Scream

I tried watching Scream over 15 years ago and the swerve in the first 15 minutes pissed me off so much that I stopped the VHS and I haven't came back to the film until now. In the time in between, I had watched Scary Movie and Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th, so I had some vague ideas about the plot, but I was surprised at how meta Scream is. Scream knows that it's another stupid teen slasher movie, but it leans into it and deliberately subverts cliches and expectations. Characters are constantly referencing what would be happening if they were in a horror movie. It's damn near a parody of itself, to the point that Scream hits just as many comedy notes as horror. The cast is hit or miss (Neve Cambell is pretty bad, but Skeet Ulrich was great, and Matthew Lillard is hilarious) but none of the performances were terrible. The pacing was uneven with some scenes being way too long and uneventful. The biggest strength of Scream is that it doesn't take itself seriously.

Terrifier

Terrifier knows exactly what it is and doesn't try to be anything different. Art the clown is truly terrifying (and incredibly acted) and the gore is outrageous and obscene. These are the things that Terrifier cared bout and it does them very well. The problem is that it barely qualifies as a movie. There is almost zero story and there isn't a single character that has any real personality. Characters do things that make no sense beyond the "horror movie logic" (Art is chasing them through an abandoned building, that for some reason has all of the interior doors locked, and the characters just keep running back in instead of down the street. You are outside! Stay outside! Don't go back in the house of locked doors; that's where Art is!). The cinematography is fine but other than David Howard Thornton (who plays the clown) all the actors are terrible. Terrifier is entirely propped up on David Howard Thornton's performance and the copious amount of gore; there is nothing else. The story is almost nonexistent and there are way too many questions left untouched. We have no idea who Art the clown is, there is a character credited as "Cat Lady" who clearly has a backstory, but we never get a single bit of it, and the ending introduces an entirely new dynamic to the story that is wholly unnecessary. I give Terrifier credit for some truly surprising swerves and being the only movie I've seen as an adult that unsettled me, but Terrifier is not a good film. It's a fun experience, but as a movie, it's missing far too much.

Rings

Have you seen The Ring and The Ring 2? Yeah? Then don't watch this. Rings actively craps on the mythology and rules that the first two movies established. The only way that Rings can make any logical sense is if you treat it as a reboot that is in no way connected or related to The Ring and The Ring 2. Samara has completely different motives and powers and none of this should even be happening after the events of The Ring 2. The acting is just awful, the effects are bad, the story is pure boring nonsense. It's all garbage. The opening scene has nothing to do with the next hour and forty minutes and if you have seen the trailer, the "twist" and the entire ending have already been ruined for you, not that it is in any way better to not know. It's not scary, there is no tension, there is no reason to watch this movie. It's not the worst movie I have ever seen (I can't imagine anything ever possibly being worse than Antihuman), but it's top five, maybe top three. For the love of Gore Verbinski, avoid this movie at all costs.

Meet Joe Black

Meet Joe Black is a great movie that is brought down by an excruciating three hour run-time, over dramatic score, and tonal whiplash. This movie has no idea what it wants to be. The main plot is inherently fantasy, but it starts off leaning towards horror, but then becomes a fish out of water comedy story, and then romance, then a drama. Every fifteen minutes, it feels like a tonal reset. My biggest issue is that it tries to poke too many genres and ends up not really achieving any of them. The idea of Death taking a vacation to experience Earth is cool, but they are so inconsistent with how much Death knows about life. Death (Joe Black) doesn't understand phrases like "It threw me", but is somehow incredibly well spoken with a sophisticated repertoire or fancy words. He's never heard the "death and taxes" cliche, but he speaks fluent creole (I think that's what it is). The acting is solid, although since Joe Black speaks exclusively in a monotone it's hard to get a lot of emotion from the character. The score is entirely big, loud orchestral songs that try to make every third scene an epic moment. Two characters embrace and violins blare out of the speakers and overpower the moment and overwhelm the audience. It's all too much. The songs themselves are fine, but they need to be toned down. Overall, I did enjoy meeting Joe Black, but we were together far too long and I'm not sure exactly how we feel about each other, especially when the ending of the film has so many logistical problems. There is no way it works practically and if the movie showed the next fifteen minutes of what happens next, the entire ending falls apart. It's not at all similar, but imagine if Toy Story 2 ended with Bo Peep getting pregnant. Wouldn't Andy notice that his plastic toy now has an extended belly? What happens when she has cowboy babies in fluffy pink dresses? How is Andy going to rationalize that? The ending of Meet Joe Black in no way involves knocked-up toys, but it has the same level of logical issues. Meet Joe Black needed pruning to be amazing, but even though parts were a slog to get through, I did really enjoy it.

The Descent

I appreciate what The Descent tries to do. It's shot on a set and not one time would I have ever thought that had I not checked. I don't know shit about "caving" (as they call it in the movie), but there weren't a bunch of scenes that screamed "I don't think that's how that works" The acting is fine and although the gore was wildly unrealistic, I loved it. The Descent is an attempt to slow down and scale back what modern horror has become. What it actually is a very slow movie with uninteresting and indistinguishable characters that when it does pick up shoots by so fast you have no idea what's going on. It takes the first twenty minutes to get to the cave and they spend those twenty minutes on the most mind numbing attempt at character development. Beyond the main character, I can only identify two others and those are only because they are visibly different from everyone else. They try and give the main character a sob story, but we have no real reason to care. There is no emotional attachment to any of these characters. The actresses do great with what they are given, but everyone is just a generic horror movie character. There are little annoyances (the very bad CGI bats, the vast exaggeration of how bright bioluminescence can be in caves and horror movie logic), but the biggest one is the lack of continuity. They begin their descent into the cave with a rappel of a couple of hundred feet and there is no indication that they are going any way but straight. There are no further rappels or treks downward for the next ten minutes and then a character says they are two miles underground. The Hell you are. Did we jump forward a couple of hours because we never got that indication. There is no way that initial rappel was even close to ten-and-a-half thousand feet. How hard the crawlers are to kill varies immensely as does their ability to hear sounds. While I was expecting something more along the lines of As Above, So Below, I can appreciate a much more grounded story, but The Descent is kind of boring. I don't care who lives and who dies and beyond a particularly claustrophobic scene in the first quarter, I never really felt any tension. I was very bored the first twenty minutes and although it picks up, the pacing is nuts with far too many frenetic scenes followed by lulls. As much as I loved the setting, I was never able to care about the story or its characters. The do a reveal in the last ten minutes that totally misinterpreted because they expect us to remember stupid little things about these boring, plain characters. The Descent is decent, but it never rises above mediocrity.

Brightburn

I like the idea of Brightburn a whole lot more than the actual film. Brightburn does deliver on the promise of "What if Superman became a super-villain instead of a super-hero?" but it's far to grandiose of a story to tell in 90 minutes. Everything goes by so fast that it's easy to lose the thread. We jump from finding a baby to Brandon (the baby) being like twelve, so when things allegedly start to change (and it escalates unbelievably fast) we don't have anything to go on other than the parents saying "He's never said something like that before!" Has Brandon always been a creepy little bastard or is this new, because no one seems to notice what a fruit loop this kid is. The acting from the adult cast is great (Matt Jones and Elizabeth Banks being the best parts of the movie) but the kids are kind of awful. I loved the level of gore and how sparingly it is used makes it all the more jaw dropping (pun intended) when we get some truly R-Rated scenes. All of the big problems stem from them trying to do way too much in such a short time. We end up with a fast-forward origin story that is rushed to the point that it's hard to get lost in like I wanted to. I want more background, more explanation, and more time to let things unfold at a slower pace.

Toy Story

Well over twenty years later, Toy Story is still a benchmark not just for animated movies, but for film in general. The story is great, the voice-acting is solid with a great cast of actors, and the characters are so relatable. The only thing that doesn't hold up is the animation. Toy Story came out in 1995 and in 1995, Toy Story looked great. In 2019, the character models and locations look fine (not up to 2019 Pixar standards, but better than most Dreamworks and Illumination titles), but quite a few of the movement animations look jerky or just off. There are a few nit-picky little things (like how the RC car works in the last third of the movie and why some characters without mouths can talk but some with mouths can't) that aren't real issues, but I do have a problem with Randy Newman's soundtrack. Everytime we hear him come on, it's like the producers had Randy brought over from his trailer, put him in the sound booth and told him "Buzz just tried to fly and it didn't work. Sing something about flying" and Randy just improvs some ridiculous song off the top of his head. The only song that feels like a real song that was planned and written is "You've Got a Friend in Me". I like Randy Newman and his dopey singing voice, but his songs are too goofy for such a well crafted movie. Toy Story is still one Pixar's top three movies; even though the animation got better in every subsequent Toy Story installment, none have ever match the classic story of the first Toy Story.

Spartacus

Spartacus is a 90 minute story told over 184 minutes by a mixed bag of talent on scenic locations and terrible sets. Just to set the scene, we open with eight minutes of a black screen while the score plays. The score isn't particularly expressive (it's all pretty cheesy) so we just have to sit there until they decide we've waited long enough to see Kirk Douglas pretend to be a man in his thirties while looking like he's pushing mid-sixties against a terribly obvious painted background that makes the whole thing feel like a bad local community play. I haven't seen Kirk Douglas in anything else, so maybe he was off his game, but here he is devoid of charisma and wholly unbelievable. Because of the times, I can forgive things like the terrible fight choreography, and the scene where you can clearly see one of the swords wobble and bend because it is obviously not metal, but I can't forgive how much time it wastes. Beyond the 8 minutes of blank screen (which we get a second time after the intermission) there is a large "epic" battle scene where we spend almost ten minutes watching one of the armies slowly march around in until they get into position. It doesn't work to build tension, only frustration as we watch the troops march and march and march and then stand still for ten minutes. There are far too many scenes where we have to sit through Spartacus and his love interest stare at each other with no chemistry. The side characters are far more interesting. All of the politicians and Batiatus (owner of the gladiator camp Spartacus is from) are acted perfectly and have much more screen presence than any of the actual main characters. The story is fine at its core, but it's far too drawn out and I never felt any connection to Spartacus. Honestly, they only character I actually liked was Batiatus and he is probably a villain. There is no clear timeline, too many terrible performances (Jean Simmons is easily the worst. Gene Simmons could have done better), it's way too long, and it doesn't hold up. Maybe Spartacus is a product of the 60's, but in 2019 it just doesn't work.

The Ring Two

The Ring could have easily been a stand alone movie; there is no reason for The Ring Two to exist. The Ring wasn't a perfect film, but its sequel easily qualifies for one of the most disappointing follow-ups. The story is very scaled back, kind of confusing, and honestly, pretty boring. The entire opening scene has no reason to be in the movie and it only gets worse from there. The acting is about the same as the first, with Watts being hit or miss and the kid being a creepy little guy the entire time. They add in some really great actors (Sissy Spacek, Simon Baker, and Elizabeth Perkins) but none of them are around long enough to elevate the film. There are so many stupid little errors and inconsistencies that add up to a drawn out story that feels incredibly lazy and unpolished. They don't seem to know that you have to fill and empty syringe for whatever liquid to get inside and they are definitely not entirely sure how Samara works in their universe. It's a waste of two hours; I wouldn't bother.

The Conjuring 2

If I was compiling a list of things that the first Conjuring movie was missing, I certainly would not have listed melodrama, pointless side characters and a musical number. While I can't exactly say that I liked the first one, at least it was okay. The Conjuring 2 almost seems like a parody of the first one, doubling down on the mythos of the Warrens and amping up the level of pure ridiculousness. Again we get the "Base on a true story" title card, but this time they have the audacity to constantly have skeptics voice their disbelief or want for proof and the Warrens give some snide remark that I guess we are supposed to find funny. One asks which is worse, the "demons" or those that pretend to believe in them to scam gullible people out of their money, to which Lorraine responds quickly and dryly "The Demons. The Demons are worse." They even open with a quick little set of scenes about the investigation of the Amityville House (we don't actually get any stuff in the house, that would have been just too interesting) with a television interview where another skeptic dare to question the Warrens and they lash back asking why anyone would fake paranormal and demonic activity and that they are only trying to help people. If I put aside how ridiculous it is for the movie to try and paint its events as real and not complete fabrications and view it just as a movie with no context, it is a technically fine film filled with unlikable characters, terrible effects, a boring story, and stuffed with unnecessary and distracting story threads that are clearly just openings for future spin-off films. The movie spends way too long on the Warren family and not enough on the actual appeal of the film, the actual horror element. I don't want to see Ed play guitar and sing an entire Elvis song. I don't care about the school bully. The relationship between Ed and Lorraine is not why I am watching a horror movie. There are way too many scenes that only exist to play a sad song to try and manipulate out feelings that the poorly inserted melodrama can't muster. They spend way too much time trying to make secondary villains out of characters who want actual proof and not just the word of two charlatans and a little girl. One of the biggest strengths of the first movie was how simple and streamlined the story was, at least the story of the "haunting". The Conjuring 2 is willing to sacrifice that in order to be a backdoor for new movie franchises, made much worse by the fact that the appearance of these two characters makes no sense. The worse of the two is a hilariously bad CGI monster that has no reason to be involved in the haunting, let alone the movie. Really, the unintentionally hilarious moments outnumber the tense and/or scary ones by a large number. The CGI monster is the absolute worst effect, but there are plenty of others. The acting is fine, I guess, and the lighting, sound, and directing weren't issues, but that's about the breadth of the positives. There is nothing new or innovative. The story is a mess of nonsense smothered over a "haunting" that isn't particularly eventful. Even if I eliminate the entire idea of the claim that it's "based on a true story" we are still left with an underwhelming and uneventful story that is padded with uninteresting family and relationship drama and time-wasting side stories about how tired Lorraine is of people not taking her seriously. If we trimmed out all that, we could have an average 90 minute popcorn horror movie, but The Conjuring 2 is 134 minutes of self-importance and cheese.