Movie Scum

Remember way back when Michael Bay wasn’t responsible for teenaged-fantasy films of semi-nudity, explosions, and gratuitous slow-mo? Yeah, me neither.

Well damn if Sinister isn’t a gut punch, even for hardened horror fans like myself. Sinister carries similar traits as other Blumhouse Productions such as Paranormal Activity or Insidious. Blumhouse films tend to be far more suspense than horror, using fear, dread, and general anxiousness over stupid, vapid villains and unearned jumpscares. Sinister , focusing on a true crime author who finds himself way in over his head in horrendous crimes against families follows suit. And it’s probably one of the better horror films to come out this decade. Ethan Hawke is Ellison Oswalt , the aforementioned writer, who is so desperate for a hit that he uproots his family and moves them into a house where the previous occupants were suspended from a hanging tree limb for quite a while. Of course, Oswalt, being the good caregiver he is, declines to tell his family they are living in the murder capital of their quite county. Oswalt stumbles upon a box in his new attic innocuously marked “Hom

Hell hath no fury like a dog owner scorned. Harkening back to uber-violent action films of the 80s and 90s, Keanu Reeves as titular character John Wick is cold, calm, collected, and quite badass assassin as he single-handedly takes down an entire underground syndicate and the crime boss Tarasov’s son kills Wick’s dog while stealing his car. Being that the dog was a gift was his late wife, Wick does not take this too well and soon is running around whatever unnamed metropolis decimating the legions of bad guys working for Tarasov who are protecting his son. While he typically gets much grief for his limited range and acting abilities, Reeves absolutely shines here as the withdrawn, broken Wick. Many fight scenes and shootouts occur during the film where Wick executes those in his way in a cold, brutal fashion and Reeves looks mighty creepy with his blank, emotionless face while pulling the trigger point-blank at a man. Co-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch make what

Zombeavers   has no business being as good as it is. Stop me if you’ve heard this premise before. A group of horny co-eds go to an empty cabin in the middle of nowhere and are picked off one-by-one by some gruesome, unstoppable force of nature. Since this basic gist describes the vast majority of horror films produced in the 80s so you’d be forgiven if your appetite wasn’t enthusiastically whetted. However, where before we had masked psychopaths with questionable parental supervision, here we have killer beavers. More specifically zombified killer beavers. It’s fantastic. Co-screenwriter/director Jordan Rubin is clearly well versed in the tropes of the horror films of yore. We have our batch of easily disposable victims, simple and close-minded locals that no one pays attention to, and gloriously cheesy practical effects when the ZOMBEAVERS come knocking (and chewing) at the door. I was reminded of Adam Green’s Hatchet   while watching this as it is an attempt to recreate the h

As N ick Offerman ’s character says in 22 Jump Street , no one gave a shit about the “Jump Street reboot” but it did well enough to be brought back again. Only everyone wants the exact same thing. Fortunately, this movie is smarter than to retread standard sequel ground. After a illegal goods bust gone bad, Jenko ( Channing Tatum ) and Schmidt ( Jonah Hill ) are reassigned back to the Jump Street project, still under the direction of the angry black captain Dickson played by Ice Cube, to go undercover to college and investigate a new synthetic drug. Everyone emphasizes that Schmidt and Jenko are to do the exact same thing to crack the case. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know well enough that standard sequel shenanigans won’t cut it after the meta-infused original that skewered the idea of Hollywood recycling and unoriginal ideas. As such, Lord and Miller turn their attention to the notion of second outings, and their built-in expectations of more of the first film

In a grim look a at teenager’s life, White Rabbit shows that some people are born to be hunters and some are molded that way. Tim McCann ’s film is at times not predicable and at others you can completely see everything unfold. Beginning with Harlon ( Nick Krause ) as a boy whose father eggs him into killing a trapped white rabbit and jumping forward through the years to show the systematic abuse he suffers from classmates, teachers, and even his own drug-addled and drunk father, it is clear that Harlon is not emotionally stable. Couple this with his obsession with a comic book that he speaks to, Harlon has little in his life of note with the exception of Steve, a younger boy also forced to suffer at the hands of society. Things begin to get better when Harlon meets Julie ( Britt Robertson ), a new transplant into his high school who has issues of her own but the two forge a bond and almost a relationship through alcohol, drugs, and shooting guns in the small town. Soon though,

This movie demonstrates that family get-togethers can in fact get worse. You’re Next is reminiscent of a lot of other recent films like The Purge or The Strangers with a group of people (a rather large one this time around) trapped in their home, being picked off by villainous folks outside. For their 35th wedding anniversary, Paul and Aubrey invite their four adult kids and their respective significant others to their country house to celebrate. They should have known that was the beginning of their downfall. The film does an excellent job of establishing the characters in the scant minutes available before the carnage begins with some friendly banter between brothers, a nice exchange with the patriarch, and the interrogation of the siblings’ significant others. But all hell breaks loose when cross-bow arrows come flying into the family dinning room as they continue arguing over .... whatever siblings are wont to argue about. This quickly turns the mood from frustratingly hila

Considering the first film came out over twenty years ago, you would think that Dumb and Dumber To would have something new-ish to bring to the table. You would be wrong. For our main protagonists, Lloyd ( Jim Carrey ) and Harry ( Jeff Daniels ), nothing much has changed in twenty years. They are still the same immature, adolescent goofballs that they have always been. Even though Lloyd spends two decades in assisted living faking a comatose state, once the two are reunited, it is like nothing has changed. With the same dingy apartment, the same blind, bird-obsessed neighborhood boy, and the complete lack of any and all cognitive thinking, Lloyd and Harry are basically in the same place that they were at the beginning of the first film. Perhaps not shockingly then, Dumber To follows mostly the same beats to get the boys out on the road to find someone wherein all sorts of hijinks will occur. In this case, it is Harry who is driven to go cross-country from Maryland to Texas to

If there was ever a movie at odds with itself, The Kingdom is it. Released in 2007, Peter Berg ’s film about an attack on Americans living in Saudi Arabia likes to attempt straddling the line between political thriller and mindless action film. The story written by Matthew Michael Carnahan seems to try delving deeper into the social and political ramifications of Americans killed abroad and the subsequent FBI investigative team sent but is constantly undercut by half-handed dialogue and shoot-’em-up scenes to keep it from becoming “boring.” Most jarring is the third act of the film which changes from a milquetoast Tom Clancy novel into a milquetoast Tom Clancy novel-based film in which the main team, led by the quite charismatic Jamie Foxx , is pulled into a rugged Saudi neighborhood with machine guns and RPGs apparently just laying around. After an hour and a half of diplomacy and some sense of restraint, the film pivots into a full out action, go ‘Murica type of film. Othe

For a movie to combine the fears of old age, Alzheimer's disease, child abduction, and murder must have been a nightmare to pull off. The Taking of Deborah Logan manages all that and more in spades. In honesty, I was perusing Netflix last night, just aimlessly looking but especially focusing on horror movies that may or may not be crap. I almost watched Event Horizon again. But the image and synopsis for Deborah Logan drew me in. Now, after being able to watch it kid-free, I am quite glad I stumbled upon it. At first, I was dismayed at the "found footage" nature of the film. After all, since The Blair Witch Project came out almost two decades ago, almost every other horror movie has used that effect in one way or another. But surprisingly, it works well here. Sarah Logan, tasked with caring after her mother who is showing symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease, is approached by a group of students studying the disease to help and film the progress. Of course, not

If you would have asked me six months ago about the 21 Jump Street remake, I likely would have had a pained look on my face paired with an enthusiastic thumbs down. I wouldn't have been the only one as #pbf remarked in his rant just prior to its release. As the premiere grew closer and I kept seeing more trailers and clips, I felt a small glimmer of hope that it could actually be good. Yes, even with Duke himself, Channing Tatum , playing a lead role. I can't say I am a fan of the originating series but nor am I a foe. Given that I was five when it premiered and never caught it in reruns, I was not as perturbed at the piggy-backing on a famous name as some. Yet, like most in the movie-watching world, I am leery and over saturated with crap movies churned out simply because they ride the coattails of nostalgia. Thankfully, I believe Jonah Hill and writer Michael Bacall share that sentiment as Jump Street is not just an empty box office cash-grab for the fans of a nearly

There are not too many positive examples of video-game-to-film transitions that you can point to. Some, like the first Resident Evil movie, are spun off from their console counterparts into a mediocre cinema treat that is begging to be forgotten after you’ve concluded watching it. Others are rancid piles of feces. Heavenly Sword: The Movie (based on the hit interactive graphic adventure!) falls more toward the former than the latter. It is not however without its own issues. About six weeks ago, Kenny asked me to review this film. Having never even heard of the game before, I was reluctant to take part for fear that it catered solely toward those already familiar with the premise. Having read the film’s summary on Wikipedia, I realized that it did a fine job in conveying some of the more important points but due to the necessary truncation, some elements were not as fleshed out as I would have preferred. I blame Todd Farmer, writer of the interstellar juggernaut Jason X. Heavenly

As one half of 2013′s dueling White House under siege films, Olympus Has Fallen is so patently absurd that it is borderline offensive. From the opening frame of the film, the story apparently takes place in a fictitious universe that lacks any common sense of terrorist attacks, tactical ability, or even the best way of not dying from automatic machine gun fire. But even though it is stupid enough to make your eyes bleed, this is way better than it has any right to be.

Somewhere between Peter Weller deciding to hand over the RoboCop suit to Robert John Burke , the big wigs at OCP, or whatever big business in charge, decided that RoboCop needed to be more family friendly, thus leading to the first PG-13 film in the series. Never mind the fact that the original is a gory mess, even for an 80s movie, and the sequel probably expended more rounds than the Persian War, some damn parental board decided RoboCop should be a corporate product complete with action figures and cars and even it’s own spin-off TV show not too much later. Hence: RoboCop 3 . Since the last installment, old Detroit has gone to shit even more, OCP has merged with some Japanese company, and a military-esque team is brought in to force them damn ghetto people out by force for the construction of OCP’s idealistic Delta City. Luckily the ragtag team of CCH Pounder , Stephen Root , Daniel von Bargen , and a cute, smart displaced girl with uncanny computer skills decide to fight the pr

It’s almost funny that Irvin Kershner , director of the undisputed best Star Wars movie, was tapped as the director of RoboCop 2 . While I can’t say I’ve seen any of his other works, he seems to be the studio-appointed and restrained errand boy as opposed to Verhoeven on the original. So naturally with the law of sequels, RoboCop 2 features most of the same players but with a bigger foe in the titular character. Stripped of its social and historical allusions, RoboCop 2 is just another sequel that attempts to up the ante with less else new to offer as the evil conglomerate OCP attempts to recreate RoboCop from a psychotic drug dealer. Surprisingly things don’t work out as planned which fortunately leads to one of the best police shootouts on film. But instead of the heroic journey that Murphy endures in the original, here he is sidelined and neutered. Even though the finale of the last film had Peter Weller’s character realizing he is more than simply a corporate product of dest

With the release of the newest RoboCop reboot trailer which I must say has me intrigued, I wanted to officially revisit the original of which I've seen approximately 413 times. While the argument can be made for just about any remake, RoboCop is one of the few "old" movies that has more cultural relevance today than it did upon it's release. Big conglomerates, similar to OCP, are basically running the United States; the city of Detroit is bankrupt and probably will snap up any corporate sponsor it can, and between drones and the NSA and everything else we know nothing about, technology seems to be far outpacing our ability to harness it. If it sounds like I am paranoid, I am (not really at least). But basically all of this was foretold twenty-six years ago with arguably Paul Verhoeven 's most complex film, excluding Jesse Spano in her Showgirls stage. Much like many of the age-inappropriate movies I consumed under the age of 10, the themes and allusions o

From the jump, World War Z has been plagued with problems. From ire among fans of the book that the film takes the title, but little else from, to the well-publicized production and budget woes, to last minute reshoots, the writing on the wall indicated that this would be a disaster. Yet somehow, in spite of a title that is still very divisive, a director who is not quite known for his action directing abilities, and a "family-friendly" PG-13 rating, World War Z is actually a pretty solid film and juggernaut at the box office. I'm sure we'll see the sequel World War Double-Z in 2016.

If you ever wondered if the 'found footage' genre would graduate from horror into loftier pursuits (Chronicle notwithstanding), End of Watch might be the film for you. At least, sort of. I was sold on a gritty cop film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña with the aforementioned style but the end result was less than impressive. Imagine COPS: The Movie with attractive actors, love interests, and a big bad in the form of a very shallow drug kingpin and you have the idea.  Gyllenhaal and Pena are two almost-rogue LA cops who manage to get entangled into more shootouts and busts than Riggs and Murtaugh with even more chatty banter but less characterization. As a result of them sticking their noses into a drug war, the two are (eventually) drawn into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles that permeates almost every other film by David Ayer . Like the "found footage" angle that is more easily explained by having an invisible cameraman, the film suffers from havin

It seems that since the terrorist attacks in 2001 and the following wars in Iraq and Afganistan, more and more movies and television shows were produced with elements of Middle East tension, a terrorist mastermind, questionable intelligence, or some combination of the above. With the eventual onslaught of bad news from the frontlines of the war and the sheer amount of pop culture fashioned around these modern storytelling tropes, it is easy to grow tired of that trend no matter your innate desire to watch Jack Bauer use "enhanced interrogation" methods. But Zero Dark Thirty 's theoretical trump card of a "realistic" portrayal of the hunt for Osama bin Laden is too little, too late, and especially too rough around the edges for the already crowded geopolitical subgenre.

Written by: Tabitha Johnson Saying this is the best of the ‘Saga’ isn’t wrong but being the best at an unflattering project is not that big of a compliment. I was not so excited about going to see the film but I placed all my grudges aside. And I was not completely disappointed.