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

Review: The Toll (2020)

Stars: Jordan Hayes, Max Topplin

Budget: Can't find

Directed By: Micheal Nader

The Toll, well, well. This film has all the hallmarks of a winner. An authentic story small tight cast of pretty decent semi-known actors.
Add to that a writing/directorial debut too with a plot that has some good supernatural chills.
Which is unfortunately destroyed in the last act with a VERY shitty reveal that undermined everything that has been built up until then.

As I stated the acting is reasonably good especially from Jordan who is the most veteran actor in the film.
All the characters seem to be believably playing the role they've been given.

It s a story we've seen a number of times people drive get stuck on a road they can't escape from but it's the extra stuff (until the last act as stated) that makes for a decent watch.

So lets get on with this very annoyingly let down of a movie.

So needing to get to her fathers ranch after a late flight in, Cami (Hayes) gets a late night uber type service. It's 1am so she's a dubious of the guy that come to pick her up, Spencer (Topplin) is her driver and he seems to be a socially awkward individual which doesn't fill her with confidence also.
So worried about Spencer they drive off, the guy tries to make terrible small talk to which Cami just asks him to keep quite. She not exactly a likable character and at this point I was routing more for Spencer to be honest.
Especially when he relays fears that he's just as afraid of being killed by his passengers as they are of being killed by him. She does seem to soften a bit until he says about his bow and arrow and hunting humans, as a joke (that's a bit silly either way).
Cami freaks out a little more when Spencer takes a turning on his app that she's never been down before and berates him for it, he says it's told him to go down there.

Of course the car breaks down, Cami thinks Spencer is to blame, she goes to walk off to look for help, Spencer gives her a torch so she can see in the dark and at her request stays in the car. Down the road, the way they've come up Cami encounters stop signs and barricades telling her the roads closed.
Confused she carries on. Back at the car Spencer thinks he see's something and goes to the back of the car. It's about then Cami walks down from the opposite side she left from all confused as to how.
She surmises it's a round road and then Spencer shows her the writing on the car says they must pay the toll man.

Cami freaks both of them out by saying it could be those people that pull people over to rob and kill them, Spencer says they'd have done it already if it was. He goes off into the wood and comes full circle too. A little while later an older woman ride down the road on a tractor.
After they explain their situation to her she look at them in terror and sorrow. She explains they're on the Toll mans road now and he wants a toll in blood from them, she knows because it once happened to her, especially so if one of them was thinking bad thoughts like suicide or murder. This was odd and strangely out of place to me but well exposition i guess.

So growing trust the two both start to look down a detour way that they're told will be their only escape from the road and the Toll Man. Though they still do get at loggerheads as it's the Toll Man's 'thing' to try turn them against each other. Some of the things they see allude to abuse in Cami's life and insecurity in Spencer's. They do seem to break each other out of it by being like look it's not real maybe a bit too many times. Then remembering another thing the woman said that He can only affect you if he can see you they get back to the car and blackout all the windows.

Fine you might say, but it's about here that the film devolves very rapidly, exposing shit plot holes and destroying any of the previous character development. So they forget about the camera in the car and it starts to show them messages to kill the other one. Now here at THN we rarely spoil films endings but I'm sorry I just have to here I can't let you watch this albeit only 80 minute film and think it's okay only to be shot down by the dribbly ending.

SPOILERS AHEAD STOP READING IF YOU WANT TO WATCH

Turns out Spencer is a fucking rapist killer and it's his thoughts that got them on the Toll Man's road, this guy who I had previously thought was just a misunderstood anti-socialite, who i'd been routing for because Cami was and still is a bit of a mouthy bitch. This repartee they built and the whole way the film was going is just derailed here. So he tries to kill Cami to escape the road with his bow, she pretends to be dead, then kills him when he comes over to have a look, rather than just shoot her a few more times with arrows, specifically in the head.
Now I'm all for subverting expectations but to just have the guy turn out, in a supernatural based movie just to be a typical murdering dick is just meh to me when it could have gone so many more interestingly different ways.

THN awards The Toll (2020) 1 star out of 5 for decent performances by the leads.

THN's Top 5 Haunted Places: Wales Part 2

We may have looked have looked at different areas in Wales for haunted places before, now we just look at the place as a whole. we'll have a quick description of where the place is located, unless of course the place calls for more description of the surrounding land. Quite a few castles in this one but thought it'd nice to have a running theme.

So lets now dive into another top 5 haunted places that you can possibly visit or at least read about in wales, part 2:

1. St.Fagans, Cardiff/Glamorgan

Any one picture of St Fagans wouldn't do it justice so I've just included here the tea room and gift/supply shops. The area is a massive outdoor museum located on the outskirts of Cardiff.first opening it's doors in the late 1940's it's been open ever since to the public. It is free to enter due it being a historical learning site. Many of the buildings range from 100 or more years old, meaning haunting's and sighting have been abound in the area ever since it's been open.

From civil war ghost being captured in photos to a woman named Polly who has been heard singing in a room in the castle. If you can get there like i said it's free to enter, before the pandemic there was ghost walks in the night for around £15, maybe they will come back at some point.

With over 500 years of history if i did believe in ghosts i'm not surprised something is going on here!

2. Cardiff Castle, Cardiff

This site has literally one of the longest roles in history and so many things have been and gone from here that have held both tragedy and death. In the 1st century Romans built forts on the site, then in the 11th century the Normans built the keep on the hill, that's still there in the picture.

Then in the 15th century pretty much everything else was built as it is today, with the final thing being the Bute Family turning the house into the building it remains in the 19th century.

What a history right?

Doesn't end there though as the walls were used as an air raid shelter in WWII, the place serves as a giant garden to sit and eat or relax on a sunny day these days (when your not on lock-down).

As for haunting, well you can book a tour when covid hasn't messed things up for around £16 at the time of me writing this. On the tour you will learn about the ghostly and ghastly goings on in around the area. Such as the summoning of spirits and the dead by the 3rd marquis of Bute, or you might hear ghostly sounds or even if your particularly unlucky the dark horse and carriage that are said to be the harbingers of death!

3. Oystermouth Castle, Swansea

Oystermouth is in the part of Swansea known as the mumbles, i've always laughed at this name as imagine everyone there just walks around muttering under their breath. In reality I have been there once or twice and despite an old rap for being a 'bad place' I think that was more in older times like late 70s and back. But anyway on with the castle, it's truly ancient from before the 14th century.

As far back as 1106, so you know in the proceeding 900+ years a lot of gruesome and terrifying things have happened in and around it's grounds.

That it has, in it's early years there were many many fights to take, then retake the Gower grounds by the Normans and the welsh people. It's been said that it's been destroyed and rebuilt more than a lot of castles.

Like a lot of places its got it's own white lady and host of spooky sightings of shadow figures and odd noises. It does offer a 30 minute ghost walk, with a hot chocolate afterwards!

4. Caerphilly Castle, Caerphilly

Here's one I've actually been too before, quite a while ago now though, like 8+ years. It was a beautiful site and is one of the biggest castles still remaining for it's age. Hailed as one of the most formidable castles of the time, built in the mid 1200's it truly was a fortress. It is second only to Windsor Castle in size.

Unlike most castles this one is home to a 'green' lady, one Princess Alice, who had a secret lover Gruffudd. The man foolishly confided in a monk who went back and told her husband. While she was away in France he did away with the man. Alice apparently dropped dead on hearing the news of the death of her lover, she now supposedly roams the grounds as a green envious spirit.

Though before he was killed Gruffudd did manage to hang the monk from a tree which has become known as 'monks vale' now, before ending up swinging himself!

5. Tredegar House, Newport

Back closer to my neck of the woods again now, with Newport again. Also a place I've been too, strangely enough. A large mansion house with lovely grounds right on the outskirts of Newport, before St. Melons. built in the 17th century, it's now under the national trust as a protected building.

The house and grounds, when Covid isn't about is host to many different ventures, from concerts to St Davids day celebrations. It's frequently used as filming locations and A Christmas Carol story telling in the winters around Christmas, as well as the, you guessed it spooky goings on.

It indeed does have a lady in white, this one is Lady Gwyneth Erica Morgan, she was found dead in London in the river Thames after a trip there. She was not buried back home until her father died. So now her spirit is supposedly haunting the halls restlessly.

There you have it folks another 5 spooky places you've learnt about in wales, will you or would you like to visit any of these places?

See you next time!