Reaction & Review | Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror anthology film from 2013. That movie is "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)".

Now, from what little information I looked up about this movie, it's suppose to be an anthology film where 8 different directors, who were known for making low budget B movies while being shot on video, come together to make 8 short films in that exact style. Essentially, this movie's trying to harken back to how a lot of low budget horror movies looked like back during the 80's. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, that sounds like a really awesome premise. Now admittedly, I don't know exactly what films the directors of these short movies have made, so I'm gonna go into this one basically 100% blind, since I don't have any knowledge of these guys work beforehand.

I'm hoping for this movie to be really good. Because I really like the concept of this anthology, where it tries to be a love letter to those 80's low budget horror movies. I don't know if this movie is gonna live up to that premise, however, but that's what I'm here to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this thing is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)".

10 minutes later

So wait a second here. This serial killer's wife has found a bunch of ID cards filled with women, all whom that he has raped and killed, mind you, along with photos of his, uh, "work", let's say. And she's also been following and watching him do his dirty deeds for who know's how long at this point. If you've been following where he's been going to, wouldn't it make to sense to bring a camera of sorts to film this sort of thing going on? I'd imagine, being that she's the wife of this fucking psycho killer that she would actually think about bringing a camera and making sure she's got the whole thing on tape. But hey, maybe that's just me, personally. If I was married to someone who was killing and raping people as a hobby, I would probably bring something to film my evidence. But again, that's just me.

5 minutes later

Wait, is that a fake penis she has on her crotch? I think it is...jeez, this first story's *really* taken a fucking turn. One in which I was kinda sorta expecting, to be honest. But still, definitely kinda fucked up.

9 minutes later

The fuck...? O...K...what the fuck is that thing?! I have no idea what I'm looking at, guys, this creature, this uh...thing, just...oh, and, apparently, that's the end of that story. No, guys, seriously, that was the whole segment. I still want to know what the fuck that thing was, but on the other hand, I still don't believe that I would be able to properly describe it to you guys. I'll just leave it at that for now.

6 minutes later

All right, guys, this is sort of new. I've never seen someone be so entranced by a video tape called "Bloodgasm", to where he's more focused on that, despite the fact that his girlfriend is wanting to fuck him. The strange is, he's actually doing that while *still* watching the video. I guess, you could say, that Tim certainly has his priorities straight...kinda.

7 minutes later

OK, you know what? That twist at the end there was actually kinda funny. A little fucked up, but really funny towards the end. So, that's definitely a positive.

12 minutes later

Thank fuck that segment is finally done with. It wasn't funny, nor was it interesting either. It was just really kinda shit.

10 minutes later

Wow, guys, I didn't think it was actually possible, but that segment was somehow even stupider and worse than the previous one. At least the previous one had something resembling a story. This one didn't. I'm hoping the other 3 stories are better than the two I've just seen. Cause this thing's sorta going downhill at the moment.

11 minutes later

OK, that story was definitely an improvement over the other two. It wasn't great, but it's certainly far better than the prior two segments. So at least there's that.

6 minutes later

OK, I have a question here. So the lady of this husband, who's also pregnant with their child, kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and is now showing him to her that she's tied up in the garage. How long has she been keeping this girl in the garage without her screaming for help? I guess, maybe, she might've kept her quiet with chloroform or something, but still. The fact that she's kept his ex-girlfriend in the garage in this state is just all sorts of messed up. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well, what to say about this one? I, guys, am pleasantly surprised by this film. Part of me thought it was going to suck. I say this, partially because, I have went into a lot of movies, both for this series and on my own time, where a film has a really interesting premise, but most of the time, they wind up being complete shit for various reasons. And part of me thought that this movie was going to fall into the same trap as a lot of those other movies did. But in actuality, I ended up really kinda enjoying this movie. Now mind you, the movie's not great, but it actually exceeded my previous expectations because, as I said, I thought it was going to completely suck. Well, I'm thankful that I was actually wrong in this case. This movie is rather decent.

So now, let's actually talk about the movie itself here. Let's first go over the writing. Now being that this is an anthology film we're talking about here, I have to start off by talking about the weakest segment of this anthology, Now I'm thankful I actually got the segment names for this anthology on my camera phone because they don't reveal any of the names until the ending credits for each short film. And the weakest segment, by far, has to go to "Genre Bending". I'm gonna summarize the entire plot for this story to you guys right here. Some guy stalks a girl, the guy ends up getting caught by her and leaves. He gets killed by some black dude who, I think, is suppose to be his actual girlfriend, not totally sure. And he tries to rape her, which in turn gets her to rape him, and...that's it. The segment is done with and it made no fucking sense at all. And this was suppose to be the comedy segment of the bunch, mind you. And I'm gonna tell you right now, guys, there is no comedy to be found here. Unless if you, somehow, find someone repeating the word "rape" or "raping" many times, there is nothing funny to be found here. This segment borders on plotless and you could've replaced it with *any* other short story and you would've not missed a thing. This segment really fucking sucked.

The other segment that also falls short is called "Gang Them Style".  Now conceptually speaking, this segment is suppose to be parodying dumb 80's cheese ball action flicks. If I had to be more specific, I would say this thing is parodying "Escape From New York" because the main character is obviously a knock off of Snake Plissken. Which, admittedly, "Escape From New York" isn't necessarily a dumb 80's action film, though I'm kinda including it because of how it's being presented here. Now the reason why I say this one is suppose to be parodying those dumb 80's cheese ball action flicks is because of stuff like the dialogue sounding corny as hell, plus the music is definitely rather synth heavy. Which is something that quite a bit of 80's films had back then. But still, the point is, this movie is suppose to be like those kind of movies, and it falters for two different reasons.

One, for an anthology movie that's suppose to be like those 80's SOV films, this feels less like that and more, well, like an 80's action flick like "Escape From New York". And that has more to do with the camerawork than anything else, however, I'll get into all that later when I talk about the technical stuff. Now this could've been forgivable if the segment itself was actually interesting. And unfortunately, it's not. Why? Because the segment involves zombies, and I'm really fucking tired of zombies because there's only so much you can do with them that's interesting before you start to run out of ideas. And this segment really just goes down the route of it being somewhat of a generic zombie film. Now since this segment is also a parody, you would think that they would try something funny with it. And while they certainly try that, nothing about it is really all that funny. The comedy was weak and the whole thing just kinda dragged itself out, despite this segment being about 12 minutes long or so. So yeah, unfortunately, this segment is the second weakest of this anthology.

The seventh segment, which is called "Thicker Than Water", probably would've worked better as a full-length feature film rather than a short film. I say this, because the plot involves this guy's wife kidnapping his ex-girlfriend. And the reason why she kidnaps and tortures her is because she doesn't want anyone getting involved with their relationship. That, plus the fact that his current wife is pregnant. So that's another layer that's added on to something that could've been expanded into a feature length film. Now I'm not gonna say that this segment sucked or anything, it's actually halfway decent. But my problem with it is that because it's so short, there's not enough here to where you could do more with it. Like, have the wife secretly look up her husband's call history to see if there's someone in his life who he might've talked to or hung out with at one point and kidnap them. That way so she can make sure who she is and then kidnap them shortly afterwards, which would lead into our torture segments. I think all of that, if done properly, would work better as a remake for a full-length feature film rather than narrow it down to around 10 minutes or so.

So, beyond the problems that some of the segments have with it's writing, along with a couple of minor issues, most of everything else works out pretty well for the rest of the segments. And the best part about each segment is that it each has it's own tone. There's a couple of serious ones, there's comedy segments, and there are also a couple that are very exploitive. And even though I kinda railed on a couple of the comedy segments here, the one that I'm going to give praise to the most is the third segment, which is called "The Tape". That was the one where our main character is watching the same video tape called "Bloodgasm" on repeat. That one, to me, was the best segment, mainly because it was actually really funny, especially towards the end. I won't spoil it, but I will say that it is genuinely funny. So, we got one good comedy segment. The others I sorta like are "The Request", which is about a radio DJ who ends up killing his girlfriend on their anniversary, only for her to come back to get her revenge. I won't spoil how exactly, but it  was also pretty decent. The first two segments, while ridiculously short, do get straight to the point and are also decent for the short time they had to work with.

Now the main framing device involves 3 of our main characters trying to film a low budget SOV horror movie of their own. Granted, this is probably one of the weaker framing devices because none of the scenes involving these characters transitions into the next story that fits into what they're talking about. But still, at least they try to keep their own scenes consistent, even if the transition into the segments are kinda weak. Overall, guys, the writing here is mostly pretty decent. It does have a couple of bad segments, but just about every other story is actually pretty decent for what it is.

The acting here, however, is definitely terrible. Now to be fair, since the segments in these short films were made for next to nothing, I'm going to assume that a lot of the casting for these short films consisted of the filmmakers friends and family members. Granted, I don't know how truly accurate that is, but I'm going to assume that this is their first time being in this kind of movie, so I can't really harp on the acting as I normally would when it comes to people who have never acted a day in their lives. And also, I gotta imagine that, despite possibly not ever being in a movie before, they had a blast in playing the roles for each of their own segments. So, this is one of those cases where I'm not going to harp on the terrible acting. I could, but I'm not going to here. So, acting is going to get a pass from me.

Special effects are definitely a mixed bag here. On one hand, since these movies were, again, made for next to nothing, you really can only do so much with the kind budget your working with. Also, since this anthology is suppose to be a love letter to those horror movies from the 80's, there is also almost no CG involved here. The only exception I can think of is during the fourth segment, "Gang Them Style", where our Plissken knockoff is suppose to be firing his gun at the zombies. Beyond that, though, every other effect is done practically. The blood effects in particular are definitely the ones that will show up the most. And it's here where most of the blood effects will range on being a mixed bag, because in some cases like the first, seventh, and last segments will feature someone gushing with a *lot* of blood, and those scenes look pretty good, if a bit samey. Then there's also the one case in "Thicker Than Water", where a character dies and the blood that drips out of their mouth looks ridiculously fake. So it's something that you just have to take for what it's worth here. I will say, though, at least the effects are pretty good for the most part. Makeup effects are also decent, too. So there is that.

Camerawork in most of these segments is done really well. Most of these segments give off the vibe that you're a watching something that was filmed on video rather than using professional camera equipment that you would see in most modern big budget movies. The one segment, however, "Gang Them Style", feels like something out of an 80's action film than anything else. It didn't really give off the illusion that you were watching something that was shot on video. It may look like it was filmed on a low budget, but not something that looked like it was shot on video. Though I can't really be too sure of that. I would probably have to watch the behind the scenes on this DVD to see how it was filmed. But speaking of which, the camerawork in most of these segments does gives off the low quality vibe that you would experience with an SOV film. Which is great to see.

Lighting here is pretty good for all of the segments. Sound-mixing is actually really good too, with the one slight exception in the last segment, where our main characters are talking in an abandoned town and the sound of the wind is picking up in the background, which kinda drowns out their dialogue a bit. However, I will say that, unlike another SOV movie I covered a long time ago, which was "Garden Tool Massacre", which also had some of the worst sound-mixing I've heard in a long time, the sound-mixing here is competent throughout most of the short films in this anthology. So I can definitely say that as a positive. Music here is OK. None of it is really gonna stick out at you in terms of being memorable. Though I can't say it's awful either. It's just...OK, really. Nothing much else to say about it.

So, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)"? Yes, I actually can. If you're somebody who's into low budget horror movies such as this, especially ones where it feels like something that was shot on video for next to nothing, go check it out. You are most definitely gonna find a lot of enjoyment out of this. If you're somebody who's not into this sort of thing, however, then there's obviously no way I can recommend it to you at all. As for myself, once again, I'm pleasantly surprised by how this movie turned out. I thought, in the back of my mind, that it was going to suck. And it doesn't. Granted, there are about two, maybe 3, segments here that aren't exactly great, but there's still enough here to where I can say that the positives outweigh the negatives. So yeah, I'm definitely going to be holding onto my copy of this movie. It really is surprisingly decent. Now...I'm gonna go watch another horror movie. Specifically one where it was shot on video. And the one movie I can think of that meets those standards is "Redneck Zombies". I'm gonna go and watch that one next because I do really like that movie and I sorta want to continue this trend of watching a low budget SOV movie. So that's what I'm gonna go do next once I get done with this review.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Save The Green Planet!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a South Korean sci-fi black comedy from 2003. That movie is "Save The Green Planet!"

Now, I actually discovered this movie a few years ago, back when I was still renting DVDs from my local library. And one of the first films I discovered was this movie. Now when I originally saw it, I didn't end up renting it because I wanted to find other movies that peaked my interest. And this one didn't at the time, so I just thought nothing of it.

Then about a few weeks ago, I found this movie again at one of my local video stores and the title of the film sparked my memory of seeing it back at my local library. And this time, I did end up buying the movie. Though I'm not totally sure if it's gonna be worth the price tag of it. The movie was about $15, so...I'm kinda taking a chance here and hopefully the movie will be good enough to be worth that price tag.

Now from what little I've looked up regarding this movie, it's about a guy and his girlfriend, who discovers that aliens are about to invade Earth, and he ends up kidnapping someone, who believes to be one of the aliens, and that he and his girlfriend are gonna torture him in various ways to get the information out of him.

I'll admit, that's a rather...interesting concept for a movie. I'm not totally sure how well it's going to implement this idea, but I'm still all the more curious about it. And since this thing is marketed as a comedy, I'm hoping for it to be really funny. But the only way I'm gonna find out how funny this movie can possibly be is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Save The Green Planet!".

7 minutes later

OK, I have a dumb question here. So this CEO that's supposedly an alien is not only drunk right now, but he has no security escorting him whatsoever, as our main character is in the process of kidnapping him. Wouldn't a CEO normally have security with him in case something happens to him? I'm only asking because he either is an idiot for not having security to begin with, or he just set sent them home or something because he's drunk. I don't know, but either way, it's kinda odd to me that he didn't have any security guards with him right now because of what's happening to him. Just my opinion, though.

2 minutes later

You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this song that's playing right now is a rock rendition of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" from "The Wizard of OZ". And I gotta say...it's sorta decent. Mind you, it isn't great by any stretch, but it's still sorta decent. So at least that's something.

12 minutes later

Well, guys, I am gonna say one thing about our main character. The man can kick a ton of ass, as he just demonstrated. Granted, I'm not totally sure why he was fighting this random stranger to begin with, but still, at least he can hold his own in a fight.

16 minutes later

So that torture chair the CEO is sitting on also acts as a toilet in case he either needs to piss or shit. That is actually kinda disgusting. But if anything else, at least Lee is making sure that if he's indeed an alien, then at least he's making sure he's practicing proper hygiene.

17 minutes later

OK, I have a dumb question here again. So, the detective is talking with Lee while the CEO is trapped underneath them. And I should mention that the CEO can see him through the little hatch that he's trapped under. Why doesn't he just yell for help like he's been doing since he kinda broke free from his chair? Unless that syringe Lee gave him prevented him from talking, then I don't see a reason why he doesn't just yell out for help like he did earlier. It's kinda bugging me slightly.

10 minutes later

OK, I need to bring up something because it's been kinda bothering me for a while now. Now earlier, I mentioned that this movie is suppose to be a black comedy. And I can certainly see that it's trying to be funny. But none of it has really made me laugh so far. I'm not saying that as a knock against the movie, it's just that none of the jokes here have truly made me laugh yet. I'm hoping maybe within the next hour or so that I'll find something here that'll get me to genuinely laugh, but for now, I'll just have to continue to wait and see if that happens.

5 minutes later

O...K...well, that certainly took a turn. Never expected that kind of death involving bees and honey. And I think his dog is eating the remains, too. Oh my god...that *definitely* took a far turn there!

11 minutes later

So, guys, I'm learning a lot more about Lee's backstory and, holy shit, this movie has gone completely in a different direction with it's tone. And...I'm not totally sure how to feel about it. I'll get more into it later when I get to reviewing this movie, but I'm gonna let you guys know right now that this movie is no longer aiming to be a comedy. I'll say that much for now.

15 minutes later

So, guys, I also learned the true nature of these aliens and their purpose. And I'm gonna tell you right now, it's really kinda stupid. But I'll get into all that later once I start to review this thing.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Save The Green Planet!". And it ends on a rather dismal and really kinda shit ending. Yeah, I don't want to see anymore of this. I'm gonna shut this movie off now...OK. So...what the fuck do I start with here? Well, I suppose I can start off by mentioning that I paid $15 to get this movie and I can safely say that it was nowhere near worth that much money. In fact, I'm starting to kinda despise it now because of my own stupidity.

But I'll try to put that aside for now and just go straight into the movie here. And since I just mentioned it, I'm gonna start off by talking about something I mentioned a little while ago. About the aliens true purpose and everything. Without going into too much detail here, the whole thing felt like an anti-war message that was tacked on here. How our genetic structure in our bodies caused us to go to war, kill each other, and how the whole the thing is the humans fault, because, apparently, no other species outside of the Earth does that sort of thing. Which makes me wonder how many kinds of species these aliens have made in which they monitored those lifeforms to make sure that their species doesn't fight each other? It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, however, I'm not really going to harp on that point too much because I feel like I would be here for hours if I tried ponder on it for too long.

So, moving past that, let's talk more about the writing. And I have to start with the biggest problem that this movie has: It's tone. See, as I've mentioned a couple of times already, this movie is suppose to be a black comedy. And I will say that this movie does try to be that. But there a couple of things here that stops it from being a full on comedy. The first thing is that a lot of the jokes in this movie don't exactly land here. Now I know that humor is subjective and not everything is going to be funny. But the thing about comedies, at least for me anyway, is that they should at least make you laugh once. And I've seen a lot of movies, both good and bad, that usually are able to garner at least one laugh out of me. This movie, while, again, does try to be a black comedy, nothing much about it made me laugh. It was more weird and kinda awkward humor. Now again, I don't mind that kind of humor in my movies as long as it's funny. But here, I didn't really find much of the humor to be very funny.

Now that's more of a minor problem. The bigger problem with the tone is that it changes at the drop of a hat from around the 80 minute mark of the movie. Right from when they show Lee's backstory, just about everything that follows afterwards is a near pitch black sci-fi horror thriller. And from there, it just drops the comedy bit and goes straight in it's own direction with it's story and tone. And I still have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it does make for some interesting dynamics and plot points that I haven't really seen done in movies and TV in quite a while. But on the other hand, it just felt like the movie forgot it's own self awareness of it being a somewhat goofy comedy just so it can become a pitch black serious sci-fi film. And it's those elements there that I just can't see myself ever watching this movie again. Especially with that ending. But again, I'll try not to go into it for the sake of spoiling the whole movie.

So what about our characters? Well, the only one I can really mention is Lee, our main character of the film. The best way I can summarize Lee in this movie is short and to the point. Lee is out of his fucking mind. And the thing about that is he's aware of it. He's grown up on sci-fi and alien movies to where he becomes obsessed with it. To a point where he figures out the main CEO of this pharmaceutical company is an alien in disguise. And Lee tries in various ways to torture the information out of him. However, that's only part of the plot. You have the whole detective subplot in which they're trying to figure out the CEO's disappearance on how he was kidnapped and who kidnapped him.

And that leads into one other big problem with this movie, which is it's runtime. This film clocks in at nearly 2 hours long, and a lot of it just feels like filler. You remember that scene I mentioned earlier where I said Lee knew how to kick a ton of ass? Well, a slight spoiler here, that was all just a fantasy in his mind. It doesn't really add much of anything to the movie other than padding. I would also add the whole detective subplot as well, because there's quite a few scenes in this movie where some detectives focus on a red herring because someone took out a few thousand dollars from the bank, but it really doesn't add much to anything else other than, well...padding, really. Like, you could cut about a half hour's worth of film here and you wouldn't miss a thing. This movie probably would've flowed better if the movie was about 90 minutes long. Mind you, it wouldn't exactly change the ending at all, but at least the movie could've still flowed better.

But anyway, I should probably summarize by saying that the writing in this movie is...well, kinda sort of a mixed bag. I don't really hate it, apart from the ending, but the way that it shifted it's tone throughout the last 40 minutes of the movie just felt like it came out of nowhere and it kinda lost itself from being a somewhat campy comedy to a very serious, pitch black kind of film. And I still have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. Now, with that said, let's talk about the acting. Now I should first mention that this movie does not contain any sort of English dub, as it only has it's original Korean dub with English subtitles. And I will say that the acting here is at least pretty good. It's nothing amazing, but I can at least say the actors seemed like they were having fun with this movie. So at least there is that. I kinda think, at times, Lee's actor might've overacted a little bit in a couple of scenes, especially when he has to shout his lines, but at least it's still competent. So, I can grant him that much. But yeah, the acting here overall is perfectly fine for what it is.

Special effects in this movie are actually really good. For a low budget of $3 million dollars, these are some really good special effects. CG is a little bit on the mixed bag side, however, there isn't really much of that here, thankfully. A lot of the effects in this movie are practical. So you have a lot of blood and gore effects here that look really good. I'm surprised this movie wasn't advertised as a horror movie, but whatever. Costuming and makeup effects are also pretty good, too. They aren't exactly amazing, but nothing I would describe as horrible either.

Camerawork here is mostly really good, though during the beginning before the opening credits, there is some bit of shaky cam going on. Thankfully, it doesn't last very long, as most of the camerawork afterwards is pretty straightforward. Lighting here is lit perfectly fine. The sound-mixing here is good. I do want to touch upon one thing about music, because I mentioned that there was a rock rendition of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" from "The Wizard of OZ" that plays during the opening credits. Well, there's actually two other versions that they play here. One of them is a really sinister creepy version, and it's pretty good, actually. The other plays where some woman is singing the lyrics and it's also really good, too. So, if anything else, at least this movie showed me a couple of really cool renditions of that song. But yeah, other than that, the score here is also fine for what it is. Not amazing, but completely serviceable.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Save The Green Planet!"? If you're able to overlook the pacing issues this movie has, along with the tonal shift that it has with it's tone, then...sure. I can probably recommend it. However, personally speaking, I'm not really sure if I can recommend this film to anyone else. Now I want to stress that the movie isn't exactly *bad*, it's just that there's a lot here that stops this movie from becoming great. Which is disappointing to say because I wanted to like this movie. I really did. I thought it was going to be some wacky, goofy cornball sci-fi movie that I was really going to like. But sadly, with the way that it shifted it's tone, there's no way I'm ever gonna be able to watch this thing again. And also the fact that I spent $15 just to get this thing is not exactly doing this movie any favors for me. Yeah, if you ever get physical copy of this movie, get it for less than or around $10. If you can find it at that price, then I suppose you can pick it up. For me, though, I kinda made a mistake here and I'm probably not gonna get much back in trade value with this thing. So now, I'm gonna go and watch a better sci fi movie. And you know what? There's one I see that's both goofy and serious at the same time. I'm gonna go and rewatch the first "Starship Troopers" movie. I'm kinda in the mood to watch it again now after seeing it on my DVD shelf. So that's what I'm gonna go do next.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace. 

Reaction & Review | Duel

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a made-for-television movie from 1971. That movie is "Duel".

Now I only know one thing about this movie. It was directed by legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Not only that, but it's also his very first feature length film that he ever directed. I've covered a couple of films in this series where he was an executive producer, but I've never covered anything directed by him. Well, except for that one segment in "Twilight Zone: The Movie", which that segment he directed was complete shit. So the man's not prone to making garbage. But I'm curious to see what he did on his first outing, because I've never seen this movie before so it definitely counts for this series.

Now as for the plot, I don't really know much about it. All I know is that it involves a traveling salesman trying to outrun a monster truck. And I don't mean the ones with giant wheels that you normally see at events and such, I mean like an actual big semi-truck. Why he's being a chased by semi truck is anyone's guess, really.

But still, I'm really hoping for this movie to be good. I'm not sure if this first outing from Spielberg will actually be any good, but that's what I'm here to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Duel".

17 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm a little bit surprised that our main character's reaction to him getting cut off by this monster truck is more...subdued than I thought. I thought he would've just flipped out and cursed at the person driving the big truck by now. But then again, this was made in 1971, so I'm not sure how common swearing was back in the early 70's. Still, if it was me in the driver's seat, and they did that to me more than once, I probably would start getting frustrated and then maybe let out a curse or two. Just my opinion, really.

8 minutes later

OK, I have a question here and this is starting to bug me a little bit. So our main character is driving ahead of the monster truck. The mileage right now is nearing 100 miles from our main character's car. The giant truck behind him, from what I'm seeing, is possibly driving at the same speed limit. Is it really possible for a big truck like that to drive 100 miles to the gallon? I'm really curious about this because I don't even know any giant truck, especially one from 1971, that can go 100 miles to the gallon. Granted, this is coming from somebody who's not a car person, so if there's anyone reading this and you really want to answer if a giant truck can drive a 100 miles to the gallon, please do. Because this is starting to become a little bit ridiculous now.

5 minutes later

All right, I have another question here and this a serious one, too. So, our main character, whose name I honestly don't know if he even *has* a name at this point, is at a diner after that little incident with the giant truck. He comes back out of the bathroom and goes to sit down. And then he notices the giant truck is back out there...and he's not the calling police! If he knows that there's a giant ass truck out there that's been out to murder him, not to mention even stalking him at this point, then why the fuck hasn't he called the police yet?! Granted, I understand it would probably take a few dozen police cars to help stop this monster truck, but still, the fact that our main character hasn't called the police yet is bugging the shit out of me.

7 minutes later

OK, so he *does* acknowledge that he could call the police, but then he realizes that he couldn't provide proof nor would anyone at the diner actually corroborate his statements. OK, that's a somewhat flimsy reason, but at least it's something. Granted, I still would think that the monster truck stalking you simply because you passed by it a couple of times would maybe arouse the police's suspicions, but still, at least he has a reason for not calling the police.

8 minutes later

Is he seriously going to try and push this school bus with his tiny car? There's no way in hell this is gonna work! Again, I'm not a car person, but even I can tell you that there's no way a tiny red car is gonna push a giant school bus back out onto the road. That's just common-fucking-sense!

14 minutes later

Well, guys, I can confirm two things for you. One, we *finally* have a name for our main character. His name is David Mann. And two, the giant truck just ran over the telephone booth that David was using to try and call the police, along with a bunch of snakes trapped in glass boxes. At least the movie's starting to get a little interesting now. Hoping, maybe, it'll last that way throughout the last half hour of the film.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Duel". And the film ends with David sitting on the ledge while throwing rocks at the wreckage where he's sitting. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. So, what did I think about Steven Spielberg's first feature length film that he directed? Well, I'm gonna say that...I kinda enjoyed it. However, I should let you guys know that, even though I did enjoy the movie, I am in no way gonna be watching this thing a second time. Partially because, I already know what's gonna happen, and the reason for it happening is really kinda stupid to begin with.

Let's segue-way into this by talking about the writing. I will start by saying that, for the time that this was made, this might've been one of the more original plots that hasn't really been done before. Maybe it might've been done once or twice beforehand in some indie films, but it wasn't exactly a well known kind of plot. If I were to compare this with something more modern, the only film I can think of at the moment is "Christine". The biggest difference between this movie and "Christine" is that the latter is more of a character driven story, while this one doesn't really focus on any kind of character development whatsoever. Now, I'm gonna be a little bit fair here and say that, for Spielberg's first movie, I can kinda let that slide here. Because this movie is more of an experiment for Spielberg and what he could do as a director later on in his career. So, I will give him that much when it comes to this movie.

Now, what about the plot itself? Really, guys, this movie's story is paper-thin at best. Our main character, David Mann, is being chased by a big murderous truck. Why? Well, the short answer is "fuck you, that is why". If you want the more detailed version, um...well, during the beginning of the movie, David passes by the truck a couple of times in order to get ahead and then the truck gets ahead of him whenever this happens, and thus we have our story of David trying to outrun the killer truck. Yeah, I'm not kidding you guys when I say that the story here is incredibly paper-thin. It plays itself out as a thriller kind of story, and I will say that, for the first 45 minutes or so, I was actually kind of invested into what's happening. Even though the story is paper-thin, it actually did intrigue me for a good portion of the movie.

But I did notice a big problem with this movie's writing. As I mentioned earlier, this kind of story, for it's time, was probably one of the more original stories that not a lot of people had seen done before. And while I still stand by that, I do think it runs into a problem here where you can only do so much with a paper-thin story such as this where it's just our main character trying to out run a giant truck. And for the last half hour of the movie, I did notice that it does kinda drag on for a little bit when I realized it's just more of the same thing you've already seen with David trying to outrun and outsmart the giant truck. If this were a shorter film, I would probably say that this works perfectly for a short runtime. However, for it to drag out to an hour and a half, it does start to, pardon the pun here, lose a bit of steam. And that's where I kinda have to draw the line here and state again that I'm not gonna be watching it again a second time because I already know what's gonna happen. And it's not gonna be as interesting as it was the first watching it. Especially knowing that the last half hour is just more of the same like a majority of the film anyways.

The only character I can mention is David Mann. Which, I'm not totally sure if he actually mentioned his name back when he first called his wife, but I could be mistaken there. But yeah, character wise, you don't really know a whole about David, other than that he has a wife and two kids, and he's out to make an appointment. At least until the giant truck plot kicks in, but that's an issue I've already talked about. For the most part, he's trying to figure a way out of his situation with the giant truck. You see him pondering on who the truck driver might be based on his boots. And I'm gonna kinda spoil this, you never learn who drives the giant truck that's after David. So unless there's a sequel to this that I'm not aware of, don't expect any closure about who the truck driver is. But anyway, the whole situation with David's character is sorta one dimensional, but I am gonna say that at least he's being kinda smart about it. I mean, at least he does try to call the police later in the film after I complained that he didn't do it back at the diner. So at least he's a somewhat intelligent character that you can sorta care about, despite not having much of a character to speak of.

Overall, guys, the writing here isn't really the best in the world and, for me anyway, is certainly not gonna rank up there with Spielberg's best directed films. Though personally, I'd have to look back at all the films I've seen where he's directed and find out which of his I like best. But anyway, writing here is paper-thin, but it does kinda work, though it does kinda drag out in the last half hour or so. The acting here is actually really good. Dennis Weaver makes his character stand out in a really interesting way, mostly when he tries to act calm under intense pressure, but sometimes he can't keep it under control and starts panicking when the monster truck is getting closer to him. Granted, most of that is from the last half hour of the film, but it is one of the few things that saves it from being boring. So yeah, his acting in this thing is great, and it kinda makes him one of the reasons to watch this movie, if at least just once.

I'm also gonna say that the cinematography here is great. All of it was shot on location in, I believe, rural California. Either that, or they might've been between the border with Arizona, since a lot of that is just the hot desert. Regardless of either scenario, it looks great. The stuntwork involving the vehicles is also really good, too. I'm actually really impressed with how well done the stuntwork is for this movie. I'm not sure what the budget is, though I imagine, given that it was originally made for TV, it was probably shot on a low budget. But still, the stuntwork here is really good.

The camerawork here is really good, though I'm slightly annoyed by how many times, especially during the last half hour, they kept cutting back and forth to the mileage, oil, and the temperature of David's car. I get that they were trying to play it up as being really intense, but it is a reminder that they didn't need to constantly show up on repeat. That said, everything else here is great. Lighting here is excellent, though that's mainly because most of this movie was shot outdoors. Sound-mixing here is top notch. And the score here, though it's not much to go on, does really try to be suspenseful especially when David's on the run from the big truck. So yeah, all of the technical stuff is great, minus a couple of hiccups.

So, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend to "Duel"? If you're a fan of Steven Spielberg's work and you haven't seen it yet, I would say go check it out. If you're a fan of thrillers, then I would say it's worth a watch. And who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it a whole lot more than I did. Mind you, that isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it. Like I said, I did kind of enjoy it. But I just don't think it's worth rewatching multiple times over. Especially since it kinda starts to drag by the last half hour or so. But that's just me. Like I said, if you enjoy it enough to watch it multiple times over, then that's awesome. Rock on. But I just don't see myself rewatching it again anytime soon. Still though, at least this movie did motivate me into watching another movie involving a killer car. I'm gonna go and watch "Christine" again once I get done typing this review up.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | The Puppetman

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2023. That movie is "The Puppetman".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. From what I looked up on the back of the DVD case, the plot involves a young girl of a killer, who claims to be innocent of murders that he did not commit. And she somehow finds out the truth about it when her friends start mysteriously dying off. Which, I will say does sound rather interesting. Granted, I don't know if this movie is gonna live up to that concept, but it certainly does have potential.

The only other thing I should let you guys know is that this movie was distributed by a company known as Shudder. Now Shudder actually does put out more original movies. More specifically, horror movies. And I can recall seeing at least two of them beforehand. One of them is "PG: Psycho Goreman", which is a film I covered several years ago, and I kinda liked it. Granted, it wasn't exactly worth holding onto, but I did still like it's premise. The other film that I've seen from them is "Christmas Bloody Christmas", which is a film I covered during one of my Christmas specials that I did a couple of years ago. And while that movie was certainly flawed, I still wound up enjoying it, too. In fact, I actually have added it to my list of Christmas movies that I watch every year around Christmas time.

So, Shudder does know how to put out decent movies, from what I've seen anyway of them. I'm hoping this one is going to continue the trend of it being rather decent. Or perhaps it'll actually be really good. I don't know if it will be or not, but that's what I'm here to find out. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Puppetman".

3 minutes later

Wait wait, hold up here for a second. So, these radio announcers are saying that after the husband killed his wife, the police found their daughter locked up in a closet. That wasn't a closet she was locked in, it looked more like a fucking boiler room! Granted, I don't know how common it is for a closet to have brick walls, but that did not look anything like a closet. There's bit of a difference there. Just thought I'd mention that.

15 minutes later

So, guys, I'm gonna ask this. Is *anything* interesting gonna happen in this fucking movie? We're nearly 20 minutes into the movie and nothing has fucking happened. I'm hoping, maybe, something interesting will happen sooner, rather than later. But as of right now, I'm kinda already doubting it.

8 minutes later

So, guys, we finally have our first kill in the movie. And allow me to sum up how it happened. So our main characters are on a rooftop building, drinking. Charlie somehow ends up getting possessed by the Puppetman. She then suddenly walks backwards, trips on a ledge and falls to her death. That's it. That's the whole sequence of the killing and it's not really an interesting kill either. God, I *really* hope this movie will actually make their kills more interesting. Otherwise, we might have a bit of a problem here.

18 minutes later

Guys, do you want to know why I don't visit psychics very often, if ever? It's because they drone on and on and never get to the fucking point. This psychic is proving just that by making this scene fucking boring as shit. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

17 minutes later

So, guys, good news is that we finally got another kill. Two of them in fact, as both of Michal's friends were killed in, admittedly, somewhat creative death scenes. It's just a pity that it took the movie well over half an hour to get to this point, especially knowing that there's only about 37 minutes left of it to go, but hey, at least these kills are definitely somewhat of an improvement over Charlie's death scene. So, I guess, take the good with the bad here.

18 minutes later

You know, guys, I understand that this scene was suppose to be all tense and dramatic, and I'm suppose to feel sorry now that Michal's boyfriend is now dead. But honestly, I don't. Because the way he was killed made that whole scene unintentionally hilarious. So, good job, movie, you know how to take the tension out of a scene that was suppose to be taken seriously and end up being kinda hilarious in hindsight. That's just class right there.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Puppetman". Let me shut this stupid thing off here...OK. God, that movie was stupid as fuck. Guys, I'm almost tempted to spoil this movie for you. Mostly about who this Puppetman is and what it's purpose is really for. However, unlike my review of "Millennium", where I spoiled the ending to that thing, I won't give out any real spoilers here. What I am gonna say, again, without spoiling who this Puppetman really is, is that the whole idea it is stupid as shit and how it all plays out isn't really any better. I'll just leave it at that and leave up to your imagination. I may leave out a hint here and there, but for the most part, most of this review will be left spoiler free.

So with that said, let's get into the review proper here and start off, as usual, with the writing. Now earlier, I had mentioned that this movie was distributed by Shudder. And I had mentioned that they put out more original horror movies. Well, this one isn't nearly half as original as it could be, as it does involve stuff like satanic rituals and plot points that I have seen in other movies. Things such as "Devil's Due", "The Bye Bye Man", and "Slenderman". I should mention that all of those movies were absolutely terrible and this movie is no exception. Granted, it's not quite as bad as those movies were, but that doesn't mean very much. It just means that it doesn't do it nearly as bad as those movies did.

One thing that this film does have in common with those movies is that the pacing is downright horrible. This movie moves along at a snail's pace as almost nothing of interest happens throughout over the first half of the movie. Our kills here, to begin with, are horribly spaced out. The first kill happens around the 25 minute mark. And the next kill? Happens just over the hour mark of the film. And by that point, there's a little over half an hour left of movie to go. And the stuff that happens between the first kill and the next is nothing but mindless padding. Such as when Michal and her friends visit this psychic to help find answers of what's going on with Michal. And this psychic just goes on and on about how we're all here to help Michal and such through this difficult time, what with her losing her best friend, Charlie, and what's going on in her own mind, before finally getting on with her ritual. That scene takes up a good portion of the middle of the movie and it's just so damn long that you're hoping something of interest happens during that long scene. Maybe the psychic herself might end up getting killed because of the Puppetman. But no, that doesn't happen. In fact, a slight spoiler here, she's one of the few characters in this movie who doesn't die at all.

Speaking of characters, that greatly transitions into the next big problem with this movie. All of the characters in this movie are just shallow and lifeless. Most of which consists of Michal and her friends. Her friends in particular have nothing interesting about them. When you first meet them, they come off as unlikable douchebags. I was gonna exclude Charlie from this because she was really trying to help out Michal by recording footage of when she's sleepwalking at night. But then that gets trampled when she lets it slip that she told one of the friends of the group about it. I think it was her boyfriend, Danny, who Charlie might've told him about, but I don't recall exactly. Which gets Michal to get all angry when she snaps at Charlie and, well, then comes Charlie's lame death scene. I won't spoil how that all makes sense. If you're seriously dumb enough to watch this movie, then it might make more sense there. Though that's not really a guarantee.

Michal herself is the only one who has a backstory which, again, ties into why she's connected with the Puppetman. But even with that, her personality is boring as shit, because she has something resembling daddy issues, because it ties into the beginning of the movie. Where her Dad ended up killing her Mom because of really stupid reasons. And what with her mind on the Puppetman, she really doesn't have anything else going on beyond that. And you would think that we would end up caring about her because she's going through these issues and you want to see her overcome them. But I can't, not when you have a character who has an uninteresting backstory and her depth is just about as vapid as the entire cast is. Seriously, nobody here has anything resembling likability or depth that'll make you want to care about these characters. They are all shallow and lifeless as they come.

And that pretty much sums up the writing as a whole. There is almost nothing here that I can say is even a remote positive when it comes to the writing. Now you would think that, with all of the shallow characters in this movie, we would have acting that is just as bad as the writing is. And yeah, you would be totally right. The acting here is horrible from just about everyone in this entire cast. Nobody's putting in any real effort because most of their character's personality come in one trait. You are either boring as shit, which would include Michal and all of her friends. You would include the police chief, who sounds about as wooden as possible. Or you have the psychic who really doesn't have much of anything to work with for her character, so she just phones it in. So yeah, acting here as a whole is fucking terrible.

Special effects, I will say, are the only thing that saves this movie from becoming shit. You do have your standard blood effects, which aren't amazing, but they're still pretty good for low budget standards. The best special effect in the movie has to go to one of the character's face burning off. It looks really good, and it's also the best kill of the entire film. Second place has to go to the other kill involving the weight lifts. I won't spoil on how these kills work, but like I said, they're the only two kills in the entire movie that makes the special effects stand out. Everything else involving CG is kinda shit. Especially in one scene where Michal jumps off a bridge to kill herself, only to be flung back onto the bridge at ludicrous speed. It's easily the worst effect in terms of CG, and that includes everything else involving it as well.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit fine. The sound-mixing here is also competent. The score here is honestly nothing special. It sounds like a lot of typical generic scores you would hear in horror movies and it's definitely not something you're going to remember this movie by. But overall, the technical work here is fine.

But ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Puppetman"? No. There is almost no way I can recommend this movie to anyone, especially if you're a horror movie fanatic. This movie will honestly do nothing for you to make you want to go check this movie out. The only slight possibility that I could recommend this thing to you guys is if you want to watch it with friends on a bad movie night and riff on it. Because like I mentioned earlier, this movie does something that is unintentionally hilarious that it could spark some decent riffing material off of. But if you're not here to riff on it, then there's really no reason for you to check this movie out. It is boring, slow paced, and while it's certainly not the worst horror movie I've ever seen, it's definitely not gonna get another viewing from me. Now...I keep looking at that title for this movie and it makes me just want to go and rewatch the first "Puppet Master" movie from Full Moon again. So that's what I'm gonna go do next after I get done with this review.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Millennium

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a science-fiction film 1989. That movie is "Millenium".

Now, I discovered this movie a couple of years back when I was searching for movies that I could possibly cover off of YouTube. Now I am gonna spoil this much, I won't be covering it off YouTube. I found a copy of it at one of my local video stores for about $3. So, on the off chance that this thing does suck, I won't be losing out on too much here.

Now the main reason why this movie peaked my interest has to do with it's premise. The premise to this movie is that an airplane ends up taking a flight a thousand years into the future through time travel. How exactly that happens is something I don't know of, as of yet, but it did intrigue me enough to warrant covering for this series.

Now seeing as how I didn't have a whole lot of information to work with, I decided to dig into this movie's history and see if I could come up with anything. And I can tell you guys a couple of things. First off, this movie is based off a short story called "Air Raid", which was written by a man named John Varley. And not only did he write that story, he also wrote the screenplay for this movie, too. So, at the very least, this movie will be pretty faithful to it's source material. Granted, I haven't read the short story, but again, at least I know that this thing will most certainly be faithful to it's story.

But then I kinda came across something else about this movie. Apparently, it had a rather troubled production. The film started out life in 1979, and the story had to be written at least six different times, according John Varley. It also went through 4 different directors before it was taken over by someone named Michael Anderson. At one point, legendary actress Natalie Wood was set to be in the movie and the film was gonna be put out by MGM. Unfortunately, due to the actress's untimely death, they backed out of the project, which caused more problems for the film's production. And eventually, the movie was released by a now defunct studio known as Gladden Entertainment.

Now with all that aside, I'm curious to find out if this movie will still be any good, despite all of the problems this movie went through during it's production. I'm hoping that it is good, or at least halfway decent, but there's really only one way for me to find out. And the only way I'm gonna find out is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Millennium".

18 minutes later

All right, guys, so far, this movie hasn't given me much to work with. But I can confirm two things. One: A plane from the beginning of the movie crashed and killed just about everyone on it, after the plane hit that odd flying object. And two: Some of the passengers that had digital watches are suddenly counting backwards. Why? How? I have no idea. But I will say that at least I am interested enough to keep watching. And hopefully, the movie will provide some answers at some point.

15 minutes later

So let me see if I understand this. When they brought the wreckage of the destroyed plane, nobody, aside from Bill here, discovered the blinking red light that was a part of the wreckage? Furthermore, I'm actually kinda shocked that it survived from being damaged in any capacity. It still looks perfectly intact. Which raises my question again on how the hell nobody discovered the blinking red light when they were surveying all of the broken parts? Yeah, it was still hidden, but it wasn't hidden all *that* well. I'm sure one person might've discovered it at some point. But nope. Nobody discovered that whatsoever. I'm sorry, guys, but I find that just a little bit hard to believe.

18 minutes later

OK, I have a couple of questions here and it's really starting to bother me now. One, why exactly are our female characters from the future traveling back to 1963 to begin with? I must've missed something, because otherwise, it doesn't really make much sense unless if they were trying to fix the space time continuum, or some such bullshit like that. And two, one of their cohorts is possibly dead now thanks to a nutcase who held a woman hostage with a gun. Wouldn't that already be messing up the time paradox and causing the future to be messed up again? Guys, this movie's already starting to hurt my head, and the less sense it continues to make, I'm probably gonna end up hating this one. I don't want to hate it, but the movie's not giving me much of a choice right now. I just hope it'll make some sense later on.

3 minutes later

All right, guys, I do want to make one quick correction on my part. The woman I mentioned who got shot with a gun that was from the future is still alive. And according to her, she "stopped" the bullet. How exactly she did that? I don't fucking know. It doesn't really make any sense, but then again, this movie isn't really making much sense to begin with. But still, at least I can kinda admit that I was wrong into thinking that she was already dead.

4 minutes later

Once more, guys, I have to make *another* correction on my part. The woman I mentioned a second ago, who's now named Susan, did end up dying. I know it's probably a trivial thing to correct myself on, but it's something I feel like I have to do. So hopefully, I don't have to make that kind of correction again from here on.

7 minutes later

OK, I have a stupid question here and I know it's probably not gonna be answered, but I want to ask it anyway. Now Louise is in the past again where she's meeting Bill before he found the stunner. I'll talk more about her going into the past again later in the review. But anyway, they're redoing some of the scenes where she and Bill first meet up and she tells him that she has her own car. Yet, she doesn't have any actual keys for that car until she got into it and started it up. Did she just steal that car from somebody? Because I imagine it wasn't really Louise's car to begin with so she must've stolen that car on the fly after she and Bill got into it. I know it's a really trivial and stupid thing to be bringing up, but it's those sort of details that makes this whole movie even stupider than what it already is.

20 minutes later

OK, hold up, hold the fucking phone here! So, Louise knows that the stunner that they lost back in the 1963 flight was picked up by a young Dr. Mayer. If she knows this, then why the fuck didn't they just go back in time to a day earlier before Dr. Mayer got on the flight to make sure he doesn't get the stunner?! If he still has the stunner from back in 1963 that means he *still* has that stunner now in the current time of 1989, which means he might've already discovered what the fuck this stunner's intention actually does! Oh my fucking god...you guys have no idea how much I hate this thing now. And the fact that I have to talk about this piece of shit in the review is kinda making me dread for what's to come. This might end up being very painful, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Millennium". Thank fucking god it's over. Let me shut this garbage movie off...OK. Good god, that movie was stupid as hell. You guys remembered earlier when I brought up this movie's troubled production? Well, after finally getting a chance to watch it, I'm not surprised it turned out the way it did. This movie is just so stupid and so inane with illogical plotholes that I could be here for a whole day trying to explain every stupid thing that happened in this movie.

Let's start this thing off proper here and talk about the biggest problem with this movie: The writing. And the first thing I have to talk about is when you're a doing film that involves time travel, you have to have a set of rules for which you cannot break. An example this movie brings up is that after you come back to the future from where you first time traveled, you cannot go back to that certain point in time in that location again. And this breaks that rule from when Louise is told that she has to go back to 1989 and try to stop Bill Smith, our main character, from investigating the plane crash. She ends up near the hangar from where they first meet up near the beginning of the movie, and, like I mentioned earlier, they replay some of the scenes involving them together. The only difference is the second time when Louise goes back to 1989, they extend the scenes between her and Bill as they go out to dinner to try and get Bill's mind off the investigation. Slight spoiler here, that doesn't happen. He still ends up remembering her and, well...I'm tempted to spoil the ending, but I'm not sure if I should or not.

You know what? Fuck it, I'm going to spoil the ending here. Because it's still fresh in my mind and I cannot get around it if I don't try to explain it. So, for those of you who don't want spoilers here, you might want to skip the next few paragraphs because I'm gonna be spoiling the ending here. To help with this, I'm gonna be separating it into different lines. So it'll be easier for you if you don't want to read spoilers. So if you want to skip the next section here, you are free to do so. For everyone else, I'm gonna spoil the ending and talk about why it sucked.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPOILER WARNING

So, you guys remember when I mentioned that whole thing where Dr. Mayer when he was younger and was on the 707 flight of 1963? Well, he still had part of the stunner with him since that time and he's been trying to discover it's secret ever since. Bill Smith visits him as he talks about the woman he saw and how he wants to find her. Dr. Mayer discovers that she might've been from the future and she's also a time traveler. Well, he ends up showing the ignition to Bill, who also had the stunner with him. Louise goes back to that point to try and stop them from creating a time paradox, or else the future she's from will be destroyed.

I should probably try to elaborate further on this. You see, those people at the beginning of the movie who died in that plane crash...never ended dying to begin with. They were taken out unconsciously and were taken to the future by way of a time gate. They then replace those people with fake identical bodies to pass off as them being dead. The reason why Louise and her people are doing this is because, in the future, their people are dying, as is their future, and they need to repopulate as much as possible, especially with females, since they're the only ones who are capable of giving birth. Now what exactly Louise is saying by her people are dying in the future is never explained. They never say it's from something, like, a virus, or nuclear war, or something related to that. She just says that her future is dying and they need to retrieve both stunners in order to stop the time paradox.

Well, here's where it gets really stupid. Dr. Mayer ends up combining both stunners that both he and Bill retrieved. Louise yells at him to stop but he ends up getting electrocuted to death after he combines them together and dies. This somehow leads to the conclusion that the time paradox is beginning to happen in the future, so she and Bill end up going to the future, and everything that's happening there is suddenly going to hell. The guy in the wheelchair explains that Dr. Mayer wasn't supposed to be dead for another 6 years. And that, somehow, causes the time paradox to happen and everyone there is going to die. So they send everybody off that they captured and replaced towards a light that would send them to a distant future where they can begin anew and keep everyone alive. This also includes Bill and Louise, and it ends with a monologue where "the end is now the beginning", or some such crap like that. But yeah, that's the whole ending.

Now, the one question I have out of all this is why is it exactly Dr. Mayer who causes the time paradox to happen? Is it because he had half of the stunner with him this whole time? Even if that was the case, that's still a very half-assed answer because, like I mentioned way early on, they could've just gone back to a day before Dr. Mayer got on the flight in 1963 so that he would not be in possession of the stunner. And the reason why he had it to begin with was because one of Louise's friends and comrade died after getting a bullet to the stomach. So I ask again, what makes Dr. Mayer so damn special for him to be the one that causes the time paradox to happen in the future? It doesn't make any sense and it makes me wonder if he was actually a more important character in the previous drafts of this movie. I don't know, but either way, it's just a whole fucking mess with him being involved.

SPOILER END

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, for those of you who skipped all of that, let me try to summarize it the best way I can. The ending is fucking stupid as hell and it makes no sense whatsoever. That is honestly the best way I can describe it to you guys. And it also makes this time travel story even more convoluted and stupid than what it already is. In fact, this may be one of the worst movies to ever implement time travel in it's own movie. Now I may eventually end up taking back that statement if I ever end up covering another movie involving time travel. But you know what? Just based on what I saw here, that's gonna be a challenge and a half for any movie involving time travel to implement it worse than how this movie did.

Now...setting that whole issue aside, what about the rest of the writing? Barring the spoilers, the rest of the movie is just kinda bland and uninteresting. It does start off very promising, as we have our cast of characters investigating what happened during the plane crash. That stuff, to me, was the most interesting the movie ever got. Unfortunately, however, the movie slowly backs away from that subplot and goes into the whole thing involving Louise trying to get the stunner back. And it also tries to build up some romantic subplot between her and Bill. However, they have no real chemistry with each other. They only just met, like, a day and they're suddenly already dating, having dinner with each other, and them hitting it off in a hotel room. And I should mention the first time was mostly from Bill's point of view. The second time that they replay these scenes is when we get more extended stuff between them. And it's not interesting either way because their characters are really one dimensional and uninteresting. That goes for the rest of the characters, too. No one has any real depth or personality and you're not gonna care about anyone in this movie.

What also bugs me about the second time that they go out is the fact that Louise ends up becoming an idiot because she's doing the exact same shit as she did with Bill the first time around. And I don't want to hear "Oh, it's from a different point in time where she doesn't remember any of it". I'm sorry, but I hate that kind of excuse when it comes to time travel stories. Very rarely, do they ever do this right. And this movie is most certainly not one of them.

There's also one other thing that bothered me that they really could've explored more. Now, early on in the investigation, they brought up the digital watches that some of the passengers were wearing, and that the clocks were going backwards. I thought this was gonna be used as a plot point where we found out that time is slowly going backwards instead of forwards. That could've been really interesting. But instead, later on in the movie, they just pass it off as a "computer error". Yeah...I'm not kidding about that either. Now, in a little bit of fairness, it could be said that those digital clocks were made by the people of the future and that they didn't know how to replicate digital clocks. Which, again, raises a-whole-nother issue, considering, you know, these people are from the future, so they should know how to recreate digital clocks more accurately. However, I'm attempting to put logic into a movie that seems to be allergic to it. So, why should I start making sense of it now?

Guys, like I said earlier, I could be here for a whole day talking about all the logical issues that this movie had, but I think I covered enough to give you guys an idea of how awful this movie's writing is. And yes, I could say that this movie would be fine if you go into it with your brain shut off. But I can't really do that here, because of how awful the writing is, there's no way you could not think about the writing the moment you start to question it. It really is that bad. The acting is also teetering on being bad as well. I mostly contribute the bad acting to our two main leads. Kris Kristofferson sounds very wooden here. Which, admittedly, I don't really know if that's how he naturally sounds when trying to act, because I've never seen him in any movie before until this one. Or it's possible that he wasn't given enough material to work with, which is also a possibility because, as I've mentioned so many times beforehand, you can only do so much with a bad script that's given to you. Cheryl Ladd doesn't sound as wooden as Kristofferson does, but she still does phone it in as well. She's puts almost no effort into the role that she's suppose to play and I really feel like it's the same case where her character wasn't given much to work with either. Everyone else here, aside from them, sounded OK, but nothing that will set the world on fire. But yeah, acting here isn't really good.

Special effects are actually the one thing I can say that this film does sorta right. The visual effects here look alright for 1989 standards. Admittedly, I don't know what the budget is for this film, but I'm going to take a guess here and say that it was made on a lower budget. And if that is the case, then the special effects here look fine. Costuming and makeup effects, however, are a ridiculously mixed bag. The costuming in particular is something I'm not exactly a fan of. I will admit that I sorta liked that Louise and her comrades were able to get accurate costumes and wigs that resembled hostesses from 1963. In other words, they had to match the hostesses that they stunned in the 1963 flight and replaced them as if they were actually them. That stuff to me looked pretty neat. However, when it comes to their regular costumes in the future, it looks cheap and nothing how I would envision someone in the future would dress.

The ones that stood out to me the most were the council. Now to give you guys an idea of what they look like, I want you to imagine the faces of famous celebrities in "Futurama", where their faces would be stuck in glass containment pods and are still alive. This is a little bit like that, however, the big difference here is that the faces on the council look like half-finished plastic surgery. In other words, the side of their faces would be held up to the side. Which sounds creative, in concept, but once you actually see them talking, it just looks so awkward and out of place that you're not entirely sure if that's what they were meant to look like or if there was suppose to be more done with the council than than what they look like now. Either way, it will throw you off on how awkward their faces look.

Now, aside from all of that, everything involving technical work is fine. Camerawork, lighting, sound-mixing, and music all functions normally. Granted, there's no way in hell anyone's gonna remember this movie for it's technical work, but at least all of it works fine. So I can grant the movie that much.

But overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Millennium"? Hell no. No fucking way am I actually gonna recommend this film to anyone unless if you somehow can shut your brain off and enjoy it as a mindless popcorn flick. But I'm gonna warn you right now, the moment that you start to think about how off the writing is, you are more than likely gonna hate this thing. Especially if you're somebody who really likes movies involving time travel. I'm personally not really a fan of these particular movies, because I think the whole time travel concept is completely overdone. But that's just me personally. If you want to take a shot at this movie, then you go right ahead and do so. But again, only if you have your brain shut off. Everyone else, I would avoid this movie at all costs. I seriously cannot recommend it to anyone who's into science-fiction films, especially ones that involve time travel. And speaking of which, I'm gonna go and watch one of the few films I have that involves time travel and is actually good. I'm gonna go watch my copy of "Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox". Because I need to be reminded of something good after watching something like this. This movie is just a massive fucking turd and I'm sorry that I even had any interest in watching it to begin with. But hey, at least the good news is that I didn't have to spend too much on it, and I would've never known if it was good or bad had I not covered it for this series. So, I guess that's at least something.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025

Hey, guys, and welcome back. Now for those of you reading this for the first time, about a day has passed since I uploaded the Top 5 Movies I reviewed for 2025. Well now, it's time to look at the opposite side of things. I'm taking a look at the Bottom 5 Movies I covered in 2025. Now I'll be honest, this one was a little bit harder to put together. I'll get a little bit more into that when I reveal the number 5 movie on this list, but just to let you guys know, there were quite a bit of bad movies last year that I had to compile and think of which ones would fit this list. But when the dust was settled, I finally decided on these 5 movies. These 5, in particular, were just bad enough for various reasons that they earned the dishonor of being on this countdown. Plus also, it gives me one more chance to rip into them on why I think they deserved to be here.

Now like before, these are *not* full on reviews. These are just summaries of what I thought about these particular movies. If you really want to know, you can go find them yourself on my blogspot account. Now with all that said, it's time to countdown the Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bottom 5 Reaction & Review Movies of 2025

We kick things off with number 5 and, like I just mentioned, this was one kinda hard to put together. Because there were quite a bit of bad movies that deserved to be on this countdown. And when it comes to number 5, I narrowed it down to 3 movies. Two of those were sequels to movies that I've already covered. The other one is more of an original movie. And ultimately, I decided to pick the latter in this case. Because, while the other two films were certainly bad, they weren't quite bad enough to make it on this list. At worst, they were just disappointing sequels. This movie, though, I ended up hating because of how stupid and illogical it was. The movie I'm talking about is 2003's "Sky High".

5 - Sky High (2003)

Guys, I love stupid movies, but this movie takes up the stupidity level, ramps it up and multiplies it by 10. Because everything about the movie felt like it made almost no sense and, for a movie that was trying to take itself seriously, it fails at doing so because of it's horrible writing. The characters were all vapid and lifeless, and the story itself could've been interesting, but, well, made itself into a mess that tried, in vain to clean itself up, but ultimately didn't.

The story itself, I thought was going to be really interesting. Because it presented itself with 3 different possibilities. Does our main character accept death and await reincarnation? Does it remain a ghost forever? Or does it seek revenge upon her killer, only for her to lose her soul forever? I thought it was going to go the route of having alternate endings, but sadly, it doesn't. It just stuck with the traditional one ending and nothing else. And even then, the ending itself really sucked.

And the stupidity factor comes in multiple cases here. Such as when our main character detective is told that guns don't work on the supernatural. And what does he do? He uses his gun to try and stop our villain even though he was just told earlier that they don't fucking work! Guys, I've criticized Shane Abilene's horrible shooting skills in the "Triple-B" movies from Andy Sidaris that he's in, but I don't think even he would be stupid enough to shoot at something that he couldn't even kill. This detective, though, is stupid as fuck because apparently he's too focused on getting revenge for his wife being murdered.

I could also mention the pacing issues the movie had, too. The movie was over 2 hours long even though it had no reason to be that long in the first place. Guys, I wanted to like this movie, simply based on it's premise, but this film disappointed me so much that there's no way in hell I'm ever gonna watch this movie again. And again, I *love* stupid movies, but there's only so much stupidity I can take from a movie that wasn't even trying to be "so bad, it's good". Well, guess what? It's not "so bad, it's good", it's so bad, it's boring". Yeah, this movie's also boring, too, which also adds more to the pacing issues. But I've kinda dwelled on this movie enough as is. So with that said, "Sky High" comes in at number 5.

Number 4 is a movie based off a Marvel Comics character that I usually like. But that doesn't mean it's prone to being in a bad movie, and this one is most certainly his worst. Coming at number 4 is "The Invincible Iron Man".

4 - The Invincible Iron Man (2007)

Now I've covered quite a handful of these Marvel animated movies and just about all of them have ranged on being average at best. But if you want the lowest of the low, then look no further than "The Invincible Iron Man". A character who, again, I usually do like. And at least with the other movies I've covered that feature Iron Man, both in the latter two live action movies and the other animated films that he's in, they're at least able to give you something of value from the character. This movie, on the other hand, offers nothing but a coalmine of suckittude.

To start with, the animation ranges on being subpar at best to horrible at worst. The latter in which it involves CG. And it's some of the worst-looking CG I've seen implemented in any animated anything in a long time. The worst part about it is that it looks and feels unfinished. I mentioned it beforehand in my review, but there was a scene where Iron Man is trapped underwater and as soon as he moves his arm to get free, it actually skips a frame of animation! Like, holy shit, how cheap do you have to be where you have to actually *skip* a frame of animation and still look like shit?! Granted, a lot of DC's direct-to-video animated films have had their problems of bad CG when it's implemented into their own animated films, but it's nothing in comparison to how poorly implemented it's used here.

On top of all that, the story is really kinda just reworking Tony Stark's origin story, which isn't really that great. Also, Tony Stark's father is still alive in this movie, which I still find really strange because I'm use to him not being around in the live action "Iron Man" movies. But anyway, this movie also tried to foreshadow a prophecy that when the Mandarin rises from his grave, an "Iron Knight", AKA Iron Man, will show up to do battle and defeat the Mandarin once and for all. And guess what? That *never* happens in this movie. Some other character, whose name I don't fucking remember and don't care to re-read my review to find out, ends up beating the Mandarin in a really retarded and cliche way that I've seen done in other movies and TV shows. And the worst part about it is that it doesn't really do it very well either.

Guys, I'm just glad that this wasn't the only "Iron Man" film to exist, prior to his debut in the MCU. Because if it was, it would've tarnished my interest in the character and I probably would've had no interest in ever watching any of the "Iron Man" movies. Granted, I wasn't really a fan of "Iron Man 2", while "Iron Man 3", though very flawed, was still entertaining enough to make me want to keep rewatching it. So for all of the sequels faults, at least they have something there that you could care about. This movie doesn't make you care about "Iron Man" whatsoever. And like I said, if this film had been the only movie to exist that starred Iron Man, I would've hated the character before I even got the chance to like him. Which is saying a lot because it could've been much higher on this countdown, had I never seen any of the live action movies. But since I have, the blemish here only does enough to get to number 4 on this countdown.

We jump from comic books to video games, because number 3 is the only video game adaptation I reviewed last year. It's a series that I have, admittedly, grown a bit more fond of thanks to playing games like Resident Evil's 2 and 4, along with a few other games in the series. But when it comes to movies, it's been hit or miss, and this one is, by far, the biggest misfire of it's movie adaptation career. I'm, of course, talking about "Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City".

3 - Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (2021)

Oh dear lord, where do I start here? Well, first of all, this movie tries to adapt Resident Evil's 1 and 2 into one movie. Which, that by itself, is kind of a huge mistake because, one, you're trying to tell two different stories in under two hours long. And two, you would also have to cut a lot of corners just to try and make your film adaptation to work. Which, in the hands of a competent writer, *maybe* you could get away with it. But again, trying to tell two different stories in under two hours just doesn't work here.

So not only does the story not work, all of the characters are all really forgettable or are changed for the worst. To give you guys a couple of examples, Leon Kennedy is more of an inept rookie than he was in Resident Evil 2. Which is in stark contrast with his counterpart in that game because, while he was a rookie, he wasn't completely inept or stupid like he is in this movie. Albert Wesker has an out of the blue face turn towards the end of the movie that makes no fucking sense whatsoever because, well...fuck you, that's why. Other characters like Sherry Birkin, who had a major role in Resident Evil 2, is reduced to having no reason to be in this movie outside of name recognition. Which I found to be the biggest baffling change that they did here because Sherry actually has a purpose in games like Resident Evil's 2 and 6. So why the fuck this movie changed that completely makes no sense whatsoever.

On top of all that, we had terrible CG, the lighting being kinda shit in darkly lit scenes, and the acting being also terrible as well. And do you want to know the worst part about all this? This movie was suppose to serve as a "reboot" of sorts for the live action "Resident Evil" movies. And if this is the best this movie has to offer, I hope it never fucking happens. Because even though I have never seen any of the previous live action "Resident Evil" movies, I have no interest in ever watching them. Granted, I didn't have any interest in them to begin with, but this movie solidified that decision for me because it is easily the worst "Resident Evil" movie I have ever seen. If you want better "Resident Evil" movies, go watch the CG animated films. They're not exactly great, but they do a hell of a much better job in being more loyal to it's source material. And this is coming from someone who normally doesn't care about any of that. But this movie prevented me from not doing so because of how poorly made it was in being a live action "Resident Evil" movie. So yeah, "Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City" gets it spot at number 3.

Number 2 is a movie that, for quite a while, was in contention to be number 1 on this Bottom 5 list, but something else beat it, and I'll tell you what it is in a little bit. But first, I should talk about the movie that came in at number 2. Number 2 is a movie that involves vampires and they also speak mandarin. If you don't know what I'm referring to, the movie I'm talking about is "Chinese Speaking Vampires".

2 - Chinese Speaking Vampires (2021)

Allow me to summarize the entire plot to you guys right here: Some actor is trying to land a film role that's supposed let him speak Mandarin. He has to go to a Mandarin speaking school where he has to learn the language within a month, otherwise, he doesn't get the role. The head teacher of this Mandarin school is also a vampire that is trying to recruit other humans into vampires. Thus, leads into our battle between our heroes trying to stop the vampires from taking over the world. Or possibly just LA, because I kinda remember one of the vampires admitting that.

But anyway, this story is shit and mostly plotless. The movie was suppose to be aiming to be a horror comedy, which it fails miserably at because nothing about the movie is remotely funny. It even tries to go for more racial humor, but it doesn't work because none of it is really funny. And I normally like racial humor, but this movie just does it so casually that it comes across as really awkward and unnecessary. The characters were about as interesting as moldy bread is. There is a romantic subplot between our main character and another girl that is shit. There is *nothing* here that you make will laugh.

On top of all that, the fight choreography is poorly done and edited too. Not only are the fight sequences nauseating to get through, because of all the fucking jump cuts and everything, but it's also inconsistent as well because of our final fight between our main character and the main mandarin-speaking vampire. Why is it inconsistent? Because it shifts from between night and day between each cut and the filmmakers couldn't decide if the scene was suppose to be shot in the dark, or when the sun was suppose to come up. It was so poorly done, much like every other fight scene in this movie.

There was also the issue of the lack of makeup effects. Because, since this movie is suppose to have vampires and all that, you would naturally think that we would get to see them biting their victims. Well, guess what? You get the bites, but you don't get the bite marks. Because when you see our main vampire trying to bite one of our victims, you don't actually get to see the aftereffects of it because there are no bite marks on *any* of the victims. Guys, how fucking hard is it to include something as simple as something like bite marks? It couldn't have cost that fucking much, but apparently, the filmmakers didn't have the budget for it...somehow. Either that, or the special effects team were too fucking lazy to get off their asses and actually include something as mundane as a fucking bite mark!

Oh yeah, and speaking of which, the special effects were horrible, too. Mainly, when it comes to CG. The CG effects are atrociously bad. Which, I kinda hinted at in my review when I mentioned all of the vampires who turn into dust, but I never flat out stated it when it came to it's CG. So yeah, I'm letting you guys know now that the special effects are fucking garbage here. There wasn't a single thing that I liked about this movie. And normally, this kind of shit would hit the number one spot for this year's Bottom 5.

But then something else came along and beat that movie by a mile. So, what movie came along that it deserved to be on the top of this putrid stain of this Bottom 5 countdown? Well, it's a movie that, not only is really poorly made, but it also pissed me off on a somewhat personal level, too. So with that said, the number one movie on this year's Bottom 5 goes to "Robert And The Toymaker".

1 - Robert And The Toymaker (2017)

Now, why would this film, in particular, be at the number one spot? Why would this film piss me off on a personal level? Well, something interesting happened after I finished typing that review. I said that, after watching this fucking garbage of a movie, I said that I was gonna go watch "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". Which is not only my favorite "Puppet Master" movie, but it's also something that I watch every year around October, what with it being Halloween and all. So, I went over to my DVD collection, popped in the movie, picked the third option, because the first disc contains the first 5 movies and all, and I pressed play.

And guess what happened? I got audio for the movie...but no dialogue. There was no dialogue playing whatsoever. Now I thought, OK, maybe it's just on my end and maybe I didn't adjust the wires properly. So I popped it out to check the disc, and there were no scratches on it. So disc error wasn't an issue. I tried to mess around with the wires to get it the movie to play...but I still got no dialogue for it. Again, the audio's music was playing, but *not* the dialogue. And you want to know the fucked up part about is? Every other movie on that DVD works perfectly fine. I got audio and dialogue for the other 4 movies. But "Puppet Master III" did not give me that same kind of treatment. And eventually, I had to give up on watching it. Which frustrated me to no end because I wanted to watch my favorite "Puppet Master" movie in the series and I couldn't do that. And guess what? I *still* can't get it to play properly. I don't even know if I'll ever get a chance to watch it again anytime soon because this movie, in particular, pissed me off so much that I decided to say fuck it, this hunk of shit is gonna be on this year's Bottom 5 list and it made it straight to the top of it, as well.

Now, setting aside why I couldn't watch my favorite "Puppet Master" movie in the series, this movie is also really poorly made, too. This movie is, to quote a certain reviewer from the past, "a perfect storm of failure". This movie fails on every conceivable level. There is not a single frame in this movie that I enjoyed. This movie doesn't even have the basic job of showing it's own opening title during the whole movie. Guys, for everything I've said about all of the bad movies that I've covered for this series, at least they're able to show you it's opening title like any other movie in history would. This movie, though, didn't want to do that. At least, not my copy of it on DVD anyway, back when I had it. I've long since traded it in and I'm thankful for it. But yeah, this movie didn't bother showing it's opening title. And that tells me they either forgot to add it in, or they were so ashamed of themselves for making this movie that they didn't even bother adding it in just in case some asshole online critic couldn't decipher what the movie they were reviewing is. Which already kinda backfires since they released this movie on DVD and all.

But anyway, setting aside that, I probably should mention that the story for this film is essentially just a ripoff of "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge". Which is partly why I ranted about why I couldn't watch it earlier because I watched a piece of shit knockoff instead. We have our main character who is basically this movie's version of Toulon, if Toulon had been stripped of all his depth and backstory. We have our dolls, who are nowhere near as cool-looking as Toulon's puppets were, we had a forgettable Nazi General who was nowhere near as interesting as Klaus was from "Puppet Master III". Instead, he spends his time chewing up the scenery in the worst way possible. He's not like the villain from the 1993 "Judge Dredd" movie where he was actually doing the same thing, but was still funny while hamming his performance. The Nazi General in this movie talks so much that he doesn't know when to shut the fuck up. And you're gonna hate him for the same reasons.

Guy's, there's nothing else here that I can say worked. Special effects are garbage, the sound-mixing is horrible, the acting is atrocious, *nothing* about this movie worked. And do you want to know something else that I found fucked up about this movie, aside from it being a shitty knockoff of "Puppet Master III"? I was doing a little digging on other reviews of this movie, and I found out that this thing is part of a series of movies, the third to be one to be exact, and it's a prequel to how it all started. And do you want to know how many movies this fucking thing has centered around it? 5, including this one. They were all directed by some guy named Andrew Jones. And I'm gonna say this right now, just in case anyone's stupid enough to ask me, no, I am never reviewing another one of these fucking movies from Mr. Jones here. In fact, I'm gonna swear off reviewing anymore movies that this guy has made. How the fuck this guy was able to shit out 5 movies out of this garbage is something that baffles my mind. As I said, I'm not reviewing anymore movies from his shitbag series, because if they're anywhere near as bad as this thing was, I'm probably gonna end up banning all of Andrew Jones films from ever being covered for this series just out of spite. That's how much I hated this movie, guys. It is unwatchable from start to fucking finish, and that's why "Robert And The Toymaker" ends up on this year's Bottom 5 list.

And there you have it, guys. I actually got both lists out this time. Probably a month late, but at least I got them out this time. So, I hope you guys stay safe and I will see you all later for another year of Reaction & Review. Peace.