What happens when you take a Spanish company, ask them to attempt an Italian ‘Giallo’ movie, but seemingly the only films they’ve seen are ‘Friday the 13th’, ‘Black Christmas’ and ‘Bloody Moon’? Well! You get ‘Pieces’ a somewhat delirious mix of a movie that balances the slowburn vibe of a Giallo with early buddings of the ‘Slasher’ genre into something that, while ultimately flawed, is definitely moving in the right direction.

The film (set in America, but shot predominantly in and around Valencia Spain) opens in 1940’s Boston as a young child who, seemingly, has a porn addiction is piecing together a ‘nudie’ jigsaw puzzle. When his clearly ‘end of her teather’ mum catches him, she scolds him and his father for leaving that stuff about, beats the child and demands he go and get a trash liner so they can throw all the filth away.

On return however, the kid, rather than bringing a trash liner, has bought an axe! and promptly chops his mother into tiny pieces. When a neighbour drops in, but doesnt get an answer at the door, she calls the police who find the kid covered in blood, hiding in a closet crying.

We then flash forward 40 years into the far off future of 1982. and we’re on a college campus And students are ‘studenting studily’, when we’re introduced to Kendall, a mary sue if ever there was one. Kendall is a bookworm, who hangs around with pervy nerd friends. Who also happens to be an enigmatic and irrisistable lover AND class A Detective who’s banging any woman who happens to meet his gaze.

Indeed, in the opening of the film, Kendall is going somewhat steady with a blonde bombshell cheerleader who’s invited him that night to sneak into the colleges pool to do some skinny dipping and try ‘doing it’ underwater.

However; when our cheerleader arrives at the waterside. Its not Kendall there to meet her, but a mysterious man dressed all in black with a broad black hat, weilding a chainsaw, who promptly pulls her ashore while strangling her with a pool net, and once poolside again he promptly carves her up into tiny pieces with a chainsaw.

When Kendall arrives, he sees some of the carnage and flees, but not before he’s spotted by the groundskeeper. Indeed, this isnt the first incident to date of a mysterious killer stalking the campus picking off women with a chainsaw, chopping them into small pieces and taking some of the parts with him.

The dean calls the police and his senior staff into his office alongside Kendall, as they try to figure out exactly whats going on, and the Dean (in private with the police) decides the best course of action ultimately will be to introduce some undercover female agents to his staff because the killer seemingly is only going after women, so it makes sense that if they put a trained cop on the beat indiscriminantly, eventually she may bump into the killer.

This undercover cop turns out to be non other than our OTHER Mary Sue for this movie Mary Riggs! a loved by all undercover cop who’s good looking, smart, sassy…oh and a world tennis champion to boot! She’s assigned as the schools new sports teacher and naturally Kendall and Mary end up running into each other with erotically charged…but ultimately professional results.

With the bodies piling ever higher and time running out, will Kendall and Mary manage to figure out the killer?! will the groundskeeper end up winning 1982’s “Mr. Don Delouise of the year” award for the 3rd year running?! and will the Dean FINALLY see the end of ‘chug-a-lug house?!’ well…all this and more WILL be answered if you check out ‘Pieces’.

And is this script coherent? absolutely not. But is it entertaining? for sure. Much like a jigsaw ‘Pieces’ doesnt give the audience the clues it needs to figure out the killer in any kind of order that would naturally slot together. you get breadcrumbs of ideas dotted across the runtime in such a way that, on first watch, you’ll think its nonsensical. But on a rewatch, you’ll realise the pieces were all there, the film was just being a git in giving them to you in an order that makes no sense.

And while that aspect can be somewhat frustrating, I actually kind of loved it for that. it takes the traditional slowburn ‘Giallo’ pacing and plotting and with that, spices it up somewhat, giving it an almost fever nightmare vibe thats kind of remeniscent of movies like ‘Tenebrae’

Now, you could argue that an incoherent Giallo is a bit like a bike with square wheels I.E Whats the point of a murder mystery where the mystery element is purposfully obscured to the audience to the point that i think very few people would ultimately guess the killer first time around. but thats kind of what draws me to this one a bit more than the others. Its the fact that it feels like your watching a ‘Giallio’ through the prism of a dream world. and that surreal vivid imagery will stay with you from start to conclusion and beyond ultimately.

The pacing is a little bit slower than i’d personally have liked, this films definitely a contender for ’10 minutes shorter probably would have significantly improved things’. But the tone mixes a deadly serious thriller with softer slightly more campy/jokey moments, which I feel works quite well.

The characters are all a bit odd, but they do a good job of giving them just enough backstory to keep them interesting, but not enough to make them feel overly planned out. the act structuring, I feel is a *little* bit lopsided with a shorter 1st and 3rd act and an overly bloated 2nd act that is the cause of a lot of the films slowdown.

Dialogue works on two different levels, the original dub is dramatic, sharp and works really quite well delivering a rawness. But the English dub has a slightly campy edge that helps excentuate the sillier moments of this film and tilt it just enough to make it feel like its working with contrasting styles. Which I quite enjoyed.

On the direction? well, its kind of sort of just okay for me. Juan Piquer Simón clearly knew how to command a film crew and the end results range from striking, to snoozeworthy. And thats kind of the biggest problem this film has, it feels like when Simón was engaged with a scene and switched on, he could deliver sequences that are the envy of most of the horror genre from that time…But when it came to more pedestrian (but necessary) sequences…he comes across (to me at least) very much as a ‘just get it shot and lets go home’ type of director…which isnt really the best way to play the game and very much drags down the good work he does with this film.

Same goes for direction of the cast really. when its a key scene, a big reveal or a murder…he’s in his element and really seems to get the absolute best out of the cast, making them go big, work with their set space and props and genuinely putting across the terror of the situation. But when he’s NOT doing that. it feels like the interview segments of an episode of ‘Dragnet’ slow, stuffy, overly cool, overly basic…really not my thing.

On the cine front, again its a bit of a game of two halves. on the one hand the sequences where they’re clearly playing for style REALLY scratch an itch with me, there are moments here that are just SO brilliantly put together with even subtle moments like a sequence near the 3rd act where one of our characters walks from a dark room into a light room (we can see them from the dark room through a glass panel in the door) when suddenly from the dark room the flicker of reflected light off a blade of a long knife informs the audience that that lady…is FAR from alone. Is just a wonderful touch. and there are loads of these little moments across the runtime that really show the passion and creativity that went into moments from this film.

Unfortunatley, the film also falls afoul of a big problem within the Giallo genre, which is it gets incredibly bogged down with exposition scenes (because the film needs the auidence to know all the pieces of the puzzle to try and crack the mystery) but rather than do anything intereresting with these scenes, the majority of them are either mid-wide two shots. or back and forthing talking head sequences. They’re flat, lifeless with next to no depth of field creativity. they drain the energy out of the production and left me on the verge of clock watching at times…Put it this way, if I can close my eyes while watching your film and not miss ANYTHING important to the plot…somethings gone wrong.

The dealbreaker for me (and probably the biggest thing that holds this back from being a truely great movie) is a kind of apathetic edit. you’ve got some tremendous shots, and a woozy script. which, even with the middle of the road direction could have led to something quite remarkable. and its just…kind of basic. It cuts where it needs to, it (for the most part) moves the sequences with a decent clip. But it just doesnt go extra. it doenst push the film just that little bit further into being something I was genuienly enthralled by. doing a good job IS enough in some cases. But this film needed just a little bit more energy behind the cuts to get it there…and it just doesnt quite meet the challenge for me ultimately.

As for the performances. I think the real stars of the show here are Lynda Day George as Mary, Ian Serra as Kendall and Paul L. Smith as the demented looking groundskeeper ‘Willard’ I single these folks out specifically because their performances here are the most ampliphied, they seem to get the meatiest moments in the film and they absolutely give their all throughout the film to really try and sell you on the horror of the situation. I think they all give tremendous physical performances (Particularly Smith, who constantly looks like he’s on the verge of an anurism) I very much enjoyed them.

The supporting cast do fine enough, but they just arnt quite as memorable or engaging. While I think it would be a compliment to say they reminded me of the supporting cast in ‘Friday the 13th’ the fact that I personally found them kind of just…there, and a bit dull. also didnt really help this films case.

BUT! tying this whole film together is an INCREDIBLY good soundtrack, largely all original compositions it only enhances the dreamy style of presentation with synthy plinky plonky moments combined with some quite nice minimal orchestral pieces. Its timed excellently to the events on screen, sounds amazing and I can understand why this films had multiple vinyl pressings and soundtrack releases in its time. I really liked it!

I absolutely understand why ‘Pieces’ is as well recieved as it is by wider horror audiences. It kind of has something for everyone, whether you after a more Giallo fueled time. Your up for some slasher-time gore, you want terrifying surrealism, or just a ultrea hardcore slice of 80s horror. Its a very versitile film that, while imperfect (in my opinion) does still manage to deliver a hell of a punch to the beans and rice. If you havent seen it before and you like the early proto-slasher era of horror cinema. You’ll probably feel more than at home with this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pieces/

The first film and centerpiece of the ‘Game of Clones’ boxset from Severin films. I had read about ‘The Clones of Bruce Lee’ and how it was supposed to be a non stop, crazy, over the top action punch and mind melt fest for a good 15 years, and after finally getting into a bit more of a functional groove, I decided to finally crack the set open and give it a whirl…I was…underwhelmed.

The plots fairly straight forward, It opens with Bruce Lee dying. while undergoing emergency surgery, he dies. Enter Colin (from the FBI!) ((Hes…always referred to as ‘Colin…From the FBI.’ So I guess thats just his name…ANYWAY! Colins working for the FBI! and hes got an important mission to do! working closely with mad scientist and Egg/Human ‘Fly’ hybrid ‘Professor Lawrence’ the pair are on a mission…a mission…to CLONE BRUCE LEE!

With full hospital authorisation, Professor Lawrence enters the operating room, takes a syringe full of Bruce Lees blood and clones himself 3 Bruce Lees using fancy cloning machines. Shortly after maturing them to the correct age, he uses a brain washing machine to mind control all three Bruce lie to only obey his commands. At which point, he takes them into intensive training where they learn to become masters *ALMOST* as great as Bruce himself…Before they’re handed over to Colin from the FBI for their greater purpose.

See; Colins big picture plan was to create an army of Bruce Lee clones to act essentially as FBI Operatives and assassins, travelling the globe taking out dangerous targets without pushback.

And from here? the film basically turns into a bit of an anthology, where we get a story of Bruce #1 taking down gold smugglers in Hong Kong, and Bruces 2 and 3 heading to Bangkok to fight the evil Professor Neigh whos developing a super serum capable of turning men into flexible, unbreakable BRONZE! But as with all Frankenstein tales, the creatures inevitably rebel, and here? that means a final act with three pissed off Bruce Lee clones all beating each other senseless before turning inevitably on their creator.

And…when I put it as above, I think you’d come away thinking that was a fairly insane 90 minutes…its not. its a fairly insane 20 minutes with about 70 minutes of extended kind of dull fight scenes, gratuitous and TOTALLY pointless nudity, and padding. The best way to sum this one up is that, had the padding been taken out, and the fight scenes trimmed down just a little bit more. This would have been a passibly fun 70-80 minute movie. But at 90 and change…it just tips it against my favour and below average.

The film itself has a great first act that is bonkers, fairly quick to set up the premise and really does deliver on the tagline. But around the 2nd act (when the Bruces start to get missions to run) it all comes a bit unstuck for me. As mentioned the pacing goes to the wall a bit with excessive padding. The producers seemed to think that a quick way to win crowd back when things REALLY got drearey was to just shove a load of totally naked women cavorting on a beach into the film…which, just…really didnt work. and Honestly? it brings the entire 2nd act RIGHT down to a drudge, right up until Dr. Neigh begins injecting folks with the syrum that turns them into flexible ‘Bronze’ fighters…then it just gets weird and semi interesting again.

But even THAT isnt enough to fully pull the film back, and after about 10 minutes with the bronze fighters, it all hurtles back to a crawl as extended fight scenes just eat the runtime completely. Leading to a 3rd act that had scope to be an explosive finale, as the Bruces turn on each other and everyone at Professor Lawrences compound…and they spaff it right up the wall by doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with the premise. You could have had the Bruces realising they’re illegal clones of the original and turning on the creator and his compound so that it can never happen again. You could have had the implies romantic moments between Lawrences female assistant and Bruce 2 ACTUALLY lead to something. You could have even just had a hudge explosive finale with the lab getting destroyed…

But no. theres 2-3 open air fights, some running around lab corridors, a laser murder scene thats literally blink and you’ll miss it, and then an abrupt ending with half the plot lines unresolved and no real sense of closure…It was dissapointing.

Adding that it really doesnt seem to know what to do with the tone, the fact they show ACTUAL footage from Bruce Lees ACTUAL open casket funeral, the fact that the Bruce clones get NO character development whatsoever across the runtime, the dialogue being ULTRA basic and not particularly interesting and the act sturcturing being messy and lopsided…and you’re basically left with a script thats just a handful of fun/weird ideas. Stapled to the most basic of martial arts pictures.

Same goes for the direction and cine, which both are fairly flat and lifeless. This is a film that considers multi coloured ‘disco lights’ to be the height of mise en scene. Theres very few instances of good depth of field, most of the film is just locked off tripod shots in mid wide and mid close. its the most basic of sequence building with an edit thats a little rough around the edges. The bluray remaster really has done wonders to bring this film back to life and it looks really nice…But that doesnt get away from the fact its overly basic and fairly drab to me.

Performances are…surprisingly kind of dull as well, which is all the more upsetting given the calibre of the cast. With the likes of Bollo Yeung, Dragon Lee, Bruce Le and Bruce Li. You’d think this would be a star studded tribute to the master…But its yawnworthy. With most of the cast really feeling like they’re phoning it in for the most part, and a big departure from their own seperate Brucesploitation successes.

The fight scenes are ultra basic in terms of choreography, they dont mask fake contact well. Scequences go on and on and on without any kind of shake up to the formula. the fights themselves arnt particularly intricate. and theres one…maybe two at a push, instances of weapon play in this one…If done well, even simple fight sequences can look impressive. But these were SO souless, and go on for SO long…You could basically go and grab a drink and a sandwhich while they were going on and you wouldnt miss a thing.

Though, one upshot was the soundtrack which was basically almost entirely stolen from sound libraries and hit films of the 70s such as ‘Rocky’, ‘Enter the Dragon’ and ‘The Warriors’. Which was something that definitely perked me up during this. They may not be particularly well used, sound like crap and be VERY badly edited in. But its nice to hear the greats again…

Throw in some mid to poor vocal performances on the english dub and ‘The Clones of Bruce Lee’ was kind of a letdown to me honestly. Promised a lot and delivered a fraction of what it could have. I really wish it had been a more solid offering. I’ll probably revisit this one in time just to check im sure my feelings above are correct. But this was no ‘The Dragon Lives Again’ for sure…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-clones-of-bruce-lee/

Enjoyed it so much on the first go around, I had to check out the ‘Rifftrax’ version over pizza with a friend. While I dont necessarily think the riffs made it any more interesting/better. It definitely brought its own flavour to proceedings and there were some genuinely funny riffs to be had. its kind of like having hard shell or soft shell tacos. Theres really no wrong answer here on which version you choose to watch…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/suburban-sasquatch/1/

When it comes to entertainingly bad movies of the 21st century, ‘Suburban Sasquatch’ is almost certainly going to make the list of ‘essential’ watches to show your friends, alongside the likes of ‘The Room’, ‘Birdemic’ and the UK cut of ‘Nutbag’ A film that, within 10 minutes of the opening credits, will give you everything you need to know (and more!) about this movie in terms of what your getting into.

The best way to describe this film is to say its essentially ‘What if a Bigfoot Horror movie had been directed by Godfrey Ho?’ Because what we essentially have here are two to three COMPLETELY different plotlines that have seemingly just been cut to and from, with about 5 minutes of additional footage overlapping these plotlines so that the film makers can say that its one big film. Only…the difference here is that the film makers DIDNT film 2-3 incomplete bigfoot movies and slam them together…the film just came out that way.

Plot 1 – The main plot, follows Rick, who is a struggling journalist in a rural town who wants to break into the big leagues and become a professional writer in the city. However, his local paper boss has had enough of that ‘big city’ dream, and wants Rick to just report on things that get sales, not on every random mystery that happens to pop up in town.

Ricks obsessed with a current local mystery in which multiple people are turning up dead with no explanation, and the mystery here is that the cops are seemingly trying to cover up just how many people have died and refusing journalists entry to the sights to report on whats happening. Luckily, Rick has a cop friend on the inside of the force who calls him ahead of visits to these crime scenes to give him time to get down there and report what he can find before the cops get too bedded in. But this in turn will lead to a revelation! Theres a Sasquatch in the woods! and he’s picking off the local residents like I pick off sweet and sour pork at an all you can eat!

Plot 2 follows the cops in the local town, chiefly John, who has taken on this Sasquatch case personally, due to the fact that some time ago, him and his wife had a first hand encounter with Bigfoot that led to tragic consiquences. As such, John has found himself seemingly bearing the full weight of bigfoot on his heart. And he’s decided that not only does he want revenge, he wants to make sure that he’s the one to ensure bigfoot never sets foot on their turf ever again. leading to…well, im not entirely sure what this all builds to, the cops plot seemingly fizzles out early on in the 3rd act…but im sure its exciting non the less!

And finally! Plot 3 which follows Talia, a young woman in a nondescript (though implied native american) tribe, that is about to begin her trial into being a peacekeeper for the tribe. Her grandfather teachers her everything she’ll need to know before going on her journey, and her trial begins at the start of the film when she awakens her spirit animal, a CGI hawk that gives strong ‘Birdemic’ vibes. Her trial? to hunt and kill bigfoot. Its revealed that Sasquatch are mythical beasts that feed on ‘soul energy’ basically killing and eating the flesh/drinking the blood of people gives them power and mystic abilities, such as the power to teleport, regenerative healing and; if enough power is consumed, essentially immortality and indestructability.

Talias tribes are guardians who kill Sasquatch before they get to the kind of power level where they’d be a problem, but unfortunatly for Talia THIS bigfoot has some kind of ‘never before seen’ mythic curse on it, that allows it to become much MUCH stronger than any other Sasquatch ever seen before. Once defeated, she will take her place in the guardians, travelling the world defeating Sasquatch and other creatures…But when Rick falls into her life while bumbling around looking for Bigfoot proof, she begins to question if her faith and planned journey, is really the correct one.

All these plotlines vaguely overlap, with Rick and Talia getting the biggest match up, but otherwise? they’re basically 3 self contained plots that partially touch across the 3 acts.

And, I dont know if im giving the film makers too much credit here, but I get the distinct feeling that ‘Suburban Sasquatch’ isnt so much a ‘so bad its good’ movie, and more a product where the film makers were aware of their limitations, and decided to simultaineously lean into it for their own amusement, while making the audience aware of this with some rather self aware dialogue choices.

Indeed, the films that came after this from the team were a bit higher quality and equally self aware. I dont feel like this is the same kind of camp as the ‘Polonia’ brothers or the films of ‘Dustin Ferguson’ where there is a level of incompitence, which inadvertently leads to humour. To me? this thing screams ‘Adult Swim, low budget but highly aware comedy horror’

For a starters, the script purposfully hits every single ‘bad movie’ trope its possible to get, from an awkward and distant to the point of alien romance piece, to the sasquatch making the same growl on a loop for the entire run of the film, to the purposfully dollar tree clearence bin halloween costumes, to the purposfully bizarre CG effects that I know are purposfully made worse by the film makers, because they show at multiple points that they can do SOME half decent motion tracking.

They’re repetative, but its a planned repetativeness that seems to give the ‘Stuart Lee’ effect, the biggest joke being how basically, if the police WERE covering up the Sasquatch murders, there wouldnt be anyone to cover up TO because Bigfoot basically murders half the town in this movie.

The act structuring is clunky and awkward, but it seems so more by design and less by incompitence. The dialogue was a bit of a tell for me, because there are quite a few passing lines that make you aware that the writers are a bit cleverer than your average low/no budget dudes with a camera shooting an 80 minute gore flick. Just little sarcastic one liners, small attempts at 4th wall breakings, moments where the characters basically say ‘I sure hope this doesnt happen!’ followed immediately by a hard cut to EXACTLY that happening, in the goofiest most over the top way possible.

And to be honest? its a joke that didnt get that old for me. the opening of the film with the Sasquatches first on screen attack hooked me in, and from there I spent most of the runtime grinning like an idiot at the DIY carnage unfolding on my TV, or trying to figure out if these film makers were actually compitent and doing it for the ‘Adult Swim’ factor, or if they just somehow managed to write funny, self aware and semi smart stuff accidentally…But for me? I think theres too many ‘accidents’ here to really say this whole film wasnt intentionally made this way.

Usually im against ‘intentionally bad’ movies. But thats generally because the attitude those films try to take is ‘it doesnt matter if its crap, people are paying us to be crap!’ which, im a firm subscriber of ‘Crap in, crap out’ and have yet to see someone make a film without caring what the end product looks like that appealed.

This film by contrast feels like organized chaos, there may have been some skill issues here and there, but I get the impression that a lot of this is much more curated than the average Asylum or Sterling offering.

Direction is chaotic, but distinct. It feels like friends messing about in the woods, because, thats basically what it is really. But as someone who messed around with a camera and friends in the woods multiple times in my teens and 20s, I felt an absolute sense of nostalgia for those days with this film. Dave Wascavage was writer AND director on this, which im sure helped cement the vision he wanted to put across here. Is it a pretty film? no. But could I easily identify Daves style here from stills alone? absolutely, its DIY design is clear and considered for the most part. It wont win any awards, but I really enjoyed seeing someone tackle the ‘rough and ready’ style in a way that was just shoving a camera on a tripod at midwide and letting the actors figure out the space.

Cast directions maybe a little lacklustre, if im going to knock it any points, there isnt consistency on the tone or style of the casts characters. Some of them basically are reading their lines off of cheat sheets just out of shot, others give the impression they’re in some kind of loony tunes cartoon. Again, im not 100% sure this wasnt by design, but it creates an unusually textured film that always sprung surprises on me and definitely left an impression.

The cine, as mentioned has a rough and ready quality to it that I really quite enjoyed, composition is a mess, the rules of filming are left at the door and we basically just get visually assaulted for 97 minutes. this film is the cinematic equivilent of ‘Nachos Grande’ messy, inconsistent, quick, cheap…but a DAMN delicious time non the less…Only enhanced by some BIZARRE editing which is a lesson in mistiming edits as an art. Shots linger for JUST too long or just too short, CONSTANTLY. Which was another thing that makes me believe it was by design. because the comedic timing of the cuts is too exemplary to have consistently been by accident.

Rounding it off we have a score that, surprisingly fits the tone perfectly, its horror synth strikes and action music. Perfect. its timed in consistently well, and used effectively. tying the entire film together into a oozing parcel of joy.

Somewhere between the live action footage from ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’, ‘Tim and Eric’ and ‘Garth Marenghis Darkplace’ lies ‘Suburban Sasquatch’ a salute to incompitence and an enjoyable one at that. One that I can absolutely understand why it has its cult audience and why professional riffers ‘Rifftrax’ picked it up not too long ago.

I had a really fun time with this one, i’d almost certainly recommend it, the ending may be a little underwhelming, but the journey is more than worth your time.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/suburban-sasquatch/

It must be at least a year or two since I last watched a ‘new’ Video Nasty for the first time. But tonight, I decided to break that streak by checking out a Nasty that, as of the time of writing STILL hasnt been given a re-release in the UK.

‘Fight for your Life’ was one of the initial 40 films that were used to define the type of film that could be considered a ‘Video Nasty’. But, out of all the nasties i’ve seen so far. I would argue that this one was a significantly milder entry.

The film DOES feature seriously strong racist rhetoric throughout, to a degree that I think would even make Tarantino blush, A brief scene of child abuse and an implied extended gang rape scene, I feel more than meets the criteria of the BBFCs ‘No violence towards children, or sexual violence towards women’ brief…some pretty decent (but spread out) gore sequences were likely the thing that really tipped this one over the edge.

The films plot is relatively straightforward, a police envoy containing 3 deadly murderers (Jessie, Geno and Chow) ends up in a collision with a thief attempting a getaway, forcing the police van off the road. The cops go to check on the prisoners, who promptly jump the cops, steal their guns and steal a pimps car in the space of a few minutes. While on their way to Canada to escape the law, they stop off at a gas station where they attempt a stick up to get some booze and cash to see them to the border.

But things dont quite go to plan, and they end up taking hostage the only witness to the robbery ‘Corrie’ the daughter of a minister called Ted. Now, at this point; its probably good to mention that Ted and the rest of the Turner family are a proud upstanding, hardcore christian black family, and Jessie is a racist redneck.

Corrie takes the gang back to the Turner household, where they shack up. hold the family hostage and attempt to break Teds ‘turn the other cheek’ mentality by increasingly and aggressively insulting the family and degrading them in ever increasingly violent ways. Meanwhile the cops are slowly in pursuit of the gang. Leading to a pressure cooker situation of what will give first, the gang in trying to lie low, the Turners in getting revenge, or the Cops in bringing them to justice.

And im not gonna lie, this one was a pretty open and shut case. I thought it was a solid enough little ‘home invasion’ thriller, with a slight blacksploitation edge that I appreciated.

I thought the script was simple, but effective, I liked the slow burn tension built up between the gang and the Turners. The pacing is just in that sweet spot where its giving you information quick enough to hold you, but slow enough to let your brain chew on it a bit. Theres some clean act structuring, most of the characters have a decent bit of backstory that helps to really flesh out the characters and world. The fact this films set at Halloween with absolutely NO mention of it being halloween anywhere in the film, but the sets being littered with skeletons and Jack ‘O lanterns was a nice thing.

I liked the tone, I liked the pacing, I liked the dialogue (for the most part) In fact, realistically I only had two issues with this film, and they kind of go hand in hand. One of which was the racist language. and more specifically how comfortable the film feels in using racist language. Jessie basically calls the Turners every possible racist name in the book, and its frankly relentless to the point that I began to feel less like this was a choice in production to really try and sell just how nasty Jessie was…and more a decision by the production to seize a once in a lifetime opportunity to drop the hard R as much as they could with some degree of immunity.

It gets to the point where I cant help but begin to wonder if the racism in this film is maybe sitting a little *too* comfortable with the people who wrote and directed it. In my opinion I hasten to add (I dont want a lawsuit)…Thing is, this film isnt really even trying to give the characters contrast, Jessies just shouting slurs and shooting folks…and the total ‘one note’-ness of it just left me kind of wondering what the film makers were really trying to say with his character…

NOT helped either by the fact that all the characters EXCEPT the Turner family (Ted omitted) get basically NO background. Ted gets a religious backstory to help justify his actions later in the film. But Louise? Well…her character is she’s Teds wife…thats about it, the grandma? nothing. Corrie? she gets nothign till the third act, and then gets given ‘traumatised’…and thats it. Everyone else gets a history, a life before, during and after this film. But the racist language coupled with the fact that the folks we’re supposed to be rooting for in this film having LITERALLY no back story or character shaping barring whats shown on screen. kind of makes me want to lean towards the film not *entirely* acting in good faith.

Beyond that however, its all pretty straightforward. I thought the direction and cine were rock solid with some decent scene structuring and even firmer cast direction, I thought sequences were well shot, utilized colour well and really helped amp up the tension. Given this was the second (and last) film made by the director, and only the second ever film written by Straw Weisman (of ‘Bikini Model Academy’ fame) Im honestly stunned this thing came out looking and feeling as good as it did. it shows WAY more than tells and it does so very effectively. I honestly had very little to complain about, other than some moments in the edit (which im not sure if they’re authoring errors or ACTUAL editing issues) where the film seems to judder, slow down and speed up unnaturally. there are some moments in this film where they go full ‘Benny Hill’ mode for ABSOLUTELY no reason which was quite jarring, and I still havent quite figured out why they did what they did.

The performances are stunning with Robert Judd and William Sanderson stealing the show as Ted and Jessie, they give realistic and lively performances, and the films subtext showing Jessie to in fact be incredibly jealous that Ted managed to have the life he wishes he had is played beautiofully with some real pathos. which again, is surprising given how early into the careers of all involved this film is.

The rest of the cast are all more or less to standard, theres no inherently ‘bad’ performances here. I honestly enjoyed everyone, and felt like, even if the script let them down a bit, they made sure to make up for it with a HELL of a performance.

Add in a funky soul-sensation of a soundtrack that slots into this film like a hand in a glove. and honestly? I found very little to dislike on this one. And im still really quite surprised its still banned in the UK, with no release on the horizon. This isnt a mindblowing movie by any measure…But its a solid thriller with action elements that absolutely held my attention for the full 86 minute runtime, its one i’d absolutely recommend. and it’s likely to go into rotation on my shelf imminantly! check it out!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/fight-for-your-life/

The first in the ‘Hoen’ era of Pokemon movies ‘Pokemon Heroes’ ditches the numerical titling and tries to shake things up a bit over the previous movies with…mixed results I think its fair to say.

For this entry they decide to essentially trial something i’ve said they really should have been doing from the start, which is telling a story they *could* tell in the anime series with limitations. But giving it a filmic budget and attention to really help get the absolute best out of it. And while I think they’ve largely achieved that brief here, its just a shame they chose the plotline they did here.

So the entire film is set on the island village of ‘Alto Mare’ and its estbalished that, according to island folk law, long ago a devestating event rained down destruction on the island and flooded the island. In a time of crisis it was foretold that two young boys, desperate to protect their family and their island home, were transformed into the mythical pokemon Latias and Latios. And together, they were able to save the day, with one of the boys being sacrified and its power effectively reincarnated into a magical orb that was hidden for safe keeping.

Cut to the present day and Ash, Brock and Misty are all taking a bit of a break in Alto ahead of their first steps into the Hoen region. Ash and Misty choose to take part in a Pokemon ‘Surf’ race, but while the race is on. Latias appears and takes a shine to Ash, helping him almost win the race, before transforming into a young girl and running off.

While all of this is going on, its also revealed that Giovanni is once again back on the scene and has sent special agents: ‘Annie’ and ‘Oakley’ to attempt to capture both Latias AND Latios AND to find and collect the magic orb to reactivate a defense device the citizens of Alto created centuries ago, should an evil presence ever return.

When ‘Annie’ and ‘Oakly’ realise that Latias is running around Alto disguised as a girl, they track her down and are about ready to capture her when Ash spots them, fends them off and gets Latias to safety. Its here that he meets Lorenzo and Bianca, Lorenzo works at a kind of museum/historic building housing the defense device and remnants of that fateful day in the history of Alto…And Bianca is his Assistant? Daughter? random Arty person he knows? Who knows…in either case both of them look after both Latias and Latios in secret and Latias has taken to transforming into Bianca because it likes her.

and…the rest of the movie could best be summed up as Annie and Oakly trying to get SOME kind of a foothold on their plan to capture the pair of mythic pokemon OR find the orb. And Ash and co learning more about Altos history and trying their best to protect Lorenzo and co to avoid the Defense weapon from falling into the wrong hands…Oh…and Team Rocket are in this and…seemingly have fallen back into the place they were in ‘Pokemon 3’ where they’re in the film…but thats about it.

And probably the biggest gripe I have with this film is its script sadly, while I think this would have been a great 2 parter in the anime, here it feels like the kind of plot thats best enjoyed as two 25 minute TV episodes with a cliffhanger, rather than one LONG hour and 10 minute feature. that 20 minutes uninterrupted may not seem like a lot, but the first act offers SO so much, before the 2nd and 3rd act kind of slup into what effectively amounts to a runaround. and not a particularly engaging one.

While the film DOES end with at least a couple of twists and turns I didnt fully expect, and it ends about as solidly as these films can end. the slump sucks SO much life out of this production. Its also one of the first Pokemon films i’ve watched that seems a bit uncertain of the tone to take. It clearly WANTS to tell a darker more serious story, but because this is a child friendly franchise and because the series seems at this point to want to do a little bit of a ‘reset button’ to try and appeal to a younger audience (bearing in mind that the 10 year olds who got into pokemon in 1997/1998 when it hit the west, would now have been 16 possibly 17 by the time this film landed in the US/EU in 2004.) we end up with a kind of dark story, being told with kid gloves…Sometimes that can work, but here it results in a film that feels like it lacks commitment to either lane, being a bit too overbasic in places for the older pokemon crowd to really want to fully get into it, but at the same time being a bit TOO complicated for this younger audience to really want to stick around all that long.

There’s also a bit of a crowded cast list here, its been bad in the other Pokemon movies, with usually either Team Rocket or Brock and Misty getting essentially forgotten about barring an occasional check in…But here, barring the opening race sequence, Brock, Misty AND Team Rocket are all basically totally forgotten, barring one or two moments where they write them in, not to add to the plot, but simply to tell the audience that the writers havent COMPLETELY forgotten about them.

Throw in a wobbly act structure, and while this script is by NO means the worst one to make it to a ‘Pokemon Movie’. Its probably the shakiest one i’ve seen since ‘Pokemon 2000’.

Other than that though, its pretty solid all round, the visuals for this entry have gotten a HUGE upgrade, rather than trying to portray grand and sweeping locations, this film revels in really getting the audience into every side ally and market square in Alto. and theres an almost quasi ‘Studio Ghibli’ feel to some of these street settings. It looks cheaper than ‘Ghibli’ obviously, but its still really nice to see after a near half a dozen films of eithe vast unbroken forests and canyons and not much else, or experiments from H.R Geigers back catalogue.

They’ve also toned back the CG usage as well, or rather, the technology has caught up enough that marrying up CG with hand drawn or semi digital animation no longer looks totally hideous and actually kind of blends in quite nicely. This is probably the prettiest looking Pokemon movie of the series thus far and I feel that the director really gave me what I want out of a filmic Pokemon story. ground level views of the towns and cities and the pokemon that inhabit it.

The performances are solid enough, nothing noteworthy as being good or awful, they’re all about as solid as they usually are. The score seems much happier to use beefed up versions of music from the anime series, which Im happier with truthfully, with only 1 or 2 pop songs reminding me that this is the early 2000s and pop is still ruling the roost.

Overall, Eh…I think if push came to shove i’d narrowly choose this one over ‘Pokemon 4 Ever’ But this is a fairly pedestrian feature where I got more enjoyment watching the detail of the location animations and all the small things like villagers running around or working. Than the actual plotline which I feel was holding back on what it really wanted to show.

If your into Pokemon and looking for the better entries, this one is fine enough. But I absolutely wouldnt say it was essential.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pokemon-heroes/

Another day, another Pikachu short. And arguably this one’s the most incoherent to date.

For a starters, there’s no setup for this one. Ash Misty and Brock are just…missing seemingly. And for some reason (fanservice) the Pichu brothers are back! They’re riding a train for some reason when they accidentally fall off and into the surrounding woodland. Where they meet our regular pokemon hero’s who…for SOME reason are just chilling in the middle of LITERALLY nowhere.

The gang decide to help the Pichu brothers catch another train to help them reach their destination, and with the help of a comically strange Wynaut, a Vulbeat and a Duskull, the gang will cross land, river and sky to get the brothers back on track!

Right from the top the title ‘Camp Pilachu’ really doesn’t suit this short. I hear that title, and I’m thinking maybe the guys go to a special pokemon camp and have a fun weekend doing camp activities. But this quite literally is just the gang wandering in the woods for 20 minutes in an *admittedly* cute and charming kind of way…but that’s about it.

It’s nice to see that by the first ‘Hoen’ film in the franchise they’ve finally managed to make the makeup of the team predominantly Johto sourced. But I have to find it funny that they only got to that point AFTER the Johto movies had formally ended…

As for the new Hoen editions. Wynaut is a fun character, but I got nothing out of Vulbeat or Duskull…

Once again Meowth and Wobbuffet seemingly do absolutely NOTHING here and are once again, completely underused leading to another wasted opportunity.

I think the animation is arguably some of the best since the first Pichu brothers short…but that isn’t really saying anything given that was only 1 or 2 shorts ago…its nice, colourful, vibrant and engaging. But it feels like they’ve toned things down across the board to the point that these are now only for the very youngest children…

The soundtracks quite the improvement over the last film though…even if ‘country Jamboree’ vibes feel a bit off for me personally.

In some ways, this film just maintains the line of quality from the last short, in others it underperforms. But I think by a hairs breadth I prefer this to the last one. It may be less complex and even more basic. But I think it does a great job of being a palette cleanser ahead of the main event!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/camp-pikachu/

This movie was very kindly sent to me by a viewer of my youtube channel, which, given we live in totally different countries is a HELL of a kind gesture…Well, I say a ‘Kind’ gesture…it’s ‘Trump Vs The Illuminati’…im not sure if its kind of them, or the beginning of a new amendment to the geneva convention…we’ll likely sort it out via the courts…

Anyway; im going to review this one much more in depth on my youtube channel in future. But a quick overview finds us in 3044, at some point 1000 years prior THE ‘Donald Trump’ inadvertently started a nuclear conflict that just so happened to coincide with an AI uprising.

during this time, the nuclear war wipes out most of humanity, and the sentient AI machines harvest the earth of all its natural resources leaving the planet picked clean…HOWEVER! just before the nuclear conflict properly kicked off a lab grown clone of Donald Trump based in China escapes its holding facility and SOMEHOW commandeers a spaceship, managing to escape the planet just before the nuclear armageddon. I dont know HOW he knows how to fly a spaceship, but you’ll find with this film that a LOT of the runtime is filled with ‘how does he/she know that’? so its easier to just let it keep on whatever momentum its working with…

Anyway, The Trump Clone crashes his spaceship on Mars, and somehow manages to merge his conciousness with AI machines that essentially render him immortal. He spends the next 1000 years on Mars until 3044, when an alien race approach the clone Trump (who either has an imaginary friend called ‘The Major’ or has an ACTUAL friend called ‘The Major’ who he will abandon shortly. The aliens warn the clone of a terrible future in which the illuminati (led by the conciousness of Alistaire Crowley ressurected into the body of an alien…for some reason…) form a galactic army and wipe out the universe.

Clone Trump doesnt care about ANY of that, and refuses to help. But when Crowley and his cronies turn up and attempt an assassination, thats only foiled when the good aliens beam Trump aboard their ship and give him a cruiser of his own. Clone Trump eventually learns that his destiny as saviour of the universe is inevitable, and so he heads out to Dubai, where the entry portal to Hell is located, so that he can fight Lucifer to the death, to destroy the illuminati and restore order to the universe…Oh! and he’s assisted in this by a Han Solo/Chewbacca style pairing of either a clone or descendent of ‘Van Helsing’ and ‘Bigfoot’…

I felt like I was having a stroke at multiple points while watching this. I see a lot of movies that dont ‘feel’ like real movies, but most of them just look a bit cheap and have a basic story. But this is the first film i’ve seen in a while that doesnt even ‘feel’ like a movie, it feels like something that would have appeared in an episode of ‘Tim and Eric Awesome show’ back in the 2000s as a scathing work of satire.

Halfway through watching this, I wondered what the audience reaction would have been had I sent this film back in time, with no context, to viewers in 1995. And I can only liken the response to be similar to that old meme about giving a medieval peasent a dorito.

The scripts the base ramblings of a mad man, theres nothing more to it, its just pseudo philosophical ‘bullshit’ mixed in with overt references to Trumps first time in office wrapped up in a bizarre plot of intergalactic warfare, that BARELY features ANY actual intergalactic warfare…

The pacings ice-bergian CRAWLING to the endzone at 69 minutes, it feels like it goes on for over 2 hours. and its BIZARRE choice to spend the majority of the runtime essentially running a ‘What If?’ around the idea that Clone Trump, under different circumstances could have been some kind of martyr figure, I feel even in 2020 was kind of poor taste, and in 2025 is just downright demented.

Essentially the majority of this movie is watching a spacesuit avatar travel from one location to another, pontificating about what makes us who we are, the meaning of life, and the occasional ‘grab’em by the pussy’ reference…

The characters all feel like they just popped out of a beginners ‘Warhammer’ Campaign. the dialogue is frankly painful and delivered by ACTUAL voice actors in such a way that im STILL not 100% certain they didnt do voice cloning and Text to speech at some points in this movie…

And to add insult to injury, the film doesnt even really fully resolve. It solves one plotline that kind of becomes irrelevent just before the end. Then about 7 minutes off the end, they cram in a dozen characters we’ve NEVER seen before up to this point, set up some random new threat and then they just…drop it. Literally they dump all that on the audience, then hard cut to credits…with seemingly no follow up planned and no ACTUAL resolution given. the film just..stops.

The direction is sparking off in every possible direction it can go off in, it lacks focus and vision, and…you wouldnt know it from the poster or DVD cover. But this is almost 100% CGI, and to be more specific, it looks VERY similar in places to PS3 era ‘Fallout 3’, ‘Mass Effect’ with a little bit of Halo thrown in for good measure. the models animate only SLIGHTLY more than a ‘T’ pose, they show locations with no characters in them frequently so they dont have to animate characters mouth movements. The Trump clone character is in a spcaesuit for 90% of the runtime, its mouth doesnt move at ALL when we can look through the visor, and the characters who DO get mouth movements? NOT ONE LINE matches the movements of the mouth.

The art style feels generic, almost like something from an out of the box animations studio piece of software, and because so MANY characters are using generic Alien models here, I assumed it meant they didnt have any additional models to cover other characters…an example being Lucifer and Alistaire Crowley here are both represented by generic alien models…but THEN literal MINUTES off the end. they show both a human animation model AND a ‘Satan’ animation model…SO WHY ARE ALL THESE CHARACTERS JUST COPY PASTED ALIEN MODELS?!?

The editing is atrocious, the score, generic and ill fitting. If it wasnt a weekday where I have work in the morning, i’d be drinking by now…ABSOLUTE waste of time…Dont bother, the fact its at least VAGUELY self aware was JUST enough to pull it back from the absolute pits. But it is TEETERING. AVOID.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/trump-vs-the-illuminati/

The first ‘OCOS’ That I caught live as it went out, and it left a HELL of an impression, from Greggs mobile VFA car, to the twist ending I did NOT see coming. this oscar special was wild in just the right way, and ensured that I didnt miss a special go out live again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-7th-annual-live-on-cinema-oscar-special/

Arguably one of the high water marks for the OCOS’s its a solid night of chaos BUT! adding a twist to proceedings, the entire nights events unfolded between two different streams. I know some people were annoyed by that, but for me I found it a fascinating use of mixed media and a GREAT way to drip feed in hidden lore and details to the series without overtly doing so. the Gregg feed was a definite favourite, and I still remember the thrill of watching folks flick between the two looking for clues and behind the scenes gossip.

It was a great night that balanced comedy and tragedy perfectly once again, and one that I had a real soft spot for.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-8th-annual-live-on-cinema-oscar-special/