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.

To put it in simple terms, The Jester is a bad knockoff of the Terrifier films. Sure, the horror genre is filled with knockoff films, and some are better than the previous film they ripped the plot from, but in the case of Terrifier, I feel that film is sort of like magic in a gore-filled bottle that just came along at the perfect time, and The Jester, despite having its heart in the right place, just doesn’t have what it takes to compete. Now, before I really get started, where The Jester does succeed, it captures the Halloween atmosphere beautifully from the set design to the color palette throughout, so even though it is summer, if you are craving a film that has all the autumn vibes you can ask for, for this alone, The Jester may be worth taking a gander at.

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.

The cold open on this film is honestly the best part of the film. I’m not saying this as a slight, but instead I got a little excited about this film because I enjoyed the opening so much. It worked as its own mini-movie filled with some tension and a decent jump scare. It starts up with a little girl simply trying to retrieve a toy boat of the pool for her sick brother, and we helplessly watch as her good deed does not end well. I love this as an opening for a horror film, because it shows us this director isn’t afraid to take chances, and if they have no problem killing a kid in the opening, then ANYONE can be a victim.

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.

Danny (Crystal) and Ray (Hines) are detectives who are doing what they can to try to finally take down Julio Gonzales (Jimmy Smits), a notorious crime lord in Chicago. They get the opportunity to intercept his money in the beginning of the film, but of course what they really want is to bring him down for drugs, but that that won’t be as easy as they hope. They get carried away using one of their suspects as bait and in the process ruin an undercover operation.

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?

The film opens up with Sam Cooper (Steve Guttenberg); he works for the State Department and is trying to make it on time for his wedding. As he’s getting ready, an invisible man who happens to be a secret agent bursts into his room and is killed by a group of men who are trying to retrieve this secret formula that is stored inside a silver ball that can make someone turn invisible. The police, the Soviets, and the American government all believe Sam is the killer of the agent, so he’s forced to go on the run, and he’s taken the formula with him.  His bride has called off the wedding, and with nowhere to run, the only person that can help him is Cindy (Lisa Langlois), who seems happy that his wedding was ruined and is eager to be with him.  OK, so the plot doesn’t seem bad, but the problem is  that the execution is so bland, and rather than play this more seriously, instead they go for laughs, but there is NOTHING to laugh about here. This film is one train wreck of a joke that never delivers.

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.

Season 1 introduces us to Antoine Mongeville (Francis Perrin). He’s a retired judge who, well, has just found it a little difficult to leave his job completely behind. In this season Mongeville is still trying to piece together what happened to his daughter who was kidnapped, and along the way he is helping Detective Axelle Ferrano (Marie Moute) with a few homicide cases. There is the police Captain Briare (Pierre Aussedat) who has a bit of history with Mongeville and doesn’t like the idea of Mongeville inserting himself on these various cases, but as the series stretches on this continues to be a running joke, until finally Briare just accepts that there is no way he can keep Mongeville from helping out, especially when the man always delivers results.