Killer in Law (2018) - Definitely made for TV

Do you ever watch a film that's actually quite close to being good, but just can't quite stick the landing when it needs to? 'Killer in Law' is no classic.  The plot of a relative who starts out as merely overbearing, but ends up with more sinister motives is nothing new, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be bad.  It depends on the execution.  Here, a grandmother joins her son and his wife and daughter after an extended period, er, 'in an institution' shall we say?  Of course they welcome her at first, but soon things take a darker turn.

And in this outing, some of the actors are actually quite good.  The leading lady is very watchable and can easily handle the role.  Plus the little girl who plays the daughter is decent enough for her age.  Sometimes when youngsters are placed centre stage they're either bad actors or simply annoying.  Here, she's neither.  However, whereas they're good the husband seems to be more like a male model who's trying his hand at acting and the older lady who plays the grandmother uses every ham-fisted overacting technique ever.  Although, perhaps I shouldn't rag on the cast too much.  The script doesn't give them much to work with and the people behind the camera could probably have tweaked the script to higher standards.

During the opening there's so much exposition they might as well have just done one long 'text crawl;' in fact people almost SPEAK in exposition to tell the audience the general set-up for what's to come.  The strange thing about the script is that most of it actually works.  It's like every ten lines of dialogue a child was allowed to add one line before handing writing duties back to the grown-ups.  This gives the dialogue a really uneven feel to it.

When it comes to the story, there's nothing you won't really see coming.  Anyone not a major member of the cast is effectively there for a 'bodycount' (which isn't very high - and don't expect any major gore or ingenious kills or make-up effects).  What you have here is a very bog-standard affair that would have felt outdated back in the eighties.

5/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

The Haunting of Julia Fields (2023) - 99% set-up

Apparently, the film with the most 'on the nose' title ever - 'The Haunting of Julia Fields' - was 'based on a true story.' If that means a girl rents a house, then I guess it's correct.  But I'm guessing the film-makers wanted to imply that the supernatural elements which befall her are the part which is supposed to be real.  I guess if you make it until the end you'll realise which parts were supposed to be 'real' and which weren't.  Um, that's pretty much a summary of the movie.  A girl - Julia Fields, would you believe! - moved into a rented house in Florida where she's slowly stalked by more and more supernatural events and entities.

And when I say 'slowly' I mean slow.  The film isn't long (not that much over an hour), but it does tend to drag.  I wanted to like this one more than I probably did, but there just isn't that much that happens.  Unless I blinked and missed the part where the story explains why a young girl (who looks more like she should be in college) can rent her own home and never seems to have to work, the central character does little more than wander round the house in her pyjamas and then hears a noise.

I know some people will say that this is all done to build tension, but there comes a time when the audience is just crying out for something to actually happen.  It doesn't help that Julia Fields lives on her own, therefore she doesn't really have many times where she can interact with any other character - until she encounters one creepy person after the next.  

However, saying all that, I did make it until the end.  It wasn't just because the film was so short that it was easy, but I actually quite liked the lead actress' performance and she certainly did her best with what little she was given.  Plus I wanted to see whether there was going to be some sort of major twist/payoff in the final moments.  I won't spoil the ending, but I will go as far as to say that, although this is an easy watch and has a few moments of creepiness, there isn't that much that a seasoned horror fan won't have seen before, meaning you can take or leave it really.

5/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

Freelance (2023) - Nearly... something

There's always an argument between those who lived through the eighties and nineties as to which decade spawned the best 'action' movies.  There were definitely cases for either period, as there were musclemen, huge explosions, islands full of expendable bad guys and crazy locations for terrorists to try and take over form and make their demands.  The the millennium came and the action genre seemed to try more for 'serious' and 'realistic' and those over-the-top blast-a-thons looked like they'd had their day.

'Freelance' definitely feels like it should be more at home in either the eighties or the nineties, but whether it's any good I can't really say.

John Cena certainly has the classic 'action hero' physique and plays the leading role as well as any wrestler who has turned to acting, as he's stranded on one of those nondescript South American countries that always need a dictator or two overthrown and he has to protect the real president and a reporter.

Now, if you're expecting wall to wall action and explosions, you may feel a little disappointed, as the action seems a little subdued for a film that looks like it firmly belongs in the 'action' genre.  There are a couple of nice gunfights, but nothing that really stands out or will make you go 'Wow!' and let it stick with you.

The secondary characters are pretty nondescript.  The bad guy is, er, bad.  And the woman Cena is trying to protect is, er, a damsel in distress.  It hits all the major beats of an old school action movie without actually trying to add anything new to the genre.  If it had have been released back in the eighties, I really do think it would have first become lost among the Stallone and Schwarzenegger output, before being cursed to the bottom of a 'straight to video' barrel and forgotten about.  I can't really think of anything overly negative to say, but then I can't really think of anything that I'm going to really remember about it.  I hear John Cena has plenty of fans out there, so I guess this film will always have a dedicated audience to enjoy it - and enjoyable it is, whether you watch it properly, or just have it on in the background, you'll roughly get the same experience.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

Chompy and the Girls (2021) - Marks for originality

Some people say that all the best stories have been told.  Others point out that there are only really a handful of stories to tel and that it's all about doing them differently enough to pass as something even vaguely original.  I watch a lot of (bad, straight to streaming service) horror films.  They're just a monster stalking your average bunch of teen until they're picked off one by one.  Most are bad, some are okay, but none really stick with me on account that they really aren't anything new that will actually stand out.

I'm not saying that - the weirdly-titled - 'Chompy and the Girls' is an amazing film which will stay with you until you die, changing your life for the better.  But it certainly is different.  And, in this case that was good enough for me.

The premise is that a teenage girl is meeting her long lost father for the first time in the park when they notice a strange man with a jaw which can dislocate, expand then seemingly swallow an innocent little girl whole.  Naturally, seeing this only a few meters away freaks them out and they do what most of us would do in their predicament - run.

The only problem is, 'Chompy' (as they christen him) starts to follow them round with his mouth open, as if he's selected his next two meals.

Yes, this film probably sounds a bit wacky and 'out there.' It is.  You have to let your brain accept some pretty crazy premises to get anything out of this.  But hopefully the characters should keep you invested.  They're hardly a particularly brave and noble bunch, but, starting out like this, it does give them a long way to go in terms of growth as the movie progresses.

I'm not sure I'd call this an outright 'horror' movie.  Sure, it has some horror elements, but more creepy scenes and a lot of black comedy and banter between the main characters.  It's not perfect.  The main character can be a little annoying with her brat-like behaviour, but she learns a lot on the way.  Otherwise, if you're in the mood for something a little different from your typical Hollywood output then this is actually quite fun.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that

The Legend of Jack and Jill (2021) - How quickly will I forget this?

Okay, I confess... I've left it almost twelve hours before getting round to reviewing 'The Legend of Jack and Jill' which basically means I've almost completely forgotten everything about it.  

I think I was consciously invested for at least the opening two minutes, where I saw a woman forced to abandon her children (Jack and Jill, would you believe?) in the British wilderness.  Skip forward to when the kids have now grown up and they're mutated killers and there's a bunch of young adults about to take a hiking trip effectively through Jack and Jill's back garden, so to speak.

You can probably guess what happens next.  One by one our 'heroes' are picked off, blah, blah, blah... The problem is that I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has practically forgotten everything about what they just watched in a matter of hours.  This movie is totally forgettable.  It's problems are that you won't care about the people being killed.  Nothing wrong with that in itself.  It wouldn't be the first slasher film where the people you're watching are little more than 'meat sacks' waiting to be slaughtered.  The trouble is that there's nothing that interesting about the killers either.  Add to it that if you're hoping that there might at least be some inventive kills and gore, there isn't.  The kills aren't that grisly.  The acting isn't that sharp.  The make-up you could probably do yourself if you're going out for Halloween and the overall premise of the killers being (horrific) incarnations of a popular nursery rhyme really isn't explored.  Seriously, if you called this film 'Woodland Mutant Killers' no one would ever say, 'Wow, this is like a slasher version of that old nursery rhyme.' 

I can't believe anyone who sits down to possibly watch this hasn't seen a slasher film before.  You're probably at least slightly into the genre.  Therefore, you've seen better.  You probably have better DVDs in your collection.  Just put one of those on.

4/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back

Monster Portal (2022) - Warning: does not contain many monsters

Hey, I've got nothing against horror 'B-movies' - in fact, they make up a significant proportion of my DVD collection.  You don't have to have major actors, great special effects, or even a particularly original story to make a movie enjoyable - as long as it entertains then it usually fits the bill.  However...

If you make a film with the word 'monster' in the title, it does tend to set an audience's expectations.  If you sat down to watch 'Snakes on a Plane' you'd probably not be expecting Shakespeare, but you'd be looking for something that's just a bit of harmless fun.  If you got one sickly-looking adder ten minutes before then end, then you might feel just a little bit 'short-changed' from what the title promised.

'Monster Portal' is an adaptation of an HP Lovecraft story, which is fair enough, but it does relay on giant creatures as part of its central theme.  Sadly, the movie doesn't have the budget to really pull it off.  Yes, there are a couple of monsters sprinkled here and there, but not only is it not enough to justify the title, but they're rendered about as well as your average Playstation 2 cut scene.

Now, I'm happy enough to ignore the special effects if the story is overall engaging and fun (or in a horror movie's case 'scary' would suffice), but here the acting is bad.  Yes, I've seen enough horror movies to know I'm never going to get 'Oscar-worthy' performances, but in this case it basically feels like the actors  are reading their lines off a cue card which is just out of shot.  I guess I shouldn't really put all the blame on the actors, this script is pretty basic and they're probably doing their best with the awfully generic lines they're given, plus you'd think the director might be able to coax something out of one or two of them.

It's not the main characters who are the (total) problem.  They don't turn in very good performances, but I can just about excuse them.  It's more the secondary cast-members who might as well be your average passers by who were roped in to read a line or two here and there.

As I say, B-movies can be fun, but this one just tries to bite off way more than it's capable of.  With a higher budget, better actors and script it might have worked, but, ultimately, it couldn't make anything of its lofty goals.  Oh, and the leading lady goes topless in the last five minutes if you just want to skip to that (best?) bit!

5/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

The People Across the Lake (1988) - Strangely watchable

I know the words 'made for TV' are hardly a ringing endorsement for a film - it normally denotes a low budget, no real actors you've heard of and shoved on late at night when no one is ever going to see it anyway.  All that may actually be true of 'The People Across the Lake,' but, despite all its shortcomings, it's actually quite watchable.

It's about a 'typical' (i.e. mum, dad, teenage daughter and younger son) moving from the city to a small, rural town to start up their own business.  However, when they get there it turns out to be possibly one of the most least friendly places to go in America - and that's before random corpses start showing up seemingly under every stone that's overturned.

Again, nothing amazingly revolutionary with the plot, but what made it watchable for me was generally the dynamic between the husband and wife.  The kids don't really get an awful lot of screen time, so it's the adults who are the main characters.  I just found something about them very believable as a couple and, for whatever flaws reared their heads, I still found myself wanting to root for the central characters through to the end.

It's hardly a 'thrill-ride.' In fact you could probably call it a bit of a 'slow burn,' as very little of real note happens during the first half of the movie and it's all just generally setting the scene.  Once all the 'red herrings' have been discounted as to what's going on, when the 'threat' is finally revealed there is a slight element of 'scenery chewing' here and there which does make you want to roll your eyes just a little in terms of various people's acting ability, but it is a 'made for TV' movie, so what do you expect?

It's hardly a classic that will stick with you for very long, but if there's nothing else then this one will certainly fill an hour and a half of your time.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights