The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 476: The Movies We’d Watch During the Apocalypse Draft
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
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Mark and Nicholas Rehak (@TheRehak on Twitter) talk about the movies they’d watch during an apocalypse. They also talk about coffee, movie island, and the movies they’d avoid during an apocalypse. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Hatred (2017), a mediocre, horror-LITE “haunted house” movie.
MY CALL: So yeah, this is mediocre PG-13 horror—(I know it’s actually somehow rated R). I’d recommend it to early teens who scare easily. No one else. Really. It’s that mediocre. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Hatred: For more horror for beginners, consider The Wretched (2019), Séance (2021), Fresh (2022), Monstrous (2022) or the classic Silver Bullet (1985).
When Regan (Sarah Davenport; Deadly Detention, Bodysnatch), Samantha (Bayley Corman), Betaine (Alisha Wainwright; There’s Something Wrong with the Children) and Layan (Gabrielle Bourne) stay the weekend at a countryside house while babysitting the owner’s girl Irene (Shae Smolik; The Sandman, D-Railed), they come to find the house has a dark history.
The house has a basement full of Nazi paraphernalia and a long-undisturbed room that once belonged to a teenage girl (Alice) who was murdered in the 60s by her ex-patriated Nazi father. Irene thinks that Alice is responsible when strange things begin to happen to the other girls. The background story of the cursed Nazi house is complemented with small roles by Andrew Divoff (Wishmaster 1-2, Graveyard Shift, Faust: Love of the Damned) and Tim DeZarn (The Cabin in the Woods, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Wrong Turn).
It takes this movie a long time to take us… not very far. The girls begin their weekend, they find clues linking the house to its Nazi past, and ghostly things start appearing. An out of focus figure in the background, something moving under the bedsheets, whispers from the ether, aaaaaand cue the screaming CGI lady ghost.
The scare tactics and special effects are weak. It’s very PG-13 and rather budget-limited… but it’s also vision-limited—i.e., in inexperienced director. The movie has one decent part, and it’s from the trailer. It’s the “look under the bed” scene. Sadly, it’s squandered by a CGI-filtered demon-wench crab-walking on the bed.
I’m not sure how this got an R-rating, it’s clearly (in my opinion, at least) a PG-13 movie. There are no swears, nudity, intense scares, gore or disturbing imagery or content outside of a drowning murder scene. The horror itself is really rather soft. So yeah, this is mediocre PG-13 horror at best. I’d recommend it to teenage girls who watch very little horror and scare very easily.
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John’s Horror Corner: Monstrous (2022), a “family therapy” horror movie for beginners.
MY CALL: Just okay. The monster is “meh”; the story doesn’t build to anything worthy; the film is decently made; and it’s not scary. I didn’t like it. I guess I didn’t hate it. So I’m only recommending this as something that’s a good entry-level horror for scaredy-cats. MORE MOVIES LIKE Monstrous: For more for beginners, consider The Wretched (2019), Séance (2021), Fresh (2022) or the classic Silver Bullet (1985).
Trying to get away from her abusive ex-husband, Laura (Christina Ricci; After.Life, Cursed) moves to a new home in the remote countryside with her son Cody (Santino Barnard). Shortly after moving in, Cody discovers a sort of monster.
The monster is reduced to some very basic, PG antics. The so-so CGI creation fumbles its shoddy CGI limbs at the boy, the boy screams, and the monster disappears by the time Laura comes to the rescue. Yes, of course, no monster, right? The boy was just scared in a new house. Sure, mom!
After repeated contact, Cody forms a connection with this monster. He calls her the pretty lady from the pond, but Laura assumes this to just be an imaginary friend. At first, Laura blames Cody for the actions of the lady in the pond. As we encounter the lady from the pond more and more, Laura comes to believe in her and seems to lose her nerve. Her landlord and employer see her losing her grip, and they don’t like it at all. At this point I’m beginning to wonder… are we in for a Babadook (2014) situation here?
Boy those CGI tentacles were not effective. The scare tactics here are weak. Like, even for a PG-13 horror. They seem to “imply” horror more than actually convey it. Although the “lady” is skeletal, grimy, slimy, and has rooty tentacles. We only have a couple shots that might spook out a preteen.
Set in the 1950s, this soft PG-13 horror is free of the conveniences of cell phones, internet searches or smart devices. So successfully running away from a dangerous person in your life is far simpler. But whereas Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) and Lights Out (2016) brought us all of the horror with none of the R-rating, Monstrous seems to have forgotten its horror entirely with a more “hard PG” feel of Goosebumps (2015). And while not all PG-13 horror needs to push the gory and jump-scary tactics of The Gate (1987), my personal taste finds disappointment in these movies that I would best classify as horror for beginners.
I don’t think this movie had ever properly captured my attention or interest. Whatever it was trying to do, it never seemed to do enough… or well enough… or take its horror seriously enough. Still, it was capably made, acted and produced. It seems that director Chris Sivertson (All Cheerleaders Die, I Know Who Killed Me) continues to make watchable but forgettable fare. I don’t regret watching it. But I’m also only recommending this as something that’s a good entry-level horror for scaredy-cats.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 475: Dark Blue, Kurt Russell, and Goulash
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
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Mark and John Leavengood (@MFFHorrorCorner on Twitter) discuss the 2002 Kurt Russell film Dark Blue. Directed by Ron Shelton, and starring Kurt Russell, Ving Rhames, Brendan Gleeson, and Scott Speedman, the movie focuses on what happens when Kurt Russell makes a run at an Oscar nomination. In this episode, they also talk about goulash, cheeseburgers, and David Ayer. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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John’s Horror Corner: Lair (2022), Neil Marshall’s latest and quite underwhelming creature feature.
MY CALL: Eh, it’s a thing to watch with decent effects and gore and some passable monster action. But ask yourself how excited you’d be to see it if a no-name filmmaker was behind it. Because that’s how it felt. MORE MOVIES LIKE Lair: This feels like a Resident Evil (2002) sequel, but with weak acting, weak writing and careless monsters. Lair also reminds me of a much higher budget and much more monstrous D4 (2011).
After her fighter jet is shot down in Afghanistan, Captain Sinclair (Charlotte Kirk;The Reckoning) escapes armed hostiles fleeing to shelter in an abandoned, underground, Russian bunker. The facility is housing humanoid biological samples in tanks, and the staff has been reduced to long-dead skeletal remains. During freefire with the Afghanis, a tank is broken, washing its hulking contents to the floor… and it awakens. Aaaaand, MOVIE!
Sinclair is picked up by a unit of soldiers—including Sgt. Hook (Jonathan Howard; Skylines, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Major Finch (Jamie Bamber; Pulse 2), Sgt. Jones (Leon Ockenden;The Reckoning, Dread), and many others. They team together to face this humanoid bunker experiment-gone-wrong.
Our monsters look monstrous, but move entirely like people with chafed inner thighs. I actually found this annoying. They scurry from one point of gunfire cover to another in the battlefield, they apparently have a clumsily haphazard 20’ vertical jump that feels really forced on viewers’ suspension of disbelief, and basically every time they swipe a big gnarly claw at a soldier he’s dead. So the action is kind of basic. And the monsters seem way too wisely tactical despite still roaring with their arms widespread like idiots and behaving otherwise like, well, feral quasi-intelligent monsters. They kind of feel like generic brand Resident Evil (2002) monsters—like bipedal “lickers” with twin-prehensile tongue-tentacles. Director Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Hellboy) has a strong history making movies with engaging monsters, but this is not one of them.
Right, but how about the acting? The acting is moderate to poor, with no impressive performances to boast despite a varied cast of quirky soldier characters. But the real fault here is in the writing itself. The dialogue ranges from bland to painfully stiff, basic lines. It doesn’t even sound like how anyone would naturally talk at times. And the story…? Well, our soldiers basically got dropped into a videogame called “Russian Alien Experiment Shoot’em Up.” That’s pretty much the story. And that’s perfectly fine by me. I’m just saying that neither a cool story or plot development are creating saving graces here.
So what’s good about this movie? The blood, monsters, wound latex work, and gore were… decent. Not bad. But not enough to merit something I’d recommend someone watch. I’m not sure what happened here, but this does not feel like a Neil Marshall film to me at all. This feels like a whole lot of early 2000s, direct-to-video “meh” with some passable horror action and guts. I mean, it was moderately entertaining. But this totally forgettable flick fell far below my expectations.
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John’s Horror Corner: Dead Space (1991), yet another silly Alien/s rip-off… but starring Bryan Cranston.
MY CALL: There are a lot of video-era Alien rip-offs out there… and this is among the more entertaining and at least moderately budgeted among them. We also have a decent cast and a lot of screen time for our monster. So this is a recommendation for anyone looking for a solidly enjoyable bad movie. MORE MOVIES LIKE Dead Space: For more low budget Alien/Aliens (1979/1986) rip-offs, check out Contamination (1980; aka Alien Contamination), Alien 2: On Earth (1980), Scared to Death (1980; aka Syngenor), Galaxy of Terror (1981), Forbidden World (1982; aka Mutant), Inseminoid (1982; aka Horror Planet), Parasite (1982), Biohazard (1985), Creature (1985; aka Titan Find), Star Crystal (1986), Creepazoids (1987), Blue Monkey (1987), Nightflyers (1987), Deep Space (1988), Transformations (1988; aka Alien Transformations), The Terror Within (1989), Shocking Dark (1989; aka Terminator 2, aka Aliennators), The Rift (1990), Syngenor (1990), Xtro 2: The Second Encounter (1991) and Zombies: The Beginning (2007).
Commander Krieger (Marc Singer; House Hunting, V, Beastmaster 1-3, Watchers II), as glistening and jacked as a middle-aged underwear model, awakens in his sleep pod to respond to a distress signal. So Krieger and his droid companion set a course for Phaebon to check on the distressed scientists.
Geneticist Dr. Salinger (Laura Mae Tate; Subspecies), bacteriologist Dr. Darden (Bryan Cranston; Godzilla, Total Recall) and Dr. Stote (Judith Chapman; Scalpel) have been working on a cure for an incredibly deadly virus. But to do so, they created an even more deadly virus to kill the incredibly deadly virus. In doing so, their even more deadly virus managed to create some sort of lifeform which breaks free from its containment and enters a human host up her nostril. After the facebugger-esque rip-off phase, we see a chestburster-like life stage emerge from her gory thorax and escape into the air vents. Again, this multicellular monster with a highly evolved and specialized metamorphosis was created from a virus. Because science!
So now, like in Alien/s (1979, 1986), the crew must hunt this rubber bug-lizard monster down. It’s the size of Frenchie and when it attacks the victim violently shakes the rubber creature to simulate its movement and attack. You know, classic B-movie techniques. Of course it grows, and it is as glorious as bad movie monsters get. Looking like a slimy dragon with insectoid limbs, this reptilian mantis thing continues to attack the crew in as clumsy a manner as one could imagine.
Eventually, the aberration is covered in web, perhaps meant to be the forming of a chrysalis or something, and it totally bites and rips of Darden’s head on-screen, which is way more ambitious than I’d expect from a movie like this! The special effects are a joy to observe as spaceships shooting laser blasters fly by a space station, a scientist’s melted face is gorily displayed, a scene after scene of giant rubber monster attacks.
I had read that this was just a cheap remake of Forbidden World (1982), which was also a cheap rip of Alien/s (1979, 1986). But the monster here looks way better. We see a lot of it, and we see it frequently. So as far as B-movies go, the pacing is actually pretty engaging.
I mean, was this movie awesome? No. But it ranks around the middle ground in terms of cheap Alien rip-offs. And I’d know. I’ve covered a LOT of them here.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Convent (2000), a poor man’s Night of the Demons rip-off.
MY CALL: This is bad. Really bad. Though, often laughably bad. I’d call this an awful, very cheap reimagining of Night of the Demons 2. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Convent: For pretty bad movies that are less regrettably bad than The Convent, I’d recommend The Granny (1995), Rabid Grannies (1988) or Killer Tongue (1996). If you watched The Convent and want to see the far better source material—Night of the Demons (1988) and Night of the Demons 2 (1992). The Hazing (2004) was also a good NotD knock-off.
40 years after the slaughter of an entire clergy, uptight Clorissa (Joanna Canton; Masters of Sex), her goth friend Mo (Megahn Perry; The Perfect Host, The Gravedancers), and five more college friends head to the cursed convent. The local folklore is that Christine was impregnated by Father O’Malley, who kidnapped her and aborted her child against her will—hence the clergy slaughter vengeance and now present-day haunting. Almost immediately after breaking into the convent, the co-eds pair off, do drugs and get horny.
Some cultists capture Mo and sacrifice her on a pentagram of glow-in-the-dark paint. The result—Mo is now a glowing-veined, glowing-eyed, glowing-toothed demon-possessed murderer. After being killed by scalding water from a convent shower, a cultist likewise becomes another orc-faced “glow demon.” Their fake gnarly big-gummed teeth, general appearance, and method of demon possession/infection is a cheapened, out of focus, carbon copy of Night of the Demons (1988) and Night of the Demons 2 (1992). But truly, this is more like a copy of a copy of copy with a coffee stain on it, with much quality lost in the across the transfer.
The acting and writing are rough. This is so bad! Kind of fun bad, but mostly just bad bad. Lol. No regrets. This movie was lame. But I must admit, I shook my head with a disapproving grin quite a lot. Apparently the demons can use a virgin for the rebirth of the devil and such. So there’s that. This was the topic of the cultists’ dialogue, which leads to some laughable ends including some inoffensive homophobia (in that the straight guy was the butt of the joke from the very funny LGBT character and actor Kelly Mantle). Some additional laughs which suffered greatly from the writing come from smaller cameo roles by Coolio (Pterodactyl, Dracula 3000, Leprechaun 5: In the Hood) and Bill Moseley (Boar, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, House of 1000 Corpses, Texas Chainsaw 3-D, The Blob, Smothered), and co-star Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Swamp Thing, Escape from New York, Creepshow, Two Evil Eyes).
The budget is very low. But I appreciate director Mike Mendez’ (Tales of Halloween, Satanic Hispanics) and his cast and crew’s efforts. A guy gets some fatal oral sex from a demon, a girl’s face is ripped off, someone’s head is partially punched off, and there’s loads of bright orange blood. None of it looks particularly “good,” but it’s nonsense fun. And that’s what this movie is—laughable nonsense. It’s not exactly the type of “so bad it’s good” I prefer, but it works juuust enough. And while this viewing experience isn’t completely regrettable, it makes me long for the good old days when my bad movies were more like The Granny (1995), Rabid Grannies (1988) or Killer Tongue (1996)—all more satisfying than The Convent.
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Bonus Movies, Films and Flix Podcast Episode – The Tom Cruise Science Fiction and Fantasy Movie Draft
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and David Cross (@ItsMeDavidCross on Twitter) draft their favorite Tom Cruise fantasy and science fiction movies. In this episode they discuss Edge of Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, Vanilla Sky, Legend, Minority Report, The Mummy, Oblivion and Interview With the Vampire. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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Project Wolf Hunting (2022) – Review
Quick Thoughts – Grade – B – If you’re in the mood for blood geysers, blood explosions, and exploding blood geysers, it doesn’t get any better than Project Wolf Hunting. There are too many characters (or not enough?). The action isn’t staged particularly well (or are they staged brilliantly?), and the convoluted plot involves a boat, some criminals, a few cops, a deadly monster, a shadowy governmental agency, and many flashbacks. However, none of this matters because director Kim Hong-Sun is only interested in showing the world what happens when a tough-as-nails cop bites the arm off of a super soldier. Project Wolf Hunting is an exercise in practical effects that show what happens when a head meets a blunt object, or how far blood sprays when a knife meets a neck.
During a recording of Con Air – The Podcast, movie critic Courtney Smalls told us about Project Wolf Hunting. He suggested it because he considers it to be a solid Con Air-adjacent film that tells the story of cops and criminals battling each other inside a boat that’s headed for Busan, South Korea. It was a great suggestion, as the movie plays like Con Air met Primal, and then teamed up with Mandy to form a supergroup of movies that also occasionally allow Face/Off and Drive Angry to hang out and jam. The best way to experience the movie is to ignore the trailer (and the rest of this review) and watch it knowing as little as possible about what transpires.
For the sake of the review, it’s safe to say that the movie is about what happens when a group of criminals start battling a group of cops inside a large boat headed for South Korea. Normally, this would be enough to carry a film. However, once they start killing each other, they are forced to start brawling with a deadly super soldier named Alpha (Alpha (Choi Gwi-hwa), who even with stapled shut eyes finds a way to destroy folks. From there, it becomes an absolute free for all as everyone gets separated and eventually obliterated in creative ways.
In an interview with Screenrant, director Kim Hong-Sun unleashed this gem of a quote: “We created new blood pumps, and my intention was to do something as real or even more real than what Tarantino does. As you know, blood does not just seep out. If you cut an artery, it might pump out. That’s what I wanted, so I’m happy. I understand that some of my audience is not so happy, but fortunately, I am happy.” If you’re an action lover who enjoys blood spray, this movie was tailored for your tastes. The blood is thick and heavy and so are the action scenes that feature people dying in kitchens, hallways, elevators, control rooms, maintenance closets, mechanical rooms, regular rooms, and everywhere else possible you could find yourself on a ship.
The cast is extremely game, and their selflessness should be applauded as their characters deliver approximately zero offense when attacked. The standouts are Seo In-Guk, Choi Gwi-hwa, Jang Dong-Yoon and Jang Young-Nam, who are all given moments to shine before their faces look like lasagna that’s been dropped off a skyscraper and landed on the sidewalk. The true MVP’s are the special effects crew, makeup designers, and sound designers who must’ve been exhausted during and after the shoot as they had to unleash hundreds of gallons of blood and create about 7,000 squishy noises.
Final thoughts – Many people die, that’s the point. If you like creative special effects, and people being killed when they are bludgeoned with another person’s arm, you will love this movie. Watch it!
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John’s Horror Corner: Terrifier 2 (2022), the brutally mean-spirited evil clown movie that will haunt your gory nightmares… again.
MY CALL: After watching this you’ll feel like you need a bath and a confession booth. Top choice for fans of brutal, goretastic and mean-spirited horror and for anyone who claims they “can’t be shocked anymore.” The performance of the villain continues to honor part 1. I was truly slack-jawed-wowed by the special effects team. MORE MOVIES LIKE Terrifier 2: Well, obviously Terrifier (2016). Then The Sadness (2021)… maybe Adam Chaplin (2011) and No Reason (2010). For more mainstream brutally mean-spirited movies, try The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, Wolf Creek (2005), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Hatchet (2006), or even The Strangers (2008, 2018) or The Purge (2013) movies. For more evil clown movies, try Stephen King’s It (1990, 2017), Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988), Stitches (2012), Scary or Die (2012) and Clown (2014).
If you enjoyed the goretastic, destitute meanness of Terrifier (2016), then fear not. For Art continues to deliver from scene one as he fragments, macerates and pulverizes a man’s skull in gooey, graphic glory before yanking out the victim’s long-vein-bundled eye to jam into his socket and replace his own. I am more than happy to simply “find more of the same” in sequels, but this sequel immediately finds new and creative ways to utterly gross out and shock audiences.
In this sequel, Sienna (Lauren LaVera) joins Allie (Casey Hartnett; What We Found) and Brooke (Kailey Hyman) to a Halloween party one year after Art’s previous massacre. No shock, Art is somehow alive again and begins resumes massacring people. Only this Halloween his killing spree crosses Sienna’s family and to save her brother she’ll have to face Art on her own.
Brooke is done-dirty in a seriously mean-ass death scene. Poor Allie gets it the worst, though. So sinisterly macabre; like something out of Leatherface’s wet dream. This movie features some of the goriest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie so nearly mainstream. Adam Chaplin (2011) and No Reason (2010) are incredibly violent and gory, but tread further from mainstream attention and accessibility. As far as more mainstream movies go, The Sadness (2021) comes close-ish while really not even being in the same ballpark.
Terrifier 2 capitalizes on gore in the most vile ways. Among them are putrefied female bodily functions, squeezing and toying with guts, a jaw-droppingly intense scalping scene that rivals Maniac (1980), bruuuuutal limb-breaking and limb-ripping, flesh-peeling and face-tearing, a wild celebration of crotch stabbing and genital tearing, and so more.
This movie essentially has a “theme” of intense skull, eyeball and head trauma. I caught myself mouthing the word wow so many times in gleeful shock at the boundaries being pushed by the effects team. So much extensive imagery of mutilation. This is so not for the weak-stomached. I was truly slack-jawed-wowed by the special effects team.
A pleasant addition, we find a twisted young girl Clown of the same makings as Art. She manages to look even more disturbing than Art, with every shot of her effectively off-putting. Neither of them talk… ever. They just offer unnerving facial expressions and occasionally mime their sick intentions.
The finale fight doesn’t measure up to the outrageous violence, shock or gore of the earlier scenes… but how could it? I still enjoyed every bit of it. And this is really a hard movie to end. It’s full-tilt meat grinder scene after scene, and eventually Sienna has her brother and the credits roll. So overall, I was so splendidly pleased with this immense piece of shock cinema. I didn’t know how one could possibly continue to please audiences after part 1, but writer/director Damien Leone (All Hallow’s Eve, Terrifier) and his Art portrayer David Howard Thornton (Terrifier, Stream) have certainly done it, finding just enough ways to tweak Art’s evil and murder with more creative zest than before. To that end, the entire cast fares well for us, and the increased production value was also a welcome upgrade.
After watching this you’ll feel like you need a bath and a confession booth. Dare I say, I don’t know how Leone could possibly do more than ‘more of same’ for a part 3… but he certainly proved my expectations wrong about part 2. Bravo!
Movies, Films & Flix 