PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 22, 2024 17:04:11 GMT -5
My lady friend my first semester of college was obsessed with Nightmare Before Christmas. Hot Topic Girl to the core. Her mugshot is on the Internet for domestic violence. I feel you. I remember the Beetlejuice cartoon being my favorite show in the 3rd grade. Specifically the 3rd grade. Only me and one other kid watched the show. Our entire “friendship” was based on watching this show. I later found out his parents used to beat him. Talk about shit we need to circle back to. |
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Post by SnoBorderZero on Oct 22, 2024 17:43:54 GMT -5
My lady friend my first semester of college was obsessed with Nightmare Before Christmas. Hot Topic Girl to the core. Her mugshot is on the Internet for domestic violence. I feel you. I remember the Beetlejuice cartoon being my favorite show in the 3rd grade. Specifically the 3rd grade. Only me and one other kid watched the show. Our entire “friendship” was based on watching this show. I later found out his parents used to beat him. Talk about shit we need to circle back to.  |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 22, 2024 18:20:38 GMT -5
My lady friend my first semester of college was obsessed with Nightmare Before Christmas. Hot Topic Girl to the core. Her mugshot is on the Internet for domestic violence. I feel you. I remember the Beetlejuice cartoon being my favorite show in the 3rd grade. Specifically the 3rd grade. Only me and one other kid watched the show. Our entire “friendship” was based on watching this show. I later found out his parents used to beat him. Talk about shit we need to circle back to.  |
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 22, 2024 19:33:32 GMT -5
Day Twenty Two: Longlegs Longlegs achieves an impeccable mood of dread and its first act is especially good at stirring intrigue. But the longer the film goes, the less effective it becomes. Once the plot starts to come into focus, so too do a series of thinly sketched horror tropes and clichés, bound together without the texture or detail to make it interesting. It is a detective film where the investigation is pushed along by vibes, where the climax is resolved not in a creative or developed way, but simply because it's time for the movie to end now. Nicolas Cage's performance is also an issue. Cage remains fearless and his choices are interesting in isolation, but his theatricality clashes with the film's suffocatingly grim tone. Osgood Perkins continues to show tremendous aptitude as a craftsman and I don't mean to dismiss his film's many aesthetic charms but it is severely lacking even just slightly under the surface. C
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2024 8:18:26 GMT -5
JULY 19, 2010SEPTEMBER 12, 2010AUGUST 30, 2010OCTOBER 30, 2010OCTOBER 18, 2010FEBRUARY 1, 2011DECEMBER 19, 2011 - 11:36 PM 
When did Lisbeth Salander turn into an action hero? And when did the Dragon Tattoo franchise turn into Jason Bourne-lite?
The only ways in which The Girl in the Spider's Web resembles the previous Swedish and American adaptations of Steig Larsson's Millennium series are that it has some of the same characters and a similarly dreary color palette. Where once there was atmosphere, intrigue and character development, there's now car chases, shootouts and nuclear launch codes (yes, I'm serious). And this is perhaps the biggest sin of director Fede Alvarez's reboot/sequel: how bland it all is. It eschews all the intrigue and interesting character work of its predecessor for a plot that would feel more at home in either a James Bond or Jason Bourne movie. Now, if this were something original, that'd be one thing, but this is a Lisbeth Salander movie. I can understand the general concept of trying different interpretations of a character, but the sudden leap from damaged soul to action hero in the case of Lisbeth seems particularly jarring in this case. Plus, the script is decidedly more surface-level. The pace of this thing is so relentless that it only leaves time for developments and twists of the strictly plot variety as opposed to anything very character-driven, apart from some very basic stuff. The character of Mikael Blomkvist feels more like window dressing this time around. Strengths of the earlier interpretations all around have been sacrificed for entertainment value.
That said, though...The Girl in the Spider's Web still executes serviceably as an action thriller. While he may lack the opportunity to really create atmosphere like he did in Don't Breathe, director Fede Alvarez does still prove that he knows how to construct a genre movie like this. As a thriller, it's perfectly competent, though a bit too bland to really be that effective. Claire Foy does solid work, though the material for her isn't as deep as what Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara got to sink their teeth into.
The Girl in the Spider's Web is definitely a step down from what we got before, but at the same time, it's so blandly efficient, that it's a hard movie to really inspire passion about one way or the other.
**/****
Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck they were thinking. I like Fede Alvarez, but this was a miss. Also, Claire Foy is a terrible Lisbeth. Well, maybe “terrible” is a bit harsh, but certainly miscast.
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 23, 2024 9:46:58 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Three: The Sentinel (1977)
The Sentinel feels like it owes a lot to both Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, because it certainly plays like the lovechild of both, though not nearly as effective as either. It gets off to a good start, though: a model (Cristina Raines) rents a New York apartment, only to discover that the building houses the gates to Hell. And of course, along the way, she encounters various disturbing occurrences that begin to drive her insane. The first half of The Sentinel is an eerily effective slow burn that contains the right amount of mystery, atmosphere and steadily building tension that drew me in pretty effortlessly, in spite of obviously being influenced by superior works that came before it. Director Michael Winner (what a last name, by the way) gets some pretty good mileage out of the subtle sense of tension he instills, which grows at a good rate, and also gets some nicely creepy imagery out of the film here and there as well. It's clearly operating on haunted house logic during this buildup and honestly isn't too bad at it. But then comes the second half, most of which shifts into a police procedural investigation narrative focus that honestly kind of ruins the rhythm and pace that the film had done a decent job of establishing up until this point, and it just bogs the movie down for a while. And it doesn't help all that much, either, that the model's boyfriend, played by a young Chris Sarandon, takes a lot of the focus here and he just isn't all that interesting of a character. This section of the film also lays out exposition/mythology in kind of a droll fashion that eats away at the previous momentum, too. The film recovers somewhat in its Third Act when it goes all-out and fully embraces the horror, but by then, it feels like too little too late in terms of recovering that lost momentum. The Sentinel is far from a bad movie and is bookended by some pretty solid stuff, but the middle is a drag and the film as a whole is never greater than the sum of its parts.
**1/2 /****
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2024 10:18:21 GMT -5
I haven't quite decided yet but this may be my final movie for this year. Final movie? Sure. Final TV show? Nah. tubitv.com/series/300013625/goosebumps31 DAYS OF HALLOWEENTHE HAUNTED MASK (1995)  Before PhantomKnight was obsessed with Harry Potter, I was obsessed with Goosebumps. 62 books were published between July 1992 and December 1997 and I probably have 75% of them in a box somewhere. These horror and science-fiction books had great covers and cheesy stories you could read in a day or two. At one point I remember hearing that Goosebumps did more to improve child literacy in the 1990's than anything else, so naturally, a TV show was created. Made in Canada ( PG Cooper and IanTheCool ) and airing on the Fox Kids TV block, Goosebumps seemed more like an attempt to rival Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark, also made in Canada, than a legitimate adaptation of the book series. But it was a necessary evil because it gave fans a TV version of the best Goosebumps book, The Haunted Mask. Published in September of 1993, the 11th Goosebumps book is about an 11-year-old girl who's always getting bullied and then decides to get revenge on Halloween. She buys a scary mask at a mysterious store and then spends the majority of Halloween night terrifying everyone who crosses paths with her. At the end of the night, she discovers that the mask is a real monster head that has taken over her body. The moral of the story is too never sink to the level of your enemies. You'll just become as bad as they are - or worse. The TV adaptation is very faithful to the book and that makes it a satisfying experience to watch. Sure, the acting can be underwhelming and the production values are exactly what you'd expect from a Canadian production, but so what? It still has a great story to tell. ALISA (1990)  Goosebumps was R.L. Stine's bread and butter, but his heart probably belonged to Fear Street, which he kept alive as demands for Goosebumps became overwhelming. Debuting in June of 1989, Fear Street is a horror book series targeted at the 12 to 17 age group. Like Goosebumps, it has great covers and cheesy stories you can read in a day or two. Unlike Goosebumps, it relies on straight horror instead of fantasy and science-fiction. One of the best books in the series is The Wrong Number. Published in March of 1990, it tells the story of teenagers who phone prank a murderer. A month later, a movie with a very similar premise was released in theaters. Starring Staci Keanan, of My Two Dad's and Step by Step fame, Lisa is about a teenage girl who phone pranks a serial killer and almost gets her mom killed. The mom is played by Charlie's Angels star, Cheryl Ladd. Lisa sounds like a silly horror movie, but it's actually much deeper than that. The main character is a 14-year-old girl who's obsessed with sex and romance at an almost creepy level. And the fact the character is actually played by a 14-year-old girl makes things even more unsettling. This character spends her time stalking men - yes, MEN -, taking pictures of them with her Polaroid and then calling them and pretending to be an adult female. On the surface, this could all be digested as a cautionary tale, but there's definitely a greater message about youth, hormones, parenting and society. And the fact it uses a girl as the main character, instead of a boy, shouldn't be ignored either. In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of gender battles on social media, which is silly because we're all flawed human beings. The things this girl does aren't far-fetched and no different than what today's girls do with today's technology. And using a male serial killer as the villain also highlights the dark side of that gender. Lisa is a movie that has been forgotten by time, probably because caller ID and *69 were ignored in the plot, but it's worth discovering. A |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2024 10:26:03 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Three: The Sentinel (1977)
The Sentinel feels like it owes a lot to both Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, because it certainly plays like the lovechild of both, though not nearly as effective as either. It gets off to a good start, though: a model (Cristina Raines) rents a New York apartment, only to discover that the building houses the gates to Hell. And of course, along the way, she encounters various disturbing occurrences that begin to drive her insane. The first half of The Sentinel is an eerily effective slow burn that contains the right amount of mystery, atmosphere and steadily building tension that drew me in pretty effortlessly, in spite of obviously being influenced by superior works that came before it. Director Michael Winner (what a last name, by the way) gets some pretty good mileage out of the subtle sense of tension he instills, which grows at a good rate, and also gets some nicely creepy imagery out of the film here and there as well. It's clearly operating on haunted house logic during this buildup and honestly isn't too bad at it. But then comes the second half, most of which shifts into a police procedural investigation narrative focus that honestly kind of ruins the rhythm and pace that the film had done a decent job of establishing up until this point, and it just bogs the movie down for a while. And it doesn't help all that much, either, that the model's boyfriend, played by a young Chris Sarandon, takes a lot of the focus here and he just isn't all that interesting of a character. This section of the film also lays out exposition/mythology in kind of a droll fashion that eats away at the previous momentum, too. The film recovers somewhat in its Third Act when it goes all-out and fully embraces the horror, but by then, it feels like too little too late in terms of recovering that lost momentum. The Sentinel is far from a bad movie and is bookended by some pretty solid stuff, but the middle is a drag and the film as a whole is never greater than the sum of its parts.
**1/2 /****
THE SENTINEL (1977) This movie is wild, babe. Just wild.Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a New York model who moves into a Brooklyn apartment for $400-a-month. Even for the 1970's that's a great price, so what's the catch? Oh... I don't know... maybe that the devil lives in the building and starts playing mind games with Alison so she can end up killing herself. The first half of The Sentinel is amazing. Director Michael Winner, of Death Wish fame, creates a movie with a creepy mood, psychedelic atmosphere and a little bit of William Castle thrown in for entertainment value. And the ending is just as satisfying as he goes full exploitation with over-the-top horror and lots of random gore. Any fan of the genre will have a great time watching the film. However, the middle portion is a bit disappointing. The movie turns into a mystery tale with Alison's boyfriend (Chris Sarandon) trying to figure out why she is being targeted by the devil. A lot of it ends up being boring exposition that the film could have revealed in much more interesting ways. But luckily, as I said, the ending is loads of fun so this is just a minor complain. Overall, The Sentinel is a thrilling horror movie from the 1970's and I highly recommend it. And be on the lookout for minor roles from Tom Berenger, Beverly D'Angelo, Ava Gardner, Jeff Goldblum, Burgess Meredith, Jerry Orbach, Christopher Walken and Eli Wallach. A |
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Post by SnoBorderZero on Oct 23, 2024 12:28:29 GMT -5
Opera (Dario Argento, 1987)- 7/10
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2024 15:09:17 GMT -5
Opera (Dario Argento, 1987)- 7/10 If this were his last movie, what a career. |
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Post by SnoBorderZero on Oct 23, 2024 17:03:29 GMT -5
If this were his last movie, what a career. But then he made Dracula 3D... |
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 23, 2024 17:05:16 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Three: The Return of Godzilla It was perhaps inevitable that Godzilla would make his return to cinema in the 1980s, as the Cold War endured and the specter of nuclear destruction haunted the world. That context is highly relevant to The Return of Godzilla. Posed as a sequel to the original 1954 film which mostly ignores the other sequels, Godzilla's reemergence is very much contextualized by the waring nuclear superpowers and Japan's precarious role at the center of their conflict. In effect, Godzilla is both the catalyst for potential nuclear conflict and a metaphor for a world seemingly far evolved from the destruction of atomic weapons now once again ensnared by its dangers. That tension is evident in the action, with modern futuristic technologies much more equipped to deal with Godzilla than the military interventions of the Showa era, but only to a point. Speaking of, those set-pieces are incredibly well-rendered. While some advancements in special effects likely help, the real signature element is the sense of scale. Godzilla feels utterly massive and that makes it all the more impressive at the halfway point when we see he is himself dwarfed by Japanese skyscrappers. Again, that tension between a Japan at once moved past the nuclear heroes Godzilla represents yet still haunted by them comes through. What holds The Return of Godzilla back a bit is the human element. The characters are initially very important but are far less so as the plot starts to come into focus, yet the film keeps cutting back to them anyway. I would have liked a bit more complexity or for their roles to be cut down considerably after the first act. Still, this is definitely among the strongest films of the series and I'm excited to see what else the Heisei era has in store. B+
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2024 17:15:00 GMT -5
If this were his last movie, what a career. But then he made Dracula 3D... You’re right. |
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Post by Dracula on Oct 24, 2024 6:55:42 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Three: The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)  The Girl Who Knew Too Much was the fourth movie that Mario Bava made as director and second movie that could be said to be related to the horror genre, though really it’s probably better described as a thriller. As you can probably tell by the title it’s kind of trying to be an Italian take on Alfred Hitchcock’s work, although the dubbed American version I saw was retitled to The Evil Eye, likely to feel a bit less like a trademark infringement. In fact, the movie has been described in many places as being the first Giallo film ever made given that it’s essentially a mystery narrative about an ordinary person hunting down an active serial killer they’ve encountered. It’s a genre label that was probably assigned to it retroactively but it probably did inspire legitimately inspire future installments of the genre so it’s probably fair. The movie was shot in black and white, which differentiates it from a lot of Bava’s other work, which is characterized by its colorful cinematography. The movie does not have the graphic violence that Bava and the giallo genre more generally would eventually become known for, though it probably is at least a little more violent than what you’d get out of Hitchcock or the average Hollywood film. Outside of its importance to the career of the director and the evolution of the genre I don’t know that this is that big of a deal in a vaccum, but it is a decent thriller that has some creative ideas floating through it. *** out of five |
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Oct 24, 2024 7:57:22 GMT -5
I always read John Saxon's name in the Crow T Robot voice since I saw whatever episode that was of MS3TK
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Post by Neverending on Oct 24, 2024 8:39:16 GMT -5
I have an announcement to make. As of today, I will no longer refer to PG Cooper and IanTheCool as the Canadians. That is too basic. As of today, they will be known as the Tra-la-logs. THE PIT (1981) Jamie Benjamin is 12 years old and the neighborhood creep. He talks to his teddy bear. He steals money. He does mean pranks. He peeps on naked women. One day, he finds a hole in the forest and the creatures that inhabit it. Known as the Trogs, these little monsters feed on humans. Since Jamie is the town misfit, he starts feeding the Trogs with all the people he hates. It's all fun and games until they eat someone that he actually likes. The Pit is a cult Canadian film. The casting is excellent. The boy that plays Jamie is a perfect weirdo. The supporting players come across as real people and not actors. The young ladies are all very pretty. The script is hilarious. The direction is demented but fun. The Pit is a good time. Highly recommend it. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 24, 2024 9:31:16 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Four: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
At this point in the cycles of each of the Big Three slasher franchises, Halloween has been something of a salve/welcome relief to the diminishing returns of both Freddy and Jason. Not that any of the Halloween sequels have been able to match the original necessarily, but none of these first three sequels in the franchise have struck me as lazy retreads or just straight up bad, unlike the other two. And I think a big part of that is because the franchise thus far at this point in its run has tended to lean toward/put more stock in suspense and tension on top of all the killings, something which I very much appreciate. Plus, at least Halloween III attempted to try something different. But back to Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, it doesn't feel too far-removed from some of the core essentials of what made the original work. Unlike the majority of other slasher sequels, this one feels content in giving enough establishment to its core characters, rather than just throw its main killer at them as quickly as possible. Not that Jamie and Rachel are the deepest of characters per say, but they are well-drawn and, in terms of Jamie at least, this movie believably paints her in a more traumatized light. And amazingly, young actress Danielle Harris convincingly plays that aspect without overdoing it. You've also got Donald Pleasance returning as Sam Loomis, bringing a weary quality to the character that serves the film well, along with his ever-present determination to get Michael. And speaking of Michael, the thrills here work nicely, too. The suspense is generally well-staged and maintained, bolstered a bit more by our investment in the characters. Overall, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is a surprisingly good sequel that understands what makes the franchise tick, and if the reputations of the next movies are any indication, perhaps I should hold onto this feeling.
***/****
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Post by Doomsday on Oct 24, 2024 13:03:02 GMT -5
So is Beau Is Afraid a horror movie? I know nothing about it but for some reason it was recommended to me.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 24, 2024 13:14:48 GMT -5
So is Beau Is Afraid a horror movie? I know nothing about it but for some reason it was recommended to me. If you're someone with severe anxiety, sure, it can be seen as a horror movie. Otherwise, no. It's just a very bizarre dark comedy. |
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Post by Doomsday on Oct 24, 2024 13:16:09 GMT -5
So is Beau Is Afraid a horror movie? I know nothing about it but for some reason it was recommended to me. If you're someone with severe anxiety, sure, it can be seen as a horror movie. Otherwise, no. It's just a very bizarre dark comedy. Nice, then I won't worry about it. |
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 24, 2024 13:21:45 GMT -5
If you're someone with severe anxiety, sure, it can be seen as a horror movie. Otherwise, no. It's just a very bizarre dark comedy. Nice, then I won't worry about it. Yeah, not a movie I'd recommend casually, even though I loved it. |
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Post by frankyt on Oct 24, 2024 13:56:14 GMT -5
So is Beau Is Afraid a horror movie? I know nothing about it but for some reason it was recommended to me. It's a torturous journey. Just gets worse and worse as it goes. Forcing myself to watch it again would certainly be horrific. |
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Post by Dracula on Oct 24, 2024 14:17:20 GMT -5
So is Beau Is Afraid a horror movie? I know nothing about it but for some reason it was recommended to me. No |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 24, 2024 14:45:02 GMT -5
If you're someone with severe anxiety, sure, it can be seen as a horror movie. Otherwise, no. It's just a very bizarre dark comedy. Nice, then I won't worry about it. Watch the Canuxploitation classic, The Pit. Some other “Maple Syrup Porn” that I’ve covered over the years. You won’t learn about these movies from PG Cooper and IanTheCool. Deathdream / Dead of Night (1974) The same year that Bob Clark gave Canadians like PG Cooper and IanTheCool something to brag about with Black Christmas, he also made this puzzling Vietnam-based horror film. I don’t know which kind of reaction a movie such as this would get in 2021. “The crazed Vietnam vet” was, unfortunately, a genre in the 1970’s and 80’s. Even the first Rambo movie dabbled in that trope. Here, it gets a supernatural twist. A Vietnam soldier is killed in combat. Then the mother brings the body back to life and it goes on a murder spree cause it’s basically a soulless walking corpse. As a horror film, it is really well done. Bob Clark does a wonderful job of creating emotionally compelling characters and using dread and tension to build up the eventual violence and mayhem. But it does center on a touchy subject and it won’t be for everyone. Watch with caution. But I do highly recommend it. Deranged (1974) This is a Canadian horror film based on Ed Gein (whom Psycho was also based on). So the premise is the same. Weird loner keeps his mom's corpse in the house and goes off to kill women. Deranged is sort-of a predecessor to Town That Dreaded Sundown. It doesn't fully commit to the "documentary" concept but it's there. It's also kinda similar to Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is interesting cause both were released the same year. It's a nitty gritty sorta-gory/sorta-slasher film. It's a little bit of a dark comedy. It's fully weird. You could tell they were experimenting with different ideas. It's fun. TERROR TRAIN (1980) Following the success of 1978's Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis starred in five straight horror movies. Two of them were Canadian. This is one of them... and it is awful. The premise follows a group of college students onboard a party train. It is a costume party and a killer uses that to his advantage by switching costumes and keeping the people (and the audience) guessing. As far as slasher films go, this is one of the better premises, but there's no tone to match it. It plays out like any run-of-the-mill slasher movie. The big exception is the ending in which Jamie Lee Curtis defeats the killer... by kissing him. I'm not making that up. The ending and the appearance of magician David Copperfield doing a magic show in the party train are the only noteworthy things about this film. 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEENHAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981) From the director of the original Cape Fear and the latter Planet of the Apes movies from the original series, comes a slasher film that was already outdated by the time it hit theaters in 1981. If Hollywood is great at one thing it's beating a dead horse. After the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th (hey that's today!), Hollywood rushed out a slew of holiday-themed horror movies. Trying to standout by centering on a personal celebration is Happy Birthday To Me. It's about a rich girl in a rich school and the rich people dying around her birthday. You can already guess what happens based on that description. It's boring. It's too long. The killer is forgettable. The deaths, although slightly more violent than its contemporaries, aren't anything special. There's a bit of a twist. Instead of the killer lurking in the shadows, everyone knows who the person is and their death is more of a betrayal than a random act of violence. We just don't see the killer's face so we have to figure out who it is based on the process of elimination. Who's still alive and has a motive? It's interesting on paper but isn't executed with any effort aside from the special effects. Only memorable thing about Happy Birthday To Me is the girl who kinda has a squirrel-looking face. That's how horrible it is. If someone asks if I've seen Happy Birthday To Me, all I can say is "isn't that the one with the girl that kinda looks like a squirrel?" That's the legacy of the film. |
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Post by Dracula on Oct 24, 2024 17:35:36 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Four: The Nun II (2023)  Some crazy broken part of me felt it was important that I be fully caught up with the entirety of the “Conjuring-verse” out of completionism, which led me to watch this sequel to the spin-off/prequel The Nun even though I didn’t like that movie much at all and am largely indifferent (at best) to the larger franchise that spawned it. I had extremely low expectations for this and yet it somehow still managed to come in below them. The movie is set about four years after the first movie, not that I give a damn, I’m certainly not keeping track of the series continuity at this point. My memories of the forgettable first movie are hazy and yet I remember just enough about it to know that this spin-off offers basically nothing that wasn’t already done in that movie, in fact they’re basically indistinguishable. Even by Conjuring-verse standards this is lazy and jump-scare dependent, basically a movie that feels like it was made out of contractual obligation. I can’t believe I’m saying this but the Nun movies actually make the Annabel franchise look downright competent and admirable by comparison; I can at least distinguish between the installments in that spinoff franchise. Hell, this thing can’t even intrigue with it’s post-credits stinger for The Conjuring 4, which basically just consists of the Warren’s having an ominous look on their faces. Wretched. * out of Five
Bonus Film: Smile 2 (2024)  I didn’t have too high of expectations for the original Smile, a movie whose trailers made it looks like your standard “jump scare” movie… and it kind of was that, but it was one of the better ones. Director Parker Finn proved to be pretty skilled behind the camera and that image of people smiling creepily before horrific things happened caught on. So the first movie won me over to some extent but I can’t say I was exactly excited for a sequel, in part because that first movie seemed to have ended the story pretty conclusively and there wasn’t much left to do except go through the same motions all over again but with a new victim affected by the smile curse. Sure enough that’s mostly what we get with the sequel… but once again the movie kind of manages to work in spite of itself. This time around the curse has taken hold of a Demi Lovato-like pop star who’s trying to embark on a comeback tour after returning from rehab and recovering from injuries sustained in an intoxication related car accident. That pop star dimension is probably the main point of novelty here as it forces her to deal with being affected by this curse while out in the spotlight and also because the recovering addict element makes her bizarre behavior fee like an allegory for addiction rather than general mental illness. Besides that though this probably could be accused of being something of a retread of the first movie with most of the same patterns of haunting repeated. The budget this time around is a lot bigger though and that does give Parker Finn an opportunity to do some of this stuff on a bigger scale and does continue to prove he’s better than his competitors at making jump scares that actually work and also ups the blood and gore this time around, often to solid effect. So, there is enough juice left in the squeeze that they get away with a somewhat repetitive sequel this time around, but I will say that if they don’t find a way to shake things up a bit this formula is in danger of becoming pretty stale as this series moves forward. They’re also going to have to find a way to get past the “Final Destination” problem in which the characters in the film are basically doomed from the outset without a plausible solution to be worked toward in order to escape their fate which kind of turns the movie into an exercise in delaying the inevitable.
*** out of Five
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