Something of a return to form, “Oh, God! You Devil” is the third and final entry in the ‘Oh,God!’ trilogy and honestly, I kind of wish this series had just been a two film deal. Because what we have here doesnt surpass or even really match the first film in terms of themes, tone and humour. But it does at least try to do something quite different and I feel it mostly succeeds in what it sets out to do.

The film follows a struggling musicianBobby Shelton and his partner who are desperately trying to make ends meet while also trying to start a family. George Burns returns in a duel role as God and The Devil (known here as Harry Topher) Topher makes a deal with Bobby that in exchange for his soul, he’ll make him successful and famous beyond his wildest dreams. Bobby accepts and is instantly transformed into global rock mega star Billy Wayne, But Bobby realises that getting everything you want isnt always what you NEED and ultimately, He resorts to trying to find God to help sort things out.

The script for this is a nice change of pace over the previous two entries. We get a lot more George Burns, but we spend more time with him as Topher than we do as God. Same schtick, oppostie side of the fence, and that works for me!

The actual plot is a little less than steller. I appreciate they want to just, get to the main thrust of the action. But Bobby needed almost ZERO convincing that the actual Devil wants to help him, which did come across as a little bit unbelieveable, in essence this just borrows elements of ‘Its a wonderful life’ and pads it out with live performances and religion to help get it to the end zone.

Its not great, it’s not awful, and there was absolutely scope for this film to do more with what it established. but Im a firm believer in the old addage ‘You can have an original idea, but it needn’t be YOUR original idea’ and I think they handle the elemtns they ‘liberated’ from other movies rather well.

I dont think the script is anywhere near as charming, interesting or charismatic as the other two films. But it makes up for that with a bit of the boost on the humour front and a decent enough 3rd act that ties everything up satisfactorily.

The dialogues nowhere near as sharp as the other two movies, but again. It just about does the job and it was nice to see after the absolute onslaught of corporate images in the 2nd movie, that this thing is light on the product placement and a bit freer to discuss its subject. Though even at this point, I lament the loss of a more nuanced take on god as an abstract concept. at this point, they’re almost exclusively referring to a christian/jewish God and thats about it.

The direction is a definite improvement over the 2nd film, feeling a lot more nimble and competent. it feels like everyone involved had finally gotten into the groove of what these movies were about and the end result is an actually fairly above competent little feature that did surpass my expectations. Even the cast direction seems to be improved over the previous film as we shift away from stuffy tense office and city hall scenes with elongated discussions on whether our leading guy or gal is crazy, and instead we focus more on just giving the cast the space and tools they need to work with there set spaces creatively, and full credit to Ted Wass, as a leading man who pretty much has to carry the film for most of the 90 minutes, he really brings as much as he can to the role, and the director was clearly keen to work with that energy.

The cine is probably the best of all three of these movies, we decent creative lighting setups for most of the films runtime combined with wonderful attempts at playing with colour (Red and White are prominent throughout giving that nice subliminal ‘Heaven and Hell’ tonal check) shots are decently composed and blocked, theres a decent amount of B-roll to help keep sequences fresh, the edit is sweet as a nut and the end sequence features George Burns playing both God and the Devil in the same scene in one of the best uses of overlay/split film processing that i’ve seen in all of cinema. for an effect handled with NO CGI, I was honestly blown away.

The performances aaaaare a little on the shakey side, Ted Wass definitely has the energy and willing to try and bring his best to this and largely succeeds, but there were a few moments where this thing went a little too cheesy/schmaltzy for my taste leading to some overly hammy lines that wernt worth writing home about.

George Burns still delights, but of his two performances here I think I still prefer him as God. His turn as Topher isnt bad by any stretch, I just dont think Burns can play a villain that effectively. he’s too cuddly! But! When he’s on screen, I was having a good time, so I cant complain.

The rest of the cast just about hold the fort, broadly speaking it’s a definite quality improvement over ‘Book II’ but it’s still not quite as consistent as the original and a lot of the time, most of the cast felt like avatars. Just there to kind of assist in plot progression in the form of the odd stray line or there to fill space and not much else. Noone jumped out at me, non of them really defined themselves…they were fine…but thats about it.

All in all? While hardly an original concept for a sequel, I think they handled this one reasonably well. If you enjoyed the first one, my advice would be skip 2 and go straight into this. I dont think it’s quite as ‘Family Friendly’ as the other two entries (definitely NOT one to get the grandparents and the kids in for…) But I enjoyed it enough and would probably watch it again.

Oh! and because I wanna be helpful (and mild spoilers) if you havent seen this film before DO watch outif your sensitive to anything involving Overdoses or Suicide. because there IS some dealing with that stuff later on in this movie and it caught me off guard. As someone who knows people who do get triggered by that stuff, Im glad I watched this one solo.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/oh-god-you-devil/

The sequel to ‘Oh,God!’ struck me as a bit of an unnecessary addition. The first film ended quite succinctly and it very much felt like the joke had run its course by the end. So, while im kind of happy that ‘Oh, God! Book II’ DOES manage to do some things quite well. It fundamentally isnt as good as the original and feels quite stunted on almost all fronts by comparison.

For a starters the plot is more or less a re-run of the first film, but with a bit more of a ‘Miracle on 34th street’ slant, as we follow a young girl called Tracy who’s been chosen by God to carry the message forward and, using her knowledge of advertising due to her fathers work. She starts the ‘Think God’ campaign, which ultimately ends up with her being expelled from school and running the risk of being comitted.

From the off, this film feels a lot less nuanced than the first film, the idea of God as a kind of all encompassing abstract concept is more of a lip service point here, because running just beneath the surface its clear this has a much broader christian slant to it than the previous movie. Its also immediately apparent that the success of the first film has meant the execs behind this film have put a much tighter grip on this thing, neutralising a lot of the more subtle elements established in the first film and opening the doors to a much more AD friendly slant on the series, With NBC and Mcdonalds getting their claws into this thing nice and tight.

In fact, thats pretty much what this film is, a remake of the first film, but from a much more commercially friendly angle. The film pretty much disregards the first movie and it’s attacks on false preachers, religious diversity and a falible god in favour of giving us a much more sickly sweet and tacticle picture aimed at making money over anything else.

George Burns isnt in this film nearly as much as he was in the first film, and his place we instead get an elongated story of a little girl with divorced parents who manages to start a pro god movement at her school that hits every stereotypical trope going ending in an almost shot for shot remake of the end of the first movie and a slushy sickly ending stapled on. The cynic in me feels compelled to note that I think they realised the first film drew in a lot of grandparents, so they went with the kid angle to try and cement that audience, I feel unsuccessfully.

The pacings not bad on this thing, it has a clean 3 acts that transition nicely, but everything in the script for this thing feels like its been dumbed down a level, there isnt as much theistic discussion, the philosophy angles are thrown out the window, and theres nothing really meaty here for the cast to get into. We’re basically just left with a fairly middle of the road experience thats still watchable and does have several enjoyable moments. But just felt like a bit of a comedown after the first movie.

It also doesnt follow the continuity from the first movie all that closely, and there are points in the plot for this thing where it asks me to suspend my disbelief a *little* too hard. the idea of the entire world uniting under a slogan like ‘Think God’ especially in an age without the internet and ESPECIALLY in what is effectively a 2-3 week IN WORLD window…yeahhh it’s asking a bit much there.

The direction is of standard, but I dont feel is quite as strong as the first film, the first film was ‘of standard’ but didnt really experiement, this films ‘of standard’ buck back sliding into irrelevence. I also feel the cast direction isnt as strong here as the original, theres a lack of vibrance and animation within the cast that the first film had. The first felt almost like a bit of a tongue in cheek look at the real world, this feels much more grounded and as such all the ‘godly’ shenanigans that took the first film over the edge into a fun and lighthearted place, just kind of feel a bit weird and out of place here.

The cine does get a bit of a boost however! theres some more interesting visual effects for transitions now which is a BIG boost over the effects of the first film, the compositions feel a bit more cinematic and this is absolutely a more colourful picture all things considered. But it feels, for lack of a better word, a bit less personal. The Carl Reiner original felt like it had a little bit of Reiner’s DNA embedded into the shot types, sequences building, script and scenes. Here it feels a bit colder by comparison. Less like theres a unified voice behind it and more like it’s a property thats being worked on. which is a bit of a shame.

Performances are a bit of a mixed bag too, George Burns still delights whenever he turns up, but I feel both like he has less to say here of interest, less comedy to work with and just genereally it doesnt feel like he’s on screen as much. Which is a real shame as he’s easily the best part of the first film. While I wont talk about our leading lady for this feature in too much detail (I try to avoid critiquing child actors where possible) I think she did fine enough and brought a lot of character to the role. Though, I do have reservations about them making the main character a child here. The reason why John Denvers character worked so well in the first film was that he was a non believing, but smart adult who needed convincing. That was part of the fun. That even when his character WAS finally won over by Gods existence, he still didnt well and truely believe.

Here, they just introduce George Burns as god, he does a couple of parlour tricks and Tracy becomes a devout believer. it pretty much kills any kind of depth the performance could have had right out of the gate. The supporting cast also do alright, but again, broadly speaking, it feels like a step down from the first movie. the cast here are to push the narrative forward for the main cast and nothing else, whereas the first film not only did that, but made the characters feel like they were somewhat deeper than plot progression pawns.

The sountracks also largely recycled from the first movie, and it just occured to me that the theme for this series sounds eerily familiar to the score for ‘Theater of Blood’…So…now when I think fo this film, i’ll also be thinking about Vincent price.

Ultimately…Eh…If the first film was one i’d happily put on with my entire family for a good time, this ones one that i’d put on, watch for 20 minutes then dip in and out of. Its a grandparent movie. the kind of ‘nice enough’, inoffensive fluff piece that someone can half watch and come away with a smile. But if you ACTUALLY sit and watch the whole thing with any kind of awareness of the first film and an analytical mind. I think you’ll start to wander a bit by the halfway point. Fun. But imperfect.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/oh-god-book-ii/

Well chalk me down as ‘Pleasently surprised’ I was NOT expecting 1977’s ‘Oh, God!’ to be anywhere near as enjoyable as it actually turned out to be! I first heard of the ‘Oh, God!’ series through Film Buff and owner of the VFA Gregg ‘The REAL Mr. Movies’ Turkington, and I fully expected these films to be a laughably poor offering that would have earned a place in being sarcastically ‘pumped up’

But y’know what? At least with the first entry, I actually kind of had a pretty good time with this thing. I think it’s important to set expectations right from the off, this absolutely ISNT a ‘Zucker Brothers’ laugh a second gag fest, and I think if you have some religious background (my grandparents have run churches in their time) you’ll probably get more out of it than someone whos had a fully agnostic/atheistic upbringing.

But to me? What we have here is a decently written, well paced ‘light entertainment’ movie in almost every sense of the word. Its a film that couldnt really be done these days as the christsploitation genre has made the entire endeavour much too serious and ‘Pias’…In fact, this movie itself references the direction that ‘faith’ is heading in by quoting Voltaire “God is a comedian playing to an audience who’s afraid to laugh” and I think thats very true…but im getting away from myself here.

The script is pretty zippy, well paced, it has a decent three act structure, its got a wonderful tone that, as mentioned is the GENTLEST of light entertainment riffing on religion. I think the thing I like most about this script is just how open minded it is really to the subject of God. As in; they make it clear that this version of ‘God’ is not a christian god anymore than he’s a buddhist or muslim God. he doesnt claim really to be anything other than ‘God’ and even when pressed, the best this movie comes to pinning him down is that he exists in any form, shape or sound that is presented through the thoughtfulness of human action. Not to get too philosophical for what is basically a cheesy late 70s poke at religion. But I think that was the smartest thing they could have done, as it stops the writers from getting bogged down with specific biblical/religious scripture. It opens the film up to a wider audience and it means it’s free to play around with the idea of ‘A God’

Thats another thing I quite like about this thing, it’s not approaching it’s subject from a ‘You MUST believe’ standpoint, frankly; the God in this movie seems almost as surprised to be there as John Denvers character is to see him. it doesnt approach itself from the persepctive that there absolutely HAS to be a god. In fact most of our characters involved are atheist or agnostic and the tone of the film makes it clear that thats totally fine becuase it’s treating God here less as a physical living beardy being in the sky and more as an abstract concept. The concept of God as some kind of goodwill mechanism. I am ABSOLUTELY certain the film makers didnt think too deeply about all this. But I find it honestly quite refreshing that they’re SO hands off on the ‘Get thee behind me’ stuff.

This is the kind of movie I could easily see my grandparents watching and laughing along with, without getting too uptight. The dialogues charismatic, playful and fun. Its a family movie at heart. The kind of film someone whos a bit uptight would consider ‘Risque’ but the kind of film that your average Joe could easily have on in the background and get on with fine.

The direction and cine are consistent, technically on the level, vivid, colourful and bright. I dont think this film exactly pushes any boundaries, but then, it isnt really aiming to?..or at least…I think if you’re coming to this film EXPECTING something thats going to push the bar of cinematic and directoral quality…you’re maybe at the wrong movie.

Carl Reiner has delivered here just a really well shot and managed experience, with compositional choices that wont exactly WOW, but are rock solid and well packaged within their sequences. At this point though I will flag up that the editing is a little rough around the edges…whether thats a result of a 46 year old movie, or whether it was a little loose at the time I cant honestly say, but there are a few times when ‘God’ makes things dissapear on screen that are a bit too jumpy for me and a couple of cuts I spotted withing the sequences that didnt line up quite right, resulting in a cut too early or just too late.

Contrasting that though I do have to say there were at least a couple of moments where they did transitionary cuts that really did impress me. Of note a moment when John Denvers character is about to walk on to a daytime talk show, he opens a door and they match cut him walking through the door to a new scene where its a week later and he’s just got home to watch the recorded show with his family. That was a nice touch.

Performance wise, If there is a god, I kind of hope he is George Burns. WHAT a performance this guy gives here. bringing a nice almost vaudvillian turn to the character who’s a little grouchy, charismatic, and seems fairly to the point whenever he’s on screen. Theres the gentlest sense of a ‘troublemaker’ running under his performance, and I think thats the key to making this whole thing work as well as it does.

Credit also has to go to John Denver, who plays honest grocery store manager Jerry Landers with a wonderful naturalism. I love that it takes him a minute to get on board with the idea of a higher being. and I like as well that his character isnt pontificating across the runtime. it would be so easy to play this role with a degree of pomposity. to turn this more into a ‘Oh you fools have no IDEA!’ type role. But Denvers sincerity shines through across the runtime as a guy who GENUINELY has no idea whats going on, is completely open to the idea that he’s just gone mad, and even at the end of the movie. He doesnt claim to be a ‘believer’ rather he only accepts whats happened because he cant disprove it. I think he gives a really solid (if not VERY cheesy) performance and I enjoyed it.

All in all, this isnt a masterpiece. it’s an ultra cheesy, super relaxed ‘comfort film’ in all honesty. Its the comfy socks and mash potatos of movies, suitable for pretty much anyone apart from the most uptightest of folks, I was expecting a bomb and got a candy bar instead, I could absolutely see myself catching this thing again when I just want something gentle thats cute and could raise a smile and a little chuckle. And in many ways, thats all I really want from a movie.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/oh-god/

Watched on Saturday April 8, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/halloween-1978/1/

If you ever meet someone who’s never seen an 80s horror movie of ANY descritpion, and they’re interested in getting into that decade of film making. This. is the film to break out.

Not because it’s in any way GOOD you understand. Oh no, quite the opposite. ‘Spookies’ is quite possibly the most generically 80’s horror movie i’ve ever seen. In a decade that saw dozens of ‘Supernatural Haunted house’ movies, ‘Spookies’ holds the rather fascinating honour of being the ‘true neutral’ of the genre. It’s nowhere near funny enough to rival the likes of ‘House’, it’s not cookie enough to take on something like ‘Ghoulies’ and it’s not graphic enough to thrash ‘Night of the Demons’.

What we have here is an ultra generic ‘People run around a haunted house being chased by weird spirits and periodically being picked off while some kind of ‘chessmaster’ has a bigger plan at play’ for 85 minutes. It doesnt have an original bone in it’s body, it has the occasional moment of puppet based suspense. But even thats fairly mediocre when analysed.

Technically its on the level, the direction is about standard for this period of low to mid budget monster movie making, the cine is just about ‘to standard’ they utilise some interesting colour work here and it’s nice to see puppets and prosthetics out in force throughout, but they’re just…WAY too generic in terms of design and execution. The zombies here look no different to ANY zombie design that came about after ‘Dawn of the dead’ and the puppets arnt even ‘Ghoulies’ standard (and I didnt even really care much for ‘Ghoulies’ so what kind of a damning inditement is that!?)

The script opens with moderate interest before settling into a pace about 10 minutes in, that it doesnt shake off until 5 minutes off the end. Seriously the whole thing is one note for the VAST majority of the runtime. it never really ramps up, or cools down in terms of what it wants our characters to do, and its BEYOND frustrating to know almost immediatley how the whole things going to go down, and then have it confirmed in real time.

The dialogues shocking as well, its just so middle of the road, theres no REAL swearing, no interesting conversations, no character development really, the motives of our main villain are laid out from minute one and after that they just repeat it over and over again until the end credits.

Our cast basically spend 20% of the movie saying some variation of ‘We’re lost’ or ‘How do we get home?’ and 80% of the movie being trapped in a house saying “We gotta get out of this KERRAZZZY HOUSE!” it gets old quick and non of the characters are even all that likeable or memorable. Even the ones who drive the main plot are just…SO vanilla…its obscene…it really is.

In fact, the only thing I kind of enjoyed in this movie, that DID surprise me was the scoring. Which was actually somewhere half decent. a bit above the standard low/mid fodder i’ve seen in my time. it actually had a bit of an identity about it. It’s just a shame it’s tied to a movie that, if it were a person would think that onion powder was ‘too spicy’

I would absolutely suggest showing this film to people who’re either completely new to 80s horror, or have maybe seen some of the mainstream hits (your ‘Freddys and ‘Jasons’) Because it doesnt set an unrealistic expectation for the genre. It’s good enough that they’ll get a feel for what 80s horror is all about, but it’s not SO good that everything that comes after it will pail in comparison. This is JUST, by a hairs BREADTH, acceptable to me as a movie. it’s something I could put on in the background and just actively not pay attention to it and feel okay about that.

If you’re a die hard 80s horror enthusiast you’ll probably really like this thing, if your more broadly into horror and keep seeing this film pop up in lists every so often of films to check out. You can honestly give this a swerve, it’s definitely ‘okay’ but ABSOLUTELY not ‘Essential’.

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

A fun enough little short that’s available on youtube and the Scream factory bluray release of ‘Sleepaway Camp’ the film follows Judy as she takes on a border vigilante role, taking revenge on a deadbeat abusive father and his mistress who are making a lot of people’s lives hell.

There’s not a whole lot to say on this one, despite being made in 2014 it looks like something that would have come from the mid 2000s, it’s low/no budget, not the best shot in the world and its connections to ‘Sleepaway Camp’ are tenuous at best (barring the return of the actress who played Judy in the first film) But its tonally in line with the original and isn’t offensively bad.

It’s not great, but it’s STILL better than ‘Return to Sleepaway Camp’ in my opinion, and if you take it at face value for what it is (I.E a bit of a mess around fun little short film and a chance to get more Judy on screen) then I’m sure you’ll have an okay time with this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/judy-2014-1/

Watched on Saturday April 8, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sleepaway-camp/1/

A perfect example of ‘Roughie’ cinema, ‘A Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine’ is…definitely an experience to sit through I think it’s fair to say! The main plot revolves around a young woman who gets tremendous pleasure out of leading guys on, getting them right up to the point of having sex, before (for the most part) purposfully freaking out and accusing them of raping her. In fact the film opens with just that event happening and the guy involved gets sentenced to 2 years in prison for rape and assault.

A clear influence on some of John Waters early works. This movies a little slow and hard going in places, but when it’s campy meaness shines through, it’s an absolute riot to behold. for every 4-6 minute sequence of Stacey Walker getting undressed, rolling around in the bath or in bed completely nude, or getting hot and heavy with some unsuspecting man (or woman) theres at least 10 seconds of dialogue that easily puts this thing DAMN close to 10/10 terratory for me. An absolute highlight being when Staceys character Sharon Boldly (and while biting her lip) exclaims “I MAY BE A BITCH! BUT I’LL NEVER BE A BUTCH!”

GOD I loved some of the parts of this film…

The scripts a little slow and repetative, for what is effectively a nudie film with heavy roughie elements it’s absolutely one of the better offerings out there and I had a real ball with it, but it’s still inescapable that a large amount of this movie is just actresses getting nude and then getting dressed again (set to a funk jazz beat)

it has a passble 3 act structure in place as we slowly see Sharon descend from picking up ‘Squares’ for cheap thrills to getting in WAY over her head with dangerous men who really WONT take ‘No’ for an answer.

Honestly; the plots not all that. But what IS an utter delight is the character’s, the character development and the dialogue of this thing. With some one liners that absolutely blew me away for just HOW over the top, melodramatic and razor sharp they were and just how entertaining the characters in this production were, especially when the film actually starts to build on there established base lines.

Its just an utter delight, and clocking in at a succinct 68 minutes. This film gets in, gives you pretty much everything you could want in a movie like this, and gets out without causing to much muss or fuss.

I personally found the broad direction a little flat and dry, nothing out of the unusual for films of this era. Which is a bit of a shame, but the cast direction MORE than makes up for a bit of a pedestrian presentation.

The cine is clearly inspired by the french new wave craze of the day, with smash cuts, jump cuts and cross fades galore combined with INCREDIBLY moody lighting that only emphises the grimey grainy film stock creating a wonderfully bleak looking atmosphere and tone visually that really helps sell the ‘rough and ready’ nature of the script and its subject.

Of course, the film would be a shadow of itself had it not been for the superb casting of Stacey Walker as Sharon, who doesnt so much chew the scenery in this thing, more swallows it whole ravenously. Shes PERFECT for this character and VERY often looks completely out of control, which is EXACTLY the tone that was needed for a movie like this.

Sharon Carr as her Lesbian friend Paula Also plays a wonderful contrast with her for the time she’s on screen, leading the audience to believe the films going to go one way before COMPLETELY wrongfooting them. She handles herself very well in her scenes and it was a shame that her time in the film was ultimately as short as it was.

The rest of the supporting cast (basically all the guys Sharon hooks up with) are all purposfully generic here ranging from your bog standard nerdy ‘square’ through to your overly macho and abuse wife beater. NON of the guys come away from this thing looking even remotely decent as human beings and it’s SO refreshing to sit and watch a movie that has ABSOLUTE contempt for the majority of it’s intended audience.

throw in a hot and fast Jazz soundtrack that does get a little blusey in places and, while a little patchy if your not completley in on ‘nudie’ films (basically expect long waits in between the action) I had a ball with this thing, and i’d happily watch it again!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-smell-of-honey-a-swallow-of-brine/

I honestly find it kind of amusing that Full Moon give ‘Killjoy’ and its sequels an almost ‘flagship’ status in their catalogue of movies. Alongside ‘Puppet Master’, ‘The Gingerdead Man’ and ‘Evil Bong’, whenever Full Moon advertise their ‘Classics’ this movie is usually one of the ones that gets wheeled out and held up.

And yet, even on their own streaming service they not only can’t be arsed to have the original film available in HD (it’s literally just their 2000’s era DVD release ripped and uploaded) but they couldn’t even be bothered to quality check the film, because I’ve seen this thing multiple times now and the frame rate is stuck somewhere between 16 and 19 fps and it looks absolutely atrocious for it. That’s not even mentioning the lack of accessibility featured like Closed captioning.

Not that ANY of the above really matters because ‘Killjoy’ isn’t really very good (in my opinion I might add) What we have here is a kind of supernatural slasher (Think ‘Wishmaster’, ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, ‘Candyman’ to a lesser extent) with an all black cast in which the central plot seems to be that some ‘Gangsters’ catch a nerdy guy sheepishly asking one of the gang members girlfriends out on a date.

They promptly beat him up and on getting back to his apartment he summons the powers of a demon known as ‘Killjoy’ unfortunately the summoning doesn’t work quick enough as the Gangsters return and kill him, but it doesn’t take long for Killjoy to finally materialise and seek revenge on the living.

And quite honestly, this thing wasn’t really for me. The scripts incredibly clunky and struggles on settle on a late in terms of whether it wants to be serious and gritty or over the top and silly. It aggressively flip flops between these two styles across the entire runtime. But, in my opinion at least, it just doesn’t gel well and felt more like tonal whiplash than anything else.

The pacing is very stop/start, the act structuring is super basic and the transitions are clunky. And not helping matters, almost all of the cast are either forgettable beige as characters or BEYOND annoying.

Our lead villain in this (I’m not even sure if his name IS Killjoy here. I don’t think he’s called by name in this movie) is arguably one of the most irritating supernatural villains I’ve ever seen. Take the most grandstanding aspects of Freddy Kruger, remove all the wit and charisma and throw in a crap ton of totally ‘filler’ grade swearing and you have a main villain whos utterly unwatchable in almost every sense.

The fact the script doesn’t even really give him much to do (seriously there’s like 3 kills across a 90 minute window, and they even bungle those) and yet they make him a presence throughout the film. Is just insufferable.

The death knell for the script on this thing is the dialogue, which is just…SUPER basic and feels in places like a first draft. It’s over long, convoluted, they don’t bother showing at almost any point…3/4 of the way into this film they do a flashback review of the last 3/4 of the movie! HOW BAD DOES YOUR MOVIE HAVE TO BE THAT YOU NEED TO FULLY RECAP IT 60ISH MINUTES IN!?!

The cine is passable fine for early 2000s low budget horror, at least they bothered to work some colour into proceedings and there’s a stab at some creative lighting that is of note. But they go way overboard with cheap CG effects that have aged horribly, and the end result is a passable film that’s dragged down by overeliance on poor effects.

The directions bland too, this thing could be ANY full moon film between 1998 and 2005, its lifeless, by the numbers ‘Gun for hire’ fodder and the lack of individuality on this thing just really made it a passive viewing experience for me.

The soundtrack is a mix of discount rap tracks and Richard Bandesq generic full moon scoring. I dislike it, I have nothing more to say. There’s 300 odd movies Full Moon have put out that sound EXACTLY like this.

In fact, the only positive thing I can say is, broadly the performances arnt awful. The actor playing Killjoy himself REALLY throws himself into the role, giving a hideously animated and irritating performance that’d VERY suiting of the character, and our ‘heros’ for the picture are a slight cut above the usual total beigeness that these full moon films offer. I know that’s a backhanded compliment. But they are better than the average for these types of movies, they animate, believable deliver their lines and didn’t make me want to turn the movie off. So I see that as a plus.

All in all though. I came away more irritated than anything else with this movie. In some regards its doing the best with what it’s got to work with. But in others, it’s an indecisive, bland mess of a movie that absolutely isn’t worth the 90 minutes it takes to sit through it.

And, please, if anyone who has a connection to Full Moon sees this. Get a line in to your streaming division and get them to reupload this thing in 24fps PLEASE.

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