Category Archives: Don’t Watch This Movie
The Lords of Salem (2012)
The Lords of Salem (2012)
Given that this is a Rob Zombie movie, I sort of knew what I was getting myself into. I like some of his music, but I like even less of his movies. He has a tendency to be too extreme in his films and often in his music as well. It’s almost as if he is trying too hard to prove to the world that he is demonic. His movies are usually filled with obscene violence and or torture for no apparent reason at all. He likes to be crazy because well, maybe he is crazy. However, I did enjoy his remake of Halloween (2007). My wife likes horror movies, so I thought I would give this one a shot. From a film critic’s perspective, I’ll review almost anything.
The Lords of Salem is about Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie), a local radio DJ who receives a record in the mail that is labeled: “A gift from the Lords.” The record is played on the air and the radio station calls the band The Lords of Salem because they are in Salem, Massachusetts. The music triggers violent and evil flashbacks of witches trying to summon up the Devil in the town hundreds of years before. It seems as if the Lords of Salem are back for revenge, or maybe Heidi is just going crazy.
The movie was written and directed by Rob Zombie and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn, Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, and Maria Conchita Alonso.
The Lords of Salem was pretty much what I expected it to be. It’s just another Rob Zombie movie where he tries way too hard to be vile and disgusting. Once again, Rob Zombie has his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie star in the film. She is in like all of his movies.
I gave this movie a chance, but I wanted to turn it off about halfway through. There is a lot of grotesque nudity and mindless violence. At times, the story is all over the place and it takes a while to get to the point. Zombie pushes the envelope simply for the sake of trying to be evil, as if that is enough to be entertaining.
The movie is a slow, laughable, pointless waste of time and after a while feels like watching and hearing nails on a chalkboard. It was stupid and way over the top to the point of boredom. I kept asking myself, why am I watching this movie? The only answer that I could come up with was to warn you about it.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Run.
Only God Forgives (2013)
Only God Forgives (2013)
Before Only God Forgives, the last 5 full-length movies that Ryan Gosling starred in were all high caliber films. That being said, I did not know a whole lot about Only God Forgives before watching it, but I figured that with Gosling’s track record, it had to be good.
Only God Forgives takes place in the slums of Bangkok. Julian (Ryan Gosling) is part of a drug-smuggling family. After Julian’s brother is murdered, Julian’s mother wants him to find and kill the man responsible. Things get more complicated after Julian finds out the reason why his brother was killed.
The movie was written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Tom Burke, and Sahajak Boonthanakit.
Let me just say, I figured way wrong!
The film was painstakingly drawn out. It was dark, graphic, weird, awkward, hard to follow, boring, pointless, and just plain bad. It tried way too hard to be something special, but it just turned out to be one of the worst movies that I have seen all year. In fact, it might just be the worst movie of the year. It is certainly Ryan Gosling’s worst movie.
I wanted to turn the movie off halfway through. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. It just got worse, and worse.
I try not to be so blatantly harsh when it comes to reviewing films, but I am going to make an exception with this one. Let me just be blunt, and honest. Overall, Only God Forgives is just crap.
To all of you Ryan Gosling fans out there, he is bad in this movie, but the movie is even worse. I am a big Gosling fan. Do not waste your time with this film.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? RUN!
InAPPropriate Comedy (2013)
InAPPropriate Comedy (2013)
I did not have very high expectations for InAPPropriate Comedy. However, I was a little curious as to why Oscar winner Adrien Brody would have any part in the making of this movie. The fact that Brody was in it was what made me give the film a chance. Lindsay Lohan and Rob Schneider are also both in the movie and that lead me to believe InAPPropriate Comedy was likely doomed.
The movie is not really a movie at all; it is rather a series of skits. There are multiple categories pertaining to the different skits which are displayed as APPs on a computer screen. Most of the skits are parodies of movies, television shows, or famous events. A man on screen cycles through and selects the different APPs on the computer and as he selects them, they are what are shown next in the film. Each APP is either racist, raunchy, out of control, blatantly wrong, or otherwise inappropriate.
The movie was directed by Vince Offer and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Michelle Rodriguez, Ari Shaffir, and Dante.
The film is obviously meant to be inappropriate and it succeeds in achieving its goal. It is like a glorified dumber, more vulgar version of the television show Saturday Night Live.
Some of the skits have their moments of humor, while others are mostly pretty awful in every possible way.
In Adrien Brody’s defense, the skits that he is in are pretty funny. They are crude, but funny. However, it just goes to show that Brody’s career has plummeted since his success in The Pianist (2002). It is laughable and a little sad that he would even be in a movie like this one.
Given all of the bad media that constantly surrounds Lindsay Lohan, her part in the film was actually okay. Her performance was short and sweet and somewhere in between good and bad.
Overall, InAPPropriate Comedy is just plain bad. There are not enough laughs in the movie to make up for how appalling the rest of the film is. It is inappropriate in almost every way possible. Wasting your time watching this movie would be inappropriate.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? RUN!
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Midnight Cowboy is a supposed classic that I figured was about time that I watched to see for myself.
The film is about a wannabe cowboy named Joe Buck (Jon Voight) from Texas who moves to New York City to become a gigolo. Joe becomes friends with a sick and crippled con man named Ratso Rizzo. Both men struggle for survival living on the streets.
The film was directed by John Schlesinger and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Sylvia Miles, Bob Balaban, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Ruth White, and Jennifer Salt.
This movie did not really seem like it would appeal to me. The only reason I wanted to watch it was to see Hoffman and Voight before they were really famous. It didn’t look good and the storyline didn’t interest me at all.
I hated this movie. It was terrible. That might annoy some people because somehow Midnight Cowboy managed to win 3 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. But, I don’t care. Midnight Cowboy was a joke.
The only decent things about the film were Dustin Hoffman’s performance, the scenery of New York City in the 1960s, and the movie’s theme song “Everybody’s Talking at me” by Harry Nilsson.
The rest of the film was stupid, messed up, a little disturbing, and most of all, pointless. It is the misadventures of two low-life wannabe hustlers. An uneducated man travels across the country on a bus to prostitute himself. It does not sound good and it is not good, plain and simple.
True Grit (1969) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) were both far more deserving of an Academy Award for Best Picture that year. The fact that Midnight Cowboy won is a travesty.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? RUN!
Vehicle 19 (2013)
Vehicle 19 (2013)
I had no expectations before watching this movie. Paul Walker has made some surprising films in the past, so I thought that I would give Vehicle 19 a chance. Which movies has Walker surprised me in before? Good question. The answer is Running Scared (2006), The Lazarus Project (2008), and Eight Below (2006).
Vehicle 19 follows Michael Woods (Paul Walker), an American who travels to a foreign country. He is in for a bumpy ride when a mix-up with the rental car company lands him in a vehicle with a cell phone, a pistol, and a bound and gagged woman in the back seat.
The movie was written and directed by Mukunda Michael Dewil. There are no other noteworthy cast members.
Paul Walker is the lead in this boring waste of time, foreign, low budget one man show filled with cheap car chases, laughable special effects, a dull storyline, and uninteresting dialogue.
The soundtrack was painfully annoying and did not help the film’s cause.
For a movie classified as an action/thriller, it was deathly slow at times.
The plot was basically the equivalent to the punch line of a bad joke. It was not entertaining, it lacked a point, and I quickly wanted to change the subject. Often when the main character encountered a problem in the movie, the solution was all way too convenient.
The acting was bad. The writing was worse, but the filmmaking as a whole was just a disgrace. Luckily the movie’s runtime was only 85 minutes. However, that was an 85 minutes that I will not get back.
Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this train wreck that somehow became a movie. It is not worth your time or money.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? RUN!
Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (2013)
I have not seen the original film that this movie is a remake of, The Evil Dead (1981). I hardly knew anything about this movie before watching it, except that it was about dead people that come back to life and are evil; go figure right?
A young woman with a drug problem goes to a remote cabin in the woods. Her brother and 3 of their friends join her to show support as she tries to quit her addiction. Unknowingly the woods had recently become haunted by evil spirits. They find a book in the cabin that causes each one of them to be possessed by demons. Eventually they are all desperately fighting for their lives.
The movie is directed by Fede Alvarez, and the noteworthy cast includes Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, and Elizabeth Blackmore.
This film is the epitome of what it wrong with the horror movie genre today. Instead of trying to be scary with a well thought out story and quality filmmaking and acting, this movie relies solely on blood and guts entirely for the shock value.
The story is ludicrous and hardly tries to make sense. It seems like its only intention is to try to depict evil and death. If that is in fact the only point of the film, then they were successful. There is a lot of evil and there is a lot of death. So much so, that it all becomes laughable and you just want the movie to end so that the suffering stops; the suffering of both the characters in the film and the viewers.
The acting was awful because it appears like they spent all of their money on the gory special effects and didn’t have any left over to pay for a decent cast. The only thing that this movie has going for it is how disturbingly grotesque and realistic the special effects are. However, the bloody special effects help this movie to be the true definition of a “slasher” film.
This horror movie does not scare, it tortures. It will probably easily be the bloodiest movie of the year and maybe even so far this century. If you enjoy gut-wrenching dismemberment and more liquids exiting the human body than it can actually hold, then this movie is for you.
I rate this movie a 0 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Run far away and hide. Save your time, money, and dignity.
6 Souls (2009)
6 Souls (2009)
When I first watched the preview for 6 Souls (2009), I wondered why the film had not been released yet in the U.S. It was completed in 2009 and released in the UK in 2010. Finally, 3 years later, as far as I know it went straight to DVD in the U.S. I was curious as to why they would wait so long to release a movie that didn’t look half bad. It looked creepy. It got my attention. I was intrigued. Why was it withheld from release for so long?
My hypothesis at the time and I quote, “There has got to be something wrong with this movie otherwise you would think that it would have been released 3 years ago.”
6 Souls is about a psychiatrist (Julianne Moore) who assists her father (Jeffrey DeMunn) who is also a psychiatrist, with one of his patients (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). The patient has a sort of multiple personality disorder. She figures out that each of this man’s personalities is a murder victim. After further investigation, things get more complicated and more dangerous.
The movie is written by Michael Cooney and directed by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein.
The rest of the notable cast includes Frances Conroy, Nathan Corddry, Brooklynn Proulx, and Brian Anthony Wilson.
Well my friends, I am here to tell you why the film was withheld from release for so long. It was half bad. And it was the second half to be exact. The first half of the film was actually pretty decent. I was hopeful that I might actually enjoy this horror movie because for me that is a very rare thing. But alas, the story took a turn for the worse midway through and I was left suffering through the second half of the film. I stuck with it though so that I could pass the word along. 6 Souls is not worth wasting your time watching.
Julianne Moore played her character convincingly and helped make the first half of the film enjoyable.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers also was entertaining, at least for a little while.
After the story fell apart and
went tumbling down, there was no amount of acting that could save it. The movie achieved setting itself up to be eerie, but never quite made it there.
I rate this movie a 3 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? Run.
The Guilt Trip (2012)
The Guilt Trip (2012)
The Guilt Trip follows a man (Seth Rogen) who has invented a new product and sets out on a road trip across the country trying to sell it to different companies. Before leaving, he invites his mother (Barbra Streisand) along for the ride.
The movie is directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Dan Fogelman.
The rest of the notable cast includes Robert Curtis Brown, Kathy Najimy, Miriam Margolyes, Rose Abdoo, Colin Hanks, Jeff Kober, and Brett Cullen.
I wish I could tell you that this movie was so funny that I was rolling on the floor laughing hysterically. I wish I could tell you that the chemistry between Rogen and Streisand was wonderful and that this is a wonderful comedy to watch with your mother. I just wish that I could tell you that this movie made me laugh. I cannot tell you any of those things because they wouldn’t be at all close to the truth.
I did not laugh once during the entire viewing of The Guilt Trip. The movie just was not funny. It tried so hard to be a comedy. It’s even listed as a comedy. It’s on the cusp of being funny. I almost laughed a couple of times. I scoffed a number of times, but this so called comedy wasn’t even good for a giggle. How pathetic is that? It’s a comedy that doesn’t make you laugh, at all.
The movie was a complete waste of time. It was painfully boring to watch at times and the film just seemed to drag on.
I waited to watch The Guilt Trip on DVD because I was unsure about it. It looked like it might be good for a few laughs. It looked like it could have similarities to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), only with a mother and son instead of two strangers. I was completely wrong on both accounts.
If you have ever wondered what an uninteresting road trip with your mother would be like, then just watch The Guilt Trip. It will bore your head off.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? RUN away and don’t be guilted into this unpleasant trip!
Tomorrow You’re Gone (2012)
Tomorrow You’re Gone (2012)
Tomorrow You’re Gone is star power without the shine. The presence of Stephen Dorff, Michelle Monaghan, and Willem Dafoe all in this film is enough to make you want to see it. Do not be fooled though, that is the only thing that this movie has going for it. The fact that those actors would actually decide to be a part of such an atrocious excuse for a movie actually gives me less respect for them.
The movie follows Charlie Rankin (Dorff) as he gets out of jail. He sets out to do one more job for his friend The Buddha (Dafoe) and along the way he gets mixed up with his conscience and Florence Jane (Monaghan).
The movie is directed by David Jacobson. Hopefully it will be his last attempt at filmmaking. If he were playing baseball, he just struck out.
The cast also includes Robert LaSardo, Tara Buck, and Kerry Rossall.
The film is basically pointless. It is a complete waste of time. It drags on at a snail’s pace and is really boring at times. It is filled with meaningless babbling and wasted talent. The movie tries so hard to be something artistic and deep, but it comes off cheap.
The story is broken and hard to follow. You can’t really feel anything for the characters because they are just sort of there.
This movie is the definition of hitting rock-bottom for anyone who was a part of the filmmaking process. It is hard to come back to making good movies after making something this bad. I think that I have lost any and all hope for the cast. They are all usually better than this, but maybe that is not the case anymore.
Do yourself a favor and keep your dignity by not every watching Tomorrow You’re Gone.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? “Run Forrest, run!”
A Haunted House (2013)
A Haunted House (2013)
I did not expect much from A Haunted House. I decided to skip seeing the movie in the theatre. I knew that it was not going to be the greatest, although I thought it might be at least good for a few laughs. I was wrong, dead wrong.
I figured the movie would be like Scary Movie (2000) or any of its 4 sequels. Why shouldn’t it be? It is a spoof movie like those movies. It was written by Marlon Wayans who also wrote all of those movies. He also stars in those movies. It is bound to be at least kind of funny like those movies, right? I thought it would be and that is why I watched it. I was sorely mistaken. I can honestly say that A Haunted House was one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. Not the worst, but certainly one of them. That is saying a lot, because I have literally seen thousands of movies.
The film is a spoof on Paranormal Activity (2007) and several other horror movies. Malcolm (Marlon Wayans) asks his girlfriend (Essence Atkins) to move in with him. As soon as she arrives, bad things start happening. Paranormal events occur and the couple eventually starts to think that their house is haunted.
I am not lying when I tell you that I did not laugh once during the entire movie. I knew that the movie would be raunchy and stupid, but it went way beyond that. Instead of being raunchy humor and stupid humor, it was just stupid and sick. Moments that were on the verge of being funny, fell flat because they were extremely unoriginal.
The movie was written my Marlon Wayans and Rick Alvarez. It was directed by Michael Tiddes. The cast also includes Marlene Forte, David Koechner, Dave Sheridan, Nick Swardson, Andrew Daly, Cedric the Entertainer, Affion Crockett, and J.B. Smoove.
A Haunted House is a comedy without the laughs. The movie is a complete waste of time and money. My only hope is that I am able to spare you the torture of viewing this rancid piece of excrement.
I rate this movie a 1 on a scale of 1-10.
Buy, rent, or run? RUN! And don’t look back.
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