Tag Archives: horror movie review

Apr 30 2023

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Smile

Smile (2022)
Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner, Jessie T Usher, Robin Weigert, Gillian Zinser, Jack Sochet, Rob Morgan, Caitlin Stasey, and Kal Penn
Directed by: Parker Finn

smile

Have you seen It Follows? Have you seen The Ring? Then you’ve seen Smile.

Rose Cotter is a seemingly workaholic therapist in an emergency mental hospital. Once day she gets a severely disturbed young lady as a patient who tells Rose that something is following her, smiling at her, telling her she’s going to die. Then she kills herself right in front of Rose, while smiling. From that point on, Rose herself becomes convinced that whatever had been following her patient is now following her.

I can’t tell you the amount of times I almost turned this film off. After a long spell of nothing happening. After the 20th jump-scare. But I decided to go through to the end, and while it did slowly get a bit better, I still feel like I wasted my time. Speaking of time, the film was just shy of 2 hours long, but to me, it felt like I was watching it for 6 hours. 30 minutes could have easily been shaved off this thing to make it more palatable. 

SPOILERS INCOMING

My biggest problem with this was probably the acting. Most of it was ok, but the lead was atrocious. And if I’d played a drinking game for every time she licked her lips, I’d have gotten alcohol poisoning. There’s also the famous suspension of disbelief, which already needs to be high for a horror movie, but come on. A string 20 people long of person witnesses suicide-person commits suicide in front of someone-that person commits suicide in front of someone-that person commits… you get my point. And no one noticed? No cops, no doctors, no reporters, no one? I also knew what was going to happen in the end, way before it happened. I had a thought that maybe she was going to defeat it by killing herself while she was alone, but then I thought, nah, this is a “bad guy wins” kinda film. And what do you know, I was right. And as a metaphor for childhood trauma, btw, having the bad guy win just says you can’t ever get over trauma and it’ll destroy you.

So. I didn’t absolutely hate it, but I didn’t really like it either. Which is a shame, cause it had the beginnings of a good idea. I’ll give it a 4.5/10, that little extra going to Kyle Gallner, who I’ve liked in everything I’ve seen him in.

M.

This film is available for rent and purchase on YouTube and Amazon Prime.

Jun 2 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Annabelle

Annabelle
(2014) Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola, Eric Ladin, Joseph Bishara

Annabelle film still

Ah, what a sad disappointment this was. Especially since The Conjuring was so good. The doll was massively creepy in that film, but only ugly in this one. Most of the actors were alright, but Annabelle Wallis was downright difficult to watch sometimes, emotionless save for a look on her face that looks like she’s desperately trying to remember her lines. The story was so generic that it almost hurt, and far from being creepy, that demon was just funny. The film had a few good, tense scenes, but on the whole, was mostly a yawn-fest. And it gets an equally dull score from me, a very meh 5/10. Avoid unless you really have a hard on for possessed dolls.

This film is not currently playing on Netflix.

M.

May 4 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Solstice

Solstice
(2008) Elisabeth Harnois, Shawn Ashmore, Amanda Seyfried, Hilarie Burton, Matt O’Leary, Tyler Hoechlin, R Lee Ermey, Jenna Hildebrand

solstice

SPOILERS AHEAD

Sigh… so it was the boyfriend. Just as I figured it would be from the beginning. They really need to move away from this cliché. It’s worn out its welcome. Years ago, it would have been the creepy old guy, but that’s changed too. Now the creepy old guy is invariably a nice guy who just had something awful happen to him to explain his weird behaviour. Case in point, this weird guy had a grand daughter go missing. Besides the warily predictable plot, the film isn’t bad. The acting is generally pretty good, the cast is pretty, and the location is beautiful. Although if I have to see Amanda Seyfried silently over-enunciate a word again I might have to punch her. Seriously, she did it no less than 6 times, “ohhkaayy”, “thaaank youu”, “reaaally?”. If I had a friend who constantly did that, we’d be having a few words :-p On the whole it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It gets a decent 6.5/10 from me.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix UK.

M.

Feb 15 2014

Mel’s 5 Second Review: American Mary

American Mary
(2013) Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk, David Lovgren and Paula Lindberg

Image

I wasn’t sure what to expect while going into this film. I’m not a fan of the so-called torture-porn, and while I had heard good things about this film, I didn’t know if it was going to be graphic about the surgeries. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad at all, which allowed me to enjoy the rest of the film. Katharine Isabelle is wonderful as Mary, who starts out so apple pie, but quickly goes a little mad after being raped by her professor. I was a little disappointed by the ending, which is why it got 8.5 stars instead of the 9 or 9.5 I thought I’d give it. It just felt slapped on and rushed, like the Soska sisters just decided to say “Ok, bored now, wrap this up”. Despite that, it was a very entertaining film. I give it a solid 8.5/10.

The film is currently streaming on Netflix. Have a bloody good time!

 

M.

Feb 1 2014

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Cujo

Cujo
(1983) Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh Kelly, and Christopher Stone

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Cujo, the book, was awesome and scary and tense. A brilliant read. Cujo, the movie, bored me to tears. I almost fell asleep. When the majority of what’s written in the book is happening inside the character’s head, that’s a good indication that it probably won’t be a great movie. It was 93 minutes long, but it felt like 3 hours. If I’m lucky, I won’t ever have to watch this again. 1/10, and that’s just because I love Stephen King.

This film is not streaming on Netflix, but I imagine that you could rent it in a real video store, if you care to be bored.

Oh, here, I found the full film on YouTube… in German. It may be better like that. Enjoy ;-p

 

M.

Jan 28 2014

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Introduction and Hellraiser

So, I figured I’d try out a regular, daily post. But since I don’t want to spend hours on it every single day, I needed it to be something that I could do quickly, but would still be interesting. So I decided to review movies. Movies from any year, not just the new releases. It could be a film as old as film itself, or it could be a film that was released yesterday. The only rule is that it shouldn’t take you any longer than a minute to read, a minute or less. Hence the title: 5 Second Review. Of course I know a minute is longer than 5 seconds, but really, who needs to be so literal in life? For my first review, I’m going for a film that I’ve done nothing but bash since the first time saw it, more than 10 years ago; Hellraiser, based on the Clive Barker masterpiece, The Hellbound Heart.

Hellraiser
(1987) Ashley Laurence, Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Sean Chapman, Doug Bradley, Oliver Smith and Robert Hines

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Alright, so I have to admit it, Hellraiser is nowhere near as bad as I remember. That said, it’s still not the masterpiece everyone heralds it as. It’s, simply, a good movie. Although why they turned Kirsty into Larry’s daughter instead of being his ex is beyond me. It added nothing to the story. And why is he called Larry, anyways? His name was Rory. Also, I think they should have had the Cenobytes respect their bargain with Kirsty, as they did in the book, instead of trying to take her too. They may be demons, but they had their own sort of honour. Hopefully the remake will stick even closer to the book. In case you’ve never seen it, I do recommend it for any fans of the horror genre, and since I’m so nice, I found a full copy for you to watch. Aren’t I sweet?

And that’s today’s 5 Second Review. I’ll keep them coming every day from now on. Hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for more!

M.