Posts by Brent Lorentson

The story for The Jester got its start through a trio of short films that were put on YouTube. The shorts had found success, and fans were rewarded with a feature length film. Shudder grabbed the streaming rights for the film, and now here we are …When it comes to Shudder, I have no shame in admitting it is my favorite of all the streaming services. Not only does it have a solid selection of horror films, but it also has The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, and that alone makes it worth the monthly fee. Now, as a horror service, it is no surprise that they buy a bunch of titles to release over the course of the year, and in the past they’ve put out greats like The Innocents, The Sadness, and Deadstream to name a few. But of course they are going to have some misses, and The Jester is one of those confident purchases that I feel ended up a big miss.

For horror fans, this title is one to be cautiously excited over, because it is the beginning of a partnership between Jason Blum and James Wan. The pair have united to release several horror projects in the near future. Night Swim was initially picked up as a feature after the success of the short film with the same title which was released back in 2014 from directors Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire. Now ten years later Bryce McGuire dives back in to create a feature-length project about a haunted pool in the suburbs in an attempt to scare the floaties off its audience, but does he succeed? You know the rules, folks; no viewing after eating unless you’ve waited thirty minutes, and absolutely no viewing without supervision unless there is a lifeguard on duty. Now, with that said, grab your swim trunks and settle in; we are taking the plunge into Night Swim.

One of the best things about cinema in the 80s was the buddy cop films. Sure, they existed before the 80s, and they still exist now, but the 80s was their “golden era”. Sure, they all followed the same formula: a pair of misfits who seem to always get on their captain’s nerves, and they come across some big case, and the only two knucklehead cops who seem to be able to solve it are our loveable pair. Personally, Lethal Weapon is my favorite of this subgenre, with 48 Hours coming in a close second, but really during the 80s there really isn’t a bad buddy cop film. They are just over-the-top action with a few laughs, but most important is the chemistry between the pair as they chase down and shoot bad guys along the way. One of these classic films is Running Scared. It paired Billy Crystal with Gregory Hines in a film filled with laughs and action and utilizing a Chicago cityscape as the background.

I’m a sucker for a good “Invisible Man” story. Ever since H.G. Wells put out his story in 1897, he’s captivated readers, and his story has been a part of Hollywood history since 1933. For decades we’ve gotten to see Hollywood tackle the story and offer viewers some FX wizardry that has ranged from cheap and silly to simply Hollywood magic (aka CGI or even better, a man in a green suit). A good portion of these films have been good. I’ve always been a fan of the 1992 John Carpenter film Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and more recently in 2020 we had The Invisible Man, which I’d argue might be the best of the “Invisible Man” films. Then you have a film like The Man Who Wasn’t There, a 1983 release that tries to reinvent the story and fails in such a way that you have to wonder if anyone involved with the making of the film had ever seen the previous films or read the books, because the result is a mixture of bad to awful, and no amount of bare breasts could save this film, though they inserted plenty to test this theory. So what makes this a film I’d wager many involved wish it could just vanish from their film resume?

One of the best things about being a critic that I have discovered over the years is how it puts shows and films in front of me that under different circumstances I might never have given a chance. The French detective drama, Mongeville, is a perfect example of this. I wouldn’t say the show is a hard–hitting drama, but instead a cozy murder mystery where each episode is 90 minutes that had me nostalgic for the old TV murder mysteries like Murder She Wrote. This was something I was glad I went into blindly and over the course of the 28 episodes the show took me on a journey through the French city of Bordeaux, travelling through the countryside and meeting some interesting characters along the way. So was this a series worth checking out as its characters pieced together the clues one mystery at a time? Grab your passport, gloves, and a few evidence bags, because that’s exactly what you’re about to find out.