Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast – Episode 61: The Shallows, Steven Seagull, and Super Angry Sharks
You can listen to Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, Spotify, Tunein, Podcast Addict, Amazon, Google Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to like our Facebook page!
Please make sure to rate, review, share, and subscribe!
Jay and Mark are joined by Kaitlin McNabb (@kaitlinmcnabb on Twitter) to discuss the 2016 film The Shallows. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and starring Blake Lively, Sully the Seagull, and a vindictive great white shark, the movies focuses on the battle between an unlucky surfer and a pugnacious shark. In this episode, they discuss heavy chains, evil dolphins, and gnarly sunburns. Enjoy!
Stay tuned for more Renny Harlin and shark movie coverage! Also, let’s hope there’s an annoucement about Deep Blue Sea 4 soon.
Please make sure to rate, review and subscribe to the DBS podcast.
Share this post:
Quick Thoughts – Grade – C- – Reminiscence is Loaded With Style, But the Predictable Plot, and Overly Familiar Dialogue Weigh it Down.
Directed and written by Lisa Joy (Westworld, Pushing Daisies), Reminiscence gathers an A-list cast, and places them in a film that lacks surprises or believable stakes. The production design by Howard Cummings (Westworld, Contagion), and cinematography by Paul Cameron (Westworld, Man on Fire) are top notch, and knowing that an PG-13 noir has a $50 million budget in 2021 is cool, but, the budget and technical prowess can’t improve the story.
Reminiscence takes place in a near-future world that has been ravaged by climate change and war. The residents of the water-logged Miami have turned to “vampires” who only come out at night, as the sweltering daytime heat, flooded streets, and lack of work has created a populace of people who look for drugs, or other means to escape the brutal life. This is where Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and Emily “Watts” Sanders (Thandiwe Newton – a fun Westworld reunion with Joy) make their money, as they provide a service that allows customers to experience past memories in realistic simulations. Things turn sideways when Mae (Rebecca Ferguson – in a fun The Greatest Showman reunion with Jackman), a lounge singer turns up and wants Nick to help her find her misplaced keys. Since it’s a noir, Mae is clearly meant to be a femme fatale-esque character, who seduces Nick, and drags him into a world of crime, drugs, sex, and booze. She’s successful in her ruse, and the rest of the film is about Nick following breadcrumbs to a larger conspiracy involving actors Cliff Curtis, Daniel Wu, and Marina de Tavira.
The movie comes alive when Daniel Wu (Into the Badlands, Tomb Raider) is onscreen. He plays a character named Saint Joe, who is a drug kingpin that loves eels and theatrics. He also has a history with Mae, whom he got hooked on a drug called Bae (another form of escape), and she promptly stole his stash. The best moment of the film happens when Nick hunts Joe down, and confronts him during a very fun nightclub encounter. The scene allows Wu to have a blast with his gangster persona, who plays like a surfer, met a drug kingpin, and they blended into a scene-stealing villain. The moment is over the top, and features hungry eels, stylish speeches, and a fun gunfight that allows Wu to look cool.
What holds the film down is the screenplay by Joy, which invents a new world (which is cool), but gives the actors hard-boiled dialogue that is really hard to deliver. The dialogue never feels organic, and instead plays like actors reciting stylized dialogue, and that takes a lot away from the film. When actors like Jackman, Newton and Fergusson can’t deliver lines like “Memory is the boat that sails against its current,” believably, you know there is a problem with the script. Also, since it’s a noir, you can telegraph certain twists-and-turns, which destroy any surprises because you know there will be booze, double-crosses, mystery villains, and more booze.
Final thoughts – I’m excited to see what Lisa Joy does next because I love Westworld, and think she’ll come back stronger after this experience.
Share this post:
Bad Movie Tuesday: Fatal Exam (1988, or 1990), a lame 80s horror slasher movie that deserves to remain forgotten.
MY CALL: First off, please do not confuse this with the cult classic Final Exam (1981). This movie is boring, horrible and… boring. I won’t get these two hours of my life back. Don’t watch it. I hated this. Truly… I’m never watching it again. MORE MOVIES LIKE Fatal Exam: You should probably watch Prince of Darkness (1987) or Final Exam (1981) instead. No further explanation needed.
The premise feels like it’s playing off the story of The Amityville Horror (1979) and Poltergeist (1982) as a group of college students are recruited by their parapsychology professor to spend a weekend in a purportedly haunted murder house in lieu of taking a final exam. Naturally, the students opted for the murderhouse weekend. LOL. During this excursion the students are to perform experiments and, you’d expect anyway, that weird things would start happening.
I’m 54 minutes into this movie and all that’s happened is someone probably dreamed seeing a severed head in a coffee table. That’s it… in 54 minutes? I’m about to quit writing horror reviews. This movie is beyond lame.
Eventually they witness the sword-wielding ghost of a man who hacked up his wife years ago. Why a sword, you may ask? Because the filmmakers probably had access to a free prop—and it was a sword. As something of a story begins to unfold, I remain incredibly bored. The story is dumb. The exposition is dumb. The red herrings are dumb. I kind of want all these students to just leave the house and take the paper exam so we can roll the credits.
In the basement they discover a hidden trap door leading deep below the house. It doesn’t lead anywhere satisfying. When a cloaked killer emerges with a scythe, we witness a horrendously clunky death scene. I mean, a scythe is not meant for the close-quarters environment of a basement stairway. Worst death scene ever. I might have to drop this into the forbidden zone of unwatchable movies with Boardinghouse (1982).
Having now seen all three films in my Home-Grown Horrors volume 1 pack from Vinegar Syndrome, I can confidently place this movie well below the actually pretty cool Winterbeast (1992), and even below the regrettably bad Beyond Dream’s Door (1989). Still, for the sake of some very weird, basically lost-in-time movies, the Home-Grown horrors pack may just be right up your alley.
Share this post:
Annette (2021) – Review: A Wildly Original Musical That is Easily One of the Best Films of 2021
Quick Thoughts – Grade – A – Annette is a wildly creative musical that features a career best performance from Adam Driver.
When it was first announced that Leos Carax (watch Holy Motors now) would be directing a musical co-written by Ron Mael and Russell Mael of Sparks (watch The Sparks Brothers now), you couldn’t help but be excited about the final product. The cast has changed since Adam Driver and Rooney Mara signed on in 2016, but the addition of Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard, and Simon Helberg (who got his French citizenship so he could be in the film) have given it a welcome pedigree of dedicated performers. You won’t see a more thoroughly realized vision in 2021, as Annette plays exactly like a Carax and Sparks project should play, as it’s funny, dark, violent, lyrical, creative, bleak, and uncompromising.
The film focuses on the relationship between famed opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Cotillard), and comedian Henry McHenry (Adam Driver). The two love each other a lot, but their careers take wildly different turns as the apple-loving Ann becomes a worldwide phenom, while Henry’s career falters as his shock-jock-esque stylings find him tanking shows, and retreating into alcoholism and violence. The two also have a daughter named Annette (who is a marionette puppet – you get used to it), who ends up getting exploited when Henry learns she has a beautiful singing voice. To say more, would do the film a disservice, as it’s full of surprises that you shouldn’t know about. What should you know? There are actually nine puppets used throughout the film, the actors sang all of their songs live on set, and the cinematography by Caroline Champetier (Holy Motors) is wildly ambitious, as it allows for long takes that capture full musical performances.
It will be interesting to see how people who’ve never seen Holy Motors, or know nothing about Sparks, react to Annette. There will be zero primer for the experience, and it would be cool to see it in a packed theater of people not knowing what they are in for. It’s a wildly original 140-minute film that loads up on repetitive song numbers, dark themes and lots of sex. If you know about Carax and Sparks, the movie makes a lot of sense, and isn’t in any way a surprise, as they’ve always pushed boundaries and appreciated the weird in life. As mentioned before, Annette is a 140-minute film that features a marionette puppet (that the actors sometimes had to manipulate) as a core character. It’s almost as if Carax and Sparks want to exhaust and test the audience, and if you start feeling like it’s too weird, just know that the creators want to challenge you, and have worked tirelessly to bring something unique into your life.
Final Thoughts – Annette is easily one of my favorite 2021 films, and it’s cool seeing a movie that avoids VFX, embraces music, and has no interest in being like anything else.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Demonic (2021), Neill Blomkamp’s new VR-based horror is exactly that—all virtual, no soul.
MY CALL: Not to be confused with the James Wan-produced Demonic (2015), which was also a big miss with a major name in horror attached to it. This film is one of the least interesting virtual reality-based horror movies I’ve seen even though it was made by a generally riveting visionary filmmaker. I don’t know what happened here. MORE MOVIES LIKE Demonic: For more VR(ish) sci-horror, try The Lawnmower Man (1992), Arcade (1993), Existenz (1999) or The Cell (2000).
I realize it’s been a while since his last feature film, although he’s kept busy with edgy, gory, heavily stylized Sci-Horror short films lately. So what stands out to me most in the first 50 minutes of this movie is how it specifically does not feel like it was directed or written by Neill Blomkamp (Elysium, Zygote, Chappie). This feels more mainstream; more generic, even if well-produced. And that’s a shame.
Years after her mother’s incarceration, Carly (Carly Pope; Elysium, Rakka) is approached by medical researcher Michael (Michael J Rogers; Beyond the Black Rainbow) running an experimental program to communicate with comatose patients in a virtual medium—that is, a virtual space in the patient’s mind. It is through these means that Michael wants Carly to contact her mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt; District 9, Doomsday) in virtual reality. And while we don’t know his exact motives, they certainly seem to be deeper than a clinical interest in his patient.
The simulation scenes should feel otherworldly, disarming and unnerving. Whereas here I find they are not very captivating at all—even mundane. Various signs point to something malevolent in the simulation influencing Angela and, eventually, Carly. Given the title of the film, we all know where this is going. A demon. All I can think at this point is, please be nothing like Incarnate (2016). Or more specifically, please be better than Incarnate (2016).
Watching the VR scenes is like watching a modern videogame down to the bird’s eye views of the hero character. It’s a bit stylish, but not enough to impress and it doesn’t lead us anywhere promising. I wanted harrowing. I wanted the reality rug yanked out from under me. But nothing of the sort. This VR simulation into the mind of a demon-haunted, comatose, violent felon was rather… boring. I mean, remember The Cell (2000)? Now that was a scintillating mindscape.
The first “big scare” (in sarcastic air quotes) feels like something from an inferior direct-to-streaming horror movie. The monstrous imagery feels very familiar, uninteresting and, frankly, very played out. Moreover, these troped up horrors aren’t even delivered in any sort of new or different way. The VR mindscape is a poor man’s “The Further” and our demon feels like a second-string Insidious (2011) fiend using a human to cross into our realm.
Oh my, and religious SWAT gear with crosses emblazoned on shoulder pads…? That’s not a good sign. But this movie was already a lost cause. I find not a trace of Neill Blomkamp’s filmmaking DNA in this film. The characters are weak, the premise is “meh”, the effects are not impressive, and nothing about this felt inspired. And THAT is what I normally think of when Neill Blomkamp comes to mind: inspired filmmaking, writing and direction. This movie has no soul.
Bad news. It’s no better than Incarnate (2016). Sigh. What happened here? I once thought that Neill Blomkamp could do no wrong, yet everything here seems wrong (for the caliber I’ve come to expect from him anyway). This may be a passable middle-of-the-road horror movie. But as a big Blomkamp fan, I didn’t care for this at all. Nope.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Gaia (2021), a pretty weird, mildly trippy South African ‘sort of’ eco-horror film.
MY CALL: A weird film crossing earthly mysticism with infection tropes, dogmatic fanaticism, and adversarial fungal organisms. Very cool ideas and visuals accompany these themes, but it wasn’t nearly as trippy or thrilling as the trailer suggested. The film neither wows nor feels like something I’ve seen before. But make no mistake. It’s good. MORE MOVIES LIKE Gaia: For more mycological horror I’d recommend The Superdeep (2020) and maybe Shrooms (2007; which I have not seen). But most closely this movie reminds me of The Hallow (2015).
Extending well past its broad sweeping opening shots of this African habitat, constant photography of the jungle from various angles transports us to this tropical, remote location as park rangers Winston (Anthony Oseyemi; Dead Places) and Gabi (Monique Rockman; Nommer 37) routinely check their forest cameras for their research.
Plucked by a gaunt survivalist and his son, the camera lingers on a mushroom as its spores are swept away in a light current of air. Mushrooms and various fungi are the prevalent theme. These woodsmen, Barend (Carel Nel; Raised by Wolves) and his quiet son Stefan (Alex van Dyk), aid Gabi when she injured in the forest by one of their traps intended for wild game. We soon learn Gabi’s rescuers worship some aspect of nature among them as a deity, and we wander into some curiously religious-pagan territory.
Before long Winston and Gabi suffer what seem to be delusions, some clearly just dream-like visions, others seeming quite real. These visions include screeching monstrosities in the forest that can be found in no biological field guide, the supernaturally rapid growth of plant life as it reaches for its fare, and fungal/lichen growths emerging from skin. Visions of bodily fungal infection abound.
Weird film. It crosses bits of religion fused with earthly mysticism into blatant infection tropes, and wrestles with the notion of trying to psychologically rescue someone from a dependent cult-like upbringing. There’s nothing ground-breaking here, but it’s a solid movie and it doesn’t feel like something I’ve seen before. I’m very satisfied with it, but it’s not the kind of film I expect to feel compelled to revisit.
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 384 – The Visit, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and M. Night Shyamalan
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 Victor Dandridge Jr. (AKA – The Hardest Working Man in Comcis – @VantageInHouse on Twitter) discuss the 2015 film The Visit. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and starring Ed Oxenbould, Olivia DeJonge, Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie, the movie focuses on what happens when two teenagers spend a horrible week with their grandparents. In this episode, they talk about found footage movies, pineapple upside down cake, and the filmography of M. Night Shyamalan. Enjoy!
Please make sure to follow Victor on Twitter!
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.
Share this post:
Quick Thoughts – Grade – B – Vacation Friends is a fun R-rated comedy that features likable performances and several memorable moments that will make you cringe, laugh, and cringe more. If you’re looking for a comedy that embraces every comedy trope, but still feels unique, you will love Vacation Friends.
Directed by Clay Tarver (Silicon Valley) and starring Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena and Meredith Hagner, Vacation Friends wraps up the summer movie season nicely with a tale about what happens when a conversative couple meets a pair of maniacs while vacationing in Mexico. Hopefully the Hulu release won’t totally bury the movie, because there’s a lot to enjoy about the comedy, as it features inspired gags involving drugs, jet skis, booze, awkward weddings, and more drugs. Also, it’s neat seeing Meredith Hagner, who has been crushing it in Set It Up, Search Party, Palm Springs, and Ingrid Goes West, get a starring role alongside Cena, Howery and Orji.
Vacation Friends focuses on the relationship between two wildly different couples who meet in Mexico. The first couple we meet are Marcus (Howery and Emily (Orji), who are on vacation from Atlanta. They are wildly conservative as Marcus likes to plan everything, and is all about his spreadsheets that keep things organized. While on their cab ride to their five-star hotel, they see Ron (Cena) and Kyla (Hagner) taking massive bong rips while they navigate the ocean on a speeding jet ski (a fun way to learn the two couples are wildly different). When Marcus and Emily get to the hotel they learn their room has been flooded, and because the water came from Kyla and Ron’s room, they invite the couple to stay in their presidential suite that has extra rooms. Despite several red flags (Ron rims margarita glasses with cocaine), the couples hit it off and become a close-knit as they party the entire week. Things get dicey the last drug-fueled night when the couples have a makeshift wedding for Marcus and Emily, then jump off a cliff, and get a little too personal back at their room. As the vacation ends, the two couples go their own way, and “promise” to keep in touch (in a very awkward scene).
Seven months later, Marcus and Emily are about to get married, and are surprised when Ron and Kyla crash their wedding weekend by literally driving through a wall. It would be a shame to spoil more, just know that the rest of the movie features rigged golf games, magic mushrooms, and bird poop. There are moments at the wedding that will make you cringe beyond belief (in a good way), and that’s a testament to the direction and game performances by the central and supporting cast.
The cinematography by Tim Suhrstedt (Silicon Valley, Idiocracy) is never fancy, but it understands how to capture every joke, and the costume design by Salvador Pérez Jr. (Pitch Perfect) does a fine job of giving each character their own unique and memorable style. Also, the script by the five credited writers consistently finds ways to put a smile on your face with inspired gags, and Waffle House jokes that have a poignant payoff.
Final thoughts – Vacation Friends is worth a watch, and will put a smile on your face.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Psycho Goreman (2020), a zany, gory, kinda cutesy horror-comedy about a bloodthirsty alien conqueror.
MY CALL: This movie has its “gore-slathered in chunky clumps of gross” moments. But I often felt the “kid stuff” and humor outweighed the violence and gore, perhaps mildly to its detriment. But it’s also pretty funny, rather hokey, very gory when it is gory, and kinda delightful. Few movies out there can deliver both levity and heavy gore together as smoothly as this. Recommended to fans of over-the-top gore or horror comedies. MORE MOVIES LIKE Psycho Goreman: For the super versus super aspect, The Guyver (1991), Swamp Thing (1982) and Zeiram (1991) spring to mind as solid double-feature pairings. For cutesy-funny wacktastic weird factor, go for Willy’s Wonderland (2021), Turbo Kid (2015), Manborg (2011) or Kung Fury (2015).
“After unearthing a gem that controls an evil monster looking to destroy the Universe, a young girl and her brother use it to make him do their bidding.” Yeah, if you’ve seen writer and director Steven Kostanski’s (Manborg, The Void, The ABCs of Death 2) other work, this premise should come as no surprise at all. LOL
The opening scenes introduce us to Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna; Books of Blood) and Luke (Owen Myre; Terrifier 2), two young competitive siblings who stumble across a buried intergalactic gemstone and sense a newfound fear of the existence of monsters. This may almost feel like a kids’ movie or a very family-friendly movie until we first encounter Psycho Goreman [PG] (voiced by Steven Vlahos) ripping off hobo heads from their blood-geysering necks with joy.
PG has a strangely familiar appearance to him, perhaps mixing The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) with a Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) orc wearing fishy Aquaman (2018) armor. This alien overlord is very evil, loves to kill, and possesses powers of telekinesis. A well-rounded tyrant, for sure.
Mimi’s gem confers complete control over PG like a lamp holder to a genie. And as much as PG disapproves and threatens, he must do everything she commands, however silly her commands may be. But things get complicated when some supped-up “good” guys come to face this evil alien, and they came in Power Rangers-ish villain attire like some sort of Anime Battle Angels.
This movie has its “gore-slathered in chunky clumps of gross” moments. Many heads are separated from their bodies, faces are melted, and my personal highlight was when PG cartoonishly unhinged his jaws to tremendous size to swallow someone whole. That said, I wish there was more. Perhaps an issue of budget, but I often felt the “kid stuff” and humor outweighed the violence and gore.
Yeah, this movie is incredibly hokey. Yeah, the bad guys all look like R-rated villains from the 90s Power Rangers show. And yeah, it’s not quite as violent or consistently gory as I’d like most of the time. But it’s also pretty funny, very gory when it is gory, and kinda delightful. Few movies out there can deliver both levity and tendon-tearing on-screen decapitation. So whether you love over-the-top gore or horror comedies, you should enjoy this.
Share this post:
Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast – Episode 60: The Deep Blue Sea Character Draft – Picking Our Favorite Characters From the Franchise
You can listen to Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, Spotify, Tunein, Podcast Addict, Amazon, Google Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to like our Facebook page!
Please make sure to rate, review, share, and subscribe!
Jay, Mark, Megan, and Nick Rehak (@TheRehak on Twitter) draft their favorite Deep Blue Sea franchise characters. In this episode, they discuss sleeveless shirts, Trader Slent’s, and their ultimate DBS character squads. After listening to the episode, let us know who put together the best crew. Enjoy!
Stay tuned for more Renny Harlin and shark movie coverage! Also, let’s hope there’s an annoucement about Deep Blue Sea 4 soon.
Please make sure to rate, review and subscribe to the DBS podcast.
Movies, Films & Flix 