LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2024) – Innovative Original Horror Film Exceptional Until Ending

I finally caught up with LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2024), the horror movie which generated quite the buzz when it was released to theaters back in March. It was a very small release and didn’t play in my area, so I wasn’t able to catch it on the big screen.

I rented it this past weekend on Prime Video; it’s also available on the streaming service, Shudder.

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL tells the story of a fictional 1970s late night talk show struggling with ratings, and so in desperation, in a special Halloween night episode, the host, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) invites a psychologist, June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) onto the show with her patient, a 13 year-old girl named Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) who had been rescued from a satanic cult and who says she has a demon residing within her. On live TV, Jack plans to have June lead a session where she contacts the demon inside Lilly in order to bring it onto the show.

The movie falls into the “found-footage” category, because after an eight-minute introduction, explaining Jack Delroy’s backstory and how it was that he ended up in this predicament, as a late-night talk show host constantly losing the ratings battle to Johnny Carson in spite of winning numerous awards, the movie pivots and explains that what is to follow is the complete footage of that historic Halloween episode, along with black and white behind the scenes footage taken during commercial breaks.

So, for the rest of the movie, we get to see what happened on that fateful night on October 31, 1977.

By far, my favorite part of LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL was the work of brother directors Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes. They recreate the look and feel of a 1970s late night TV show to perfection. The cinematography, the colors, the costumes, hairstyles, mannerisms, the whole kit and caboodle, all of it, is so authentically recreated that this alone is worth the price of admission. You watch this movie, and you can almost believe that this show existed and was giving Johnny Carson a run for his money.

The Cairnes brothers also wrote the screenplay, and for the most part, they create a very intriguing story. Host Jack Delroy’s backstory is somewhat mysterious and compelling, and the idea of a never-been-done-before live television event, the conjuring of a demon, is rather novel and plays out in captivating fashion. Midway through this movie I was glued to the screen, thanks to a combination of believable acting performances by all the principal players, authentic cinematography, and a story— this fictional controversial late night TV episode— that was refreshing and new.

Where this movie lost me was with its ending. The Cairnes brothers don’t quite close the deal. Everything up to the shocking demon conjuring works and works exceedingly well. But afterwards, when professional magician turned skeptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss) attempts to debunk the proceedings, while interesting, takes a path that is ironically somewhat less believable than what came before it. And also unnecessary. He could have dispensed with the less believable theatrics and simply requested they watch the video of the demon conjuring which would have proved or disproved his point just the same.

And then what happens next as we watch Jack Delroy’s ultimate fate shows flashes of promise but follows a plot point hinted at earlier in the movie that is far less interesting than the main point of a TV show so desperate for ratings, they turn to summoning demons. It’s a letdown.

The cast, however, is very good, led by David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy, who gives a brilliant and the best performance in the movie. Although a late night TV host, a persona he captures perfectly, he’s also a somber, dark person, haunted by the untimely death of his wife a year earlier. It’s a far cry from his humorous Polka-Dot Man in THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021). Dastmalchian has been in a lot of movies, including to name just a few THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (2023), OPPENHEIMER (2023), the recent DUNE movies, and Marvel’s ANT-MAN movies.

Laura Gordon is solid as psychologist June Ross-Mitchell, and young Ingrid Torelli is unsettling as Lilly. Ian Bliss tends to ham it up a bit too much as pompous skeptic Carmichael Haig, but I enjoyed Rhys Auteri as long-suffering Jack Delroy sidekick Gus McConnell, who repeatedly tries and fails to get Jack to stop the show.

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is a horror movie that works because its story is refreshing and original, and its execution in telling this story is flawless. However, it’s not as scary as it could be, and its story isn’t a complete winner because it doesn’t seal the deal, as it has an ending that deviates a bit from what made the rest of the movie so compelling, the episode itself. Throwing in more backstory on Jack at the end to give meaning to his motives was unnecessary. What matters most with this one is what all went down on the air on a Halloween night in 1977, and while that is being recreated on screen, the film soars.

As a result, I give LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL two and a half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

TAROT (2024) – Horror Movie Derivative of Many Other Horror Movies

As horror movies go, TAROT (2024), a new horror movie about a group of friends who run afoul a demonic deck of tarot cards, isn’t awful.

It’s not bottom of the barrel horror movie material. It has some positives.

The biggest knock against it is just how derivative it is of other horror movies. A group of friends being killed off one by one by a curse? That’s the FINAL DESTINATION movies. Demons jumping out from the shadows? INSIDIOUS movies! There’s even creepy music playing on an old record during a demon sequence which comes right out of INSIDIOUS (2010).

But it does have relatable characters and some decent dialogue, and best of all, the various demons and killers that show up in this one are pretty cool. They’re just all stuck in a story that we’ve seen a gazillion times already.

In TAROT, a group of college students rent a house for a weekend of fun, but when they discover a hidden room in the basement— no! Not a hidden room in the basement! Yes, it’s the hidden room in the basement! Come on down and see what demonic delights await you behind door #1-–er, I digress. Anyway, the room is filled with dusty and weird objects, including a deck of really old tarot cards. Our meddling kids decide to conduct a reading, even though Haley (Harriet Slater) who has experience with tarot cards says there’s a belief that you should never do a reading with someone else’s cards.

But her friends say screw that, and she does their readings anyway. Shoulda heeded that warning and got the cards’ owner’s permission! Because when they return to school in Boston after a refreshing weekend away, strange things begin to happen, as in they begin to be murdered one by one! In ways that are eerily similar to the fates shown them in their tarot readings!

Gulp!

The good news is that these college kids aren’t stupid, and they quickly realize there is a connection to their friends’ deaths and the tarot cards. The rest of the movie has them trying to find a way to stop the curse of the cards, but of course they can’t investigate fast enough as one by one they are dying in gruesomely frightening ways! As I said, this would have been so much better had we not seen similar storylines many times before.

It also helps that the characters here are likable, and the actors are all convincing in their roles. I enjoyed Harriet Slater in the lead, as she made for a strong heroine. Adain Bradley plays her boyfriend Grant, and she had just broken up with him, but he wants her back, so there’s tension there, and the bottom line is the two actors share a good chemistry on screen and are believable as an on again off again couple.

Jacob Batalon, who plays Peter Parker’s nerdy friend Ned in the Tom Holland Marvel SPIDER-MAN movies, plays a similar role here, as he’s the quirky friend Paxton, and as he does in the SPIDER-MAN movies, he provides much of the comic relief.

Rounding out the friends and all doing commendable jobs are Avantika as Paige, Humberley Gonzalez as Madeline, Larsen Thompson as Elise, Anna Halberg, who also co-directed and co-wrote this movie, as Wells, and Wolfgang Novogratz as Lucas.

Directors Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg create some creepy murder scenes, and the demons/creatures are pretty cool looking. They’re just not in the movie a lot. The sequence where a victim is sawed in half by a demented magician while the crazed faces of an eerie audience look on is particularly well done.

Cohen and Halberg also wrote the screenplay, along with Nicholas Adams. They score highest with the dialogue which is both realistic and quirky. The story isn’t really all that original, other than the tarot card angle, and there are some parts that just don’t work. The students’ investigation leads them to an expert on tarot cards who has experience fighting curses, a woman named Alma Astryn (Olwen Fouere). Astryn is supposed to be the ultra-serious expert, but her scenes just don’t work because of a combination of bad dialogue and tight close-ups on her face, the results of which had the audience laughing out loud rather than taking her seriously.

The theme of fate is prevalent throughout the movie, that people’s lives and how they end are all predestined, which of course proves not to be true, when the characters decide that they will not be victims and that they will make their own fate. Even this theme is derivative, and for me it hearkened back to some of the HALLOWEEN movies where Laurie Strode was questioning if all these horrible things happening to her because of Michael Myers was just due to fate. Some people just can’t catch a break.

The best thing I can say about TAROT is that it didn’t insult my intelligence. It has decent characters, sinister demons, and halfway decent dialogue. So, it’s not awful. It’s just not very original.

You don’t need tarot cards to figure out where this movie is going.

I give it two stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES: BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973)

In honor of the latest installment of the rebooted PLANET OF THE APES series, KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2024), which just opened in theaters this past weekend, here’s a MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES column— that column where we look at memorable quotes from the movies— on the last film in the original series, BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973).

BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, not considered one of the stronger films in that original series, has nonetheless always been a favorite of mine, and I hold it in high regard as it wraps up the original franchise very nicely.

It also has some memorable quotes, from a screenplay by Paul Dehn and John William Corrington. Let’s have a listen!

For starters, the most memorable line from BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES is probably its Apes mantra, which is “Ape shall not kill ape.” In this story, Caesar (Roddy McDowall) is trying to navigate a new society where apes and humans live in peace together, but it’s not easy as he’s dealing with a militant gorilla Aldo (Claude Akins) who would like to kill all the humans, plus hostile humans living outside the camp intent on invading and killing all the apes. But Caesar at the very least wants apes not to repeat the mistakes of humans, and so he forbids the killing of their own; hence, “Ape shall not kill ape.”

As Caesar looks for guidance, he laments the loss of his parents and wishes he could have known them, and says as much to his human friend, MacDonald.

CAESAR: Ah, if only my mother and father, whom I was too young to remember… If only they’d lived, perhaps they would have taught me if it was right to kill evil so that good shall prevail.

MACDONALD: But you know, Caesar, history shows…

CAESAR: Oh no, no, no. That is human history, not ape history. Ape, never kills ape.

Virgil, played by Paul Williams, is the wise ape who has plenty of wisdom to share throughout the movie, like this tidbit:

VIRGIL: The greatest danger of all is that danger never ends.

When Aldo and his gorillas raid the armory, the film weighs in on the issue of guns, which in 1973 was way ahead of its time:

MANDEMUS: What do you want?

ALDO: Guns! Guns!

MANDEMUS: What will you do with them?

ALDO: We shall do with them what we will!

MANDEMUS: Do what you will is the devil’s law!

Then there’s this exchange towards the end of the movie when Caesar is contemplating the future after thwarting both Aldo’s attempts at a military take-over and the outside humans failed invasion. And he’s puzzled by his human friends’ lack of gratitude.

MACDONALD: If we appear to be lacking in gratitude, Caesar, what have we to be grateful for? If you mean to set us free, then free us completely.

CAESAR: What do you mean?

MACDONALD: We are not your children, Caesar. We have a destiny too… as equals.. respecting each other, living together with love.

CAESAR: Love? The human way is violence and death.

VIRGIL: Aldo wasn’t human… was he, Caesar?

CAESAR: Virgil. You are a good and wise ape.

LISA: And you, Caesar, are a good and wise king.

There are also some fine moments of humor, like in this exchange between the loquacious VIrgil and the tired Caesar:

VIRGIL: Teacher only reverted to type under provocation. He… he spoke like a slave master in the old days of our servitude when we were conditioned to mechanical obedience. He, uh, he uttered a negative, uh, imperative.

CAESAR: Could you put that into words which even Caesar could understand?

VIRGIL: Uh, he said, “No, Aldo, no!”

And this exchange between Caesar’s wife Lisa and their son Cornelius:

LISA (sees Cornelius playing “dead” and unaware that he’s playing): Cornelius, are you alright?

CORNELIUS: No, Mother, I’m just dead.

It’s a playful moment, but it’s also foreshadowing of darker things to come.

And in one of my favorite scenes in the movie, when it looks like Caesar and his apes have met their doom, Caesar reveals a ruse that will save them all, and he calls out to his fellow apes who like his son earlier in the movie are “playing dead.”

CORNELIUS: Now, fight like apes!

Of course, you can’t talk about quotes from BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES without including lines from the aged Lawgiver, played by John Huston!

These lines open the movie:

THE LAWGIVER: In the beginning God created beast and man so that both might live in friendship and share dominion over a world of peace. But in the fullness of time evil men betrayed God’s trust and in disobedience to His holy word waged bloody wars, not only against their own kind, but against the apes, whom they reduced to slavery. Then God in his wrath sent the world a savior, miraculously born of two apes who descended on Earth from Earth’s own future and man was afraid for both parent apes possessed the power of speech.

Now that PLANET OF THE APES is back on the big screen with some quality new movies, take this opportunity to enjoy the original films which started the Apes craze back in the day.

And that wraps things up for today. I hope you enjoyed this edition of MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES, as we looked at quotes from BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, the worthy conclusion to the original PLANET OF THE APES series.

As always, thanks for reading!

—Michael

KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2024) – Another Exciting Entry in Rebooted APES Series

I have a soft spot for the PLANET OF THE APES movies because I grew up with the original PLANET OF THE APES movie series. Back in the early 1970s when I was a kid, these films were the STAR WARS of their day. They were huge, and as a kid I couldn’t get enough of them.

The rebooted series which began in 2011 with RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, and continued with DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2014) and WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (2017) got better with each movie, with WAR being my favorite of the rebooted series.

Now comes KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2024) which takes place many years after the death of Caesar, whose story was chronicled in the previous three movies.

In KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, we meet Noa (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee who lives in an ape community which has fostered a special relationship with the birds in the area, specifically the hawks. They live in a time where they barely see humans anymore, and they also barely know their history. There is one human who they see sneaking about occasionally, and they frown upon her, viewing her as a scavenger and a pest.

When their camp is raided and destroyed by a group of militant gorillas, Noa finds himself alone and vows to track down the gorillas and bring his family and friends back to their home in order to rebuild their community. Along the way, he meets an orangutan, Raka (Peter Macon), who teaches him about Caesar and ape history, and he also tells Noa that in the past humans were the dominant species on Earth.

They also once again encounter the scavenger woman who seems to be following Noa. She eventually reveals to them that she can speak, unlike the other humans who have lost that ability, and she tells them that her name is Mae (Freya Allan). She also tells them that she knows where the gorillas have taken Noa’s family, because she’s on her way there herself to try to thwart the gorilla’s plan which she says is very dangerous to the world as they know it. They agree to help each other, but they are eventually captured by the militant apes, led by the charismatic Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand).

The remainder of the movie follows Noa’s and Mae’s efforts to stop Proximus Caesar from achieving his plan while trying to save themselves and Noa’s family as well.

KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, like the previous three installments, once again features amazing motion-capture CGI effects which seamlessly combine the human actors with the CGI simian characters they are portraying, creating incredibly life-like talking apes. The results are awe-inspiring.

The story here isn’t bad, told in a screenplay by Josh Friedman, based on characters created by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa. I liked the new characters well enough. Noa is a solid character to build a story around, the heir apparent to Caesar in terms of lead character material, as it looks like his story will continue with another movie or two. Mae is intriguing, and Proximus Caesar is larger than life and a perfect villain. He’s dangerous and violent, yet he treats his prisoners like guests, which makes him all the more unnerving.

And it successfully continues the APES storyline. We learn that some humans like Mae have retained the ability to speak. We see apes like Proximus Caesar taking things that Caesar had said and twisting them to suit their own needs.

There are also plenty of nods to the original series, especially the original 1968 movie with Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall, which is always appreciated. The scene where the apes hunt the mute humans in the cornfield is a direct homage to the first time the apes appear in PLANET OF THE APES (1968) complete with the same sound effects, music score, and similar camera shots. There’s also the infamous scarecrows, the human baby which cries “mama,” and in less obvious fashion shots of the seashore taken from the same angle and strongly resembling Charlton Heston’s and Linda Harrison’s trek on the seashore on their way towards the film’s classic twist ending.

Director Wes Ball knows his APES history. There are also some pretty exciting scenes in this one, from the aforementioned sequence of the apes hunting the humans to the very intense ending as Noa and Mae take on Proximus Caesar.

At two hours and twenty-five minutes, the film is a bit long and at times feels like it. It also gets off to a somewhat slow start. An under-two-hour running time would have been more welcomed.

I do like how this series reimagines things from the original series yet never really severs ties with it. The four movies have blazed their own trail yet have retained elements from the original franchise, striking a very satisfying balance. How Caesar became a talking ape was convincingly told in RISE, yet it was completely different from Caesar’s origins in the original movies. RISE explained what happened to humans, a disease, where in the original franchise humans died from nuclear warfare. But in both series humans pretty much destroy themselves.

The story of the rise of the apes and the fall of humankind in the rebooted movies is brand new and works well and retains the spirit of the original movies.

One can easily view it as a parallel universe to the original series which itself told the story of two different timelines, the one where the planet was destroyed in BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970), and the one where apes and humans learned to live in peace together in BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973). Part of the fun with these new movies is wondering just where they will go and how they will end- with destruction or peace? At the end of KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, humans are reestablishing contacts with each other, which could lead to militarization as they try to take back the planet from the apes, while the apes with their newly discovered telescope are looking to the stars for the first time and learning that there is more out there than what they just see on Earth.

KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES as you would expect also features some impressive motion-capture performances. Owen Teague is solid as Noa, Peter Macon is wise and enjoyable as Raka, and Kevin Durand nearly steals the movie as Proximus Caesar. We just saw Durand in the horror movie ABIGAIL (2024). There are other exceptional motion-capture performances in this one as well.

And in a non-motion capture performance, Freya Allan plays the main human character in this one, Mae, and she does a nice job, taking her from mute scavenger to secretly plotting and eventually ass kicking heroine.

I liked KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES a lot. It’s not the best of the recent reboots (my favorite remains the previous installment, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES) but it is very, very good, telling another compelling story and once more featuring state of the art motion-capture performances and CGI effects the likes of which you just don’t see in other movies.

I give it three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT: IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953)

The 1950s was a wonderful decade for science fiction movies, especially those which crossed into the horror genre.

Two main threats which stoked people’s fears during the 1950s were the development of the atomic bomb, and with the advent of space travel, visits from hostile alien invaders, and so this decade produced such alien invading gems as THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951), THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956), and mutant monster gems due to atomic testing such as THEM! (1954) and GODZILLA (1954).

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE falls into the alien invaders category, and while this one is nowhere near as chilling as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, it still makes for a mighty entertaining show!

It tells the story of writer and amateur stargazer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) and his schoolteacher girlfriend Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush) who one night view what they believe is a meteor crashing into the Arizona desert. When they investigate, they discover a crater, and John goes into the crater, and just before there is a cave in, he sees what he believes is a spaceship. Of course, with the crater filled, no one believes John’s story that it was a spaceship that crashed and not a meteor.

Shoulda listened to John, people, because it was a spaceship, and when the aliens emerge, they begin to take over the townspeople’s bodies a la INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. But one of the main reasons IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE is nowhere near as frightening as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, is because it features incredibly polite and friendly aliens! They tell John that they are only impersonating his friends in town because they need to move around freely and without suspicion to gather the supplies they need to repair their ship and be back on their merry way. John doesn’t believe them at first, but they even show him his friends all hidden away safely in the alien’s cave. Indeed, the true villains here are the humans, because once they do learn about the aliens, they want to destroy them, and John spends most of the movie trying to prevent this from happening.

By the time everything is said and done, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE proves to be quite the thought-provoking story, which is no surprise, since Ray Bradbury co- wrote the screenplay with Harry Essex.

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE was directed by Jack Arnold, who also helmed a bunch of other Universal horror/science fiction classics from the 1950s, including CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954), TARANTULA (1955), and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957).

Lead man Richard Carlson is mostly known among horror fans as playing the lead in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. While I’ve always enjoyed Carlson as an actor, he tended to ham it up a bit in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. He delivers a much more relaxed and believable performance here in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.

He also shares nice onscreen chemistry with leading lady Barbara Rush. The two really seem like genuine lovers, which is not always the case in 1950s sci fi movies. Rush has a ton of credits, mostly in non-genre movies, although she did star opposite David Janssen in the made for TV werewolf movie, MOON OF THE WOLF (1972). As of this writing, Rush is still with us at the age of 97!

Charles Drake rounds out the cast as the local sheriff and John’s rival for Ellen’s attention, Matt Warren. Matt wants the aliens dead to protect his town, and the scenes between him and John make for some of the better dramatic moments in the film.

Also in the cast is a young handsome Russell Johnson who a decade later would gain fame as the Professor on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND (1964-1967). Here he plays George, one of the townspeople abducted and impersonated by the aliens.

When we actually see the aliens in their non-human forms, they resemble huge balloon-like eyes, which unfortunately also share an uncanny resemblance to the giant boob seen roaming the countryside in Woody Allens’ EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK (1972)!

While it’s not as scary as some of its 1950s science fiction/horror counterparts, it does do a good job of showing the frightened and as a result violent behaviors of human beings when posed with an alien threat, an observation that is sadly based on truth. We frighten easily, and we all too often act violently because of it.

And in this science fiction tale of civil aliens, that’s where the true horror lies.

—END—

THE FALL GUY (2024) – Ryan Gosling Action-Comedy Fast Fun and Frivolous

THE FALL GUY (2024), a new action comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, is fast, frivolous, and fun.

It’s also high on romance. While not billed as a romantic comedy, romance is the driving force in this one, which makes it an interesting hybrid, since the film is a love letter of sorts to movie stuntmen, yet it’s really about the relationship between the two main characters, played by Gosling and Blunt. It’s easy to make the jump from their literal relationship onscreen to the figurative one of director David Leitch, who’s a stuntman himself, to stuntmen the world over.

THE FALL GUY, based on the 1980s TV show THE FALL GUY (1981-1986) which starred Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, both of whom have cameos in this movie, is the story of stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) who has a major crush on camerawoman Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), and this crush is mutual, as Jody has feelings for Colt as well. Colt is also the personal stuntman to one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who also happens to be an arrogant jerk.

When Jody finally gets her big break at directing a movie, it’s a science fiction romance starring Tom Ryder, but when Tom disappears, his personal producer and producer of the movie, the manipulative Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) asks Colt to find Tom. She tells Colt she can’t call the police because she doesn’t want to invite any negative publicity. As Colt begins his search, he soon discovers that things aren’t as they seem, and in addition to uncovering a sinister plot, his romance with Jody takes a hit as he’s constantly being pulled away from her, which complicates things since she doesn’t know what he’s secretly doing for Gail.

And there’s your plot.

It’s all exceedingly lightweight and playful. It’s also, as I said, highly romantic. Sure, it’s about stuntmen, and there are plenty of awesome stunts throughout, but at the end of the day, this one is really a romantic comedy. It’s an action rom com!

Former stuntman turned director David Leitch, who also directed BULLET TRAIN (2022) and ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) fills this movie with impressive stunts, and so the film doesn’t disappoint here. Most of the stunts are good old-fashioned fight scenes. But they’re all light in nature. It’s not the kind of heavy-duty intense fight scenes found in EXTRACTION (2020), or even in Leitch’s ATOMIC BLONDE. The violence is cartoonish and over-the-top.

The screenplay by Drew Pearce, based on the original series teleplays by Glen A. Larson, is also fun, but I didn’t find the humor as on target as it could have been. Although there is an enjoyable running gag between Colt and his friend Dan where they quote a movie, and the other guy has to name the movie. The main story with Colt’s investigation of Tom’s disappearance is played for laughs rather than thrills, and the bigger story here is the romantic one between Colt and Jody. Pearce previously wrote such movies as HOTEL ARTEMIS (2018) and IRON MAN 3 (2013).

If you’re a Ryan Gosling fan, you’ll love this movie. Gosling is in nearly the entire movie, and he’s in fine form. He’s the hero, gets all the impressive action scenes, and delivers all the one-liners. He’s pretty much Ken on steroids! He is a lot of fun in this movie.

Emily Blunt sadly plays second fiddle to Gosling here. She’s in fine form as well, but her character kinda reacts to everything that Colt is doing, rather than setting things in motion herself. The onscreen romance between Gosling and Blunt works for the most part, but there is actually far less conflict than you might expect in their relationship. It’s pretty clear throughout that the two characters are crazy about each other and there’s nothing that’s going to keep them apart. But the two actors have a playful camaraderie throughout which is enjoyable.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has fun playing super movie star Tom Ryder, and Hannah Waddingham makes for a villainous producer, Gail Meyer.

And Winston Duke enjoys many fine moments as stunt coordinator Dan Tucker, who eventually helps Colt with his investigation. Duke of course is known for his memorable portrayal of M’Baku in the Marvel BLACK PANTHER movies.

It’s hard not to like THE FALL GUY. I could have done without its simplified romance, and would have appreciated some sharper comedy, but the action sequences are well done, and the playful chemistry between stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is infectious.

I give it three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER (2024) – Second Part of Zack Snyder’s STAR WARS Knock-off A Notch Below Part One

I enjoyed last year’s REBEL MOON- PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE (2023) more than most other folks did.

I certainly didn’t love it, but Zack Snyder’s STAR WARS knock-off which was heavily derivative of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) wasn’t the disaster it could have been. It was generally entertaining, and as a Netflix original, the price was right as I didn’t have to pay for a movie ticket to see it. Its biggest drawback was it ended smack dab in the middle of its story. Sure, with Part One in its title, that was kinda expected, but to end the story before the hired group of assassins get to defend the peaceful farmers from the military threat at its doorstep was a definitely a downer.

Now comes Part Two, which like Part One, suffers from the get-go with a ridiculous title, as this time it’s REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER (2024). Not only is it a mouthful, but what the heck is a scargiver? I don’t know about you, but the first word I thought of upon seeing scargiver was caregiver. Not exactly an image that makes me want to run out and see this one. I mean, Scaregiver sounds better than Caregiver. Anyway, it’s neither of these. It’s Scargiver, which sounds like Cargiver which sounds like a Publishers Clearing House contest. See how much of a distraction this title is?

Anyway, REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER suffers from the same problem the first film did, only in reverse, as this one starts up smack dab in the middle of the story, which could be a good thing, but unfortunately in this movie it isn’t, and that’s because without a solid build up (for that, you have to watch the first movie) this one opens in lethargic fashion.

We get a brief “previously on REBEL MOON PART ONE” summary at the outset, which works well for TV shows but not so much for feature length movies. Why is that? For starters, movies, regardless of Part One or Part Two or even Part Nine in a title, should be standalone stories. If they’re not, they suffer. That’s the secret to good movie making. You want your movie to stand on its own, regardless of where it may be in a series.

So, we get a few brief seconds of backstory before we see our heroes return to their farm planet, or farm moon, as the case is here, to celebrate their victory over the evil Realm. There’s main character Kora (Sofia Boutella) a stranger to the moon who adopted the people there as her own, and she’s the one who led the mission to assemble the hired soldiers they would need to defend themselves in the first movie. She’s also mysterious, with more back story than ten characters, as she is the titular Scargiver, based on a crime she committed in the past.

There’s Gunnar (Micheil Huisman), the leader of the farmers who’s also in love with Kora, and then there’s the hired killers they assembled for protection: Titus (Djimon Hounsou), Nemesis (Bae Doona), Tarak (Staz Nair) and Milius (Elise Duffy). The celebration is short-lived when they learn that the evil villain they thought they killed at the end of the first movie, Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) has been brought back to life by the dastardly Realm, and he’s once more bringing his deadly forces with him to wipe out the rebel moon. In fact, the bad guys will arrive in five days!

Which gives our heroes five days to train the peaceful farmers and turn them into fighters to protect their homeland, in scenes which will finally make good on THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (and before that THE SEVEN SAMURAI) storylines. Once the training is done, the bad guys arrive, and the big battle for moon supremacy is finally waged, taking up the entire second half of the movie. And all of this sounds better than it actually is.

I enjoyed REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER a little less than Part One. One reason is the characters were more interesting in the first movie when we first got to know them. Here, they’re less so, as they train the farmers and then fight. Also, the main relationship between Kora and Gunnar isn’t all that interesting, mostly because Sofia Boutella and Michiel Huisman don’t generate a lot of onscreen chemistry together.

I was also less impressed with the cinematography this time around. In part one, Zack Snyder framed some cinematic shots which were grand in nature. There are still some shots like that here in part two, but fewer. The action scenes are also less exciting than the ones in the first movie. Part of this, I can’t help but feel, is by splitting this movie into two parts, you don’t get the benefit of a building storyline. Had this been one movie, the climactic battle sequences here would have been supported by the previous scenes, and this climax would have been more exciting. It’s not so here, mostly because before the climactic battle, there’s just the training-the-farmers scenes. The pacing and build up just don’t work.

Sofia Boutella is okay here as Kora, and while we do get a couple of more reveals about her character, most of her back story came in the first movie, and so she comes off as a much more superficial character this time around. Why does this matter? For starters, it’s not like REBEL MOON PART ONE is etched in our collective consciousnesses, so if this film doesn’t give us the necessary information, we have to go back to the first film for that, and that’s just not good storytelling.

The same can be said for Michiel Huisman as Gunnar. However, and this is a good thing, the opposite is true for Djimon Hounsou as Titus. Hounsou was barely in the first movie, but here, we finally get to see him do more as Titus, and as always, Hounsou doesn’t disappoint.

But he’s about the only one of our heroes who doesn’t. The rest only enjoy small moments and don’t really get to strut their stuff. Even Ed Skrein, who returns as the ultra-villainous Atticus Noble, is less effective this time around, mostly because our heroes already killed him once in the first movie. There’s no doubting that they could do it once again.

And Anthony Hopkins once again provides the voice for the mysterious robot with the unfortunate name of Jimmy. At least in this second installment Kora starts calling him James, which is somewhat better. And just who is this shadowy droid who was trained to protect the now dead king and is troubled about his mission to serve and protect humanity? Why, it’s the noble robot named— Jimmy.

And look over there! It’s his cousin, the mighty droid —Timmy.

Anyway, I digress.

The screenplay by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, and Shay Hatten is okay. It does a serviceable job telling its story but puts little effort into establishing the characters since the thinking seems to be that they were introduced in the first movie so why bother here? The dialogue was also better in the first installment. I just found the entirety of Part Two to be much more of a bore compared to Part One.

And the fight and battle scenes are all pretty standard, which is to say, they’re not bad. They’re not endless redundant scenes of carnage. At least the editing here was good, but these sequences aren’t breathtaking either.

Overall, I enjoyed REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER somewhat less than part one. I still think these films are entertaining enough to be enjoyed, and it’s fun to watch a space saga that isn’t STAR WARS! That being said, I can’t say that I’m excited about the next installment, as this one ends with our heroes discovering that there is yet another job for them to tackle, and they’ll tackle it together! So, it looks like there will be a REBEL MOON PART THREE, no doubt with yet another mouthful of a ridiculous title.

But back to PART TWO, I give this insallment two stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

BOY KILLS WORLD (2024) – Insane Zany Actioner Can’t Stick the Landing

There are wild and crazy movies, and then there are bat sh*t wild and crazy movies!

BOY KILLS WORLD (2024) is a bat sh*t wild and crazy movie.

Starring Bill Skarsgard as a mute assassin killing machine hell bent on seeking vengeance against those who killed his mother and little sister, BOY KILLS WORLD is an in-your-face action thriller that is as nutty and funny as it is gory and violent. It’s BULLET TRAIN (2022) if all the characters were high. It’s SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010) if the characters were all killers. And to go way way back to a cult classic of yesteryear, it’s THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984) without the aliens. In short, it’s imaginative, violent, slick, polished, and hilariously funny. The only drawback is it kinda runs out of steam before it reaches the finish line.

BOY KILLS WORLD takes place in an unspecified apocalyptic future where a crime family provides law and order for the populace but at a price. Once a year they select a handful of citizens to be sacrificed on live television, “volunteers” for the greater good, an endeavor they say helps them keep the peace. Boy (Bill Skarsgard) is a mute young man who is being trained in the martial arts by a mysterious Shaman (Yayan Ruhian) who rescued the youth from death. Through flashbacks and an overdramatic narration by Boy— for his inner voice, he chose the voice from his favorite video game, which provides comical voice over narration throughout the movie— we learn of his past, as he was happy with his mother and younger sister, who was his favorite person, but both were killed by the murderous crime family, taking everything that Boy ever loved away from him.

The rest of the plot is fairly simple. Boy completes his training and then attempts to singlehandedly wipe out the crime family, with a little help from a small resistance movement he meets along the way. But the plot is secondary to the way it unfolds, in frenetic and dreamy fashion, in which things are not always as they seem.

The screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith, Arend Remmers, and director Moritz Mohr, is zany and creative. Boy often interprets things literally, and what he thinks is shown on screen in laugh out loud visuals, to which he then replies, “Wait. No. That’s not right.” One of the rebels speaks in a different language or simply mumbles, Boy can’t tell which, but all he knows is he cannot read the man’s lips, which provides for some uproarious images of what he thinks the man is saying.

The climactic TV show sequence, where the victims are to be sacrificed on live TV, in a staged fantasy featuring assassins dressed as children’s characters, including a pirate who somewhat resembles the Burger King from those creepy Burger King ads a few years back, and other furry characters who look like they emerged from a nightmare stage at Chuck E. Cheese, makes for an insane sequence when Boy attempts to slaughter all the children character bad guys. While visually stunning, the potential social commentary here isn’t as sharp as it could be. The idea that modern audiences would cheer and applaud this sort of thing is only touched upon, as the emphasis instead is on the over-the-top silly yet bloody violence.

As such, director Moritz Mohr captures a drug-induced Monty Python vibe with this one. The violence is over the top and bloody but comical, a la Monty Python, and there’s even a scene which pays homage to MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975).

And while the movie is filled with colorful characters, the only one the movie allows us to know is Boy. The other characters are not developed at all. So, while visually, the film fires on all cylinders, the screenplay without strong characterizations runs out of steam before its end credits roll.

Bill Skarsgard, Stellan Skarsgard’s son and Alexander Skarsgard’s younger brother, who was quite terrifying as Pennywise the evil clown in the recent IT movies, dazzles here as Boy. In the action sequences, he makes the unbelievable believable, and his facial expressions add a lot to the voice over narration and his interactions with the other characters. Skarsgard delivers this performance without saying a word.

Sharlto Copley, who we just saw in MONKEY MAN (2024), shows up as Glen, the husband to the head of the crime family, and he’s the smooth-talking cowardly promoter who TV audiences love. It’s a testament to Copley’s acting that he can play so many different roles, as his performance here is completely removed from the slimy fight club promoter in MONKEY MAN. And that’s how Copley always is. He plays such a wide range of different roles.

Brett Gelman plays Gideon, Glen’s brother-in-law, and the two feud throughout, as Gideon fancies himself a writer, and Glen is always balking at the way he writes his speeches. Their banter is one of the better parts of the movie early on.

Jessica Rothe plays a mysterious assassin, in a role that was originally going to be played by Samara Weaving, and Michelle Dockery and Famke Janssen play the female leaders of the crime family.

With a plot that becomes less and less important as the film goes along, the movie loses steam as its choreographed action sequences can only take it so far. The wild humor also subsides near the end because neither the characters nor the social commentary delivers the goods.

As a result, while I enjoyed most of the nuttiness in BOY KILLS WORLD, I enjoyed it less towards the end when it became apparent that other than its crazy visuals and dreamlike-humor, it didn’t have a whole lot to say about any of what it was presenting.

As such, I give it two and half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE (2024) – Guy Ritchie’s Ultra-Violent World War II Adventure A lot of Fun

Not everyone likes the movies of Guy Ritchie, as some find his films superficial and trite, but I am definitely a fan.

I love his spirited directorial style. His films always feature high energy well-choreographed action scenes, and the tone of his screenplays are consistently upbeat and fun.

THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE (2024), Ritchie’s latest, is no exception. It’s a high-spirited World War II adventure about a special operations group of British soldiers who go off the grid to carry out a top secret and illegal mission against the Nazis, attempting to blow up a supply ship which is solely responsible for providing fuel and supplies to the Nazi U-boats which patrol the Atlantic and prevent the United States from getting their ships to Europe. Destroy the supply ship, hamper the U-Boats, and the the path to Europe for the United States becomes clear.

Even better, this one is based on a true story. Only, I’m sure Ritchie took liberties with the action sequences. This team is like THE EXPENDABLES times ten, and then some! But like Quentin Tarantino’s classic INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009), if you’re going to make a movie about mass killings by the good guys, it might as well be Nazis as the bad guys!

In THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE (2024), Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) declares that if Hitler is not going to play by the rules, neither are they, and so he sets in motion a top-secret mission for a group of hardened soldiers who are known for not following orders to travel to Fernando Po, a Spanish island off the coast of Nigeria in order to destroy the Nazi supply ship which is stationed there.

The mission is secretly coordinated by Brigadier Gubbins, known as “M,” (Cary Elwes), and the leader on the ground is Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill). March’s team includes Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson) who is an expert at killing people with knives, Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), and Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding). It’s these five men whose mission it is to take on an entire island’s worth of Nazis and successfully blow up the ship harbored there.

To help their cause, the mission also has two agents on the island, Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez), whose job it is to distract the insane and very monstrous Nazi in charge on the island, Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger). And realizing that they simply don’t have enough men to successfully complete the mission, Heron puts March in contact with Kambili Kalu (Danny Sapani), a local pirate on the island who hates Nazis, and Kalu agrees to lend his men and their weapons to the cause.

The result is a rousing adventure of a movie that provides high octane entertainment from start to finish. The action sequences are exceptional, there are twists and turns and setbacks for the team to overcome, and it’s all wrapped in a colorful action-packed package that while at times can be quite violent is also a heck of a lot of fun. The only drawback is, as fun as the film is, our heroes wipe the floor with the bad guys with a little too much ease. Sure, that’s part of the fun, but the film could have used a little more edge when it came to the chances of failure or harm to our heroes. The end result of this one is never really in doubt.

THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE is another notch in the belt for writer/director Guy Ritchie. The movie joins the ranks of his Robert Downey Jr. SHERLOCK HOLMES movies, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (2015), and THE GENTLEMEN (2019). I also liked this one a tad better than Ritchie’s OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE (2023).

Ritchie co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel. Tamasy and Johnson also co-wrote THE FIGHTER (2010) and THE FINEST HOURS (2016).

Henry Cavill is excellent in the lead role as Gus March-Phillips. He’s suave and believable as the confident killer of Nazis who is as relaxed as he is lethal. While I’ve never been a huge fan of Cavill’s interpretation of Superman in the recent DC SUPERMAN movies, I have enjoyed him in other roles, and his performance here as March is one of his better ones. It’s also an interesting bit of casting, since in real life Gus March-Phillips is known as the inspiration for Ian Fleming for his James Bond character, and Cavill’s name has been floated to possibly play Bond in a future movie.

Speaking of Ian Fleming, he’s a character here in the movie, working alongside “M.” This is the second time in recent years Fleming has appeared as a character in a World War II movie. Fleming was also featured in the very good OPERATION MINCEMEAT (2021), another story of a secret British mission in World War II, starring Colin Firth.

Alan Ritchson, who’s been so good recently on the TV show REACHER (2022-2024) has a field day here playing Anders Lassen, a man who kills Nazis with even more glee than March does. Ritchson with his huge build and comedic timing nearly steals the movie with his high-spirited performance.

I also enjoyed Babs Olusanmokun as Heron, the man on the island coordinating the entire mission. In a movie filled with larger than life action-oriented characters, Olusanmokun keeps his performance grounded in reality. Olusanmokun currently stars on the STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS (2022-2024) TV show as Dr. M’Benga.

Eiza Gonzalez is sexy and tough as Marjorie Stewart, the agent whose job it is to distract and lure the deadly Nazi leader away from the ship he’s in charge of guarding, which is no easy task since he’s known to be quite vicious with women. The real-life Stewart after the war went on to become an actress in the movies.

Danny Sapani is also memorable as pirate Kambili Kalu, adding believability to another larger-than-life action figure in the story.

And German actor Til Schweiger makes for a deadly and formidable Nazi Heinrich Luhr. You do not want to mess with this guy. His scenes with Eiza Gonzalez’ Marjorie Stewart are some of the best and certainly the most suspenseful in the movie.

The movie also has a rousing music score by Christopher Benstead.

I really enjoyed THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. I found its expertly choreographed action sequences which feature the ultra-violent killing of Nazis, scenes that are certainly not for everyone, all presented in a neatly wrapped and very colorful package, to be a lot of fun.

I give it three stars.

–END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

ABIGAIL (2024) -High Concept Horror Flick for Campy Horror Fans Only

ABIGAIL (2024) is a high concept horror movie that starts out serious but then deviates into high camp which will no doubt satisfy fans of campy horror while leaving serious horror aficionados in the dark.

It’s the story of a group of kidnappers who abduct a young girl and hold her for ransom, but it turns out that this young girl, whose name is Abigail, happens to be… a vampire!

This neat plot is ripe with possibilities, but as I said, the creative team here, which is the same team that brought us the two most recent SCREAM movies, and the well-received horror/action/comedy READY OR NOT (2019) starring Samara Weaving, goes down the road of campy horror rather than take its material seriously.

The movie gets off to a strong start as a group of professional kidnappers, Joey (Melissa Barrera), Frank (Dan Stevens), Rickles (William Catlett), Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Peter (Kevin Durand), and Dean (Angus Cloud) carry out an elaborate and precisely staged kidnapping of a child Abigail (Alisha Weir) from her wealthy home. They bring her to a secluded mansion where they meet their handler, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), who tells them all to sit tight and within the next twenty-four hours they will all be exceedingly rich after the girl’s father pays them the ransom money.

None of them know their real identities, and they don’t use their real names. If their fake names above sound familiar to you, it’s because they’re from the Rat Pack, although I’m not sure what Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and friends have to do with horror movies, but anyway, that’s where the names come from.

These folks don’t even know who they kidnapped or who the girl’s father is, but they do trust Lambert, who’ve they all worked for before. But when Abigail tells them who her father really is— a powerful crime lord whose violent exploits have become the stuff of urban legend— they begin to have second thoughts about their involvement in this plan, and even contemplate cutting and running. But things get worse when they discover that all the exits, doors and windows, have been sealed shut, and so there is no way of leaving. And then things really go downhill for them when they realize that the young ballerina Abigail also happens to be a vicious, violent, vampire.

And it’s here where the movie sheds any seriousness it might have had and instead goes full blown high camp, especially with vampire lore. Let the vampire jokes fly! For a while, I didn’t mind this shift in tone, as the banter between the feuding kidnappers takes on a Marvel superhero movie vibe, and the actors are all pretty entertaining in their roles. But as the story goes on, it loses its effectiveness, as it moves from one forced plot twist to another, and by the time this one ends, I had pretty much lost interest in both its story and its characters.

The “how do we deal with vampires?” shtick the characters employ is very reminiscent of the classic FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (1996) starring George Clooney, directed by Robert Rodriguez, and written by Quentin Tarantino. But the best horror comedies do not lose sight of their horror elements. One of my all time favorite vampire horror comedies, the classic FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), contained plenty of humorous moments but stayed scary throughout. And that’s my biggest knock against ABIGAIL. I didn’t find it scary at all.

I did like the cast though.

Melissa Barrera is very good in the lead role as Joey, the smartest of the kidnappers and the one with a level head on her shoulders. She’s also a mother, and so she forms a bond with Abigail, which would be more important if this film had actually stayed serious.

Dan Stevens, who now has appeared in back-to-back genre films, as he just starred in GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE (2024), is cold and confident as Frank, the former police detective now-turned kidnapper. Kathryn Newton is spirited and lively as Sammy, the young rich tech expert who has turned to crime not for the money but for the kicks. Kevin Durand is the soft-spoken often dim-witted muscle man Peter, who in an alternative universe, could have been the long-lost cousin of Drax from the Marvel GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movies.

Giancarlo Esposito as the powerful handler Lambert doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen him do better as drug cartel villain Gus Fring on the BREAKING BAD (2009-2011) and BETTER CALL SAUL (2017-2022) TV series, or even as Moff Gideon on THE MANDALORIAN (2019-2023) — yes, Esposito does villains very, very well— but it is fun to see him as a vampire here, albeit briefly.

Young Alisha Weir is very good as Abigail, especially early on when she’s frightened. She’s less frightening when she’s a vampire, because the movie doesn’t take these scenes seriously. She does get one of the better lines in the film, when she tells a potential victim, “I like to play with my food.”

Angus Cloud, who plays Dean, passed away during production. He was only 25.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett do their best work early on. The initial kidnapping sequence is well-shot and suspenseful. But later, with the revelations of just who Abigail’s father is and Abigail’s being a vampire, just when things could have become really interesting and scary, the film pivots and goes full blown high camp. There’s also plenty of gore and an amazing amount of blood—-some of the characters are soaked in blood and other various goopy substances, all of it played for laughs, unfortunately.

The screenplay by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick creates a group of interesting criminals and puts them in an intriguing situation, kidnapping a young girl who happens to be a vampire, and then turns the whole situation on its head by making fun of the whole endeavor.

No doubt, fans of campy horror will like this movie more than I did. For me, the humor wasn’t all that sharp. The dialogue and dynamic between the main characters was fine, and this I enjoyed, but the humor about vampires has been overdone to death, and this story didn’t really offer anything new.

Except…

…In this movie, when a vampire is struck by the sun’s rays, rather than simply disintegrate, they explode! Hence, the reason some of the characters spend so much precious screen time covered in blood and guts; they were standing a little too close to those exploding bodies. If this sounds like fun to you, you’ll enjoy ABIGAIL more than I did.

For me, ABIGAIL was a mixed bag. I really enjoyed the cast, and I thought the story had a lot of promise, but its shift to campy horror midway through just didn’t work for me. I would have enjoyed it more had it taken its premise seriously.

As such, I give it two and a half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful