Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 30th, 2018
Apollo 18 at one time was meant to be one of several missions NASA had set up that would take astronauts back to the moon. Due to the fallout from the incident involving Apollo 13 and budget cuts, all the missions were scrapped and focus shifted to the shuttle program. Conspiracy theories have seemed to always swirl around the Apollo missions, the more famous being about whether or not man ever reached the lunar surface and whether everything we saw about the moon landing was really filmed on a Hollywood soundstage. The Landing takes things a step further as a faux-documentary about an Apollo 18 launch that resulted in one of NASA’s greatest disasters (that never happened).
The films focus is on Bo Cunningham (Don Hannah), who was the pilot for the Apollo 18 mission. A lot of effort is put into having us believe that he was part of this old shuttle mission, as we are shown numerous old photos of a young Cunningham in NASA clothing and interviews with those that were part of the NASA program. All this is nicely done to set up for the disaster where there was a mishap during reentry and Cunningham was forced to crash-land in the desert of western China. Where the conspiracy aspect comes into play is, did Bo cause their mishap on purpose?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 27th, 2018
Haunted houses and Halloween seem to go together like turkey and Thanksgiving, but over the years the haunted house experience has evolved to keep up with those who have grown numb to your typical jump scares. Sure, there are still the standard haunted houses that you’ll come across when visiting the carnival, or mazes put together by school groups for fundraisers. But for those who are really looking to be scared, you either have to fork over the big bucks to get into Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, or you have to scour the internet to find a haunt nearby. 2017’s Haunters: The Art of the Scare is a documentary that takes us behind the curtain to what goes on at these attractions and explores how a sub-culture that has evolved of haunted houses that have been created to push the boundaries mentally and physically.
The core of the documentary is split between two men who design and build haunted houses in and around their own homes. Donald Julson is in the haunted-house business not to make money, but simply out of love for creating an experience where he can scare people. We get to see and hear how he and his wife struggle as he spends months preparing the haunted house that he only has run for four hours on Halloween night. It’s a project Julson does out of love, and it’s clear that his wife doesn’t approve, and you kind of have to wonder how this marriage can work when she despises what he loves so much.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 23rd, 2018
I’m going to say from the start that Slice isn’t for everyone, but those who come across this film and give it a chance will come away having a good time with this film. It’s a new release from A 24, which quickly got my attention considering the numerous films the company has been releasing that I’ve enjoyed. While it’s a horror-comedy, there is more going on in this little film, as it injects a sociopolitical message in it. I like a film that can function on several levels, but I never expected to find it in a film about pizza delivery guys being killed by monsters.
The film opens up with a fun little PSA that introduces us to the town of Kingfisher and the story about how all the ghosts were uprooted from their homes and placed into a town of their own, conveniently called Ghost Town. But ghosts are not the only monsters lurking in this world, as we are also introduced to werewolves as well. The film wastes no time getting started as we see a delivery guy get killed while making a delivery inside Ghost Town. Perfect Pizza is also under attack by a group of women who believe the pizza shop should be closed since it was built on top of where an asylum once was, where many of the ghosts are rumored to be from.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 23rd, 2018
It seems there isn’t an action film Bruce Willis can say no to. It feels as though every couple of months there is an action film that has an appearance from Willis, and frankly it’s a little disappointing. He’s a guy who can bring in the major box office dollars, but it seems more and more of the action stars are settling for the direct-to-video route for the simple paycheck and moving on to the next. With the number of films being churned out for the cinemas, DVD and Blu-ray, and the streaming services, it seems the film industry is simply becoming a business of quantity rather than quality due to the amount of demand needed. Reprisal is the latest example of this demand for quantity rather than quality as we get a pedestrian action film that plays by the numbers and will be forgotten by the year’s end, and that’s a shame considering its two leads.
Frank Grillo takes the lead as Jacob, a bank manager who is living the ideal life with a wife and daughter, until his bank falls victim to a calculating bank robber. Jacob is traumatized by the event that left a security guard dead and no suspects to be held responsible for the crime. This is where his neighbor, James (Bruce Willis) steps in to lend some comforting support and eventually is a sounding board for Jacob to work out how the robber pulled off this violent heist. It works out that James used to be an ex-cop, but for some of the logic this film uses, it wouldn’t have mattered if James was a celebrity chef; these guys play by their own set of rules.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on October 22nd, 2018
When Robert Redford first announced that The Old Man and the Gun was going to be the last film he was going to be acting in, it became a film that shot to the top of my must-see list. Since that announcement he’s backed off on his comment, but if this were his last film, this would be one heck of a way to close out an amazing career. What writer and director David Lowery has delivered here is sort of a love letter to all of Redford’s greatest hits, and by the time the credits end, well, you simply know you’ve watched something special. It’s a film from another era, when special FX didn’t come out of a camera, and cinema just was different. Most of all this film reminded me why Redford will always remain a cinematic icon, but what was missing here is the void Paul Newman left behind. This would have been a perfect film for them to both be in and ride off into the sunset together, and it’s a reminder of how many greats we have lost and those other greats who may not have passed, but it seems Hollywood just doesn’t seem to have a place for anymore.
The film is mostly a true story based on the criminal Forrest Tucker (Redford), who has spent his life in and out of prison. He’s been incarcerated 18 times, and each of those times he’s managed to find a way to escape. The film isn’t about his entire life, but instead about when his criminal life may be coming to an end. When he meets Jewel (Sissy Spacek), he’s actually on the run after a bank heist, and he pulls over on the highway to help her when he sees her car is broken down. Of course, it seems this is just a tactic to throw the cops off his tail, but the more he talks with Jewel, you can’t be sure if that twinkle in his eye is part of the con, or if he is sweet on the woman.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 20th, 2018
From the moment that STARZ announced that they were pulling the plug on Ash vs Evil Dead after its third season, my heart has been a bit crushed. The Evil Dead franchise has always been special to me. Growing up I watched the trilogy of films to the point one may consider I had an unhealthy obsession with these films, and to be fair, they may have had a point, but these movies were a blast. These were the films where writer and director Sam Raimi made a name for himself in the horror genre with his cinematic style, over the top gore, and injecting his love of The Three Stooges. For decades fans had waited patiently for a fourth installment in the franchise, with teases of there even being an Ash vs Freddy vs Jason, but alas that concept fizzled as a film. So when the news came along that STARZ would be bringing Ash (Bruce Campbell) to the small screen for a 10-episode series, well, it was something horror fans could get excited about.
Season One
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 17th, 2018
3rd Night is one of those films that sneaks up on you. It’s shot on a low budget, there are no big named actors involved, and it doesn’t have a big studio backing. It’s the kind of film that seems to be released hoping that by word of mouth or sheer luck, people will stumble upon this film. You go to your random Wal-Mart or Target and you see these small, independent titles all the time, and I’ve always wondered how many of these are picked up as a cold buy, simply from the customer looking at the cover and reading the box. 3rd Night is a film that is going to have to go through this struggle, but for those who do decide to pick this up or find it on some other platform, it’ll be a delightful little surprise. It’s a 71-minute horror fest that is better than you’d expect despite having some strange flaws that left me questioning some of the film’s choices; despite that it still works.
This is Adam Gravely’s first time directing a feature film, and for the film he also serves as a writer, producer, and an editor, so obviously this is a project that meant a lot to him. It’s a good thing he has stuck with this film through the whole process, because there is a lot going on in this film when it comes to what kind of horror it is, and for some filmmakers the struggle with the numerous sub-genres would usually cause the filmmaker to just stick with one direction, and that would have severely hurt the uniqueness of this picture.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 15th, 2018
Over the years there have been attempts to adapt Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting at Hill House, but each attempt seemed to fall short of what the book accomplished. So when Netflix announced that they were going to be attempting to turn the novel into a ten-episode TV series, well, to be honest, it didn’t exactly get me excited. Helming the show is Mike Flanagan, who had some success with Netflix before when directing Gerald’s Game and is currently directing Doctor Sleep, a sequel to Stephen King’s The Shining. It wasn’t till a couple weeks ago when a came across a trailer for The Haunting of Hill House that I was convinced that perhaps I should give this show a shot. Once it hit the streaming service and I watched the first episode “Steven Sees a Ghost”, well, I was hooked, and what unfolded over the course of the season resulted in an exceptional television experience.
Part of what makes the show works is that the story unfolds in two separate timelines as it follows the Crain family through the early 90’s and today. In the modern day the story follows the five Crain siblings though each episode and at the start seems to focus on one sibling at a time while flashing back to their time as kids growing up at the Hill House. Steven (Michiel Huisman) is the oldest and has made a career for himself after writing about his families experiences at the Hill House, though the book resulted in plenty of turmoil that the show takes its time getting into. There is Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser), who runs a funeral home and is raising a family of her own along with her sister Theodora (Kate Siegel) who lives in a home on the property. Then there are the twins Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Nell (Victoria Pedretti) who seem to be the most troubled from their experiences growing up. To a degree this does have a This is Us feel to it, but there isn’t much cheer to be found here; there isn’t much one can call heartwarming in this family. Instead these are all siblings who are coming to terms with some very dark experiences from their childhood.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on October 13th, 2018
These days when the studios are cutting together trailers to promote their upcoming films, I feel one of the number one complaints people have is that the trailer gives too much away, so why bother shelling out the cash to see it on the big screen? When it comes to the trailer for Bad times at the El Royale, it gives you a glimpse at what is to come, but the result is something clever and ambitious, but unfortunately feels a bit too familiar. This is the second feature film from writer and director Drew Goddard, who first made a splash onto the screen with his hit film Cabin in the Woods. While I enjoyed his first romp that played with many of horror’s stereotypes, I still felt the film fell a bit flat. Unfortunately, though I enjoyed this fun little noir film he’s put together, I feel it too falls a bit flat, but mostly this is due to its 140 minute runtime.
The film opens up with a great sequence, where we get to watch as a man comes into a motel room and goes through the process of burying a bag beneath the floorboards. It’s a long static shot that nicely sets the tone for the film we’re about to watch, and with the nice little twist at the end of the scene, we’re ready to jump into this film. Sadly, as we are introduced to visitors at the El Royale motel, things get a bit long-winded, as it seems the sequence of just having the characters checking into their rooms will never end. It works as setting a tone and introducing us to characters, but the problem is we spent all this time with character development just to discover no one seems to be who they claim to be. I’m all for having twists, but this sequence just goes on for too long, and unfortunately that’s pretty much how each sequence plays out, each clever sequence stretching on for a bit too long. This is where I understand where people draw their comparisons to Quentin Tarantino, only Tarantino can make long talkie sequences crackle with humor, dread, and cool all at once, and Goddard just can’t pull it off.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on October 12th, 2018
When I was in elementary school, R..L. Stine was the author all the kids were reading. For me Goosebumps was sort of a gateway that opened me up to horror, and I’ve been a bit obsessed with the genre ever since. If you were a kid of the 80’s, I don’t think it’s possible for you to not know who R..L. Stine is. Even if you somehow never managed to read one of his books, there was also the successful TV series that came out in the early 90’s. For years I would have said Stine would always be the most successful writer for kids. Well, that all changed once a certain wizard hit the scene and changed pop culture. So when they announced that there would be a live action Goosebumps film, I was surprised, but I was curious what it would be like. Could his stories still entertain the masses? I had fun with the first film, and when it was done, it struck me how these kinds of films simply just are not made any more, films the whole family can enjoy but are targeted at younger kids. Sure, there are the superhero films, but those are more for the teens, and let’s face it, the millions of adults who grew up reading comics. But what happened to the kids-in-peril films that were huge in the 80’s and just seemed to vanish with time? Goosebumps seems to be the franchise that has jumped on the 80’s throwback bandwagon, but has wisely targeted not just those looking for a little nostalgic flashback, but also younger kids. I’m talking the 11-and-under crowd, and I think this is a great thing.
The sequel welcomes us to the town of Wardenclyffe, where the town’s biggest claim to fame is being the home of one of Nikola Tesla’s inventions. As it goes with most horror tales, this is a quiet and quaint little town, but we all know that it won’t be for much longer. Sarah (Madison Iseman) is a bit overwhelmed, working on an essay she needs to complete to send in to Columbia University, and in a way this is kind of a strange setup, because though she’s the first character we meet, I wouldn’t say she’s the star of the film. The real stars of this film would be her younger brother, Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and his best friend, Sam (Caleel Harris). The two are setting up their own company, “Junk Brothers”, where their hope is to make money and find some cool stuff along the way. It just so happens their first customer takes them to the former home of R..L. Stine, and the house has missed more than its fair share of spring cleanings. It’s while they are cleaning Sonny stumbles across a book that has been hidden away for decades, one that has a lock on it (for those who saw the first film, you already know about the kind of trouble this book will bring), and once the boys open it, they are surprised by a ventriloquist dummy, the infamous Slappy.
