Out of the Dark is a useful reminder that resumes are not always accurate predictors of success in the movie business. How often do we see the phrases “From the Producers of” or “By the Director of” or the even vaguer “The Team That Brought You” splashed across the promotional material, only to find that the new film is nothing like its purported antecedents? Here, we have a collaboration of writers whose recent projects include fan favorites like Enemy and The Last Days. With such credits, viewers could reasonably expect, at the very least, a competent, workmanlike ghost story, while holding out hope for a new take on the familiar haunted house flick. Instead, screenwriters Javier Gullón (Enemy) and David and Àlex Pastor (The Last Days) deliver a dog of a script that is banal, derivative and so fraught with third act problems that the onscreen action provoked derisive laughter from the audience at the film’s premiere at the Berlin Fantasy Filmfest.
Posts Tagged ‘Bad Movies’
Out of the Dark Review
Posted: August 28, 2014 in 2014 Fantasy FilmFest, Horror, ReviewsTags: Bad Movies, Colombia, Enemy, Haunted House, Julia Stiles, Lluís Quílez, Pixie Davies, Stephen Rea, The Last Days
The Prince Review
Posted: August 22, 2014 in Action, ReviewsTags: 50 Cent, Bad Movies, Bruce Willis, Jason Patric, John Cusack
Here is what you need to know about The Prince.
It is not a Bruce Willis movie. It is not a John Cusack movie. It is, in fact, a Jason Patric movie. While the trio share prominence in the trailer, poster, and other marketing material, the three do not appear as a group in the film. Willis and Cusack do not have a single scene together. Willis and Patric are ostensibly both in the finale, but are never in the same frame.
This is Old Hollywood – or, at least, the marketing department at Old Hollywood. The same people who put all the good scenes from a movie in the trailer because they know you’ll think, “Hey, they wouldn’t put all the good stuff in the trailer, would they?” place Willis front and center so you’ll think, “Hey, they wouldn’t draw my attention to Bruce Willis unless the movie was all about him, would they?”
Guess again.
Hector and the Search for Happiness Review
Posted: August 18, 2014 in Action, Comedy, Drama, ReviewsTags: Bad Movies, Christopher Plummer, Jean Reno, Ming Zhao, Movies, Rosemund Pike, Simon Pegg, Stellan Skarsgård, Toni Collette
Hector and the Search for Happiness fancies itself a comedy, a drama, an action movie, and a travelogue, but the film fails in each of the genres, revealing itself to be nothing more than an awful little film about one uninteresting man’s mid-life crisis. Wrapped in pretension with a bow of psuedo-self help nonsense and delivered by a squandered all-star cast, Hector is a two-hour illustration of vapidness without even a hint of a redeeming satirical sense. It is a cyncical, clumsy, excruciating exercise in failed manipulation without a single genuine moment.
The critique of Hector as comedy is simple: it is not funny. As a drama, it lacks characters that we care about or a situation that we wish to see resolved. The action/adventure component is ludicrous, while the travelogue is very definitely offensive. (more…)
Delicious Review
Posted: July 16, 2014 in Drama, ReviewsTags: Bad Movies, Eating Disorder, Louise Brealey, Movies, Nicholas Rowe, Romantic, Tammy Riley-Smith
A film with the premise of a romantic relationship between an aspiring French chef and a British woman with a eating disorder sounds absurd enough to be the next Farrelly Brothers project. The pitch practically writes itself: he prepares haute cuisine, she vomits. If only he can find the right recipe, they might just cook up a little magic together. Meanwhile, the kooky elderly neighbor dispenses love and life advice while entertaining a string of gentleman callers as the would-be chef steals the ingredients for his elaborate meals from the restaurant owned by the man he suspects is his real father.
Hercules: Reborn Review
Posted: July 9, 2014 in Action, ReviewsTags: Action, Bad Movies, Hellevator Man, Hercules, John Hennigan, Johnny Nitro, Movies, The Rock, WWE
The new film Hercules: Reborn is so shameless that it’s inspiring. If there are still those in Hollywood who will put aside any shred of conscience or ounce of respect for intellectual property rights in the pursuit of a quick buck, then we can be reassured that some things in cinema have not changed, the digital revolution be damned.
Hercules: Reborn is notable only for the sheer chutzpah of its existence. Following in the tradition of movie milestones like The Day The Earth Stopped and Transmorphers, Hercules: Reborn is an attempt to draft behind a better known, better financed project that will debut in movie theaters at approximately the same time. (more…)
Deep in the Darkness Review
Posted: June 25, 2014 in Horror, ReviewsTags: Bad Movies, Dean Stockwell, Horror, Movies, Sean Patrick Thomas
Dreck [drek]
noun Slang.
- excrement; dung.
- worthless trash; junk.
Origin:
Yiddish drek; cognate with German Dreck filth; compare Old English threax, Old Norse threkr excrement
(From Dictionary.com)
Pick your definition – Deep in the Darkness is dreck, unless you’re a Viking, in which case, it’s threkr.
Doc Holliday’s Revenge Review
Posted: June 23, 2014 in Action, ReviewsTags: Ashley Hayes, Bad Movies, David DeCoteau, Movies, OK Corral, Tom Berenger, Western
When you get about 15 to 20 minutes into Doc Holliday’s Revenge, you’ll be ready to give up on the movie.
Don’t. It gets worse. Gloriously worse.
Doc Holliday’s Revenge is wake-the-kids, call-the-friends, must-see-it-again terrible. It’s not so bad, it’s good. It’s so bad, it’s great. Supremely bad. Magnificently awful.
It’s March 19, 1882, according to the graphic at the beginning of the film. But wait, the calendar in the house shows it’s September 1884. That’s the same house with an electrical light ceiling fixture, next to an air conditioning vent. Hmmm, no-fault divorce and the modern screw bottle cap, both 20th century inventions, are around as well.
Meet Mr. Karma 