Horror Movies

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Army of the Dead (2021)


This was a mindlessly entertaining Z-flick with plenty of blood & guts to satisfy the gore-hounds, but man this movie was downright stupid for the majority of its runtime. This movie included a shit ton of fluff material that essentially accumulated to nothing more than wasted time. I may get crucified for this, but I really think Snyder is an overrated director. He's got a good eye for the artsy filming, but a lot of his movies he just doesn't seem to understand the simple mechanics of filmmaking and plot progression. Don't get me wrong I like a good number of his films like Dawn of the Dead, 300 & Watchmen. Excellent films. Maybe its just his newer stuff? I can respect his genre mashups and going against the grain sometimes, but he really needs to find better coherence in his newer films. Some of his newer films has too many distractions resulting in incoherent plot threads. Take away his massive budget and some of his movies would be laughably bad.

Spoiler

The Devil's in the details! Too many logical flaws in this movie made it absurd.

• Stuff right from the get-go too, like nobody questioning why a billionaire wants to retrieve marginal cash out of a vault?
• Let's choose a mercanary based on his youtube videos showcasing his "skills" shooting zombies in the head? His girlfriend ended up being 10x the badass he was originally made out to be. And that gf could have easily been saved later on... But I guess they needed their first emotional sacrifice? We hardly knew her and yet they tried to make that an impactful scene lol.
• A young woman with no military training has trouble shooting a zombie in the head at point blank range, but proceeds to flawlessly take down 8 head-shots from a distance?
• The lead zombie apparently has a magnetic helmet made out of vibranium, and nobody can kill him when he has it on?
• Once the group finds out a nuke is on its way & time is running out they proceed to move even slower & more relaxed, even stopping to have some good father-daughter bonding time... Not to mention the pilot felt the need to deliver a speech before everyone boarded to leave. Makes sense.
• Oh and once the helicopter flew away the leader zombie had time to get down 50+ flights of stairs to ground level and mount his horse to out run the helicopter?
• If the mole had simply killed the coyote right after sawing off the head of the alpha and walked right out of the entrance (which was exactly where he took the head), then the movie ends. But instead he takes the head back to the group before proceeding to fuck them over and then tries to leave? Not to mention if the alphas were always the 1st to investigate the outskirts, then wouldn't it have been pretty simple to send in a couple people to trap those sonsabitches right where the entrance is? Another game-over scenario where the entire movie just doesn't exist if that happens lol.
• The ending was fairly hilarious from a logic standpoint as well. First off, the daughter survives a helicopter crash without even a scratch... Then a man walks out of nuclear ruins just hours after the bomb exploded. Apparently having dark skin protects you from nuclear radiation & thermal temperatures that rival the interior of the sun? Yep, ok.
• There were lots more problems that I had with this movie but I'm not remembering them all. At some point I tried to just turn off my brain because it was hurting.

The zombies were very inconsistent. I can get on board with the alpha's being smarter, faster & stronger, but then you mix in these ninja-esque gymnast Z's that apparently are phenomenal at dodging bullets... And they always appeared in the hallways at inopportune times for the survivors lol. The rest were fairly easy pickings... Majority were quick movers, but then there were a bunch of scenes with the walking dead types that were nothing more than bumps in the road. Oh and the zombie tiger. Apparently that thing defies the logic of zombies because it still maintains its excellent sense of smell & animalistic instincts vs being just an undead savage.

Overall this movie was hard to stomach if you took it seriously. It was littered with convenient logical flaws from start to finish. Also it was 2.5 hours and still had very little character development except for the moments leading up to a death where they scrambled to try & pull emotion lol. Basically any time they tried to humanize & make a connection with a character they quickly died soon after. Shallow characters implore you to stereotype (even if they are so generic that nobody is memorable), which isn't good when trying to pull emotion. This movie would have benefitted from trimming out a LOT of the script (even a handful of characters) and just stuck with action & suspense. Too many side plots that were cut short & wasted too much time building them, not to mention killing the pacing of the film. Also a 2.5 hour film is much too long to be a coherent action flick. I'd still recommend this movie for Z-fans, but would implore you to lower your expectations. It's essentially a mash-up copycat film of I Am Legend and any generic bank heist movie... Sprinkled with action tropes & telegraphed plot points... Sort of a film with a confused identity that doesn't really explore enough of either genre and takes itself way too seriously. Half-baked ideas, but nevertheless its still mindless entertainment if you're drunk enough.

I Am Legend meets Oceans Eleven? Not as good as it sounds... 5/10

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

Villains 2019 (figured I would structure the reviews similar to how you guys do it lol)


IMDB synopsis: After a pair of amateur criminals break into a suburban home, they stumble upon a dark secret that two sadistic homeowners will do anything to keep from getting out.


This is a comedy, nothing too horror about this other than the trapped with the wrong people trope. Honestly, not sure how to grade this. It's funny, but not belly-laughing funny. This is a movie where the actors make it shine. The 4 main actors, Jeffrey Donovan, Kyra Sedgwick, Bill Skarsgard, and Maika Monroe are all solid. Donovan is fantastic in my opinion and truly the funniest part of the movie. Just the looks he makes sometimes with his silly mustache is funny. The pacing is ok, the production is fine... but in the end, there is nothing too memorable. The ending worked, but still felt unfinished and rushed.

Honestly, I am not in a big reviewing mood right now, so that might be why I am not explaining too much. Sorry. Anyway, it is a decent movie where the actors make it as good as it is. I feel like a 6/10 fits.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

Army of the Dead (2021)


This was a mindlessly entertaining Z-flick with plenty of blood & guts to satisfy the gore-hounds, but man this movie was downright stupid for the majority of its runtime. This movie included a shit ton of fluff material that essentially accumulated to nothing more than wasted time. I may get crucified for this, but I really think Snyder is an overrated director. He's got a good eye for the artsy filming, but a lot of his movies he just doesn't seem to understand the simple mechanics of filmmaking and plot progression. Don't get me wrong I like a good number of his films like Dawn of the Dead, 300 & Watchmen. Excellent films. Maybe its just his newer stuff? I can respect his genre mashups and going against the grain sometimes, but he really needs to find better coherence in his newer films. Some of his newer films has too many distractions resulting in incoherent plot threads. Take away his massive budget and some of his movies would be laughably bad.

Spoiler

The Devil's in the details! Too many logical flaws in this movie made it absurd.

• Stuff right from the get-go too, like nobody questioning why a billionaire wants to retrieve marginal cash out of a vault?
• Let's choose a mercanary based on his youtube videos showcasing his "skills" shooting zombies in the head? His girlfriend ended up being 10x the badass he was originally made out to be. And that gf could have easily been saved later on... But I guess they needed their first emotional sacrifice? We hardly knew her and yet they tried to make that an impactful scene lol.
• A young woman with no military training has trouble shooting a zombie in the head at point blank range, but proceeds to flawlessly take down 8 head-shots from a distance?
• The lead zombie apparently has a magnetic helmet made out of vibranium, and nobody can kill him when he has it on?
• Once the group finds out a nuke is on its way & time is running out they proceed to move even slower & more relaxed, even stopping to have some good father-daughter bonding time... Not to mention the pilot felt the need to deliver a speech before everyone boarded to leave. Makes sense.
• Oh and once the helicopter flew away the leader zombie had time to get down 50+ flights of stairs to ground level and mount his horse to out run the helicopter?
• If the mole had simply killed the coyote right after sawing off the head of the alpha and walked right out of the entrance (which was exactly where he took the head), then the movie ends. But instead he takes the head back to the group before proceeding to fuck them over and then tries to leave? Not to mention if the alphas were always the 1st to investigate the outskirts, then wouldn't it have been pretty simple to send in a couple people to trap those sonsabitches right where the entrance is? Another game-over scenario where the entire movie just doesn't exist if that happens lol.
• The ending was fairly hilarious from a logic standpoint as well. First off, the daughter survives a helicopter crash without even a scratch... Then a man walks out of nuclear ruins just hours after the bomb exploded. Apparently having dark skin protects you from nuclear radiation & thermal temperatures that rival the interior of the sun? Yep, ok.
• There were lots more problems that I had with this movie but I'm not remembering them all. At some point I tried to just turn off my brain because it was hurting.

The zombies were very inconsistent. I can get on board with the alpha's being smarter, faster & stronger, but then you mix in these ninja-esque gymnast Z's that apparently are phenomenal at dodging bullets... And they always appeared in the hallways at inopportune times for the survivors lol. The rest were fairly easy pickings... Majority were quick movers, but then there were a bunch of scenes with the walking dead types that were nothing more than bumps in the road. Oh and the zombie tiger. Apparently that thing defies the logic of zombies because it still maintains its excellent sense of smell & animalistic instincts vs being just an undead savage.

Overall this movie was hard to stomach if you took it seriously. It was littered with convenient logical flaws from start to finish.
Also it was 2.5 hours and still had very little character development except for the moments leading up to a death where they scrambled to try & pull emotion lol. Basically any time they tried to humanize & make a connection with a character they quickly died soon after. Shallow characters implore you to stereotype (even if they are so generic that nobody is memorable), which isn't good when trying to pull emotion. This movie would have benefitted from trimming out a LOT of the script (even a handful of characters) and just stuck with action & suspense. Too many side plots that were cut short & wasted too much time building them, not to mention killing the pacing of the film. Also a 2.5 hour film is much too long to be a coherent action flick. I'd still recommend this movie for Z-fans, but would implore you to lower your expectations. It's essentially a mash-up copycat film of I Am Legend and any generic bank heist movie... Sprinkled with action tropes & telegraphed plot points... Sort of a film with a confused identity that doesn't really explore enough of either genre and takes itself way too seriously. Half-baked ideas, but nevertheless its still mindless entertainment if you're drunk enough.

I Am Legend meets Oceans Eleven? Not as good as it sounds... 5/10

Honestly, those are only 3 movies I care about or ever talk about when I am talking about Snyder lol. I will say that I thought his 4hr version of Justice League was better than the Whedon version, but still nothing amazing.

I question any movie with Dave Bautista in it. I was talking with someone a little while ago (in real life) about wrestlers turned actors and I honestly believe Bautista is the worst one I can remember. Sure, he is part of GotG, but that role of Drax works with bad acting, that is what makes Drax's character funny. Cena is ok, the Rock is pretty good... Stone Cold isn't great, but I would rather watch The Condemned than Stuber. He is on the level of Hulk Hogan acting.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Honestly, those are only 3 movies I care about or ever talk about when I am talking about Snyder lol. I will say that I thought his 4hr version of Justice League was better than the Whedon version, but still nothing amazing.

I question any movie with Dave Bautista in it. I was talking with someone a little while ago (in real life) about wrestlers turned actors and I honestly believe Bautista is the worst one I can remember. Sure, he is part of GotG, but that role of Drax works with bad acting, that is what makes Drax's character funny. Cena is ok, the Rock is pretty good... Stone Cold isn't great, but I would rather watch The Condemned than Stuber. He is on the level of Hulk Hogan acting.

Agreed on the wrestlers turned actors. Honestly Dwayne Johnson is the only one that I like, and he relies heavily on his presence than his actual acting chops. But he does have better range than any of the others.

Just watched ZS's Justice League over the weekend. Really didn't care much for it. Basically it was just an overdiluted version of the 1st attempt, with some new baddies thrown in, and some other reimaging of characters. It did a better job of connecting the DC universe... I'll give it that. But it wasn't much more than what you could have already surmised yourself without a 4 hour movie. It wasn't creative from a plot-threading standpoint.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Honestly, those are only 3 movies I care about or ever talk about when I am talking about Snyder lol. I will say that I thought his 4hr version of Justice League was better than the Whedon version, but still nothing amazing.

I question any movie with Dave Bautista in it. I was talking with someone a little while ago (in real life) about wrestlers turned actors and I honestly believe Bautista is the worst one I can remember. Sure, he is part of GotG, but that role of Drax works with bad acting, that is what makes Drax's character funny. Cena is ok, the Rock is pretty good... Stone Cold isn't great, but I would rather watch The Condemned than Stuber. He is on the level of Hulk Hogan acting.

I’ll probably watch this movie later but never really had high expectations for it.
Agree about Dave. I’ve never seen the big deal about his acting. He works fine as the muscle for the main characters but carrying a movie on his shoulders isn’t going to work well I don’t believe. Rock has that charisma which makes him likable. Cena is a guy that I don’t care about either way and comes across as a guy trying desperately to become as big as The Rock. Stone Cold is fine doing those DTV action movies. The Condemned isn’t a masterpiece and agree, I’d rather watch that than anything Dave has starred in.

Agreed on the wrestlers turned actors. Honestly Dwayne Johnson is the only one that I like, and he relies heavily on his presence than his actual acting chops. But he does have better range than any of the others.

Just watched ZS's Justice League over the weekend. Really didn't care much for it. Basically it was just an overdiluted version of the 1st attempt, with some new baddies thrown in, and some other reimaging of characters. It did a better job of connecting the DC universe... I'll give it that. But it wasn't much more than what you could have already surmised yourself without a 4 hour movie. It wasn't creative from a plot-threading standpoint.

I liked the new Justice League a lot better than the Whedon one. This version tied up a lot of loose plot points to where things made a lot more sense while the Whedon one seemed like he was trying to make another Avengers movie with DC characters.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Fractured (2016):


First off, this is the 2016 low budget British movie, not the '04, '07, '10, '12, '13, '14, '15, '17, '19, '20, or any other movie with the same overly common title. (even the youtube trailer lists the wrong year).

A small story about a couple taking a night drive to a remote country house. When they get there they appear to be being stalked or haunted by someone. Then there is a twist!

The good:
*Fairly well shot.
*An interesting story and the twist is good.
*A pretty cool and interesting 2nd half.

The bad:
*The couple doesn't seem to have very much chemistry, and their kinda offhand treatment of each other makes them a bit dislikeable. This is actually ok in the long run, but it makes the first half a bit hard to empathize.
*Another of the "That would have made a better 30-40 minute short" type movie that we too often see from the genre.

I don't want to go too much further into it, as it could spoil the movie.

It was a decent watch, but nothing spectacular. The first half just kinda meanders along, but things do pick up.
I'll give it a 5.5 to 6 outta 10 range.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Army of the Dead (2021)


This was a mindlessly entertaining Z-flick with plenty of blood & guts to satisfy the gore-hounds, but man this movie was downright stupid for the majority of its runtime. This movie included a shit ton of fluff material that essentially accumulated to nothing more than wasted time. I may get crucified for this, but I really think Snyder is an overrated director. He's got a good eye for the artsy filming, but a lot of his movies he just doesn't seem to understand the simple mechanics of filmmaking and plot progression. Don't get me wrong I like a good number of his films like Dawn of the Dead, 300 & Watchmen. Excellent films. Maybe its just his newer stuff? I can respect his genre mashups and going against the grain sometimes, but he really needs to find better coherence in his newer films. Some of his newer films has too many distractions resulting in incoherent plot threads. Take away his massive budget and some of his movies would be laughably bad.

Spoiler

The Devil's in the details! Too many logical flaws in this movie made it absurd.

• Stuff right from the get-go too, like nobody questioning why a billionaire wants to retrieve marginal cash out of a vault?
• Let's choose a mercanary based on his youtube videos showcasing his "skills" shooting zombies in the head? His girlfriend ended up being 10x the badass he was originally made out to be. And that gf could have easily been saved later on... But I guess they needed their first emotional sacrifice? We hardly knew her and yet they tried to make that an impactful scene lol.
• A young woman with no military training has trouble shooting a zombie in the head at point blank range, but proceeds to flawlessly take down 8 head-shots from a distance?
• The lead zombie apparently has a magnetic helmet made out of vibranium, and nobody can kill him when he has it on?
• Once the group finds out a nuke is on its way & time is running out they proceed to move even slower & more relaxed, even stopping to have some good father-daughter bonding time... Not to mention the pilot felt the need to deliver a speech before everyone boarded to leave. Makes sense.
• Oh and once the helicopter flew away the leader zombie had time to get down 50+ flights of stairs to ground level and mount his horse to out run the helicopter?
• If the mole had simply killed the coyote right after sawing off the head of the alpha and walked right out of the entrance (which was exactly where he took the head), then the movie ends. But instead he takes the head back to the group before proceeding to fuck them over and then tries to leave? Not to mention if the alphas were always the 1st to investigate the outskirts, then wouldn't it have been pretty simple to send in a couple people to trap those sonsabitches right where the entrance is? Another game-over scenario where the entire movie just doesn't exist if that happens lol.
• The ending was fairly hilarious from a logic standpoint as well. First off, the daughter survives a helicopter crash without even a scratch... Then a man walks out of nuclear ruins just hours after the bomb exploded. Apparently having dark skin protects you from nuclear radiation & thermal temperatures that rival the interior of the sun? Yep, ok.
• There were lots more problems that I had with this movie but I'm not remembering them all. At some point I tried to just turn off my brain because it was hurting.

The zombies were very inconsistent. I can get on board with the alpha's being smarter, faster & stronger, but then you mix in these ninja-esque gymnast Z's that apparently are phenomenal at dodging bullets... And they always appeared in the hallways at inopportune times for the survivors lol. The rest were fairly easy pickings... Majority were quick movers, but then there were a bunch of scenes with the walking dead types that were nothing more than bumps in the road. Oh and the zombie tiger. Apparently that thing defies the logic of zombies because it still maintains its excellent sense of smell & animalistic instincts vs being just an undead savage.

Overall this movie was hard to stomach if you took it seriously. It was littered with convenient logical flaws from start to finish.
Also it was 2.5 hours and still had very little character development except for the moments leading up to a death where they scrambled to try & pull emotion lol. Basically any time they tried to humanize & make a connection with a character they quickly died soon after. Shallow characters implore you to stereotype (even if they are so generic that nobody is memorable), which isn't good when trying to pull emotion. This movie would have benefitted from trimming out a LOT of the script (even a handful of characters) and just stuck with action & suspense. Too many side plots that were cut short & wasted too much time building them, not to mention killing the pacing of the film. Also a 2.5 hour film is much too long to be a coherent action flick. I'd still recommend this movie for Z-fans, but would implore you to lower your expectations. It's essentially a mash-up copycat film of I Am Legend and any generic bank heist movie... Sprinkled with action tropes & telegraphed plot points... Sort of a film with a confused identity that doesn't really explore enough of either genre and takes itself way too seriously. Half-baked ideas, but nevertheless its still mindless entertainment if you're drunk enough.

I Am Legend meets Oceans Eleven? Not as good as it sounds... 5/10

A sad confirmation of my fears. I'm sure I will still watch it at some point, and I sure I will enjoy it on some levels. But I can't help but be a bit angry about it.

Why am I mildly upset? Well, I really enjoyed Snyder's '04 Dawn of the Dead remake. This is despite George Romero not liking it, in part due to the fast moving zombies. But continuing to use the "of the Dead" title despite there supposedly being no connection to the Romero z-verse seems exploitive to me.
It reminds me a bit of people selling off rights to properties for use that their now dead creators would frown upon (such as Moterhead songs appearing in commericals after Lemmy was no longer around to say no).
Romero specifically owned the "of the Dead" title rights after a legal settlement with Night of the Living Dead co-creator John Russo (note that John got the rights to use the "Living Dead" titles, and made the Return of the Living Dead series).

Anyways, I am not sure if Snyder was just able to use the "of the Dead" title outright, or if the studio had to pay off Romero's relatives to use it, but either way it seems a bit disrespectful since Army of the Dead seems to go against nearly every tenet that Romero adhered to during the series (for better or worse): slow moving, mindless, all-consuming beasts used to make social commentary. This one (by all reports) is a brainless action heist movie that exists for special fxs, and lots of shooting (persumably often in slow motion).

Ugh.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

A sad confirmation of my fears. I'm sure I will still watch it at some point, and I sure I will enjoy it on some levels. But I can't help but be a bit angry about it.

Why am I mildly upset? Well, I really enjoyed Snyder's '04 Dawn of the Dead remake. This is despite George Romero not liking it, in part due to the fast moving zombies. But continuing to use the "of the Dead" title despite there supposedly being no connection to the Romero z-verse seems exploitive to me.
It reminds me a bit of people selling off rights to properties for use that their now dead creators would frown upon (such as Moterhead songs appearing in commericals after Lemmy was no longer around to say no).
Romero specifically owned the "of the Dead" title rights after a legal settlement with Night of the Living Dead co-creator John Russo (note that John got the rights to use the "Living Dead" titles, and made the Return of the Living Dead series).

Anyways, I am not sure if Snyder was just able to use the "of the Dead" title outright, or if the studio had to pay off Romero's relatives to use it, but either way it seems a bit disrespectful since Army of the Dead seems to go against nearly every tenet that Romero adhered to during the series (for better or worse): slow moving, mindless, all-consuming beasts used to make social commentary. This one (by all reports) is a brainless action heist movie that exists for special fxs, and lots of shooting (persumably often in slow motion).

Ugh.

I’m sort of hopeful that I was being overly critical because of how long I waited for this movie so I’m definitely curious what you’ll think of it... being a Z movie fan and all.

This movie had almost zero semblance of Romero’s works. About the only connection I made was it had yet another zombie baby... although this one was very different, presumably born from zombies mating vs a pregnant woman being bit. Yea it goes that far off the rails!

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Okay, just finished watching Army of the Dead a few minutes ago. Definitely a skippable movie in my opinion. I didn't care at all about whether or not any of the characters lived or died. Watching Dave Bautista trying to show emotions is hilarious. Watching him get emasculated by his daughter before the majority of the action begins was facepalm worthy. I don't mind Garrett Dillahunt but he plays the typical douche that does something stupid that causes a chain reaction of the events that happen. The gay safe cracker that was supposed to be funny was more annoying than anything. One thing that bothered me that didn't have anything to do with the plot was all of the lens flares. I can forgive them if there's one here and there but those things were there all throughout the movie and got annoying quickly. Also, apparently zombies in this movie can do parkour and know martial arts.

Spoiler

There were a few things I did wonder about. First, how in the hell did the main zombie run all the way to the bottom of the one building and all the way to the building and up to the floor where Bautista's daughter was at as quick as it took the chopper to get there? Also, unless I missed something, how did Omari Hardwick's character walk away from nuclear fallout without any issues? Which brings me to a third thing. I really hope that there is not a sequel to this movie as was possibly hinted at at the end.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[R.J. MacReady]

SO you're tellin me that the bat creature boosted your rating of the woman-empowering Shadow In the Cloud (2020)?

I always thought you were just a softy with an inner-feminist...

When the movie was over I had one thought ..they had the bat demon slightly less evil than white men.

I swear, I thought at one point that they were going to have the bat & the girl do a Spock mind meld session thing and she could see into the bat's past were white men murdered the bat's family.



.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Okay, just finished watching Army of the Dead a few minutes ago. Definitely a skippable movie in my opinion. I didn't care at all about whether or not any of the characters lived or died. Watching Dave Bautista trying to show emotions is hilarious. Watching him get emasculated by his daughter before the majority of the action begins was facepalm worthy. I don't mind Garrett Dillahunt but he plays the typical douche that does something stupid that causes a chain reaction of the events that happen. The gay safe cracker that was supposed to be funny was more annoying than anything. One thing that bothered me that didn't have anything to do with the plot was all of the lens flares. I can forgive them if there's one here and there but those things were there all throughout the movie and got annoying quickly. Also, apparently zombies in this movie can do parkour and know martial arts.

Spoiler

There were a few things I did wonder about. First, how in the hell did the main zombie run all the way to the bottom of the one building and all the way to the building and up to the floor where Bautista's daughter was at as quick as it took the chopper to get there? Also, unless I missed something, how did Omari Hardwick's character walk away from nuclear fallout without any issues? Which brings me to a third thing. I really hope that there is not a sequel to this movie as was possibly hinted at at the end.

One other thing I forgot to mention:

Spoiler

Why would they mention the zombies that come back to life when it rains and then it never rains?

 

[returnofjakedog]

Late Phases or

When the movie was over I had one thought ..they had the bat demon slightly less evil than white men.

I swear, I thought at one point that they were going to have the bat & the girl do a Spock mind meld session thing and she could see into the bat's past were white men murdered the bat's family.



.

I have to ask (haven't seen it): Weren't they fighting the Nazis???

 

[returnofjakedog]

Late Phases aka Night of the Wolf (2014)


I hadn't heard of this one before so I was surprised to see a relatively unknown werewolf movie with a 6 rating on imdb.

So this blind Vietnam vet Ambrose moves into a retirement community next to the woods. The first night he is there a werewolf busts into his neighbor's place and kills her, then bursts into his place. Everyone says this is a common occurance (!) and no one seems to give a shit. But Ambrose knows whats going on so he spends the rest of the movie preparing for a showdown. Then werewolves attack (kinda).
That's basically it.

The good:
*The movie is competent on most levels, but nothing stands out as really good. Even the decent stuff is hit and miss.
*A few fxs are decent. But others suck. The big transformation scene tries hard.
*Some acting is ok but most of that is lost because of the other problems. Ethan Embry and his perpetually furrowed giant forehead try hard.

The bad:
*The main character Ambrose is completely and thoroughly unlikeable. Even with being a disabled war vet whose wife just died I couldn't muster any sympathy because he was just constantly an asshole.
*As noted, an "animal" breaks in, kills his neighbor, then breaks into his place and attacks him. No one cares. The police literally just say "This happens every month. You live next to the woods. Stay inside at night." WTF?!?
I've lived next to wilderness most of my life and a) wild animals have never broken in and attacked people, and b) if they did, the people would actually try to do something about it. Instead animals apparently attack people here all of the time and "eh".
To continue this rant: blind Ambrose actually gets the mailman to help him walk a large blood trail to another house, something the police apparently never bothered to do!
*People in the movie are shocked that a blind man has guns. Ambrose just says it isn't illegal. His son just lets him keeps the guns. At some point he shots werewolves from a distance using hearing and smell. Fucking stupid.
*Some fxs are ok, but the werewolfs too often look like an a) dude running around in a poor halloween werewolf costume, and b) when they do the "big budget" close up stuff, the werewolves' faces look like a cross between a werewolf and a mogwai from Gremlins.

Sadly this one will not be joining my short list of the rare actually good werewolf movies. A 4 to 4.5 outta 10 in my book.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

When the movie was over I had one thought ..they had the bat demon slightly less evil than white men.

I swear, I thought at one point that they were going to have the bat & the girl do a Spock mind meld session thing and she could see into the bat's past were white men murdered the bat's family.



.

I recently found out that this movie was originally written by Max Landis... But he was accused of sexual abuse, so the producers took the script & got it rewritten by Roseanne Liang... I'm sure you can entertain yourselves with a couple of different scenarios with this information, but it paints a pretty damn funny picture of how we got the end result.

@Sharkonabicycle - you may be interested in this info as well lol

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

One other thing I forgot to mention:

Spoiler

Why would they mention the zombies that come back to life when it rains and then it never rains?

I seriously cannot understand how this movie is so popular right now... Maybe because the target audience is for dense teenagers?

They are already talking about Army of the Dead 2 for cryin out loud... Snyder said he is on board if the fans wanted it

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Army of the Dead

Cot Damn, Zach Snyder likes him his long azz’d movies. WAY too long for the quality. About 90 mins in, I was looking at the clock wondering when it would end. A deep sigh was had when I saw 60 mins remained.

I am not a HUGE fan of the “Smart/Fast zombie” sub genre, but this one looked like it would have some brain dead entertainment value. Meh. I didn’t care about any of the characters. All they did to increase tension was to ramp up the volume of screams and growls. Too many manufactured tension points.

3/10. And that is generous.