TYTD Reviews

Not a tremendous amount to say at this point about this one. Its a non cut and paste Godfrey Ho movie that somehow manages to be almost as confusing AS his cut and paste movies. It follows 3,4 or 5 ‘good guys’ who end up being ‘good guys’ by one of two means. Either:

A: They take on a towns local fighting competition which turns out to be a semi-murderous racket. they escape being murdered and swear vengence on the racketeers.

or.

B: they end up trying to defend a towns local open market by beating up some bullies. only to find out that the bullies are part of a larger organisation and that the towns terrified of them and dont want to rock the boat.

As you can imagine, it later transpires that the fighting competition organisers and the market bullies are in fact one in the same and are working in tandem to steal and sell antiques using the fighting competition as a front to pick up new henchmen and to launder money.

And…thats basically the plot. The good guys occasionally spar with the bad guys periodically across the runtime, theres some light comedy elements played out in places. But theres realistically about half an hour to 45 minutes worth of plot here thats been expanded out to 90 with long LONG fight scenes and subplots that dont really go anywhere.

i’ve heard that this is considered one of Ho’s better offerings. But I personally found it kind of pedestrian all things considered. The plots confusing and incoherent at times, the directions okay, it feels like the crew are all old hands at doing this, but thats kind of the problem…they’re old hands who, at this point, feel tired doing what they’re doing and are just going through the motions.

the cine is kind of bland and middle of the road too, just about passable. the fight choreography is fine enough, but nothing *too* grand happens here, they use soft touch contact fighting for most of the movie, but they the way the cine has been utilized renders what *should* be very powerful punches looking almost like the gentlest of taps. Like, its fiiiine…but thats all it is.

performances are kind of mixed ability, theres a nice campy overtone to proceedings which I enjoyed. But the sub of this film is SO badly translated, and the dub just feels kind of flat. so…its hard to really fully get immersed in this thing.

And the soundtrack is predominantly stolen from spaghetti westerns…according to those lovely folks at Gold Ninja Video, the martial arts genre was heavily influenced by westerns and thats why they pinched a lot of the soundtracks…But its kind of plopped into this film, it doesnt feel like it fits the tone they’re actually going for…which is a shame.

All in all? eh. i’ve ABSOLUTELY seen better. But this could have been worse. a bit of a bland viewing experience. This wouldnt be what i’d point you to for an example of Ho’s work, but if you’ve seen a few martial arts movies and do have a soft spot for Godfrey’s work, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-dragon-the-hero/

Watched on Monday December 4, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/jack-frost-1997/1/

To give you an idea of how seriously this film takes itself. This is the kind of movie that randomly decides to smash cut to our entire antagonist group in FULL SS death squad uniforms mid rally on a tennis court, having had almost NO Nazi ideology up to that point. It’s literally just rumbling along and then BOOM. Black Nazi death squads…I laughed for a solid 2 minutes.

I’m generally not one for Nazisploitation, I find that more often than not they’re just an excuse to make a faux torture and snuff film with a veil of historical ‘classiness’ for lack of a better term…But I love Blaxsploitation cinema deeply. So combining the two…I had my doubts.

But! I’m pleased to say ‘The Black Gestapo’ while…a *tad* misleading, is a VERY campy and over the top gritty romp, that I was actually very pleasently surprised by!

The plot? A city is being overrun by pimps, drug dealers and ‘protection’ rackets who’re making the streets unsafe and putting people in the hospital. A local black power quasi military group are supporting on the ground to try and get help to people who need it and support in any way they can to keep the community going, but they’re generally pacifist by nature and believe that the crime waves should be handled by the LAPD.

Well…except for one of the soldiers, who thinks they need to get tough, bring in 20 strong men, teach them combat and take the action to the streets to get results…but he’s talked down.

That is until the leader of this movements partner gets assaulted and then later raped. Its at this point he grants the squad 6 men to train, on the grounds they’re used SOLELY to keep the peace…which…almost IMMEDIATELY doenst happen as they go after the key dealers who’ve been attacking people and racketeering.

However; once the main gangs have all been dealt with, our group splinters. With the ‘Violence first’ group essentially filling the void thats left by the pimps and pushers leading to an even BIGGER surge in violence on the streets and drug issues.

anyway…they skip a couple steps and suddenly, they’re also nazis…and I’ve gotta say they’re the most casual nazis i’ve ever seen, I had a good chuckle watching them just casually strolling in full SS uniform…But I digress…its down to the pacifist faction to take up arms and put the new neo-nazi faction down before the whole thing escalates into a city wide warzone.

And what I will say is, for blaxsploitation? this isnt a terribly well made production. But for Nazisploitation? its a diamond.

The script is basic, but effective. its a gritty urban exploitation film at its core that seems pretty preoccupied by a lot of the ‘Black Power’ movement beliefs of the time. With the key battle lines being drawn between ‘violence gets results’ and ‘talking gets results’. Its pretty clear though which line THIS film falls on…and the spoiler here is, its not the side that portrays the violent ones as LITERAL nazis. While the truth and reality lies somewhere in the middle of these two points. This isnt the film to be having that conversation. It’s too goofy for that.

Its got a solid 3 act structure. it knows what it is, it knows what its trying to be and it nails the tone and pacing near perfectly. Leaving me personally not really wanting more. But fully satisfied with what i’d had.

The characters are *just* about complex enough to be interesting without getting too deep or being too shallow. and it ends pretty satisfyingly too.

I enjoyed the plot progression, I found the characters worked well in the scenarios set. If I was going to be critical, i’d say that the actual ‘Nazi’ element isnt really utilized very well…the opening titles and end credits are basically filled with old WW2 footage or audio of hitler…and theres one scene about an hour in where they show WW2 stock footage too…

But theres no build up to them becoming Nazis…like, the lead character never once expresses any inclination to liking the Nazis or wanting to BE a nazi. he wears normal clothes and a standard uniform for most of the films runtime and then out of nowhere BAM. NAZI. It wouldnt have maybe been nice to see it build a little, maybe show him as being interested in WW2 history and then GRADUALLY tease out of him that he has Nazi aspirations.

Instead; because they ‘crash the nazi’ it just makes it jump from a fairly decent, but a little slow blaxploitation flick into an ultra goofy production that took me by surprise.

The direction and cine are decent we have solid compositional choices, the print quality looks great with nice use of depth of field. the styalisation here is a little forced if im being honest, but I think it handles sequence building pretty well. the scenes largely keep a good pace, it maybe could have been 5-10 minutes tighter to really get maximum value out of it (theres a few scenes that feel like they repeat a bit that could have been trimmed out) but…on the whole? this is proabably one of the better Blaxsploitation offerings and absolutely one of the better Nazisploitation ones…

The performances are the big selling point here, all the leading cast members are campy, over the top and very VERY sweaty. some of their line deliveries are just delightful and im about 99% sure that this film influenced Quentin Tarantino’s writing for Samuel L. Jackson. theres just this perfect level of ‘badassery’ going on with highly animated and VERY physical performances. I loved it.

The scoring was a little generic all things considered. I didnt dislike it, but honestly; it wasnt memorable enough for me to have a strong opinion either way. It did its job, it wasnt overly intrusive…I cant complain.

All in all, this one really surprised me, the quality of the production married up to a tonally strange script that simultaniously manages to be totally Daffy Duck…While at the same time raising genuine arguements and comments about culture, war, society and violence. Was something I really got on with.

HIGHLY recommended if you like Blaxsploitation cinema, or are looking to get into the genre. I think Nazisploitation fans may be a little underwhelmed by this one. But I’ll absolutely be checking this one out again!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-black-gestapo/

Coming in strong as a mash up of ‘Children Shouldnt Play With Dead Things’, ‘Theater of Blood’ and ‘One Dark Night’, ‘Frightmare’ is a fun enough little romp, though ultimately it doesnt really feel like anything we havent already seen before.

The plot revolves around an aging horror icon Conrad Ragzoff (heavily modelled on a kind of hybrid of Christopher Lee and Vincent Price) who passes away unexpectedly but swears his imminant return as one of his dying words. A couple of nights later a group of hardcore superfans of the actors work, break into his crypt, abduct the body and take it back to there frat house, where they play with his corpse, pose with him and generally do things you shouldnt really be doing with a corpse, with the understanding that they’ll take the body back before sun up.

Unfortunately Conrad has other ideas, ressurecting with newly psychic/telekenetic/Scanners powers and murderous revenge on his mind. The students are suddenly thrust into one last horror film of Conrads making!

And…yeh, theres not really a whole lot to say about this one, its got a light campier tone, which is always welcome, its a little slow boil even at only an 86 minute runtime. It could have lost 10-15 and felt so much better for it. The characters are kinda one note and all fairly interchangable, but I felt Conrad as a character did bring a level of charisma and uniqueness to the role. I liked how they introduced some kind of magic viewing screen element in which Conrad could talk to the teens and advise them of their incoming demise, I thought that was a nice touch.

The act structures are a little messy here and there, but I think they do keep a fairly well balanced three act run here.

The direction and cine are to standard, even going a little above and beyond in places with some of the more gory kills being particularly well handled with this one, I liked that the cast were much more animated than some of these films tend to be, I just wish they really got a bit more lively and physically involved in the sets to really help take this to the next level.

Cine composition is fine, everything blocked nicely, colour use is a little underplayed which is a shame, and as mentioned the editing probably would have benefitted from one more pass through just to ensure everything was as tight as it could be.

The performances outside of Ferdy Mayne as Conrad are kind of unforgettable, which is a big problem with this genre, so I wasnt too surprised to see it here…but it is a shame non the less.

and the soundtrack was pretty solid too for what its worth.

All in all this ones *just* barely above average for me. The script is interesting but a little too slow going for my taste, the direction is technically pretty solid, but again; a little pedestrian for 1981 standards, the cine is above average in their attempt to try and keep things as fresh as possible, but it is held back from greatness by a slower edit and some underdeveloped performances.

It’s…fine. Im a little dissapointed by it honestly as I’d had this one my ‘To Watch’ list for about 10 years. But I think the dissapointment is more a me problem than the movies problem. This is a fine enough production, it does the job a supernatural slasher should do. It just doesnt do any more than that. a bit of a mediocre offering. I could see myself watching this one again, I couldnt see myself recommending this one though.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/frightmare-1981/

‘Merlin: The Return’ is a missed opportunity, with catastrophic results. Almost every aspect of this picture feels like it’s been fumbled, watered down or gotten lost in translation at one point or another across the runtime.

Indeed; the title itself would suggest it was a sequel, presumably if ‘Merlin’ is returning, we must have had an adventure with him previously? NO! No we havent ladies and gents. Instead, ‘Merlin: The Return’ is a strange hodge podge of time travel, witch craft and transdimensional portals embedded in stone henge that quite honestly was a chore to try and keep up with.

The plot is thus, its the year of our lord 1999. and theres trouble brewing. Y’see? 1500 years prior, a great battle was held between a powerful sorcerer called Mordrid and his army, and King Arthur and his armies assisted by Merlin. the battle reached a fevered pitch as Merlin fought against Mordrids spells, Mordrid managed to claim the sword Excaliber, giving him the edge in battle.

He reveals that Arthurs most trusted Knight ‘Lancelot’ has been banging King Arthurs Missus. and in the confusion, Merlin uses his powers to seal both himself and the ENTIRE battle in…what I can only describe as a ‘time lock’…They were essentially frozen in time in some kind of pocket reality thats tied to Stone henge.

Back in the year 1999, a scientist by the name of Maxwell is working on some studies around the manipulaiton of the earths magnetic poles, and in doing so, she creates a ‘schizm’ in the timelock reactivating everyone who was put in there, but keeping them trapped in their pocket dimension. Merlin manages to escape, as does King Arthur and some of his men, who all hide out in the woods and attack cars thinking they’re beasts.

At the same time we’re introduced to Kate, Ritchie and their respective families. Kates mum is a medium and Maxwell (who has discovered the pocket dimension) is trying to contact the beings inside it. eventually using Kates Mum as a conjuit to speak to Mordrid. Who gives her the instruction required to start working on busting open the time lock.

Ritchie meanwhile is new to the country, his dads just died and he’s feeling all angsty and upset at the world (but like…in a way that magically vanishes unless the plot needs it) he arrives in the village and they almost kill Merlin, who teleports into the real world from the time lock and is deeply confused.

Anway; to cut a long story short, the kids find out Mordrid is up to no good when they catch Kates mum possessed by him, Merlin finds Arthur and his army and the pair begin to plan on how to seal Mordrid away for good, the kids follow Maxwell back to her lab (as does Merlin) and adventures are on for people who consider themselves easily exciteable.

I honestly dont even know where to begin with this thing. Probably with the thought that marinated in my brain from about 5 minutes in right the way up to the end credits…YOU HAVE RIK MAYALL IN YOUR MOVIE AS A WIZARD…AND YOU SOMEHOW MADE IT BORING!

I wish it wasnt the case, but this films somehow managed the near impossible feat of taking MULTIPLE really cool and fun little ideas and just…utterly draining them of any and all charisma and warmth. The plot sounds awesome on paper! Arthur, Merlin, a load of knights and an evil wizard all get pulled out of the 1500’s and dumped in 1999 to finish off an epic battle of magic and sword play, while also getitng accustomed to a world that basically must be alien for them.

I was envisioning Mayall in robes prancing around a battle field zapping people into rabbits, cracking *slightly* naughty jokes and being whimsically baffled by modern technology, while also giving off a warmth to the kids that would really bring in a ‘family movie’ dynamic.

I was basically thinking of ‘Hocus Pocus’ meets ‘Harry Potter’ crossed with ‘Drop dead fred’ but it just…isnt. Its an incredibly straight laced 3 act piece that largely consists of MULTIPLE phoned in performances. almost NOONE on set seemingly cares about this film. i’d say the tone was all over the place, but that would imply it had a main tone to begin with. It’s vanilla ice cream, it doesnt commit to being overly serious, it doesnt commit to being funny or silly…

The plot itself opens awkwardly, establishing the pocket dimension and the schizm FIRST, then introducing the characters who caused it SECOND…THEN introducing the kids…who dont even become relevent for 15 minutes past that point…and finally introducing Merlin and Arthur properly. It meant that all our pieces were on the board by the 30 minute mark. But they’d been thrown on so haphazardly that I had to stop the film for 10 minutes and go back over my notes to understand exactly WHAT i’d just sat through.

Its sluggish all the way through, they cant seem to nail the pacing of any of the action scenes, meaning everything just feels like an elongated struggle to hit the next cue. the dialogue is utterly abysmal. The characters have ZERO definition or complexity. what you see on screen is what you get with these characters, as far as this films concerned they started existing when you hit play on the movie, and when the credits rolled they may as well have died.

The directions not great either, it really kind of smacks of ‘made for TV movie’ fodder, a lot of my rating for this film is going on the technical ability of this movie because, fundamentally…it’s not a bad looking film. But its incredibly bland and has nothing really going for it to make it stand out against any other transatlantic co-production of that time. It really visually reminded me of shows like ‘Hercules: the legendary journey’s’ or the 1996 ‘Doctor who TV movie’…which…if THATS what your films reminding me of?…thats not exactly a gold star of quality indicator.

The cine struggles for most of the runtime, composition is kind of flat and lifeless, the CGI has NOT aged well and looks like a mixture of digital smears and clipart .GIF’s. they do utilise some interesting lighting choices in places and the scenes do have a structure to them, but the edit is sloppy, it loses the narrative thread INCREDIBLY easily (and repeatedly) and as a warning, if your prone to seizures…dont watch this thing because the final 15 minutes of this film is basically like being flashbombed through your TV non stop. Im prone to migraines and didnt need to see that…soooo…im writing this while I can still see.

The performances are dire. I dont talk about child actor performances as a rule…thats genuinely a mercy for this film…Rik Mayall is phoning it in for 99% of the films runtime, honestly his best performance is in this films ‘making of’ where he has to pretend to be enthused about the movie…and he cant even muster that without his trademark sarcasm. the rest of the cast all feel like am-dram performances, everyones stiff as a board and barely uses their set space, there seems to be some confusion around where the frame begins and ends, the dialogue deliveries are LITERALLY some of the worst performances i’ve ever seen put on film. i’ve seen bad AI bots deliver dialogue more convincingly.

The audio for these performances constatly switches between on set and ADR…its a really poor show with no real standout winner…

The soundtrack? I quite liked, it’s orchestral, it suited the tone of the film fine enough, but its probably one of the most misused OST’s i’ve ever heard. they have a really odd gentle ambient track that runs for the entire duration of the final battle of this film (the final battle being three wizards firing spells at each other and being smashed around the place while an army cause mischief in the background) It really needed a more action oriented score behind it to emphisize the action we see on screen, it needed tighter shot composition, more focus on facial features and reactions…instead we get 10 minutes of wide shots backed by what sounds like late 70s Brian Eno on an off day…

I didnt hate ‘Merlin: The Return’ If it were on in the background, I wouldnt mind…but it is a poor POOR film in almost every other regard. Mayall is wasted here, the rest of the cast cant be arsed, the scripts dull, the direction and cine are borderline and the soundtracks misused.

When you could have had King arthur trying a motorbike as an alternative to a horse, Merlin astounded by television (and with it being Mayall, the adult channels no doubt) and some goofy kids who could have had a heartwarming and silly experience with the real life court of king arthur…to boil it down to an hour and 27 minutes of heavy discussion about magnetic polarity, opening and closing portals and the status of a sword?, all played fairly straight cut?…its a VERY dry experience…and one I am unlikely to actively pursue again…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/merlin-the-return/

Watched on Sunday November 19, 2023.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/carol-for-another-christmas/1/

An odd title to find while browsing the horror section of my local second hand store, 2003’s ‘Exorcism’ seemingly had the brief of ‘Can we make a horror film for the YA Christian crowd that’s scary, but doesnt stray *too* far into devil worship and the obscene?’

If that WAS the brief this film had, it’s succeeded tremendously, this film was rated ’12’ in the UK…and thats not a modern ’12’, thats a 2005 ’12’ (which incidentally was the same rating the first series of the revived ‘Doctor who’ scored when it came out on DVD)

Ever wondered what an ‘exorcist’ knock off would look like if it had a ’12’ rating and was produced to appeal to teen christians? Look no further.

The plot? a family begin to experience odd goings on at their home, paranormal events that they cant account for. The mother of the house has a brief spell in hospital, but before leaving a nurse corners her, reveals herself to be a demon and tells her that husband isnt going to be around for much longer.

The husband, while on the way to collect her from the hospital gets into an accident where he’s put into a coma. While in the coma it’s revealed that a coven of demons have been praying on him as he made a deal with them in the mid 70s asking for a successful and properous life which they granted. And nows the time to collect on the debt.

The fathers brother is a catholic priest who firmly believes we’re in the end of days, putting mass murderers and other unfortunate souls actions NOT down to a mental health crisis in the country…But an over running of demons who must be vanquished. Word reaches him that his brothers in a coma in the hospital and he rushes to his bedside, ALSO getting grabbed by the demon nurse who makes it clear he’s going to have his work cut out for him.

After some time in recovery the father returns home, but it quickly becomes apparent that he’s FAR from all there which leads his brother Father John to contact the church with the request to perform an exorcism.

While this is going on there are also two B-plots going on. The families daughter is attending a non catholic church where the preacher is giving a lecture on demonology and exorcisms, which causes friction between her and her catholic uncle.

Theres also a plot about a group of home invaders who, at the start of the film break into our main families house, only to be scared away when a literal angel busts out of a picture and scares the crap out of them. This then causes them to have strange encounters with demons fo their own.

Oh! and theres ANOTHER B-plot that creeps in around the second act as a pair of journalists get a tip off about the possessions and exorcisms going on in town and decide to investigate.

Non of that really matters though, as (mild spoilers, but trust me, you’ll thank me) The journalist plotline literally never gets resolved. they just…forget to close it. the last shot they’re in is them chatting about the previous night (where they visited a church to discuss exorcisms…but got brushed off) and nothing really comes of it.

The home invaders plotlines dont really get resolved or tied up either. One of the gang (named Dan) has a fractured relationship with his dad, in the opening of the film you see him arguing with his dad, who isnt happy that he’s lazy, has no aspirations and doesnt wanna hang out with his pop or do anything really…then later in the film Dan discovers faith, gets saved, returns home to tell his dad he’s turning over a new leaf…Only for his dad to be EVEN MORE angry, because now it means he wont drink or gamble with him…

That plot doesnt get resolved either, nor does Daniels character arc, Nor do ANY of the home invaders character arcs really. They’re last seen in an exorcism scene (thats not a spoiler, this film drops exorcisms like they’re going out of fashion) and then they basically dissapear without a trace.

The script for this thing is kind of awkward honestly, the B-plots leading to nothing is dissapointing, but the main plotlines kind of retreading old ground, a censored melting pot of ‘The Exorcist’, ‘The Evil Dead’ and ‘Night of the Demons’ theres nothing really new here explored. they just kind of take the generic demon/exorcism tropes remove all the gore, graphic imagery, nudity, and any kind of aggressive violence and add in a TON of faith indoctrination…

Expect bible verse titles to be quoted, without actually being said…meaning you have to look them up yourself to see what they’re referencing (which is another reason I believe this was made for a church audience, and not really for your average horror connisaur) Theres tons of religious debate…but not like…faith based debate, I mean; everyone in this movie agrees that gods and demons are real. Its just which *side* of that you sit on…with plenty of the movies runtime given over to debate on which side of christianity and catholicism is correct.

The pacings weird on this thing too, it opens quite strong at a good pace and tone, but slowly seems to lose its momentum across the runtime, really slowing down around the end of the 2nd act and rendering the 3rd act a total slog…which makes it all the more surprising that they didnt bother wrapping up large chunks of the plot, given they clearly had time for extended conversations between Father John and church on the ethicacies of doing an exorcism alone.

I’d say the tone is pretty consistent throughout, though it does dabble in more lighthearted moments here and there, it’s kind of ‘vanilla’ in it’s overall execution. I feel like the self imposed censorship here doesnt really do it any favours, and the dialogue at times borders on a sermon which…is not really how I wanna spend my horror movie.

The characters are all SUPER preachy…with anyone who DOESNT get super snobby and particular being relegated to background characters or supporting cast at best. There isnt really a lot of depth to them, theres little to no backstory beyond the fathers deal with the demons in the 70s, I think it really would have benefitted the film to give these characters a bit more complexity and depth than they ultimately ended up with. just…something that stops them being ‘generic religious character with strong moral compass’ maybe some tests of faith, or moments of doubt would have just helped give them a bit of a boost.

VERY surprisingly, the direction and cine for this thing is actually quite impressive. we have sharply honed vision executed to studio standard. While there are a few CGI moments that really havent aged too well, I honestly couldnt really knock this thing. for a low budget production it REALLY looks quite decent. I cant speak for continuity, but the practical effects look good, theres solid composition, the grade is nice, theres solid use of creative lighting in places, the sets are well dressed (mostly…the demons lair at the pit of hell is kinda poor…but I reckon they did those shots near the end when the budget was running low)

I think William A Baker had a clear vision for this and delivered it excellently. I just wish he’d developed this style a bit more, rather than pivoting into conspiracy theory-esq documentaries.

The performances are a little choppy, Our main cast come across as a little bit Am-Dram in places which wasnt ideal, theres a degree of woodness that lingers around this production with only Jack Donner and Tony Burton REALLY setting my socks on fire as polarised exorcists Father John and Bishop Harris. they really got into their roles, their performances came across as sincere and I was glad we spent most of the movie with those two as they’re easily the best performers in this thing.

Throw in a decent soundtrack and overall? I kinda liked this one…I cant say I outright LOVED it, but I could easily see myself pairing this movie up with something like David Heaveners ‘Dawn of the living dead’ as movies that were clearly christian audience motivated but have ended up in the wider horror distribution chain.

As for the movie itself? I think it’ll all come down to how much patience you have with christianity and censorship. If your okay with your horror films having a heavy YA Christian sermon vibe and next to no gore or violence…but a fun enough tone. You’ll probably be okay with this one.

If you get riled by the thought that ‘Five Nights at Freddys’ got a PG-13 rating when it ABSOLUTELY should have been an R at minimum…dont bother with this thing, its not your stomping ground.

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

Caught the MST3K dub of this today and…at least with the ‘riffed’ version its a hoot! A little slow, but the jokes carry it over the finish line for me!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-black-scorpion/

So…Its taken 10 of these, but I think i’ve finally cracked what I like, and dont like, about the ‘Saw’ franchise. I like relatively self contained stories that dont end up bleeding heavily into 3 or 4 other films in such a way that you get an incomplete experience if you dont watch the lot. I like there to be a level of complexity with the characters, I like it when the victims/contestants of Johns traps manage to survive (even if its only for another round or two) and I like it when the actions of Jigsaw and his associates enter a kind of morally grey area where you DO start to wonder if what he’s doing may actually have some kind of ethical net positive.

‘Saw X’ is very much “my kind of “Saw” film”. Set in between the events of Saw 1 and 2 (and largely disregarding most of the stuff that happens from Saw 3 onwards) It follows Johns last roll of the dice, as he heads to mexico after hearing from a member of his cancer support group of an experimental therapy that supposedly has a 90% success rate, he arrives, pays a large sum of money for the treatment, but after the therapy he realises they havent done anything. he’s been swindled. Aaaand as you can probably guess, you dont wrong John Kramer without finding yourself strapped down and given the choice of losing one of your body parts, or losing your life.

I suppose what I like the most about ‘Saw X’ isnt what it does do, but rather what it omits. My biggest issue with most of the ‘Saw’ films past part 2 is they become SO bogged down in trying to retroactively backfill ‘Lore’ into the franchise that by the end of part 7, it began to feel like the world fell into 2 camps; those who worked for John Kramer, and those who fall victim to John Kramer.

This film bins off almost everything, its a ‘one off’ story that manages to feel seamlessly part of the ‘Saw’ universe, without being bogged down by it. Its here to just tell an interesting story (because we ALL know how this things going to end) and so the emphisis moves away from ‘What big reveal are we going to have in this one?’ and instead becomes ‘How good is this journey going to be and will I feel satisfied by the resolution?

Well; the script is 2 hours, but it REALLY doesnt feel it, When I can confidently say that ‘Spiral’ felt significantly longer than this Im really not exaggerating. This is a breezy 2 hours that starts off a little on the slow side, but just gets quicker and quicker in pacing as things develop until, by the end of the 3rd act we’re positively at fever pitch.

Probably the thing I enjoyed the most about this script is that, for the first time in about 7 movies, John Kramer ACTUALLY has solid motivation against the people who have wronged him. In a series thats seen people get their skin ripped off for being a bit racist, someone risk being hung by barbed wire because she works for a crappy insurance salesman, or having your mouth sown shut and risked being fed into a set of steel blades (while having to fight of a huge blinded guy with a shovel) because you happened to be a slightly skeezy lawyer…This feels like ACTUAL cause to have a movie, ACTUAL drive to make the audience care about the vengence…

Theres plenty of twists and turns that, while not entirely unexpected, did surprise in places. The tone is pretty solid and I actually really enjoyed that this entry really moved away from just being about the victims. here theres a lot more emotional complexity on display (especially in the back end of the film) As we really get to dig deep into John and Amandas relationship, Johns thought processes around why he does what he does, and I found his interactions with his victims to be really quite refreshing after 6 or so films where he’s largely in a pre-recorded format (if he’s there at all)

I thought the characters all had a bit of a deeper range to work with than the last few films, and I liked how the state of play worked out across the runtime. Not to mention the fact that this is a pretty closed circuit movie, you could realistically watch it on its own merits. you dont *necessarily* need to have seen any of the other ‘Saw’ films. As the script here borrows more heavily from the ‘Exploitation’, ‘extremist’ and ‘revenge’ subgenres than the other entries. This could easily be viewed on its own as a pretty solid ‘guy gets vengence on those that wronged him’ flick. Its a neat, slight pivot on the franchise which I really quite appreciated.

In fact, the only niggle I really had was the very VERY end of this thing. it kind of just stops with a couple of loose threads still to go, and while im fine with them leaving some loose strands here and there, it did somewhat dampen things when certain plot threads that were VERY important to the story were quite literally just abandoned…unlikely to ever really get resolution.

The direction here is superb, it feels fresh, it looks fresh, but theres still the telltale stylistic choices that help really keep this thing in line with the rest of the franchise to date. I feel like they really managed to get the best out of the cast and crew and this is probably my favourite looking film of the franchise.

Same goes for the cine, there some subtle grading nods to the original films, which is a nice way to help keep things tied together, but otherwise this really looks nice, it’s grimey grotty and wincingly realistic in places, the traps are interesting and really well captured, the editing is tight (even for 2 hours) keeps a slow build but solid rhythm theres plenty of experimentation and B-roll to hand to help keep this looking nice, the composition is equally fresh and really feels like a series thats matured and grown over it’s days of just slowly hacking down 10 people with no rhyme or reason.

The performances here are superb! easily some of the best of the franchise and easily some of the most rewarding. This is a huge character piece for Tobin Bell, who’s forever been rustling around in the background of these films or only seen in flashback. Here? he’s front and center for the whole production and he’s FABULOUS. giving a solidly ranged performance while carrying that pain of a terminal illness with total believability. His words feel solid, his movements perfect for this kind of role, I think it’s probably the performance of his career quite honestly.

Not to be outshone however, Shawnee Smith is superb here as Amanda, getting the range she really deserved but was denied across the first 3 ‘Saw’ films, we get to see a deeper range and subtlety with her character that I feel really helps round her out nicely, its just a shame she’s stuck with arguably the WORST haircut ever put to film due to this taking place between ‘Saw 1 and 2’ Synnøve Macody Lund as Cecelia Pederson is one of my favourite antagonists for this franchise, a truely malicious performance thats maybe a tad stereotypical. But ultimately such a delight to sit through.

In fact, I dont really think theres a bad performance here at all, theres maybe a couple that stray a *little* far into hammy terratory…but hey, Im all for a bit of ham here and there.

All in all? barring VERY minor flaws here and there, I think ‘Saw X’ is probably the strongest entry in the series, it’d certainly be the film I show people if they were curious about the franchise and wanted to go a bit deeper than the first couple.

I usually consider a film a success if I could see myself watching it again, I absolutely could see myself watching this again. If you felt the ‘Saw’ series got a bit repetative after part 2, skip to this and I dont think you’ll have many problems.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/saw-x/

In many ways, im glad I’ve seen ‘Spiral’ at this point in my life, as having now seen it, i’ll be able to write this Letterboxd review, store it away and then NEVER watch it again. This review acting as a reminder to myself whenever I get morbidly curious to not even BEGIN to consider hitting play on this.

So ‘Jigsaw’ got panned by critics in 2017 for its attempt to soft reboot the franchise (which…I still dont entirely understand, it’s basically all the best bits of ‘Saw 2-7’ mashed together into one self contained feature rather than watered down and spread out over 6 movies…unoriginal? definitely. bad? absolutely not.)

So, the soft reboot plans got shelved and 4 years later, we have ‘Spiral’ another stab at soft rebooting the series and a film that takes place in the ‘Saw’ universe, but approaches the usual formulaic approach differently.

Set in the modern day of 2021 ‘Spiral’ picks up with members of a local police department slowly dissapearing and winding up dead by circumstances eerily similar to the ‘Jigsaw’ killings almost 20 years prior. It turns out that ‘Jigsaw’ is back on the scene (now wearing a pig mask exclusively…little to no Billy this time) and is picking off corrupt cops with the aim of trying to ‘purify’ the law enforcement.

Chris Rock plays Detective Zeke Banks, a morally questionable cop who’s managed to coast in the force for years because his father (played by Samuel L Jackson) was the chief inspector of the force.

When an incident happens that puts Banks in the firing line for incompitency, he’s buddied up with a partner, but the pair seem to have drawn the attention of ‘Jigsaw’ who now wants to play a game with them…

This films dull. I’ll give it credit in as far as it *does* try to do things a little bit differently to the previous entries (the emphisis here is less on the people trying to get out of the traps, and more on the police trying to track down whoever it is who’s doing the killings.) But while they do try and shake things up in some areas, there are others where they really dont do enough to break from the usual motions and the results are a ULTRA boring film that feels like more padding than actual story telling.

For a starters, the ‘Saw’ films are known for starting as psychological horror thrillers that emphisied gore, then later dropped the psychological element as it slowly drifted further and further into the gory slasher subgenre with just a hint of a thriller buried under the surface.

‘Spiral’ is just a straight cop thriller that occasionally remembers it is a ‘Saw’ influenced film and randomly drops in some of THE worst traps in the entire franchises run to date. The pacing is slow, lumbering and boing to the point that it becomes hard to remember exactly whats supposed to be happening in this thing, because all the scenes feel the same. Its just 93 minutes of info dumping this new universes lore…lore thats filled with padding meaning you dont really know what information is worth retaining for the ‘clever’ end twist reveal and what stuff is just aimless chatter used to pad out the runtime.

They tweak the tone slightly here (at least in the first half) to introduce more sarcastic and dry comedy. But this then knocks the film off kilter as the second half ramps up and the slight comedy angle is ditched all together in favour of just going full on into the gritty cop drama angle.

The characters just arnt interesting or engaging. they do bother to give them some history and complexity. But non of the characters feel like they have any degree of uniqueness to them. Only made worse by the dialogue which is literally 90% stereotypical anti hero/dirty cop quotes.

There isnt really any kind of warm up or down here, so the act structuring all kind of homodgonizes together. around the mid point of the movie it does suddenly get a *bit* of a pep, but nowhere near enough to carry this thing to the end credits. they dont really signal act changes. It just feels like one long drudge of a script thats here to read you a lore bible and then hope the sequel lets it actually DO something with it…which…had they stopped to check the quality of the movie they were making, they’d know a sequel was DEFINITELY not on the cards.

The direction is more or less the standard of studio quality. It isnt trying anything new, it feels like a film made by a director who’s phoning it in for the money. it has no creative flare or zeal, no heart, no passion behind the lens. its documenting a movie. Not engaging us with a movie.

The cine’s also flat, to standard and thats about it, compositions okay, but unremarkable. the edit is pretty dire with long, slow paced sequences broken up with seizure inducing edits and most annoyingly of all, for some reason the block colour correcting style of ‘Saws 3-6’ is back again and just as annoying as I remembered it being.

The performances are almost all phoned in. This is a film starring Chris Rock and Samuel L Jackson as a father/son cop duo trying to hunt down the Jigsaw killer, it could have been great. But they both look so tired and done with this movie before it even really gets started. its a paycheque for them. A driveway. thats it. The supporting cast are equally as bad, theres the odd glimpse of genuine sincerity in the performances here and there, generally from the folks for whome, this is there biggest break and they want to impress…But its few and far between and broadly speaking, they just get through the script as dryly as possible and hope the next gigs more valuable.

If I was speculating, ‘Spiral’ to me feels like a movie that only exists to retain an IP license or for some kind of tax reason. I cant in good faith think for a moment that someone looked at the ‘Saw’ franchise, looked at the script for this and went ‘THATS WHAT THE PUBLICS HUNGRY FOR!’ I’d honestly believe that someone submitted a Cop drama to the studio and was told the only way it’d get made is if it was a ‘Saw’ movie.

What we have here is a 93 minute movie that feels about double the length of that, thats totally drab on almost every level. When they made ‘Jigsaw’ it was a gamble as to whether the tweaks to tone and story would work or not. I dont think the critics of the time knew how lucky they were, because ‘Spiral’ is what happenes when you try to make a ‘Saw’ movie that shakes things up a bit and it goes wrong. A poor movie that im glad I never have to watch again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/spiral-from-the-book-of-saw/