Struggling with postnatal depression and feeling misunderstood by her husband, Meredith begins to experience terrifying visions foreshadowing an ultimate tragedy.
Mom is directed by Adam O’Brien director of The Source Of Shadows (2020).
Mom is one of those movies where it really overstays it’s welcome, it has an interesting idea tackling parenthood is not exactly new. But there were a few moments here where the movie did look like it was going to at least attempt something new…that did not happen.
The acting is…well not good, Emily Hampshire is the best of the cast here I guess. But even then her performance is really not anything great, it’s mainly due to the very lacking script that gives none of these characters any sort of depth at all. It’s cliche horror movie characters that kind of just fill in the holes they are supposed to, the character development never goes any further than that.
The biggest issue here is the writing, outside of being just way too predictable a lot of the themes that movie explores aren’t done in interesting or new ways. The theme of parenthood is executed in the most bland way possible, the dialogue doesn’t have the fuel to push it further and instead becomes just another movie about parenthood and how it can be nightmarish.
Although Mom is 90 minutes long, do not let that fool you it’s an absolute chore to sit through. The pacing is terrible and the movie tries to throw in some slow burn horror elements that completely miss, there’s nothing investing being said here or anything to take away it’s all just meaningless fluff that the viewer quickly forgets after viewing.
Overall Mom is a very forgettable movie that might have been better with a solid writing team.
A billionaire’s death sets off a chain of events for Iris and her friends during a weekend trip to his lakeside estate.
Companion is directed by Drew Hancock which is his directorial debut.
Companion is one of those film’s that really surprised me in a lot of ways, while there are some bumps in the road at times (mainly coming from some of the script) the acting and atmosphere combined with the location is absolutely top notch.
The performances I have to say were surprisingly excellent, I think the whole cast does a incredibly good job blending their talent together to create some very suspenseful scenes and a lot of more quiet moments in terms of acting. Sophie Thatcher is absolutely brilliant here and it really does seem like she is getting better and better with each film, I loved her in last year’s Heretic (2024) and she was easily the best part of The Boogeyman (2023) but here she completely hits it out of the park. Her character Iris is truly interesting and just such a fun character to explore, some subtle mood changes that have to do with her clothing are present throughout the film. Thatcher’s acting makes Iris all the more compelling and matches the mysterious atmosphere the film is going for, it’s the type of atmosphere that really brings you into the film slowly but surely. The cinematography from Eli Born compliments this well with the setting and just how abandoned or alone our characters really are in a large portion of the film.
Jack Quaid and Lukas Gage are both brilliant here as well, Quaid does such a fantastic job of playing this jerk of a character that makes you automatically hate him but you can’t help but praise how well he does it. Lukas Gage starts out as a side character who seems like he doesn’t have any real importance, however without spoiling anything he does quickly become an important part as to what’s exactly going on here which leads him to give quite a fantastic performance that is quite thrilling.
As I said before the film nails the atmosphere down perfectly, there’s some humorous bits that don’t take away from the film. In fact they add to them which makes the film all the more thrilling especially when you get to the later half of the film, there’s so much exploration of the film’s world that we learn about over the course of the film. While there are some hiccups with the writing and some of the side characters kind of just feel there that really don’t add much to anything. The film still goes on and sticks the landing quite well, there’s some great gore and combined with the film’s interesting world it makes for one hell of a great time.
I don’t want to say too much more as I don’t want to accidentally give anything away, but go into this one as blind as possible (do not watch the second trailer). Companion is a fun ride beginning to end that displays some fascinating world exploration and strong performances!
When Lainy’s plan to settle down and start a family falls apart, she puts on a fake baby bump, tells a lie – and accidentally falls for her dream guy.
Kinda Pregnant is directed by Tyler Spindel director of Father Of The Year (2018), Deported (2020), The Wrong Missy (2020) and The Out-Laws (2023).
I really don’t think you need me to tell you that Kinda Pregnant is atrocious, it’s one of those movies where just the idea and who is involved is enough to turn anyone off. You remember how last year Katy Perry tried to make a comeback last year but failed miserably? Well that’s Amy Schumer with this movie and would you believe me if I said that this is far worse than anything Katy Perry could have conjured up?
Amy Schumer is of course atrocious here, she’s doing her usual shtick that worked back when she was at the peak of her career. But now it’s predictable, old and incredibly unfunny (I think it was never funny but people clearly liked it), Schumer seems insistent on this type of humor still working throughout the movie but ultimately falls flat with none of it landing outside of maybe two or three jokes from the beginning.
The supporting cast unfortunately can’t salvage a terrible script (which is partly written by Schumer), Will Forte and Jillian Bell aren’t horrendous here but they aren’t given good material to have their characters standout. They are basically here as support for Schumer’s obnoxious character Lainy Newton who I promise by the end of the movie you will absolutely hate, it also doesn’t help that Forte and Schumer have absolutely no chemistry between one another. Leaving a lot of their scenes with such an awkward feel that never goes away.
Kinda Pregnant also drags out for way too long, despite being 98 minutes long the movie feels like it’s 2 hours that’s mainly due to just how the movie is structured. It’s basically Schumer being obnoxious with wacky shenanigans occurring, some unfunny jokes are told and then it moves on to the next scene rinse and repeat until the movie decides to end. It’s no surprise that a Netflix movie starring Amy Schumer is terrible but to be this unimaginative, lazy and unfunny is truly something else.
Overall Kinda Pregnant is horrendous in just about every single way possible, it’s a movie that pretends it’s about female empowerment yet it portrays pregnant women as stupid. This is a prime example of a movie that is sort of baffling to see and wonder how nobody said “actually let’s do a rewrite” easily the worst movie so far this year.
Kinda Pregnant is available on Netflix
No Good Qualities Just Horrendous (that’s the new rating replacing Disgrace To Cinema) F
A group of young people arrives to a remote village where they encounter an ancient spirit – a succubus – that can take human disguise. It feeds on one’s deepest fears and brings out the darkest side in people.
The Demoness or Succubus is directed by Serik Beyesu director of Project ‘Gemini’ (2022) and Whisper of the Witch (2024).
The most I’ve heard people talk about this movie is they got confused with another film called Succubus that released last year and had Ron Perlman in it. I have not seen that one so I can’t comment on it but after watching this movie…well there really isn’t a whole lot to discuss here.
The best thing I can say about Beyesu’s Succubus is that the atmosphere is somewhat decent at times, there’s moments of suspense and the first 20 or so minutes are intriguing enough to pull you in for the ride. Only to completely eject you afterwards due to how much of a mess the movie becomes, the dialogue is so laughably bad that it heavily reminded me of the line delivery from some of the old Resident Evil video games. Only those at least had charm to them and were memorable, with these lines they are funny for about five seconds before you realize this is the work of incredibly bad dubbing.
If you are hoping for an erotic thriller due to the succubus element you are going to be incredibly disappointed, the “sexy” scenes don’t go on for long enough and there’s very few of them as well. Making you question why the whole succubus idea is even here in the first place if the movie isn’t going to commit to it. The direction is a mess in general, no sense of what the movie is trying be, what the goal here is or any sort of plot. It does feel like a bunch of horror cliches meshed into one confused mess that really doesn’t make too much sense.
The most we get about the characters is some brief moments at the beginning where we are told why they are here and supposedly their goals, but after that we get absolutely nothing with none of them having very interesting or different personalities. You could easily take a few of them out of the movie and it would not make a difference at all, it would be the same mess throughout that doesn’t seem interested in telling a story that makes sense.
I’m not sure what else you can really say about this one, it’s a classic case of terrible writing mixed with terrible directing and not knowing what you want your movie to be.
The Demoness or Succubus releases on all VOD platforms February 11th
Well here we are in February, after such a slow month we can now move on to February. But before the most anticipated films list a few things.
First I do have my review for Companion coming either later today or early tomorrow, it’s the last film I saw in January and by far one of the best!
The second thing is I’m going to be making a series of posts called release date roundup, where each week I’ll post about release dates that got revealed that week and talk a bit about the movies. I’ll be posting the first one this weekend, so keep an eye out for that.
Anyway February seems like an alright month for films, outside of The Monkey, Bring Them Down and The Looney Tunes movie there really isn’t anything I’m incredibly hyped for. But there’s always room for surprises, January was surprisingly not a terrible month so that could very well be the case here too! Anyway on to the list!
9. Timestalker – February 7th (Theaters)
8. I Love You Forever – February 14th (Theaters)
Paddington In Peru – February 14th (Theaters)
6. Cleaner – February 21st (Theaters)
5. Jazzy – February 7th (Theaters and VOD)
4. Love Hurts – February 7th (Theaters)
3. The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie – February 28th (Theaters)
A small-time wrestling company accepts a well-paying gig in a backwoods town only to learn that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious plans for their match.
Dark Match is directed by Lowell Dean director of Wolfcop (2014), Another Wolfcop (2017), 13 Eerie (2013) and a few others.
I had no idea what to expect going into Dark Match, the premise intrigued me enough to check it out. While there are some flaws here I do think it’s a genuinely interesting execution on the ideas the film is going for.
Ayisha Isaac gives a solid performance here who turns it up to eleven quite quickly as the film goes on, the rest of the performances such as Steven Ogg are decently fun as well. There really isn’t anything groundbreaking here it terms of performances but there really does not need to be, you can tell that the cast had a blast creating this interesting story that does get the viewer invested early on.
The mix of wrestling and horror is what makes the film standout mostly, it’s executed in a way that has just the right amount of atmosphere and even has a surprisingly heartfelt look at wanting to survive in the world of amateur wrestling. Granted the screenplay’s pacing does have its issues where it does take a bit to really get into the point of the film. But the film does reward the viewer for their patience with some genuinely strong scenes that you soak in while watching.
The film does feel a lot like Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015) and while that is very much the case the film also does manage to do its own thing and executes it’s ideas in its own way, the cinematography from Karim Hussain is absolutely gorgeous and the focus on gore blended with it really matches the atmosphere and world this film is going for. There’s some shots here that do a lot of the talking, they aren’t grand moments by any means but they do compliment what you are seeing on screen.
The character development does feel a lot to be desired and I do wish we got to explore a bit more of the film’s world. However as it stands there was clearly a lot of love put into the film and the end result does few like a nice little tribute to wrestling!
A cam girl navigates a toxic client relationship while reconnecting with her estranged, dying father, exploring complex relationships and family dynamics.
Sundance Review
Bunnylovr is directed by Katarina Zhu which is her directorial debut!
I decided on seeing at least one Sundance film this year (good thing I watched this before people decided to leak certain scenes of other films and the digital platform got taken away) Bunnylovr was one I was pretty excited for and unfortunately left me disappointed. While it’s definitely not a bad movie and I can see what Katarina Zhu was going for here, there’s just a whole lot missing here that ultimately holds this movie back.
The best part of Bunnylovr is easily the performances, Katarina Zhu gives a strong performance in the leading role and pours so much love in her acting as well. Which leads to some genuine moments between her character Rebecca and William Rebecca’s father played by Perry Young. Rachel Sennott is also pretty great here although she’s only handful of scenes and the friendship of Rebecca and Bella (played by Rachel Sennott) ultimately goes a bit unexplored outside of some surface level observations.
There’s moments that really do build Rebecca as a character, there’s this theme of loneliness that is going on with Rebecca and from what’s presented it’s done quite well. It even gets the viewer to feel a bit relatable with it, however at a certain the point the film stops exploring it and leaves it a bit unwrapped. That’s the main issue with Bunnylovr it introduces a lot of interesting themes and ideas but barely explored them, we don’t get a whole lot of information of how these themes affect the characters, what they are thinking about and so on. We get very surface level observations that really don’t say all that much about anything that’s going on.
It’s unfortunate because I do like the raw filming style cinematographer Daisy Zhou uses and the mix of atmosphere that’s used during certain scenes (that are admittedly uncomfortable) is some of the film’s best moments. However it’s really not quite enough to really save this film from getting to the finish line, it’s way too short and by the time the film ends you are left with so many relationships, themes and such that feel incomplete and skimmed through just to wrap up the film.
Overall Bunnylovr was fine enough attempt but ultimately misses in what it’s going for, there’s a decent amount to like here but it’s not enough to save the film.
A woman planning her sister’s ideal wedding and the father of a bride-to-be discover their destination weddings at a remote resort are double-booked. When both parties decide to share the small venue, chaos ensues and disaster awaits.
You’re Cordially Invited is directed by Nicholas Stoller director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Neighbors (2014), Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), Bros (2022) and a few others.
You’re Cordially Invited is very much a bad early 2000s romantic comedy movie that somehow ended up releasing in the 2020s, while it’s not one of the absolute worst out there (trust me they could have done a lot worse) this movie suffers from some of the exact same problems as a lot do in the genre.
I will say for the first 30 minutes or so the movie actually had a promising start, the jokes were decently funny, Will Farrell was giving a genuinely touching performance as a father who desperately wants to make his daughter’s marriage the best it can be. Geraldine Viswanathan was actually not bad here in the supporting role, she gives a genuine performance that isn’t really affected from the movie’s over the top style it tries to use for the rest of the movie. It’s not a mind blowing performance by any means but it is a decent one that does make you feel invested towards her.
Unfortunately the rest of the movie goes towards a very over the top style that was common in the 2000s, sometimes it worked other times it didn’t and here is an example of it NOT working. Will Farrell’s usual shtick appears that takes so much away from his character and turns him into familiar territory that we have already seen Farrell do before. Reese Witherspoon is fine enough of here but much like Farrell doesn’t really do anything we haven’t seen her do before.
The writing is filled to the brim with predictable plot elements, terrible jokes and it becomes incredibly cliched. It’s also one of those movies where it does not know when to end, there’s so many points where the movie could have easily ended as all of the plot points were wrapped up but it still kept going on and on. There’s absolutely no reason why this needed to be 109 minutes long, stretching a romantic comedy like this is already asking for issues to arise but to cram in as many gags that go on for way longer than they should seals the movie’s fate.
Overall You’re Cordially Invited is incredibly forgettable, while it’s not the worst romantic comedy out there it is one of those movies where you put it on in the background while doing chores and don’t think much of it.
You’re Cordially Invited is available on Amazon Prime Video!
A family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they’re not alone.
Presence is directed by Steven Soderbergh director of Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, Magic Mike (2012) Logan Lucky (2017), Unsane (2018), Kimi (2022) and so many others.
When I heard Steven Soderbergh was going to be directing another horror film I was very excited, he absolutely hit it out of the park with Unsane (2018) a film in which he used 3 IPhone 7 Plus phones to film. Even if I don’t like all of Soderbergh’s work he is always doing something completely different, trying different filmmaking techniques and here in Presence is no exception.
I will say right off the bat that if you are going into this film and expecting a traditional horror film you are going to be disappointed. While there are horror elements here and the film is scary in much different ways than you would expect, this is very much a story about a film that’s slowly drifting apart. It’s devastating and at times quite sad (especially the end), luckily Soderbergh mixes the family’s problems with horror incredibly well which ultimately paints a beautiful but devastating picture.
The performances are a key part of why the film works as well as it does, Chris Sullivan who plays Chris the father of the family gets a lot of scenes to really show the viewer just how much this family is really drifting apart. He gives a phenomenal performance especially during one particular moment that you really can’t help but feel for him, the camera focusing on him for a long period of time makes it all the more sad. His bond with Callina Liang who plays Chloe the daughter of the family is absolutely beautiful, you really feel the father and daughter bond that is present throughout the film and leads to some heartfelt moments.
Callina Liang gives a fascinating performance as Chloe, someone who is going through the loss of two girls one of which being Nadia her best friend. The film captures the theme of going through loss and how it can hurt you incredibly well and that’s shown through Liang’s performance, the long moments of the camera focusing on Chloe just thinking and trying to move on is devastating and once again really makes you connect with her. She works incredibly well with the cast especially Sullivan as I said before, the moments of Chloe showing her anger are hard hitting and really capture the many swings of emotions someone goes through when going through loss.
While Lucy Liu and Eddy Maday give solid performances their characters leave a lot more to be desired, Liu plays the mother of the family Rebecca and while she does get plenty of moments during the first half of the film that’s where it ends for her character. She does get a few particularly strong moments that do show Liu’s talent as an actress. Maday plays Tyler the older brother of the family and honestly only really comes into play during the film’s final moments. He’s a very typical older brother character that really does not have a whole lot going on outside of the last bit of the film, not much else to be really said about his character. But I will say what they do with his character is gut punching.
The cinematography and the atmosphere combined together is absolutely beautiful, the film was filmed on a Sony A9 III a camera that while is expensive ($5,000) you can actually get your hands on from Amazon or Walmart if you have the money. The film utilizes this camera in such a fascinating way, we get POV shots which are supposed to be the perspective of the ghost (or The Presence) which is definitely an interesting and fresh idea. We don’t get to see the perspective of the ghost in these types of films very often, it’s incredibly well done there’s moments where the camera just stays on one of the family members for a period of time and others where the camera is moving quickly. It’s a nice balance that really keeps the film flowing at a great pace, it never feels too rushed or too long it hits that spot where you can follow the camera closely and absorb all the details on screen.
The atmosphere has this feel of mystery attached to it that really is fascinating, while it does take a few moments to exactly get that feel once it starts kicking it hits you in the face with it. The atmosphere is so cleverly balanced with horror, loss and moments of the family trying to connect with one another. It’s beautifully executed with some nice dialogue between them that ultimately leads to some great moments, the ending as I said before is quite sad and once you witness what happens a lot of the earlier events of the film really start to click in your mind.
The main flaw is some parts of the writing, there are moments that just feel a bit too over the top and is kind of a whiplash from the rest of the film. But luckily those moments are far and few in between, I do wish some of the characters such as Rebecca were more involved and had more moments to shine. However the storytelling is more than enough to make up for it with its clever use and execution of the whole ghost theme.
Overall Presence is a fascinating film, the film is not going to be for everyone but if it sounds like your thing or if it at least interests you I say give it a go!
An ambitious yet socially inexperienced exchange student strives to elevate her status in pursuit of popularity.
Grafted is directed by Sasha Rainbow which is her directorial debut.
Grafted is if you took Face/Off (1997) and Mean Girls (2004) then blended them together. The film is another body horror film that while does have some familiar beats ultimately sticks the landing with a bizarre ending that leaves the viewer quite satisfied.
The performances aren’t too bad here, Joyena Sun who plays our main character Wei is definitely the standout. She captures the themes the film is going for which is commenting on being loneliness , beauty standards and popularity. Her interactions with the rest of the cast especially Jess Hong who plays Angela in particular are pretty exciting to watch, the rest of the cast while decent don’t get a whole lot of character development and are just mainly there to be killed.
Which leads to the film’s strongest part…the kills and gore, there are some surprisingly gnarly kills and gore that could actually make the viewer look the other direction. The practical effects help out a lot by giving the gore a lot of detail and actually help tell the story, there’s some great moments especially towards the end that go absolutely off the rails in a good way.
As far as story goes it’s at the very least serviceable, as I said before it does start to become a bit too familiar with some horror cliches and there’s definitely some character development that absolutely could have been elaborated on. The film does take a bit to get going, but at the very least during the early moments of the film you have the dark atmosphere to slowly bring you into the film’s world.
Overall Grafted may lack a strong story, but when it comes to body horror, atmosphere, and acting the film is able to cross the finish line. This is a fun ride for fans of the genre!
Jerome Reviews... 