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Reviews
The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari (2022)
Best and worst of society
Those who helped the victims went way above and beyond what most people would do and deserve to be recognised. However, being amazing and selfless, they don't seem to believe they did anything heroic. The world needs more people like that. The Aussie/NZ survivors are thankful for rescuers and grateful to have survived. We hiked around a volcano, it erupted, we're not dead, life goes on.
On the other hand are the Americans. Nobody told us an active volcano could be dangerous. The boat ride back to the mainland was so long, and there was water (because it's a boat?), it was uncomfortable. They cut my wedding ring. There wasn't a single thing they didn't complain about. The husband claims there was no way to know it could be dangerous, there was no way he could have made an informed decision. (Because he couldn't Google "is an active volcano dangerous"?) If he knew then that a volcano can erupt, he wouldn't have done it. Are you for real? Sure there's a reasonable assumption that organised tours are safe but do your due diligence. And maybe ask a second grader what the words "active volcano" mean. No one forced you to go traipsing around an extremely dangerous place. Take responsibility for yourself, no one else is accountable for your choices. You're solely a victim of your own ignorance.
The documentary was done well enough. The shaky camera work and flashes of generic ground/sky/steam/boats/aircraft are annoying, but without showing actual video of the events it's kind of the only was to show the chaos. It's raw hearing survivors and the victims' loved ones speak of the tragedy. Like all Netflix productions it's twice as long as it should be.
Once Upon a Time: The Song in Your Heart (2017)
Even the characters knew it was stupid
For some reason producers think every series needs a musical episode but it it always out of place, awkward and pointless. Too much focus on the musical numbers, no story. But this is a good thing because that makes them irrelevant, so in skipping them nothing is missed.
Why nobody put a stop to this is a mystery. It's like the series was ending, they had tied everything up but needed one more episode. Maybe it was scheduled to air on a holiday weekend and no one would be watching so they threw this together.
So just fast forward, or take a nap. Of course one character will make an overly long speech at the end and explain it all.
Baby Reindeer (2024)
A victim of himself and no one else
Martha was nothing but red flags and he happily took her hand and skipped along into her fantasy. He talked to her, hung out with her, engaged with her, never telling her to stop. All these actions encouraged her, which he saw, and apparently enjoyed. He didn't tell anyone what was going on and made no attempt to avoid her.
As the story progresses he goes off on a tangent about being "groomed" by an older man. Stop right there. Children are groomed, adult men are not. He paid for drugs with sex. He used sex to advance his career. This is nothing new and nothing to be ashamed of, but it is not sexual assault.
Then he tries to explain an interest in sex with men by blaming the "assault". So gay is caused by trauma? That's taking lbgt causes backwards by decades.
What is the point of his story? It's not telling people what to do if they find themselves in a stalker situation, or a sexually abusive relationship. It doesn't even suggest therapy. He plays the victim, though he is his own tormentor. He doesn't admit having a part in any of it. He has learnt no lessons and has not matured. He seems to just want attention.
The series is well put together and acted but way too long (per regular with "limited series").
The Lost Girls (2022)
Mental illness? Sexual abuse? Brain damage?
So many questions. What's up with the father/daughter relationship? Why is he so overprotective? Why does he sleep in her bed and help her get undressed? He called her a peach, that's a metaphor for, um, well... Hook and Peter call her a peach, they call her mom, nana and daughter a peach. The cross-generational sexuality is super creepy. Teen Wendy hangs out with 25 year old Peter for like 3 minutes and ends obsessed or mentally unstable why? Skip ahead and she looks 40, she's still living with daddy and has a speech impediment, delusions, hallucinations and apparently autism. She has the mentality of an adolescent. Did she have a brain injury as a teen? Oh, and she's a crappy mom to a bratty daughter. Some stuff happens but none of it makes sense.
It's bright and colourful but the story, acting, wigs and characters are atrocious.
The Reef: Stalked (2022)
Sadly, the shark doesn't win
Don't know why anyone is complaining about the sharks when that's the best part of the whole movie. CG is fine, stock video is fine because it's not a shark movie- it's a tampon commercial. I LOVE bad shark movies but this is horrendous.
Cath is killed by her boyfriend, sister Nick finds her in the bathtub so after a lifetime loving diving she's afraid of water. Alrighty. But friends decide to go on a three day kayak trip because the script says so. They take no phones or supplies and apparently tell no one their plan. They're Australian but don't know about sharks. They're kayaking but don't know about paddling.
The only likable character gets eaten, yes eaten- not a scrap of life vest or chunk of flesh remains. Friends make it to an island where mom and kids are hanging out while the dad fishes. Instead of waiting for help they steal a small boat and try to get... somewhere? Boat breaks and leaks so they Don't. Do. Anything. There's some falling in the water for no reason, some arguments and extremely lame attempts to kill the shark by.. drowning it. Oh man.
Then something happens and the movie is over? I wanted to see these painfully stupid chicks get eaten. Oh well. I would really like to know what happened to the kayaks. Did they survive? I was rooting for them, they had more character development than the girls.
Identicals (2015)
Don't understand the confusion
Although it starts out feeling like it's based on a video game or comic book (or the opening scene was cut) and the viewer should already know what's going on, it does eventually explain itself. For the most part. Those saying it makes no sense must not have been paying any attention. There's no hand-holding, over explanation so don't expect to follow it if it's just on while doing other things, but it's not at all hard to figure out either. Beautiful effects, cinematography and people, it's visually pleasing. Overall it's well done but it's not really anything that hasn't been done before. It kind of is worth watching just for how pretty it all is.
The Craft: Legacy (2020)
Oh man, what a mess
There is no real story here. It's like someone wrote a three line synopsis and tried to make a movie out of it. No real plot, zero character development, very little dialogue related to any sort of plot, cardboard cut out characters, generic scenery, nothing at all new or interesting. Cliches and tropes don't make a movie.
New girl Lily (short for Lilith of course) meets outcast girls (with no backstory or personality) and they hang out giggling and gossiping montage style, and oh, they cast a spell (by sneaking into somebody's house, which curiously has no security cameras or alarm system).
There's mom's new misogynist boyfriend (he and three sons have biblical names, oh boy) who runs some sort of man cult and cooks with wildfire huge flames on the grill. Hmm, wonder what all that means.
Not much happens other than David Duchovny acting like he's never seen a Polaroid camera, hosting cult meetings and having overtly symbolic heirlooms prominently displayed.
Stop here if you want to experience the big reveal yourself, it's mind-blowing) There's an argument or two then the climax where the (very obvious from the beginning) demon is destroyed by... Fire. Then the "twist", guess who Lily is! But seriously, we all knew from the opening scene with the super awkward interaction between Lily and Helen.
It's unclear when these events take place. Lily has a smart phone (for all of .7 unnecessary seconds where she gets texts that add absolutely nothing to the story) and there's gender/gay/race/feminist mentions so it seems current but no cell phone selfies or social media. The girls are 17, The Craft took place in 1996 so it should be 2013ish.
For fans of The Craft there are easter eggs here and there but it seems more like copying than paying homage. Apparently it was supposed to be a remake but people got angry about that so they scrambled to redo it as a reboot so credit to them for salvaging something, but it's more "Scary Movie" than The Craft.
The Irrational: Dead Woman Walking (2023)
Oof, did anyone even try to make this a mystery?
This episode was so bad it was almost comical. Unoriginal "Someone poisoned me, I need to find out who before I die" storyline was so poorly introduced it was laughable. The victim pulls out a handful of her hair as proof it was a certain type of poison, ummm lots of toxins (acute or long term exposure) cause hair loss, it proves absolutely nothing. It was clear who the guilty party was in their first scene, but of course no one figures it out until a very overdone "these are all the reasons I hate you so much I'm killing you" revelation speech *groan* The side story with the college student/aide (or whatever she is) and her mother was no shock when it was revealed, also it was so quickly introduced and then tied up, took two scenes and maybe six lines of dialogue, that it was pretty pointless.
As others mentioned the show is full of boring cliche characters and situations, there's nothing new here at all.
Voyeur (2017)
Two narcissistic voyeurs, each trying to be more important
The viewer is expected to believe this perv spied on guests for 30 years never taking a photo or video (which was very doable at the time) through heater vents (which motels don't have, they all have the same heat/AC unit under the window) without ever making a sound, never having a guest complain at the front desk, to other guests, to the police department, no talk around town or anything, witnessed a murder which no one knows about, told the whole story to a journalist who sat on it for decades because they became friends? Mmmmk. No one knew, until someone was doing a painting (for the book's cover art?), that the motel was torn down? They weren't going to mention the motel by name to protect the current owners? As if either of these guys has any concern for anyone but themselves. He supposedly bought the motel after a long search but later claims he built it with his "own two hands". The only photos are of the exterior, or of very non-descript rooms which could be any motel anywhere in the world. No photos of his observation modifications? The perv has a collection of baseball cards worth a million billion dollars? One card is worth 500k-1m and he has a thousand of them? The journalist repeatedly says he's not a fiction writer but that's exactly what this drivel is. None of it is anything other that the word of some motel owner who is no more than a caricature skeevy 70s creep. He never did research or looked for any other sources for information. Both men are vile, disgusting narcissists.
Mysteries of the Abandoned (2017)
Give the guy a thesaurus and a dictionary
Seriously, does anyone proofread what the narrator says? Does anyone watch/listen to the final product? He says "ominous" at least once per site, someone please teach him about synonyms. He constantly says "forbidding" instead of "foreboding", please teach him the difference. He pronounces macabre maca-bruh. His grammar is atrocious. There are some really interesting places featured but the narrator is so god awful it's hard to watch.
Don't Go (2018)
Ignore disturbed_guy's review
He obviously did not watch the movie, thus most of his review is utter nonsense. These are some of the points on which he was mistaken:
It was clearly stated in the beginning of the film what happened to the daughter. Disturbed_guy must have finished his joint during the opening credits to have missed this.
The boat had nothing to do with what happened to the daughter.
The daughter died prior to the events portrayed, not during the film.
The people on the boat were not drunk.
The boat did not drive up on shore.
There is no "random drunk woman", it is the wife's college roommate/best friend.
The wife and her friends do not get drunk (though they are inexplicably in their underwear), they get high on a joint he confiscated from a student. There's an entire conversation about this, how he missed it is a mystery.
The wife does not find out hubby slept with bestie, she tries to OD because hubby is going crazy.
He does not just "stumble upon" dead bestie, she had been temporarily living with them and had a history of substance abuse and severe mental health issues.
Hubby does not "swim headfirst" into the boat (it is clearly shown to be an accident) to save the daughter because: see points 1-4.
The acting, cinematography, scenery and music are well done. It's not horror or even thriller, It's a drama. There is no blood and guts and no jump scares. The story is evenly paced and interesting enough to keep the viewer's attention. It's not Oscar worthy but it's worth a watch.