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Showing posts from October, 2020

The Craft: Legacy still overshadowed by original

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  (Image courtesy of The Sun Daily) Charmed is an American supernatural fantasy drama series starring Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and Shannon Doherty... oh, wait, we're NOT reviewing Charmed? Hmm... for the life of me, I thought I just watched Charmed, the 1998 series about the Halliwell sisters, who happen to be witches and who fight warlocks. Mercy me.    The Craft: Legacy was an absolute poor attempt to honor the 1996 original movie. Even if they did want to make something completely different, they shouldn't have wasted money on buying the rights and just create something original in the first place.  There were only two scenes that paid homage to the original movie; the four corners and Fairuza Balk. Other than that, it was completely different and not in a good way.  The Craft: Legacy starts off with three teenage girls in a summoning circle performing a spell. They recite a version of the "Invocation of the Spirit", but without a fourth corner, it fails. S

Evil Eye (2020) gave Asian Does Horror pink eye, because it did us dirty

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  (Image courtesy of VideoTapeNews) For a well produced, well directed, well acted movie, it was too good to be true as Evil Eye stumbled, face planted and lay spread eagle just inches away from the finish line to be considered a horror movie at all.  We were highly disappointed with the reveal at the end as it showcased no reason for it to be called a horror movie and was just a well imagined thriller.  Evil Eye is directed by Elan and Rajeev Dassani and executive produced by Jason Blum and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.  It tells the story of Pallavi, played by Sunita Mani (GLOW), an Indian girl pressured to get married by her controlling mother, Usha, played by Sarita Choudhury (The Hunger Games). When Pallavi eventually meets the man of her dreams, her mother has reservations about this man's background, agenda and identity.  The production value of the movie is good. It was shot well, the cut scenes were nice, the location scouts did a good job and the acting was spectacular, particul

Tremors: Shrieker Island Falls Short of its Predecessors.

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  The eighth installment of the Tremors franchise (Image courtesy of Amazon.com) We've been fans of the Tremors franchise since the first movie in 1990 starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward and we've been following it ever since, yes, even the series. However, Tremors: Shrieker Island just feels like they've finally beat that horse to a pulp.  There was so much potential for the graboids franchise, with the introduction of new creatures, plots and characters, but this movie just feels like they played it safe while at the same time tried to introduce something new which were two totally conflicting strategies (in our opinion).  Tremors: Shrieker Island tells the story of two groups of people on two separate islands somewhere in Thailand. One is a biotech magnate running a trophy hunting business for the rich while the other is a wildlife conservation group researching the local fauna.  I'm not sure, because it wasn't explained properly in the movie, but I think the wil

The Witches (2020)

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  (Image courtesy of digitalspy.com) Do you believe that there's a biasness when you watch a movie that's directed or produced by some of your favorite names in movies? We do.  The Witches is a 2020 remake of the 1990 movie with the same name adapted from the children's book written by Roald Dahl. This remake stars Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Octavia Spencer, Jahzir Kadeem Bruno and features voices by Chris Rock and Kristin Chenoweth.  It tells the story of an orphaned boy played by Jahzir Kadeem Bruno who has been sent to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer). One day at a grocery store, he's offered candy by a witch. He later regales the incident to his grandmother who opens up about her own encounter with a witch when she was a little girl. They then pack their bags and stay the night at a hotel in the city where they happen to have booked their stay at the same time the convention of witches was holding their annual meeting at the hotel.  We enjoyed the orig

The Mortuary Collection (2019)

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  Clancy Brown being amazing (Image courtesy of imdb.com) The Mortuary Collection states that it was released in 2019, but Asian Does Horror was only able to view it this year.  The Mortuary Collection is an anthology of short horror stories thrown in between a larger storyline. Directed by Ryan Spindell, the main arc tells the story of Sam ( Caitlin Custer ) who comes to Raven's End Mortuary looking for a job. There, she meets Montgomery Dark ( Clancy Brown) who begins the interview process and brings her on a tour of the mortuary. While there, Sam takes the opportunity to ask Montgomery what chilling stories he's gathered over the years of being a mortician. With each tale told, Sam is dissatisfied with the delivery, the plot twists and the narration of each story and offers her own. This is where the plot thickens and the main storyline of The Mortuary Collection unfolds.  We love how this movie begins. The color palate is dark and pastel, giving off the feel that it's j

Love and Monsters (2020)

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  A guy risking his life to get laid (Image courtesy of Wikipedia) We believe monster movies are the stepchildren of the horror sub-genres. Monster movies are frequently overshadowed by their easier-to-deliver, surefire success sub-genre siblings like haunted houses, possessions and even their special needs cousin, the found footage. Monster movies are easily overlooked, glossed over and rarely given much love. However, like all stepchildren, they have a desire to be given the attention they deserve.  Love and Monsters is one such movie.  Love and Monsters is the story of Joel (Dylan O'Brien) who lives in a post apocalyptic version of our world currently inhabited by mutated animals. How did these mutated animals come to be, you ask? Well, an asteroid was plummeting towards the earth and our governments banded together to nuke it. Radiation from the nuclear debris then spilled back down to earth affecting mostly insects, amphibians, crustaceans and reptiles, causing them to mutate,

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) - Perfectly Splendid

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  A visual storytelling gothic opera (Image courtesy of medium.com) The second installment in The Haunting series created by Mike Flanagan for Netflix, The Haunting of Bly Manor stands toe-to-toe with its predecessor, The Haunting of Hill House. Launched on Netflix worldwide on Oct 9, The Haunting of Bly Manor is a loose adaptation of Henry James' 1898 novella, The Turn of the Screw. There have been many adaptations, some more direct than others, of James' novel, but none that come close to becoming a homage to James' list of novels and short stories than this series.  The Haunting of Bly Manor starts off with an American in England looking for work. She enters the office of Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas), a prominent businessman who is looking for a Governess or Au Pair for his niece and nephew who live in Bly, a quaint little suburb three hours away from London city.  For those that have read The Turn of the Screw, you'll find that the first names for many of the chara

Hubie Halloween (2020)

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Don't change, Adam Sandler. Don't change. (Photo courtesy of imdb.com)   If you check out the wiki page for Happy Madison Productions, you'll discover a whole list of gems. Some of them might not be great, but gems they are nonetheless, and Hubie Halloween is definitely a Halloween gem in our books.  Hubie Halloween dropped worldwide on Netflix last Oct 7th, and is written and produced by Adam Sandler. It couldn't have dropped at a better time, because we've been waiting for another Happy Madison Production and, well, we got our wish, and a horror comedy no less.  Hubie Halloween tells the story of Hubie Dubois, a socially awkward, but kind hearted resident of Salem, Massachusetts. Salem, as everyone knows, was the site of the infamous Salem Witch Trials and set the tone for its rich history which in turn instilled in the townspeople a strong devotion to the festive season of Halloween.  Hubie isn't well liked in the town because of his socially awkward but kind

Vampires vs the Bronx (2020)

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  (Photo courtesy of heavenofhorror.com) Netflix has greenlit some really good horror movies in the past, I just wished that this was one of them. Vampires vs the Bronx is one of those movies that was made for the sake of making a movie. It was uninteresting, uninspiring and honestly just plain boring.  Vampires vs the Bronx is directed by Oz Rodriguez and stars a smattering of actors of color who just fall short in every way you look. In fact, the only white people in this movie were the villains and it wasn't even a subtle hint that white people are the bane of urban development and a hindrance to a specific neighborhood's way of life. The movie focuses on a group of kids stumbling upon a vampire one night and discover a larger plot to overtake the Bronx. These kids then take it upon themselves to fight them. There was zero time taken in their decision making thought process and their reasoning was, "the adults won't believe us," despite the continuous disappear

Underrated Horror Movie List (Part 2)

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As Halloween continues on, opening doors for more and more fright fests and hours of horror, Asian Does Horror would like to continually provide you the opportunity to fill your time with more horror movies. Since you must be tired of those mainstream flicks that are constantly being paraded in front of you on Netflix trending lists and Oscar nods, we thought we'd continue our previous list of underrated horror movies.  Screamers (1995) Screamers is a 1995 Canadian-American science fiction horror. I've never had a taste for sci-fi horror, but Screamers was entertaining at best. It's basically a bootleg version of The Terminator (1984) and Tremors (1990) and is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick called "Second Variety".  Screamers tells the story of machines called Autonomous Mobile Swords (AMS) that were created by The Alliance mining company to hunt down and kill soldiers of a rival company called the New Economic Block (NEB). These AMS machines gained sent

ROH (2020)

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Cinematographically pleasing, but still lacking in various aspects. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia) Before I begin this review, those who are interested to watch this movie must, MUST remember that it's an indie arthouse horror flick. It's produced by Kuman Pictures, a low-budget film company that is relatively new in the industry, but supported by veterans in both the filmmaking industry and the writing industry.  ROH is directed by Emir Ezwan and is set in the past. It tells the story of a small family (a mother and her two children) living in the forest who were one day visited by a mysterious child. This child laid the foundation for all the events that transpires throughout the movie.  It doesn't take long for the story connected to the child to unfold, but this movie is a slow burn and those expecting fast paced dialog and scenes will be severely disappointed.  From the beginning of the movie to the end, the cinematography was spectacular. The play on lighting and symme