Change Your Image
fiend-93825
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Sinister (2012)
It doesn't know what it wants to be
What's Sinister supposed to be? A horror? A drama? A crime thriller? Yeah, me neither.
The opening scene was really interesting. That was all its merit unfortunately. The rest was all over the place. I can't understand how somebody would praise this mess. One minute it was cheap jump scare and loud noise, the next thing was some parent scolding their children and marital spat.
The director tried to spin this into a multi-genre but they were all half-assed. Nothing developed, nothing was resolved. More questions and zero answers. Nothing is mysterious about it. It is simply dull, unimaginative and a waste of time. It would have worked so much better as a drama all the while removing redundant horror elements.
Horror fans will be disappointed, you have been warned.
Smile (2022)
Not that bad at all
One of very few horror movies that managed to surprise me this year. When the trailer came out, I thought it was gonna be another dumb, incompetent mess.
I was proved wrong.
From the very start, everything from the directing, performances to the cinematography and sound design were absolute stunning. How a low budget managed this feat was beyond me but the film was simply mesmerizing to look at.
The horror was quite effective with jumpscares and dreadful moments, albeit some cheap ones but not that distracting. They were able to build up the tension so well and never intended to tone it down right till the very end. The plot was simple enough to interlink all relevant characters to make me care about them, although some could complain 90% of the characters were just filler and I might agree with that. However, the protagonist was good enough to carry the whole show.
One thing that may not sit well with a lot of audience was the use of mental illness. Smile handled it decently but don't expect Oscar worthy exposition. And no, it wasn't exactly the main theme so try not to quit halfway through because there would be surprises by the last act of the film.
Give it a go. I'd say it was well worth the time for horror fans like myself. This was not just some Annabelle or Insidious sequels but something more.
Barbarian (2022)
It's great... until it's not
The movie started out strong from the set pieces, performances to the tension. The second act balanced quite nicely between horror and comedic relief. The characters were surprisingly rational with their decisions, a rare trait in recent horror media.
However, the ending really insulted the audience. An extra character showed up solely as a plot device. They did briefly show the real backstory but it just felt so half-assed. Some stuff was never explained like how the cops ignore the protagonists, or the person who pointed them to this particular AirBnb...
Overall, it was going so well until the ending where I actually laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was. It was like either the director got tired of making the movie by the end or they ran out of budget and just decided that was good enough.
Shin Evangelion Gekijôban (2021)
Oh. My. God
I rarely write reviews, but why in the hell does this abomination get so much praise?! Yes, I've watched all previous movies and the original series, yet everything in this one makes no damn sense. The more the characters talked, the more I wanted them to shut the eff up. Some of the monologue scenes felt like watching an ad rather than exposition. The only redeeming qualities were the art and animation because they were crazy good.
Utter disappointment and completely messed up 4/10.