the prom queen status. Jealous the spurned boyfriend uses a prank smell bomb to get her back.
It goes wrong however and Mary Lou goes up like a dry xmas tree. Everyone just kind of watches screaming or crying rather than trying to help her. So Crispy Lou dies there ablaze on the stage.

Cut to the same school now in 1987, that's right its a roaring 80's baby. Vicki a student living with a over repressive god bod mother asks for some money to get a prom dress. Her nice father asks how much but her mother refuses as that's what holier than thou mothers do in these films.
So she looks in the school cellar? below ground storage room?
Whatever she somehow finds Mary Lou's shawl and bang that starts with her slowly getting taken over by a now demonic miss Lou. Her attitude slowly begins to change from sweet innocent girl to slutty killer. Slowly all her friends and acquaintances start falling prey to her evil side.
Somewhere in between she goes to see the new priest at the church, twist it was the boy who Mary Lou cheated with. Another twist! Is that Vicki's Boyfriends dad was the spurned lover, somehow friends the priest comes to warn him that he think's Mary Lou's soul has possessed someone and will try to kill them.

That's the main premise it plays out as predictable as expected but I liked it, it wasn't great and stole a lot from other things. It was ultimately fun though. There is a 3rd movie seems hard to get hold of though, will review it once I can!

THN awards HML: Prom Night 2 a strong 3 stars, watch it if you have the spare 95 or so minutes

Review: A Quiet Place - Part II (2021)

Stars: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt

Budget: $55 million

Directed By: John Krasinski

a follow up that no one really wanted or expected after the pretty much flat ending of the second film.

Now if that makes me sound negative please trust me when I say that's not what I trying to convey with this film at all.

It again stars and is directed by John Krasinski as the father of the family.

How I hear you all cry in your multitudes, in flashback. We get a usual second movie in a series trope of going back to the past to explain how everything happened.

But it works, it tells us how the death angels got here, now there's a few things there that are a bit eeerm? But if you forget some of those thing's (which I will go over) it is a good prelude.

It flicks back to exactly where the first film stopped, the wife, daughter and son along with the new baby are standing in the charred ruins of their destroyed house.

with new baby they have to be creative, Evelyn makes a soundproof baby box with its own air supply. Regan lights a fire to signal to others who respond with their own fires. The three family members set off towards a designated meeting point.

Along the way they come to the end of the sand path and have to traverse on more noisier ground. On the way there Marcus gets caught in a deliberate bear trap, he screams which does attract the D angels. There are all then saved by Emmett played by the always great Cillian Murphy.

He's reluctant to help but when Regan heads off on her own to broadcast the signal he goes to help. While away Evelyn has to go get supplies and leaves the baby with the still debilitated Marcus. The story turns into a three way for a bit as the three groups each get into different scuffles and danger along the way.

They do come to a pleasing head at the end but this time please just leave it there, leave whatever this ending is to the imagination as a third film I'm sure can go only one way. So yes these super tough aliens came to earth after floating about in space for god knows how long on a meteor.

This was the one thing I found a little far fetched, also the fact something so invincible, yet with a glaring sonic weakness could survive like that in the vacuum of space, or even in the cold/heat of things. Like I said this sequal wasn't needed but is a welcome addition to the mythos now.

THN awards A Quiet Place PT2 4 out of 5 stars

THN's Top 5 Haunted Places: France

Time to start looking further abroad, where else other than our closest ex-european neighbours France. As with all places in europe this land is steeped in history with some things dating over a thousand years old. I'm excited to dig into this countries history and find some of the most haunted places in all of their lands.

Top 5 places in France:

1. Paris Catacombs, Paris

Okay probably one of the most famous creepy haunted places on the entire bloody earth. Been in film, book cinema for years such as as above so below. The place is stacked floor to ceiling with bones, skulls and other assorted freaky shit.

Now you know I'm not a believer of ghosts etc but I think just being here would even freak the hell out of me. Now the main reason for it, is not that spooky at all, it was just a place to stick remains when space ran out. Though certainly from some stories some of the residents didn't like being moved to their new resting place as often moans and other creepy noises are heard.

As I mentioned As Above So Below, the supposed or at least one of the inspirations for this movie was when a group of regulars to the catacombs found a camera, on there the footage of a man clearly lost is going mad, he drops the camera and wonders off. No one knows if the man ever made out of the catacombs and if he did, if he's okay.

2. Palace Gardens, Versailles

Okay so the lovely garden of Versailles are a beautiful place to visit but wow do they hold a great story. From ghosts and spooks to possible time travel?

Listen to this, In 1911 two writers wrote of their times in the gardens. In it they felt that they had traveled back to the 18th century and the gardens as they were then. They also claimed to have seen the ghosts of Marie Antoinette, though their story was at the time ridiculed and mocked.

Though other people since have also made claims to have seen Marie doing things like mundanely walking around or even sitting and sketching the gardens.

3. Chateau De Brissac, Angers

This amazing looking disney-esque castle or Chateau is just south of a city called Angers, it was originally built in the 11th century as a small castle. Then in the 15th century the Duke of Brissac built it into pretty much what it is today.

A double murder in this time gave birth to one of the more popular ghost type haunting's. A green lady! the terrifying thing about this one however is the people who have seen her say that looking at her face it looks like her eyes and nose were cut away. Not only that her moans are often said to be heard echoing through the halls of the Chateau in the night.

4. Foret De Broceliande, Brittany

This forest as you can see from the picture has damn freaky shaped trees, that is literally just one type there. For some unknown reason, to me at least, i'm sure I could go check why, a lot of the tree just grow oddly.

Now here's the multitude of bizarre things about this forest. It's said to be haunted by none other than Morgana Le Faye of Arthurian legend, bewitched and home to many creature of the elven variety. It has an amazing castle in it's grounds and some spectular, yet mysterious fountains also.

If you don't go for the spooky/fantasy stuff this place is great to visit just for how it looks.

5. The Bleeding House, Aisne

Also known as just the haunted house of Saint-Quentin, this is like the catacombs is one of the most famous haunted places in the whole world not just France. Subject of a few films and documentaries it's walls are supposed to exude blood.

The owners obviously didn't like this and decided to move, the house was later demolished and the bodies of 50, count em 50 german soldiers were found inside it's walls. The house has since been rebuilt but there is no longer any bleeding walls, still though some ghostly sounds and sightings have still been reported about the site!

Okay there we have it folks, another 5 haunted places, this time slightly further abroad than the UK, next up should be Germany, though depends what order I post these in...

Review: Evil Dead Remake (2013)

Stars: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez

Budget: $17 million

Directed By: Fede Alvarez

Initially when I heard about a remake back in the day of this being released I was like WHY, just make a new film in the main series.
Especially after seeing Raimi back to form with drag me to hell. (but i don't like the ending to that film) Along with being not to sure about the actors and the director.
It was a loooong time in the making too it was going to be a sequel then it wasn't, then a reboot, then a psuedo reboot. It was finally settled on a total remake.

So Fede Alvarez came out of nowhere and impressed quite well with this film. especially with only a modest budget too. Raimi did oversee things but at this time was still in talks to do other superhero films after the success of his Spiderman films.
This is a total remake taking the story and only changing some base elements from the original, also adding some odd stuff too.

So instead of heading to this deserted cabin for a sexy weekend with girlfriends, the plot now follows a group of friends (and a brother) taking one of their member to the cabin to 'cold turkey' a drug addiction out of her.
Before that though we see the titular cabin a girl has been captured and is taken by cult into the basement, there she is immolated as it turns out she's a demon.
This girl is Mia she has a heroin addiction she's at the cabin a while after this happened, she's with some of her brothers friends. Her brother (David) then turns up with a few more people who 'care' for Mia too, though some are very skeptical due to past attempts at this.

While there Eric one of the friends just like the OG film finds a shotgun, the necronomicon ex mortis in the cellar. The idiot reads aloud the incantation from the book setting the evil lose in the forest, that now stalks them. Just like the original film the cabin members are either taken or hurt until they are taken over by the demonic forces.

This movie however seems to have a dual purpose as to make you wonder if it's all in Mia's head as she's going cold turkey, it does become more evident that yes it is demons but there's still that little thing of what if? you know?

Like in Evil Dead 2 with Ash, Mia is also taken over in this movie herself, the film leads you believe that her brother might be the new 'Ash' but it doesn't go that way. Mia gets snapped out of it and starts to fight the evil back. Again an allegory for her possibly beating back the addiction?
It's thoughtful and I only recently thought about all this, which leads me to the sad thing that this will probably never get a sequel now. Especially with the new Evil Dead project Raimi has placed in the Chin himself hands Bruce Campbell. Now i'm looking forwards to that tentatively as he's only directing I think and it's set in the older ED universe but won't have Ash in it.

But enough on that, so Evil Dead Remake, very strong film a sneaky little easter egg at the end too if you watch past the credits, THN awards this film a strong 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Spiral (2021)

Stars: Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson

Budget: $20 million

Directed By: Darren Lynn Bousman

So a continuation of the saw franchise or a sideways step?

whatever it is, it is still in the same world a few years after the original films timeline has ended.

It has someone doing copycat killings against the police forces corrupted officers.

Chris Rock plays Dt. Zeke Banks a disliked Detective because he got a fellow police officer in trouble being dirty.

A lot of people have said Chris's acting i this is a little'off' at the beginning I agree, but there's a reason I think.

Listen to him speak he's genuinely speaking his mind about some real world problems, I both admire him for some of the things he brings up but have to say maybe a film like this wasn't the best place to do that.

His acting does improve after about the 20-30 minutes after he's gotten all his rants out.

Now I did actually enjoy this film despite that and I tell you why. it felt like a 90's action film in story and pacing but with all your modern trope and aesthetics.

I don't know if anyone felt this way but I genuinely felt like I was back in time watching an older film like a gorier lethal weapon and no this isn't because Chris in that film either, I think it was the troubled cop who doesn't want partner etc, it just all added up.

I will say it's a pretty easy to read film, I did guess the killer as soon as I saw them even with the twists and turns that are common in Saw films. Sam Jackson is as always excellent in his roll as the uncaring, or is he? Father of Zeke.

I can't go into much with this film because almost everything other than lightly touching on the story is a pretty big give away that if you watch it will give you big clues to solving the 'killer'.

It is definitely worth a worth a watch, especially if your invested in the saw franchise, plus you all know my love for franchise continuations.

So THN awards Spiral (2021) a good 3 out of 5, worth a watch if you can ignore Chris's rants.

Review: Army of the Dead (2021)

Stars: Dave Batista, Tig Notaro

Budget: $70-90 million 

Directed By: Zack Snyder

I'm confused as to where this stands in timelines, is it in the Snyder of the dead universe?
Is it the Romero universe?
Ah, suppose it's not too important really.

So yes this had been languishing in developement hell for some time. Two most prominent were Snyders losses, no one should go through that. Second of course is money/studio.

So the big old N stepped in and helped out for showing rights, as usual, oh and maybe a new Snyder of the Dead universe thrown in too.

It stars everyone's favourite cuddly ex-wrestler Dave Batista as angsty dad and troubled ex-army vet turned burger flipper Scott Ward. 
Since the outbreak in las vegas he's been estranged from his daughter Kate, who works as a care worker on the front lines with refugees from the area. Tig Notaro also stars as a plucky helicopter pilot they pick up later on. Tig is cgi cleverly inserted or new scenes put in due to the OG actor being a naughty boy.

Now the plot is pretty standard zombie movie affair, infected area has tons of cash in a safe. A shady owner of one of the casinos wants to, quote, 'send them in to retrieve it' He knows of Ward goes to him to assemble a team to retrieve $250 million, they get to keep $50 themselves to divvy up.
Sounds straight forward right, they assemble friends, the pilot, a safe cracker and an influencer to keep the film current, who specialised in killing zombies for views. Oh and shady guy throws in the most obvious mole/betrayer/asshole ever too. They've got a time limit as the areas going to be nuked too.

Now this film has brilliant ideas and goes with the evolving zombie theme again fast strong, intelligent alphas and your usual run of the mill shamblers. Kinda confusing as the initial zombie is an alpha, so maybe his bites don't turn everyone alpha right?

(i wrote a book it's on amazon undead in the valleys the welsh aftermath, it featured both kinds of zombie before anyone else thought of it, go check it out, it's amateur but good).

It's a logical yet flawed idea as later you see the first one bitten by him turns alpha. This is the problem with this film (and a lot of Snyders works) he tries to jam all this cool stuff in yet it's under developed or goes no where. There's talk of talk of these dehydrated zombies coming to life in the rain again, doesn't go nowhere. One of the friends has an amazing rotary saw he seems to care for a lot, we see in a dreamesque sequence that he uses it too.

In the real life of the movie though? Nah it's relegated to cutting a wall open when they're trapped later and never used again. there's some zombies with blue eyes, blue viscera or both. I've seen other sources saying these are robo-zombies, now this toys with the alien idea they mention at the beginning but again goes no where AND I KNOW it might be explained later on in this 'universe' but then it might not because so many other things aren't, also i shouldn't have to wait for any kind of explanation from something that might not happen.

So Ward gets his daughter to get them in, his estranged daughter has reasons to get in too, basically being a plot device to get people killed or put in danger, though they do 'make up, sort of' later, asshole guy is an asshole he's there to get an alpha zombie head that apparently worth 5x more than $250 million and also puts them in more danger as they killed an alpha when they had an 'agreement' with them, yeah watch the movie.

My last gripe is nearly everyone in this movie is unlikable, apart from maybe the safe cracker guy, but then he's fucking annoying 90% of the time. Ward and woman interest decide to split the money mostly for themselves not share it equally, rotary blade guy has a permanent chip on his shoulder. Daughter Ward makes baaaaad decisions and is a brat basically, the rest have reasons too which will become clear.

 In the end I tried ti like this and it has brilliant visuals and ideas which might be enough for some shallower viewers, but i've sat and analysed this now. It's case of sea sized ambition, but shallower than an inch in execution. THN awards Army of the Dead (2021) 2 out of 5 stars, watch if there's nothing else and you want shallow entertainment, but don't go down the rabbit hole with it's ideas that go nowhere.

Review: Breach (2020)

Stars: Bruce Willis, Cody Kearsley

Budget: unknown

Directed By: John Suits

Jeez Bruce whats going on buddy, you
have two extremes going on in the same
vein at the moment.
One hand you have Nic Cage churning out
DTV films with his mad little Nic Cage style.
Despite the low budget, crazy ass stories
this guy finds himself in he still brings it to
the table. Seems to still be enjoying his job.

Now on the other foot you have a similar story
With old Bruce, he's churning out at least
2-3 STV films a year lately. Except I've noticed
He just seems to be going through the motions
Bruce is playing a tired a old Bruce Willis.
Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying Nic isn't
playing a old Nic Cage in everything.
In fact I assume to Nic this is just all happening
around him and he's just existing in it lol.

Oh and Thomas Jane is in here too, getting a paycheck for 5 minutes work with the most abysmal acting I've ever seen. Anyway lets get on with the film shall we?

Right so we see a ship that's bound for leaving a dying earth, some guy is trying to get on with his pregnant girlfriend. His girlfriend just happens to be Thom Janes characters daughter, who is the captain and commander of the ship. He lets them on, he doesn't really know the guy is the father of the baby and doesn't seem to really like him but lets him stay aboard. I'm sure I seen this scene because it comes up again later in something odd that doesn't make sense.

Anyway most of the crew and passengers go into cryosleep for the voyage to a new planet they are colonising. Someone plants some icky black fluid on the wall that eventually breaks out, it is ferofluid, no it really is, but in the film it is some alien parasite but like also evil distilled.
BW is a maintenance worker and the lad, Noah who is also masquerading as a maintenance/cleaner go about their business cleaning as their 'assigned' jobs. Both become suspicious of each other Noah thinks BW, Clay is a saboteur when he see's him collecting parts and chemical to make what he thinks is a bomb. Clay see's that Noah has no experience at all doing anything so is suspicious due to that. 

Anyway Clay is just making bootleg booze with a still for all the other awake crew members, he follows Noah after questioning him about stuff to see that he's trying to enter his credential as a worker in the computer database. Noah gets arrested as a stowaway, even threatened to be killed later because of this, I dont get why he doesn't just say I'm with the captains daughter, he let me onboard?
Buuut It's movie I suppose. That's the problem with this film its all over the place with it's writing. Anyway people start getting taken over by the ferofluid zombies who occasionally have the strength to punch clean through someone, then other times just above normal human strength or equal.
They spend a good protion of the film trying to come up with an idea to save people in cryo and stay locked in a security room.

After one of the guys says it was him who planted the evil juice as they don't deserve a second chance. Noah uses vents to wake up the captain who uses uber weapons and marines to try and fight the ferozombies. They just keep coming like they always have though until Thom blows himself and all of them up with a grenade. This has been their plan all along though and now all fuse into a big wobbly mess monster and start commanding people infected to leap into the warp reactor.
apparently human flesh is a great accelerant and the ship in pushed to and beyond max speed. The surviving crew members surmise they want to get to the new planet to infect that world too.

Earlier they noticed one of the cleaning fluids did away with the ferozombies and somehow incorporae it into some flame throwers. Clay get thrown around a bit as he helps Noah and pregnant GF escape in an escape pod then blows up the ship.
Now that's not the end theres a bit of a twist ending that I won't spoil because this film isn't great no but it's also not so bad enough that deserves spoiling, as, to me, The guy playing Noah really does seem to be putting his all into the role where the likes of BW and TJ are just sleepwalking through. Also it's kind of Lovecraftian, the cosmic horror takes a while to really get going but it's full on in the last few minutes of the film.

THN awards Breach 2020, a weak 2 out of 5 stars, watch if theres literally nothing else on or if your still a hardcore Bruce fan.

THN's Top Five Haunted places: England Part 2

 Today we take a second look at England as a whole for another top five haunted places, what weird and wonderful places will we find this time. Like always I am a skeptic BUT I want to believe I so want there to be something ELSE in this world. Will these (often) tragic places persuade me otherwise?
When or IF this virus ever eases up, or we just have to start to learn to live with it like the flu I would like to a tour of some of these places.

So here we have it another five spooky places to visit in England:

1. Tower of London, London

Constructed by William the Conqueror in 1078 it was lived in by many monarchs for a about 500 years before it was to become the final resting place of many many famous names. Among these names were Anne Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh and the infamous Guy Fawkes all spent their last days in this place.

Obvious with all this death and suffering there is now said to many many disturbed spirits haunting the site. Especially since many years later the grounds around would also become the killing grounds for Jack the Ripper!
Some of the ghosts seen are trivial to terrifying, from two ghostly beef-eaters smoking pipes before they vanish to a ghostly monk who's sandals can be heard slapping down corridors. More spookily Henry VI can said to be seen appearing as a wraith form in the room he died in.

If these are real I'd love to go there and see if they could sway me to believing, one day maybe, one day.

2. Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devon

A Tudor mansion built in the 15th century by the Pomeroy family who owned the land since the 11th century. Sold in the mid 1500's due to financial problems, it was then abandoned in the 17th century when the family moved away.
In the 19th century it became a picturesque popular tourist attraction which it still is today, throughout this time many ghostly apparitions have been seen, or spooky noises heard. Now as you know a lot of castles are haunted by some kind of lady, white, green or shadowy. Pomeroy seems to be a rare case of two Lady ghosts, even rarer a blue one!
It appears a blue lady is quite a vicious one story of her luring people to the tower only to make them fall to their deaths, said to be the daughter of a Norman lord who killed her own baby due to it being her fathers child.
The white Lady is your typical story Margaret Pomerory who was supposedly imprisoned by her jealous sister in the dungeons for her being better looking, is said to haunt there. Spooky goings on in this eerie place.

3. Dunster Castle, Somerset

Something has been on the grounds of Dunster castle since the Anglo-Saxon times, then in the Norman times a wooden fort was built on the site. This was quickly upgraded to a stone shell in the 12th century. It was then sold to a family in the 14th century, the De Mohuns, who lived there all the way to the late 20th century!

Now most places have a lady of a certain colour type Dunster Castle however has a green 'man'. In the stables that have been there since 17th century which now houses a shop for the site, many people have seen a green glowing light around the area and also feeling a menacing uncomfortable feeling and mood there.
There are also many other ghosts said to be haunting the site from, a disembodied foot being seen and the spooky ghost of a 7ft tall ghost!

4. Treasurers House, York

There was a house here by the first appointed treasurer on York, though this only now exists as an external wall. Though other parts of the masonry were used in the current 12th century house too. In 1547 the job of treasurer was removed, the house then became residential from then. The house was restored at the end of the 1800s going into the 1900s, which it's been looked after since.
It's spooky goings on are said to be due to the house being built on some old Roman roads leading out of the Roman times York of the time. People have said to have seen up to nine Roman soldiers passing through the house!

5. Theatre Royal, London

Back to London for the last one on todays list, the good old theatre royal, Somewhere i've actually been! Though not for ghost hunting purposes, I watched the Lion King Musical here, was a two for one special with Shrek the musical as a matinee and LK in the evening.
Enough about my time though, lets delve into what makes this one of the most haunted Theatres in the UK and not just the spelling of Theatre in the UK lol...

To start iff there has been a theatre on the site of drury lane for 350+ years, so if ghosts truly do exist well you can bet something haunts these halls. It is like most places home to a ghost of some shade of colour. This one houses a man in grey, wearing a wig, hat and grey cloak many people have seen him passing from one side of the upper circle to the next then on through the wall, in the day time too!

Renovations of the theatre later revealed that the body of a man stabbed a few times and wrapped in a grey cloth was found behind the wall. Though this sounds quite grisly the appearance of the man in grey is supposed to mean a good performing run for the current show in the theatre.

Joseph Grimald is also said to reside within the walls of Drury lane, he was the first (supposedly) incarnation of what all modern clowns now model themselves on. Oddly asked to be buried without his head attached to his shoulders, this has led to some seeing a disembodied clown head floating around. I don't know about you but that would make me shit my pants.

Okay then folks that's five more spoooooooky places to visit should you be travelling around England in the UK, drop a line if you enjoyed this, see you in the next one!

Review: Critters Attack! (2019)

Stars: Tashiana Washington, Dee Wallace

Budget: unknown

Directed By: Bobby Miller

Oh man, oh jeez, well lets start off with other things first. This is a SyFy channel film and supposed a reboot of sorts for the franchise. It was great to see practical effects used again but I feel the puppets and things were the actual props used it the older movies.

There's a scarred crite leader, now admittedly i only watched this once but I never knew why he has that eye scar other than that puppet had it and well fuck it they used it.

This movie also sees the return of Dee Wallaces character but she's had a name change, or uses a code name to avoid 'potential legal issues' which says to me they weren't really allowed to mess with past stuff or limited at least.

Now on with a little explanation of a few things, this movie feels nothing like a critters movie in anything other than name and inclusion of the characters.

It was a bland story with wooden acting and felt like someone had once heard of critters a while ago, not ever watched one of the films or did when they were young then tried to write a story based on that all that.

It includes a lot of things new like a queen crite?

Also i'm sure crites were asexual or it's never been revealed if they have a multi sex civilization in previous movies.

All it's ever been said they eat and lay eggs producing more crites, which is even thrown out in this movie too as it seems like they new lay small versions of themselves in people now?

Which brings me to another point, this film brings up new and interesting things but goes nowhere with them at all.

In a Reboot or re-imagining or Remake you still usually keep things that are familiar to the viewer like I said earlier this doesn't. There's no Charlie character, though the main characters dad is a drunk and a police officer but that's it. There's no bounty hunters though I think 'aunt sue' is supposed to be that but if she is it's very lightly. I know the originals weren't super gory either but this takes the piss as it doesn't show hardly anything, at one paint the critters form their usual big critter ball. They chase ONE person like this and you don't see the aftermath when he's run over like you do in the past.

Character wise the daughter played by Tashiana is terrible, yes she's lost her mother a long time ago and is driven but her attitude stinks towards her guardian drunken sheriff dad, maybe because he's a drunk you say?

but then it's no, as he's not an ass hole he's actually quite 'functional' and what he says is usually true or right Drea just throws it back in his face. She's interested in getting into college and finishing it to honour the memory of her dead mother who had to drop out when she got pregnant with her, which is a nice motivation at least.

So the film we see some craft crash to earth in a small american town, a deliver guy sees this and goes to check out what it is. He is quickly devoured, we then meet our protagonist Drea she works in the same place, she's been refused entry into a college/university she's applied too.

The delivery place she works in the owner asked if she's seen the delivery boy she hasn't, he sends her to the uni she keeps applying for to deliver. we cut to a field where the delivery boy is and we see little crites pop out of him like mogwai from a wet gizmo, no eggs in sight.

Somewhere Dee Wallace playing this aunt sue has hi-tech equipment that has tracked the crafts, she sets off to the crash sites. Every time she catches up with where the critters were she's like one step behind them for a few times.

At the university, Drea meets an old friend from school, after oddly drooling over a boy like a love sick puppy. He's a proper Chad with a personality that seems all the place (in fact everyone seems like their personality is eclectic in this movie just bad writing i guess).

This friend gives her a number to a woman on the board of people who let people into the school, if she babysits for her it might let her get some good grace under her belt for gaining entry. She takes her brother with her as he apparently fancies the girl she's looking after.

After the internet is destroyed by the critters they go for a walk and find a second craft (though that's off screen out of view) with a new female type critter that's wounded, it's cute but it's also an odd addition as stated earlier. They take her back to treat her wound, the other critters smell her and give chase though. While healing the females wounds the normal critters attack the town and one hidden in Drea's car attack them. they stop it but it's also sabotaged her car too.

They walk to see the drunk cop guy guardian, he doesn't believe them about aliens. Despite them having proof Drea see's a bottle on his desk and storms off. They go to see her employer to borrow his truck to get out of town, due to some factors they decide to get a satellite phone from the kids mothers office in the university. There the Chad gets killed by the rolling critter ball the aunt Sue woman shows up and they kill loads of critters, the female is a good critter for some reason and helps them fight the evil black furred ones. The film feels like they ran out of money near the end too as it end really abruptly.

THN hated this bland shitty reboot etc, it's even worse then the newest leprechaun film too, I swear SyFy managed to buy the old puppets and rights for pennies with certain rules/restrictions. Whatever the case it's just not a good continuation, THN awards Critters Attack 1 star out of 5