Finney Shaw is a shy but clever 13-year-old boy who’s being held in a soundproof basement by a sadistic, masked killer. When a disconnected phone on the wall starts to ring, he soon discovers that he can hear the voices of the murderer’s previous victims — and they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney.
In 2012 Sinister one of the most popular horror films of the 2012 was released, Scott Derrickson did a fantastic job with the movie. What followed wasn’t exactly great both Deliver Us From Evil and Doctor Strange were a huge step down from Sinister. Luckily The Black Phone completely turns things around and even arguably tops Sinister. The performances here are very strong, Ethan Hawke gives a terrifying performance that really captures the atmosphere of a deranged person. Mason Thames and Madeline McGraw are both fantastic well, who have a very believable brother and sister relationship. In fact it’s one of the better type of relationships I’ve seen in awhile, which is mainly due to the script that while is simple it is still quite effective. The jumpscares are actually well done as well, what makes these ones so successful is build up. Often times some movies completely forget about the build up to a jumpscare and use them like there’s no tomorrow, Derrickson makes sure to creativity build each on up so they can get under the viewer’s skin. The writing also invests the viewer quite well which in the end builds everything together, what really makes the film is the atmosphere it’s a bit surprisingly disturbing for a film that was released from a pretty mainstream studio (Blumhouse) the atmosphere adds to that by giving the characters a more human approach and not filled with cliches. Overall The Black Phone is a really strong horror film that I recommend!!
Set after Hurricane Katrina, four boyhood friends out of options reluctantly accept an offer to pull off a dangerous heist in the heart of New Orleans.
Cut Throat City is actually quite okay, I really did not expect much going into it but I found myself enjoying it, the story is interesting and has some decent characters as well. The writing can be a mess at times especially towards the end of the film, but for the most part it works. The main criticism I have is it being 2 hours and 21 minutes plus the pacing towards the end. The last 30 minutes felt way too long, plus the last 30 minutes were not as good as the rest of the movie, with that said it is a decent crime drama that is somewhat engaging. It’s not going to break any new grounds and I’ll probably never watch it again but for a one time watch I say give it a look.
A high school transfer student finds a new passion when she begins to work on the school’s newspaper.
Chemical Hearts is another high school romance movie, sure it’s better than some of the other ones that have been coming out recently. But that is really not saying much at all, I will say the acting is not too bad Lili Reinhart isn’t too bad and everyone else does a fairly decent job. But everything else just ranges from bad to below average, it feels like the people who worked on this movie just copied off of every other high school romance movie and didn’t do anything to change it up at all. Chemical Hearts really does not have much to say at all, sure there’s a few good moments that are supposed to give the characters some development, but a lot of it is elements that you have already seen several times before. I really don’t know what else to say, if your a fan of high school romance movies you will probably like this…otherwise skip this one.
4/10 D+
When two siblings discover their seemingly normal mom is a former thief in witness protection who has been forced to pull one last job, they team up to rescue her over the course of an action-packed night.
It can’t be a coincidence that Scott Speer who directed Endless also directed Step Up 4, but then one week later The Sleepover comes out and that’s directed by Trish Sie director of Step Up All In! Anyway The Sleepover is terrible (surprising!) it’s your classic example of movies Netflix knew was awful so they did everything in their power to not advertise it at all, The Sleepover also has a trend I’ve been noticing a lot more and more with a lot of family “action” movies. It has barely any action in it, they throw on the action label hoping it will get clicks. Which is a very cheap tactic and not an honest one either. As for the movie itself it’s garbage, the acting is terrible, the writing is a complete trainwreck. Speaking of the writing the very first joke and line in this movie is a poop joke…that is pretty much a foreshadowing of how the rest of the movie will be, there’s tons more bathroom jokes as well. The “action” feels lazily put into the movie, no thought or care was put into it. It pretty much comes down to “oh kids love action let’s do the bare minimum and put a few action scenes into the movie!” Look I’m not expecting the next John Wick, but good god it feels forced. I really don’t know what else to say? The Sleepover feels like something The Disney Channel would put on if it were the 90s, except where as some of the Disney Channel movies had charm this movie doesn’t have that.
2/10 F
A freewheeling take on visionary inventor Nikola Tesla, his interactions with Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan’s daughter Anne, and his breakthroughs in transmitting electrical power and light.
Why does Ethan Hawks sing “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” in a movie about Nikola Tesla? I swear if someone asked me what is one of the most uninteresting and just downright terrible movies so far this year. I would say it’s Tesla, I mean sure in concept the movie sounds pretty okay a biopic about Nikola Tesla how could you possibly mess that up? Unfortunately the writers wanted something different and then came up with whatever this was, it’s actually really hard to explain because I still don’t know what they were trying to do. The only good thing I can give this movie is Ethan Hawks’s performance, he definitely tries his best in such a terribly written movie. I feel like the worst part about this whole movie is how it is just not interesting at the slightest, it quickly loses the viewer’s interest by not doing anything really. It’s biopic that honestly felt like it did not need to be made, sitting through this movie is like doing chores around the house. You don’t want to do them but if you want to be done you have to do it, just give this one a skip..
An ex-felon discovers a live baby left in a dumpster. I’ll start out by saying Logan Marshall-Green is really talented, last year’s Upgrade was incredible and showed how a theater released movie with a rather small budget could be so much better than a lot of high budget films. Fast forward to this year and we have this movie….which is pretty excellent! Ethan Hawke is by far the best part of this movie, he really brings it all together and gives such a believable performance it’s almost like your watching an actual person. As far as a plot the movie doesn’t really have one, sure there is the main idea of the movie but much more occurs, which in this case I thought worked really well for this movie. Mostly because of how human it feels, a lot of stuff that happens in this movie does actually happen. There’s also some very powerful moments in the film that made me tear up a bit, the writing feels very down to earth and the acting feels raw! Overall it’s a very well done movie that I highly recommend checking out. 9/10 A
Paradise Hills (2019)
Uma wakes up in an apparently idyllic school for young ladies called Paradise, meant to reform her and her new friends. But there’s a darker secret behind its walls. Visually this movie is incredible, the filming, production design, costume design and so on are all very well done! The cast is also very solid Emma Roberts, Awkwafina and a few others are definitely some highlights of the movie. With that said everything else unfortunately was not that great, the writing while it wasn’t necessarily bad was not exactly good either, it felt way too basic and didn’t develop the characters very well at all. I think what ruins this movie is the final act it got way too bizarre way too fast, being bizarre isn’t a bad thing at all. Heck when it’s done right the results can be really great, but in this case I feel like it was sort of slapped on towards the end and the movie doesn’t really do anything with it. I really wanted to like this movie but it just missed quite a few marks. 5/10 C
Jerome Reviews... 