It’s really too bad that directors Eren Celeboglu, and Ari Costa’s supernatural horror movie virtually came and went without much of a trace in 2023. It’s not by any metric a complete masterpiece, but it sure is a fun little horror film packed with a lot of mythos that I wanted to learn a lot more about. “All Fun and Games” is primarily about the fragility of the family unit and how this family known as the Fletchers are thrown in to disarray and pure chaos at the drop of a hat.
Tag Archives: Survival
Jackpot! (2024)
Now Available for Streaming on Amazon Prime.
Paul Feig’s “Jackpot!” is that horrible, malt-o-meal garbage movie meant mainly to be as edgy as possible without ever really intending to offend anyone. It disguises itself as social satire when really in the end it has zero to say. It’s just a flaccid hundred minutes drag through nonsense and emptiness. No one at any point in this movie seems to be mentally present, including John Cena who often looks a lot more like a walking action figure than anything else. With Feig’s premise you just assume you’d be in the market for a blood soaked science fiction film. At the very least, you’d expect a darkly comic if mean movie about greed and the way the economy has driven in to rabid dogs.
It’s actually a vanilla coming of age story with a premise that’s gradually pushed in to the background over the course of the narrative.
Demons (1985)/Demons 2 (1986): Remastered [4K UHD Blu-ray]
Available August 13th from Synapse Films.
For folks that missed the deluxe editions of “Demons” and “Demons 2” back in 2021, Synapse Films re-releases the set but on standard Blu-Ray and 4K UHD. The pair of horror classics are back on the format and still in considerable high demand. That’s not too much of a bad thing as they play very well as party movies. The 1985 Lamberto Bava horror gem finds a group of movie goers trapped in a movie theater besieged by an endless army of demons. When they realize that the theater is literally a virtual death trap, they have to find their way out alive or risk becoming one of the hordes.
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
I’ve never liked “Jaws: The Revenge.” Even as a kid who would watch anything that was on TV, I would often doze off during “The Revenge.” And that’s saying a lot since the movie technically has killer sharks in it. I’m glad I’m not in the minority as “The Revenge” has ranked up there with embarrassing sequels like “Staying Alive” and “The Exorcist II” and for good reason. “The Revenge” is a further slap in the face of the 1975 film, first killing off one of Brody’s children to a—ahem—vengeful shark. And then we later come to learn that Martin Brody has also died off screen from a massive heart attack. So that’s it? Brody gets a cheap off screen death, and the shark gets a very goofy movie serial revenge arc. Got it.
Jaws 3D (1983)
With all that we now know about marine parks, Joe Alves’ “Jaws 3” isn’t just a terrible film, but it’s also one filled with awful undertones. The cast of “rah rah America actors with white teeth spend the majority of the mostly dull “Jaws 3D” obliviously trying to turn the newest discovery of a massive great white in to a new attraction. Meanwhile the writers and producer seem to turn “Jaws 3D” in to an almost pitch video for the Jaws ride in Universal. After “Black Fish” in 2013 we learned so much the heinous treatment of these poor animals, and how there are aren’t any real winners or losers.
There is just a mangled shark, imprisoned dolphins, and loyal scuba expert Matthew.
Jaws 2 (1978)
You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. That’s the sad fate for Sheriff Brody who, years after the events of “Jaws,” is now seen as the crackpot of Amity Island. Despite the fact that the mayor admitted defeat in the end of “Jaws,” and in spite of academic backing, and a very experienced shark hunter dying at the teeth of the beast, Amity Island has a streak of memory loss prompting a lot of people to forget what Sheriff Brody accomplished at the end of the original movie.
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
“A Quiet Place” has managed to balloon in to its own respectable horror/scifi series but through it all has remained an apocalyptic tale about people. Just when you thought you’d seen all apocalyptic scenarios, Krasinski and co have explored a reality where Earth is destroyed by super powerful monsters known as “Death Angels.” They hunt by sound and are merciless when pursuing victims. In spite of running the risk of tiring this premise, “Day One” finds a way to explore a new angle of this alien invasion. Here, director Michael Sarnoski likens the invasion of the “Death Angels” as a horrible catastrophe where in survival relies on isolation and alienation and not unity.