Andrew Mulligan

Classic style B movie/creature feature. Story - young girls finds a spider. Young girl raises the spider as pet. Spider gets big. Spider gets hungry. Pros - excellent use of both CGI and practical. Tbh acting was impressive, especially the young girl and the grandma. Keeping it all in the one location is a smart idea - think the apartment building setting in critters 3 - doesn't outstay it's welcome and never felt like it dragged. Doesn't take itself seriously - the granny and Frank are prime examples - and it tries to build character development, with the new guy that's trying to raise the girl after her dad left etc. you could tell it never had a big budget but looked great. The score was great and always matched the atmosphere, never took loud or distracting. Some good building up of tension. Cons - low body/kill count - but this is classic creature feature, there's never a high body count. The landlord and the biologist were a little annoying and ABIT one dimensional. Predictable. No big scares. I actually enjoyed it alot. Good some throwbacks, lighthearted and some very good performances. I grew up on the 80s/90s B movies and with other recent ones failing big time, this was a breath of fresh air. Squeezes alot into running time with good atmosphere.

Clichéd but bearable horror that deals with grief. Plot - wife and husband move to a new home after losing their baby. After the wife gets put on bed rest due to an accident things go bump in the night. The good - it was very well shot, the cinematography (especially at the start) was beautiful. The female lead did a decent job, was believable enough. It was creepy at times and had good tension build up. Finally a horror that had things happen during the day! Rarely happens in a haunted house film. Thankfully there is nice little touches that keep it interesting, it rarely lets up and doesn't drag on. Kinda like the fact that they clearly used real people as the ghosts and didn't try to give you some ridiculous cheap CGI. There was some character development, especially to her finally 'letting go and moving on' The bad - the male lead was terrible! There was no chemistry. It followed the typical horror theme, things happen to a lead (the female) when no1 else is about and naturally no1 believes her - and kinda plays on the grief too much for my liking and the husband just blames her emotions and wants to give her pills. Too much jump scares that led to nowhere and when it happens the music is LOUD (like the producer etc went 'if the music is loud when things happen, it's going to give an extra fright' - but it actually does the opposite and throws it off) why do they always have to distort ghost voices with a weird high pitch voice in most films, doesn't make it scary! It does get lost ABIT in the final third. Overall a 1 time watch only.

Pilot only Story - Maggie runs off to find her son after he's been kidnapped by a 'forner' saviour and ask big old negan to help find him in the big city. Other story is the marshalls (a new law in force - think fallout regulators) are hunting for negan. So - Maggie has left the group once more who couldn't handle another group of people who caused them trouble and kidnap one of their own and leave Maggie to go find him herself? Wow they didn't set that up well did they. Things have gotten even worse back there. Anyways, felt and looked like the walking dead - lots of talking and drama - few grisly deaths. Acting is generally ok, still as much tension between the 2 leads as there was before. Dark and the city (and cinematography) looks outstanding. Make up is still on point. Jeffrey carries the episode on his shoulders. Ohh the cheesiness is in full swing in here, some of the dialogue is just painful. Some of the acting - especially the marshalls is horrendous - and how the heck are the cars and boats running now after we clearly see in TWD that they use horses to pull the cars since the gas should have dried up and became useless and there is a small jump ahead so it's set a few years after. Maggie is just as angry as ever (yeah yeah her son is kidnapped) but it's like that's all she knows how to do, it's tiring and very 1 dimensional (atleast she's good at it) Overall an ok pilot. Not as memorable as it should have been. Thankfully it's only 6 eps.

Shark films now adays rarely show anyone being killed. Story - some guy who works for an oil company goes to inspect a rig. His family tag along and a meg shark doesn't want anything in its territory (or the black demon represents do bad things to the planet then nature has a way of settling the score - it's a bit of both) but doesn't matter, it's a boring plot that doesn't shout anything new. Dull! In it's long 100mins long runtime - nothing much happens. Alot of dialogue and melodrama on the rig. Not the greatest CGI, looks a bit ropey. Only a couple quick shark deaths - but the boat being ripped apart looked decent. Only the best part about it. Shark always looks a different size and must only have about 5mins screen time. They take about half an hour to actually get to the rig. Nope, can't recommend it. And I usually love shark films.

I actually enjoyed this tbh. Story - Dracula's man servant renfield finally grows a pair and decides to go against his master's wishes. Very decent action, lots of blood and high body count. There was actually good chemistry between the leads. Good acting, especially renfield and the main bad guy Lobos was funny but Mr cage was born to be a baddy and he nailed Dracula (obviously in a campy way) thankfully nothing was taken too seriously and everyone looked like they had fun. The 90+ minutes flew by and there was rarely a dull moment. Was funny at bits. But, they never unleashed the full potential, especially from cage - I hope there is a prequel tbh coz I feel there is more to explore with cage being a baddy. Story isn't great but where could it have gone? But it was very samey at times. Some of the CGI (the arm ripper bit mainly) was pretty horrible and very cheap looking. Some jokes felt cheap and thrown in coz they didn't know what to do - same goes with dialogue. Overall a fun 90 min watch, had potential to be better but wasn't disappointed. The fight scenes were over the top fun and cage was born to be a bad guy. Might give this another go at some point.

Evil dead comes to the city (or more specifically an apartment building) to wreck havok on a poor family. There might be a spoiler or 2. Story - after a an earthquake opens up a long forgotten area of the basement of the building - some idiot kid finds the book and a bunch of records and we'll before you know it - the deadites are back. Good film, well acted - for the most part, lots of blood (as you can imagine) and brutal injuries, loved the callbacks - the chainsaw and shotgun! Didn't outstay it's welcome and once it kicks in, doesn't let up. Good old evil dead always finishes in the same manner. Like how the opening segment and closing segment relate- but how on earth did now one else hear everything that went on in that floor?!?!? But its prob the first in the series that takes itself too seriously, which takes some of the fun out of it compared to the others. Absolutely no character development, only thing is about the person being pregnant so you don't want her to be ripped apart. The super demon (I don't know what to call that thing) was a bit messy - not in a good way -and actually proved to be really weak. The slaughter of the hallway prob could have been done a bit better, I get the idea watching from the spyhole but felt like you were taken away from the bloodshed which isn't very evil dead. It looked samey compared to recent horror films that are mainly stuck to the 1 area like a flat. Overall a decent watch and a decent chapter - wonder if they will bring back the survivors if there's a round 2. But even tho the blood was there - it felt different, it looked different (even from the recent TV show) the new look seems to separate from the rest - but was it intentional? Who knows. Prob won't watch it again tbh. Better than the 3 and reboot but doesn't get close to the original 2 - or the TV show.

This is how to do a video game adaption and still stay loyal to the game it's based on. One of its greatest strengths is character development, especially Joel. Like the game, Ellie is just a cargo job but slowly becomes a father figure to Ellie. Love the bits taken straight from the game - like the museum. Genuinely don't mind them putting their own spin on sections - like the sniper scene. Even didn't mind ep 3 - yeah the controversial 1 (yeah it was strange but the acting was near perfect) and they put in the iconic giraffe scene! The cinematography and set designs genuinely feel like they have been ripped from the game. The acting is superb. Was kinda against Ramsey at the start but I was proved wrong. Nailed Ellie and her swearing ways to a T. The clicker make up was outstanding - the bloated was great but didn't see it for long but damn, taking the bloater fatality was brutal. And the hospital scene, Joel was savage. Things I wasn't keen on are theres still plenty missing from the games - like the school scene fighting the first bloater, the university, the tunnel scene scene with Sam etc. The second half of the show just doesn't care about having infected, just 1 kinda pops up quickly in a couple eps but that's it. Even when I saw that it was rumoured to have 15mill per episode - they only seem to go all out 1ce really with the sniper scene. Changing Sam and Henry's story seemed strange - why the new characters and why is Sam now deaf?!? And why oh why does no use a bow and arrow!!!!! Some eps were shorter than they should be so things kinda felt like they were too quickly edited or never really the the story properly to lead to the next 1. Overall tho, it was a good show. Full of depth and character. Just think it could have had more in the tank and showed more infected in the last few eps. But Def has done something Hollywood has never managed - make a god video game adaption!!

Had potential but fell into the 'we have seen it before way too many times' trap. Plot - a little girl goes to live with her aunt after her parents are killed. The aunt happens to build robots....and then her new project gets a mind of its own' Pros - great acting and looked good. Megan is creepy looking and the actress does a superb job. Builds alot of character development, especially at the start where nothing really happens for about 50 mins, which I appreciated as you get to know the people. Cons - saw too much in trailers. Seen the whole killer doll more than a few times. There just doesn't seem to be a proper connection between the leads, it seems off. Singing felt forced. Low body count. Kids having tantrums in horror films is becoming a normal thing and it's really tedious. Not scary or creepy in the slightest. The dance is horrendous - there I said it. I hope the sequel has more kills - they don't need to be bloody or gory. Just less drama between the leads. Maybe make it scary.

In the vain of drag me to hell/it follows where a nurse witnesses a traumatic event and they have been cursed by....the smiling curse. It had a few of creepy moments, some good building up of tension with some good payoffs. Characters were believable and story was straightforward. Has some slightly disturbing scenes and some creative visuals. Happy with the ending, alot of folk aren't but It made sense. The score was my fave part tbh, it set the tone perfectly and made regular scenes more creepy than they should have, reminded me of insidious. But the whole main character going 'crazy' and noone believing her has been seen so many times. Everyone smiling ended up getting a bit boring, and I'm sure they could have chose a better title. Some jump scares didn't pay off, some of them seemed cheap and thrown in because they didn't know what to do - just build up the tension and leave it, makes scenes more unsettlingly. At nearly 2 hours long, it overstayed it's welcome. Drop 10-15 mins and it would have had a better flow to it. Overall, decent. Doubt I will watch again. A couple of memorable scenes but could have had more impact. And to the people saying it should have a warning regarding suicide. yes, it could but at the same time, it's a horror film.

It's def has some stand outs bits but has potential to be better. Doesn't have a storyline due to each episode being a different story (think creepshow but instead of 2 stories in an episode, it's 1) the thing I like about it that the episode runtime, they have plenty of time to tell a story and let characters breathe and build development. Episodes generally look absolutely beautiful. Acting is pretty much excellent all round. Some of it is dark and brutal, wasn't expecting half of the blood that was on offer. Most episodes kept me engaged and loved some things like the giant mother rat, old school at its best and the dark witch looked pretty awesome. Some things I was against was I've seen some of these stories or very similar stories before form other tv shows/films so things felt samey at times. Although I will say I'm not familiar with all directors or writers but some things dragged a bit and lost internet a couple times and got bored. You could generally see how most episodes were gonna end before they ended, some of them were very predictable and other just fell flat like they didn't have a clue. Some things left you questioning 'what' or 'how'. Overall a.decent horror tv show. Nothing outstanding but watchable with some strong performances and bloody creepy vibes. My fave eps were 2,3 and 8.