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Jump to "Now Playing" Review for 'Five Nights at Freddy's 2' (Coming Soon!)  Once again, given my inexperience with the 'Five Nights at Freddy's' games, I had to watch it objectively, treating it more as a horror movie than a video game adaptation. The bonus there is that I'm not necessarily looking for all of the flaws in the adaptation. But that also doesn't mean they're not there for game fans who rightfully should demand more than just a name slapped onto something to make some cash. 'Five Nights' here strikes me as such a movie where I'm not entirely sure they knew what they were doing.
From what I understand, almost half of this movie actually unfolds reasonably well. The opening sequence is nice and creepy, giving 'Saw' vibes to the viewer, but without showing any real gore. This will definitely be complained about, but I'm generally of the mind that often less is more. No blood is fine as long as your imagination can fill in the blanks with something even more potentially gruesome. That's something this film did well, and, upon doing some homework, I've read that the games forego blood and gore in favour of atmosphere. You get this treatment throughout the film, so if you're here for gore, this isn't for you. We meet mall security guard Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson), who one day ends up beating some kid's father half to death in the middle of the day and out in the open. Needless to say, he's fired. However, he does have to take care of his little sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), whom social services is threatening to hand over to someone who might as well be her over-the-top Disney-style evil aunt, Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson), due to dwindling custody payments. As a result, Mike, willing to do anything, takes a security job at the now-abandoned "Freddy Fazbears," a "Chuck E. Cheese"-style pizza restaurant that kids still often vandalize. Mike often falls asleep on the job and has bad dreams about his little brother, Garrett (Lucas Grant), who was kidnapped when they were young. Without spoiling too much, this has a deeper connection to the overall story. But at one point, Jane sends some goons to rough up "Fazbears," and this, as far as I'm concerned, is the best part of the movie. The animatronic characters come to life and protect their restaurant in some pretty badass, brutal ways. Again, there is no blood, but the effect is creepy, and I wondered, while watching, why so many people came out of it hating it. If the whole movie was gonna be like that, I was in for the ride. Mike eventually meets Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a cop who seems to do routine checks at the restaurant, who gives him a tour of the place and its dark history. One night, Mike brings his little sister there. She befriends these animatronic terrors, and for some reason, the movie almost goes into "fun mode." As soon as it hits that point, you wonder what the hell happened. The film explains things much more clearly, but the viewer is still left wondering why it goes so cliché. It takes you out of the horror the movie should be pushing, and it just didn't need to go there. With something like this, one could just as easily have made these animatronics the vengeful spirits they're apparently supposed to be, turned it into a slasher flick, and made it about Mike having to survive the night while these things go amok, but aren't necessarily seen by Mike. Victims could be anything from criminals to risk-taking teenagers. While probably still not the best, it could have been a good "body count" horror movie that worked its creepy factor to the max. If the movie had taken the scene I described with the vandals and run with the formula, it still would have been cliché, but might have been more effective. It's my understanding that when it comes to this film, however, it's meant to be a good toe-dip for younger audiences into the horror genre. To this, I can't honestly say I disagree, and it IS about time another one of these came along. However, there's a heavy kidnapping plot to this that would probably have traumatized me as a kid, and it's hard to know if it really knows what it wants to be. The right age for this is basically "puberty," I suppose. But this film couldn't quite pick a lane, and it is one of the more significant dips in video game adaptation quality in recent history (debatable, yes, but it's just my opinion). 2/5
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 Looking back, I remember being very interested in this movie. As advertised, I only really took it as a typical kidnapping-torture movie, which I generally don't go for. Still, the trailers carried the eerie atmosphere I enjoy in horror, which is always a green flag. Upon seeing it, I was so impressed that I considered it one of my favourite movies of the year, thanks to its creativity, the performances from everyone involved, and the fantastic job it did of advertising it as something far simpler than it was.
Fair trigger warning for this one, it does consist of such things as physical abuse towards a young girl and consistent bullying, so it may prove to be a little tricky to get through the first little bit. However, one could see this in comparison to a much lighter version of 'The Hills Have Eyes' or 'Last House on the Left' as far as style and execution - the worst parts make you want to see the hero kick some ass, and it delivers in its own, clever way with the performances of child actors Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw; a couple of other young actors who convinced me would make a name for themselves and did, at least in Thames' case. The story here takes place in 1978, where the streets of a Denver suburb are being terrorized by a child abductor who has been dubbed "The Grabber" (Ethan Hawke). In the meantime, we follow Finney (Thames) and Gwen Blake (McGraw), the children of an alcoholic, abusive father, Terrence (Jeremy Davies). To make his life worse, Finney is also constantly bullied at school, but he does have a friend, Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora), who stands up to Finney's bullies for him, but is also the one who tries to push Finney into standing up for himself one day, which heavily foreshadows the nightmare to come. As for Gwen, she does okay in school, but gets heavily abused by her father, who blames her for things like the police calling their house, sadly not due to reports of abuse, but because Gwen seems to have some answers as far as the case of the Grabber goes, and here's where things get supernatural. Much like her late mother, she experiences psychic dreams in which she sees who the Grabber abducts next; an ability that allegedly drove her mother to commit suicide, which is the reason her Dad took to the bottle, and sees red any time these dreams are brought into question. One such dream of Gwen's sends her into a panic, as it involves Finney, who is indeed taken, and awakens in a soundproofed basement, faced with his kidnapper, who goes back and forth to the room, not to harm him, but to keep an eye on him. Sitting on the wall of the room is a black rotary phone, which the Grabber insists doesn't work. Yet when the Grabber is out of the room, Finney gets constant calls from the former kidnapped kids who do what they can to help him escape. The catch, however, is that all of these kids are deceased. Working together, but apart, both Finney and Gwen use their abilities to stop the Grabber once and for all. As far as giving the movie any honest criticism, I don't have much to offer. While bits and pieces may be predictable for some, the more unpredictable moments are well executed, namely the climactic scene, which I wouldn't call a twist but rather a bit of a surprise. For me, what I found perhaps most interesting about the film was that, for as solid a job Ethan Hawke does here as the villain, the true highlights of the movie, surprisingly, were the kids' performances. Opinions will differ as per usual, but considering their ages, their skills were compelling. I give the film credit for its share of imagination and creative ideas that put a unique spin on an otherwise fairly typical plot scenario. Between Gwen's creepy dreams and Finney's phone calls, it's a great movie to illustrate how some horror tropes (in this case the whole kidnapping and potential torture scenario) can still be really good if they provide a bit of the truly unusual, or even blend some aspects of horror with others, ie, dream/ghost horror with real world scenarios like the kidnapper. It's odd, but I welcome it with open arms because it's at least different and a little more unpredictable than your standard slasher or haunting flick. 4/5  I'm not going to surprise anyone by saying this, if they've read my reviews on the previous two 'Strangers' movies, but there's still nothing special about these movies. At one point, I even gave the villains credit for being effectively creepy, bu even that's getting stale at this point. This is one of those films that forces one to ask the question "who the hell asked for this?" Going by the idea of the movie, in that this was supposed to be a story of how the "Strangers" started out, I'd normally be pretty forgiving... but...
As it turns out, there is absolutely nothing to this movie that we have never seen before. I'm talking right down to lines of dialogue that get repeated (most famously the cold reason these killers have for doing what they do, amounting to "just because"), and kills that we've already seen, lacking creativity entirely. I'll tell you what, 'Jason X' is pretty terrible, but the flash-freeze kill in it is at least pretty damn cool. This is nothing but more of the same, and it all boils down to a misleading trailer that makes one think maybe they'll get an interesting origin story. And so, with a deep sigh I move on and try to review what I've essentially already reviewed twice. I mean, hell, people once thought the 'Friday the 13th' movies were repetitive. This time around, we're back to two main character who we really don't care about, by the names of Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez); a couple driving cross country to celebrate their fifth dating anniversary. This time around, however, there's no awkward tension between the main characters, and no real sense of them "bettering" themselves in some way before the film ends. No sir, just a couple of bags of meat here! The happy-go-lucky couple get themselves lost and stop in a town called Venus, where the locals are the modern equivalent to your average locals in an old western saloon - just always looking nasty and giving the stink-eye to anyone new in town. To no one's surprise, the couple's car "breaks down," and eventually they find themselves stalked by the trio of killers known best as "Man in Mask," or now "Scarecrow" (Matus Lajcak) "Dollface" (Olivia Kreutzova) and "Pin-Up Girl" (Letizia Fabbri), and it's all just survival horror with a similar ending to the previous ones. It's a crying shame for me to say that this is one of the most disappointing and misleading horror movies I've seen in a while. In my own way, I had high hopes for this to actually be something creative that would tell a story of how and why the Strangers became what they became. Y'know, character development, give them a bit of a history, etc... tell an actual story. And with Renny Harlin behind the wheel, and me being a big fan of 'Elm Street 4,' I can say that the man has much better material out there. What really blows my mind about this movie is that it's the third in a batch, and there's an apparent couple of sequels to this that are on their way. But for crying out loud, if this is something that must happen, can we get more character development in there instead of just telling the audience in so many words "you've seen everything we're doing already." With the exception of a few brief moments in tension (and that's being generous), the film is altogether predictable as ever, roughly acted, and again, and perhaps most importantly nothing new or original. Save your money on this one, folks! I'm hard-pressed to imagine what the next two chapters will consist of, but I can say with all honesty that I'm not entirely looking forward to eventually reviewing them when they pop up. I'd love to be able to write more about some sort of interesting details about these films, but there's so little here it's almost ridiculous. At this point, I might as well review what's coming up now to keep it simple and just say "more of the same." I tend to be pretty damn forgiving towards movies, understanding that sometimes shit happens... but this is the kind of film I'd almost dub "insulting" considering just how misleading the concept it. Can it get worse? 1/5  All things considered, I probably like this one just a touch more than the original. That said, however, it's kind of like saying "this piece of black licorice is better than that piece of black licorice" (and I do NOT like black licorice!) Again, things are pretty damn basic, there's not a whole hell of a lot to it, and the characters are mostly pretty bland. However, I will say in this chapter's case, a couple of them kind of grew on me in time. But again, it's almost like developing a taste for alcohol - nasty at first.
The film kicks off with the "Man in the Mask" (Damian Maffei) "Dollface" (Emma Bellomy) and "Pin-Up Girl" (Lea Enslin) invading a trailer park in Kalida, OH, and killing a middle-aged couple. None of the actors from the original are back to reprise their roles, and isn't that the beauty of slasher films involving masked characters? I mean, just look at how many Jason Voorhees' there have been over the years. The nice thing here, though, is everyone replacing these roles does a good job, and I was none the wiser. This is not like comparing little Jason from 'Part II' to monster zombie Jason from 'Part VII.' The next day, the family of four who become the victims of the masked trio's stalking in this chapter arrive at the trailer park to spend some family time together before the daughter, Kinsey (Bailee Madison) leaves for boarding school. While her mother, Cindy (Christina Hendricks) and father, Mike (Martin Henderson) try to keep things civil, Kinsey continues to be a brat who we immediately don't like. And her brother, Luke (Lewis Pullman), isn't much better. However, these are the aforementioned characters who eventually grew on me. I have to admit that I appreciated how the film allowed some room for liking this brother-sister duo. Once you get them on their own, they're quite nice to each other, and it's like they keep up their bickering for appearances. They also end up making a pretty good team throughout the film. On top of that, once again, I liked the villains here because they are truly scary and somewhat eerily realistic in their nature. Although a lot of the actual physics in some of the attacking and fighting back is... questionable. Anyway, that's basically all there is to it. Eventually the family finds themselves going up against the "Strangers," who are trying to kill them off one by one just because, and it's just about as chilling as it was last time. The only exception here is that I'll give it credit for a lot of the kill/fight scenes being far more intense and creepier than last time. The film basically amped everything that was good about the last film up a bit, but it's still not quite enough to save things altogether. Once again, things here focus on some sort of a family/social speed bump, like in the last one when a proposal fell through. This time around, it's tension between Kinsey and her family for being sent to boarding school. But also once again, the whole situation doesn't really enter into things in the long-run. It's kind of just there to create tension enough to make Kinsey grow up a bit as well as add some sort of "life's not always great, but could be worse" lesson of sorts into the mix. With not much more to say on the matter, I can say that it's a pretty faithful sequel to its predecessor, altogether. But having said that, this is still very standard slasher horror with that home-invasion plot we know all too well at this point. A horror newbie could watch these back to back and maybe take a few more footsteps into the genre with relative ease. But for someone who might be a gore hound, or into the more psychological, it's just okay. Passable for what it is, but a low pass. There has been better since. 3/5  Back when this movie first came out, I can remember being pretty disinterested in the idea. It just seemed all so basic - a movie about a group of home invaders out to kill. And while this sort of helped spark the whole "home-invasion horror" trend as of late, it's not like this is any sort of new idea. Look at classics like 'Black Christmas,' or 'When a Stranger Calls,' or even that first scene in the original 'Scream.' Upon finally viewing it, I can honestly say I wasn't far off with my thoughts on it.
We have an extremely basic plot here involving James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler), who head to a summer home after a wedding to celebrate Kristen saying "I do" to him after popping the question. She does not say yes, however, and the whole opening of the film is the awkward situation between them. The dude full decorated for their arrival, put champagne on ice, scattered rose pedals, etc. I couldn't help but feel for him. But God knows why the heartache aspect was even really a part of things, because literally nothing happens with it. As the would-be couple settles in for a night of what could be awkwardness, they are interrupted by a random knock at the door that no human being should ever even try to answer at that time of night, unless its expected for whatever reason. Anyway, some girl asks for Tamara - Tamara isn't home, and the girl is sent on her merry way. From there, things get weirder and creepier as the couple find themselves getting stalked by a trio of masked serial killers, doing it all for the simple reason that the couple is "home." From there, it's pretty standard stuff. I can't really fathom why this movie got such a sequel treatment when there's nothing happening here I haven't seen done elsewhere and better. I'd say if anything was driving this movie at all, it would be its star power with Tyler and Speedman. It even briefly features Glenn Howerton of 'It's Always Sunny' fame. Otherwise, as mentioned, it's just a home invasion movie with creepy masked people, and an ending that's meant to match something like 'Carrie,' but honestly kinda fails because you see the jump scare coming from a mile away. I suppose my main criticism of the film is just how basic it seems. Maybe it was better for its time, but upon watching it now, I'm at such a loss about what to say about it. This is the kind of movie I might recommend to someone who might be new to the horror scene because its so basic. Otherwise, there are not only better horror films out there, but better home invasion films as well. But in saying a lot about it being nothing special, its not without a few little tidbits that I actually kind of liked... take that with a grain of salt though, because this is like saying the burnt popcorn still has a hint of butter flavour to it. The thing I can take from this movie, surprisingly enough, are the villains, themselves, credited as "Man in Mask" (Kip Weeks), "Dollface" (Gemma Ward) and "Pin-Up Girl" (Laura Margolis). They play the classic silent, masked slashers, and their masks are pretty creepy and effective. But what's chilling about them is that when they do speak, its always something that gives you the shivers. Their nonchalant attitude towards what they're doing is ruthless. The thing is, these villains could have really become something special if they had something better to work with. I'm not going to say that the film is necessarily bad, it's just nothing special. It is loosely based on real events, as it suggests, but only in that some strangers who were breaking into empty houses in the area once visited director Bryan Bertino's house, and luckily they were home and no harm was done. He just changed it up to the invaders breaking into occupied houses. Otherwise you could just base this on an endless amount of breaking-and-entering true crime stories. Passable for a pair of new-to-horror eyes, but a little too typical for my tastes. 2/5  Throughout the years, there has been no shortage of "killer doll" stories. It's probably safe to say that most people in the world know of at least one, whether it be movies like 'Child's Play', books like R.L. Stine's 'Night of the Living Dummy' or even made for TV movies like 'Trilogy of Terror', whose final short about a terrifying doll traumatized children everywhere at the time. But with so many examples out there (and I must stress, there are far more than what's been listed), what is it about 'M3GAN' that feels so... right?
First and foremost, the story comes to us from James Wan, who plainly understands what "creepy" means. Further titles of his, be it screenplay or story, include some of the 'Saw' and 'Conjuring' movies. Together with screenwriter Akela Cooper and Director Gerard Johnstone, they provide the perfect atmosphere for something like this. At times, it can be pleasant and happy, and at others, it can be pretty creepy. On top of it all, however, lies a dark sense of humour, allowing the viewer not to take things too seriously. A girl named Cady (Violet McGraw) experiences childhood trauma when her parents are killed in a car crash. She is sent to live with her Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams), who works for a robotic toy company called "Funki." Gemma's latest project is M3GAN (standing for Model 3 Generative Android). A test of it, however, fails, and she's ordered to drop the project by her boss, David (Ronny Chieng). Meanwhile, Gemma's new relationship with Cady is a bit rocky back home. That is, until Cady discovers a mocap robot named Bruce, and upon interacting with it, expresses a wish that she could have a toy like that. This prompts Gemma to bring a completed M3GAN (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis) home behind her boss's back. She turns out to excel at everything she should, not the least of which includes becoming a companion for Cady. Her caretaking responsibilities and ability to learn and divulge knowledge are nothing short of extraordinary. M3GAN learns very quickly, utilizing the internet to her advantage, but she also has a protocol in place to protect and care for Cady. This leads to some somewhat overprotective methods on her part, and soon enough, she becomes more than she can handle as she slowly becomes increasingly independent. So, going back to this feeling "right", another way to put it would be to say that this is what the 'Child's Play' reboot should have been. I think 'Child's Play' had the right idea, but the execution took itself too seriously. Conceptually, they both centre on the ever-popular cautionary tale of technology going awry and becoming self-aware, which could ultimately lead to some catastrophic event. However, I think in the case of 'M3GAN,' things make a hell of a lot more sense. Additionally, this isn't an attempt to revive an old property in order to cash-in. This also introduces a creep factor from the lead kid, as Cady becomes increasingly reliant on M3GAN, and she seems to view her more as a real person. It makes sense to make such a connection at such a tender age if your parents were in a fatal accident, and the film takes solid advantage of that. At times, you're not sure who's scarier - Cady or M3GAN. I liked how Cady never quite grasped how M3GAN could pose a threat, whereas in most "killer doll" movies, the kid (or whoever is involved) eventually figures it out and becomes scared. Cady's a little more unsure of her new guardian, Gemma, than she is of her new best friend. Speaking of, Gemma is also a well-written character, as she shows two very human sides to herself. She tries to be kind and sweet to Cady, giving her what she needs. But she also needs Cady to help show what M3GAN she can do. She strikes a good balance between being a guardian who walks the fine line between career and parenthood. There are times you don't like her, but you still get the impression that she's trying. This is a solid step forward in "creep-doll" horror, sending all the right messages about AI getting out of hand, but also delving deeper into relationships and trust. Altogether, this is well done. 4/5 |
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