B-Movie Round Up #1

Just a few really quick, really short, thoughts on some B-Movies I’ve watched lately that I never did reviews for, for one reason or another (lack of time, not in the mood to do one, don’t have much to say, etc).

A frustrated, angst-ridden teenage girl awakens something in the woods when she naively performs an occult ritual to evoke a witch to kill her mother. 

REVIEW: I loved the way Pyewacket was filmed, The acting was superb, and while the story is a massive slowburn, it’s an interesting story all the same, with a couple genuinely creepy moments. However, it’s a bit too much of a slowburn and it never really gets crazy enough in the end to make up for it. IN addition I got issues with some parts of the story.

5/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

The story about a group of youths who can't face the thought of growing up because anyone who does becomes a rampaging zombie. 

REVIEW: Don't Grow Up, also known as Alone in some parts of the world, has a really fun and really interesting first half, but then it turns very generic and uninteresting in the second half, with all the interesting characters dying first, leaving us to follow boring, nearly-emotionless, ones. Still, the acting  here is quite good and the story, overall, is interesting enough for a one-time watch.

5/10 rooms in the Psych Ward 

A vicious serial killer is targeting prostitutes in Vienna, Austria. A tough young woman from Turkey, who works as a taxi driver, witnesses one of the murders and becomes a target. The police are of no help, so she must stop him herself.

REVIEW: Cold Hell, also called Die Hölle in its native German, is a thriller movie that pretty much takes a Lisbeth Salander type character and dumps her into a Giallo. I really loved this one so much, from the way it was shot, all the bright yet depressing colors in almost every scene, the acting, the story, the intensity, just about everything here worked for me on almost every level, with the exception of the movie turning into a straight up action movie for the last 10 minutes. It really didn't fit the tone and style of the rest of the movie, and felt like that portion was directed by somebody else than the rest of it was.

9/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

Paranormal investigator Zak Bagans documents one of the most authenticated cases of possession in American history. 

REVIEW: Demon House is a documentary about famed Paranormal Investigator Zak Baggins buying a haunted house made popular by a case of possession documented by the media. I admit there are some really interesting stories during some of the interviews in this, and the entire thing is filmed very well, but if he’s gonna pass this bullshit off as genuine, he should probably at least take some acting classes first because that's ultimately what tears this whole thing down. He had something genuinly interesting on his hands here and he blows it by going totally overboard and it just makes the entire thing come off as fake and in-genuine. Shame. 

4/10 rooms in the Psych Ward 

 

A helicopter pilot and an environmental scientist lead an exodus of survivors in a search for a safe haven after a catastrophic tectonic event causes the crust of the earth to break apart. 

REVIEW: Everything about Global Meltdown is pretty much shit. Even as a fan of these types of SyFy Channel-style movies, I had trouble finding anything to enjoy here. The acting is downright painful, the special effects look like they were done in Paint, and there's nothing new or interesting with the story to set it apart from the hundreds of other cookie cutter paint-by-numbers SyFy-style natural disaster movies.

1/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

 

 

Ellie, a recovering drug addict, has just moved to a new city with her two teenage children. She has struggled to stay sober in the past and is determined to make it work this time, finding a stable job and regularly attending her meetings. Unfortunately, new friends, a new job, and the chance of a new life, can't keep Ellie from slipping once again. Her life changes when she meets Christopher - a different kind of addict - which forces her daughter and son to accept a new version of Ellie.

 

REVIEW: I didn't care for Family Blood, a new Netflix Original, very much at all. The acting is bad, the characters are totally uninteresting, and the movie thinks it’s smarter than it actually is. It acts like this is the first time that vampirism is being used as a metaphor for drug addiction and that is soooo smart and intelligent. Except it’s been done a dozen times before, and way better than here.

 

3/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

 

 

Stranded at the side of the road after a tire blowout, a group of friends become targets for an enigmatic sniper.  

 

REVIEW: Downrange is yet another Shudder Exclusive on this list (If you can't tell, I love their service), and while it has amazing gore and a really interesting, intense, idea, it would have been better off as a 20-min Short in an anthology movie, because there just isn’t enough here to warrant a full movie. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it, and some scenes are intense as all get out...it's just this movie definitely overstayed its welcome, and I think it would have been much better off as a much shorter segment in some kind of anthology movie.

 

6/10 rooms in the Psych Ward