Capsule Reviews: Lord of Tears and Monsters 2
Lord of Tears
This is the one with that Owl Man dude that everyone thought was super creepy. While I like the monster design, we only get to see it a few times. The rest of the movie, we’re enjoying people talking about shit nobody really cares about, trapped in a film that looks like it was shot on a 20$ camcorder and then transferred to VHS, probably recorded over some old Seinfeld episodes.
It looks like garbage, it’s slow as heck. There’s nothing here.
I don’t know. I just can’t.
0 out of 5 Owls
Monsters 2: The Dark Continent
Hey, we should take that pretty decent indie flick that came out a few years ago and make a shitty sequel, mixing American Sniper in with Cloverfield. But make it extra shitty.
Bunch of soldiers head out to the middle east where giant monsters are hanging out. But they’re still fighting those TERRISTS out there, while the monsters are an after thought. It’s as if a rejected Jarhead sequel’s script pages got mixed in with a monster movie. This is really bad and all the ‘MURICA shit gets old real fast.
I mean, I dunno. Written and directed by the guy who directed the second season of Misfits, which wasn’t that bad. Maybe he should leave the writing to someone else.
1 out of 5 Vagina Monsters (DNF)
Capsule Reviews: Among Friends, Dark Summer, Death Do Us Part
Sometimes I watch bad movies and then forget all about them because they don’t even warrant a review. But they gnaw at me, these terrible things, and thus I review them months later, half-remembered and half-assed.
Among Friends
Utterly forgettable, not completely boring and unoriginal as hell. The premise is ludicrous. The plot as I remember it: A bunch of friends have 80s themed party but it turns out a maniac set it up to get their revenge of them. They proceed to reveal their darkest secrets (and oh boy are some of these people fucked up) while he murders/tortures them. It’s a bit like like Happy Birthday to Me but without the charm or the quality.
2 out of 5 Dark Secrets
Dark Summer
Some dude gets cursed or possessed or something and him, his friend and the girl he’s crushing on try to save him. Oh yeah, I think he’s on house arrest because he was stalking some girl. Peter Stormare chews scenery as his probation officer and I wonder what kind of student loans he has that made him work on this. College is free in Sweden, so this is a real life mystery.
It’s like Disturbia, but not any fun at all. It’s boring and the ending sucks.
1 out of 5 Cursed Creepers
Death Do Us Part
Do you like people yelling at each other in the woods? Do you enjoy watching a bunch of ”friends” who are mysteriously horrible to one another and seem to hate each other’s guts, yet they hang out constantly? Do you like telegraphed plot twists that make no sense? Boy do I have something for ya.
Some lady is getting married and she takes her friends and her SO’s friends to a cabin in the woods to celebrate. Someone starts murdering people. Nothing of value is lost.
1 out of 5 Wedding Dresses (1 point deducted for that ludicrous ending)
Writing Soundtrack: Evil Within
Evil Within is a fairly mediocre game. The soundtrack however is pretty good and I think it might be a good fit for some horror writing. It’s a bit upbeat, which isn’t always my cup of tea, but I can see it working for the right kind of story or chapter. It has some pounding, almost industrial sounding tracks, interespersed with some quieter passages with a bit more atmosphere. You could probably eliminate some of the more hardcore tracks for an easier listening experience.
Anyway, I’m not a music critic, take a listen and judge for yourself.
Review: Southern Bastards Vol 1
Southern Bastards Vol 1 by Jason Aaron(Author), Jason Latour(Illustrator)
Earl Tubb is an angry old man with a very big stick.
Euless Boss is a high school football coach with no more room in his office for trophies and no more room underneath the bleachers for burying bodies.
And they’re just two of the folks you’ll meet in Craw County, Alabama, home of Boss BBQ, the state champion Runnin’ Rebs and more bastards than you’ve ever seen.
A Southern fried crime comic by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour
Southern Bastards is on the Best Of lists of quite a few places and I can see why. It’s a very tight and solid narrative and the art is gorgeous; visceral even.
I’m not as taken with it, but it’s hard for me to explain why. Maybe because it failed to surprise me in any way, always calling its shots and setting up the next beat in the narrative. It reminds me a bit of the Demo series by Brian Wood, but that was back in 2003 and now it’s 2014.
Anyway, I don’t want to talk shit about the book just because it feels vaguely familiar. There’s good stuff here and I suspect the series will take off with the next few issues. Perhaps Earl Tubb’s story was a bit too archetypical for my taste, but I’m looking forward to see what happens in Vol 2.
If you’re into that whole Southern Rural Noir stuff (True Detective, maybe?), this might scratch that itch. It’s certainly southern as hell.
3.5 out of 5 Big Sticks.
Dark Days RPG
Probably around oh…five years ago, I started working on a roleplaying game. As most misguided projects go, it ended up changing a lot from then until now. Initially it was pretty much a heartbreaker, a kitchen-sink collection of things I liked from games, cobbled together into a Frankenstein. The core was always the same though: It’s about a group of characters investigating the supernatural.
I foolishly commissioned some artwork when I was first starting out. You can see some of it below. It was called Van Dread at the time and was mostly a pulp clone of Hunter: The Reckoning, by way of Call of Cthulhu and Unknown Armies. The most damning evidence of my failures in game design were the many permutations of this game, from concept, to mechanics, to system. I’ve used the Storyteller system, Fate 2.0, and Apocalypse World, with various success. There’s been skills lists, skills and stats, just stats and so on.
At this point, I just want to dump all the work I’ve done so far in this blog post, as a way of clearing the slate. I do intend to finish Dark Days at some point, hopefully soon. I’m still not sure what system I should use for it. The mechanics can be bolted on to most systems.
Here’s bits and pieces of the game. If you’re lost, keep in mind that it’s based on Apocalypse World and the Aspects from Fate.
All artwork is copyrighted to the respective artists and has been licensed for use with the Dark Days roleplaying game.
Premise I think the best way to explain the game is to explain what the original idea was. If you’ve played Call of Cthulhu, or any horror investigation game, you’ve probably experienced the mayhem associated with mortals experiencing the supernatural. People go crazy, get injured, scarred, lose limbs, lose families.
Too bad those guys can’t keep doing that forever though. They already know it’s best to burn the haunted house down and shoot the neighbors in the face after the first few investigations. Everyone is out to get them. But what if they could?
…and that’s Dark Days in a nutshell.
The characters are ex-members of an organization dedicated to destroying the supernatural threat. They got maimed, fired, disgraced or quit. But they get called back to serve the organization the left behind, as part of a special operations team.
There’s a catch though. To be part of the program, you have to let them shoot some really weird shit into your bloodstream. To make you tougher, faster, smarter, weirder. Just like the monsters you’re going to kill.
What do you do in this game? It’s a horror investigation game, with a focus on action. The investigation part isn’t about looking for clues, it’s mostly about trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what’s the best way to end it. A shortcut to the usual investigative games, if you will.
In a run of the mill scenario, you’d be sent to a town or a city to investigate something weird that’s happening. After a few days of interviewing witnesses and snooping around, the shit will inevitably hit the fan and at that point you’re gonna want to neutralize the threat and get out alive.
Setting
The setting makes a few assumptions. Monsters are real. The general public is unaware. There’s no grand conspiracy, just a bunch of smaller ones. When the mailman eats a lady’s face and then jumps 30 feet up into a tree in a small town, what cop is gonna say that to the news crew?
Monsters all come from the same place. The Dark. The Abyss. Hell. Whatever you want to call it, it’s another place, a different dimension. Things slip through, or are called here. When that happens, weird shit goes down and people die.
The Dark is a corrupting force. Most monsters used to be human before they were corrupted into something else.
The characters have a piece of the Dark inside of them. That’s what the project is. They have weird powers, just like their monster counterparts, but the human part is still in control. They’re the perfect weapon against monsters.
The organization is set up like the military. There are multiple player-chosen branches. Some deal with intel, some are R&D (Research and Development), some carry flamethrowers around.
Themes
● Humans can be monsters and monsters can be human. I know this goes against the general theme of the game (kill monsters), but it fits into the character’s monstrous nature. The characters will encounter plenty of seemingly monstrous beings that end up being harmless or smart enough to use diplomacy to stay alive. That’s why there’s a Covenant move that allows you to strike deals.
● The Abyss is an alien thing, and true creatures of the Abyss are too. There is no way to understand it or pacify it. Kill it or be killed.
● The world is a fragile thing. Any one of the things that escape the Abyss can mean the downfall of our way of life.
● You kill monsters to protect the innocents, but what about you? You’re a ticking time bomb and you’re already half a monster. What the fuck are you gonna do with yourself when you find yourself becoming less human day by day?
Inspirations
Hellboy’s B.P.R.D
For the way the BPRD is set up, for the interplay between human and supernatural agents, for the way they deal with the supernatural (figure out if it’s dangerous, kill it with impunity if it is). For the dozens of nameless agents that get killed in the first hours of every mission. For the way the world is threatened in the later issues.
Supernatural TV Series
For the casual nature of hunting monsters, for the occult tomes and symbols, for it’s concepts of hell.
Event Horizon
For it’s depiction of the other place, Hell, the Abyss.
Agenda Make the world dark and real. Make the characters’ lives interesting. Play to find out how you die.
The Principles
Blanket the world in Darkness. Figuratively and literally. Dark Days takes place in perpetual darkness, artificial or not. The weather is shitty, rain and cloudy days. Characters live in the dark and often investigate dark places. The Dark also represents the corruption of the Abyss. Not everything touched by the Dark turns into a monster; your neighbor might harbor some pretty horrible secrets and thus be somewhat changed. Besides, with the murder rate of most metropolitan cities being what it is, the chances of you living in or near a murder house are pretty high.
Make the human monstrous; make the monstrous sympathetic. Evil isn’t always an effect of the Dark. Sometimes it’s plain old human evil. On the other hand, a monster might be capable of more compassion than you. The characters stand on the threshold. Which side are they gonna end up on?
Introduce the weird, the magical, the horrific, the unfair at every opportunity. Nothing is sacred. Kill NPCs, destroy structures, burn everything. Address yourself to the characters, not the players. Make your move, but misdirect. Make your move, but never speak its name. Ask provocative questions and build on the answers. Be a fan of the players’ characters. Name everyone. Make them important.
The Stats
The Stats are:
Cold …means you are cool, calm, numb, graceful under pressure. You add this to your dice roll when you Act under pressure.
War …means you are violent, skilled in combat, aggressive, mean. You add this to your dice roll when you Shed Blood.
Majesty …means you are sexy, seductive, convincing, attractive. You add this to your dice roll when you Influence/Seduce, when you Threaten Violence.
Edge …means you are sharp, witty, quick, skilled, perceptive. You add this to your dice roll when you Read a person.
Esoterica …means you are creepy, scary, dark, strange. You add this to your dice roll when you Invoke Darkness.
Stats go from -1 to +3. Higher is better. A stat can be set to 0.
Moves
Every character gets the following Moves:
Basic Moves Act under pressure Invoke the Darkness Assess Situation Shed Blood Threaten Violence Read person Help/Interfere Influence Investigate Covenant Peripheral Moves Suffer Trauma When Darkness reaches 0 Intake darkness
Act under pressure When you act under pressure, roll +cold. On a 10 you do what you want. On a 7-9, you hesitate, you get scared, you stall. The MC will offer you a difficult choice or a hard bargain. On a miss, you fuck up.
Invoke Darkness When you invoke the Darkness, roll +Esoterica and state your subject. On a hit, the MC will tell you something you didn’t know about. On a 10, you may ask one clarifying question. On a 7-9, the MC will state something. On a miss, the Darkness reveals something dark about you.
Assess Situation When you asses the situation, roll +Edge. On a hit, you can ask questions. If you act upon them, get +1 going forward. On a 10, pick 3. On a 7-9, pick1. which enemy is the most dangerous? which enemy is the weakest? who’s in control here? how do I get out of this? what’s my best escape route /way in / way past?
Threaten Violence When you threaten violence, roll +War. On a 10+, they comply and you Shed Blood.
On a 7-9 they can choose to:
trade harm for harm
comply with your desires
evacuate
Shed blood When you shed blood, roll +War. On a 10+, choose one extra effect:
take +1 forward.
You inflict terrible harm
You suffer less harm.
On a 7-9, trade harm for harm.
Read Person
When you read a person, roll +edge. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1: is your character telling the truth? what does your character intend to do? how could I get your character to _?
Help/Interfere
When you help or interfere with someone, roll +Edge. On a 10+, they get +2 forward On a 7-9, they get +1 forward but you expose yourself to danger.
Influence/Manipulate Someone
When you manipulate someone, roll +Majesty. For NPCs: On a 10+, they do it. On a 7-9, they ask for reassurances/they ask you to promise them something before they do what you ask. For PCs: On a 10+, both. On a 7-9, choose 1: If they do it, they mark improvement if they refuse, they mark improvement.
Investigate Scene
When you investigate the scene, roll +Edge. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1.
Spend hold 1 to 1 to ask the MC questions: What happened here? How many of them were there? Where did they go? What has been concealed here? On a miss,
Covenant
When you enter a covenant, roll +Esoterica On a 10+ pick 2. On a 7-9 pick 1. You include a clause or loophole for yourself. There are no loopholes the other party can abuse. The deal is fair.
Intake Darkness
When you intake Darkness, roll Esoterica. On a 10, get equal to the dose +1 Darkness On a 7-9, you do it.
When Darkness hits 0
Treat Wounds
When you treat wounds, roll +War. On a 10, heal 2. On 7-9, heal 1.
Suffer Trauma
On a 10+, your flesh withstands. On a 7-9, suffer Trauma.
MC Moves
Separate them.
Capture someone.
Trade harm for harm.
Announce off screen badness
Announce future badness.
Inflict harm
Take away their stuff.
Activate their stuff’s downside
Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost.
Make a threat move.
Make them investigate.
Review: Burning Dark
Burning Dark by Adam Christopher
Back in the day, Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland had led the Fleet into battle against an implacable machine intelligence capable of devouring entire worlds. But after saving a planet, and getting a bum robot knee in the process, he finds himself relegated to one of the most remote backwaters in Fleetspace to oversee the decommissioning of a semi-deserted space station well past its use-by date.
But all is not well aboard the U-Star Coast City. The station’s reclusive Commandant is nowhere to be seen, leaving Cleveland to deal with a hostile crew on his own. Persistent malfunctions plague the station’s systems while interference from a toxic purple star makes even ordinary communications problematic. Alien shadows and whispers seem to haunt the lonely corridors and airlocks, fraying the nerves of everyone aboard.Isolated and friendless, Cleveland reaches out to the universe via an old-fashioned space radio, only to tune in to a strange, enigmatic signal: a woman’s voice that seems to echo across a thousand light-years of space. But is the transmission just a random bit of static from the past—or a warning of an undying menace beyond mortal comprehension?
This is the book that hates the reader. It hates you. For some reason, it starts in media res with some random woman freaking out about…something. You don’t know what. You don’t know why. The next chapter is about the protagonist in the midst of a space battle. That’s fine, though it doesn’t neglect to use some terminology you’re probably not familiar with. The chapter after that is a scene with five or six people all of whom are upset, none of whom you have ever been introduced to. They’re not described or differentiated in any way and they have nothing to do with the previous chapter. The dialogue has no tags. The dialogue has no tags.
And this is why I put this book down at least five times before bothering to slog through these first few pages. I hope the editor was fired for this crime. Only after reading the rest of the book did I realize what had been done to it. I can picture it now, some editor or suit guy reading the manuscript and going ”No! This is too slow! This is boring! It needs explosions!” and some other dude going ”Well, there’s a space battle like, at the end of the book but…” and the suit guy gets a glint in his eye: ”Perfect, cut that chapter out and put it in the very beginning.”
As it says in the blurb, the protagonist is the hero captain of a space battle. However, reaching the end of his career in early retirement, no one believes him. The beginning scene is his description of the famous battle. He tells the story to a bunch of assholes who doubt him. Only problem is that this scene takes place at the last third of the book, when we have actually met the aforementioned assholes and are familiar with them. When you reach the chapter, you literally have to go back to the beginning to re-read it, since it’s highly unlikely that you understood anything then, let alone remember.
Anyway, enough about my pet peeves and what makes me homicidal. On to the book.
I have a soft spot for sci-fi horror. One of my favorites movies is Pandorum, which, let’s face it, is not a very good movie. So I went in with a harkening for some scary sci-fi shenanigans. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t say this is a very scary book or that it even belongs in this sub genre. Except for some ghostly happenings that make up a very small part of the book, there’s not much here to warrant the horror label. To give you my own take on the plot, Cleveland is a fairly passive guy that straight up gets bullied by some tough guy space marines, while waiting out his retirement on a decommissioned station. Soon, strange things start to happen, beginning with a weird radio signal he receives that is essentially a leftover from early human space age. People start disappearing, spooky things happen and ghostly ghosts make a lot of people faint like they’re in a H. P. Lovecraft story.
There’s nothing particularly bad about the book, it’s just a bit of a kitchen-sink novel with a lot of different ideas mashed together. I’m not opposed to the approach, but the ideas are so radically different that it becomes jarring. Ancient Japanese myths mixed with alien wars and ghosts and a dead Russian cosmonaut. What connects all these things? Well, not very much, to be honest, outside of a vague conceptual link that’s revealed at the very end of the book.
I enjoyed some parts, including the Russian cosmonaut (based on a real world event, most likely a hoax by a couple of Italian radio operators) and the world building that Christopher did (of which we only see a small part). The protagonist is a bit of a wet towel, somewhat spineless and a bit of an idiot. It’s not that I like Mary Sue protagonists, but there’s something to be said for characters that drive the plot instead of responding to events. The space marine characters were far more interesting, although we don’t see a lot of them.
All in all, the book was a bit of a letdown. It feels rushed and sloppy, probably because of the different ideas it’s trying to shove together to make the plot work. Perhaps it would have worked better spread out over a couple more books, if the author filled in the gaps nicely. I’d read another Christopher book, but not this one. Never this one.
2 out of 5 Space Ghosts
Halloween 2014 Mixtape
Review: Young Ones
Set in a near future when water has become the most precious and dwindling resource on the planet, one that dictates everything from the macro of political policy to the detailed micro of interpersonal family and romantic relationships. The land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. The hardened survivors of the loss of Earth’s precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Mary (Elle Fanning). He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary’s boyfriend, Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), has grander designs. He wants Ernest’s land for himself, and will go to any length to get it.
From writer/director Jake Paltrow comes a futuristic western, told in three chapters, which inventively layers Greek tragedy over an ethereal narrative that’s steeped deeply in the values of the American West.
I enjoyed this a lot. I admit to being a little disappointed that the PR material for it gave me a completely different idea of what the movie would be (I guess I was expecting a new A Boy and his Dog or Mad Max, while this is more or less a sci-fi drama. Still, it’s a well made film and the director/screenwriter made some interesting choices that I appreciated it.
Ernest is a poor old farmer that owns land but not water. He has a job delivering supplies to the men working to bring water to the fields, but not his fields; the water is going to industrial farms further away. His attempts at convincing or bribing the boss to throw some water his way are unsuccessful. In the meantime, his daughter is dating this really douchy kid who needs to get smacked a lot. Ernest doesn’t trust me and refuses to help him with whatever scheme he’s trying to run.
All this comes to a head when Ernest’s donkey, which is instrumental for his work breaks a leg and has to be put down. He invests on a robotic donkey. When Ernest refuses to loan it to douchy guy, it gets stolen and used to smuggle contraband across the border. This is where shit goes bad and where I stop lest I spoil ya’ll.
There’s not a hint of melodrama as I would probably have expected in a movie about a down on his luck farmer trying to provide for his family (crippled wife and all). Things are mentioned (perhaps sometimes bluntly, like when Flem accuses Ernest of crippling his wife in some kind of accident he likely caused because of his drinking) and then never expanded on, but left to shimmer in the background. There’s no need for them to be brought up again later on when Ernest’s daughter is freaking out and screaming at him. I appreciate the economy.
I rarely review good movies, because reviewing the bad ones is much more amusing and let’s face it, lazy as hell. It fits my personality, so to speak. After watching this one and checking out some reviews online, I just felt that I had to give my 2 cents as well. In fact, let’s look at this review so that I can make fun of it.
Young Ones makes use of brilliant cinematography that is instantly wasted in the hands of a director who is without a shred of talent, an editor who must have been a butcher, mediocre sound editing, and a cast that is almost as misguided and inept as the screenplays author. A story that had true potential was crippled by a lack of character development, and the nonexistence of focus. The directors lack of skill is clearly seen in his failed attempt to (I may be paraphrasing) give the character of the machine, a robotic donkey, a sense of having a soul (not even a glimmer of this is seen in the film), and his somewhat unsuccessful try at implying that there is prosperity outside the boundary of where the characters live. The film is without any sort of outstanding performance by the cast, and lacks even a single character that the audience can empathize with. Personally I believe that this feature was a waste of a perfectly good cinematographer, and I wish I had spent my time at another premier.
— Cossette-mark
This is the only review they have posted on IMDB, and they joined roughly 2 months before they posted it. A bit suspicious, but whatever, I can’t imagine why someone would want to do such a hatchet job on it. Pretty much the whole thing is bullshit, but I’ll try and play along.
Young Ones makes use of brilliant cinematography that is instantly wasted in the hands of a director who is without a shred of talent, an editor who must have been a butcher, mediocre sound editing, and a cast that is almost as misguided and inept as the screenplays author.
That’s pretty bizarre. I think the director did a pretty good job, managing to avoid any unnecessary melodrama of the kind the reviewer seems to be after. The editing was adequate, it didn’t really stick out. The cast includes Eddie Fanning (she was pretty great in this) and Kodi Smit-McPhee who plays the son is an atypical actor and was also great for the role. Then we have Michael fucking Shannon, who is good in everything.
A story that had true potential was crippled by a lack of character development, and the nonexistence of focus.
I’m gonna go ahead and say that Young Ones is very obviously a bit of a fable, a kind of old time western, just updated and moved into the far future. I mean the story is classic: A farm that’s dying or dead, the pioneer father trying to take care of his family and the asshole who wants to fuck them all over and steal their land. Hell, it has a lot of overlap with The River (starring a young Mel Gibson), if you just switch out the flood for the drought and the rich banker guy who wants to sleep with Gibson’s wife with the kid in Young Ones who is sleeping with Shannon’s daughter.
The directors lack of skill is clearly seen in his failed attempt to (I may be paraphrasing) give the character of the machine, a robotic donkey, a sense of having a soul (not even a glimmer of this is seen in the film), and his somewhat unsuccessful try at implying that there is prosperity outside the boundary of where the characters live.
Why the fuck would a robot have a soul? It’s not even an A.I, it’s literally a donkey robot that walks around. Do you expect cars in films to have a ”sense of soul?” This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard and shows how far removed the reviewer is from the actual movie and what it set out to achieve.
The film is without any sort of outstanding performance by the cast, and lacks even a single character that the audience can empathize with.
Even the bit roles were interesting and had a little bit of depth, even if they were on screen for a few seconds.
Anyway, fuck you.
4 out of 5 robot donkeys
Bad Movies Double Feature: Buck Wild and In Fear
Buck Wild
What happens when you make a horror comedy with actors that possess no comedic talent. Extremely awkward, rarely funny and too long by half.
”When their originally planned outing is cancelled, four friends go on a hunting trip in Texas. They include Craig, a straitlaced man; Jerry, a mysterious relative of Craig’s from New York; Tom, a nerd; and Lance, a hedonist. When they arrive, they discover that a chupacabra has bitten their guide Clyde, and, unknown to all, he has begun to slowly turn into a zombie.”
The synopsis doesn’t inform you how ~*wacky*~ the movie is. There’s a flaming gay redneck mafia dude that shows up at the beginning. At some point there’s conflict between the protagonists and him and one of them get paddled by the mafia boss’s cronies. This is the height of comedy this movie is trying to attain.
Between painful jokes about Craig’s unfaithful girlfriend, shitty sex scenes with the ”dumb slut” stereotype neighbor and the meandering plot, there’s very little of value here. You might enjoy it more if you’re into gore and zombie stuff, but I was just waiting for the whole thing to end.
1 out of 5 redneck zombies.
In Fear
This is a movie so boring, so bland, so incredibly shitty, that I feel as if I’ve already reviewed it in the past and I’m stuck in a kind of purgatory where I have to talk about this piece of shit forever. Harsh words, you might think, but I’m 100% serious, this is an offensively stupid movie, made even more agonizing by the fact that the director think he’s some kind of auteur making cinema. It seems to have worked as the movie has a 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is idiotic at best. Fuck you.
”Tom and Lucy have decided to go on their first trip as a couple, to a music festival and a secluded hotel. However they soon find themselves unable to actually locate the hotel and spend much of their time getting lost in a labyrinthine series of forest roads. As they continue to drive, their tensions rise as they realize that something or someone is deliberately toying with them and enjoying their torment. They pick up Max, a strange hitchhiker that may be connected to everything that is going on.”
Probably the couple with the least chemistry in the world, you’ll spend the first half hour trying to figure out if these two idiots have just hooked up for a weekend getaway or if they have actually met before. After a series of increasingly improbably events and choices, they get lost in some sort of maze made out of hedges. Why at no point does anyone say ”fuck it, I’m off-roading this bitch” is a question that will torment you as the minutes tick on by.
Realizing at some point there’s only so long you can go without having anything remotely interesting happen and also that your actors are just not good enough to prop the whole thing up, a weird guy they find on the road is added and that’s really where the terribleness of the movie ramps up into nonsense.
This is devoid of value.
0 out of 5 idiots in a car