TYTD Reviews

As an SOV afficionado, I’d had ‘Garden Tool Massacre’ recommended to me a few times by folk over the years, So I figured tonight would be the night…

Honestly, theres not much to say, the film is set somewhere between the midlands and the north of England, and it could best be summed up as ‘What if John Carpenters ‘Halloween’ happened just outside of Manchester, England?’

The plot is about a guy who murders his wife, and a couple of days later is apprehended by the police who put him in a maximum security mental health facility. He promptly goes mute and doesnt react to anyone for about 7-8 years, where he promptly escapes the facility by just…murdering a janitor and walking out…

and the next thing to happen is we cut to a group of lads as they’re getting ready for a weekend long party at one of the lads houses…

And you’d think that that would then be the premise…our Killer rocking up at the party and slowly picking the lads off…BUT YOU’D BE WRONG! because the vast majority of the film is just the lads awkwardly having THE most 90s english house party I’ve ever seen (seriously this brought back a LOT of memories) while a series of ‘fake outs’ happen where you THINK they’re going to be killed…but they arnt…This continues for the full runtime until about 10-15 minutes off the end, when the ‘massacre’ formally DOES start, and could best (and most generously) be described as an exercise in ‘Copy/pasting’…

The script itself is frustrating, with a first act that feels alive behind the eyes and is keen to set the entire movie up as effectively as possible. Which it succeeds in doing really, I was genuinely on board with this thing right up till the 2nd act, where the breaks are pounded and the whole film just falls into a load of people talking nonsense at a house party for the better part of 30-40 minutes…Before we crash into a VERY repetative final act that felt like a film going through the motions leading to a rather uninspiring and dry finale that just dumps you into the credits without so much as a wink and a good bye.

The characters are all one note and fairly generic, with talking topics largely being centered around beer, birds, peeing, murderers and horror films. the dialogue is rigid, unnatruralistic and due to poor audio recording equipment, BARELY audible most of the time. its a really poor show honestly that just made me wish I was watching ‘Halloween’ for most of the runtime.

Mercifully, the direction and cine DO impress. Given this was the writer/directors first foray into feature film making we get a VERY impressive creative vision that, really drags up a subpar script to something much more worth your time. Scenes are clearly very carefully planned out and crafted and its clear that, while this was a skeleton crew on hand, every attempt to keep things as close knit and to the directors vision was taken.

While the vast majority of the film does play out like one long ‘continual action sequence’ occaisonally broken up by random killings. the shots are very well composed, theres a sense of dynacism in the camera movements and given this was low/no budget, it does feel like it was at least attempting to put an heir of professionalism behind the lens.

Theres at least some attempt at utilizing B-roll, though more would have definitely been welcome, the editing for this one is really tight with some solid match cuts and decent transitions across the runtime. Visually, apart from the fact that the VHS quality here is ABSOLUTELY to the wall (im assuming the filmed this in SLP mode) it looks consistent and about as solid an attempt as i’ve seen in the SOV genre to make something feel fairly filmic.

Soundtrack wise, we have a problem. So the original scoring for this film was apparently almost entirely movie music, or copyrighted studio releases. So here for SRS’s release, we have a licensed score that DOES fit the bill and is used appropriately…But that isnt the issue. The issue is that all the dialogue audio was recorded using the video cameras on board mic. And the cast here all have VERY thick northern accents. AND they’re all in various echoey rooms…Which means I cant hear a bloody thing being said in this movie, other than the occasional line where the cast member was literally talking RIGHT into the microphone, or if they did an overdub. What I WAS able to hear though, was largely just idle chatter and horror references…So I dont think I was missing much.

And as such, the performances here are kind of moot too. The cast were all friends of the director more or less, they had limited acting experience, and largely just sort of awkwardly stand about and occasionally deliver muffled lines that I cant quite here. Honestly? the fact this release doesnt come with a subtitle track was probably the biggest miss this company have ever made…

Garden Tool Massacre is a game of two halves. While visually this is really rock solid, and it has its moments of being funny, or genuinely impressive gore wise. The sound issues, lack of animation from the cast and VERY lumpy script, ultimately hold this thing back from really hitting its potential. Even with this in mind, I did find myself having a bit of a soft spot towards it, not enough to make me want to recommend it. But almost certainly enough that I could see myself rewatching this one again, partly for the nostalgia, and partly to ACTUALLy try and figure out what the hell these people are saying for the most part.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/garden-tool-massacre/

Taking a bit of a detour tonight on our ‘Pokemon Movie’ Odyssy, ‘Mewtwo Returns’ was released direct to VHS and DVD in the US and EU as a sequel to ‘Pokemon: The First Movie’ and was even advertised as ‘An All New Movie!’…But the reality is that this was in fact not the case. In Japan, this was a one off extended episode of the Anime that sat between episodes of the regular TV series. It ran to just over an hour or so, and rather than trying to slot this thing into TV listings (something that would not only be a very difficult thing to do given the runtime, but also for the fact that this ‘special’ is a MASSIVE detour from the plot of the Johto arc up to this point…Not to mention that by just putting it straight to TV your effectively just…GIVING it away…) 4Kids decided to cut this out of distribution packages outside of Japan and release it in the west as its own standalone thing.

and while this *Technically* came out BEFORE ‘Pokemon 4Ever’ it didnt feel like enough time had passed between movies for this to really have any kind of significant impact on landing, so I chose to swap them around for viewing purposes to be more dramatic…and before I get into the review, a little side note here but, I hadnt realised until I started rewatching these films just how NEGLECTED ‘Johto’ was when it came to the movies…Donphan appears briefly in ‘The First Movie’ and then it’s Kanto pokemon all the way, We get Lugia and Slowking in ‘Pokemon 2000’ but the main thrust of the plot is the legendary trio Kanto starters and again, its largely Kanto pokemon all the way…Then ‘Pokemon 3’ ACTUALLY bothered to let the film have SOME Johto pokemon in it, but even then its still very Kanto-centric…and then ‘Pokemon 4Ever’ FINALLY makes the franchise FEEL like its ACTUALLY doing a film about ‘Johto’ with ‘Johto’ pokemon and ‘Johto’ locations…and it quickly gets kicked to the curb by this thing, which goes RIGHT on back to being all about Kanto pokemon and very little else.

I wondered if this was a recurring issue with the movies…but NOPE! the next 2-4 films are all set in Hoen and they go ALL IN on Hoen for those movies…like…from the moment it starts…I guess what im saying is that this special/movie kind of acts as the ‘epilogue’ for the Johto movies…and if I had watched this NOT knowing it was supposed to be set in Johto…I’d have assumed they were still in Kanto.

ANYWAY! I’ll put my soapbox aside…’MEWTWO RETURNS!’…and the main question I was left asking was…’Why?!’

And thats because the story for this thing is SO dull…SO damn dull…We open with Ash, Brock and Misty missing the bus for a local tour of a mountainous region. But in many ways they got lucky, because not long after the bus gets onto the trail, a disaster strikes and they fly off the road! BUT! they dont die! because they’re saved by Mewtwo!

It’s revealed that after the end of ‘Pokemon: The Fist Movie’ Mewtwo flew off with all the clone pokemon and wiped everyones memories of the events of that movie. He then relocated all the clone pokemon to Johto, and more specifically ‘Mount Quena’ the largest mountain in Johto with a lake at the center and several densly wooded areas. The lakes and rivers around Mount Quena have powerful restorative powers and Ash, Brock and Misty are invited to sample the waters by a local member of the moutntains tour board. she later reveals herself to be a pokemon professor studying the lakes herself to see if she can find out why the waters are so effective and where the source is coming from.

While all this is going on another two folks arrive at the professors cabin, a fellow professor by the name of Cullen Calex and his assistant ‘Domino’ who are in the region ALSO studying the waters. Everyone seems to be getting on well, until Team Rocket crash into the scene, cause a commotion and end up dragging everyone out of the cabin via a rope attached to their hot air balloon. Simultaineously; ‘Domino’ recognizes the team rocket uniforms and reveals herself to be ‘Agent 009’ a secret agent of Team Rocket working in the area to try and locate ‘Mewtwo’ after tracer signals have been found in the area…Long story short, she locates Mewtwo, alerts Giovanni and the entirity of Team Rocket end up storming Mount Quena…and thats…basically the rest of the movie, Ash and the gang trying to help Mewtwo fend off a Team Rocket invasion, while Mewtwo struggles with the idea of whether humanity should be avoided or spared with mercy…

And…this one kind of sucked if im being honest. The script felt very one note, it was very slow paced, with most of our key characters either walking or being locked up for most of the runtime. Pikachu, Meowth and their clones are pretty much the only pokemon we see outside of the other clones in this, with most of the gangs other pokemon given maybe 1 scene before they’re gone for the rest of the movie. The 3rd act feels like a rerun of the first film, only they pretty much get the ‘fighting is wrong’ message from the first film out of the way in 2 minutes, rather than making it the whole plot of the film, while then focussing on the ‘how do we fix this’ for WAY longer than it needed to.

The three acts are lumpy, inconsistent and I couldnt tell you where each act began or ended. The tones all over the place, it feels like its trying to be stoic in the same way the first film was, but…it’s clearly on a TV anime tone and budget…So they put a lot of forced comedy in there…and even that isnt great. When Team Rocket are key players in the movie and dont even raise a stifled laugh…somethings gone VERY wrong.

The characters all seem a bit underwritten and underplayed. Ash and co are, for the most part, relegated to just shooting out exposition and standing around watching stuff happen. Its actually kind of nuts really, because this is supposed to be one of the first times that Team Rocket as an organisation are shown to be a serious threat and force, AND one of the first times Ash and the crew have to interact with the full force of Team Rocket, and it just…could NOT be more dull, NON of them actually meet, whenever they interact with each other its as people in different rooms talking in monologue format…This should have been the match up to end all match ups! and it flops to the ground with all the weight of a bag of soiled spinach.

The endings also kind of dissatisfying. Its essentially an inverse of the first film…with noone really learning anything significant and Mewtwo just kind of…buggering off to go do something somewhere else. Which is very dissapointing.

Art direction and animation is, in some regards a bit of a win…We dont have rubbish CGI in this one because they couldnt afford to put rubbish CGI in…But at the same time, theres nothing here that really feels grand. It all feels VERY much in line with the TV shows sensibilities (because…it WAS the TV show really…) which, with it being marketed as a film, makes it feel cheap by comparison. Shots are very static, the fluidity i’ve come to expect from the ‘official’ films is missing, and you just end up with a lot of kind of dull, flat sequences because the budget and manpower to do anything more than that just isnt really there.

Performances are pretty much the same as ever. I honestly didnt notice any bad turns…Though im still not 100% on Mewtwo having the voice of Yami/Yugi from Yugioh…

and the soundtrack IS a big upgrade over the usual TV scoring…it feels grander and more orchestral. But because the script is so dull, and the animation so basic and simply structured, it makes it feel like its a bit TOO much, like…imagine some kids making a shot on video film in their back garden, and its scored entirely with royalty free classical music…This special/movie gives that kind of vibe…Which (I assume) is very much not the feeling they wanted to go for…

I remember watching ‘Mewtwo Returns’ when it first came out and kind of being nonplussed by it. But now revisiting it about 23-24 years later. I dont think its aged all that well, its slow, theres nothing particularly interesting or ‘of note’ to keep me hooked, the characters all seem to have been aggressively stripped back so Mewtwo can get a word in, the direction and art style are better than the TV series at this point, but WAY off the quality of the previous films animation, and…Well, the best way to sum it up is as soon as the credits rolled on this one, I just kind of sat back and went ‘…What was the point of this?…Who wanted THIS?!’ Because it sure wasnt me.

Absolutely not essential, and really not that great. If you had a BURNING desire to know what happened to Mewtwo after ‘Pokemon:The First Movie’ I think you kind of missed the point of ‘Pokemon: The First Movie’…but if you DID want to know…this film will tell you in all its yawning and sluggish detail…Its a pass from me.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pokemon-mewtwo-returns/

Watched on Saturday March 1, 2025.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pikachus-vacation/1/

I had read about ‘Terminal Island’ many years ago in one of those random ‘guide to cult cinema’ books, back when they were popular. At the time, I remember being kind of intreagued on the premise, and then I went and looked online and found that the DVD was going for an astronimical price and was out of print, and that VHS copies were somewhat scarce…

So…I waited. And like the fairy godmother in knee high boots i’d always wanted, Vinegar Syndrome randomly decided to spit this one out, not just on Bluray, but 4k as well! Naturally I nabbed it, and having watched it for the first time tonight, Im actually a little dissapointed I waited this long!

The plot is remeniscent of a kind of ‘proto’ “Battle Royale” it’s the not too distance future (for some reason I want to say 1978, with the film being released in 1977) and after several legal challenges the supreme court rule that the death penalty is actually against the constitution (oh how times have changed!) That does rather leave a problem though of what to do with the inmates that were lined up to be executed…And the government come through with a solid enough plan. Anyone convicted of Murder and sentenced to death will instead be transferred to ‘Terminal Island’, a small abandoned Island off the California coast where theres only one safe way in or out, and thats a very narrow corridor in the sea via sturdy boat.

The idea was simple, but devisive. Take these murderers, dump them on the island with no chance of rescue, drop food and water supplies off at random locations across the coast once a week and let the murderers sort themselves out. The idea was that ‘Terminal Island’ was in some ways worse than a death sentence, because the BEST you could hope for survival wise was to live off the land and avoid being murdered until death by natural causes.

But something interesting happened on that Island once it all got underway. An initial drop of 75 inmates whittled themselves down to the 60s on landing, but then the residents split off into various factions. These factions fought against each other and attempted to carve up the landscape in various turf wars. And by the time we join the film theres really only two rival factions left. a group of around 40 men led by the frankly abhorrent Bobby and AJ, who believe that showing strength, muscle and force is the way to lead and keep the men in line. And a ragtag group of around 10 men who are essentially Nomads made up of various faction splits, who saw what Bobby was founding and decided they wanted no part of it.

There are initially 3 women on the island Joy, Bunny and Lee. Bobbys gang have rounded them up however and essentially keep them penned in, using them for forced domestic work, help in toiling on the land and at night, as the gangs own personal brothel.

Things get shaken up however, when a 4th woman joins the island by the name of Carmen, she takes NO nonsense and tries to put Bobby in his place, only to find that he’s got the island wrapped up pretty tight. In fact, its only when the girls are sent to the river to wash the gangs clothes that they find themselves captured by the rival gang…And the tales Bobby has spun about how the other faction are made up of losers, outcasts, and folks worse than Bobbys lot turn out to be INCREDIBLY downplayed, instead this faction are much more considered in their approach. They have no overall leader, but move based on the best ideas and they live off the land to help keep them going…unfortunately however, the land is running out.

Once captured, Carmen and the girls think they’re done for, but it turns out quite quickly that, as long as they’re willing to contribute to the rival gang in a way more or less equal to the men, they can move freely within the movement. Which sets Carmen and the girls on a plan to dethrone Bobby, dismantle his movement and give the Nomads a land of their own to finally settle and begin to change ‘Terminal Island’ for the better.

And, Colour me genuinely surprised by this one. I was expecting a somewhat schlocky B-movie with boobs, guns and exploitation. But what this actually is is a more than decently paced action thriller that feels a bit like ‘First Blood’, ‘The Warriors’ and ‘Battle Royale’ were all mixed together in a blender.

The script is simplistic, but effective. It maybe spends just a tiny bit too long establishing the rules of ‘Terminal Island’ in the opening of the film, but once thats out of the way, the film moves at a real clip, barely stopping for breath, theres never more than 3 minutes where things quieten down before we’re back in the action, back on the move and back in the throngs of the story.

We have a kind of multi thread narrative here, which is nice. Not only dealing with the core plot of Bobby and his bad guy team ruling over the island and the good guys attempt to overthrow him. But the girls all have distinct and well developed complex characters, which nicely develop across the runtime, as they grow to become independent, learn to use their minds to their fullest ability and eventually even begin to find love within the Nomads.

This all plays out really nicely with subtle character shifts and transitions across the runtime that make the characters feel like they’ve earned the development they’ve worked for. Helped by some rock solid dialogue that really feels inkeeping with the tone of this film and delivers some rock solid one liners.

The act structuring is pretty solid, barring an ever so slightly sluggish open, we’re thrust into the action with all three acts occupying (roughly) 30 minutes a piece, I think the second and third act are slightly shorter than the first. But they all feel about right in terms of length and the transitions between those acts are nice and smooth. With only one brief hiccup that I picked up on in the second act, where the gang all agree that taking out Bobbys team is what they have to do…and then they all mess about for a bit before AGAIN coming to the conclusion that Bobbys team needs to be taken out. I assume the studio needed the film to be about 5-10 minutes longer, so they just inserted a bunch of footage to pad that bit out…Not that its THAT noticable even. I just found it a bit odd that they kept delaying the inevitable ‘Battle to the death’ 3rd act finale, without much reason to.

Tonally this things wonderful, its got a wonderful bleakness about it, but like ‘The Warriors’ its a bleakness that comes with a bit of a dirty smirk as it knows what its trying to do, and feels comfortable enough in its skin that it can have a bit of fun with things.

The direction feels sturdy, Stephanie Rothman here captures a gorgeous island location and its clear she knows exactly how she wants to realise this vision. with the crew working in lock step. I feel theres something quite decent here. I dont think i’d go as far as to say ‘breathtaking’ But I watched the 4k version of this tonight and was genuinely swept away by just how much attention to detail went into this production to try and bring to life the harsh realities of Island living.

Stephanie was keen to avoid making an exploitation film allegedly. Going so far as to remove large chunks of the more graphic, sexual and exploitational moments from the film to really try to shape it away from just being the kind of fodder that’d get dumped in drive in’s in the early 70s…And I think she does succeed in really raising this piece above the drech into something altogether much more classier.

Direction of the cast too is superb, with some above average fight choreography, the cast were seemingly well treated, given a decent walkthrough of how the scenes should play out, but were also seemingly given enough free reign to work with the locations and any props to, largely positive, results. The action scenes are tight, gripping and feel a lot bigger budgeted than they probably were while the more tender moments arnt afraid to slow the film down a bit and let the characters slow cook for a bit, helping to further still invest the audience in whats going on. (Stephanies mentor was Roger Corman…So I can totally see how this turned out the way it did)

The cine and editing are superb, the rich and colourful woodlands and island shores are constantly and gorgeously realised throughout, the compositions are consistent and solid, with decent use of depth of field throughout, intigrating the Blues of the ocean and the inmates uniforms with the greens, browns and sunset oranges of island life. All of this is tied together excellently by a sturdy edit that rarely if ever misses a beat on cuts, utilises a decent amount of B-roll and helps keep an already tight script in decent pace.

Performance wise? For my money the big hitters for me in this are likely Don Marshall and Sean Kenny as ‘AJ’ and ‘Bobby’ they both play wonderfully demented lead villains who genuinely create a sense of hopelessness and power here that I found wonderfully engrossing, they’re the perfect kind of baddy for this movie and both of them play their roles at contrast with each other, which I thought made things even better still!

Ena Hartman as Carmen is fine enough, But I do feel that, while her performance is really solid, she does find herself a bit out manouvered by the 2nd act…Given she’s our main character, the one the audience is supposed to hook onto for the ride. By the third act its Phyllis Davis, Marta Kristen, Barbara Leigh and Tom Sellick as ‘Joy’, ‘Lee’, ‘Bunny’ and ‘Milford’ who end up capturing the production, giving us varied and wonderful performances with complexity and richness that leave Hartman struggling to position herself as a figure we’re really invested in by the end. Which is a real shame.

And as for the soundtrack? GOLD. pure GOLD. its largely orchestral, occasionally with some singing added in. Its the perfect tone and vibe for a film like this, its used somewhat sparingly, allowing the island diageticisms to really help bring the audience more into the world of isolation ‘Terminal Island’ creates. and when those music pieces DO land, its welcome and amps up whatever actions on scene. It really helps tie all these elements together into one tasty little package.

‘Terminal Island’ isnt a film without faults, there are some dated moments here which add to the ‘exploitation’ edge of it, but dont work in the films interest. However, mercifully these moments are few and far between and beyond that, we have a VERY impressive movie given the budgetary limitations with deep and interesting characters, a (for the time) fairly unique plot, rock solid cine, direction and editing. Lively and invested performances and an amazing score. If you like your action thrillers, I HIGHLY recommend you make a date with this one as soon as you can, I had a blast with it, and im sure you will too!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/terminal-island/

A somewhat insubstansive entry into the ‘Pikachu Shorts’ This one opened ‘Pokemon 4Ever’ (though, this is technically the 10th Pikachu short, and for folks wondering why I havent bothered looking at 6 of the shorts, Im doing the movie ones first, and the 6 i’ve missed are all christmas short films that were grouped together and released as two compilations in the US and EU…So, im gonna save those till christmas because I think i’ll appreaciate them more…but I digress…)

‘Pikachu’s Pikaboo’ is a bit of a step down on the ‘shorts’ front. We get basically no setup, no real plot development or act structuring. This is a 22 minute short film split between two plotlines, the first is Pikachu and the gang hanging out at a random mansion (No mention of how they got there, why they’re there, or where Ash, Brock or Misty are…In fact…thinking about it, only Ash’s Pokemon, Togepi and Psyduck are in this short…so…where are Brocks and the rest of Misty’s pokemon?)

Anyway; they’re all just chilling at this mansion, when we’re introduced to a Larvatar, a Granbull and a Kekleon who are all acting as groundskeepers for the mansion. Pikachu suggests a game of hide and seek, the gang take part and hilarity ensues.

The second half of the short is Meowth and Wobbuffet taking up gardening duties at the mansion, but when their fancy lawnmower breaks and takes on a mind of its own taking out Meowth and Wobbuffet and disrupting the hide and seek game, its down to Pikachu and the gang to stop the rogue mower so the fun can continue!

And…thats the short basically, a 22 minute runaround that isnt really as fun, smart, cute or clever as the other shorts. Meowth is as underused as he has been in all the other shorts, but now Wobbuffet gets to ALSO be massively underused and ignored as well! The animation feels a little rough around the edges, the character interactions arnt as fun, there isnt as much humour here as there has been in previous shorts. It kind of feels like they took elements of ‘Pikachus Vacation’ and ‘Pikachus rescue adventure’ and mixed them up with the lawnmower being the only really new element to this whole thing.

The narrator is back again, only here he’s explaining things that are obvious, but doesnt really do much to open, close or establish anything…which is weird. This one really didnt do much for me.

Like; it’s still cute, and I guess as a little opener to the main feature its fine enough, but I think the TA for this is probably VERY very young kids, younger than they’ve ever tried to reach before…and the result is a short thats kind of too basic for its own good.

Probably the first short that I dont think i’d actively rewatch if im honest…its just kind of a nothing short. Not inherently bad…just kind of bland and generic.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pikachus-pikaboo/

Ohhh this one effected me in profound and unpleasent ways. I had first heard of ‘Goodbye Uncle Tom’ from a friend ‘G.G Graham’ many years ago as one of the most distasteful ‘mondo’ entries ever put to film. Naturally, this peaked my curiosity and a year or so back, Blue Underground put the DVD on sale ahead of a 4k re-release. it was literally a couple of bucks. So I figured it was worth a punt…I wasnt fully prepared for what lay ahead.

Theres no real way to dress this film up. The plot revolves around two itallian journalists who, via the power of a helecopter, manage to time travel back to the peak of the slave trade in the American South. and what follows is essentially two journalists from the 70s interviewing and investigating the slave trade in all its facets. they follow the slavers who captured black people in Africa and drove them to American shores by boat, they follow the processors who transfer the slaves from boats to camps for examination, decontamination and eventual branding and sales, and from there we follow the many different ‘professions’ that slaves could be sold into, from Cotton picking, to brothel work, to helping process and control other slaves.

And when I say ‘they investigate the slave trade’ this isnt a light touch overview of slavery in America. What is shown here in unflinching detail is the absolute worst abhorrences to occur during the time of Slavery in America. From slaves having their teeth chipped off so they could be force fed food to stop them starving themselves to death, to Slaves being castrated to stop them from reproducing, to the horrors of masters removing limbs of their slaves to stop them doing things they dont want them to do, to the horrific sights of a Slave ‘breeding’ camp where 13 year old virgins are basically thrown to ‘studs’ for mating purposes.

They do not miss a single second of showing the absolute horrors of this time period, and the horrendous people who enabled it. And while there is some arguement that what is shown here is dramatized somewhat for shock, its NOT disputed that these events DID happen and WERE fairly commonplace. Put it this way, this film *could* and HAS been used to teach about the slave trade in schools, its only flaw in accuracy is that it seems to show the absolute worst elements of the trade almost as a supercut, when in reality incidents like this (while common) wernt an every day occurance.

So you’d think an unflinching documentary about the slave trade would be a must see, especially in a time when immigration is such a hot button issue, you’d think progressives would be lining up round the block to promote this film as something folks need to see to understand why we cant go back to the days of ‘funny farms’, ‘concentration camps’ and ‘slavery’…But…there in lies my complex feelings about this film.

Because the director and writer for the film were both kind of racist. The entire reason they made this film was because, at this point in the 70s, the Black Panther movement had just gotten into full swing and there had been a spate of attacks on white people by Black people who had had enough of white supremacists and wanted equality and reparation for the enslavements.

That motivation taints this film quite considerably. With several moments of clearly racist stereotyping such as the appearence of sterotypical racist charicatures of ‘Mammy’ and ‘Uncle Tom’ figures at multiple points in the film, an ending, which implies that Black people are being indoctrinated into believing all white people are evil, and its only a matter of time before they strike, and probably the most unforgivable element of this film (and that is saying something!) The fact that the entire black cast for this film (we are talking HUNDREDS of people) were made up of impoverished Hatians who were paid basically no money to be stripped naked, corraled and faux tortured on camera for 99% of the films runtime. The choice being to let the film makers terrorize them for barely enough money for a meal a day (or less) or they die of poverty on a roadside somewhere. They used these peoples kids in this film, some of them were literal newborn babies… for a significant portion of the runtime.

And that for me, is where the complexity of this film lies, Arguably one of the most unflinching and faithful depictions of the slave trade in the 19th century…made, by an enslaved cast of non actors…forced into the job by racists, with the alternative being almost certain death. I can only really voice my feelings on this, but It could have been the greatest film ever made, and that wouldnt have justified the actions of the film makers here. Its sick. Sick in the kind of way that leaves a mental scar in not only myself, but many other people who I know have seen this.

And…I dont really know how to ratify theses two points honestly…Part of me thinks that, similar to my opinions on ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, you cant really undo or take back the damage that was done by making this film the way it was made. So you might as well try to use it as a tool for good in the world BY showing it, in context, as part of discussions about the slave trade. However, part of me also feels that by in talking about or showing this film at all, your re-enabling the suffering not only of the people who were forced into BEING in this film, but disrespecting the memories of so many people who died in the slave trade, who almost certainly wouldnt have wanted to have seen the harsh legacy their cruel involvers depicted by folks who were forced into taking part…

I feel like the ethics and morals of this production are pretty clean cut as abhorrent, but whether IT as a work should be praised or derided, I feel is a step above my paygrade and more the field for philosophy and ethics students, rather than me, a goofy guy on the internet who likes talking about the art behind movies.

What I can do, is speak about this film from an artistic standpoint. And my opinion is that, this film ACTUALLY made me feel something, it made me feel sick, it made me feel uncomfortable. Since watching it, its already sparked at least a couple of healthy discussions with my peers. Its a technically incredible work with creative direction, an interesting method of bringing this world alive and some quite beautiful and quite sickening cinematography and scoring choices. I can find the work Abhorrent, I can find it mezmorising as a piece, But I cant deny that, as a work? It is ‘art’ it moved me, and changed my perception of that period of time quite distinctly.

This is probably one of the most mean spirited and unpleasent films i’ve ever seen, but at the same time, the film makers feelings are laid bare for the audience to process, their views may be wrong, but I almost feel like it needed a racist to make a film about racism in this instance, someone who wasnt likely to wilt away from the atrocities that took place during this time, and someone who felt comfortable being immersed in racist language and ways of thinking. I 100% disagree with there final scene ‘assessment’ of the current state of play. And I find that final 10 minute shift in the narrative to be jarring and against the rest of the movie. But I think they handled this topic in a way that had never, and likely WILL never be handled this way again.

My final thoughts? I think people should at least try to experience this film at least once. I think it should have a more academic reputation than it currently does have, I think knowing its context is important going into the film as it definitely alters the perception of what the film is trying to present. Like ‘I spit on your Grave’, ‘Salo’ and ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ this film is a sharp shock to the system, but its so much more than the shock it presents. and I feel taking this film on at the level it wants you to engage with it on, rather than immediately dismissing it as disgusting schlock that should have been banned. Is probably the best way to take this film on.

I’d suggest a group setting so discussions can be had. But, if you can find ANYONE willing to share a viewing space with you while this films playing…well…please let me know in the comments how that worked out.

I dont regret watching this…I just didnt quite know what I was getting into…

Edit – I should add, if you are interested in an explanation of this film from a more historical standing, the below link may be of interest.

jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2010/august.htm

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/goodbye-uncle-tom/

Its been a little while since I treated myself to another slice of ‘Camp Blood’ Honestly after the borderline unwatchable double offering from Dustin Ferguson that preceeds this entry, im kind of amazed I came back for more. But! There about another 10 of these to go, and I got curious…So here we are.

‘Camp Blood 666’ is once again, another ground up reboot of the franchise. At this point, im not sure whether they’re even considering the original film to be canon anymore, or if this is just a completely clean restart. All I know is, they’ve AT LEAST airlocked everything from ‘Camp Blood 2’ onwards. As far as this film is concerned, the first film *might* have happened, but its been a good 10 or so years (at least) since theres been any documented murders at ‘Camp Blood’

Our film this time centers around ‘Betsy’ and her boyfriend ‘Tom’. When Betsy’s dad calls her in the early hours of the morning, concerned that his son (Betsys brother) hasnt returned from a night out, he becomes increasingly concerned that he’s fallen in with a bad crowd. He tells Betsy that he knows hes been spending a lot of time up at ‘Camp Blackwood’ recently, and that (according to the news) theres been a lot of ‘cult’ stuff going on up there…SATANIC ‘cult’ stuff…

Betsy recognises the name almost immediately as ‘Camp Blood’ is infamous as the scene of a mass murder of high school teens many MANY years ago (1999). So she agrees to at least *try* to head over to ‘Camp Blood’ to see if she can find any clues to her Brothers dissapearence.

She heads over to her boyfriend Toms house, and after filling him in on whats happened, the pair head up to the woods and start searching, while up there they find a concrete bunker filled with severed limbs, clothes and blood EVERYWHERE. they take a bloodied shirt and decide to head out, but bump into a forest ranger, who tells them to stop pulling pranks. he wont believe them, so the pair decide to go to the towns sheriffs office, where HE’S super dismissive of them, but out of earshot, he arranges for an officer to be stations up at the woods.

While this is going on, this universes take on the clown killer (a possessed cultist…thats not a spoiler either, they make it clear in the opening 5 minutes that this version of the ‘Clown Killer’ is a former mass murderer called Stan Cunningham who can be ressurected to possses a willing vessle at the cost of a sacrificial offering) is slowly, but surely killing off anyone who happens to appear in the film for more than 3 minutes.

When Betsy and Tom decide to go back to the woods to look for more clues, they find an abandoned tent and a diary belonging to Betsys brother, and the information inside that diary leads the pair to Kara, one of Betsys old school friends and a member of the cult her brother has supposedly joined, who was kicked out some years ago after being shunned by the cultists…and, I cant really talk about much more without spoiling the film…Not that the films complex enough that you wont figure it out in the first 10 minutes whats going on…But hey, thats the fun of watching it I guess.

Basically; going into this one, my expectations were rock bottom. After a string of sub par and basically unwatchable ‘Camp Blood’ sequels, all this film really had to do was tell a basic story for longer than an hour and i’d. be raving over it. and…Well, this film has a ruddy good go at that!

The plot isnt exactly original, but it HAS a plot…which again, given the last 3 movies have been the cinematic equivilent of dumping raw footage in a blender with a half cup of house paint, is actually a pretty big achievement.

Its got a coherent(ish) plot, it paces itself not TOO badly, the three act structure IS in place, has bumpy, but not terrible transitions between the acts, and other than some repetition and slowdown in the second act (which…a LOT of films do suffer from honestly) this thing keeps pretty good timing honestly. It opens giving you enough information to set the rest of the film up, and while it really does flag on that 2nd act, it does manage to pull itself back together enough for a 3rd act that ends about as well as this film could have ended, and even puts a nice little twist at the end that I wasnt 100% expecting. Which again, for most films, that would be the minimum. For a ‘Camp Blood’ movie? its like jumping from the ‘silent’ era, to ‘Talkies’.

Unfortunately; thats kind of where the praise begins and ends for me sadly. As while this film ACTUALLY DOES have the barest minimum to constitute a script and plot, on a technical level it seems to go to the wall pretty hard.

Starting with what I didnt like about the script, the characters are all pretty two dimensional, Everyone who isnt Betsy, Tom or the Clown Killer act incredibly passive and dismissive, to the point where it feels like the director basically told them to just ad lib the scene, but refuse to believe anything the other actors are saying. Betsy and Tom dont get off lightly either, basically SOLELY acting as a mouthpiece for the audience, they dont get much depth or development as characters, and their relationship status is pretty much non existent. theres no chemistry between these characters, they just scream ‘Best friend’ energy from start to finish.

Not helping matters either, the film does fall into repetition pretty quickly early on, with kills that start fairly strong, before just becoming kind of low effort by the end. Theres also a LOT of walking still going on in this film. and while its nowhere NEAR as bad as ‘Camp Blood 4 and 5’ on that front, there was still enough of it that it became pretty clear they had about 45 minutes of plot they needed to stretch out to an hour and a quarter.

To that end, the direction and cine are also pretty problematic, the direction itself again; is probably the strongest seen since Brad Sykes was manning the franchise, but at the same time when you consider that between then and this film we’ve had, what many consider to be Mark Polonias worst film and 2 entries from Dustin Ferguson that might as well have been just one film released twice of 30 somethings walking for 78 minutes…it isnt much praise.

There is a creative vision here, which is good. This isnt an entry relying on a heavy colour grade to give it style and substance…unfortunately the film seemingly had a budget of $50 and a pat on the back to work with, and the results speak for themselves. A film that absolutely appears to be trying to make the best out of a bad situation, that; in reality, succeeds about 20% of the time in ACTUALLY doing something kinda sorta half decent.

The rest of the film? is sloppy, plenty of scenes shot for function over style, often without a stabalizer, with overly basic sequencing in mind. it looks basic and SUPER cheap for a not insignificant chunk of the runtime…again; SOMEHOW it manages to outflank everything thats come before it, but all this has really done is set the standard of how good a ‘Camp Blood’ movie can look from ‘Pretty bloody awful’ to ‘actually not half bad.’

Cine is super shakey, composition is uneven with the camera regularly quickly jolting into the correct framing when the director realised the shot wasnt set up for the cast to move within the frame as instructed. You get the feeling there were a lot of ‘first take, and done’ moments in this…its basic whats here ultimately, but basic for the most part is better than bad. While this film is ACHING for more B-roll (seriously, other than one or two examples, this films wides and mid wides from tail to snout.) it at least appears to be trying to tell a story in a more effective way.

Probably the worst aspect of this film though has to be its edit. Which is…frankly, the worst the series has had so far. To get the positives out of the way up front, the colour grade, I feel, is actually not half bad. it embraces the colours of the location, its slightly oversaturated for the most part. Its nice to see a film have a richer grade after 3 films of washed out, grey grading…But the edit itself? awful. shots cut way too late, or occasionally too early, the pacing of the sequences is all over the place, the thing cuts whenever it wants. The titles and credits on this one are abysmal with static text overlayed onto low res screengrabs from the movie to open the film, and default font text throughout.

That of course doesnt even mention the BIZARRE ‘CG’ (and im reluctant to call it CG, because…realistically its just a 2 frame low res gif of lightning overlayed on to the clown killers face) YES! in this film the clown killer can shoot lightning from his eyes to stun people…I have NO idea why, but the 2-3 times they do it, it makes the film suddenly feel like some kind of failed ‘Tim & Eric’ sketch…it REALLY pulled me out of the action honestly and I felt only cheapened the film further…

The biggest sin this film commits is that it DESPERATELY tries to squeeze every second it can out of this film to hit runtime. To the extent that the credits run for a full 5 minutes or so at half speed. and they even go as far as slowing entire scenes down by 3-4%…Not enough for casual viewers to really notice a difference, but just enough that people who CAN notice that stuff to see they’re trying to squeeze literal seconds onto this things runtime.

Probably the most aggregious example of this is a sequence where Tom is watching TV eating cereal, and they randomly decide to show 3-5 minutes of footage from a show starring the directors mum as a clown, and the director and his sister in the audience as kids…I dont know if this was a pilot for something, if it was a local Public access show, or if it was something more than that…But ‘The Mrs. Clown Show’ takes a not insignificant portion of this films runtime and I had NO idea why it was playing…Not *quite* as bad as the last film deciding to run 15 minutes of Sterline entertainment movies in the middle of the runtime…but still pretty bad.

Performance wise, its a wash. NON of the cast perform anywhere even remotely passing ‘good’ everyone is overly dry, reads their lines with next to no emotion or enthusiasm and for the most part, it feels like everyone is reading their lines as if they’d just seen them in the instant moment the words were leaving their mouths.

They’re stiff, lifeless dont bring any physicality to the role, quite often they’ll just flat out break the 4th wall by deliveirng their lines directly down the barrel of the lens. If I didnt know any better, i’d say these were just the directors friends doing him a favour. Because if these were trained professionals…I’d have questions about their qualifications.

and topping it all off, we have a soundtrack thats 75% recycled music from other Sterling entertainment films (mainly Camp Blood films) and 25% royalty free tracks sourced from ‘free to use’ sites online. its haphazard, randomly dropped in, and for SOME reason a good chunk of the film will have multiple music tracks, just randomly sat on top of one another creating nothing short of an obnoxious din. Where it works, it kind of works…But im really getting fed up of the camp blood music thats been in use now for at least 5 years at this point, and I really hope they shake things up agian with the next film.

‘Camp Blood 666’ is, surprisingly; probably the best entry that Sterling have produced up to this point. Its by no means a brilliant film, but it has a functional script, it more or less knows what it wants to do, even if it doesnt have the budget to fully try to do it, and there are a couple of nice moments here.

I still cant say im absolutely in love with this one, but its probably my favourite Camp Blood Film since Brad Sykes original closer ‘Within the Woods’. I would say this isnt an essential watch, but if you have seen the original ‘Camp Blood’ or ‘Camp Blood 2’ and wanted to know where to go next. This is probably as good a starting point as any.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/camp-blood-666/

‘Pokemon 4Ever’ is the first entry into uncharted waters for me. By the time this film had made it to UK shores it was 2003, I was INCREDIBLY unwell with stress, and Pokemon was probably the furthest thing from my mind. I’d had a pretty intense 6 years with the series, but they took their time between the 3rd movie and this one in coming out, and they kind of missed the boat for me honestly.

This was also the first (of many) Pokemon film(s) to not get a nationwide cinematic release. My memory may be cheating, but I believe it DID get a somewhat limited run (significantly less cinemas, with significantly less showings) so it DID do a BIT better than some of the latter day offerings…But yeh, this one shuffled half heartedly out onto VHS and DVD in October of 2003, which was the main way most people watched it…and, its kind of a shame really because, to the films credit…While I didnt love it, it is almost certainly better than most of whats come before it.

The film opens with a wild Celebi (a legendary Pokemon from the Johto era) being persued by a Pokemon Hunter that wants to capture it to sell to the highest bidder at auction. Celebi is saved by a random passer by called ‘Sammy’ who fends off the hunter, and; with a moment to spare, Celebi uses its ancient powers to time travel itself and Sammy 40 years into the future.

Injured and weak from using almost all of its energy, Sammy and Celebi collapse near a shrine, where they’re found by our fateful heros Ash, Misty and Brock. on bringing Sammy back to the nearest rest stop, an elderly woman who’s been patrolling the forests for years protecting the woodland and its Pokemon recognises the lad as the one who mysteriously dissapeared some 40 years prior.

Its here that we’re also introduced to our antagonist for this movie the ‘Iron Masked Maurauder’ a devious and infamous ‘special’ member of team rocket who has perfected the use of ‘Dark Balls’, a pokeball variation that turns any captured pokemon evil. He’s on the hunt for Celebi and after tracking down the hunter from 40 years prior (who is now an old man) discovers the likely location of Celebi. The Maurauders plan? To capture Celebi in a dark ball and use its immense psychic powers to show Team Rockets leader Giovanni, that he’s worthy of a senior positition within Team Rocket. He then leaves, but not before deomonstrating the power of the ‘Dark Ball’ capturing a caged Tyranitar and turning it into a Hyper Beam weilding monster.

While on the way to the woods our goofy plain old REGULAR Team Rocket, meet up with the Maurauder and decide to tag along to act as ‘back up’ (see here: titting about, comedy hijynx and causing the maurauder more problems than solving them).

While this is going on, the gang take the weakened Celebi back into the woods, where various Pokemon lead the gang to the ‘Lake of Life’ a hidden area of the woods with regenerative waters. They dunk Celebi in and hey presto, he’s fully healed and bopping about like a good’un.

But when the Maurauder turns up and spots the gang and Celebi, it becomes a battle of might vs kindness, as Ash and Sammy team up to try and shield Celebi and the Maurauder threatens not only the destruction of the lake, but of the entire forest too!

Given this was direct to video in my neck of the woods, and that after the 3rd film, there seemed to be a significant drop in interest in the other Pokemon movies, I kind of went into this one fully expecting it to be D.O.A…But I actually have to say, I came away from this one somewhat surprised really.

I’ll get probably my biggest sticking point out of the way up front, the plot for this one just…isnt really particularly exciting. Given the previous 3 films revolved around a clone pokemon trying to raise a clone army to take over the world, a billionair tech fascist trying to capture a sea god for his ‘collection’, and a plot involving a little girl getting infinite reality bending powers leading to surreal and interesting subplots…the story of a little green onion zapping a kid 40 years into the future. passing out for 15 minutes of the runtime, getting better, and then a couple of moderately ‘timey wimey’ plot twists that I wont mention here for spoilers sake…Before heading back to its original timeline 40 years in the past, is…kind of underwhelming.

Im not saying that there arnt elements of this that are exciting, the final act showdown between Ash and Sammy, and the Maurauder and Celebi is very well handled. But it shares a lot of its plot points from ‘Pokemon – The Movie: 2000’ to an almost 1:1 degree…with the only significant difference being that one of the villains was a ‘collector’ stealing pokemon for himself, and the other was a ‘Hunter’ stealing pokemon for someone elses collection…

In many ways, I prefer this film to ‘2000’ because it at least picks a lane, ‘2000’s’ problem was it had to juggle the legendary birds plot, the ‘orb’ sub plot AND the collector and Lugia plot lines all at once. This? is massively streamlined with the Celebi/Maurauder plot taking center stage, with a slightly more vague subplot about the mythical dog ‘Suicune’ helping add a bit of a contrast. My issue is that these plots both are struggling for my attention.

The main plot, as mentioned just isnt intense enough to make me feel like im watching something special, this could have just been a 2 part story in the Anime, and it would have been okay at that. Its a bit too gentle and they slow the action RIGHT down in the 2nd act for a big chunk of the runtime where I feel maybe another brief subplot or even some more character development for Sammy or the protectors of the forest would have been nice. They dont even really play all that much on the ‘Time Travel’ element of the plot really, which seems bizarre given its being marketed as the core USP of this film…

The Suicune subplot is almost non existent. We get a VERY brief intro to Suicune as a core concept in the opening 15 minutes of the film, but it literally only occupies about 3-4 minutes of that opening, and then we dont really pick it back up again till the opening of the 3rd act…and even THEN, when we DO pick it up, Suicune essentially swishes in, runs around a bit, does ONE key action near the very end of the film, and then buggers off, its less a storyline, and more a ‘we wrote ourselves into a corner and need a ‘maguffin’ to get us out’ type situation…Which I was a little dissapointed with honestly.

The characters here are all fine enough, I do wish they’d given Sammy as a character a bit more of a chance to grow and develop, he seems largerly relegated to the background for a good chunk of this film past the opening, which made me wonder why they put him in the movie at all (a later plot twist involving him was nice…But I wouldnt say it was essential, and it opesn a LOT of questions about the anime and the storyline we’ve been following up to this point) I was equally dissapointed that, once again, we find both Team Rocket AND Misty and Brock just kind of…mooching about in the background for most of the runtime, with only a handful of moments where they actually seem to get anything to do. Its a particular shame with Team Rocket, whos goofy self awareness is pretty much the main highlight of any of these movies.

The Maurauder is probably one of the more interesting villains to come out of the series up to this point, and im kind of amazed that he was just a one off who only appeared in this movie and never showed up again, as I could have easily seen him popping up a few more times (maybe in the anime) as a mid league threat to the gang. I guess im just kind of amazed the burnt through a decent character for just one movie…

As for the pacing and structuring? The first act opens relatively strong, the second act maintains the pace, but quickly starts losing momentum around the halfway point, eventurally resulting in just…time killing scenes that dont really seem to be going anywhere, and ultimately lead into a 3rd act that feels like its positively pedestrian barring the final fight scene. I dunno, I feel like when your movies ‘Final Fight’ scene is treated almost like an interruption to the narcolepsy framing it…you have a bit of a problem on your hands. Pacings a bit up and down, better than some of the earlier entries…But not great.

On the art direction and animation front, it feels a bit like a step back, while the hand drawn animation is still much in line with the quality we had for ‘Pokemon The Movie: 3’ which I thought was a high water mark for the series honestly, the CGI seems to have backslidden back into ‘Pokemon 2000’ terratory. In the last film, the CG was still kind of prominent, but was a LOT more subtle than in ‘2000’, but here, we have large swathes of the movie featuring VERY noticable and intense ‘PS3 era’ CG graphics, they stand out like a sore thumb and really break up the flow of the animation and scene structuring. I really wasnt a fan honestly, and im hoping in later entries either the graphics will improve, or become more subtle.

Other than that, the animation itself is pretty lovely, there are some really nice moments bought to life here (a scene involving a mass evolution of Metapod into Butterfree is a definite highlight) sequences are largely well paced and look great! With only one or two scenes really standing out as being on screen for a bit too long, or moments being drawn out just a little bit past the comfortable zone.

Vocal performances are once again, fine. I dont quite feel like the same level of passion is here for this one, and Brock sounds QUITE different form the last time he was on screen. But the cast do a fine enough job and just about get through the whole thing in one piece.

The soundtrack here too feels a little bit cheaper. its essentially slightly jazzed up reimaginings of tracks from the anime for the most part, with a couple of low level pop songs randomly slotted in. this is probably the most unmemorable soundtrack of the series thus far. I wasnt particularly a fan.

I can absolutely understand why ‘Pokemon 4Ever’ didnt get a wide cinema release when it came out. It just doesnt seem to have the same level of pull as the previous films, and given the high stakes of the last few entries, this seems more like an extended episode of the TV series than anything else, but not in a good way.

Nevertheless; while I have been critical of this movie, it does have its good points, the plot itself while slower, is probably more cohesive and understandable than any of the previous 3 movies plotlines, the pacing is more consistent, the act structuring is reletively solid and the cast are interesting. Throw in a couple of half decent plot twists and ‘Pokemon 4Ever’ is almost certainly not one that I think kids today would like…Honestly, I think most adults would struggle. But on a technical and thematic level, its still moving in the right direction. I dont think i’d go as far as to say this is ‘underrated’, but I’d say if you are revisiting the early Pokemon movies, it *may well* be worth your time to maybe take just one more step out of the original trilogy.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pokemon-4ever/

The third Pikachu short (and, I believe the last time a pikachu short would consistently play before a mainline pokemon movie outside of Japan) ‘Pikachu & Pichu’ essentially takes the ‘silent film’ styling that the last two films prominently featured and takes it to its logistical conclusion. By essentially bringing the comedy prat falls to the big city and playing it like some kind of buster keaton by way of Laurel and Hardy pic.

The plot picks up with our gang (presumably) in Goldenrod city, the big shopping town of Johto, Ash, Misty and Brock have put some time aside for a little retail therapy, and essentially take their pokemon to a rooftop playground so that they can chill and have fun for a few hours, while the gang go shopping.

Unfortunately for Pikachu, a couple of rowdy Pichu start antagonizing him by making faces and spanking themselves (…sure okay why not…)

One thing leads to another, and Pikachu ends up falling off the rooftop, and, while he survives the fall, he has NO idea how to get back to the top! THAT is where the Pichu brothers come in! they agree to help Pikachu get back up there, but when an aggressive Houndour threatens to throw the plan off track, the gang have to deviate into the side allys of Goldenrod leading to near scrapes AND a visit to the Pichu brothers home! a wonderfully charming tyre village housed almost entirely by baby pokemon and 1st stage evolution pokemon. As you can imagine chaos, comedy and more ensues!

This thing comes so close to being my favourite one of these. We, once again have a clear 3 act narrative, the pacing is lively and to the point, the characters are animate and genuinely fun to be around. The art style is top tier, I love how flowing and effortless this all looks and even the CG blends into the production relatively seamlessly. Even the soundtrack is solid with a mix of modernised ragtime sounding pieces and a few instances that play on the tones of ‘Rhapsody in blue’ it all works pretty effortlessly for me honestly…The shorts at this point really are as good, if not better than the features. With only 2 issues with this one really stopping it from claiming the top spot.

The first is Meowth, who…Once again is seemingly just here because he is. Hes crammed into this special under the guise that Jessie and James have got him a job working in the city. But he gets 2 scenes in this, neither particularly funny and both just feel forced and a bit weird. they could have cut them and noone would have noticed honestly.

And the other is the introduction of a ‘narrator’ who essentially overclarifies whatver we’re seeing on screen to a painful degree…if a Pichu is hanging off a ledge, the Narrator will say ‘Oh no! Pichu is hanging off the ledge!’ mercifully it doesnt happen TOO often in this short, but it totally kills the atmosphere and really pulled me out of the short…I hear this happens more and more frequently as these shorts go on…So as you can imagine…im thrilled.

‘Pikachu & Pichu’ Is once again, a pretty solid short. It would have been my favourite had it not been self sabotaged by the narrator and just a couple of moments that went a little *slowburn* for me. Otherwise, this one is still fun and cutesy and I recommend checking this out if you enjoy Pokemon, the series, the movies, the games or just cute animal cartoons honestly…

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

The second of the ‘Pikachu’ shorts is short, sweet and to the point. It opens with the gang stopping off to rest after a long day hiking in the mountains of Johto, when disaster strikes! As Togepi accidentally rolls away down a hill, unable to stop, causing Pikachu and the gang to give chase to try and save her! Only! It gets worse!! Because at the bottom of the hill is a huge sink hole, and the gang, STILL unable to stop, end up tumbling down it and into a positive pokemon paradise!

Housed inside a massive tree, WAVES of pokemon from all walks of life are having a ball! But theres no time to dawdle now! We have a togepi to save! So the gang head into the tree, meet a very friendly Elekid who offers to help them, but when they find Togepi, theres a problem…It turns out that she’s fallen into a nest of Exeggcute, and because Togepi is egg shaped, they think shes one of them, and get VERY defensive of her. What follows then is a mission to try and calm the Exeggcute, rescue Togepi and get back to Ash and co before they realise they’re gone!…Oh and Meowth is in this…for some reason.

Once again we have another pretty simple, but quite effective little short film here. rather than it being a series of Vignettes intercut with trippy visuals this time, this feels instead like a single coherent story with a three act structure that I think holds up pretty well. There are some issues here, I still dont really fully know why Meowth is in this one, he doesnt interact with the main story, and seemingly is only there to…well…be meowth.

But that aside, this doesnt waste time, has a good pace, does what it needs to do, and then gets out of there. The art style is decent, theres a couple continuity flubs on the English dub (a Polywhirl is mistaken for a Polywrath…) But nothing i’d get my flaming torch for.

Basically, if you enjoyed ‘Pikachus Vacation’ or you have a love of cutesy animal driven movies, you’ll probably really quite enjoy this one too. Its not trying to be the smartest movie in the room. Its just trying to tell a simple story effectively for a younger audience. and I think it pretty much achieves that with vigour.

Another instance where, personally? I preferred the short film over the main feature!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pokemon-pikachus-rescue-adventure/