Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Review: Hellboy: The Crooked Man


Review: Hellboy: The Crooked Man 
By William Pattison
For Horror Bob's Blog 

.I just finished watching Hellboy: The Crooked Man and I have to say I enjoyed it. It was a solid adaptation on The Crooked Man comic storyline. The guy playing Hellboy did a good job. The FX and production was low budget, but that was actually to its advantage. It made the filmmaker get into the character, plot, and atmosphere over the FX which were mostly practical. I didn't actually notice the bad CGI on Hellboy's tail that so many reviewers complained about, not the tacky spider FX. Sorry people, I'm not a spoiled Gen Z that was raised on modern video games and high budget CGI movies. I was cultured in the 70s and 80s where filmmakers had to use practical FX and have something called talent and imagination. Hellboy: The Crooked Man is made the way I consider a good film should be made.. Oh, and sorry activists no WOKE bullshit, thus I'd dance a jig if I could.
I highly recommend this film if you like your comic book films with good characterization and plot with no politics to muck up the works...
Keep on Creepin, Horror Bob's Blog 

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Review Darlin'


Review Darlin' 
By William Pattison 
For Horror Bob's Blog 

I just finished watching Jack Ketcham's final project, Darlin', which was directed by Pollyanna Mcklish. This film takes the Pigmellian idea and adds a nasty bit of Catholic dogma and corruption and twists it into a symphony of splatter punk worthy of a master of the subgenre.
Pollyanna Mcklish returns as The Woman. Now she is scouring the countryside in search of her little sister, Darlin', who has been captured and put in a Catholic school run by a corrupt priest.
Now The Woman find her sister before the father uses her and kills her.
This is an excellent final chapter in Ketcham's saga.
Keep on Creepin, Horror Bob's Blog 

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Review: The Fantastic Fear of Everything


Review: The Fantastic Fear of Everything 
By William Pattison
For Horror Bob's Blog

Ok, well I got a little movie review for you. This caught me by surprise because it was actually just the next film Freevee put on. I hadn't even known this prize existed. The film is titled The Fanatic Fear of Everything. The film stars Simon Pegg as a man who literally fears the outside world. He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that a serial killer is out to get him. Besides Simon Pegg the film also features Clare Higgins or Hellraiser and Hellraiser II:  Hellbound fame.
This film has a brilliant production design, which shows the world through the main characters eyes and psyche. The only annoying thing is the sound design. Dialogue is low volume while incidental music is extremely loud and jarring. I gather this is on purpose but it gets annoying after a while.
But, on top of everything is Simon Pegg's brilliant performance as the eccentrically paranoid crime author whose research into Victorian serial killers has made him a wreck. He looks like a red haired Serious Black with his crazy tuff of red hair and matching beard. Pegg royally shows his brilliance as a physical comedian. This is truly one of his best roles in this unappreciated film.
If you want to see a truly mind blowing dark comedy this film is a treat.
Keep on Creeping, Horror Bob's Blog

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Review: Festival of the Living Dead



Review:Festival of the Living Dead

by William Pattison

For Horror Bob's Blog


Ok, I just finished watching the Soska Sisters latest film, Festival of the Dead. I might post a more detailed review later on my blogs, but I thought I’d share my initial thoughts on this Tubi TV original film.

First off I thought the film was very watchable. It was by far more watchable than their two hour S&M film that they filmed on their IPhones. This film actually had professional audio. Congratulations girls! You actually had a professional film crew with you that made this film look better than a first year film student. Shit, they even had drone shots!!!

The story is about a girl who treats her longtime friends and her little brother like shit because she has decided she wants to fit in and be a shallow self-involved asshole like her new friends and her Chad boyfriend and his rich buddy.

She ends up leaving her little brother with her unappreciated best friend and her unappreciated best friend’s wheelchair bound boyfriend to go to a rock festival in the forest with her new social masters. Amusingly when they are going to park at the event they end up getting into an accident when they hit what they don’t know is a zombie. The main character and the Chads go off to get medical help and leave the two femaie socials behind because they are hurt, how truly social of them. So they find the first aid station and find it all messed up. They run into a girl who is having a bad trip on mushrooms. Rich Chad steals her mushrooms and amusingly gives them to Main girl and her Chad.

Then they hear music and amazingly forget the social girls and go to the main stage to party. At the main stage Main girl starts hallucinating and see the Soska Sisters dancing, because she is a Soska fan. Her living room, which was shown earlier had a bunch of Soska film posters all over its walls. Anyway, the imaginary Jen and Sylvia blow smoke in her face. Then she starts to see zombies in among the crowd, and guess what? The zombies are real and start attacking people.

Anyway, they have to escape the zombies and Main girl’s abused friends and little brother show up to add to the potential body count.

So, I found the main character rather confusing because she acts all strong argumentative and knowledgeable about guns and fighting with her unappreciated friends and her brother yet she cows down initially with the Chads and the social girls. This makes her very much an annoying Mary Jane character. She does go through a story arch and realizes the error of her turning her back on her friends and being so abusive to her brother, but this is at the expense of people’s lives.

I find it rather amusing that it is the Soskas that are writing a morality tale about the evils of choosing a petty, shallow, self-absorbed life over what matters when Jen and Sylvia have burned bridges and stabbed anyone who supported them in the past in order to gain false power in horror through The Horror Socials. In fact it seems a bit hypercritical in my opinion, and I’m one of the people who had been a “friend” of Jen and Sylvia and learned the hard way how little the two of them really respect friendship and those who have helped them.

Anyway this film is a watchable zombie film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It has a few Easter eggs to Romero’s Dead films, so fans of those films and the Return of the Living Dead films won’t be completely disappointed.

So there you go. There is my honest opinion. Now the Soska fans can mouth off and say I’m wrong and this is a masterpiece of zombie cinema. Ugh, I taste bile…


Keep on Creepin', Horror Bob's Blog

 

Friday, March 29, 2024

Review: Ghostbusters Frozen Empire


Review: Ghostbusters Frozen Empire
by William Pattison
For Horror Bob's Blog

I'll make this short, but not so sweet. Ok,I watched Ghostbusters Frozen Empire and I have to say I loved it. The story was great. The way this film included the original Ghostbusters cast was great. How they handled the Spengler family was great. How they presented The Fame Master was great. The freeze demon was great. I have no clue why so many of my podcasting peers are trashing this film. Give me a fucking break people. You guys keep saying the plot was muddled by too many subplots. Give me a break. All the subplot worked well together. A film can have four or five subplot and still make sense. The problem is not with the film it is with certain people on the internet and how internet culture has dumbed down you assholes. That is the problem.

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Sunday, October 22, 2023

Review: SAW X


Review:SAW X
By William Pattison
For Horror Bob's Blog


Last night I watched the new installment in the SAW series, SAW X.
John Kramer is back and in good form in this prequel that takes place between SAW and SAW 2. In this story John goes to Mexico for an unauthorized surgery and drug treatment that he found out about from a supposed cancer survivor. Unfortunately for John it turns out to be a scam being done by a bigger monster than John himself. So in picture perfect Jigsaw style John decided that these con artists need to be taught a lesson and prove themselves as worth of life.  The main lesson of this film is don't fuck with John Kramer or suffer the repercussions.
I really loved this film and loved seeing John and Amanda back in action. 
The games in the story were definitely appropriate. The only issue for me was two of the games dealt with weighing body matter. I think should have made each game totally different. But that can be easily fluffed off because both games were great.
Also, I think they could have done some de-aging on Amanda because she was showing her age. As for John I thought even though Tobin Bell was showing his age too it worked with the fact that the character was suffering from terminal cancer, this many people in that condition look prematurely aged.
Also, and I love this, I think that putting this story on its own yet actually between two of the installments was a brilliant and gutsy idea. The filmmaker managed to have freedom to do the story he wanted without messing with the continuity.
In conclusion I have to say SAW X is a gory, fun, installment of this beloved series that fans of the series should treasure.
Keep on Creepin'!
Horror Bob's Blog

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 2 Review


Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 2 Review
By William Pattison
For Horror Bob'Blog

Well, I finished watching season 2 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds and I have a few thoughts on it. First, I believe that this season was far weaker than season 1. I felt that there were far too many oddball episodes this season. Three in one season is far too many when you only have ten episodes. Also jumping the shark with the musical themed episode was far misplaced.this episode would have been better place in the 6th season. The first three seasons are for establishing the characters and the tone of the show, not going off the wall. 
Also, I believe that they have mishandled Ethan Peck’s Spock and his relationship with Nurse Chapel. Spock has been way over emotional. His cheating with Chapel when he is engaged to TPring is way out of line with his character. Also, the way Chapel treated Spock in episodes 8 and 9 were very much against her character. The writers need to stop screwing with fan favorite characters. I know they can do thatby the way they have handled Kirk, I have no complaints about him.
Finally, there is the literal elephant in the room, The Gorn. The Gorn presented in the opening episode as the big bad this season, but except for a few mentions they were absent until the season finale. We got far more Klingons than Gorn this season. I’m  not saying I’m not happy to see real Klingons again, but they weren’t supposed to be the main villains. This shows a definite problem with the writing staff and the show.
All in all this season has been a mixed bag. This show is definitely better than Discovery but it still needs to gel and become the great show it can be. I await the next season and we’ll see what happens.
Keep on Creepin', Horror Bob's Blog