Night Of The Animated dead one of the most pointless remakes ever made.

Two siblings visit their father’s grave at a remote Pennsylvanian cemetery when they suddenly find themselves swarmed by zombies. One flees to a farmhouse and finds herself trapped there with a group of strangers as the zombies overcome the property.

Night Of The Animated Dead is a shot by shot remake of Night Of The Living Dead (1968)….and a terrible one. What can I honestly say about this movie other than that it’s one of the most pointless remakes of recent memory? I get wanting to bring back more of the “Of The Dead” series back, earlier this year Army Of The Dead proved this franchise can still be really great. Unfortunately for Night Of The Animated Dead that’s not the case it’s poorly animated remake of a incredible film the only difference is there’s more blood. Which really doesn’t matter much when the animation is horrendous, the animation really reminded me of Newgrounds back in the early 2000s only that the creators on Newgrounds were mostly making short movies as a hobby rather than for a actual career. Where as this movie’s purpose is to cash in on the living dead name, which isn’t the first time this has happened. Every now and then a remake of Night Of The Living Dead pops up the only one that I would say is great is the one by Tom Savini which released in 1990. Night Of The Animated Dead is just another prime example of lazy filmmaking, I really don’t know what else to say except this is hands down one of the worst movies of the year. Watch the original 1968 film instead.

Night Of The Animated is now available on all VOD Platforms!

Disgrace To Cinema F

Birds Of Paradise equals Black Sawn with 100% less horror!

Two girls at an elite Parisian ballet academy have their bond and bodies tested as they compete for a contract to join the company of the Opéra national de Paris.

Birds Of Paradise is basically if Black Swan weren’t a horror/thriller….and not as good either. I like the idea of the movie, there are some genuinely interesting moments between the main leads. The acting is pretty decent plus the filming is actually quite beautiful. Unfortunately what holds this movie back from being anything other than passable is the script, it’s not that the script is necessarily bad it’s more that it needed to be a whole lot stronger, there are plenty of times where this movie really comes off as a “style over substance” type movie. Which hits this movie pretty hard, it’s fine enough movie if you have absolutely nothing else to watch.

Birds Of Paradise is now available on Amazon Prime Video!

6/10 C+

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is energetic and worth talking about!

Jamie New is a 16-year-old who doesn’t quite fit in. Instead of pursuing a traditional career, he dreams of becoming a drag queen. Uncertain about his future, Jamie knows one thing for sure — he’s going to be a sensation. Supported by his loving mother and amazing friends, Jamie overcomes discrimination and bullying to step out of the darkness — and into the spotlight.

2021 has been the year of musical films, some have been fantastic and others have been horrendous. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is luckily one of the fantastic ones, while it does become familiar at times there is absolutely no denying that this movie hit it out of the park in several different ways. First off the cast did a fantastic job, Max Harwood and Lauren Patel being the standouts who truly have beautiful singing voices as well. Speaking of which a good majority of the songs really stood out, each of them had their own identity and were energetic. Each of them advanced the story and really showed how talented the cast are. The story itself is beautiful and very inspirational, it really gives the audience many different types of emotions. There’s a ton of quiet moments for the characters which end up being some of the most powerful as well as being the most meaningful as well, lastly the film is just such a blast. It’s one of those musicals that manages to balance every type of emotion and at the same time remains a lot of fun. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a fantastic ride that I highly recommend!

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is now available on Amazon Prime Video!

8/10 B+

Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions is a familiar yet fun sequel!

Six people unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive — and discovering they’ve all played the game before.

Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions is a sequel to 2019’s Escape Room which was a huge surprise. It was a genuinely fun horror movie that knew exactly what it was, Tournament Of Champions follows a lot of what made the first movie great and adds a little bit on to it. The cast is quite decent especially Taylor Russell who I can easily see doing more horror roles, the writing like the first movie isn’t great and definitely has a lot of problems with it. But at the very least it’s fun, it knows what it wants to be and delivers at doing just that. The main criticism with this one is it doesn’t really do anything different from the first movie. I mean sure the story is different and a few things are tweaked here and there, but that’s really about it, luckily for this movie it is on the fun side it’s entertaining just enough to give a recommendation if you just want to turn off your brain. If you liked the first movie chances are you are probably going to like this one.

Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions is now available on all VOD Platforms!

6/10 C+

Ema is a hypnotizing beautiful film!

A couple deals with the aftermath of an adoption that goes awry as their household falls apart.

Ema is a film I’ve been waiting quite some time to finally watch and the wait was definitely worth it, Pablo Larraín (director of Jackie and the upcoming movie Spencer) hits it out of the park once again. With a beautiful film that has several different types of themes such as parenthood and expression. Both of which are done extremely well, Mariana Di Girólamo is fantastic in the leading role. She puts so much passion and energy into her role to the point where it becomes very raw, the cinematography is beautiful especially when combined with the setting it brings you into the film. Ema is very depressing at times and makes sure to make that known, the writing is well done and is actually quite straightforward. Overall Ema is a strong film that gives tons of emotions!!

Ema is now available on all VOD Platforms!

8/10 B+

The Nowhere Inn is a interesting mockumentary for St. Vincent fans!

Two creative forces band together to make a documentary about St. Vincent’s music and life. However, they soon discover unpredictable forces lurking within subject and filmmaker that threatens to derail their friendship and the project.

The Nowhere Inn is definitely something different, it has a bunch of people playing as themselves such as St. Vincent, Carrie Brownstein and Dakota Johnson. The movie itself definitely has it’s interesting moments and I found that the movie itself was very well put together. The acting and writing were solid enough and the plot is strangely entertaining, with that said maybe it’s because I’m not familiar St. Vincent herself but a lot of this movie was her singing and sort of lost me. Which I do feel is the major flaw with The Nowhere Inn, it really doesn’t do a great job of giving an idea who St. Vincent is. I mean sure she sings but that’s about as deep as the movie goes. So I really don’t see this movie working for people who aren’t very familiar with St. Vincent. However I still found it to be quite entertaining for what it was and i definitely appreciate the movie for what it was.

The Nowhere Inn is now available on all VOD Platforms!

7/10 B

Scooby-Doo Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog is a welcome nostalgia throwback!

The movie involves Scooby-Doo and his friends finding a strange object in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, the backwoods hometown of Courage and his owners, Eustace and Muriel Bagge.

Growing up Courage The Cowardly Dog was one of my favorite cartoons, it was a very smart and horror filled show that was quite fantastic. So when I saw that a Scooby-Doo and Courage crossover was happening I was pretty excited, this is something that should have happened years ago! The end result is quite great, I do wish John Dilworth came back as the director but that’s perfectly okay. The movie does a good job of combining the two really well, it keeps the characters as they were several years ago. Both properties fit very well together and it really shows here, I do wish the movie used some darker imagery that Courage The Cowardly Dog is known for. The jokes are actually not too bad, there are some that don’t land particularly well but a lot of it does remain faithful to both properties. It plays out how you would expect, it takes elements from both properties and blends them into one. There are things that I do wish this movie improved on such as the villains which were bugs, part of what made Courage really interesting as a show was the creatures and villains. Using bugs sort of seems like they took a very uninteresting path, despite that though I had a lot of fun with this movie. If you are a Courage The Cowardly Dog fan you will absolutely love this. It’s not anywhere near as fantastic as the show was but it’s a nice throwback that I do hope we see more of Courage in the near future.

Scooby-Doo Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog is now available on all VOD Platforms!

7/10 B

Malignant is bizarre in all the right ways!

Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities.

Malignant is a bold move by James Wan, going into this film I was very unsure if it would be good or not. The last horror film James Wan directed was The Conjuring 2 which is quite fantastic. Malignant is what happens when a director takes risks and does something completely different…and pays off. Malignant starts out as you would expect from reading the plot, nothing too crazy and feels very traditional. Annabelle Wallis and McKenna Grace both give fantastic performances, Wallis gives a haunting performance that is genuinely scary a lot of the time. Once the film reaches the final act all hell breaks loose and that’s when you get a collection of twists, gore and very bizarre scenes that make you have no idea what exactly your watching. Malignant combines all of that with fantastic build up that feels haunting and atmospheric, it’s a beautifully shot film that really captures what makes a lot of James Wan’s films so great, he takes elements from each of his last films (there’s even elements from Furious 7 and Aquaman) and combines them all into one bizarre film. Malignant is truly a film you need to see for yourself, it’s some of the most fun I’ve had with a movie so far this year. Malignant is most definitely not going to be for everyone, as this was certainly not made with a causal audience in mind, but I do highly recommend checking it out! Overall Malignant is one of the most boldest and bizarre films of the year, James Wan continues to show that he’s one of the best horror directors working today. I just hope we don’t have to wait another 5 years for another horror film by him.

Malignant is now available in theaters and on HBO Max!

10/10 A+

F9 is a fun but a very generic entry into the Fast And Furious franchise.

Dom and the crew must take on an international terrorist who turns out to be Dom and Mia’s estranged brother.

F9 is exactly what you think you are going to get, only now it’s much more self aware. F9 is definitely an improvement over The Fate Of The Furious but not quite as fun or good as Hobbs & Shaw, Justin Lin who’s directed quite of few of the franchise is back in the director’s chair. I’ll give Lin this he definitely knows how to make some pretty great action scenes, which is easily the best part about F9, the acting is really a hit or miss. There’s moments that are actually not that bad as it does look like everyone involved seemed like they were having a blast while being a part of this movie. What does hurt F9 however is the jokes that were just not funny at all, I get what they were trying to go for but at times the jokes feel way too forced. As for the rest of the movie it’s basically what you would expect from a Fast And Furious movie, in someways it ups some of the previous movies when it comes to action scenes and making them as ridiculous as possible. Overall F9 isn’t bad by any means, but it is a very generic installment into the franchise.

F9 is now available on all VOD Platforms!

5/10 C

The Voyeurs is familiar yet a whole lot of fun!

Innocent curiosity turns into full-blown obsession when a young Montreal couple spy on their eccentric neighbours across the street.

Making an erotic thriller in 2021 is something I definitely admire, as there really isn’t a whole lot of modern erotic thriller movies. The Voyeurs is a pretty neat one that actually manages to be a whole lot of fun, Sydney Sweeney and Justice Smith easily steal the show here. They both give genuine great performances and have great chemistry between one another, the movie throws one ridiculous twist after another which quite honestly works in this case mostly due to how interesting and fun this movie gets as it goes on. If you look at Voyeurs from the perspective of it being a throwback to the time where erotic thrillers were much more common you are definitely going to have more fun with this movie. As it does it’s job very well it is very predictable and definitely is a Rear Window clone as well but it’s actually one of the better ones. The movie knows what it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything else, which is something some other movies struggle with. Overall The Voyeurs is not too bad, it’s a decent enough movie that is quite fun!

The Voyeurs is now available on Amazon Prime Video!

6/10 C+