#housebound movie review

[hannahwatcheshorror]

HOUSEBOUND (2014)

 💁‍♀️Strong Female Lead

A pretty well rounded horror movie! Surprises and turns only from the fact that we are all used to the same sort of story. A neat twist that didn’t make me feel jipped, just excited. It isn’t a revolutionary film, but it’s a good horror movie that feels satisfying to watch and discover the secrets.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

Girl is finding freaky stuff in her house, turns out, some dude has been living in the walls and is actually trying to help her and her family. It’s fucky, especially when you want it to be about ghosts but it's scary humans instead. I originally gave it 5 stars on Netflix but, fam, I think I would remember this movie more if it was really worth 5 stars.

[visplay]

Chris: Housebound is a suspense / horror / comedy from New Zealand, this is very much recommended, great plot and writing, far better than most, about a difficult, pushy, rebellious lady on home house arrest, Watch: On Subscription Service.

Richie: Housebound was a funny, quirky, dark comedy, very entertaining, Watch: On Subscription Service.

[donnerpartyofone]

In Praise of Unlikable Women

I saw the sharp, funny, inventive M3GAN twice in theaters (mild spoiler ahead), and when I realized that it was directed by Gerard Johnstone of HOUSEBOUND fame, it occurred to me that he might have a knack for realizing difficult female characters. HOUSEBOUND tells the story of Kylie, a petty crook on house arrest at the home of her awful mother Miriam, who insists that the place is haunted. Miriam is ignorant, intrusive, and attention-seeking, while Kylie is a bit of a psychopath; their misadventures in the house are highly entertaining, but this was a tough experience when it was on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. Anybody following along on Twitter may remember many, many viewers expressing the sentiment that "Kylie is a fucking bitch and if I were her mom I'd slap the shit out of her" etc. I thought...sure she's a fucking bitch, but why does that have to be such a big problem for us non-fictional humans? If we only tell stories about characters who everyone would want for a best friend, doesn't that severely limit what kinds of stories we can tell? Besides which, I also think it should be possible to like people who don't meet your criteria for civilized perfection. Sure, Kylie has all the moral fiber of a feral tomcat, but she's also assertive, independent, funny, and charming in her own amoral way. ...Isn't she?

I may be fairly accused of falling for female characters who don't present as dutiful wives and caregivers. M3GAN (whose savvy script is by Akela Cooper) offers a model of the type in Gemma, a hardbitten careerist whose busy schedule of being alone is interrupted when her estranged sister dies, forcing her to foster her traumatized niece. In a way, M3GAN features no less (and possibly more!) than three difficult women: nerdy loner Gemma, angry little Cady, and M3gan herself, a high tech educational toy whose very existence tests Gemma's underdeveloped ideas about socialization. Mercifully, the movie does not conclude that Gemma should give in to the prime directive and just admit that women can only fulfill themselves through motherhood; rather, Gemma evolves by learning to empathize with Cady's hardships. Sure, the implication is that Gemma will raise Cady herself, but the conversation is not about maternity, so much as it is about respect. M3GAN ain't no SWEET HOME ALABAMA, and Gemma doesn't have to give up who she is in order to acquire the new skill of acknowledging other people. I don't know if I've ever been so grateful that a movie has no love interest in it.

For me, the success of M3GAN is largely dependent on the fact that Gemma is likeable and interesting as an antisocial workaholic, before she ever has to grapple with child care. I suppose there will be viewers who feel otherwise, that Gemma is a cold unfeeling asshole (sorry if that's a little vivid), and she only becomes worthy by transforming into Cady's full time carer. I'd rather avoid such people, but I know they're out there. Apparently there is even a recent New York Times review of TÁR that accuses the film of condoning the predatory behavior of its eponymous antihero. I haven't read the review...and I don't wanna! This attitude is all too familiar to me from the censorious, moralizing atmosphere that has settled over public media dialog recently, which treats every movie as if it were proposing a Constitutional amendment based on its own content.

That state of affairs has made me intensely aware of my own unusual flexibility regarding what I think makes a character likeable and interesting. For the last couple of years I've been collaborating on a very-TBA fiction project, and I came up against some unexpected opposition to the way I had written a certain woman. My colleagues felt that I'd cast her as too harsh, cold, and adversarial, and I received a mandate to soften her up. The criticism wasn't wrong, or dumb, but I was still disappointed that I had to dial back what I liked so much about the character. She was an outlet for my own proud antisociality, and a screen onto which I projected my desire to be even more pragmatic and cutthroat than I'm capable of being in real life. I liked her the way I wrote her, but I needed to heed the warning that not all audiences will relate. Conversely, I've been commissioned to write a novelization of an older movie (also TBA and no I won't tell you if you guessed it right) featuring a female character who I think was originally written in sort of a misogynistic way: someone whose aversion to motherhood is supposed to be kind of a red flag, something that lays the groundwork for bad things to come. Separating myself from what I perceive to be the filmmaker's intentions, I really like this character. I think it's not hard to see depth in her, and to imagine what made her the way she is. I dig her antisociality, her lack of maternality, her withholdingness, and her amoral devotion to her career. I'm doubling down on that stuff and writing her in a way that I personally think makes her sympathetic and intriguing, rather than making her even more repulsive and culpable...but what the hell do I know! Someone will tell me if I'm doing it wrong, hopefully. And in the meantime, I can study the work of Gerard Johnstone. It seems like the rest of his filmography holds even more of that bad girl shit I crave.

[moviereviews101web]

Bookworm (2024) FrightFest 2024 Movie Review

Bookworm – FrightFest 2024 Movie Review Director: Ant Timpson Writer: Toby Harvard, Ant Timpson (Screenplay) Cast Elijah Wood (Maniac) Nell Fisher (Evil Dead Rise) Michael Smiley (Kill List) Morgana O’Reilly (Housebound) Nikki Si’ulepa (The Whole of the Moon) Plot: 11-year-old Mildred’s world is turned upside down when her estranged father, the washed-up magician Strawn Wise, comes to…

[theyilinglaozus]

The 2024 Godzilla Marathon

Hullo, hullo! So; at the end of 2023 my family and I caught a rather horrible strain of covid, which left us housebound for two weeks. During that time, my father and I decided to use my Apple TV trail to watch Monarch, and ever since I've been on a kick with reliving some childhood nostalgia by rewatching (and for a lot of titles, watching for the first time!) a bunch of Godzilla movies. Oh. And this year marks 70 years for the franchise. So it seemed like the perfect chance to celebrate. I'm hoping this list will keep track of all things Godzilla while I take on this task. Now I don't plan to watch every movie made because there is a lot, and the quality can differ. But, let's see how much fun I have. Here is my best of ... Godzilla movies list on MDL; which I intend to update as I go along with the titles I really enjoyed.

Watched (Japanese)

Godzilla (1954) - review here.

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Mothra (1961)

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Shin Godzilla (2006)

Godzilla: Minus One (2023)

Watched (English)

Godzilla (1998)

Godzilla (2014)

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

Monarch season 1 (2023)

Godzilla X Kong: The New Age (2024)

Watched (Animation)

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)

Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)

Next to watch (downloaded)

Rodan (1956)

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster (1964)

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)

Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Priority

GAMERA -rebirth- (2023) (currently watching)

[easyinfoweb]

M3GAN Movie review, Rating, Cast & Crew. Megan Movie Explained! Pass or fail ?

M3GAN Movie review, Rating, Cast & Crew. Megan Movie Explained! Pass or fail ?

Gerard Johnstone’s Megan proves itself more than gifable Android dances and NFL halftime shows a movie that pays off viral hype with the production goods from the director of 2014’s housebound and the writer of last year’s madcap malignant comes an artificial intelligence Thriller. megan poster Movie Casting and characters ActorsCharacters & RolesGerard JohnstoneDirected byAkela…

[entwifeexperience]

The Social Media Panopticon…

The Social Media Panopticon, Undiagnosed Neurodivergences, Wokescoldery, and the Power of Di

The Social Media Panopticon, Undiagnosed Neurodivergences, Wokescoldery, and the Power of Discourse  

CW: Referenced bigotry, digital self-harm, Twitter 

Hey there!  

This is my second introduction and backstory in the TTRPG social media space, I want to unpack this so I can start fresh on these new platforms. (My Re-introduction with all my links can be found here)

Notes 

This is almost certainly an exercise in pointlessness that absolutely no one could be expected read or get anything out of. It’s just important and cathartic to me to do this.

We're talking cringe, parasocial, reactionary, wokescold and tenderqueer stuff, not anything more malicious or fucked, which is depressing to have to clarify, but the various TTRPG spaces have and still have a lot of abusers, Nazis, and bad actors. Be mindful that we're not all just a bunch of pals playing a fun home game... I’m doing my best to not point fingers here and to take things on the chin, and reckon with my past behaviours and perspectives.

There are no names in here, both because this is not about calling anyone out and my memory is a fucking nightmare. 

I joined Twitter a number of years back (time has ceased to have meaning since the beginning of the pandemic and the eternal lockdown of the chronically ill), as an assumed cishet guy with experience working on some wargaming and  TTRPG blogs on tumblr back in the day, ready to dive into D&D 5e and befriend every person who played the game because they all must be lovely, wonderful people... On the plus side, I did meet some incredible and inspiring people, play some phenomenal games, get into reviews more formally, and discover that trans people existed outside of awful punchlines in movies. 

The Queer and trans representation and inclusivity of certain parts of TTRPG Twitter had a profound effect on me, allowing me to begin to reckon with over 30 years of repressed sexuality and gender shit tied to my childhood trauma and C-PTSD. This led to my Queer Archimedes moment in the bath realising I was bi (Queer Bisexual Panromantic Lesbian [MSpec Lesbian love and solidarity! Haters learn Queer history]) and the beginning of my gender journey as non-binary (Non-Binary Genderqueer Genderfae Trans Womxn). Eternal love and appreciation to TK Johnson, Brittney Hay, Sage Stafford, Lore Evans, and many more for your support and/ or simply existing.

The foolishness of trusting all TTRPG creators, players and unwieldy following on my main account, changing my name a number of times and wanting to start fresh with new levels of identity and (attempts at) understanding of the world, and finalising my name and the name I wanted to create under, Sebrina Calkins (Brina, please) and Entwife Experience, respectively. I’m not interested in including deadname stuff here, but you can see the various names in my DriveThruRPG/ DMs Guild reviews. 

Besides the foolishness of follows, I discovered that Twitter was fucking awful for me due to my neurodivergences (C-PTSD, Severe ADHD and undiagnosed, but ludicrous RAADS-R scoring autism) and isolation since being made medically redundant and developing fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and my C-PTSD emerging with a lot of anxiety, depression and physical conversion symptoms in 2010, leaving me mostly housebound. This was only exacerbated with the beginning of the pandemic and the eternal lockdown chronically ill people like me are living in. This manifested in two major ways. 

The first being the unique way in which Twitter encourages free and edgy posting while leaving you absolutely exposed to the world and its judgement. Twitter and social media, in general, are known for its wokescolds and tenderqueers (if you don’t like that language, just pretend I say faux progressive each time), loud, passionate, and fucking ridiculously unhelpful and hateful people who wield identity, often not even their own, as a cudgel to beat others, tone police, hate mob, ‘cancel’, and generally make the lives of everyone harder, including the people they are supposedly advocating for. If you want a perfect example and insightful breakdown of these phenomena, check out this incredible video by CH4R10T: One of the Most Disgusting Videos I've Ever Watched on Stream | Reacting to "Keffals is a Bigot", deconstructing the insidious bullshittery of the clown town and their myopic attempt to call Keffals a bigot. (Cherry and I are both trans and neurodivergent, so if any of this is too much for you remember that it makes it OK). Alongside, the very necessary and important work done by many in the TTRPG spaces to increase inclusion, and diversity, and combat the literal Nazis and bigoted grognards, these people also existed, and my exposure to them there and all over Twitter, lead to me taking on a lot of these kinds of opinions and stances. I am ashamed to say I was posting rage-filled cringe while Lindsey Ellis burned which I deeply regret. This and taking the disingenuous and dangerous claims of certain ‘Cool Tube’ creators at face value will haunt me and have made me determined to be more critical. 

This, along with the constant discoursing, and just how out of hand said discoursing would get, with people I respected and considered friends on both sides acting in ways incomprehensible to me, especially in their inconsistency and hypocrisy with how they treated subjects and people broke the shit out of my brain. I absolutely could not compute it. I hate disagreeing with people I respect and/ or care about, and I definitely don’t want to be problematic or offensive, and the idea of upsetting or harming someone through my action or inaction makes me sick.  

THIS WAS ENTIRELY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO ON TWITTER, even if not directly called out or subtweeted that feeling of dread and paranoia was constant.  

I am very aware that this is me problem; the perfect storm of my C-PTSD, ADHD, and autism, but it, and trying to be aware of all bad actors, transphobes, etc. by exposing myself to them to report and block fucking broke me and became an act of digital self-harm, as my mental health spiralled in the wake of the first years of the pandemic and the rise of such vehement and violent transphobia. 

I heard someone say this once and it absolutely skewered me and burned itself into my grey matter:     

You made the classic blunder: "Never fuck with an Autistic's sense of justice."

The other major problem I had was the way I approached my relationships with people on TTRPG Twitter. Due to my only really existing and socialising online, because of the conditions ad disabilities mentioned earlier, I approached social media in a vastly different way to many, and one which was particularly unhealthy, especially for Twitter. I was working on the notion that interacting with the people I was seeing every day online was comparable to if we were doing so in meat space and making incorrect assumptions about familiarity and the growth and depth of relationships over time. While others were popping in for takes, promo, discourse, arranging games, etc., they had lives and friends in the ‘real world’, while it was IRL to me and I was hoping to make friends. Everything above complicated this as well. This was unrealistic and unhelpful. Thankfully, my time away from TTRPG social media has given me some perspective and I realise how unreasonable my expectations were and how inappropriate a platform like Twitter is for making those kinds of connections, especially for the particularly neurodivergent. 

Now I obsess over Discord. (Mostly joking) It is a much better platform for actually having meaningful conversations and getting to know people. 

My intention is not to make the same mistakes with Mastodon and tumblr, and to focus on the hype, reviews, creating, and less intense interactions with folx on there. Anything else can be taken to another platform. The final problem I had with how things worked before was that I wanted to do everything for everyone and ended up with all manner of horrifying versions of the List of Many, meaning that there were so many people I never got around to reviewing and felt absolutely awful about not supporting and/ or getting a review copy for nothing. This time I am going to be more selective and more aware of my conditions and limitations.

Anyways, my apologies to anyone who bothered to read all that self-indulgent cathartic waffle. 

Love and Solidarity, 

Brina/ Entwife Experience

scourse

[thegrimdarkoffice]

I just got back from watching Ready Or Not at a local english cinema; if you're planning on watching it, let me just say that it is not for anyone who is squeamish, and it definitely is for someone who likes slasher movies or watching lots of blood.

Content wise it was entertaining, more horror than comedy though, yet it had its moments of hilarity with this dysfunctional murder happy family.

I would rate this movie a 'Would not watch again, but enjoyed it the first time'. Of course there were soome things that kinda bugged me like

the fact that the family was chanting hail satan etc, like, EVERY occult movie EVER either targets satanists or pagans. They were feared and some were brutal in the past, but jfc do you hear modern day pagans or modern day satanists locking people in their basements and terrorizing people about their beliefs?

When will horror movies remember that there are other religions who do these things on a daily basis...

ALSO the ending was a bit predictable, although I assumed she would either join them and become a fellow murderer herself (the ending I was hoping for, actually. The family that slays together stays together)

But it wasnt a bad movie. It was definitely better than most of the horror movies that came out this year and last, not including anything from Jorden Peele, who only makes good horror movies.

[fryesmoviereview]

Housebound - 2014

Morgana O'Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru, Ross Harper, Cameron Rhodes, Mick Innes

Review: Well, from the reviews of this that I read before I watched the movie, it seems as if I'm in the minority here in not really caring for this movie. They tried something different which I can appreciate, but overall I think it spread itself to thin and didn't really nail any of the things it tried.

The movie is a horror/comedy and starts with a woman named Kylie and her accomplice try to rob an ATM machine, which ends in them being caught, and her being placed under house arrest at her mother's house. We find out as the movie goes on that this house is a hotspot for local tragedy and history. She's assigned a probation officer, as well as a mandated counselor that comes and does sessions with her on a regular basis.

The first part of this is a haunting. We find out that the house use to be part of an asylum and an angry spirit is still hanging around the house because a counselor from the old asylum did something resulting in her death. It turns out the Kylie's probation officer is also an amateur ghost hunter, and they hunt for ghosts. These few scenes are the only ones in the movie that made me laugh, and I enjoyed quite a lot.

I was getting into the story about the haunting, but then it all of a sudden switches and the movie focuses on the fact that there has been a man living in the walls of the house without them knowing.

The fact that they decided to go with a dude living in the walls doesn't make any sense to me. They have a scene in the movie where Kylie's cell phone rings. She is on the second story of the house when the phone starts to ring. She assumes it's in her bag, and searches for it, but the phone ends up being all the way down in the basement. So, you're trying to tell me that she could clearly here her cell phone ring from the second story of the house, to the point where she thinks it's actually in the room with her, but a dude has gone unnoticed living in the walls of the house?

The movie tries to do to much. They have the haunting, the dude living in the walls, and then the end when they do the twist reveal of Kylie's counselor being the one that killed the girl in the asylum back in the day. He then tries to kill them, and chases them around the house. It all comes together in the end, and Kylie wins.

The movie was alright. In my opinion it was mediocre in all of what it tried to take on, and it makes the movie incredibly forgettable. It's also lacking on the comedy parts, and the horror parts.

5.6/10

[theimpossiblescheme]

One thing that always struck me regarding the 1950 Cyrano is how almost ominously absent Le Bret is for the final act.  In the stage version, he’s the first person to bring news of Cyrano to Roxanne when he comes to visit her at the convent, and he expresses how worried he is. Ragueneau doesn’t show up until later to bring the bad news.  But in this movie, Ragueneau seems to have taken Le Bret’s place as Cyrano’s confidante, asking about the satires he’s written and worrying about him.  And given that the last time we saw Le Bret, Cyrano had just barely saved him from a couple of Spanish soldiers at Arras, it got me thinking…

We know it was a harrowing battle.  The Spaniards reclaim Arras, leaving the cadets to escape by the skin of their teeth.  Christian is dead, along with God only knows how many other brave young soldiers.  They drag themselves through the mud and viscera back to Paris, and Le Bret keeps up most of the way, staggering doggedly next to Cyrano at the front of the formation. But there’s a set to his face that Cyrano doesn’t quite recognize—a tightness in his jaw, a vein throbbing slightly at his temple, an almost wild glint in his eye that doesn’t belong there. Usually so calm and collected, but now as if he’s summoning all of his remaining energy to make it back to familiar ground and stay strong in front of his regiment if it kills him.  Nothing exists but the road in front of him and whatever pain he’s attempting to fight off.  Cyrano doesn’t say anything—he hasn’t had the energy to speak all day—but he puts a hand on his shoulder as they walk.

Then, as soon as they reach the guardhouse, Le Bret collapses, his legs just folding like cheap paper under him.  Some of the younger, less tired cadets instantly run over in concern, but de Guiche barks for the surgeon and Cyrano practically growls for them to get back and give him some air.  It’s easy to be angry in the moment, but there’s an almost blinding terror biting at him as he grips his friend’s hand, anchoring him to consciousness.  He’s already lost Christian, and Roxanne as well… losing Le Bret would be the last straw.

The surgeon’s diagnosis is an almost lethal loss of blood.  A man can only be stabbed so many times, even if it’s not through a vital organ, before his body starts to give out on him.  Again, anger comes easier, and Cyrano chides him for attempting to hide his wounds for so long.  Le Bret, however, points out that that’s extremely rich coming from him, and it prompts an exhausted and melancholy, but still sincere smile out of Cyrano for the first time in days.  He missed the old bear’s growling more than he realized… it’s the one constant left in his life.

To everyone’s sorrow and Le Bret’s great displeasure, he’s housebound until he grows stronger. Cyrano’s confident that he’ll be back on his feet in short order—he’s nothing if not resilient, and he’s seen harder battles than this before.  In the meantime, he assures Le Bret that Ragueneau, in his infinite patience and generosity, has been “keeping an eye” on him in his absence.  “At the very least, he will never allow me to starve,” Cyrano says with a chuckle and notices the distinctly relieved look on Le Bret’s face.

Winter is hard on them both. The cold winds gnaw at their respective injuries; Le Bret looks faint next to anything other than a huge roaring fire, and Cyrano has to use a cane for balance more and more to circumvent the shrapnel that clipped his shoulder and the back of his skull.  The first year, they were more optimistic—if they can survive this, they can survive anything else afterward.  Between snowfalls, Cyrano has only three destinations: the bakery for some peace and quiet in the back room to write, the convent to comfort and cheer Roxanne if possible, and Le Bret’s flat to keep him company.  The two talk over a bottle of brandy about anything except war.  About their remaining friends, about de Guiche’s surprising change of heart, about these foolish new batches of new recruits (even then, Le Bret’s eyes will grow dark at the implication of what will happen to these bright young fools and the subject is quickly changed).  Cyrano goes to see a new play and brings back an entertaining review.  Le Bret laments his thin walls and recounts some of his neighbors’ more amusing exploits.  They try to make each other laugh because God knows there’s little enough of that in the world right now.

The first winter goes by. And then the second.  And then the third.  So many more winters pass in a long dreary sequence… and neither of them really improve.  The cadets have a completely new roster now, save for these two relics.  Meanwhile, Le Bret is still constantly pale and shivering with tired eyes, and Cyrano is nearly whittled down to half of himself from hunger and fatigue.  He feeds himself entirely on the scorn and hatred of the aristocracy while the other scrounges for any bit of warmth the world has left to offer.  How strangely appropriate, Cyrano thinks.

They still avoid grim subjects as they talk and drink and Le Bret inevitably apologizes for not being a terribly interesting host—“It’s difficult to come up with conversation when I spend most of my life these days in a single room”—and Cyrano always waves it off with a quip that he has adventures enough for the both of them.  But one evening, after Cyrano recounts the wrath he’d instilled in a certain marquis who took exception to his criticism, Le Bret slams his glass down with a very black smile

“Promise me one thing, my friend,” he says, wrapping his cloak tighter around one shoulder.  “If, God forbid, you should die before I do, that it won’t be over something as ridiculous as that.”

Cyrano just laughs, feeling a rush of affection toward the other old soldier, and refills his glass. “I make no promises, but I shall avoid it if I can.”

[introvertguide]

The Horrific History of Peter Jackson Movies

I think that most people mostly associate Peter Jackson with films like King Kong, The Hobbit trilogy, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Many Peter Jackson fans, however, might not be as familiar with the films that he directed in the 90s. Jackson was actually known for trashy splatter horror films a decade before he directed The Fellowship of the Ring. Let’s take a quick review of some highlights of Peter Jackson’s career before he was hired to create the stories of Middle Earth:

Bad Taste (1987): This is a classic “aliens take over a small town and use humans for food” genre movie. You know. The best genre. Most of the actors played both humans and aliens, including the director himself. Full disclosure, this is the only Peter Jackson film that I didn’t get all the way through because it is boring and the effects are pathetic. This was the first feature length film directing venture for Peter Jackson and he had a budget of a whopping $25,000. This film was produced, written, acted, directed, filmed, and edited by Peter Jackson, so you know it is his passion project. Here is the official trailer and the full film so you can see for yourself why I couldn’t get through it. Maybe you will love it:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JqYFgiT5qA

Full Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAxAmTNvINA

Meet the Feebles (1989): This is a dirty version of The Muppets. It is based around a variety show in a world that is completely inhabited by animal puppets. Unlike the Muppets, the characters suffer from things like depression and drug addiction. There is even disemboweling murder, horrific drug trips, and puppet sex including rape. Wow. I made it through this whole film and it is awful. It is truly the stuff of nightmares. Here is the trailer as well as the full film so you can decide for yourself if it is something enjoyable:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FON5KnEKReA

Full Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjtwFG_Ap0

Dead Alive (1992): This film is also known as Brain Dead and is somewhat well known as a cult classic. A woman is bitten by a mutated Sumatran rat-monkey at a pet shop and becomes a horrific zombie. The change is body horror along the lines of David Cronenberg movies like The Fly. There is a point where it just gets ridiculous and a man walks through a room of zombies with an overturned lawn mower. The movie is actually pretty funny but it is also very disgusting. You should check it out if you are into splatter films but your appetite will be ruined for days. A 3 million dollar budget compared to the 250 thousand dollar return makes this the biggest flop that Peter Jackson ever directed. Here is the trailer and the full film. By the way, the trailer for this film is the most spoiler free trailer I have ever seen (the description is nothing like the actual film):

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8LIug1cP04

Full Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cgz6HKEGkI

The Frighteners (1996): This movie is a fantastic blend of action and horror with quite a bit of comedy. It is the story of a man who can talk with ghosts and is plagued by a reaper ghost that is killing both the living and the dead. The film stars Michael J Fox, Jeffrey Combs, Chi McBride, Dee Wallace, Jake Busey, and R. Lee Ermey, giving Jackson a cast of experienced actors to work with for the first time. The blend of action and effects along with comedy and smart dialogue hints at what Peter Jackson could do and earned him a shot at big budget movies. Here is the trailer for this film but the movie is not available for free (sorry, it was an American studio release so no YouTube version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKWiQLwr9Xs

Peter Jackson was part of a horror comedy movement with mostly practical effects that was pretty much started with the success of The Evil Dead back in 1981. Despite the rather low quality of many of these films, it did lead to the development of Weta Studios and New Zealand as a great filming location. Some very good horror comedy from New Zealand, if you are looking for examples, would be Black Sheep or Housebound. A more recent example was What We Do in the Shadows by Taika Waititi (director or Thor: Ragnorok and Jo Jo Rabbit). These are very interesting roots for Peter Jackson, currently one of Hollywood’s most well known directors. 

[clambustercinema]

Housebound (2014)... you get a sense that the filmmaker here is a fan of the great joe dante. who isn’t? a horror movie with a wry smile and a dark mystery that once again celebrates this new wave of new zealand cinema. probably 20 minutes too long, but that’s just me being mean because housebound is absolutely fantastic fun. oh, and just incase anyone puts this on for their kids because i’ve thrown it into a genre which includes gremlins, the burbs, and matinee... please don’t! when it’s grisly, it’s definitely grisly

8 out of 10

[pixieungerstories]

Housemates - 13

Pictures are available here

Vinny realized she could have probably gone into work.  The back of her thighs definitely felt like she as over done the squats at the gym.  On the other hand, she was currently in a king sized bed with a full shift werewolf sleeping in her lap, a minotaur on her left, and an orc on her right.  They were watching He Never Died on Netflix.  To her surprise, Tristan kept covering his eyes.

“Are you going to be OK?” she asked.  “I didn’t really think about watching this from the point of view of a vegetarian.”

Tristan snorted, “You aren’t going to talk me into leaving.  I think I know what it took for you to invite me to be here.”

Vinny blushed.

Kogan passed her the popcorn.

Tristan was right, letting Kogan take care of her had been hard.  Still she was glad that Derick had pushed her to.  Werewolves certainly had that right.  Life was just easier when people took care of each other.  Neither of these men were talkers, and that was easier just now.  Derrick she could chat easily with.  Dren was nice, but he always sounded exhausted from work.  Which was fair, there was no way Vinny could do that job.

Thea seemed nice, once she understood that he wasn’t being rude merely impossibly shy.

Bazur just seemed distracted.  Honestly, she was at this point half convinced that was why he forgot to wear clothing.

That just left Kevin.  Vinny still didn’t know what to think of him.

——-

No one was weird.  In the days after Vinny’s moment of weakness, amazingly enough, no one had been weird about it.  She had been worried about Kevin, but if he was pranking her, she hadn’t noticed.  In fact, he had started hanging out and helping her cook.  

She had asked Derick about that one morning while they were on a run.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Derick replied.  “He has been housebound for years.  It’s good that he is doing something productive.  Not great when your whole life is video games and being inside.”

Vinny frowned at that.  “But… he can go outside.  I mean, I get the idea of him being stolen, but surely he could spend time in the backyard.  Maybe help Tristan.”

Derick stumbled and started laughing.   He slowed to a walk and doubled over.

“What?”

“He did help,” Derick wheezed.  “Once.  But he planted the three colours of tulip bulbs so that when they bloomed the next year our front bed was a cock and balls in purple on a white background.  With a line of yellow like it was peeing.”

Vinny stared at him in shock, then burst out laughing.  “Oh my god!  That must have been so much work!”

Derick nodded, “Tristan said he was more impressed at the skill than pissed that the neighbours made him plow it up.  Just don’t tell Kevin that.”

———

Bazur came in stripped off his suit jacket, chucked it and his tie on the coat rack in the front hall.  He was leaving a trail of clothes up the stairs as he went to his room.  He was down to his shorts by the time he got to the third floor and found Vinny coming out of her room.

“Um.  Hello.”

“Shit!  Oh!  Sorry!  Um… Hi…  I promise I’ll put pants on for supper.”

Vinny just shook her head.  “It’s OK.  Um… Can I have a moment of your time?”

———

Kevin was watching porn in his room when someone knocked.

It had to be Vinny, no one else would bother.  He turned off his computer.  Made himself human shaped and tightly folded his shell around his crotch.  He wrenched open the door to find Bazur and Vinny looking at him.  

“What?” he snapped.  He immediately wanted to take it back.  “Sorry.  I just…  what do you need, Vinny?”

“Um…  I need to go buy textbooks next week.  I was wondering if you would come give me a hand.”

Kevin bared his needle teeth at Bazur.  “Didn’t you explain that I’m not a person?  I can’t leave the house.”

Vinny cleared her throat.  “I read up on that.  You are allowed out, it’s just that someone has to be responsible for you.  I was just thinking that you could come with me, and check out the books.  Maybe there is a class you want to take online or some books your are interested in.”

Kevin narrowed his eyes, “Did he warn you what happened the last time I went out?”

Vinny nodded, “You turned into a giant jar of mayo and pranked people in Costco.”

“And you still want me to come with you?”

Vinny looked a little more nervous now, “Well, if you wander off, you just have to make it across campus to get home.  And if you do ok, then you could come out with me more often.  If you wanted to, I mean.  Just… if you trash the place, I can’t afford to pay, so don’t feel like you have to come with.  This is an optional event.”

Kevin tilted his head, “I’ll think about it.  I’m surprised you haven’t made Bazur put his pants back on.”

Vinny shrugged.  “I’m adapting.”

Kevin nodded,  “Anything else?”

“Nope.  Supper is salmon.  You have about an hour.”

“Fine.”

Vinny left.  Kevin went back to his porn.  The woman had long dark hair and big hazel eyes.  She was currently on her back with a mimic holding her legs open and licking aggressively between them; her screaming was slowly becoming more convincing.

Kevin changed back into his chest form and spent some time stroking himself.  He needed to be less frustrated before he came down for dinner.

——

Kevin wasn’t sure about this.  He was currently trailing behind Vinny as a piece of luggage.  She had tried to introduce him to a couple of her friends already.  He wasn’t really going along with that.  He would say hi, but nor shake hands.  He didn’t want to taste strangers hands.

He wouldn’t mind tasting Vinny, but he had made sure that wasn’t an option, weeks ago.

Mostly.  He would still go out of his way to be helpful when she was working around the house, just so she would rub oil into him afterwards.  He wondered idly if she would do that when they got home.

She had just paid for two big bags full of supplies and was about to head home.

“I’ll carry those,” he offered.

Vinny hesitated.  “If I put them inside of your shell, will the get all soggy? It looks like your mouth right now.”

Kevin opened his eyes on the outside of the chest shape and rolled them.  “I promise I won’t spit on your books.”

“OK.” Vinny didn’t sound confident, but she wrapped the plastic bags tightly around her books and placed them into the opening of his shell.  “Thanks, Kevin.”

“Welcome,” it was a bit muffled around the books.  He didn’t say much as they walked across the park together.

That meant that Vinny could talk, “Thanks for coming with me.  I appreciate the help carrying all of that home.”

Kevin hummed in agreement.

Vinny kept talking, “I’m trying to get used to the idea of treating everyone in the house as extended family.  I have a big family, but only my mom and my brother ever lived in the same house as me.  Aunt Toni goes to church with us, but mostly the rest of them only get together for birthdays or holidays.”

Kevin hummed again.  “Movie night?”

“If you like.”

“Venom?”

Vinny paused. It wasn’t her kind of movie but, “Yeah.  I heard they cast mimics as the symbiotes.”

Kevin somehow managed to nod.

“That’s a bit of a novel idea.  Better than always being the trap in the dungeon, I guess.”  Vinny tactfully didn’t mention that it had gotten terrible reviews.  There had been four parts for mimics in it.  That was unprecedented.

“You guys watch a lot of super hero movies.  I mean I get they they generally have more parts for non-humans, but they don’t usually portray you in the best light.”

Mumbling around the bags of books, Kevin replied, “It’s a start.”

They watched the movie and Vinny was even able to convince Dren to join them.  

Kevin was currently a floor vase holding the melted gelatinous.  They were both very quiet so they didn’t interrupt the movie.  No one needed to know that Dren was swirling around Kevin’s cock inside the vase.  Or that Kevin’s shivers were stroking Dren.

OK, so the guys probably knew.  The point was that no one told Vinny, who was sitting in Kogan’s lap while Tristan rubbed her feet.

Movie night seemed to be enjoyed by all.

[roncopper]

#9- Murder Party

Year- 2007 (?! You won’t believe it...)

Source- Netflix

Plot- a New Yorker finds an invitation to a party on the street, gets dressed up and attends.

My review- I couldn’t believe that this movie was from 2007... it seems so current, but perhaps because the characters make predictions about the coming gentrification of Brooklyn (which comes off as sarcastic hindsight, but hadn’t fully occurred yet). This is a comedy horror, but the jokes just make the gore more jarring. The premise is believable, and as a horror far I appreciated the indie tone and violent scenes to contrast.

I give this film- 🔪🔪🔪 Worth a watch.

Alternatives-

The Babysitter (2017)

What We do in the Shadows (2014)

Housebound (2014)

[manda-laynen]

Densha Otoko: Episodes 1-6 Review!

After finishing a drama where the romance didn’t come through for me, I decided to go for a tried and true romance, the romance found in Densha Otoko. The movie is a personal favorite of mine and I had been waiting for the right time to work on the drama. With a hunger for romance in my heart and three more weeks before college starts again, I set off on my journey into the world of a brave otaku!

The drama stars Atsushi Ito as Densha Otoko (Train man) and Misaki Ito as Hermes on the message board. In their real lives they go by Yamada and Aoyama. Yamada is an otaku with a stressful job and has never gone on a date. He struggles to talk to others and has a significant stutter caused by his nerves. Due to this his coworkers and family walk all over him. That begins to change one day when he notices a beautiful woman on his train home. When she is bothered by a drunk old man, he springs into action. As you might have guessed, the beautiful woman is Aoyama. In response to Yamada’s kindness Aoyama asks for his address and sends him a thank you gift. From here the two begin to communicate and their budding relationship begins!

Their love story sounds pretty typical doesn’t it? To an outsider it appears to be a simple case of a chance meeting turning into something more. Luckily for the viewers, there is so much more to the story! Yamada is aided by several people grouped together on an online message board. Each person is very different and ranges from a fellow otaku to arrogant businessman. One notable person is a former IT genius played by a young Oguri Shun! He seems to be housebound and supports Yamada by creating huge pictures. 

The drama is just what I wanted when I started watching it. The characters are all funny and interesting and once again I have no problem rooting for them. I love that the show is all about building Yamada up and enjoying his happiness. There are serious moments but the overall tone is happy. My favorite thing about the show right now is the gradual realization of the people around Yamada. More and more people are discovering that he is Densha and I love how they almost involuntarily jump in to help him!

As of the end of episode 6, things have gotten a bit more serious. Yamada has spent the past episodes growing closer to Aoyama but when she catches him in a lie all of that goes out the window. As his online friends have stated, his honesty and hard working personality are his true charms. Without those he is on the road to losing his girl. Now I think it is time for Yamada to step up and fix the situation instead of bowing his head. Hopefully he does this soon because I am ready for this couple to take the next step!!!

Thanks for reading!

10/10

[ryanmeft]

Ant-Man and the Wasp Movie Review

Avengers: Infinity War wanted us to take grown people in tights very, very seriously. Ant-Man and the Wasp has different ambitions. It marries superhero-ing and parenting, scales the stakes down to a personal level, and tosses in a dollop of 1960’s gee-whiz fun on top of it. When it works, it’s a trick-a-minute heist caper that makes great use of the franchise’s signature size-changing gimmick. When it doesn’t, it’s often trying to being funny.

At this point you can’t pick and choose Marvel franchises, and this sequel picks up not after the original Ant-Man, but after Captain America: Civil War. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), the now-former Ant-Man, is in the last days of two years of house arrest for his role in that movie. He spends his time learning drums and magic tricks, soaking in the bath, and creating indoor amusement park attractions for his precocious daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson). He’s out of contact with former allies Hank (Michael Douglas) and Hope (Evangeline Lilly) Van Dyne, who are a wee bit miffed that he accidentally made them fugitives. Reconciliation is inevitable, of course, and it comes when Scott has a dream of Hope’s long-missing mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is trapped in a void-like place called the Quantum Realm. For mysterious reasons, a person named Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) in a white suit who can walk through anything wants the tech they need to rescue her. Helpful against the new villain is that Hope is now the Wasp, with a suit that can shrink like Scott’s but can also fly and, well, sting people. Lilly and Rudd have considerably more chemistry here than in the first go-round; Douglas’s paternal hits to Lang’s ego also feel natural and amusing.

The plot mostly consists of those convenient screenwriting obstacles thrown in front of heroes to stymie them from what should be a straightforward goal. These include several Mcguffins; Hank’s machine for reaching the Quantum Realm, as well as the film’s super-suits, seem to keep suddenly needing parts they did not need ten minutes ago. There’s also a goofy FBI agent (Randall Park) whose goal in life seems to be catching Lang out-of-bounds, and Walton Goggins hamming it up as a black market tech dealer. The story, and what all these characters want with which plot device, matters about as much as this stuff ever matters in a popcorn flick. What’s fun is the multi-layered chase these characters engage in while terribly important bits of comic book malarkey change hands.

Like any good heist flick, this game of keep away is given a lot of exciting attention. The powers complement the good old-fashioned steal-and-chase stuff, with less time than usual spent on fisticuffs between super-people. The character of Ghost is a spoiler in the mix, tossed in whenever the action gets a little too stale; her ability to pass through anything basically renders the characters’ powers irrelevant, so they have to outwit her. This all culminates in a big showdown that’s more a car chase than a fight, and includes Ant-Man utilizing a truck-bed as a scooter, cars the size of Hot Wheels, a Pez dispenser used as a weapon against motorcycle thugs, and our three circus acts shrinking, enlarging, flying and phasing around one another as the thingamajigger they are all after changes hands many times.

This is a lot of fun, but the only time Peyton Reed, the five-deep writing team and the army of special effects wizards get to really play around with the weirdness of the character is in the eventual excursion into the Quantum Realm. How you feel about that depends on whether you’re at peace with what modern superhero films are. With the exception of something like Thor: Ragnarok or Logan, truly personal touches are more the exception than the rule, and something as unique as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man work is probably in the past, for now. While I would have loved to see more wackiness out of Ant-Man’s less grim plot, I go into these movies knowing what to expect, and I got it. Should I knock it for not being something it was never going to be?

Since real uniqueness is off the table, the creative team instead differentiates the film by doubling down on Lang’s parenthood. The original gave us probably the only on screen superhero we’ll ever see scooping ice cream at work, and while he’s got a bit more illustrious job now, Lang’s still trying to balance being a superhero and a daddy. This outing makes that feel less like a set-up for the film’s plot and more like who Lang actually is. He goes to wonderfully ridiculous lengths to entertain and educate Cassie while being housebound, and is visibly frustrated with the Van Dynes when they don’t seem to care as much about him possibly trading in his family for prison as they do about their own family problems. Rudd is perfectly cast for this type of heroism, right down to making dad jokes. This makes Ant-Man a valuable addition to the MCU stable, as the only character in it who feels like he leads a truly believable adult life when he’s not in tights.

There are places where the film falters, and sadly, one of those is Lang’s hyper-active, motor-mouthed partner Luis. He’s played by Michael Pena, a successful Latino actor in a world where Latinos haven’t benefited from outrage at the whiteness of Hollywood, and is one of the few such characters in the MCU. That’s what makes his reduction to annoying comic relief all the more unfortunate. The bottom line is his character just isn’t funny or endearing, and while he fit in the first film’s story, here he and his buddies (David Dastmalchian and Tip “T.I.” Harris) feel like they are around to fulfill a contract. Also in obligation roles are Judy Greer and Bobby Cannavale as Lang’s ex-wife and her husband, respectively. These are five talented actors reduced to trying to break up the tension with awkward jokes. Ant-Man is already one of the less urgent feathers in Marvel and Disney’s massive hat; it doesn’t need more comedy, and in fact could stand to take itself a bit more seriously. Laurence Fishburne is better utilized as one of the Pyms’ old colleagues.

Get past the failed attempts at jokes and the lamentable waste of some high-class acting talent, and Ant-Man and the Wasp is an admirable, family-oriented addition to the MCU. If at times it doesn’t believe in itself as much as it should, at others the dynamic of family relations elevates it. Younger viewers will thrill to see a 65-foot-tall man walking in San Francisco bay, while their parents might smile at the fact this behemoth would rather be coloring and playing house.

Verdict: Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts. I suppose you could consider each one as adding a star.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague