TYTD Reviews

The question that ran through my mind as the credits rolled on this film was a simple one. ‘Did the world NEED a modernized remake of ‘Criminally Insane’ done in the style of Rob Zombies ‘Halloween’ with a budget that, bizarrely was likely higher than the original film, but somehow looks cheaper?…and i’ll be honest, I dont think the world did…

This 2016 remake of the original 1975 campy ‘classic’ is pretty much hobbled right out of the gate because they cant commit to a tone. The original film was clearly a campy horror comedy, aimed at being a bit gritty and grimey up front, but running a clearly self aware black comedy streak as an undercurrent…This film by contrast is leading with the grimey gritty vibes throughout…but rather than having the comedy layered into it offering a nice low key contrast to what we’re watching, instead it opts for short bursts of lowest common denominator ‘mandatory comedy’…what do I mean by that? I mean that randomly characters will pop up wearing thrifted bad taste clothes and purposfully bad wigs. occasional scenes will speed the footage up and add goofy music into the back ground. and the actual attempt at jokes or site gags are awful.

I would normally be able to overlook such abject attempts at ‘yuk-yuks’ if it wasnt for the fact that the film makers here have decided to be a bit edgy and have altered the original films plot with a couple of new additions that end up making the whole endeavour feel like a poor taste exercise more than anything else…

So the broad strokes of this film are essentially the key beats of ‘Criminally Insane’ we open in a mental hospital around lunchtime as Ethel is preparing to get her breakfast. However, just as shes about to tuck in, two mean girls steal her breakfast and smash it up, and then an orderly accuses Ethel of making a scene and sends her back to her room to wait for dinner.

While on the way back, one of the mean girls jumps her again and beats her up calling her a ‘fat bitch.’ bruised, Ethel returns to the day room, where a friend of hers gives her a chocolate bar she managed to sneak into the facility via a relative.

Next thing we know…BOOM, a simultaineous rape scene and octaganarian sex scene as Ethel is bound, molested and raped by two orderlies, and a random 60 year old woman has sex with a chef at the hospital. The doctor in Ethels care walks in and catches the orderlies and makes it clear he’s going to disciplin them the next day. But Ethel isnt taking that lying down, and after taking swabs and evidence of the event, she demands the doctor releases her, or she’ll sue the entire hospital into the ground.

The doctor takes some ‘secret bookshelf scotch’ necks a shot and arranges for Ethel to be released into the care of her…I want to say Aunt…because the actress playing ‘Granny’ in this verison is WAY too young to be a granny…in either case Ethel gets back to essentially a trailer park, where shes almost immediately berated for being fat, aaand then…basically the plot of ‘Criminally Insane’ plays out. only with one or two more rape scenes, somehow less gore than the original, less campy comedy, and a 3rd act plot twist that just felt uneccessarily cruel.

I didnt really vibe with this one. In fact, theres only two things I can say I liked, and thats Dixie Gers performance as ‘Ethel’ which I thought was absolutely superb and very much in line with Prescilla Aldens style of performance (honestly, shes a really great Ethel in this) and I can say that the direction and cine is probably some of the best to come out of a ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ movie…but again, I dont think thats saying much as the bar for most of these movies was on the floor.

The script seems unusually mean spirited for the most part, with all characters involved either undergoing trauma, processing trauma or delivering trauma, I alluded to the fact this felt like a Rob Zombie adaptation of ‘Criminally Insane’ and it really kind of is, the amount of nudity and swearing in this films significantly elevated over the original, the gore is less than the original, but more intense, they’ve decided to give this film a mixture of modernised ‘reimaginings’ of the original ‘Criminally Insane’ score and hard alt rock. everything has a slightly subdued washed out look to it, some of the additional scenes feel unecessarily ‘Art housey’ which again, tracks with ‘Zombies’ random moments where his films suddenly veer into modernised grimey german expressionism by way of David Lynch.

The pacing is significantly worse than ‘Criminally Insane’ because the slight comedy undercurrent is missing…it means we’re basically spending 81 minutes with unlikeable or strange characters being depressed or murderous with no restbite or break. Im not saying they should have gone more farse. But I think theres absolutely a better way to handle this kind of film that would have given it the benefit of a technical boost, while maintaining or successfully translating Nick Millards original tones and directional notes into something actually engaging…as it stands, I dont quite know how they’ve managed it…But they’ve made a film about a woman who murders when she gets hungry…kind of boring.

The excessive rape, nudity and abuse across the runtime sucks what little fun could be left out of this film. Leaving an end product that just…isnt a fun watch. with mixed to poor dialogue, characters with poorly defined motivations, and aspirations that feel above its budget and station.

The direction is pretty basic, again, this thing has had a pretty nice technical boost. Millard had a vision but struggled to realise it. Brian Dorton seems to have the opposite porblem, he can keep on top of his cast and crew fine enough. But his vision just isnt engaging or original to me. It feels cribbed for lack of a better descriptive. and while I feel like he just about gets the cast on track with getting the script out. I just dont feel like this really stands out against any of the other low/no budget films ‘Wild Eye’ have made of this ilk.

The cine and edit are the same, shots hold out for the most part, but they arnt exactly inspiring, and in some cases, attempts to ‘art’ up the place just end up falling flat. The edit does the best it can with what its working with…but even with decent B-roll and coverage, its just kind of hard to make this thing come alive…

Add in that most of the performances are, not particularly enjoyable. The elderly people at the start of the film and Dixie are seemingly the only people who know what type of film this SHOULD be…and try to lead with that, with the film itself working against that style every step of the way…

Ultimatley; if im gonna watch a ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ movie, im here for the weird cult/campy fun primarily. and the horror secondarily. This, to me, puts the cart before the horse. I can see what they were trying to do here. And I think a ‘straight horror’ take on this, if handled right, could possibly be weirdly compelling…But removing the self awareness from this series, really just leaves us with a pretty generic slasher thats bloated with bar scenes and arguments and very little else…I was not impressed.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/crazy-fat-ethel/

The original ‘Criminally Insane’ (Also known as ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ is a bit of a personal pleasure of mine. a film that isnt afraid to be what it wants to be, even if what it wants to be is something as simple as an overweight woman with mental health issues who murders when people deny her sweet treats and lil snacks…It was a surreal film make NO mistake, mixing dark comedy elements with a genuinely harrowing subplot about abusive relationships. Compelling viewing im sure you’ll agree…

Then 12 years later, Nick Millard decided there was more to explore with the character…for SOME reason…and on a budget that consisted of a camcorder that was 3 months late on payments, and a half dozen favours from friends and family. Nick made ‘Criminally Insane 2’ and having now watched it for the first time, I can definitely say that it is in fact. moving pictures assembled in some kind of an order…

The plot picks up about 10-12 years after the events of ‘Criminally Insane’ as we reunite with Ethel, once again drugged up in a mental hospital. We then are introduced to two doctors who run the hospital, who have just been given the budget for the year, and its looking like serious cuts are going to have to be made. They decide the simplest and quickest cut would be to release any inmates that havent attacked other residents or hurt themselves in the last 5 years, moving them either to a halfway house, or a lower security hospital. And…given Ethels basically been in a vegetative state for the last 5-10 years, eating small meals and…seemingly rewatching ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ over and over again in her mind, the doctors decide that she’s a low risk patient and transfer her to a halfway house, care of elderly landlady ‘Hope Bartholemew’.

and…basically, from there, it all kicks off again. With Ethel not getting enough food, or worse, getting BAD food, and slowly but surely picking off the residents of the halfway house…Only…this time it seems like even LESS folks care about all these dissapearing people. as a homicide detective AND Ethels former Doctor are both made aware that Ethel is acting erratic…But both dont really decide to do anything until the final 15 minutes of this 61 minute feature.

And when I say that I sincerely believe that more of ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ plays in ‘Crazy Fat Ethel 2’ than ‘Crazy Fat Ethel 2’…im not kidding, what we have here is probably somewhere in the region of 25 minutes of footage of Priscilla Alden spacing out to camera or hobbling around slowly trying to murder people, intercut with some of THE worst exposition i’ve heard in a good while, and padded out the WAZOO with ANY scrap of footage they could pull from ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ but the footage is so low resolution and poor, it looks like its being viewed through smoked glass.

There really isnt much need for a more in depth review than that. the direction and cine is rushed, poorly composed and shot for function over form. Degausser video have done the best they can with the materials provided for the film, but its still riddled with tape faults, juddering, interpolation and the fact that it must have been shot on very cheap low quality tape stock.

The script feels less like an attempt at making a movie, and more like an excuse for Nick Millard to hang around with his buddies for a couple of weeks shooting a movie, and if thats all that is? Then more power to him. I dont think we as audience members to this should be charged full retail so that he could have that priviladge.

There are a dwindlingly small moment of genuinely funny, or sincerely awkward moments. at times it inadvertently winds up feeling Lynchian in its overly long holds, strange compositional choices, unique dialogue and even more unique line delivery. But make no mistake this absolutely should have been a short film, half an hour at most, thats been padded to try and make the base runtime in the quickly developing ‘SOV’ scene at the time.

The performances are just horrendous, and thats one of the few things that works in the films favour, its nice to see Priscilla back in action and she gets the lions share of the best bits alongside the actress who played ‘Hope’ who’s line deliveries could shatter birds…

Throw in a farty synth scoring intercut with music from the first ‘Crazy Fat Ethel’ film…not uniquely used here…just used as part of the padding. and I kind of have to wonder what the point of all this was…I think a rewatch may ultimately decide which side of the fence this one lands on for me…But I dont think where was enough ‘so bad its good’-ness here to warrent repeated watchings…but at the same time, I feel compelled to say that if you enjoyed the first film for its unusual tone and energy, that you’ll probably find something to like in this one too.

But unless you have a strong constitution, absolutely stay away from this thing.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/criminally-insane-2/

So a quick note before I get into the beans and rice of this thing – I was given a copy of this movie from a friend. I enjoy FNAF as a franchise, but do not support Scott Cawthon, or his political beliefs. and as such, I havent supported him financially since around the time ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 4’ was released. Its very much ‘to each their own’ but I dont feel comfortable financially supporting someone who’s using that revenue to prop up vile ideologies. As always, I suggest you look into the issue, but yeah. I got this for free…anyway!

I’ve been a fan of the FNAF franchise pretty much since the release of ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ and while I cant say im particularly great at the games. I enjoy watching other people play them, I enjoy the tone, atmosphere and lore, and even though the continuity on the series is essentially borked at this point, the core idea and concepts have always captured me, and I was surprised honestly that, outside of films like ‘West World’ or the early ‘Childs Play’ films…that this kind of ‘possessed killer robot ghost’ thing hadnt really been handled in live action media.

When the early games came out, I thought this franchise was just BEGGGING for a movie or TV adaptation, and lowe and behold! one was announced in the mid 2010’s…and then it fell into Development hell. The rights were initially sold to Warner Bros who, for whatever reason couldnt firm up a way to tell this story (despite a straight adaptation of the first game with maybe a few ‘pulls’ from the 2nd and 3rd game to flesh it out, being a surprisingly easy thing to do.) The film fermented over there with only a few glimpses at concept costumes for Freddy and Bonnie being revealed alongside a page or two of ‘rumoured’ scripting, before the rights lapsed and were resold to Universal and Blumhouse…If you wanna know how good the Warner Bros script for ‘Five nights’ would have been…its been heavily rumoured that what was generated over there, was tweaked slightly and released as ‘The Banana Splits Movie’…and that film…well. it exists and thats about the nicest thing I have to say…

And so, almost 9 years after it was initially revealed that a FNAF movie was in the works. It finally arrived in theaters LONG after the fad had died down (for reference, this film is a VERY loose adaptation of the first game, with elements of the 2nd and 3rd game thrown in. But by the time this film had come out, the entire franchise had been fully rebooted and relaunched, and was 2 years into that relaunch.) and…well, it feels like the film has been handled very ‘diplomatically’ is probably the best way I can describe it.

The reality of the situation is, FNAF as a franchise has always been targeted to teens and young adults. It deals with Child murder, abuse, creepy pasta style horror, the paranormal and isnt afraid to shy away from guts and gore if needs be. The problem is FNAF, on TOP of attracting that Teen/Young Adult audience…Also pulled in a LOT of kids, who via youtube were able to experience all the games, the memes, the spin off mods…and that kind of put the studio in a hard place honestly, because…How do you realise a horror game franchise that goes HARD in places into a film franchise that has a significant audience of under 13 year olds?

It essentially meant they could do one of two things, either stay faithful to the source material, make it R rated (18) and lose a significant portion of the box office. Or make it PG-13 (15 in the UK), take the hit on the grizzlier details and gore and tick off the hardcore fans. But maximise profit…You can guess which option they took…

So the film is set in the mid to late 90s and follows Mike, a young adult who’s lost his parents and is currently acting as guardian for his younger sister Abby. Mikes out of work, is still trying to find his place in the world, is being haunted by terrible nightmares of an incident in his childhood where his brother got kidnapped during a picnic. and condensing issues even further, Mikes aunt is trying desperately to seek guardianship of Abby over Mike despite neither Mike or Abby wanting this.

An olive branch is thrown Mikes way when he’s offered a…not so great gig running security on the night shift at Freddy Fazbears Pizzaria. A Chuck-e-cheese style animatronic pizza arcade that shut down in the late 80s after a series of child dissapearences and other ‘incidents’. Mike initially turns the job down as he doesnt work nights, but when its explained to him that taking this would look favourable to a judge should Mikes aunt take this guardianship case to the courts…he begrudgingly accepts.

And from there, things get weird. Mikes takes occasional naps on the job, and in his dreams he relives the abduction of his brother, but this time several children appear, silently giving the impression that they know what happened to Mikes brother. After a short while, we’re introduced to ‘Vanessa’ a cop in the local area who comes to check in with Mike nightly as the pizzaria is part of her rounds.

Vanessa eventually introduces Mike to the animatronics, Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie and Chica. the party pals of Freddy Fazbear…But theres more to these animatronics than meets the eye, as we see when Mikes Aunt hires some folks to break into the pizzaria and smash up the place in an attempt to get Mike fired…it transpires that these Animatronics are FAR from circuitry and wires…and that an evil presence haunts the pizzaria controlling the animatronics to do their bidding, and it wants Mike dead, and Abby to join the ranks!

I’ll be honest here, I do have to kind of try to seperate the games lore from the films lore. because if I try and compare the two, I feel like i’d be doing the film a disservice, becuase it doenst go anywhere NEAR in depth enough when compared to the games in terms of setting the atmosphere and lore. and even more surprisingly, there were very few jumpscares…which is kind of a core element of FNAF. I would argue if you want a richer, more in depth experience of this story, watching lets plays of the games is probably your best route. But im here to judge the film. and on the whole, I think for an PG audience, it does what it does about as well as it can do. Its flawed…but given the limitations, I get it…

The script here kind of oversimplifies things, the souls of the kids only really interact with Mike via dreams, whereas in the games they’re a bit more nebulous, interacting via the arcade machines, easter eggs, and even random encounters. and thats probably one of the biggest things missing from this film. there just isnt enough random unnerving stuff going on. In the FNAF games, on occasion, unsettling things just happen, like varients of the animatronics randomly appearing crumpled on the floor, in later games smashed up older animatronics will randomly turn up with unique features that are unsettling.

Here? we have a kind of linear supernatural horror film…and thats kind of it, there was plenty of opportunity to add small unsettling details into the backgrounds of shots for atmosphere, to set up things for potential sequels and to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. But they just dont do it, hell even the animatronics, who are really supposed to be THE stars of this movie, dont get to do a whole lot. theres a couple of scenes, one at the beginning and one about a third of the way in where they get to do stuff, but because of the PG rating, most of the kills happen off screen, in shadows, or are just implied.

I know one of the reasons why they’ve chosen to soften the animatronics is partly because children cant be murderers in an PG rating…or if they are, it has to be indirectly attributed. But it doesnt half suck the fun out of the film when most of the horror elements of this film are really more ‘thriller’ attributed than ‘horror’ attributed. It feels kind of ‘soft’ by comparison…and while I will say that, the way they handled this film sets it up nicely for a much grizzlier sequel…that doesnt help us deal with the originals (ironic) lack of ‘bite.’

The characters themselves are all pretty much fine, with Mike, Vanessa and Abby all getting just enough complexity to help get the audience on board with them, and each character gets their own arc thats quite well handled. I just kind of wish those elements had been better connected in with the main plotline, because…as it stands, it feels like this was some kind of supernatural horror film that quickly had the animatronics stuffed into it, rather than it being a film where the animatronics actually got the plot built around them.

I thinkt he tones probably this films biggest save, its largely serious in its motivations, but it isnt afraid to contrast that darkness with a little comedy…it’s not quite as well handled as the games handle it. But I think it does alright.

In essence, this is a film that feels like its kind of trying to tell the FNAF story while being restrained. Again, I know WHY they did that. and It absolutely makes business sense TO DO that…but at the same time, it did leave me feeling like it just could have been a little more atmospheric or intense as a counter compensation…instead? this just kind of feels a little bit middle of the road for the most part, with only the occasional stand out moment to really push it up to the next level.

The directions pretty much fine, its a studio flick, Blumhouse know what theyre doing (for the most part) and this does manage to capture the run down, grimey feeling that freddy fazbears pizzaria commands. If I had any complaints, its that I felt like the main performance hall (where we spend most of the movie) could have stood to have been a bit more smashed up and grubby. But all the backrooms, offices and surrounding areas fit in perfectly.

Emma Tammi does a solid job bringing the visuals of the games to life here, and while I will say that this film is maybe a little overly ‘safe’ in terms of its direction, that by no means means its a bad watch. To me? it feels like it gets in, does what needs to be done, coordinates the various departments well, adds a decent amount of flare and then gets out. It absolutely could have been done better, but i’ll take ‘just above average’ over ‘poor’ any day.

Same goes for the cine really, I had a few issues with lighting where they decided to go for an overly dark setup that made it hard to see what was really going on in some of the darker sequences. But shots are very well composed, that 80s neon colour flare really helps perk things up, the animatronics (for the most part) look great on camera, though there are a couple of scenes where the movements make it VERY clear these are guys in costumes…which did pull me out of the action a bit…But on the whole? this is probably about as good as a FNAF movie adapation could get on a visual front…Would I have liked a bit more experiementation? absolutely…But then, this film wasnt really meant for me. It was meant for kids aged 12-17. I just happen to be collateral.

Performance wise, its solid, Josh Hutcherson as Mike brings a likeable and ‘downtrodden’ energy to the role giving…maybe just a tad too much of a theatrical performance to his deliveries. But on the whole, hes pretty much fine. he has a good level of physicality and I hope if they do get a sequel off the ground he makes a return. Same goes for Elizabeth Lail as Vanessa, who manages to bring a sunny and sincere energy to the role, that turns quickly when her past begins to creep out. I will also give VERY high praise to Matthew lilard…I…I cant say why because *spoilers* but he plays his part very well, and genuinely surprised me. It was great to see him back in a horror role.

And finally the soundtrack is okay. its clear they were aiming for 80s chic with it, but they wanted to make it clear this film wasnt taking place in the real world…which means we get treated to a mixture of LCD Soundsystem style drone pieces, combined with dollar tree/kidz bop style soundalike tracks of 80s hits with totally different lyrics (the big one for me being that Michael Jacksons sound seems to get a roll out here at least a couple of times…) It suits the film, but didnt really do anything for me personally.

All in all? I’ve seen and read a few different attempts at adapting FNAF to a movie by this point, both from studios, and from fans…and out of all of them, this ones been the best. But that doesnt mean its not without its faults. the total lack of directional atmosphere, and lack of attention to detail on creating those smaller ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments that really put the fear of god into people. results in this film feeling just a little too clinically safe for me personally.

The fact they spend most of the movie essentially just establishing the core lores of the franchise means that a sequel can really hit the ground running and ramp up from there…But leaves this film feeling a bit like a launch pad, rather than a rocket.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’, I look forward to checking out the inevitable sequel. Do I think you should rush out to check this out? No…and especially not if your deep into the games lore…But if your looking for a casual watch of an evening, something that goes down easy and just about scratches an itch, I think you could stand to do worse than this.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/five-nights-at-freddys/

Im not gonna lie, the UK summertime is kicking my arse. I needed a distraction, I’d had ‘Limbo’ sat on my shelf for a year or two at this point, so I figured with a runtime of less than an hour and a promise of ‘Trippy Horror Goodness’ that i’d probably have a pretty good time with it.

The films described by AGFA and Bleeding Skull themselves as ‘What if David Lynch with Nine Inch Nails as the soundtrack?’ and…to me? thats…kind of all there is to it really. I dont know whether its the intense heat, tiredness, or just that I didnt catch this film in the right atmosphere, in the right headspace. But It just really didnt do much for me.

I’ll get the best part of this film out of the way up front, which is the direction and cine. For the most part its fine enough, but occasionally, it kicks out against what its trying to do. And when it does that it winds up producing either some of the most engaging, surreal, dream like and moody cinematography i’ve seen in a VERY long time that perfectly replicates the feeling of being on the verge of falling asleep. OR! it’s some of the worst cine i’ve seen and feels rough, shakey, underlit and unpleasent.

This is an art house SOV horror film, with the occasional bit of 8mm thrown in for good measure…and as a piece you ‘experience’ visually, I think it looks pretty good, in fact the majority of my rating is purely based on its technical style, flare and mood. It hit me almost immediately as the kind of thing you’d have running on screens in the background of a party. that people maybe catch a 10 second snatch of before moving on to the dip and doritos…But to actually conciously sit and watch it? well…thats where I hit my problems with this one.

See, the audio quality is HORRENDOUS, with most of the dialogue inaudible due to crowded location scenes, outdoor location work and even the set works mics arnt great and consistently muffle the dialogue. I watched with Subtitles on, but even so, the dialogue itself is sparse, gives little away and didnt hang together as well as i’d have liked.

I got VERY lost in the plotting on this one. I tried to follow it as best as I could, but…I dont know if I missed something…I couldnt make head nor tail of exactly what was supposed to be going on. Id say the arthouse element runs stronger than the horror element. Because I was so baffled by the production on the whole, I spent most of the time too deep in thought to actually find the horror anything other than distracting.

The characters all seemed kind of one note, and because of the very rough editing, it makes it hard to keep track of who’s doing what, where, how and why… the pacing is painfully slow burn. and, if you watching this as an art piece. I could see it being better BECAUSE of the slow burn nature. But as a work of cinema that someones choosing to sit and watch…its glacial, and not in a fun way.

The performances range from beige to aggressive, but not in a fun way. physical performances are really poor, with little to no motion unless its a set piece, at which point the film goes a bit crazy and the cast are advised to improvise flailing for a bit. Noone really stood out to me, and as mentioned, it was so hard to keep track of what was supposed to be happening that I just kind of gave up on them by about 35 minutes in.

The soundtracks fine enough. and like I say, the direction, at points, is absolutley incredible for the SOV genre. But those moments are few and far between, and what I was left with was effectively ‘Concussion Cinema’ just a handful of moments that incogherently interconnect, that probably tell a story you need to either piece together from multiple rewatches, or figure out. Or its leaving it open to interpretation…But brain tired, no room for complex high level processing.

I may well give this one another go at some point. But, even taking on board the creative technical flourishes…I was just kind of ‘bleh’ about it. Your milage may vary. But I just…couldnt really get into this one. Why watch this when I have ‘Fire Walk With Me’ LITERALLY less than one foot away from being watched instead?..

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/limbo-1999/

Well, after sitting through ‘Baby Cat’, I decided to do some research on the film, and by sheer chance, I landed on a trailer for another of Scott Hillmans films ‘Blue Belt’ and…To my absolute shock, it actually didnt look half bad! It seemed to have a decently edited together trailer, solid visual effects and the quality of the shot framings were significantly tighter and better handled…It left me curious…and, like a guy with a sore tooth, eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I hit ‘play’. and, Im actually really glad I did.

The plot follows ‘Riley’ the relative of an increasingly eccentric Italian uncle who runs a bar/pizzaria downtown in LA. Riley is a coder who uses their uncles bar as a ‘professional’ looking setting when dealing with clients, and lifes a strange and fun mix of trying interesting Pizza combinations and trying to figure out whatever the hell their uncles trying to communicate. Life is good. Then, as is always the case, The French turn up and ruin everything.

I kid, but basically a French guy turns up to the bar and politely, but firmly tells Rileys uncle that he wants to buy the bar and that her uncle should just give it up now for a good price and get it over with, because he WILL be taking it, one way or another. Riley intervenes, an altercation takes place and it turns out that Rileys actually a kung fu master!…well, they’re a blue belt. which is like…4 belts in, but thats still pretty bloody alright!

After defending the bar, our French entrepenaur returns to his ‘base’ and its revealed that a ‘Monty Python, by way of ‘The Warriors” style army of French people have massed in downtown LA, with a FIENDISH plot! they want to buy up all the neighbouring real estate, demolish it, and build a DELUXE SKY SCRAPER! Complete with community center, pool, sports bar, luxury rooms…THE WORKS!…THE HORROR!!!

After the defeat, the whole armada descend on the bar, and Riley also just about manages to fend them off. But this is FAR from the end of the story, as a shady lawyer/businessman is adamant the land will be his, and a battle of wits ensues between the small town coder, and the powers of western Europe! Complete with Park based kung fu fights, training montages, weapon play AND! they even manage to cram a little small town love story into the mix as well!

I’ll be blunt, Is ‘Blue Belt’ a revolutionary picture that shakes up the industry in big ways? No. Its a Z grade ‘Tubi Original’…But in a sea of Z-Grade ‘Tubi Originals’ this one, actually kind of stood out to me. and I think it comes down to how Scott has calibrated this production. For a starters putting Socks Whitmore in a leading role after a support role in Baby Cat was a really solid move. Socks has a great charisma that occasionally tends towards the cringe and goofy, but for the most part dances right on the cusp of that line between self aware post ironic upbeat humour (which I personally am VERY fond of) and a sarcastic dryness that again, works perfectly well here. in previous films, it felt like the cast were a little miscoordinated and that the script didnt really shape up a level lead, this film fixes that, putting Riley firmly at the forefront of the action and centering most of the confrontations and plotting around them.

The addition of an actual 3 act narrative arc here is very welcome as well. Baby Cat felt like a series of ‘happenings’ that were jostling for importance, but here? We actually have a clean plot thats established well in the first act, is built on in the second (though does seem to falter by around half way into the second act…I assume for paddings sake) before revving up for a finale that feels very in tone with the rest of the film up to that point.

Probably the biggest difference here from Scotts other films, is this one actually seems to finally figure out the balances between the type of comedy Scott wants to work in, the more serious elements and how to make them contrast and compliment each other, rather than work against each other.

Here? he’s going for farce comedy, and I think its a style that works well with him, I do feel, if anything it could have gone harder. But the absurdist humour here runs the gauntlet from dad jokes, to puns, to an army of French people seiging a bar with exercise equipement. It’s stupid humour, but it knows what it wants to be and settles into it quite well. The more serious elements of the production, by contrast, offer a nice palette cleanser. Giving the audience a moment to sympathise with the characters a bit more, and to get better awareness of their situations.

I think it works quite well because, had it just been this style of comedy and nothing else, I think the film would have become quite grating quite quickly…But just giving us those small moments here and there to break and remember that this is, for the characters, a serious situation. I also think the romance subplot, here? works particularly well, because it gives these somewhat more fantastical characters a bit more grounding and real world stakes.

The characters themselves are still quite surface level, with only Riley really getting anything resembling more character exploration. But in a way I kind of feel that this film gets a pass on that, because its farce, its silly, its supposed to be a bit anarchic, and I dont think it would have been approrpiate to really drill down into the crazy French armys more complex nuances. well…Not unless it was for humours sake…

I think my only gripe with the film from a scripting perspective is the padding in the second act, which does drag the film into a bit of a repetative thing for about 10 minutes or so, and the fact that the ending itself seems a bit TOO out of left field. Not to go too heavy into spoilers, but the finale is essentially a ‘Magic saves the day’ moment…only; the film has NOTHING to do with magic until the final moments…it feels a bit like the writer just got a bit bored, wrote himself into a corner and decided to quite literally ‘magic’ his way out to a ‘ film abruptly just stops’ style ending.

When I reviewed ‘Baby Cat’ I mentioned that I actually thought Scotts direction and cast direction skills were actually not too bad, given that he’s a bit of a one man army for the most part, he’s kind of realising his vision the way he wants it and, how do you direct a crew that consists of 1 or 2 people and the cast honestly? And…thats kind of still the case here. I think his cast directions improved a bit, and his range as a director with a vision seems to have improved a bit as well, shots are now a bit more dynamic, the cast move around a fair bit more, and given this film has several choreographed fight sequences. I was kind of impressed at just how well he’d managed to mask punches, kicks and use digital effects to make impact shots feel harder hitting. Im not kidding when I say i’ve seen ACTUAL martial arts movies with PROFESSIONAL martial artists, that didnt look as good as the fight scenes in this film. Not every one is a winner, but some of these were actually quite impressive given the limitations.

But, for my money? the thing that REALLY pulls this film up is the work and improvements done to the cine and editing. Baby Cat was a MESS. a film that felt like the edit had been assembled in a blender and presented in its roughest form. This film? is a night and day difference. Shots, for the most part are well composed, reasonably lit and graded, the digital effects are more commonplace, and for the most part actually look great. with a scene involving muzzle flashes and bullet pings looking particularly great.

Sequences are, for the most part well paced, well edited together and the whole thing holds together really rather well in my opinion. However, it does have its flaws. there are at least half a dozen instances where the effects dont just fail, but fail spectacularly. Motion tracking still seems to be a bit of an issue at this point with a scene where Scotts tried to motion track a video image onto someones phone being particularly rough around the edges. He’s also had to mask and blur backgrounds in several shots due to not getting release forms for people and to hide brand names/location signs which has mixed to poor results. There are also some points in the edit where scenes cut too late, and at least one point during a mock teams call where he had to overlay a retake over the first take to get the conversations to all synch up. leaving a weird ‘ghosting effect’ on the footage.

Like I say, this film is STREETS, CONTINENTS maybe even… better than Baby Cat on a technical level. But the flaws that remain dont half leave a blemish!

Performance wise, Socks Whitmore is absolutely ‘lead’ or 2nd lead material, so reworking them into the face of this film was actually a stroke of genius here, They have a good level of energy, and they seem to really nail the vibe this films going for bringing just the right level of self aware snark and sarcasm to proceedings, while also being able to get genuinely quite emotive when required. I thought they were a rock solid choice here and made the film worth watching just on their own steam!

But thats not all Joe Fillipone, Johnny Mask, Chris Spinelli and Shane Ryan Reid all do really well to help sell the ‘farce’ nature of the film. Much like Socks, there were moments where I felt like they maybe eeked into grating/cringey by just a smidge, but its reined back pretty quick and on the whole I think they worked as a solid unit bringing energy and a level of loudness to proceedings that I think was much needed.

I said in my review of ‘Baby Cat’ that the film felt like an anime that had been presented in Live action, but not refined to a live action environment with horrifying results. Blue Belt feels like an action comedy Anime that HAS been refined and the results were really quite enjoyable! while its imperfect, and isnt exactly breaking new ground. I really enjoyed watching this one, could absolutely see myself watching it again in the near future, and if you were to ask me to recommend a Scott Hillman film, despite it not ENTIRELY being representative of his Ouvre, I’d probably recommend this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/blue-belt-2024/

The answer to the question ‘What if Neil Breen, But bad.’ finds us pawing at the front door of 2023’s ‘Baby Cat’ a film by Scott Hillman that feels like it should have been a 30-45 minute anime OVA that somehow got bloated into a 90 minute live action feature in the most horrendous ways possible.

The plot follows Dana, a recently seperated, recently fired woman who’s moved to LA to start a new job doing something with Oil fields…she isnt too sure either. The film opens with her apartment hunting, and she finds the perfect apartment, in a lovely complex, with nice neighbours all for a good price…She’s about ready to sign the deal, when we’re then introduced to Lori. a fully grown woman dressedin ‘Kawaii’ style cat girl lengerie and knee high cybergoth boots who crawls up to Dana and wraps herself around her leg.

Non of the occupiers of the complex even BEGIN to bat an eye at Lori, and when Dana raises the issue of the ‘sexy cat in the room’ they all just basically shrug it off saying ‘well thats what she does…’ it almost puts Dana off signing the lease, but when the landlady offers to knock another 250 off the rent, she bites the bullet.

And what follows is a a 10 minute window where Dana and Lori get better equainted…and eventually have sex. followed by a further 60 minutes of a vicious cycle of Dana venting to various folks about her new ‘pet play’ girlfriend, getting frustrated that Lori will only communicate in ‘meows’, having aggressive sex with Lori and going to the gym.

All the while a SECOND plot is rolling following a criminal kingpin called Qulling, who’s working with a lawyer called ‘Mr. Chance’ to try and take over the city with his brand of drug pushers and a new drug called ‘Nuke’. That…that second plot is pretty much entirely unrelated to the first plot until the final 20 minutes when both worlds unceremoniously crash into each other. with mixed to poor results.

Up front? Baby cat on a technical level is atrocious. direction feels a bit aimless, a lot of the film was ‘one man army’d’ for the most part, so I dont feel I can really say ‘Scott directed this film well’ when the only person he had to direct was himself, and maybe sometimes one other guy. Whats here is fine enough, but largely unremarkable.

His direction of the cast, is pretty solid though, he clearly worked with the cast to really nail what he wanted out of the experience, and whether I think the performances were played out well or not is kind of a moot point, he did manage to get them to do what he wanted.

The cine, is garbage, and im being kind in saying that. 80% of the shots arnt locked off properly, arnt white balanced, the majority of the shots are shakey, and what isnt shakey is handheld and weirdly framed. the majority of shots dont follow conventional framing rules, use unecessary key frame trackings that cause the image to flail around. and thats just the basics.

The lighting is heavy handed and lacks any vision or purpose for being why it is, the greenscreen work is terrible, largely caused by the green screen itself not being appropriately lit, leading to haloing in some shots, brake in where the contrasting shadows on the screen cant be keyed out. random cuts in and out of green screen work. and the overlays the choose to insert into green screen’d sequences are often shakey, or full on move when the scene is of character being static.

Add to this the edit looks and feels rushed, scenes cut way to late, or way to early, they use scene ‘lead in’ to pad the runtime, which essentially shows our cast ‘out of character’ right before the cameras supposed to roll as they get INTO character. the colour grading layers dont match the scenes they’re layered onto, meaning sometimes they overrun into other scenes, then abruptly dissapear. text and visuals that are layered in havent had their motion keyframes checked so they fly around the screen randomly. the end credits and titles wernt formatted properly meaning they use mismatched fonts and run right out of the safety zone and off the screen entirely. When I can say confidently that ‘The Amazing Bulk’ handled its edit and green screen work better…that is a HELL of a damning endorsement.

Thats not even mentioning the script which, as mentioned gives you a 10 minute establishing of the characters and the core concepts, then gets locked into lesbian sex scenes, venting and gym trips for 60 minutes before wrapping the whole film up in an incredibly basic and very underwhelmign way. The characters are all very one note, they dont get any kind of complexity to work with and the writer seems to be teasing the audience by the second act by just…purposfully throwing away possible plot lines that could have ACTUALLY given these characters something to do other than bonk and share feelings.

I think the biggest problem with this film is that, had it been a shorter cartoon or animation, it probably would have worked. This film isnt a million miles off the kind of Shoujo Ecchi anime that plagued circles in the mid 2000s. it feels very much like one of those shows, but as with most anime. Translating it to a live action environement more often than not results in unexpected and horrifying results…and thats kind of whats happened here.

The performances are what ultimately save this production with Fawn Winters seems to really fully embrace the role and plays a duel character I feel rather well. While her line delivery isnt the most confident in the world, her physical performance and facial reactions I feel nail the part of Lori perfectly and she’s almost certainly a highlight.

Natalie Cotter is also more than enjoyable as Dana here. she doesnt get much range to play with, but she plays what she has well. and when bolstered with a strong supporting cast (including Chris Sandberg who I think is the standout performer here as the wonderfully dry delivery guy who, throughout the film continues to deliver increasingly bizarre items and telegrams to Dana) I think the performances in this one are probably the films strongest suit.

Oh! and the soundtrack is all royalty free music, the director said he just googled ‘Royalty free music – Cats’ and then used anything he could find. given the state of the edit, I’d be inclined to believe that given the scores just randomly thrown about here, there and anywhere with no care how its used, or even WHY its used…matched only by some horrendous ADR work that doesnt even match the actors mouths. The one redeeming quality? the on location and on set sound when it ISNT ADR’d is actually pretty well handled all things considered.

Its now been over 24 hours since I watched ‘Baby Cat’ for the first time, and it’s basically been all i’ve thought about for at least 16 hours of that time (a mans gotta sleep) its kind of haunting me, because I feel like somewhere in the guts of this film, is something that could be genuinely engaging, a 20-30 minute ‘short’ version of this with more care and attention put into it COULD have the potential to actually be great. But somewhere along the way, the vision for this film got bent out of shape, and it just seems to have spiralled from there. If you enjoy weird cinema, and have a strong constitution for being patient. I think you may feel like me and find moments of this film quite enjoyable. But if your ANY other way, i’d avoid this one like the plague…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/baby-cat-2023/

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/boardinghouse/3/