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We hope you enjoyed our last episode:
The MFF Podcast #62: Hush, Honeymoon and Lots of Squishy Noises
SUMMARY: Join us as we discuss James Wan’s recent impact on the horror genre, his latest work The Conjuring 2 (2016) and how it compares to his past work, and the highly debated The Witch (2016)–which we LIKED!
We answer such important questions as…
“If Gamera (or Gamora) fought Black Widow, whose ass would look best in black leather?”
“Will Norman Reedus make a good Ghost Rider?”
“Why was there never a Fifth Element sequel?”
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Night Vision (1997), Cynthia Rothrock kicks no butt at all in this terrible police action movie.
Sadly this dull poster is very honest. We basically just get these three talking about crime.
MY CALL: Weren’t there supposed to be martial arts in this? Bad. Just plain bad. Probably Cynthia Rothrock’s worst movie. MORE MOVIES LIKE Night Vision: Probably any other Cynthia Rothrock movie would be better than this. Probably…but don’t hold me to that. This is the first one I’ve seen in about two decades! LOL. But if you’re in the mood for a proper Bad Movie Tuesday I’d have to recommend you go with Dolph Lundgren, a case of beer and your best bros. Perhaps The Elementary Stylings of Kindergarten Cop 2 or Dolph Lundgren and the Curse of the Shark Lake.
I recently decided I wanted to watch a bunch of Cynthia Rothrock (China O’Brien, Undefeatable) movies. Well guess what? That’s surprisingly not easy to do. As it turns out just about none of her movies are affordable on Amazon to buy except for her late 90s direct-to-video stuff and similarly her older stuff is nowhere to be found on Amazon Video or Netflix.
Now before we get started I’m sure you’re asking yourself “but is this a classy movie, like for a date night, right?” You bet, bro! We have ample nudity in just the first three minutes (quite a bit in the first 20 minutes and peppered throughout, in fact), we have the biggest female action star of the era (and she loves wearing tights to show off her karate-kickin’ butt), and one of the biggest names in blaxploitation (Fred Williamson; From Dusk ’til Dawn). So yeah, you bet it’s classy!
Officer Dakota Smith (Fred Williamson) is an aging alcoholic recently demoted beat cop who has problems with authority and a tendency to draw his gun on fellow officers. Kristin O’Connor (Rothrock) is a cute rookie (although she was about 40 when the movie was made) on probation with a tendency to kick sassy cops in the face. It’s as if they were meant to be partners.
They team up to stop a murderer in a black van from kidnapping and killing his young victims, and videotaping the whole thing to leave a calling card taunting the police. As interesting as that already isn’t, I was saddened to realize that this movie really stars Fred Williamson a lot more than it does Cynthia Rothrock. We have the queen of martial arts and I only see her throw one kick in the first hour. Whereas the aging Williamson has his laughable alley fight in which he strains to awkwardly kick so high I was almost certain he pulled a hamstring and tackles a guy into a pile of empty cardboard boxes. By the way, has anyone actually ever seen a pile of empty cardboard boxes in an alley. My guess is, if you have, they were only there because someone was about to shoot an 80s-90s action scene there.
But hey, there’s some good to this flick. For instance, it’s scored like an action-themed porn movie (sometimes written and filmed like one, too) and it features a kooky dwarf. Perhaps the only aspect of the movie that isn’t awful is Robert Forster’s (Olympus Has Fallen, Jackie Brown) performance and the awkward fat guy having naughty relations. Speaking of which, there’s an awful lot of nude naughtiness going on. All told, we’re looking at about ten boobs in this movie.
Two oddly misleading posters. To the left, it looks like we’re getting an edgy action movie featuring Shannon Tweed. It really only features her boobs. To the right it looks like a dark mystery. Nothing dark or mysterious here.
So, I have to wonder, what is Cynthia Rothrock even doing here? She kicks one guy…ONE in the first hour! This is like casting Dolph Lundgren (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, The Expendables 2) and then not letting him break people–kind of like how Dolph Lundgren did zero punching in Shark Lake (2015). What a waste of a giant Swede! I think the low point of the movie is when Rothrock uses about five different woodwind instrument playing innuendos for a man’s penis. Trombone, flute, sliding trombone…ouch. She must have needed the money. But alas, it gets worse. Towards the end of the movie she has a terrible fight scene (no doubt limited by the complete choreographical inability of the cast of bad guys), probably the worst of her career. It made my heart sink.
Fred: “Why are you in this movie, Cynthia?
Cynthia: “I really have no idea. Now please stop holding your hand like your fondling invisible balls!”
At this point you might be thinking “hey, come on, it was the 90s–of course it sucks.” Well, you hold your horses, Youngblood. Jackie Brown, Con Air, Face/Off, Air Force One, Starship Troopers, The Edge, The Jackal, The Fifth Element, G. I. Jane, Tomorrow Never Dies and The Postman all came out in theaters the same year. Wow. Could you imagine being the person who picked Night Vision over any of these for a date night at the movies? LOL.
See this poster? ALL LIES! We see none of this, she doesn’t wear that outfit and doesn’t do that awesome vertical roundhouse kick. ALL LIES!
Watch out for the 46 minute mark for some of the worst police work EVER. Oof! These two look like they had one completely unrehearsed, site-unseen take to get it right. They look confused and they definitely don’t know how to cover one another. Later we see that no one on set knew what a gunfight should look like or how to handle a gun. These cops don’t know how to be cops. This was perhaps worse than when Dolph was a hitman who stood in one place all the time shooting people in One in the Chamber (2012). What a terrible hitman! I consulted the world Dolph Lundgren bad movie expert, Mark Hofmeyer, who confirmed for me that he never moves while shooting. Ever here of cover? Dude needs to watch Ronin (1998). I’d like to see Dolph’s hitman in a gunfight with these movie cops. What a tragedy!
Probably influenced by Sliver (1993) and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), our voyeuristic villain always seems to know exactly what our heroes are up to, going so far as to call them just to let them know that he knows where they are. Our killer likes targeting promiscuous Catholic women who can’t keep their clothes on. Evidently the videos are then sold through “crime syndicate porn channels.” I guess we’re supposed to believe that’s a thing just because they said it. Not since In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds (2011) can I recall a even a Bad Movie Tuesday so poorly written.
A pretty honest poster considering all the nudity and the general lack of worthy action.
I’m especially fond of the HUGE and luxurious apartment interiors we find within drab apartment complexes and how the little notes our criminal mastermind videographer leaves hint that this movie thinks it’s playing off Seven (1995). The film seemed to think it had a lot to say about alcoholism and adultery, but none of it was very convincing. This was wholesale stupidity presented before us with a straight face.
The director (Gil Bettman) had really only ever done some TV work and a handful of unrecognizable movies. He doesn’t seem to have a clue how to direct an action movie, or a dramatic seen… or anything. And speaking of everything he did wrong, weren’t there supposed to be martial arts in this? He cast “the queen of martial arts” didn’t give her anyone with fighting experience to face? So she just hits people, and they just get hit and don’t really do anything back. Stupid….just stupid.
Watch this for a good laugh with a buzz but do not, I repeat DO NOT watch this expecting to see a Cynthia Rothrock martial arts movie. For of all the horrible things this movie is, “that” it is not.
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MY CALL: This movie looks too cool to skip, but you should keep your expectations quite low despite the trailer quality. Lots of high fantasy presented in garbled CGI quality and fragmented storytelling. MOVIES LIKE Viy: Forbidden Empire: Perhaps Viy (1967), on which several scenes in this movie were based. This film reminded me of the dark fantasy found in The Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) or the Lord of the Rings trilogy (1978, 2001-2003) or The Hobbit trilogy (1977, 2012-2014). For older dark fantasy try Legend (1985), Willow (1988), Labyrinth (1986), The Dark Crystal (1982), Wizards (1977), The Last Unicorn (1982), The Wiz (1978) or Return to Oz (1985).
There’s something odd about the tone set by this Russian fantasy film set in 1701 Europe. From its very start it frantically darts from one story idea to another, this new character to the next, this scene to that, festooned with CGI effects and transitions that smack more of a videogame than a movie. We are bombarded by this collage of scenery and characters, complete with romantic prophecy, mortal love, an inspired inventor and explorer, some sort of horned bog creature and all manner of magic in a matter of minutes. This may strike you as something that sounds cool–but the film is not nearly as cool as the trailer.
The budget is clearly not high as indicated by the non-CGI set components, and CGI is routinely used to complement the scenery. It resembled the effects of the “clip scenes” from some horror/fantasy videogame that had amazing effects a decade ago but seems to fall short in quality today. This produces mixed feelings from this reviewer. Whereas the CGI augments the sense of high fantasy, its quality leaves me fearful that this crutch may be employed to mask other shortcomings. One such shortcoming was the atrocious English dubbing, which was more irresponsibly haphazard than that found in 1970s Kung Fu Theater. Just terrible.
Our bold explorer Dzhonatan Grin (Jason Flemyng; Hanna, X-Men: First Class) sets out to make the most accurate maps the world has ever seen using his own cartography invention. But like Gulliver or Baron von Munchausen, he has his share of misadventure. He encounters witches, foolish drunk monks, superstitious villagers and zombie wolves…but that’s the “normal” stuff. After he is commissioned to map the area surrounding a lord arrested to his land for fear of some curse, the locals take a particularly strong interest in Dzhonatan (dubbed Jonathan).
While the effects quality was mediocre, the scene featuring the girl’s animated, almost hag-like possessed corpse and the animated prehensile roots was pretty cool. It made for a long action sequence. Likewise, the mass transformation scene at the dinner table was the coolest scene of the film.
As if magically fueled by the darkest of witchcraft, the men transform into demonic creatures and their entrée pirogues hatch stillborn monstrous yet diminutive fetuses into a swarm of tiny winged imps. The demons are pretty awesome, but the scene itself comes out of nowhere and would benefit from a larger budget. Enjoyable nonetheless! I particularly enjoyed seeing the perversions of their now vestigial, modified or recently detached body parts.
Then there’s the creature with the crazy eyelids and the compound eyes. As if born from the mind of Guillermo del Toro, the monsters were clearly the highlight of this film.
Unfortunately, the scenes between the special effects pelted us with fragmented story components and, again, the destitute dubbing only made things worse since there was a lot of story to tell. Not even the occasional scene with Charles Dance (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) could save this film.
An Amazon reviewer (brad1110c, to give credit) called this a “hot mess of almost…OR an interesting jumble of potential.” That’s probably a perfect assessment of these neat ideas packed into a woeful film. The neat steam punk story, fantasy theme and Transylvania setting would benefit from a Netflix series treatment, in my opinion. If you’ve seen (and probably fallen in love with) the trailer, I probably cannot dissuade you from seeing this or waiting until it can be viewed for free. Just be warned that expectations should be set low. VERY LOW.
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John’s Horror Corner: Slime City (1988), a low budget 80s “melt” horror for fans of schlocky gore-slathered messes.
NSFW NSFW NSFW NSFW NSFW NSFW
JUST…DON’T LOOK AT THIS IN YOUR OFFICE, OK?
NOT SAFE FOR WORK!
FAR TOO GROSS FOR YOUR WORK PLACE!
MY CALL: This “melting horror flick” was made for fans of ultra-low budget 80s horror and gore-slathered messy schlock. No nudity, but rather violent and featuring some of the worst acting the genre has to offer. So, yeah, I liked it! MOVIES LIKE Slime City: The Incredible Melting Man (1977) was among the earlier “melting horror” movies. But Street Trash (1987), Neon Maniacs (1986), The Toxic Avenger (1984) and Class of Nuke ’em High (1986) are all more in the same style as Slime City. For something more recent and far more sleazy (and “breasty”) slime horror, try BioSlime (2010). Also, if you enjoyed this Slime City (which I watched with my Shudder subscription through Amazon Prime), try to 2010 sequel Slime City Massacre!
There’s something about the dregs of indie 80s horror that breeds an uneasing atmosphere. The writing and direction is awful and the acting can be completely stale. But this manifests something of a horror-appropriate awkwardness at times, doesn’t it? Such is the case with Slime City, a film that doesn’t go easy on the weirdness gas pedal.
When we meet Alex (Craig Sabin; Naked Fear, Slime City Massacre) he is looking for a new apartment with his girlfriend in hopes that this privacy from his old roommate will break his lady’s chastity. His frustrations are apparent and he seems to be getting tired of her, but he’s quite interested in his promiscuous rocker down-the-hall neighbor who is actually played by the same actress as his girlfriend (Mary Huner; Undying Love).
Does anyone really have a neighbor like this?
She’s posing like this alone in her apartment, BTW.
Yearning for company Alex accepts a dinner invitation from an emo poet neighbor who serves green Himalayan yogurt for dinner and, somehow, Alex readily accepts a glass of some mysterious green fluid that was prepared decades ago by a purported alchemist! He is told this directly right before he decides to take a sip. Whatever bad shit happens to him, he has it coming for being stupid!
Writer/director Greg Lamberson (Killer Rack) seems to follow hard in the footsteps of such delightfully stupid, gory, smutty and brutal predecessors as Street Trash (1987), The Toxic Avenger (1984) and Class of Nuke ’em High (1986). After Alex’s weird green yogurt and beverage dinner date, he has a clothes-on sex session with the slutty girl next store and wakes up covered in some manner of perhaps sexually transmissible slime.
Excellent disguise you made with those slime-soaked gauze…
Won’t draw any attention at all!
His body is falling apart, oozing and leaking, with his skin about to slough off. Strangely, the only cure for this malady is to brutally bash in a hobo’s head with a lead pipe! Then, POOF! He’s clean, slimeless and normal again. So, evidently Alex is now a raging were-slime monster.
This is why we pay attention to expiration dates on cottage cheese!
As if taking after The Wolfman (1941) a fortune-teller gypsy warns his girlfriend of danger. Meanwhile, Alex wanders around like some hooker-soliciting mummy wrapped up in gauze, secreting mucous. He’s like an addict. He can’t stop drinking this alchemical concoction that makes him slime out, and then he must subsequently kill to appease the evil slime.
Much to my surprise, there was no nudity at all. And good for them, I guess. While there is clearly a place in cheap horror for gratuitous nudity, this flick brings enough gore to the table that the women need only disrobe to put on a clean, slime-free blouse between scenes. The real entertainment comes in the form of super gory sludgy scenes including mimicking The Thing‘s stomach mouth, a crawling brain, and an attacking headless animated body like The Reanimator (1985)…there’s a lot for gorehounds to enjoy here.
Yuck aaaaand yuck! LOL
Apparently the brain is the source of the infection. I guess it’s trying to escape.
It also sort of looks like the animated steak in Poltergeist (1982).
It turns out there’s a greater plot afoot. It involves Satan, the occult, resurrection, and all the jazz. Kinda’ dumb. But for fans of ultra-low budget 80s horror and gore-slathered messy schlock, this should entertain you.
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John’s Horror Corner: Bite (2015), one of the most ambitiously disgusting indie horrors you’ll see.
MY CALL: Halfway through this movie I went from regretting it to loving every sloppy minute. It borrows heavily from our favorites but knows exactly what it’s doing: delivering one of the most ambitiously disgusting indie horror films you’ve seen. Probably only for devout gorehounds. MOVIES LIKE Bite: The Fly (1986), Species (1995), Drag Me to Hell (2009), Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), Evil Dead (2013) and Cabin Fever (2002) boast similar elevating gore patterns–as in the further along the movie gets, the gore gets both more intense and more frequent. On the other hand, Afflicted (2013) features a similar transformation pattern with superior characters. And for more gross insect-related horror try Blue Monkey (1987) and The Nest (1988).
(REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
After her tropical bachelorette party, Casey (Elma Begovic; Bed of the Dead) returns with all sorts of baggage and bug bites. About to get married, she has not yet confessed that she doesn’t want children, or that she lost her engagement ring, or that she might have slept with someone while blackout drunk in Costa Rica. I guess we’re getting the moral early in this one: don’t get drunk and have adulterous sex in Central America. But what’s equally troubling is that, now home and away from the possibly parasite-infested waters, she discovers numerous sensitive red marks all over her body…and they are starting to secrete ooze…and she’s pregnant!
I had been waiting to see this movie for months–basically since a lot of reviews suggested this was one of the most disgusting movies ever. The pustules and super slimy sticky gooey ooze, the sounds they make when she pops them, the fact that she wakes up glazed in this super viscous ichor, she’s vomiting this yellowish bile–yes, it’s all pretty gross. It doesn’t hold a candle to the execution of Drag Me to Hell (2009) or the slathered slime factor of BioSlime (2010), but it’s effectively quite nasty! LOL
This misleadingly stupid poster unfortunately would misinform you into thinking this would be stupid and ultra-low budget.
Not the case at all. Trust the other poster!
Written and directed by Chad Archibald, this movie is GROSS much as the filmfest reviews promised and gorehounds wanted. But it for me fails heavily in the storytelling, writing and (verbal) acting departments. Everything is far more over-explained or in-your-face than is necessary for us to get the point. And what is the point? Surely we didn’t watch this to count Oscar Nomination predictions while watching this–that would make for a rather sobering drinking game.
Well, this is a lot like having The Fly (1986) told through a female lens complete with a thousand-egg pregnancy. Casey gets slimier, twitchier, and goes full on Brundlefly when she projectile vomits acidic bile to melt her would-be future mother-in-law’s face off. She peels off her fingernails, pulls out her hair in clumps, becomes increasingly animalistic; step by step she is following in Seth Brundle’s footsteps paved by Jeff Goldblum and even has a Geena Davis pregnancy dream.
Where it differs from The Fly (1986) is the maternal egg chamber. Her apartment is doused with layers of pearl-sized translucent slimy eggs (actually a lot like tree frog eggs) as if someone poured buckets of them over the tables, chairs, bed and even the walls. Then there’s this web-like mesh draped across the walls and furniture as if harbingering a Species (1995) cocoon scene.
[Actual tree frog eggs.]
Before we know it Casey transforms into a bubbly, dribbling mess of mucus-like oral secretions. As a gooey special effects admirer, I’m totally forgiving the bad acting and writing at this point because this director has an eye for sloppy sickness that I like. Like papier-mache she smears her muck all over the walls, pasting egg clutches throughout the insectoid lair to all but guarantee that when she moves out she won’t see a dollar back on the lease deposit.
Not since Drag Me to Hell (2009, Alison Lohman), Halloween (2007; Danielle Harris) or Deadgirl (2008; Jenny Spain) have I seen an actress endure so much to make scenes so awesomely gore-filled or weirdly intense. Great job, Elma Begovic! That’s commitment! Not that Annette Wozniak, Denise Yuen, Lawrene Denkers and Jordan Gray didn’t have their gore-slathered moments. But damn, Elma!
We enjoy two gross sex scenes with people vomiting on each other and ruptured pustules (a la Cabin Fever), a dash of monstrous nudity, and the filthiest crusty creature lair since the host chamber in Aliens (1986). And remember the super fun “title shot” jump scares from The Cabin in the Woods (2012) and Drag Me to Hell (2009)? Yeah, there’s some of that, too. This even features the best head stomp I’ve seen since Drive (2011).
Bite (above); Aliens (below)
Halfway through this movie I went from maaaaybe regretting it (ok, really regretting it) to just plain loving every sloppy minute. It borrows heavily from our favorites and it knows exactly what it’s doing. Without dabbling in necrophilia (Necromantik), ass-to-mouth (The Human Centipede) or cannibalism (Cannibal Holocaust), this is truly a notably disgusting movie and probably worth the hype. And despite the fact that I found most of the acting and writing to be poor, I am confident that this director (Chad Archibald) has many wonderfully gross places to go and special effects teams to see.
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What is the Best Horror Film of the 2010s (so far)?: An In-Depth Look at Critical and Audience Scores
Voting is still open. Make sure you vote for your favorite horror films below!
It is a great time to be a fan of horror. The genre is redefining itself and we’ve been blessed with a lot of original films that have recycled old horror tropes and made them fresh again. For example, within the last few years we’ve been lucky enough to have The Guest, Backcountry, It Follows, Spring, The Conjuring, Creep, We are Still Here, The Babadook, I Saw the Devil, Honeymoon, Housebound,The Taking of Deborah Logan, Cheap Thrills, Under the Skin, Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, Oculus, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Only Lovers Left Alive, What We Do in the Shadows, Tusk, Hush, Green Room, The Witch and Bone Tomahawk.
There is a new crop of horror directors and older maestros who are taking what they love of horror and creating films that rise above the stock B-movie label. There is a “boutique” vibe to the movies as they’ve become fashionable and wear classic/modern horror influences like accessories. They are told by horror lovers who are very much so part of the modern generation. Digital film making has been embraced and the resulting films look brilliant on tiny budgets. I love that new films like The Witch, Spring and It Follows have sparked a lot of arguments between genre fans and horror hounds and I think anything that shakes up the genre is a good thing.
Last year I figured out the best 21st century horror films according to critic/audience averages. The list and following posts were fun to write, but I kept seeing the same movies over and over. I like this list because it offers the world some new blood and features movies more people need to see.
When looking at the lists below you will see a wide variety of “horror” films. Like my 21st century horror posts I’ve included movies (I looked through hundreds,and collected data on 100) that I consider to be horror or have horror aspects. I compiled data from Rotten Tomatoes (critic, audience), IMDb (users) and Metacritc (critic) and combined them to find out the top horror films of this decade (so far).
Here are my six favorite horror films of this decade (so far). You can see they cover all aspects of the genre.
- I Saw the Devil
- Insidious
- What We Do in the Shadows
- Cheap Thrills
- Hush – I know it is soon but I love this movie.
- The Crazies
The villains in Cheap Thrills are perfect.
These films are fun as well. Under the Skin, Honeymoon, We Are Still Here, Troll Hunter, Spring, Stoker, Interior, Devil, As Above, So Below, Grabbers and Backcountry.
Here are the lists!
Make sure to vote below! I will post the results next week!
Top 20 Critically Rated Horror Films According to Averaged Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic Critic Scores
20. Bone Tomahawk (2015) – 81.5
19. Berberian Sound Studio (2012) – 81.5
18. Under the Skin (2013) – 81.5
17. Cabin in the Woods (2011) – 81.5
16. Attack the Block (2011) – 82.5
15. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) – 82.5
14. The Guest (2014) – 83
13. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) – 83
12. Black Swan (2010) – 83
11. Creep (2014) – 83.5
10. Hush (2016) – 83.5
9. Let Me In (2010) -83.5
8. The Gift (2105) -84.5
7. Green Room (2016) – 85
6. What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – 86.5
5. Housebound (2014) – 86.5
4. The Witch (2016) – 87
3. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) – 89.5
2. It Follows (2014) – 89.5
- The Babadook (2014) – 92
The Babadook is a visually arresting horror hybrid that proved to be an amazing calling card for director Jennifer Kent. The Babadook is the type of movie that transcends genre and much like Rosemary’s Baby adds class to the horror world. The fact that The Babadook was universally praised by critics while featuring a truly bonkers plot proves that we are in a solid time for horror. I love what Kent said abouthorror filmmaking to New York Magazine.
I continue to watch modern horror films, despite the constant disappointment. I don’t think a lot of the filmmakers making horror now know its worth, or realize the potential of the genre. Just because it’s a horror film doesn’t mean it can’t be deep. I think a lot of filmmakers who make horror now go in with dubious motives — money, predominantly. They want to make a film that will feel like a theme-park ride, and ultimately make a lot of money.But horror is a pure form of cinema. I think there are some modern-day filmmakers our there who understand that. The films that will stand the test of time are the ones that have depth
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Top 20 Audience Rated Horror Films According to Averaged IMDb User Scores and Rotten Tomatoes Audience Scores
20. The Babadook (2014) , Housebound (2014), ParaNorman (2012) , World War Z (2013) – 71
19. Cabin in the Woods (2011) – 71.5
18. Hush (2016) – 71.5
17. Enemy (2013) – 72
16. Cold Fish (2010) – 73
15. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) – 73.5
14. The Gift (2015) – 73.5
13. Bone Tomahawk (2015) – 74
12. Let Me In (2010) – 74
11. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) – 74
10. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) – 77.5
9. Shutter Island (2010) – 78.5
8. The Conjuring (2013) – 78.5
7. Green Room (2016) – 79
6. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) – 80
5. The Skin I live In (2011) – 80
4. What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – 81.5
3. I Saw the Devil (2010) – 82
2. Black Swan (2010) – 82
- The Conjuring 2 (2016) – 83.5
The Conjuring 2 is mainstream horror perfected. It features copious jump scares, legit villains and Patrick Wilson covering Elvis. It is on its way to becoming the top grossing horror film of this decade (already at $188 million) and a spinoff has already been announced.
Get ready for more evil nun action in 2017. Please be better than Annabelle.
Top 20 films according to Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Critics/Users, IMDB Users and Metacritc Critic Scores
I consider these to be the highest rated “horror” films of this decade (so far)! It is a combination of critic and user scores which gives us a solid representation of the multiple scores.
20. Attack the Block (2011) – 76.25
19. Cabin in the Woods (2011) – 76.5
18. Bone Tomahawk (2015) – 76.75
17. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) – 77.25
16. The Conjuring 2 (2016) – 77.25
15. Hush (2016) – 77.5
14. The Skin I Live in (2011) – 77.75
13. The Conjuring (2013) – 77.75
12. I Saw the Devil (2010) – 77.75
11. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) – 78
10. It Follows (2014) – 78. 75
9. Let Me In (2010) – 78. 75
8. Housebound (2014) – 78. 75
7. The Gift (2015) – 80.75
6. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) – 80.75
5. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) – 81.25
4. The Babadook (2014) – 81.5
3. Green Room (2016) – 82.5
2. Black Swan (2010) – 82.5
- What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – 83.5
The overall winner is the horror comedy What We Do in the Shadows! It is the best vampire mockumentary ever made, and I can’t wait for the sequel We’re Wolves.
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What is your favorite horror film of this decade? Vote Below. You get two picks.
If you don’t see your favorite movies you can write them in.
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The MFF podcast is back and we are talking about the fantastic Hush and Honeymoon. These two horror hybrids bring the goods, and we here at MFF are big fans of them. In this pod you will hear about squishy noises, flaky lizard skin and conversations about aliens enjoying hot tubs. Also, we dive deep into the minutia of the two films and discuss their productions, critical reception and awesome female leads.
You need to watch Hush.
As always, we answer listener questions and remain steadfast in our Maniac Cop defiance. Also, we figure out the cinematic personality of the 2000s can be summed up with the name “JJ Krapatow Jackson.”
Sit back, relax and listen to a whole lot of educated randomness.
You can stream the pod on Blog Talk Radio or download it from Itunes. If you get a chance please rate and review the pod. You are awesome!
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Movienomics: Analyzing the Cheek-Embracing World of Nicholas Sparks Movie Posters (updated)
I love researching movie posters. I’ve already studied Jason Statham posters and explored whether explosions on action movie posters matter. That is why I am excited to bring you this post. Nicholas Spark’s has had an incredibly schmaltzy run throughout the last 16 years and the movie posters for his book adaptations tell a tale.
Nicholas Spark’s book adaptations have become a moneymaking machine that combines well-known actors and a whole lot of melodrama. Sparks has become a brand and when you say it is a “Nicholas Sparks film” people know exactly what to expect. What does it mean to be a Sparks film? The movie needs beaches, mudslides, drowning, ghosts, cancer, untimely death, spunky grandparents, cute kids and some sort of lie. A pattern is afoot and I wanted to check if there is a correlation between the movie posters and box office/critical reception.
I wrote the original post before The Longest Ride and The Choice were released and decided it needed an update. Also, news came out recently that Nicholas Sparks was shutting down his production company. The writing was on the wall but this might actually be good news for Sparks fans. Why? Well, his movies do better when he isn’t a producer. Here is the breakdown.
Average Critical Reception (according to Rotten Tomatoes) and average domestic box office (according to box office mojo) of the films he produced (Safe Haven, The Best of Me, The Longest Ride, The Choice) = 15.25% RT and $40,210,150
Average Critical Reception and average domestic box office of the films he didn’t produce (Message in a Bottle, Nights in Rodanthe, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Dear John, The Last Song, The Lucky One) = 30% RT and $75,769,785.
The audiences scores were roughly the same (Sparks produced = 64.75. Did not produce = 66.85) but there was a massive drop in quality in the later films. If you’ve watched all 11 of the films you will realize they are all bonkers, so any of them if done right had the chance to succeed. I actually like The Longest Ride (for a Sparks movie) and felt that is was on par with earlier Sparks films, but audiences were still sour from The Best of Me so it was doomed. The Choice never had a chance because of the watered-down nature of the Sparks name.
So, if bigger studios decide to go back to the Sparks world they should consider having somebody else write the screenplay. If might work!
Here is the revised Nicholas Sparks data!
Here are the movie posters for The Best of Me. The Longest Ride and The Choice
The following post takes a look at the posters and analyzes the box office, critical reception, and audience ratings of Nicholas Sparks films. The average domestic box-office (per Box Office Mojo) is $67,222,736 and the average Rotten Tomatoes critic score is 24.6%. The thing I find most interesting is that these films are critic-proof. The critic score is 24.6% but the audience score is 66% (Per RT). The average budget is $28 million and the average box office is $67 million dollars! However, things are changing and so are the movie posters.
Here is the data from the movie posters
Posters featuring beach cuddles: Message in a bottle, Dear John, The Choice and Walk to Remember have accrued a 24.75% RT (-.25 on average) score and 65.25% (=) Audience score. the box office average is $66,840,500.
When I first collected the data the posters featuring cuddles had a much higher critic and box office average. However, The Choice happened and the numbers plummeted.
The good thing according to EW is they are some of the least ridiculous of Sparks films. Walk to Remember is the least ridiculous at eight while John and Message rank six and three. The posters are more creative as well. The posters are expansive, intimate and most importantly no faces are grabbed. Too bad The Choice dragged the critic and box office numbers down.
Posters featuring head grabs of doom: Nights in Rodanthe, Safe Haven, The Best of Me, The Last Song and The Lucky One and have accrued an 18% (-7) RT score and 62% (-4) Audience score. The average box-office score is $61,307,960.
The Nicholas Spark’s films have taken a serious nosedive as of late. The last six films have an average 16.8% RT score and the posters basically look the same. With the exception of Nights in Rodanthe (2nd most ridiculous Sparks film and my least favorite of the 11) they’ve gotten progressively more soul-crushing and Sparksesque (Safe Haven was ranked the most ridiculous).
Safe Haven (12%), The Lucky One (20%), The Best of Me (8%) and The Last Song (20%) make up four of the five lowest critically rated films and they can get really weird. I don’t want to spoil anything but there are ghosts, the awesome Diane Lane in mom jeans and untimely deaths that are really mean. Also, these movies have the lowest averaged audience score (62%) AND domestic box office.
Cobie Smulders in Safe Haven = A lot of confusion.
Posters featuring something other than beach cuddles or head grabs: The Notebook and The Longest Ride collected a 40.5% RT (+15.9) score and 78%(+12) Audience Score. The box-office is $79,845,400.
The Notebook was incredibly passionate and super bonkers and Rachel McAdam’s character is by far the most three-dimensional of Spark’s ladies (she literally fought for her character) and Ryan Gosling became a megastar overnight because of this movie. The Notebook is by far the most popular of the nine films because of the great acting, passion, and all around care spent on the script. I would rank the poster #1 on the romance scale. They look genuinely involved. If you look at the other posters the people look sorta bored.
Conclusion: The first five films attempted to take Nicholas Spark’s books and do something with them. They tried to work around the schmaltz, contrivances, syrup, mourning, melodrama, and sentiment. However, eventually, they gave up and gave in to Sparks. He started producing the movies, and now they stick to a safe formula and facepalming posters.
Maybe Sparks productions shutting down might be good for future Sparks adaptations.
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The Do-Over is everything you’d expect from 2016 Adam Sandler. It is rife with product placement, celebrity cameos and more product placement. It is overly long and features a plot that is so loose you’d be hard pressed to explain exactly what occurs. You can’t watch a Sandler Netflix movie with critical eyes because Sandler movies don’t really care about critical reception. Basically, you need to rate it in accordance to other Sandler films. Thus, The Do-Over is a solid B+ Adam Sandler movie.
I’ve been an Adam Sandler apologist for a long-time because Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore hit big when I was 14. The movies were crazy dumb but Sandler’s man-child shenanigans appealed to me as a teenager and I’ve watched the rest of his films with a sense of nostalgia and duty. He had a massive 15-year run that saw his movies continuously cross the $100 million mark despite a lack of critical praise (he knows his audience). I’ve watched him be amazing in Punch Drunk Love and play twin sisters in the terrible Jack & Jill. I didn’t hate his Netflix release The Ridiculous 6 and I found the laziness of Grown Ups to be sorta relaxing. Also, I will argue to anybody that You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is actually pretty good.
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The Do-Over is the second release of Sandler’s four-picture Netflix deal. The Ridiculous 6 broke all of Netflix’s records and I’m guessing The Do-Over will do really well. Why? Sandler fans will watch anything he does and Sandler detractors will gladly hate-watch. Thus, the movie will receive a ton of buzz and more people will watch it because they feel like they have too. In the end, the majority of the buzz will be negative but the Sandler train will keep rolling. The only thing I ask is that Sandler gives John Turturro another plum cameo.
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The Do-Over focuses on Adam Sandler and David Spade reuniting at their high school’s 20th reunion. Sandler has become an international man of mystery while Spade is the manager of a bank located inside a supermarket. The two bond over drinks and Sandler fakes their deaths so they can start anew in a tropical paradise (and drink lots of Corona). They live the high life on somebody else’s dime until they are pursued by German killers and the IRS. Along the way they pick up Paula Patton, continuously hit Nick Swardson with cars, and deal with Luis Guzman’s ball sweat (yeah…that happens).
The Do-Over is not a good movie. However, it is a perfectly suitable Sandler movie. There are a few laughs and it is always nice seeing Sean Astin rocking a mustache. It makes an attempt to bring in some heart and I appreciate that David Spade plays the straight man next to Sandler. I might sound crazy here but I think Sandler could make for a solid action hero in a proper action film.
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If you are a Sandler fan you will like The Do-Over, if you are a Sandler detractor it will give you plenty of ammunition to pithily complain about it on the internet. I will leave you with more John Turturro.
If you liked the review make sure to check out our podcast! It is loaded with educated randomness.
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Now You See Me 2 is an absurd film that doubles down on fun and allows its talented cast to further explore the insane world of magic that was created in the original. The NYSM movies remind me a lot of the National Treasure films because they are original properties that feature likable characters, plot twists and convenient bowls of lemons. The films never look back and I love how they are balls of energy that don’t take themselves too seriously. If you were a fan of the first NYSM I guarantee you will dig the sequel.
Now You See Me 2 revolves around the horsemen (Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, a new Lizzy Caplan) finding themselves in another international caper. They need to steal a microchip that in the wrong hands can achieve total global surveillance (or something like that). Be prepared for creative heists, lots of banter, and twists and turns that get turned and twisted. If I wrote about all the twists and turns this would be a 2,000 word review. Instead, I want you to know that NYSM2 is a breath of fresh air that doesn’t involve superheroes, supernatural villains or loads of property destruction. There are countless new (Sanaa Lathan, Daniel Radcliffe, Jay Chou) and returning (Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, David Warshofsky) faces, and to keep track of every “reveal” you’d need a flow chart the size of an advertising billboard.
All of it is bonkers and I love how the twist explanations are nonsensical and unnecessary. Basically, it is all meant to be a joyous two hours that doesn’t involve deep thought or Prestige level seriousness (great movie though). You will see the twists coming but that doesn’t matter because you are enjoying the ride. The experience is similar to going on an enjoyable roller coaster for a second time. You know the ride, but it is still fun and exhilarating.
The chemistry between the actors is what makes NYSM2 so enjoyable. You can tell they enjoy each others company and obviously relish in playing characters they helped create. Lizzy Caplan’s addition was a great decision because she fought for her character and ad-libbed some of the best lines. Director Jon M.Chu had nothing but great things to say about Lizzy and the rest of the cast:
She did not skip a beat. As soon as she came in, she was as loud, rambunctious, dirtier than they were, fearless. Woody would always be up for the challenge. Like, you are going to try and out-dirty Woody? It sparked energy. When you work like they did on two movies, the banter can get stale. But when Lizzy was there, the whole thing spiced in an instant. That energy, that fun, the way they love each other on screen is how they are, which made making the movie a pleasure.
NYSM2 is a fun ride that shouldn’t be put under a microscope. Enjoy the world building, lack of pretentiousness and Mark Ruffalo beating people up. Go see it now!
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