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pretzelsnyder
Reviews
Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)
Just kind of sad
This movie is simultaneously enraging and not worth thinking about. At first you're hopeful, because it seems to be trying to blend the "newer" films with the first two and somehow streamline a messy canon, but it eventually just turns into people walking around a house. Light jabs at the franchise, intended to be endearing, feel insulting because you, as an audience member, begin to feel that the movie hates you. And not even a cool, surreal house. Just a house. Christopher Jacot is wasted. Doug Bradley is somehow wasted, because they are mostly too afraid to be over the top with anything. At the very least, an attempt was made, but somehow that is more disappointing than if a random script was slapped with the franchise name. It kind of feels like the worst kind of filler episode, but in movie form.
Christmas in Paris (2019)
Worse than soulless
Now, for starters, I would like to say that I am all for the Hallmark/Lifetime formula. It works! This film does not. It is so boring that it actually became confusing at times because I had trouble focusing for more than 30 second intervals. The characters are not even two-dimensional. They have no personality traits besides "bad relationship with dad" or "dead mom," so the "deeper" themes that they were going for fall flat. The decorations in the background clash, but even by themselves, they are ugly (see poorly painted wooden snowflake things on barn wall). Furthermore, the audacity to call a movie Christmas in Paris and a) have most of it take place in Montana, and b) not even shoot in Paris, is astounding. I wish that this had been a soulless Christmas movie like Hallmark or Lifetime would put out, but it isn't. Instead, it feels like my soul has also been crushed.
Mercy Black (2019)
Messy
The ending of this movie is nothing but compounded plot holes. The rest is faux-deep, boring, and clichéd. The dialogue is so unnatural that I almost thought the twist would be that the main character had imagined everything and was still in the mental asylum. Every character is either boring or extremely unlikeable. The only positive aspect of this movie was the coloring, which was pleasant to look at. I appreciated the use of red to designate Mercy Black, but I wish that it had been used a bit more.
The Thaw (2009)
Messy
Expect every character in this movie to make the dumbest possible decisions possible. The plot almost became confusing at a point because the "twist" at the end required the evil scientist to invite people who were not privy to his plans to come to the research station why? So they could go, "Wow, great evil plan dude"? Not a single character was exempt for this rule, and as a consequence, I rooted for no one. The most laughable moment was when they apparently forgot about the first student to get sick, locking her in a room and leaving her to die without even informing her of what was going on. Eventually they remember her existence and...just refuse to explain things to her? Like, their first plan is to sedate her? Why? I guess it would not have been convenient for the script to mention her anywhere in the middle of the film.
The Descent: Part 2 (2009)
Subpar
The characters in this movie are sharply divided into idiots and brilliant badasses. Any new character falls into the former category, screaming at every opportunity even after learning that the creatures navigate by sound. The sheriff character is so aggressively in this category that he refuses to uncuff Sarah even after realizing how unsafe it is to travel across a narrow bridge joined to someone else. Any reintroduced character - that is, Sarah and Juno - seem so intensely well-adjusted to the cave, despite being trapped for, at most, five days. Juno in particular displays such vigor in slashing and bashing various monsters that you begin to wonder why she wants to leave the cave at all. She's clearly in her element here and apparently has been able to get more than enough food and rest.
The cave setting itself is completely wasted. The lighting clearly is not entirely confined to a few flashlights, and characters rarely seem to to any real climbing. It's mostly just crawling through tight spaces and splashing through water. Furthermore, the monsters often do not behave like creatures entirely dependent on their hearing. How would they distinguish between their own kind, who they never seem to hunt, and prey? Why would they even be looking for prey if they hunt above ground? How would they confine all excretion to one hole?
Sarah's memory loss was the most confusing, blatant plot device I have never seen. supposedly noble attempt to save Juno was not foreshadowed at all. We never saw her seriously regret killing Juno when she thought that she was dead.The idea that a man patrols the woods feeding the creatures so that they do not wreak havoc on the surface world raises more questions than it answers, unless I am missing something. However, why would he just not get meat from the grocery store to satiate them? Why would he not have informed anyone of his predicament? Furthermore, the jump scare at the end, while seemingly a callback to the first movie, was unnecessary. We know that the man killed our protagonist to feed the creatures. When one of the creatures comes up to feed, it is neither surprising nor scary.