Insidious: The Red Door is nearly a solid entry in the series.

Josh Lambert heads east to drop his son, Dalton, off at school. However, Dalton’s college dream soon becomes a living nightmare when the repressed demons of his past suddenly return to haunt them both.

Insidious: The Red Door is a direct sequel to Insidious: Chapter 2 and is the fifth installment of the franchise, I’m not ashamed to admit that I genuinely enjoy the franchise. Some of the movies are definitely better than others Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 3 being the strongest, while Insidious: Chapter 2 and Insidious: The Last Key being fun movies. I cannot say the same thing for Insidious: The Red Door however and is the weakest of the franchise for me. 

I respect the hell out of Patrick Wilson to try and take the series in a new direction because as much as I liked the previous movies they already started to become the exact same thing, so with Wilson in the director’s chair and him trying to take this in a different direction I was hoping for a better outcome. Wilson tries to turn this studio horror movie into somewhat of a indie drama about him and his family trying to move on from the events of Insidious: Chapter 2 (we don’t get enough of Rose Byrne sadly) and I do think a lot of the character stuff with Ty Simpkins and Patrick Wilson is genuinely pretty great. 

They both have this father and son bond that’s quite beautiful and actually felt a bit heartwarming at times which really did catch me by surprise, the whole family element has always been somewhat of a big part in the series (outside of The Last Key) so it’s nice to see it repeated here, the movie also serves as a wrap up story for the Lambert’s which I will say that they wrapped up the story quite well. 

The problem is the rest of the movie, when the movie gets to the horror a lot of it starts to become the exact same thing as it’s predecessors, sure the acting is great throughout especially from Patrick Wilson and Ty Simpkins but almost everything else turns into a very traditional Insidious movie except not as good as previous entries. The jumpscares are predictable, a lot of the ideas go underutilized and the rest follows typical story beats you come to expect from this series at this point. 

As I said earlier the ending is pretty decent and ends on a good note for the Lamberts which concludes their story well, overall Insidious: The Red Door isn’t necessarily bad it’s just very forgettable and could have done far more with it’s ideas and scares. Again I respect Patrick Wilson for trying his best to make this as different as possible and I truly hope he directs another film in the future. But as it stands Insidious: The Red Door sort of just exists. 

Insidious: The Red Door is available on all VOD platforms. 

5/10 C

Sharksplotation explores the Shark subgenre

In the wake of blockbuster classic Jaws, a new subgenre was born. This new documentary explores the weird, wild cinematic legacy of sharks on film and the world’s undying fascination.

Sharksplotation is about the Shark movie subgenre and how it blew up in popularity after Jaws was released. It also does go over some of the earliest examples from the 1930s as well as the movies that came out after Jaws released. 

The documentary has a lot of directors, actors and more who worked on these films and share their thoughts about the genre and their own movies as well. Which actually leads to some genuinely funny bits that got a few laughs out of me, the even get the guys behind SyFy and The Asylum’s slate of many shark movies and some oceanographers as well. So when it comes to interviews this documentary absolutely nails it and gets many conversations going. 

As expected the documentary spends quite a huge amount of time on Jaws and rightfully so, Jaws is the movie that made this subgenre popular in the first place. So it’s only natural to spend a huge amount of time on this important film that inspired many directors, writers and so on, even if the movies that came after it ranged in quality often times being on the terrible end. 

There really isn’t anything new to be learned here maybe outside of learning some weird shark movies exist, but a lot of what is being said here is very well know especially when they talk about Jaws. However the documentary is a well put together piece that celebrates the subgenre and it’s always nice to see a bunch of filmmakers, actors and many others come together to talk about their thoughts and experiences. 

Sharksplotation is available on Shudder. 

7/10 B

Quick Review: Stephen Curry: Underrated (2023)

The remarkable coming-of-age story of Stephen Curry, one of the most influential, dynamic, and unexpected players in basketball history and his rise from an undersized college player to a four-time NBA champion.

Stephen Curry: Underrated is a documentary about the basketball player Stephen Curry, the movie is directed by Peter Nicks the same director of Homeroom (2021). The documentary follows Curry’s career from his 2008 NCAA Tournament run with Davidson College through the 2021-22 Golden State Warriors run at another NBA Championship where he also received the NBAs Finals Most Valuable Player Award. 

As far as documentaries go this one is a very standard one, it’s nice that we get to see Stephen Curry’s many interactions with many people and get some insight into his career, we see his highs and lows which gave the rise to his career in the NBA. It’s a well filmed documentary that makes the viewer easily connect with Curry and his story. 

The documentary does skim through the present which I guess this is understandable since it was focusing on how Curry’s career began, but it still would have been interesting to see. But honestly it’s a well made documentary that really makes you connect with Curry easily. You constantly route for him and by the end you are quite satisfied with how far he’s come. 

Stephen Curry: Underrated might not be the most in depth documentary but it’s certainly an interesting one worth checking out. 

Stephen Curry: Underrated is available on Apple TV+ 

6/10 C+

Quick Review: See You On Venus (2023)

Mia and Kyle, two misfit American teenagers, fall in love while travelling through Spain in search of Mia’s birth mother.

See You On Venus is yet another movie based on a young adult novel and while it’s not as bad as some of the ones that have come out recently, that’s honestly not saying a whole lot. 

Virginia Gardner is by far the best part about this movie, she really adds to her character Mia even if the writing isn’t really that strong, I will admit that the movie at least attempt to try and develop it’s characters which I’ll give credit where credit is due. A lot of these YA adaptations don’t even bother to do that so that’s something at the very least. 

What really brings this movie down is it going for every cliche in the book, any fan of YA adaptions would tell you exactly what’s going to happen and how it’s going to end. The chemistry between Alex Aiono and Virginia Gardner is sweet enough and actually very heartfelt at times, but it isn’t enough to get to the finish line. 

I really don’t have much else to really comment on, it’s a very forgettable movie that has some solid performances and has handful of great moments. But lacks a lot of writing and the rest of the movie never gets as good as the performance from Gardner. 

See You On Venus is available on all VOD platforms. 

3/10 D-

The Passenger is a surprisingly thrilling and bloody film.

Randy is perfectly content to fade into the background, but when one of his co-workers goes on a sudden and violent rampage, he must face his fears and confront his troubled past to survive.

The Passenger was definitely a bit of surprise, what seemed like another straight to VOD movie from Blumhouse turns out to be a quite effective horror thriller that quickly gets gory towards the end. 

What mainly makes the film work are the performances from Kyle Gallner and Johnny Berchtold both are effective, Gallner especially when he goes on a shooting spree and becomes quite terrifying very quickly. It helps that the film the explores violence and what drives someone to it, there’s a lot of subtext with trauma and how the characters are dealing with it as well. The characters are incredibly well written which really sets the movie up for a quite brutal last half of the film. 

The storytelling through the kills and violence is truly interesting, when you combine that with a haunting as well as thrilling atmosphere that quickly gets under your skin it leaves you on the edge of your seat on what’s going to exactly happen next. There are some road trip buddy type of stuff that is present during the first act after the quite disturbing opening, while I’m not a huge fan of the road trip buddy stuff I get why it was put here. It was put here to subvert the audiences expectations so later on the gory scenes can be far more effective. 

Which it does work in this case which is mainly due to the previously mentioned performances from Gallner and Berchtold, as the movie goes on you quickly feel that atmosphere from the opening quickly build up again until it appears and hits the viewer right in the gut. It’s a very classic use of suspense that really hits it out of the park. 

Overall The Passenger is a surprisingly very effective little horror thriller that really is quite shocking, it’s a very interesting ride that I definitely recommend giving a go. 

The Passenger is available on all VOD platforms. 

8/10 B+

Carmen is a meditative and strong film through it’s music, filming and performances.

The story follows a young and fiercely independent woman who is forced to flee her home in the Mexican desert following the brutal murder of her mother, another strong and mysterious woman. Carmen survives a terrifying and dangerous illegal border crossing into the US, only to be confronted by a lawless volunteer border guard who cold-bloodedly murders two other immigrants in her group. When the border guard and his patrol partner, Aidan–a Marine with PTSD–become embroiled in a deadly standoff, Carmen and Aidan are forced to escape together.

Carmen might lack in story and it does admittedly get a little more noticeable as it goes on, however the movie makes up for that with just about everything else being quite solid. 

Melissa Barrera and Paul Mescal are both fantastic here, there’s a handful of scenes that really build the chemistry between the two characters. There’s plenty of emotion building the film creates and the end result is actually really sweet and beautiful. 

What Carmen completely nails is the filming, choreography and the music, all of which combine to paint a quiet and meditative picture that you can easily get your mind into. The music itself actually does act like a third main character alongside Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera, it has so much personality and depth that the music really does create it’s own character. Jörg Widmer does a fantastic job shooting the film, adding so much detail to every shot while also creating this meditative feel to the filming. 

The music from Nicholas Britell, Taura Stinson and Julieta Venegas is beautiful and like the filming and choreography really blends well into the film, creating a picture that is captivating and very pleasing to the eye. 

As I mentioned before, Carmen might lack in story but absolutely makes up for it in just about everywhere else. It most certainly won’t be for everyone but I do recommend giving it a go! 

Carmen is available on all VOD platforms. 

7/10 B

Biosphere is an interesting little movie that takes a very surprising direction.

In the not-too-distant future, the last two men on Earth must adapt and evolve to save humanity.

Biosphere is definitely an interesting one both in it’s premise and the direction it ends up going, I’ll give credit where credit is due it’s quite different for sure. 

Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass are quite hilarious here and are the strongest parts of the film, there’s tons of genuinely charming jokes and dialogue between the two and you quickly grow to really like the both of them. 

The story is mainly up to the imagination of the viewer, we really don’t get to learn much about the world building or the cause and even nature of the environmental apocalypse. However that doesn’t stop the movie from being genuinely entertaining and quite a lot of fun for what’s given to the viewer. 

The direction it takes is quite interesting which I won’t spoil here, however some viewers might be able to get a pretty good idea of where it’s going early on. That doesn’t change the impact of when it actually does happen, Biosphere is a creative little movie that I do recommend giving a go. 

Biosphere is available on all VOD platforms. 

6/10 C+

Resident Evil: Death Island is forgettable.

Agent Chris Redfield and his team investigate a zombie outbreak in San Francisco. They follow a clue that leads them to Alcatraz Island, where a new horror awaits them.

Resident Evil: Death Island is set in the same universe as the video game franchise, it’s also the fifth installment and the fifth film of the animated Resident Evil series. Finally it’s a sequel to the 2017 movie Resident Evil: Vendetta and I believe the 2021 miniseries Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness. 

I’ll start off by saying that it is admittedly very neat to see the large group of Resident Evil characters together, Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and Rebecca Chambers (even if she is given very little to do). There are some decent scenes here of them working together and interacting with one another that are pretty fun. The voice acting unfortunately is a bit of a hit or miss here, some of the dialogue really ends up being very flat and doesn’t quite capture the spirit of these characters. 

The villain is very forgettable which is unfortunate because there are some quite effective villains in the series so it’s very puzzling to see a villain written in the most generic way possible who lacks so much charisma. The action is fine enough but really isn’t helped out by the CGI animation which does have it’s moments of looking half decent, but a majority of the time you are just looking at this and wishing you could just play the games. 

Resident Evil: Death Island is available on all VOD platforms. 

2/10 D-

Quick Review: What Comes Around (2023)

Amy Redford, a young love affair becomes a menacing game of cat and mouse. Nothing and no one are as they seem.

I really don’t have a whole lot to really say here because What Comes Around is the very definition of a straight to VOD release that does absolutely nothing, both in it’s story and it’s execution. 

While the performances from Grace Van Dien and Kyle Gallner aren’t great but they are at least trying to make the movie work, what’s frustrating is the movie seemed like it was going to talk about stories of groomed teens however it feels a lot more exploitive as the movie itself doesn’t offer any insight. It doesn’t help that the tone is completely off, it has this LifteTime movie type dialogue and atmosphere that as you can imagine is very poorly written. 

Heck the topic of grooming is hardly even explored, instead it becomes a terrible thriller that really answers the question “what if LifeTime got a bigger budget and released something on VOD?” 

What Comes Around is available on all VOD platforms. 

2/10 F

Most Anticipated Films Of August 2023!

A new month is here and looking at the film release schedule it’s most definitely on the weaker side this month unfortunately. While there are some pretty great looking ones, a lot of the main theater releases really don’t look that great if I’m going to be honest. Having that said there’s always a chance for hidden gems and plus there are some films that look genuinely great!

Before we start as always here’s the movies that I’ve already seen that I highly recommend checking out if you can

Mutt – August 18th (Theaters)

Also worth noting that I did not put Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on here because it already came out, I completely forgot that it came out yesterday.

9. Elevator Game – August 11th (Shudder)

8. Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar – August 22nd (VOD)

7. Bad Things – August 18th (Shudder)

6. The Last Voyage Of The Demeter – August 11th (Theaters)

5. Medusa Deluxe – August 11th (VOD)

4. Birth/Rebirth – August 18th (Theaters and I believe VOD)

3. Passages – August 4th (Theaters)

2. Landscape With Invisible Hand – August 18th (Theaters)

1. Bottoms – August 25th (Theaters)