The Deliverance (2024)

Since Shudder let me down, I moved over to Netflix to check out The Deliverance. Somehow, I missed hearing much of anything about this one. So let’s check it out.

Ebony Jackson (Andra Day), her mother - Alberta (Glenn Close), and her three children - Nate (Caleb McLaughlin), Shante (Demi Singleton), and Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins) have just moved into a new home. Sadly, they are plagued by a number of personal problems. Alberta has cancer and her insurance stopped covering her treatment. Ebony has a history of alcohol abuse and physically abusing her children. As a result, Child Protective Services caseworker Cynthia (Mo’Nique) has to check up on the family frequently. However, since they have moved to the new house, the children have been exhibiting a variety of strange behaviors. It isn’t until Bernice (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), a Pentecostal pastor, tells Ebony that a demon is after her children that things start to come together.

Normally, I’m not a big fan of demon possession movies. A lot of them come off as hokey or over the top. This one was actually pretty good. While it is based on a true story, there were so many holes in that story that it needed a movie to make it make sense. Thankfully, The Deliverance did a good job of bringing the story together in an interesting way that kept my attention the entire time. Every time I thought I would pick up my phone to scroll through social media, something else happened to drag me back in.

Rating: B

In A Violent Nature (2024)

There were a few horror movies that popped up on streaming services in September that seemed interesting. In A Violent Nature was one of the movies Shudder produced this year. I wish that meant the movie was good…

A group of friends take a locket from the remains of a fire tower. Unfortunately, this was the only thing keeping the corpse of Johnny (Ry Barrett), a developmentally disabled man who died when he fell from the fire tower, in the ground. Johnny rises, stumbling through the forest in search of the locket. And he is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way.

In A Violent Nature is the most boring horror movie I have ever seen. The movie is based on the idea of “what if we followed Jason through the Friday the 13th franchise instead of following the victims? The answer is “please don’t do that. It’s stupid.” There are so many long, drawn-out shots with no soundtrack (beyond the natural sounds of the forest) of Johnny walking through the woods. And most of the time, we only see the back of him. There is one shot where we see his face and, to be honest, I wish we didn’t get that shot.

Most of the kills are also boring. The only interesting kill is the woman doing yoga on a mountain. Feel free to turn the movie off after that one. It doesn’t get any better. I have seen people say these are the best, most innovative kills they have ever seen. They are straight up lying.

Do not watch Violent Nature. As a matter of fact, let’s try to erase it from existence instead.

Rating: F

I Saw The TV Glow (2024)

In 2022, I reviewed a movie titled We’re All Going To The World’s Fair. I hated it. It was actually my number 1 worst movie that year. According to some other reviews, I just didn’t get it. Anyway, the writer/director for that movie released another movie, I Saw The TV Glow, which isn’t a sequel but it is the second part of a trilogy they will be releasing. I’m not sure I got this one either.

Owen (Ian Foreman) is a lonely 7th grader who meets Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a 9th grader, while his mother is voting. Maddy is reading an episodic guide about The Pink Opaque, a late night television show aimed at young adults. Unfortunately, Owen’s father (Fred Durst) won’t let Owen watch the show claiming it is for girls. Owen lies to his mother and sneaks over to Maddy’s house to watch the latest episode. Two years later, Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy have bonded over the show. Maddy tells Owen she is going to run away. She asks Owen to go with her but he bails at the last minute. Shortly after Maddy goes missing, The Pink Opaque is cancelled. Eight years later, Maddy reappears, telling Owen that she has been living inside the show. She tells him how she paid someone to bury her alive then she woke up as Tara, one of the show’s main characters. Again, she tries to get Owen to come with her but he doesn’t. Instead, his life continues until he has a breakdown at work.

After I finished I Saw The TV Glow, I felt the same way I did at the end of World’s Fair. Normally I don’t look up other movie reviews before I write mine because I don’t want to be influenced by their opinions. However, I did look up some reviews since I saw so many saying that people missed the point of World’s Fair. It seems that TV Glow is an allegory for being transgender. I am not in that community so perhaps that is why the point of the movie went over my head. If you are in the community and you have watched this movie, please let me know your thoughts about it. I would love to know if there were signs that I missed.

With all of that said, can I recommend TV Glow? For me, the movie was extremely slow. I can’t say that I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. Perhaps I just shouldn’t watch any more Jane Schoenbrun movies. They don’t seem to be for me.

Rating: C

Happy Spooky Season!

Scary season has come upon us again! Once again, I will be reviewing 31 horror/suspense movies for the entire month of October. Also, starting October 19, I will be posting the 13-day Halloween advent calendar from XO Marshmallow over on my Instagram. Let the scares commence!

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead (2024)

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead appeared on my radar because it claimed to star JoJo Siwa. I’m not sure that I would say she stars in it. It’s really more like a feature. Well, let’s go…

A friends group, mostly made up of internet influencers, is heading to a music festival. On the way, their van breaks down. Police officer Shaw (Michaella Russell) happens past and recommends the group find someplace to stay because their van won’t be fixed until the next day. Sarah (Jade Pettyjohn), the only one in the group with no social media presence, finds them a house nearby. Shaw drives them to the house, promising to contact them when the van is fixed. One by one, each of the friends is murdered…apparent retaliation for the suicide of Collette (Siwa), a former friend of the group.

This is one of those movies that has a terrible plot, a lot of blood, and a fair amount of gore. It’s also one of those difficult to rate movies. All of the characters are terrible. But they are supposed to be terrible. That is why the entire plot happens. So…I don’t know. I can’t say that I enjoyed the movie but it’s not nearly as bad as some of the other horror movies I’ve watched. I guess if you are looking for a movie where a bunch of vapid college students get killed in weird ways…maybe you’ll enjoy it? At the very least, I don’t think you would regret watching it.

Rating: C

Terrifier 2 (2022)

Art the Clown is back in Terrifier 2. The first Terrifier movie was really bad. So bad that I’m not really sure why they made a second one. Since the third one is coming out later this year, let’s take a look at the second installment to see if it is any better.

Immediately after the events of Terrifier, Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) has, somehow, been resurrected. After murdering the coroner, Art goes to a laundromat to clean his costume, where he sees a Little Pale Girl (Amelie McLain) dressed in a clown outfit similar to his own. A year later, high schooler Sienna (Lauren LaVera) is preparing her Halloween costume - an angel warrior based on sketches from her late father. Her younger brother, Jonathan (Elliott Fullam), has become obsessed with Art thanks to some artwork in their father’s sketchbook. It seems that their father has predicted that Sienna, as the angel warrior with a sword, will kill Art the Clown. But is that really possible?

First, let me say that this movie was better than the first. Not that it was difficult to accomplish. Does that make it a good movie though? Ehhhh.

The storyline is a big improvement. However, there are some very big plot holes that bug me. We never get a reason why the unnamed father of Sienna and Jonathan drew pictures of Art the Clown or why he predicted that this angel warrior he drew when Sienna was a “little girl” was going to kill him. Their father supposedly died of a brain tumor. Why would he know anything about Art? And why is Art attacking this family?

At least the characters or the acting makes up for it, right? Not really. Barbara (Sarah Voigt), mother to Sienna and Jonathan, is pretty awful to them. She spends most of her screen time screaming at the kids. It’s kinda annoying. The only person that isn’t terrible is Allie’s mom (Amy Russ), who only appears for about five minutes.

I wouldn’t say that the movie is worth watching. From what I can gather, if you plan on watching the third movie, you will need to watch this and the first movies. It might be better to avoid the franchise altogether.

Rating: D

The Watchers (2024)

If my father was a famous movie director, I don’t know that I would direct a movie that is supposed to be in the same general genre as his movies under my own name. Especially if I didn’t have a ton of directorial work already under my belt. Preferably work that isn’t like…my sister’s music videos or episodes of my dad’s television show. But I’m not a Shyamalan. What do I know…

Mina (Dakota Fanning) works in a pet shop in Ireland. On the 15th anniversary of her mother’s death, Mina’s boss asks her to deliver a rare bird to a zoo near Belfast. As she drives across the country, both her cell phone and her car break down in a dense forest. Mina begins walking through the forest to find help but she finds Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) instead. Madeline takes Mina to a building with a large mirrored window, where she is introduced to the other people living in “The Coop” - Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). Together, they explain that there are “Watchers” outside that hide in burrows during the day and watch the humans at night. They must never go outside at night or the Watchers will kill them.

Normally, I would explain much more of the plot. I’m not going to do that here. To be honest, this short paragraph is way more interesting than the movie itself. I was 20 minutes in when I paused it to tell my husband what I thought the twist was. And I was right. Well, partially right. There were like two more unnecessary twists. Most of this movie was unnecessary.

I’m going to try to do this without spoilers but it might be difficult. Here is a list of things that the movie thought was super important but wasn’t:

• Mina’s mother’s death - this was supposed to be why Mina was so sad and anti-social but it happened FIFTEEN YEARS ago. She should have just gone to therapy. The whole movie could have happened without this event ever occurring.

• Daniel’s change of behavior - from what I hear, this happened very differently in the book. Yes, this movie is based on a book.

• The mythology behind the Watchers - the movie didn’t make this very interesting. I find the actual Irish mythology so intriguing but the movie did nothing with it.

While I never read the original book, there were so many things in the movie that could have been tweaked a bit more to actually make it spooky and exciting. Instead, we are given bland characters that we have no reason to care about, Watchers that are revealed too early then given lame reasons to be an antagonists, predictable twists that were just boring, and a script with the worst dialog. I appreciate that Ishana Night Shyamalan wants to be a writer/director like her father. But she really should have done more work - whether it was behind the scenes on other movies or taking more classes - before releasing a full-length movie of her own. The Watchers wasn’t worth our time or the $30million budget.

Rating: D-

The Cases Of Mystery Lane: Death Is Listening (2024)

I can’t get away from Hallmark. As I was scrolling through Peacock to find something interesting to watch, I came across The Cases of Mystery Lane: Death is Listening. I liked Aimee Garcia in Lucifer so I turned it on. Immediately, I was met with a Hallmark Media production logo. Goddammit.

Birdie (Garcia) and Alden Case (Paul Campbell) are a married couple who love true crime. They have just completed classes in order to become private investigators. When their favorite true crime writer/podcaster, Laurel St. James (Samantha Ferris), gets murdered, officer Ted Newton (Matt Hamilton) brings them in to help find the culprit.

Yeah, this is definitely a Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel movie. Unfortunately, when I turned it on, I didn’t realize that this is the second movie in a series. As a result, I was a little confused about some things. Birdie is a lawyer that works for her mom…but she doesn’t seem to actually do any lawyering work. I have no idea what Alden does for a job. We only see him work on robots, which I think they called a hobby? They also seem to talk about relationship problems a lot but we never actually see any relationship problems. It makes no sense.

As for the story…it’s fine. Like a lot of Hallmark movies, things magically fall into place and there are no consequences when they accuse the wrong person of the murder. But it’s kitschy and cute, right? Eh, sorta. The acting is fine but the characters are weird. Alden finds a mouse in the house, which freaks him out A LOT. But instead of letting the exterminator that Birdie hired in to take care of the problem, he elects to try to build robots to take care of it? Birdie goes into her lawyer office and talks to her lawyer mother but then spends all of her time learning how to pick locks? I really don’t understand what world these two live in.

I think I am going to try to track down the first movie in the series to see if it explains anything. It was only released last year so I’m not sure how successful I will be in finding it. Sometimes Hallmark likes to hide their older movies. Until then, I can only recommend this movie as a decent turn-your-brain-off movie. Garcia is cute as Birdie and Campbell is…well…slightly annoying as Alden. But together they somehow manage to get the job done.

Rating: C

Chimp Crazy (2024)

Like most people in 2020, I watched the Tiger King documentary on Netflix. In 2024, we got another animal-related documentary from Eric Goode called Chimp Crazy. This one was release on HBO and is another wild ride.

Braun’s Barn was an exotic pet store in Missouri started by Connie Braun Casey in the 1960s. In 1972, Connie bought her first chimpanzee. This began her career in breeding chimps for sale as well as renting chimps out for birthday parties and TV/film productions. When her husband’s nose was bitten off by a chimp in 1992, Connie started the nonprofit Missouri Primate Foundation. She continued selling baby chimps, such as Travis who infamously mauled a woman in Connecticut in 2009, until 2016 when an employee reported Connie to PETA. Embroiled in legal battles, Connie gave the Missouri Primate Foundation to Tonia Haddix, a former nurse who came to Connie to buy a chimp, in 2018. Tonia continued to run the facility until PETA won a lawsuit in 2021 to remove the chimps. However, Tonia hid Tonka, one of the foundation’s most famous chimps, from the authorities by telling them that he passed away. It took over a year for Tonka to be found and moved to a sanctuary away from Tonia.

This really was a crazy show. Not only do they cover the absolutely insane things that Connie Casey and Tonia Haddix did, they also cover tragedies that occurred thanks to baby chimps they had sold to random people. OK, I need to take a step back first.

While this show is directed and and produced by Eric Goode, he knew that, thanks to the popularity of Tiger King, Connie would not talk to him. So he hired a former circus clown and animal trainer, Dwayne Cunningham, to pose as a filmmaker to gain access to the facility. And it worked wonderfully for him. Tonia did admit that she wouldn’t have done the documentary if she knew Eric was involved.

Over the years, I had heard about people owning chimpanzees and the almost inevitable attacks that occur as a result of wild animals living in a domestic situation. I did not know that most of these animals came from the same breeder. It amazes me that people…mostly white women…don’t consider their own safety or the safety of people around them when they bring these animals into their house. I, honestly, can’t comprehend what goes through their minds.

If you enjoyed Tiger King, you will probably like this one. It doesn’t have an insane “Did Carol Baskin kill her husband” kind of drama but it does have a lot of “Why did you think this was a good idea” scenes. And, yes, that includes owning chimps, letting chimps sleep in their beds, and just talking to a documentary crew…even if she didn’t know who the true director was. I highly recommend watching Chimp Crazy. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you everything that happens in the four episode series. These are things you need to see with your own eyes.

Rating: A

Terrifier (2016)

Since Terrifier 3 will be coming out this year and I have never seen any of the Terrifier movies, I turned on the first movie in the series to see what I was in for. I am kinda sorry that I did.

Halloween 2017 - two friends, Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran), are heading home from a party when they run into Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton). Art creepily follows them to a pizzeria, where he gets kicked out for smearing feces on the wall of the bathroom. After the women leave, Art murders the two pizzeria workers. Meanwhile, the women discover the tires on Dawn’s car have been slashed. As they wait for Tara’s sister, Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi), to pick them up, Tara convinces an exterminator named Matt (Matt McAllister) to let her into the building he is working on so she can use the bathroom. Art captures everyone and murders almost everyone.

This movie is bad. There were so many times I turned to my husband to ask him if I missed something. According to the Wikipedia page for Terrifier, this movie was supposed to showcase Art the Clown and writer/director Damien Leone’s practical effects. Unfortunately, Leone left out any sort of plot or character development. Great horror movies make you care for at least one character. Usually it’s one of the people the killer is going after but sometimes it’s the actual killer. Terrifier doesn’t make you care for anyone. We literally know nothing about Art and the victims are killed so quickly after their introduction that they are almost nameless strangers. Leone really should have lowered the body count in order to spend a little more time with the characters. Or he could have spent more time with Art so we could get a feeling of why he’s doing this. As it stands, this movie is pretty unwatchable. I really hope the next two movies are better.

Rating: F-