Orphan 2009

I've avoided this one for years because it sounded stupid. It ended up being pretty good. That orphan is one crazy little bitch. You think she's cold and calculating, but after a while, she starts getting sloppy. She definitely puts adoptive mom Vera Farmiga in a pickle by making her look crazy. And this movie is cruel to children, which is always ballsy.

I hear the recent prequel is stupid. My guess is the actress needed to milk this character for all her worth. I'll watch it soon. I guess prequels made many years later are the new thing, when filmmakers regret killing off a character that could've generated more profit.

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No One Will Save You 2023

New on Hulu. Trending a lot, so what's the big deal?

A girl in an isolated house goes through a cat and mouse ordeal against some old school aliens. For this movie to work, the aliens need to work. I think they're pretty good: thin, weird appendages, jerky movements, and that classic big-headed black-eyed classic alien head. These things are assholes, and our heroine of minimal dialog has to best a lot of them. They also have telekinesis and tractor beams on their ships. Very traditional alien stuff, but that's a good thing. There's also a spongy throat parasite thingy, and that's pretty squirmy.

It's not bad. Not sure I cared for that ending though. I mean, I guess I knew what they were going for, but it felt meh.

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Kingdom of the Spiders 1977

This one isn't quite as amazing as The Giant Spider Invasion, but it's pretty fun anyway. Some angry tarantulas live in a barn and like to eat people and web them up. William Shatner's hammy acting rules, and the trash value is up there. There's a certain horror piano cue in the score that has been used redundantly in pop culture. As well as throughout this movie.

The spiders are mere tarantulas, like a dozen scattered about in any given scene. I never felt any threat, since they were slow movie and spaced out. It's basically like they're dodging stationary toys in these scenes. Good 70s vibes from this movie.

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Urban Legend 1998

Yeah, it's that time of the year when I ramble on just about any horror movie I watch. Today, we'll be revisiting this late 90s college slasher, which actually has some merit to it.

Don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect, but it's far from shit. I can take or leave the twist/reveal, because this movie was written around the urban legends and the kills they could get out of it. So if you get a few cool kills and a cool cast, who cares about the killer's motive?

Brad Dourif plays a stuttering gas station attendant in the beginning. One can only draw parallels to his character from Cuckoo's Nest on that aspect. Too bad he's not in much, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to hear him stuttering for too much longer. That shit gets annoying.

Robert Englund is the red herring college professor, and I think it's safe to say that nobody would expect him to actually be the killer, because he was already Freddy, so that would be too obvious. Right? He's not in much of it either, but so far, we have Chucky and Freddy, so that's cool.

One thing I've always found particularly noteworthy was Danielle Harris. Granted, her role isn't that big, but this is her fist horror film since Halloween 5, playing an irritable goth bitch roommate. And the first time we see her, she's getting fucked. They want you to hate this character, but I could never hate Danielle. There's also a funny bit in there showing how dated this movie is, featuring her getting mad that she has to disconnect from her dial-up because the main girl needs to make a phone call. Ah, the early days of the internet, caller ID, and mobile phones, and all the tropes that come with them... that's how you know this is a 90s movie, when they need to stop off at a gas station to use the phone, which will never even work during the thunderstorm...

I think I've seen at least one of the sequels, but I don't remember a damn thing about it. They left it open to be a franchise, but it never quite took off the way they wanted. Those sequels turned DTV quick and lacked the star-power of the first movie.

It's not a great movie, but those late 90s slashers did have some charm to them. Or maybe that's just the nostalgia speaking.

Some random IMDb trivia:

Danielle Harris (Tosh) and Tara Reid (Sasha) had been roommates in real life before they shot the film.

Danielle Harris (Tosh) was a smoker at the time and thrilled to be allowed to smoke while working. She quickly realized that shooting scenes while smoking meant that she was going to have to smoke cigarettes for hours all day while they shot. She eventually got sick of it and quit smoking.

Jared Leto has disowned the film and hates it, refusing to talk about it in interviews.

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Children of the Corn 2023

Some sources say it's from 2020. I've seen all the other ones, so why not? It's a rather crummy DTV series, with only a few notable entries. Then again, which franchise isn't exactly like that?

The 1984 original isn't great, but I like it anyway. It has a good eerie cornfield atmosphere, Linda Hamilton, and a bunch of creepy kids. I hadn't seen it until my late teens, so I had a long period of my life where I could look at that cool red sunset poster artwork and build up the movie in my head and make it out to be better than it really is. Sometimes when you do that, you can actually brainwash yourself into disregarding the movie's actual merit (or lack thereof) in favor for your own delusional concept of how great a movie is. Tricking yourself into regarding a movie as a classic. I think that's what Hollywood did when they decided to make this relatively stand-alone film into a whole franchise of DTV garbage.

In 2009, they remade the movie. It was okay at best, but basically just that. A remake of an 80s movie with no real charm or reason to exist. I think it was a Syfy channel movie, which should put it all into perspective for you. Nobody cared, and I've already forgotten all the beats of that movie.

Then in this very year (or 2020?), they thought they'd try again. It may have the same title, but this is less of a remake and more of a re-imagining. It has the same concept of children killing adults because of something in the corn pushing them to it, but the way it plays out is quite different. It's almost more of a story about psychologically fucked up kids, at least until the halfway point where you see there actually is a creature who walks behind the rows. Yeah, they show him, and it's not the worst effort in CGI. The movie looks well-made and it's more sadistic than other entries, that's for sure. Worth at least one watch, but the very end scare perpetuates some dumb genre tropes. Definitely one of the better entries in an otherwise crappy series.

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EXPEND4BLES 2023

Those rascals are at it again after a near 10-year hiatus. Part 3 and its PG-13 antics killed the franchise there for a while, but they got that violence back. Somehow, this movie is still underperforming in the box office, but then again, isn't every movie? I'll blame people's falling interest in the cinema for that.

So how is the movie? Well, if you've seen any of the other movies, then this movie is like those. Just like those. There is nothing new in this entry. In fact, this movie is even missing certain things, notably Arnold Schwarzenegger and... yeah, Stallone basically isn't in it. Jason Statham carries the movie, yet with all that said... it's still a dumb entertaining popcorn flick. If you want to see your guys killing the shit out of the villains, then here you go. Of course, for today's representation-obsessed demographics, we have a couple of female expendables now. Megan Fox is one of them, and while I still don't take her for a bad-ass, that Jennifer's body is still top notch.

Early rumored casting from years ago suggested Hulk Hogan would be in this movie. Too bad that never happened, because I would have loved to see Rocky get a rematch with that hot dog. Alas, Stallone is showing his age a bit here, not only by joking about it, but by avoiding all physicality. All he does is fly planes here, but I'll take what I can get.

This movie is not great, but it's not bad.

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Natty Knocks 2023

Dwight H. Little directs a new Halloween-centric horror film with Bill Moseley, Robert Englund, and Danielle Harris. Yes, she's come full circle here, which is enough for me to get excited.

Some teen witnesses Bill Moseley doing bad things, and it becomes a cat and mouse thing. Some teen's mom is Danielle Harris, and it's funny to see. She's still fine as hell, but she's more of a supporting character here. Bill is the main villain, and he's adequate. He plays it well, but he doesn't have a hell of a lot to work with.

The movie looks good, but I couldn't figure out where it was going or what it was trying to achieve. I disengaged a bit in the middle... and a bit more at the end... but I definely did watch this movie.

Watch it for the actors. They're great. The movie itself is pretty meh.

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Interstellar 2013

I still don't get this movie. It starts off strong and all the space stuff is interesting, so I sit through it all waiting for some mind-blowing Nolan ending, but that's where this movie falls apart. The ending. It's like he was working up to something big, but in his pretentiously cerebral plotlines, he couldn't figure it out, so he threw some shit together about bookcase time dimensions and hoped we'd swallow it.

Some bullshit about love being the answer, even though the wormholes are so paradoxical in origin. Some basic John Connor/chicken or the egg stuff right there. As long as the characters know what they're talking about, the audience is supposed to accept it is smart people talk. If Matt Damon says it's science, it must be science!

(Wormholes + Gravity) / Love = this movie. I don't hate it, but I don't like it.

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Candy Corn 2019

I'm always on the prowl for Halloween-set horror films, and boy, are most of them rotten. Rotten like your teeth if you eat that concentrated heap of sugar known as "candy corn". Just because it's fall-colored, it's a fall thing? What if fall doesn't want it?

But this movie looks pretty dope, doesn't it? The intro credits are promising. Produced by Courtney Gains and Tony Todd. Weird combo, but I'll take it. The film begins rather competently. Good fall atmosphere, a simple score, and a quick rundown of our setting. The director is trying to channel John Carpenter.

The setup is this: bullies harrass a retarded guy who works for a midget in a traveling circus of sorts. They take things a bit too far, and then it becomes a supernatural revenge slasher.

There are hints that this movie is going to turn into a full blown b-movie. But when the killer makes his first kill... there's absolutely zero tension in the scene. Even the music is starting to sound inept and pompous. This movie fell apart real quick, and then I had to watch another hour of it.


I like Courtney Gains. He was in Poolboy, which pretty much makes him a VIP in the world of trash. Also, Hardbodies was great. Suffice to say, I want to cut him some slack here, but it's hard. His mustache is stupid, his protagonist sheriff character is worthless, and there's no stakes. All these characters are dicks with an X on their forehead. Who cares if they die? And then they throw some dramatic sad music at you in the aftermath scenes, as if the loss of these dirt bags warrants any sympathy whatsoever? Who is this movie trying to kid? Candy Corn isn't a treat. Candy Corn is a trick.


Pancho Moler does good with this weak-ass script, but he can't save this jabroni. Nor can tiny roles from Tony Todd and P.J. Soles. This movie is rotten. And worst of all, it's boring.

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Judgment Night 1993

Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Stephen Dorff, and Jeremy Piven are headed to a boxing event night in Chicago, but escaping from a traffic jam leads them through the bad part of the city. The part where gangsters like Denis Leary are killing people. After a whole ordeal, Denis does in fact kill someone, but our four heroes happen to witness said act, which puts them on the run from the gangsters out to silence them.

It's a pretty solid movie, asking its viewers how they would react in these situations. What would you do if you were being hunted, and police are nowhere to be found? Would you keep your cool, or lose your shit? Our boys just can't catch a break!



An amusing side point... Cuba Gooding Jr. has to cross between two tall buildings on a ladder between them. In Scream 6, there is a similar scene in which the group needs to cross between two buildings. Cuba's son Mason Gooding almost went through that same ordeal, but he was in another room.

It's funny how much Stephen Dorff evolved in the 6 years between 1987's The Gate and 1993's Judgment Night. He changed a lot.

Denis Leary plays a good asshole. He must be one in real life. What a cool guy.

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