mungflesh Reviews

Talk to Me (I) (2022)

Good ideas lost in the mix

[5/10 · 7 January 2024]

Some kids do Ouija with a hand, rather than a board and things go awry.

A strong start descends into tedium as virtually nothing happens for the whole film.

The movie feels like a stretched short, which we've seen before with the likes of Lights Out. A short movie needs to be an excerpt from a feature, rather than the whole premise.

There will probably be many reviews on this point, how the concept is good but execution, not. Poorly developed characters who supposedly are friends. I can't even recall any names except Mia, I think. And I've only just finished watching it.

It's not trash, the film looks great but a very horrible script.

Firestarter (2022)

Makes the original seem really good

[4/10 · 7 January 2023]

Remaking a fairly average movie, which struggled with the FX due to technology of the day, makes sense to me. Modern FX could have plugged the gaps nicely.

But no. What we get is nasty CG fire, a really, REALLY dull movie and bland, unlikeable and unintersting characters.

I'm amazed this failed but then again there seems to be a rot in the movie industry as a whole.

I switched the film off 10 minutes before the end because I had better things to do. It really was THAT lifeless.

Zac Efron has been pretty awesome in most of his roles but even he couldn't save this movie.

It does make you want to revisit the old one though. That film is very average for the 80s but just way better than this.

Barbarian (2022)

Ultimately disappointing

[5/10 · 7 January 2023]

A woman turns up to her AirBnB, only to discover someone else is already there, due to a double-booking. She's naturally cautious when invited to share the accomodation but the other occupant turns out to be the least of her worries ...

It starts out really well and doesn't take long to get you invested in the characters. However, after the first third of the movie, things go sharply downhill as it veers off on a mansplaining mission, completely throwing all logic out of the window to give us another lecture for the me too era. It's disappointing because at one juncture it started to get seriously tense and could have gone on to be a horror classic. An awful lot of great ideas in the movie but all squandered in favour of nonsense to get its point across.

Not an awful film but disappointing due to how well it started. Overall, it is very well made and the actors do pretty well in their roles but drowns in silliness eventually.

Dead of Night (1945)

Classic and influential portmanteau

[8/10 · 25 October 2022]

A group of people meet at a country farm, where one of them feels he has had a dream about the gathering. They pass the time telling creepy stories ...

Like most portmanteau horror movies, it gets going quickly and the stories told each have a distinct flavour. It's entertaining enough in its own right but in addition, it's fascinating to see how many ideas have been used in later movies.

For 1945, it's surprisingly creepy in places, so I can only imagine how it must have been a thrilling watch on original release.

For horror fans, it's a must-watch movie, as it is one of those pivotal movies like Psycho and Frankenstein.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Not aged well

[6/10 · 24 October 2022]

I wanted to check this out as it has good reviews and a high rating. Unfortunately, in 2022, it's not coming across as well as it might have done in the past.

The story is clumsily told, by modern standards, with some very odd dialog and performances which at times are a bit comical. Given that this was only five years prior to Hitchcock's Psycho, it really feels like it could have been a lot earlier.

There are a few scenes that play out well and create some tension but all too often it drops the ball and any tension built up just vanishes.

It was worth a watch but I'm unlikely to want to see it again.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

Made for profit not for love

[4/10 · 24 October 2022]

Amazon have put this together out of respect for algorithms and statistics, not story. It wouldn't surprise me if Jeff Bezos has intentionally pushed the use of AI to write the story. It simply has a cold, robotic feel to it and is frequently clumsy, as if written by a computer.

To avoid spoliers, I'll not go into any details. Having now seen the whole first series, I'll just summarise the experience.

Primarily it's very boring. The first and final episodes contain the majority of anything remotely interesting and the rest is spread out so thinly that you could literally just jump from the first to last episode and it would probably be a lot better.

The plot is riddled with stupidity and implausibility and hangs off a myriad of "mystery boxes" which is its sole mechanism to keep the viewer watching. There's no intelligence to any of it. I would think the maximum age that would be dazzled by this kind of thing is probably about 10 years old but I'm being generous there.

The visuals are poor too. Far too much reliance on CG which renders the experience very cartoon-like.

As for the characters, there are none with whom it's possible to emapathise with. No decent arcs or development and as a result you just don't care about any of them.

I think most have stuck with it out of morbid curiosity as to how far it can possibly fall below the original movies from Peter Jackson.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Another step in the comedy direction

[5/10 · 11 September 2022]

I loved the original Thor movie, in fact it's my favourite of all the Marvel releases. Kenneth Brannagh did a very good job.

I struggled with Dark World; it was considerably weaker. Then the switch to comedy came with Ragnarok, which seemed very popular but I found it hard to get through once again.

Love and Thunder goes back to basics with a decent, simple story but unfortunately just has too much super power tennis. Clashes are just bam, bam, bam, bam, win/lose. Then, the other to serve and I can't get into any of that kind action, which is prevalant in most MCU movies and just lacks effort in the writing.

The comedy and serious emotional moments don't mix too well either. The light vibe was just lost.

Jane Foster as Thor was fun but why she was called Thor I don't get. Why not just be called The Mighty Dr Foster or something? No harm to the plot but these kind of token hand-me-downs are distracting.

Overall, not much to write home about. It was OK watch but less good than Captain Marvel, which was already heading in the direction of generic super power movie.

I'm not a big MCU fan but I suspect even those that are will find this a bit forgettable.

The Once and Future Smash (2022)

Finally! The Definitive End Zone 2 Documentary.

[7/10 · 31 August 2022]

The classic slasher End Zone 2, which is practically forgotten, finally gets its dues in this superb documentary.

Loaded with clips and great interviews from the cast and other heavyweights of horror, it's a great nostalgia trip back to one of the genre's most unsung but influential and terrifying characters ... Smashmouth.

The two actors that played him back in 1970 face off and the truth about who is the real Smash-Mouth is answered once and for all.

I was lucky to catch the FrightFest World Premiere screening, so got to see the double bill, which had the full UNCUT End Zone 2 movie after the documentary.

Not to be missed!

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Total thrill ride and a great sequel

[9/10 · 20 June 2022]

Like many, I was skeptical this would be good but I came out of the screening absolutely buzzing. First time in ages.

The film's primary strength is its phenomenal aerial sequences, which are (incredibly) way better than the original. Whatever CG is in use in the film, it's sparse and extremely well hidden.

The main plot is a total rip off of another rather well-known fighter pilot movie but it works SO well as a homage rather than a rip off.

And unlike so many films these days, I did end up caring about the characters. It wasn't just a load of cartoonish nonsense and fake emotion.

No, it's not serious or intelligent. Yes, it's brilliant.

Countess Dracula (1971)

Draku-like but not exactly

[5/10 · 17 February 2022]

An old countess mysteriously regains her youthful beauty, when a peasant woman's daugher vanishes ...

The Countess (Ingrid Pitt) isn't exactly a vampire for my money. She needs blood, yes but isn't the fearsome character that Christopher Lee is. Rather, her protectors are the ones perhaps to be feared.

She's a kept woman and an object of pity for the most part, with the surrounding males calling all the shots. And they are a stuffy bunch.

Veering on the side of exploitation, with more nudity than earlier Hammer, it's not as classy but its main problem for me is just the disappointment in the main character. I had expected a more Regina-style vampire, a-la Fright Night 2.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

Give them what they want, not what they need

[6/10 · 11 February 2022]

Star Wars lives! Or at least, continues ...

A desert scavenger on tatooine meets a deserter from the First Order and discovers she's pretty much a Jedi, so they head off world to join the rebels and save the galaxy.

Repeating the story of Episode IV is one thing, but bringing back half the characters from that movie as well is incredibly lazy script writing.

Episode VII starts pretty well and Finn is a real breath of fresh air, not to mention a great starting point. Even bringing back the Millenium Falcon isn't a bad touch.

It's when they randomly bump into Han and Chewie that this movie really starts to show it's weakness, lack of ideas and originality. It shoud have noted that from Lucas' 1-3, bringing back the old characters was not a great idea. Lucas couldn't really fail with the prequels, as he had such a great story to tell - yet he did. The droids, Boba Fett, Chewbacca are all utterly unnecessary in the prequels; those movies would have been much better without them. Same goes for the sequels.

The only character with a story to continue, from Return of the Jedi, was Luke (and to a lesser extent, Leia) as he was the last remaining Jedi. The introduction of Finn and Rey was fine but they should have taken their story into new territory and given them their own struggle, free from the baggage of the originals.

The movie gradually goes downhill, with some poor CG in some places, truly dull sequences where they try and ham a plot together with ancient scrolls and old lightsabers.

There are some decent action sequences towards the end but it really feels like we're watching A New Hope again.

Not awful, but a missed opportunity. It addresses and fixes the plastic, rigid feel of the prequels yet fails to give us anything coherent or original for a story, where they were superior.

The prequels are a great story, told in a pretty inept way but the sequels are a visually great and well acted glossy, vacuous mish mash of random, conflicting ideas.

Friday the 13th: Part 3 (1982)

The true start of the franchise

[7/10 · 1 February 2022]

Thanks to this movie, the horror genre exploded with slasher movies for decades to come.

It's an absolute exploitation classic, taking the distasteful nature of the first movie to new levels.

Although The Final Chapter ups the stakes in gore and perhaps characters, this one is just so much fun and for a concept so ridiculous, that's all we really need.

Jason gets his mask in this one but more importantly, gets his formula: they arrive, they fornicate, they do drugs, they deserve to get picked off. And off we go.

Yes it's crap, but I love it.

Friday the 13th (2009)

Bleeds itself to death slowly

[6/10 · 1 February 2022]

Jason is back with a glossy makeover and gritty realism.

It's a pretty decent remake but unfortunately when remaking something with very little plot and story beyond "kids get killed at camp", it's going to struggle ...

The opening is pretty strong but as the movie slowly unfolds, we become sleepily aware that we've seen this all before in the original, its sequels, the 90s slasher movies and countless other rip-offs. It's not that F13-2009 is bad, it's just utterly generic and for that reason leaves you a bit flatlined.

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, which essentially means if you're being talked about then you count for something.

With few truly scary moments, few truly nasty kill sequences and zero new plot twists, this movie leaves very little to talk about.

The 2006 Hills Have Eyes remake shows how to stand out a lot better.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

JJ Abrams style reboot

[5/10 · 24 January 2022]

A cash-strapped family move to an inheritance plot to try and sell the property, only to discover there's much more in its history than expected.

This is awfully similar to The Force Awakens, in that it vomits out the nostalgia slowly, as old artefacts are revealed along the way and the protaganist, whom also didn't really know her grandfather, is remarkably un-flawed to the point of uber-blandness.

That's until the movie derails in the third act, when stuff starts to happen. Then it just becomes an embarrassment to itself.

The acting is fine, the production is good but as with so many movies now, just has no clue of a story of its own. Even Paul Rudd is boring in this.

Following up a comedy with a serious movie is like a nasty hangover after a fun party. Has killjoy written all over it.

On a partial positive, at least the big dog creatures aren't dire blue-screen fakes now. At least they managed to get that right.

Candyman (2021)

Above average sequel

[7/10 · 12 January 2022]

A generation after the original Candyman movie, an unwitting artist is about to discover some things are best left unsaid ...

I was pleasantly surprised by this.

It was creepier than I thought it would be and even managed to un-nerve me a bit like the original did back iin 92, but to a lesser extent.

The thing I liked the most is how it managed to to tie in to the details of the original so well and expand on them. The climax goes a bit awry in my opinion and felt a bit generic but in fairness this is a common flaw of many horror finales these days. The majority of this film is nicely done.

Nice new score as well! The opening credits are not quite as creepy as those in the first but the theme is quite memorable and I want to re-watch the movie just to hear it again.

Didn't blow me away but stands out as a competent sequel rather than a re-hash.

Don't Look Up (2021)

About as ironic as Deep Impact

[4/10 · 3 January 2022]

A comet is heading to earth but no one believes the truth.

It's a poor satire and a boring movie. Yes, I think we get the message. It's yelled at us for over two hours. I had to ffwd to the end just to watch the inevitable, as I needed to get to bed.

Reasonably well filmed and acted but a horrible script.

Tentacles (1977)

Jaws gets the spaghetti treatment

[2/10 · 20 September 2021]

A big octopus terrorises a small seaside community.

I can only assume the big named cast members were betting on this being a surprise hit, as big as Jaws. They put it reasonable performances in what is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Aside from the rocket-propelled octo-head in the regatta scene, towards the end of the movie, the entire thing is dull and lacks anything of interest to keep you watching. Some parts of the movie just don't make any sense; there seems to be a huge foul up with footage vs storyboard and the editing in the last third tries to save it but fails badly.

Not worth watching, even just for fun to see how bad it is.

Possessor (2020)

Clinical, robotic and dull

[5/10 · 29 December 2020]

Science has the power to allow a shady organisation to control minds and bodies from afar, in order to use others as pawns in assassination plots.

It's a great premise but the execution didn't deliver much excitement. The plot's central character is introduced far too quickly and there's little build up to suggest what's at stake and what it all means.

It's stylish and, for my money, oddly violent but has no heart and is a flat affair.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

Another Whoooodunnit

[6/10 · 11 November 2020]

In the remote town of Snow Hollow, brutal murders are leaving the police cold and the townsfolk terrified ...

The movie started well but it meanders towards the finale and eventually it clicks that the story is less concerned with the mysterious Werewolf than it is with the alcoholic cop and all his issues.

It's more of a black comedy / social drama than horror - which might be your bag - but it was disappointing for me. I much preferred the likes of Silver Bullet and especially Late Phases.

Aside from the irritating, frequently yelling lead, the characters are good and the acting is solid and overall it's a very well made film. I would recommend it but know what you're getting, to avoid disappointment.

Nocturne (II) (2020)

Not quite sharp enough; a bit flat

[6/10 · 29 October 2020]

Part supernatural horror, part sibling rivalry but lacks conviction in either area.

An arts student who is hungry for success has bitter feelings towards her sister who is widely regarded as the superior pianist of the two, until she happens upon a cursed notebook which previously belonged to a former student ...

Superb acting and direction but overall the story is not very gripping. Also, the side-plot of the supernatural notebook is not tied in too well with the central sister rivalry plot. It's interesting but its inclusion feels a bit irrelevant at times.

The story feels quite familiar, seen before in movies like Starry Eyes and Black Swan but it's different enough, if less good, to warrant a viewing.

Concrete Plans (2020)

Gritty, absorbing thriller

[7/10 · 26 October 2020]

An aloof ex-army man is renovating an isolated, inherited property and employs five construction workers to live on-site for the duration of the project. When payment is with-held, tensions gradually build ...

It has a great script and is well acted. The makers have achieved a lot on a (presumably) low budget. It doesn't take long for the movie to become quite gripping and, once it kicks in, manages to hold the tension throughout.

Perhaps a bit unoriginal and unlikely to stand out in the taut drama/thriller genre but is a solid movie and well worth watching.

The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw (2020)

Creepy Witch Movie

[7/10 · 26 October 2020]

It's downbeat and slow-paced but very strong in the cinematography and acting departments. The story is not the most coherent but it's sometimes refreshing to not have everything explained in detail.

If you liked The Witch, this could well appeal as it has some similarities but personally, I feel this movie is a lot better.

The Fall (I) (2013–2016)

Well written but bleak and depressing

[8/10 · 15 October 2020]

Seasons 1 & 2 are very gripping and move at quite a pace. They're both very dark but not as dark as the final season gets.

Season 3 slows the pace down and for a while I thought the writers had lost it but the ending is far removed from Hollywood clichés and does not pander to the mainstream.

Very good series overall but has the same bleak feel as Threads TV movie (1984) did.

Aquaslash (2019)

Discopath Director Returns

[6/10 · 31 August 2020]

I saw this on the digital FrightFest screening and enjoyed it a lot.

It's an absolute mess of a film and yes, the gore is left a bit too late in the day but the movie is completely crazy and quite fun.

It has a vibe of Aja's Piranha 3D but is no where near as well made; that didn't stop me enjoying it for what it is.

If you're a fan of Troma or 80's slasher movies, this might work for you but just leave your brain at the door.

21 Bridges (2019)

Enjoyable cop action movie

[7/10 · 13 May 2020]

It's a bit rushed and the characters are not developed terribly well, except for the two main "bad" guys, who are the best things about the movie.

Decent enough with a few gripping shoot-outs to have kept my interest for a couple of hours but a bit thin on plot.

Worth watching but unlikely to stand out in the cop movie genre.