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Reviews
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
You're a babbling fool, and we've built a temple to madness.
Title is how I feel about the creator of/this franchise as a whole, and this movie encapsulates just how stupid the mythos truly is. Makes me sad that this brain dead film made a such huge profit, because now there will no doubt be more, unless by some providence FNAF fades from relevance at last. Watched this for free on Prime by the way, with my kid (who is a fan), but even he couldn't defend the movie. Only Josh Hutcherson made any kind of effort to seem like a plausible human being, so kudos to him. Isn't the genre suppose to be horror? Because it fails miserably at this as well, unless you're like 10 or younger.
Path of Exile (2012)
10% XP Loss on death absolutely kills this game.
If the xp loss on death wasn't a thing I would rate this a solid 9/10, but this mechanic is too harsh a time sink. At higher levels (80+) a single death could cost you 15 mins or more of your time grinding back up to where you were. Deaths when you have your defences at max are almost always unexpected, and typically just a one shot. This especially hurts when you are just moments from leveling. God forbid you enter an area where you didn't read every single modifier, and just happen to miss that one was enemies reflect a type of damage you use (or didn't even realize was part of something you were using) and you just one shot yourself. Incredibly disappointed.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
I was fully onboard until the music fight.
Do not get me wrong, 95% of this is a passable if flawed Marvel movie, and both Cumberbatch and Olsen are phenomenal. I was apprehensive going into this, because I'm not a fan of Sam Raimi, but to my great relief I was enjoying everything... until it descends into everything I feared it would be; just cheesy and silly all of sudden. I guess in the end Raimi couldn't help himself, and yes I had noticed and forgiven him for memeing on himself the entire film, because prior offences had no gravitas until a point.
The Midnight Sky (2020)
Beautiful melodrama about nothing.
Well if you liked Ad Astra, you'll probably like this one too. However it has all the same flaws: lifeless characters, vague catastrophe, bad science, nearly indestructible protagonist. If you are watching it through hoping for some answers, sorry to say that none are coming, at least not to the big questions. Is it a terrible movie? I'd say not. Is it as boring as it is beautiful? Yes.
Black Mountain Side (2014)
Bafflingly Bad.
Acting is awful (for the most part). Writing was terrible, and is what truly killed it, just dead end after dead end, there was a moment where it was almost profound, but by that point nothing was going to save this film. The characters were as hollow as the were shallow, ruining any sense of tension or dread. This is a bunch of different concepts mashed together, and no one idea is developed enough to be satisfying in any way, which was very disappointing because if they had just picked one direction here it could have been a decent waste of time.
The Vast of Night (2019)
Top marks for Suspense and Mood, Zero Payoff.
*No spoilers*
The dialogue feels authentic and natural, the two leads are very well realized on paper, they seem to have a complexity and history we never fully get to see, but enough comes through. The cinematography is hit and miss, the scenes where the screen goes black does not lend anything to the delivery, but the atmosphere as a whole conveys the tension and subtle dread extremely well. For all it's charms and masterful build up, it just makes the end all the more disappointing, where one might have expected a truly terrifying encounter , it actually goes out with a whimper.