Tag Archives: mini movie reviews

May 5 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: As Above, So Below

As Above, So Below (2014)
Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, François Civil, Edwin Hodge, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar, Cosme Castro
Directed by: John Erick Dowdle

This movie has been on my radar for a good while now, but I never quite got around to it. I generally don’t like found footage films, so that was probably the big reason I didn’t see it. But after seeing a YouTuber I like watching gush about it a few times, I decided to give it a go. And boy, do I kinda feel dumb now.

A team of explorers ventures into the forbidden areas of the Catacombs of Paris looking for the fabled Philosopher’s Stone and come to realize that not all is as it seems.

First, I gotta get the bad out of the way. There were some severely shaky cam moments that I really didn’t enjoy. A lot of shaky cam makes me nauseous. Thankfully, there wasn’t too much of it. And really, that’s all the bad I can say about this film. It was pretty awesome. The acting is usually pretty sketchy in these types of movies, but the cast all did a really good job. The film was actually filmed in the Catacombs, which is both awesome and creepy at the same time. I’d love to visit that one of these days. As a cool bit of trivia, this was the first ever production that secured permission from the French government to film in the Paris Catacombs, both in the public and in the off-limits area. They got permission the night before shooting began.

SPOILERS INCOMING

So after the group actually finds the stone, and a lot of other treasure, it triggers a trap that causes a cave in. The group are forced to go even deeper into the underground, and that’s when shit really starts to get weird. I loved the slowly unravelling mystery of what was going on, and when we finally see the inscription “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” I knew I was in for something special. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. Hell has been depicted many ways over the decades, but I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s such a great idea, being literally what’s in the title of the film. The idea that you’re in a hell of your own making, and only facing your trauma can set you free has been done before (very well in the wonderful film What Dreams May Come), but not quite like this. So if the only thing keeping you from watching this is the fact that it’s a found footage film, I can assure you that it’s such a good film that it makes the found footage element barely an issue.

So, do I recommend it? In case I haven’t made it clear yet, yes yes yes. Absolutely wonderful, it gets a 9/10 from me. It might have been a 10 if it hadn’t been found footage. Go watch it, now!

M.

This film is not currently streaming anywhere, but is available for rental or purchase on YouTube or Amazon Prime.

Apr 21 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Color Out of Space

Color Out of Space (2019)
Nicolas Cage, Madeleine Arthur, Joely Richardson, Brendan Meyer, Julian Hilliard, Elliot Knight, Tommy Chong, Josh C Waller
Directed by: Richard Stanley

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see this one, which I guess is why it took so long for me to decide to watch. But I’m very glad I did.

The Gardner family lives on a remote farm. One night a meteor falls from the sky in a flash of light. The consequences of this might just be apocalyptic.

I’m generally not a fan of Nic Cage going nuts. I read the story this movie was based on, and didn’t think it would benefit from a Cage-ian meltdown (or 5). But I’m glad I finally watched it, it was quite good. Cage actually delivers what, for him, is a very subdued performance… for the first half anyways. He gets progressively more unhinged as the movie goes on, but in context, it really works. He’s supposed to be slowly losing his mind, and no one does that better than Cage.

The film looks beautiful. They decided on a stunning shade of pink for the actual colour, and it’s not a colour generally found in nature, so it gave everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when it was flying around. I have to give the movie major props for not trying to explain the colour, either. Lovecraft’s work is mostly about the unknown and unknowable, and this movie beautifully captured this. The colour simply was, no explanation needed. Actually, this movie has to be the most Lovecraftian Lovecraft adaptation I’ve ever seen, and that’s impressive.

Everything in the film is quite well done. The pacing, while a little slow at first, really finds its footing in the second half. The acting is all pretty good, the characters believable. The makeup and gore effects were pretty amazing, too. I won’t go too much into it, just in case anyone else hasn’t seen it yet and my review helps them wants to, but suffice to say the practical effects are on full glorious display and I was totally there for it.

So, do I recommend it? If you’re a fan of Lovecraft, yes, absolutely. If you need explications for things, you may not like it. Me? I give it a very good 8/10.

M.

This movie isn’t streaming anywhere (in Canada) right now, but it’s available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and YouTube.

ps: it was really hard for me to write the title as “Color”…

Apr 20 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Annabelle Comes Home

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Michael Cimino, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson
Directed by: Gary Dauberman

I was so excited when the first Annabelle movie came out because I’m such a big fan of the Conjuring franchise. And then I saw it and all the wind came out of my sails cause it sucked. Bad. So when this one came out, I had no intentions of watching yet another crappy spin-off. But I’m glad I finally did. It’s a good time.

Ed and Lorraine Warren bring the evil Annabelle doll to their house to contain the evil inside a glass case. But when the Warrens leave for the weekend and leave their young daughter Judy with a babysitter, the evil is accidentally unleashed to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting teens.

I had zero expectations going into this film. And while it doesn’t recreate the wheel or anything, it’s still fun. All the acting was good, which is always a bonus in horror movies. The plot, while slightly predictable and formulaic, was still good. It takes a while setting up the characters, so you actually care about them when shit starts to go south. There’s some decent atmosphere going on and, while not really scary, it’s still fun in its intensity. And they got me once with a very loud jump-scare. Usually I can tell they’re coming from a mile away, but this one got me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Well played, Annabelle Comes Home, well played. I will dock them a point for reusing a scare from The Conjuring 2, though. It would have been effective had we not seen it before.

Everything else was on par with what I’ve come to expect from a Conjuring movie. The makeup was really well done, it had some creepy set pieces, and it was nicely shot. And Joseph Bishara played the hell out of his strings, as per usual.

So, do I recommend it? Sure, with the caveat that you have to be a fan of the franchise. I’m not sure how much enjoyment one would get out of it if they weren’t already familiar with the characters and the world since the film doesn’t take much time to explain it. As for me, I give it a good 7/10. I had fun with it. Grab your popcorn and enjoy!

M.

This movie is not currently streaming anywhere (in Canada), but you can purchase or rent it from Amazon Prime or YouTube.

Apr 10 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Woman in the Yard

The Woman in the Yard (2025)
Danielle Deadwyler, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, Okwui Okpokwasili, Russell Hornsby
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra

I’m always weary about Blumhouse pictures. They can be really good, but they can also be total shite. This one seems to fall somewhere in the middle.

When a mysterious woman giving cryptic warnings appears in the yard of a recently widowed mother of 2 children, she must fight the ever-increasing threat the woman poses.

Grief as horror is a slightly tired trope by now, but there’s no denying that if it’s done right, it can pack a punch. This one doesn’t quite get there. The acting was mostly ok except for a few scenes with the youngest daughter doing her impression of a block of wood. But a good quarter, maybe more, of the film is literally just the mother telling her son not to do something and him ignoring her. It got real old, real fast. The Woman does cut an imposing figure, but this is a PG-13 film, so there’s not much horror to be had. It’s mostly a psychological drama with some supernatural elements.

SPOILERS INCOMING (and trigger warning: suicide)

I had guessed at the beginning of the film that the mother was the woman, at least part of the time. Having her be an extension of the mother’s grief could have been a good idea in the hands of a better filmmaker. And I wasn’t a fan of the end. Now I’ve seen other people say that because the painting was so big and the backwards writing was so small that she didn’t kill herself, but the grief is still there, just under control. But most people, myself included, think that she did pull that trigger and this is either heaven or her mind just before she dies. Which is HORRIBLE. As someone who’s had severe depression and suicidal thoughts, this movie is borderline irresponsible in saying that her happy ending was at the end of a gun. The suicide prevention blurb at the end of the film was not enough to undo that.

So do I recommend it? Meh, not really, unless you’re a Blumhouse completionist. It gets a very mid 5/10 from me.

M.

This film is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Apr 9 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Vigil

The Vigil (2019)
Dave Davis, Menashe Lustig, Lynn Cohen, Malky Goldman, Ronald Cohen, Fred Melamed (v.o.)
Directed by: Keith Thomas

This movie had been in my Shudder watchlist for literal years. I just never watched it. I finally did and it wasn’t really anything special.

A man providing overnight watch to a deceased member of his former Orthodox Jewish community finds himself opposite a malevolent entity.

So first, I know absolutely nothing about Jewish culture. I got the basic drift of what was happening though. The film is half in Hebrew, so there’s some subtitles to read. The biggest problem I had with the film is that everything was always so slow. The man’s reaction times to things that are happening seems to be stretched out. Static shots on something that might move (i.e. is that body going to move?) were really really long. It felt almost like the filmmakers were trying to pad the runtime of the film. It clocks in at 89 minutes, so maybe they felt that by doing this, they’d have a decent runtime. But it just made most of the movie unbearably boring most of the time.

The acting was fine, nothing special, but fine. The makeup, however, was pretty bad. The demon hands you see near the end of the film were laughable. I don’t know if they meant to have it look so DIY, but it really does look like something I could make in my basement. It was competently shot, except of course the aforementioned long shots. I will give it credit for an interesting idea, though. A demon that feeds on pain could make a great movie. Just not this one.

So do I recommend it? Not really. There’s nothing here that I’d really say needs to be seen. Best to skip this one. It gets a 4/10 from me.

M.

This film is currently streaming on Shudder and Amazon Prime.

Mar 31 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Mortuary Assistant

The Mortuary Assistant (2026)
Willa Holland, Paul Sparks, John Adams, Keena Ferguson Frasier, Mark Steger, Emily Bennett
Directed by: Jeremiah Kipp

This movie just dropped on Shudder a few days ago. I had no idea what it was, and the blurb made it sound like a generic possession film, with the same basic premise as The Possession of Hannah Grace. But since I’m a sucker for possession films, I decided to give it a go. And oh boy…

Rebecca is a newly appointed mortician and gets a call from her boss that he needs her for a night shift. When she arrives, strange things begin to happen, and she finds herself in a life-or-death struggle with a demon.

I’d heard this was based on a video game before watching it. But since I’d had a good time with Until Dawn recently, I decided to give this one a go. What a mistake. This film is awful, bordering on embarrassing. The lead gave such a one-note performance, and the man who played her boss was literally made out of wood. It was a confused, jumbled mess, with scenes that had nothing to do with each kind of stitched together. I don’t need every little thing spelled out for me in a film, but a little would be nice. Even the exposition dump that we got didn’t explain anything. I imagine that if I’d played the game, I might have understood a bit of what was going on. But you shouldn’t have to have played the game to understand the film. The film should stand on its own. I will give credit where credit is due, however. The makeup and gore effects were top notch. Too bad they were in such a turd of a film.

So do I recommend it? No, absolutely not. What a waste of my time. 3/10

M.

This film is currently streaming on Shudder.

Mar 14 2026

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Night House

The Night House (2020)
Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Evan Jonigkeit, Stacy Martin
Directed by: David Bruckner

This movie has been on my Disney+ watchlist since it arrived on the platform. I’ve been really wanting to see it but never seemed to get around to it. I finally did and, well, I’m not sure how I feel about it.

A recently widowed woman comes to think her house is haunted, but is it really her husband?

I didn’t dislike the movie, let’s get that out of the way. I liked it, I think. It was definitely more of a slow burn, but not in a bad way, I was never bored. But I don’t know, there was just something that felt a little off. I think it might have a lot to do with Rebecca Hall’s performance. While not bad, the character just seemed.. off? I’m not sure if that was intentional, or if it’s just something that I imagined, but I didn’t care a whole lot about her because of it.

SPOILERS INCOMING

Although, to be fair, I don’t know how I would react if first, my husband commits suicide seemingly out of the blue and second, has some pretty awful secrets. So maybe she’s not acting weird at all. I did enjoy the end. I’ve seen some others say that it was lacking, but I thought it fit the tone of the rest of the film. There’s a nice sense of dread that permeates the entire film, which is nice. Also, how cute is Evan Jonigkeit as the husband? My goodness. He’s got odd features, but they work.

So, do I recommend it? I do, if slow burn ghost stories are your bag. It gets a pretty good 7.5/10 from me.

M.

Nov 13 2025

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Frankenstein

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Frankenstein (2025)
Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, David Bradley, Lars Mikkelsen, and Charles Dance
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro

So, for me, del Toro films are hit and miss. They’re always a visual treat, but sometimes the story just falls a little flat for me. So I didn’t know what to expect when I saw that he was remaking Frankenstein, a story that’s been done so many times already. But believe me, this one is worth the watch.

After losing his mother as a child, young Victor vows to conquer death. He follows in his father’s footsteps, and becomes a brilliant surgeon. He is approached by a man who offers to fund his research, and bring a man back to life.

This film is, of course, sumptuous and beautiful. Every little detail is perfect, the costumes, the locations, everything. Oh! And the makeup! The Creature is stunning! I saw in an interview that the full body application took 11 hours. Can you imagine?? And then the actor has to work all day! When does he sleep? But I digress… Big props to makeup artist Mike Hill and his team, wonderful work!

The film feels like a fairy tale, albeit a dark one. It’s a little gory at times, but never so much that it made me ill (except for the scene with some wolves, I literally cringed and tried to push myself into the couch. I know they weren’t real animals, but I still wish that wasn’t in there, or at least not so graphic). The acting was all superb. Oscar Isaac was fantastic, if a little manic, as the arrogant Victor. Mia Goth was beautiful and full of nuance as Elizabeth. And Christoph Waltz was amazing, as usual. But the standout for me was Jacob Elordi. I was crazy surprised by his acting chops, I thought he was just another pretty boy actor who did a few teen films. Boy was I wrong! He’s a wonderful, very physical actor, who can say so much without saying a word. His performance as the Creature is so… I’m searching for another word besides fantastic, amazing, wonderful… he’s all of those things.

And then there’s the story. To be honest, I haven’t read Franenstein since I was a kid, and remember very little of the details, so I can’t vouch for the quality of the adaptation. But the film’s story is great. I was surprised to see that it started at what seemed the end of the story, but once Victor starts to tell his tale, it makes sense. I won’t say anything else about the story because I want people to see the film going in as blind as possible, like I did. I’d only seen the teaser trailer for it, that’s all.

So do I reccomend it? Yes, yes, and more yes. I think even if you don’t like horror in general, you’ll probably like this. It’s a 10/10 from me. A truly mesmerizing piece of film.

M.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix. Enjoy!

Jan 29 2024

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Talk to Me

Talk to Me (2022)
Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Miranda Otto, Joe Bird, Zoe Terakes, and Cookie the Dog
Directed by: Danny and Michael Philippou

Talk to Me

So I’ve been sitting here staring blankly at the screen for about half an hour. That’s never a good sign. I had heard such good things about this film from my Horror Movies Addicts Facebook page, so I decided to give it a go. I should have known better, I really should have.

Mia and Jade hear about a group of kids doing “possession parties” using an embalmed hand. They go and soon see that it’s very real. But soon Mia begins seeing things even when not in contact with the hand, and her life begins to spiral.

First the good, I suppose. It looked real nice. The sets, makeup, and cinematography were all on point. It had some good ideas, I’ve never seen a possession film quite like this one, so there’s that. The acting was mostly good, but that leads us into the not so good as well. The characters are mostly so thoroughly unlikable that it’s really hard to care if anything happens to them. I know they’re teenagers, and teens are hard to like anyways sometimes, but surely they’re not all the same? And the mom. As much as I like Miranda Otto, I could not like her here, nor get behind her parenting. I mean really.

I knew I was in for something I wouldn’t like as soon as I saw the second (of about a million, my goodness) production company logo: A24. That made movies like Hereditary, which I also hated. Such pretentious bullshit. But all in all, it had the worst sin any movie can have, not just horror: It was boring. I kept on fighting the urge to look at my phone the whole time, and that’s definitely not good.

I give it a 4/10. Watch only if you’re a big fan of A24 stuff. You’re allowed :-p

M.

Nov 17 2023

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Woody Norman, Chris Walley, Stefan Kapicic, Jon Jon Briones, Martin Furulund, Nikolai Nikolaeff, and Javier Botet
Directed by: André Øvredal

Demeter

Ok, so I went into this not knowing what to expect. I can tell you what I was hoping for though. A genuinely scary vampire film. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the various tame Dracula‘s, or even the Twilight‘s, but I wanted to be scared this time. And let me tell you, this film is almost there. Almost. The Nosferatu-esque makeup is genuinely creepy, and it moves with the creep factor that only Javier Botet (or Doug Jones, for that matter, but it’s Botet in this film) can bring. It does a good job of making the story feel claustrophobic and atmospheric. Having the whole film take place on a ship might’ve been risky, especially since it runs at 2 hours, but I was never bored. I was actually nervous for the characters, which is probably because they do a good job of setting them up, and the actors do an excellent job of portraying them.

Despite all this, the ultimate scare factor just wasn’t there. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, maybe I’ve just seen so many horror films that they leave me cold in the scares department. Or maybe it was that the kills were mostly done with cgi. The blood just doesn’t fall right when it’s not really there. I miss practical effects, but cgi can be a good companion to it when used sparingly. Unfortunately, it was not used sparingly in this film. I was still horrified at the burning scenes, but I think that has more to do with me being inherently afraid of fire than of it looking good. When makeup was really used, it was done very well, so why didn’t they… ah, never mind. Cgi is the thing now, I guess I should just get used to it.

In the end, though, I did quite enjoy the film, and would recommend it to anyone who loves vampire films like I do (Marilyn Manson’s If I Was Your Vampire popped up quite randomly on my Spotify as I write this, I’m amused). I give it a very respectable 7.5/10. 

M.

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