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Budget pumpkin smushing fury! Just the kind of errant nonsense that hits a sweet spot.

This turned out to be a bit of a slog / disappointment. The chiaroscuro cinematography is glossy and polished but lacks dynamism and tips too far in favour of artifice. Screenplay and characters feel underdeveloped / insufficiently fleshed out and editing choices are sometimes clunky: Careers Advisor to Betsy (after entire scene of Betsy being unsure about her interests) - "...in the meantime have a think about what really interests you." Cut to close-up of handwritten heading above EMPTY page in Betsy's notebook: WHAT REALLY INTERESTS ME. Gee, what to think?

There is effective stuff here in parts and scenes (Lindsay Duncan's turn as the grandmother for instance brings a couple of more interesting exchanges, and the deconstruction of food porn is at least competently done if not particularly original) but there is also a sense of those parts not quite integrating satisfactorily.
Good work is too often negated by an aesthetic that feels too forced: ittedly there is a strong sense of place; unfortunately that place feels like a very artificially lit movie set / location... Never has Streatham felt so unspecific and posh.

So simple, so warped, so freaking funny.

Space crew wearing stylish intergalactic fascist motorcycle leathers land on gas giant, chat shit, get banged.

Loved the bit where they all came together to hold up the huge chunk of tarmacadam (
b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶l̶i̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶r̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶n̶o̶c̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶y̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶A̶r̶c̶h̶i̶b̶a̶l̶d̶ ̶M̶o̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶h̶a̶m̶(̶5̶7̶)̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶k̶c̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶k̶i̶t̶t̶e̶n̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶n̶g̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶p̶h̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶). It really cemented their teamliness. 😶

Seriously, this film was so good that Jamais Kitson stayed til the end instead of leaving early to get his train home... and he doesn't even like superheroes.

For me, as a wholly unbiased observer, Bartholomew is up there with Scooby Doo, Muttley and Snoopy.

Fresh like Giancarlo Esposito's hat.

Saw this movie exactly as God intended, with the sun streaming through ineffective venetian blinds, sandwiched on the couch between one child with a head cold producing a disgustingly massive pile of snotty tissues and a second child hunched resentfully over the Minecraft game that had recently been playing on the main TV screen, eating cheapo bagged popcorn and laughing at the surprisingly funny crap jokes. This film was both highly derivative and inanely charming, and was enjoyed by all parties (even the gamer, watching it alongside about 15 other screens and smugly predicting every plot twist and development).

So good that at times I thought I was watching a Temu ad.

A sobering indictment of centuries of man's inhumanity to the wee folk.

Not recommended to anyone possessed of a serious bent of mind or a central nervous system.

I could tell you a story, a story about why a fellow would watch a film like this, but you'd just laugh, laugh right in my face. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it a Monday night with a hard week ahead and a 68 minute flick my only hope of hay-hitting before the devil's hour came a-knocking.

The dame in the seat next to me had cued up some clown named Rogen in some fruity kinda serial going by the moniker of The Studio, a prospect that made as much sense as a bacon milkshake. No, a Detour it was, and a detour it stayed until the bitter end, and if you think I'll be getting to the point of this review soon, well then --

Asks the very serious question, what if patriarchal puppet vampires were scary?

By turns, amusing, creepy... and a tiny bit soporific.

Do you think, around the turn of the century, that Chris Nolan or the Wachowskis, working on their respective sophomore features were like, "this movie is almost dynamite... but what it just needs is that guy from the Goonies... you know, the second-fiddle criminal brother, and maybe, just maybe, then... 🤔"

Pretty sure they could have pacified those goddamn shitsuckers if they'd just used their brains, tuned up that guitar proper and knocked out a couple verses of kumbaya 😍✌️🌼

You could team this up with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation for a snowbound super-slappable-lead-actor double header. If only there was a loose floorboard in Jim Cummings' loft...

A film that famously (and by that I of course mean not at all famously) takes the best bits from Argento's Three Mothers trilogy, the Demons films, Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat and infamous opium-snozzler Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis... then locks them up in a lead-lined box and buries them 5000 miles away from its screenplay.

"Highlights" include
- Supernatural greenness... almost too much of it to mention! Green-lit smoke, green shoulder-pads, luminescent witchy green mouth-vom-vom, the wearing of tea-towel style green plaid punished (correctly, of course) by the explosion / evisceration of internal organs, glowing green windows, TVs, children, the lot...
- A ghostly refrigerator repairman (mainly, as far as I could see, because why not?)
- Actual baby filmed sleeping unsecured in car seats, wicker chairs (biggest peril in the whole thing IMHO), but the actors only ever picking up an outsized rubber doll 😆
- Caroline Munro worrying away at her knee like it's Aladdin's lamp
- Poorly lit intercut shots of a black cat with only the most tenuous connection to the surrounding scene, almost like there was no actual plot connection whatsoever to any cat, black or otherwise...

Still, more entertaining than 95% of, say, Netflix context.

Sure, Hector, that was definitely what happened 🤔

I mean, honestly, I had my consciousness ed to a dark web server and it really isn't as bad aS s0me of these naysaying-NelliEs @re mAk1ng out!!!@£% 🍥👃🍥✌️

This review may contain spoilers.

This really freaked me out because when I'm dying I also invariably imagine myself running harum-scarum through the woods to a jazz drumming solo.

My favourite bit is when he shot that guy.

Gabriel Burn

Good effort but TBH Den of Thieves last night was 68% gayer. Worth watching though if you've ever wanted to see RuPaul split a twain.

Confirmed for me what I had long suspected: Butlers gonna buttle.

Best horror comedy this week.

Unexpectedly droll.

Crazy popular with the kids in my daughter's class at school, so of course we had to find out why. Went well with the insane concentration of Easter egg chocolate circulating through her system. Currently being pestered with birthday requests for a hover car, a blue alien koala-dog, and an electric ukulele. Fortunately the film was just about worth it.

This review may contain spoilers.

Going downhill in reverse is tight.

Imagine if instead they'd had to win a game of Pictionary to get off the planet.

What if... chugging almond milk was scary?

What if... Peter Capaldi were scary?

WARNING: This film may cause Wes Anderson or other debilitating conditions.

Sticking it to the man for enshittification. Good job Charlie Brooker's script wasn't paid for by a media company spearheading those same enshittification practices 😅

I when I had a supermarket delivery of a jumbo pack of chicken breasts and they, too, resembled Domhall Gleeson.

All joking aside, one of the very best Black Mirror episodes.

This was such pointless, portentous bullshit that I definitely will be watching chapters 2, 3 and 4 at the earliest possible opportunity.

Best nap I had this week.

It was acceptable in the 80s

More of a mild twat, really. Film was okay though.

Atmospherics, lighting, camera work, creature effects and Lance Henriksen all bring this way up. Narratively, it's not exceptional, a bit cleverer than average for the revenge-plot horror movie template, but really this is all about Pumpkinhead tossing teens about like salad leaves against expressionistically back-lit wooded hillscapes: nice.

Definitely a croc! of something (that wasn't gold)...

If you like...

- electric jazz clarinet
- barbecued cyclops
- the phrase 'let me imitate the voice of cock'
- random use of the Battlestar Galactica theme
- defeating immortal warriors by a sword strike to the anus (a region euphemised by the subtitles as the 'hip')

... then you're going to shit your pants in glee when you watch this one.

There was some fighting and some vampire lovin' and a good time was had by all. The end.

Props to the clever meta trick whereby the inane unfocussed storytelling felt like being cornered and talked at by a gakked-up, 700lb grizzly.

Is watching an M Night Shylaman film the ultimate act of optimism... or sacrifice? 🤔

The thrilling tale of whether Stanley the bear will get a younger brother or a nuclear apocalypse. Sensitive / younger viewers should note this features heavy workplace smoking, the mansplaining of turbulence to an air stewardess, and gratuitous Alec Baldwin. Extra marks - as always - for the inclusion of a character named Bart.

Having enjoyed this as a first time watch, I will also be viewing both Das Boot and Crimson Tide for the first time in the weeks to come (just catching up on the gaps in my submarine thriller watching). Recommendations for any other submarine based films gladly received.

Pray for Death? Bit harsh.... I, for one, quite enjoyed myself.

No bugs were harmed during the making of this motion picture 🤔

👍👍👍 Three thumbs up for Lon Chaney's makeup 😉

Nice 🧔🎶🎷🤔🍷🔪

Best thing about watching this was laughing at Liam Neeson's dentures.

If you like stroking your beard of an evening, you'll love this.