Change Your Image
nathaniel_helke
Reviews
Outlast (2023)
Wow, this is gross! Do not let a second season happen
What a gross "reality" show! Some of the worst people on TV. That Jill broad is absolutely disgusting and nose ring is the same.
Terrible people. Terrible game. There are too many other wholesome "survival" shows that this one is not needed.
Don't watch this. I wonder how these people vote? We're either going to force you to leave or play by our utterly unfair rules. Which party creates unfair rules? I think it's the one that wanted healthy people to wear masks for 2 years and get injected or get fired. 16 people started a game and 2 or 3 human turds gave birth to a facist camp in less than 2 weeks.
DON'T WATCH!!!! NETFLIX - DON'T RENEW THIS SHOW!!!!
Dual (2022)
At least the title is clever.
Dual - meaning 2, vs Duel - meaning a fight. I like that.
I'm interested in the plot. It's a really good idea.
I'm only 15 mins in, and I have read a lot of the comments. Why is the dialog so weird? Is she a robot or autistic? Is the porn part of the plot, or is it just an attempt to be "cheeky" by the foreign producers of this film? Not starting out as I had hoped.
Ugh! The "curveball" analogy?
I'm on board with the comedy, but it also seems like this is trying too hard to be "extra".
I'll give it a a fair shake, but I don't think I'm going to make it to the end of this one. Hoping that I'm wrong and this takes a turn for the better.
Alone (2020)
Entertaining, but forgettable. You've seen this one before...
There were some good aspects to this movie, and I was entertained the whole time, but I've also seen 40 different versions of this same plot. Congrats to the bad guy. If I would meet him IRL, I would have no problem believing he's a kidnapper and murderous creep. One other review said he was an evil Ned Flanders - they absolutely nailed it with that one.
We first meet him when he tries to force Jessica into a game of chicken with oncoming traffic. After that, we're no longer friends and the police should have been called. What would have happened after that? Would he have searched for a second victim if Jessica had been hit by that truck? Is he the type of killer that just wants someone to die for the sake of dying? Why then would he set up his elaborate cabin dungeon? I suspect that he gets his enjoyment from the act and not just the result. We see the same vehicle, presumably hours later, at a remote gas station. Call the cops again. Clearly, being from Portland or Seattle, or wherever she was from, she didn't have a gun, BUT she should have bought some pepper spray or bear mace or something to protect herself when she was at the gas station - especially after her life was threatened and she saw the same vehicle hours and miles apart. BTW - this movie clearly supports the good guy with a gun argument. If she had flashed a pistol, or even had a "Sig Sauer" sticker on the window of her car, she would not have been a victim in the first place.
Also, the final fight was a little disappointing. I'm all on board with the "strong female lead" thing, but she can't win in a physical fight, she just can't. Women either need to win with their wits, or we need an explanation as to why the woman has superior combat capabilities. She struck him in the head with a tire iron several times and it barely made him yell "ouch!" There was a point where she was holding the tire iron over his head, but he was blocking her from bringing it down on him. If she would have just dropped it, it would have busted out his teeth or broken his nose, or took out an eye or something. Most of us are willing to suspend our disbelief so a woman can win, but it's tough when physics and gravity are ignored. Have the writer or director ever even held a tire iron in their own hands before?
Watch "Peppermint" instead if you want to see an example of a strong female.
The Immaculate Room (2022)
Don't watch - just more Hollywood narcissism with no point
What a disappointment! No confirmation at the end? What lazy writing. There wasn't even any attempt at some deep sociological revelation. Was this "room" a gameshow? Worst game show ever! They never really explained it.
Also, the stakes dropped DRAMATICALLY when a gun shows up mysteriously after the first "treat", and then a person meant to illicit jealousy shows up as the 2nd. One has to assume that the gun was placed there to encourage either murder or suicide. After that, it seems that a bit of a decay in your morality due to a nude woman arriving on the scene is a huge drop off in consequences.
I didn't know what I was getting into with this movie, but it wasn't any kind of thriller. The suspense was manufactured because you knew there had to be some kind of crazy climax at the end, but there wasn't.
This was just another Hollywood vanity project where someone thinks they have an idea that no one has ever had before. "What if we force people into isolation and try to manipulate their feelings by changing some of the parameters?" Is it a metaphor for the pandemic? I don't even think it's that clever. This was just a clumsy attempt at "art" that didn't hit the mark. It's a cliche idea, like ED TV, or the Truman Show, or even Big Brother on TV, but not as creative or interesting as any of them - and Big Brother really sucks!
Don't watch. Not worth your time - even if you're stuck in isolation somewhere.
Fall (2022)
You WILL be uncomfortable. I think that's the main point
Kinda seems like the whole point of this movie is to put the viewer in a situation where they have a visceral response to what they see on the screen. Mission accomplished! It will make you feel tingly and you will have periods where you feel very uncomfortable. If you are genuinely afraid of heights, you'll hate this movie. I bet it would have been amazing to see this on an IMAX screen.
I would recommend this movie because it creates and undeniable physical reaction. I would have advised them that a lot of the details and plot points were not needed in this film at all. In my opinion, this is one of the best arguments for addition by subtraction you could have when reviewing a movie. If they would have subtracted 95% of the external plot, it would have made the movie much better. There was no point in creating any additional tension between the girls. There was no point for the brunette to be recovering from a crisis. I have to admit, I didn't see the twist coming - but why would I? If I were stuck 2000 feet in the air, my ONLY thoughts would be about getting down, and that was also my main focus as a viewer of this movie. Seems that they ignored the obvious and real tensions and focused more on manufactured ones when they didn't need to. You don't need to keep raising the stakes when it's already established that you're in a life-or-death situation.
You don't need to be a climber to see that basic safety protocols were ignored. I think if you're a human that has survived past the age of 8, you would have taken more measures to prepare yourself for a climb like that. I don't want to be too critical of this movie though, because I was entertained throughout. It was an adventure to watch, and I was emotionally and physically invested in it. The girls were pretty hot too - that didn't hurt.
If you liked this movie, I would recommend watching some videos on youtube of professional technicians climbing towers to change lights and things. They are following all safety protocols, but the sheer height of the climb will still make you feel a similar physical reaction.
The Guilty (2021)
Don't watch it - do drugs or something more worthwhile instead
This is a live review. I'm currently 2/3 of the way through this movie on Netflix. It worked at getting my attention and I want to find out how it turns out, but I promise that I'll forget everything about it in 5 minutes after the credits roll.
Wait? The van DIDN'T crash after she yanked the e-brake?
Why doesn't anyone just answer a question directly? If Henry WASN'T the bad guy, why didn't he just explain the situation? Why didn't that little girl just say that my Mommy hurt my brother? Why didn't those cops that stopped at the house say that the baby was hurt? How did a chained up dog suddenly go silent?
Poor communication by EVERYONE in this story. This seems like it was a short story that was adapted to a movie and then re-adapted to an American movie. A copy of a copy of a copy. This would have been better as a podcast. I can't relate to any of it. This is NOT how normal people act or talk. Why did they need to pay such high level Hollywood actors to read off-camera? I'm just some dumb midwest schlub and I PROMISE that I could have done any of these parts just as good as they did. Hollywood is a trash dump. Millions of dollars spent on people who think they have such unique talents. Completely out of touch with the rest of the planet.
Why is everyone just yelling over each other?
Now I'm at the reveal of the plot twist - Why does Henry keep saying listen, listen, listen over and over again. HE IS LISTENING!!! He's on the phone, he has no other option but to listen. Why didn't Henry have the heart to tell her that she killed her baby? How did she escape from wherever she was at? Everyone made exactly the wrong moves. As I continue to watch, I'm getting more upset and I'm dropping this from 3 stars to only 1.
OK, NOW she realizes that she killed her baby? HOW is she going to get back to Oliver? You can't just buzz through miles and miles of LA traffic at 3 am while you're all bloody. We'll, maybe LA is the only place that you could do that.
Man, this movie really, really sucks. Don't watch it. The pretentiousness of Hollywood is disgusting.
Gisaengchung (2019)
I figured out the title!!! Hint - They are feeding off of YOU!
I guess I was entertained. That's why I gave it 3 stars. If it were just some movie that I stumbled upon, I might have given it 5 or 6. Since this was was kinda chosen to be the best movie in the world though, it really fell flat for me.
This might have been better off as an animated film. Each scene requires you to utterly suspend your disbelief in reality.
The ending was just plain stupid. You send an essay-length letter out into the ether in morse code every night just hoping your son might see it? Then, as it magically turns out, your son DOES happen to see it while climbing a mountain one night and spending hours watching a house where the worst trauma of his life happened. Even though it got dark and he was freezing, he stayed there anyway and watched intently enough to notice a flickering light? Also, the light was alluded to early in the movie. A person that owns a multi-million dollar property does NOT tolerate faulty electrical work for any length of time. The moment that basement guy first headbutted the switch to make the light flicker, an electrician would have been called and the premise of the movie would have been ended by the electrician going down to the basement.
What was EVEN MORE STUPID was the son, Kevin, just deciding to be a millionaire. Ok I'll accept that he's a millionaire now after a wave of the magic wand. Not too hard to do in Korea, apparently. I guess they have short memories and forgot that he was involved in an extortion plot that resulted in 3 people being murdered - including his sister. Didn't the investigation of that incident involve anyone discovering the basement? Those investigators seem like they did a bang up job! THEN Kevin buys the very house where the rampage took place! Did he change his identity somewhere? I'm not being too eloquent with this review. I have a feeling if you have stuck with reading this that we're probably on the same wavelength already.
The main point I want to make is that the true parasites in this world are the ones that have built empires out of the tiny scraps that the masses have discarded. We have all put down $12 here, $5 there, $7 here again to watch a movie or to see some kind of entertainment. Would you have paid $20 to watch this? Probably not. The parasites are the ones who got fat from tricking everyone into thinking that have unique skill sets. So unique that they should be rich for providing you with a piece of trash movie that you paid $5 an hour to watch.
I know no one read this, but I'm glad I got to drop in my opinion anyway. I'm also happy to be able to contribute to lowering the rating of this movie.
Prey (2022)
CGI is a big step backwards
I was entertained, but I was also taken out of the experience by some unusual choices and sometimes silly CGI. 5 minutes in, her dog gets caught in a bear trap - by it's TAIL. I mean, that just isn't how it works. Did the dog sit slightly outside the trap? Why did they make that choice? Did they not want to show the violence against an animal? There were tons of other violent images. Were they not able to create CGI or a special effect convincing enough? Did they just want to avoid whatever backlash would have come from the woke mob if they showed harm come to a domesticated animal due to a man-made device? I mean, I've seen other movies where they were able to realistically portray an animal in a bear trap. Was it too triggering to furries or those weird puppy play freaks to see images of a dog with it's leg in a bear trap? I just don't understand why they avoided the most likely scenario in favor of the least likely scenario.
Also, the CGI was downright cartoonish. There have been hundreds of other movies with "animal actors" where the action was practical and not animated. I assume that CGI is faster, but if that is the case, take more time and do better. I would have been able to accept it better if it were an actual animated film. Either take more time to improve the quality of the effect, or figure out a way to do it with actual animals. Is this fallout from Tiger King and Doc Antle being exposed in Hollywood and not having animals available for movies anymore? I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you can't come up with a creative enough way to show what you want to show in a convincing manner, than maybe your movie isn't ready to be released yet. If CGI is supposed to be the future, then we sure ain't there yet. Looks like a big step backward for me. Seems like the graphics folks were way over their skis with this one. I would have enjoyed this move better if it was made in 1987.
Also, Sanguinette is just such beauty!
The Marksmen (1997)
Hard to watch
Mostly hard to watch because it isn't available anywhere. I have a VHS copy of it, but it's hard to get my hands on a working VCR.
This was filmed in my home town in Wisconsin. My Brother and several of my friends and acquaintances were in it as extras. I admit, it was cool seeing my home town on the screen, but that is where my fondness for this movie ends. I gave it 2 stars because I have a bias about the location. People that gave it higher ratings are just plain dumb.
Most of this movie is about Tommy coming home and getting involved in the world of Men's Fastpitch Softball. WOW!!!! The on-field parts of this movie sucked! What made it even worse was that at the time Wausau was a legit hotbed for men's fastpitch softball. One of the teams from the Wausau League at the time was very literally the best men's fastpitch team in the world (County Materials won 2 World Championships and was runner up 2 more times between 2000 and 2006). There were several leagues and a lot of highly competitive teams. THERE WAS EVEN A TEAM NAMED THE MARKSMEN!!! Why didn't Jay seek any input from the local talent to add some authenticity to his movie? The elite softball guys in the movie didn't have any lines - so they must have been ringers in softball, right? Wrong! They sucked. As a fastptich player myself, I was insulted to see the disrespect shown to the game I loved. There were 40 guys that could have stepped in and given an authentic pitching performance, but instead they went with the flat and embarrassingly fake portrayal by the "experts"
I'm writing this review of a 1997 movie in 2022 because I want to show my kids and some friends this movie that was filmed in Wausau at places where we actually spend a LOT of time. My kids might not ever get to see it because I can't find a VCR and I can't even order it on Amazon on DVD.