Don’t Move

2024 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 32 min

Horror ~ Thriller

Directed by: Adam Schindler and Brian Netto.

Starring: Kelsey Asbille, Finn Wittrock, Moray Treadwell, and Daniel Francis.

“The World takes what it wants.”

Kelsey Asbille stars as Iris, a young mother who lost her young son to a tragic accident. She has gotten up before her husband, left her cellphone and instead grabbed a swiss army knife, and is headed out to the car. She drives to the park where Iris and her husband had carved their initials into a tree. While they were doing so their young son Mateo wandered away from them and fell off the cliff nearby. Overcome with grief, she carves an M into the heart and initials she and her husband had carved. She then walks to where Mateo fell off the cliff and prepares to jump over the edge. When she is suddenly interrupted by……..

Richard (Finn Wittrock) who just happened to have come up on her apparently about to commit suicide. He sits down and starts to talk to her in the hopes of dissuading her from jumping. He eventually does and heads back to his car. Iris catches up with him and tells him that she has changed her mind at least for today. She thanks him and tries to get onto her car realizing that Richard has parked his car a little too close. He apologizes and comes around to assist her holding an umbrella, which he then uses to stun her. It is a stun gun posing as an umbrella. When Iris comes to……….

She is in the back seat of a car bound by zip-ties and Richard is driving. He explains to Iris that he is a serial killer and has abducted her. He has injected her with a paralytic that disables her motor functions but will leave her fully aware. It takes twenty minutes to render her paralyzed from the neck down. Richard explains to Iris that he is taking her to his cabin so they can have a “Wonderful Weekend” together. Anything I say from here on would be a major spoiler alert, so, the resulting dilemma, hunt and chase to get away from Richard the serial killer is a non-stop nail-biting thrill ride.

There are some moments that were a little unbelievable if you thought about them too hard. I’ll leave it at that, it’s entertainment….take it at face value. In the end it was worth the journey. I thought Kelsey Asbille did a great job portraying the semi-paralyzed Iris trying desperately to escape from a serial killer’s evil grasp. Even though she was just about to kill herself, she now has a deep desire to live and get away from Richard. Finn Wittrock I’m not familiar with but I don’t think I would watch him in anything else. I mean how hard is it too play a demented person? I wasn’t real keen on his acting but there wasn’t much depth to the part so there you go.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Worth a watch.

Would I watch it again. No, once is enough, but again, worth a watch.

Two thumbs up.

Hubie Halloween

2020 Netflix

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 43min

Comedy ~ Horror ~ Mystery

Directed by: Steve Brill

Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Julie Bowen, Ray Liotta, Rob Schneider, June Squibb, Kenan Thompson, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Buscemi, Tim Meadows, Maya Rudolph, and Ben Stiller.

“Happy Halloween to all, and to all a good fright.”

Adam Sandler stars as Hubie Dubois, a mentally challenged guy living with his mother in Salem Massachusetts. His family has been in Salem since before the witch trials in the 1600’s and had family involved in the witch trials. He rides a bike with a radio strapped to the front and rides it around town and to his job as a deli worker in the supermarket. He has dubbed himself the Halloween monitor and spends Halloween policing the town and all the activities going on in town.

Kevin James stars as the Chief of Police. Julie Bowen plays the police Chief’s ex-wife. Kenan Thompson plays a Police Sargent. Steve Buscemi stars as the guy who moved in next door with a Halloween secret. There are a lot of stars in this movie. In the beginning it seemed like every scene had someone new. Going in to watching this I knew that it was going to be a silly, humorous Halloween movie. I was good with that, “Good, I need something lighthearted, something halloweenish but not too scary or gory. And nothing serious, a comedy would be good.”

As it started it was exactly what I thought it would be. And I was pleasantly surprised by the star power. And I love Steve Buscemi, I have a friend that looks and sounds just like him. So, I have conversations with Steve Buscemi all the time. LOL. As I watched I was like, “Look, there’s Steve Buscemi…………..and Kevin James………KEENAN THOMPSON! and Ray Liotta. Wow!” But there were two things that started to bother me right away.

The first one was Adam Sandler’s character Hubie being portrayed as having less than average intelligence, riding a bike around town with a radio strapped to the front. And everybody in town is making fun of him and abusing him. It grew on me because at first I was ok with it, it’s just a movie right? But then it became relentless as every scene depicted things thrown at him wherever he went and the abuse was relentless. I started to feel sorry for him and it reminded me of a real life Hubie from my home town.

He used to ride around town with his radio. He was a full grown man with the mindset of a child. He couldn’t work but they trusted him enough to let him wander around town. But I realized a couple of years ago in talking with my Mom how cruel everybody in town had been to him. I grew up with the phrase “Don’t be a Hubie, you pulled a Hubie, etc.” In talking with Mom about that, she didn’t realize that it was actually about the guy that used to ride around town on his bike. I changed his name to Hubie for the sake of the article but in hindsight it seems that the town secretly made fun of him because he was less than normal. Anyway, there’s that.

And Adam Sandler’s very annoying voice as Hubie. At first I tried to overlook it, as it was way over the top, but it really started to grate on me. I kept trying to ignore it because I was enjoying the movie. But the further into the movie I got, the more pronounced his voice became. SO annoying, I couldn’t get past it. It was so bad I quit watching……..yup, I quit. Couldn’t do it.

So that’s a no for me…..

Two thumbs down, way down!

Army Of The Dead

2021 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 2 hr 28min

Action ~ Crime ~ Horror ~ Thriller

Directed by: Zack Snyder

Starring: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, and Garret Dillahunt.

“There’s two hundred million dollars sitting in a vault in the basement of my Casino in the quarantine zone of Las Vegas. Assemble a team and extract it and 50 million of it is yours. What do you say?”

A zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, Nevada has prompted the US Military to surround the City with three layers of shipping containers, effectively containing (Pun Intended) the Zombie outbreak from temporarily spreading. Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) owns a casino on The Strip inside the containment (Again…Pun intended) zone and is asking Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to assemble a team of mercenaries to extract the money in exchange for 50 million of it. They just have to kill their way through all the zombies in the quarantine zone, make their way to the casino, crack the Götterdämmerung safe, extract the money, revive and repair the dilapidated helicopter on the roof of the casino, and fly away to safety before the military nukes the quarantine zone in 96 hours. Let’s get cracking(Pun Intended).

Scott agrees and assembles a team to execute the mission. The last man they recruit for the team is none other than our good friend Sebastian (Matthias Schweighöfer) from ARMY OF THIEVES. The scene where Scott finds him in the locksmith shop is the very last scene in ARMY OF THIEVES. And Sebastian is ecstatic about getting a chance to crack the Götterdämmerung safe, after having cracked the Rheingold, The Valkyrie and The Siegfried safes in the other movie. So Scott and his team gather and enter the Zombie zone of Los Angeles to extract two million dollars in what looks like a horrific suicide mission. Scott must also contend with his daughter who has forced herself onto the mission against his wishes.

It is everything you would expect from a zombie movie based in Las Vegas. There are lots of Zombies…..Elvis impersonators, waitresses, circus performers, dancers, police officers….even Siegfried and Roy’s Tiger has become a zombie tiger. Anyone and anything in the quarantine zone is now a zombie. There is lots of blood and gore as they eat the flesh of the living and even more as the team slaughters there way through the Las Vegas Strip. It is very realistically shot, you feel like you are in Las Vegas with them as they fight off the horde. There is intrigue, horror, double crossing and the very real fear of getting eaten alive and escaping before a nuclear bomb incinerates the crew.

Matthias reprising his role as Sebastian is just as good and hilarious as in ARMY OF THIEVES. Dave Buatista is good as Scott Ward and the rest of the crew did a good job. I liked Omari Hardwick’s role and the scene in the end with him I thought was really good. Theo Rossi is really despicable as the sexist Burt Cummings. This was the sequel to Army of Thieves even though this movie came out six months before it. It was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise, possibly a trilogy or more, but at the time of this writing Netflix has apparently pulled the plug on any more movies to follow, reportedly due to the disappointing performance of Zack Snyder’s REBEL MOON movies. ARMY OF THE DEAD was a successor to Zack Snyder’s 2004 film Dawn of the Dead, which was a remake of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (filmed in Pittsburgh and released in 1978).

I thought that ARMY of THIEVES was the better movie. This one was good but just not as good. A long one too, coming in at 2 and a half hours. If you like Zombie movies it’s a good one, well filmed and directed. And if you’re going to watch this one I suggest watching ARMY of THIEVES first, it will give you a better background for this movie. Unless you just want to watch a Zombie movie….but there are zombies in the first one, just not as many.

So that’s a, “Yeah, it was alright. But I wouldn’t watch it again.”, for me…..

No thumbs up, just a wave of the hand as in…So~So

Day Shift

2022 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 53min

Action ~ Comedy ~ Horror ~ Thriller

Directed by: J. J. Perry

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Snoop Dogg, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Meagan Good, Karla Souza, Steve Howey, and Scott Adkins.

“That’s what I love about L.A……all the damn vampires.”

Jamie Foxx stars as Bud Jablonski, a former paratrooper now earning a living cleaning pools in Los Angeles. He is divorced and has a young daughter who lives with his ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good). Bud is struggling to make ends meet and support his ex and his daughter. Jocelyn has just informed him that unless he comes up with the ten thousand dollars she needs in the next week, she is selling the house and moving to Florida with his daughter. Bud, not happy with the news, tells her that he will do whatever he needs to do in the next week to make that happen.

Bud is also a Vampire Hunter, using the pool cleaning job as a cover for his real source of income, hunting and killing vampires. He extracts the fangs from his victims and exchanges them for cold hard cash. Unfortunately, since he’s been kicked out of The Vampire Hunters Union, he has to rely on a black market pawn shop owner to sell the fangs to. There is a lot less money to be had compared to what he used to get being in the union and getting union prices. Union wages for the fangs are the only way he can come up with the ten thousand in a week he needs to keep his ex from taking away his daughter.

He reaches out to his mentor Big John Elliot (Snoop Dogg), his former colleague in the military and fellow Vampire Hunter, to convince him to help get him back in the Vampire Hunters Union. Big John agrees to put in a good word for him under the condition he swears he will play by the rules and not jeopardize being in the Union. Bud agrees and Big John meets him in front of The Chinese Laundry that is a front for the union. Reluctantly, the union boss allows Bud back on a trial basis. But he must be accompanied by Union Steward Seth (Dave Franco), who will accompany him at all times to make sure he doesn’t break protocol.

Bud and Seth set out to hunt not realizing that Bud has killed the daughter of the very influential vampire Aubrey San Fernando (Karla Souza) and she is hunting him down. As Bud is stalking vampires, Aubrey is stalking Bud, his family and anyone associated with Bud. The ensuing hunts are a thrilling journey through Los Angeles and the vampire underworld, where we learn many things about the modern vampire. Such as the new suncream that allows them to exist in the daylight. And that there is a hierarchy in the vampire world with different castes and classes of vampires.

It is a funny, horrifying, action packed thriller with a different take on the classic Vampire horror movie. Jamie Foxx does a great job as Bud. Snoop Dogg is as big a legend on screen as Big John as he is off screen as Snoop Dogg. Gotta love him. Dave Franco is great as the nerdy office Union guy forced into the killing field with Bud. I thought he reminded me of someone and it turns out he is James Franco’s brother. I am not familiar with Dave’s work but I liked him in this. Karla Souza is wickedly good as the very powerful vampire with a grudge.

There is talk of a sequel with the title Night Shift. Jamie Foxx is interested in reprising his role as Bud and the director is reportedly waiting on the writer to be finished with another project so they can begin the process of writing the script. I’m up for that, let’s go!

That’s a yes for me Dogg (Pun Intended)!

Two Thumbs Up!

Ready Or Not

2019 Fox Searchlight Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 35min

Comedy ~ Horror ~ Mystery ~ Thriller

Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.

Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Elyse Levesque, Nicky Guadagni, Henry Czerny, and Andie MacDowell.

“Who wants to play a game? It’s time for hide and seek. Run, run, run, time to run and hide. Tick tick tock, listen to the clock. Ready or not, here I come.”

Samara Weaving stars as Grace who grew up an orphan and is very excited to be joining the Le Domas family. She has gone with her fiancé Alex Le Domas to get married at his family’s sprawling estate. They exchange nuptials in the garden grounds surrounded by the Le Domas family, the family butler and their three maids. Afterwards Alex tells her there is a family tradition they must go through to finalize their union and her entrance into the family dominion. They must all congregate in the exclusive Le Domas family room to play a game dictated by an ancient wooden card game box. Tony le Domas, the patriarch of the family, explains to Grace how their Grandfather Victor made a deal with a man named “Le Bail” over a game of cards and lots of whiskey.

If his grandfather could figure out how to open the antique card box he had, he would finance any venture that Victor chose. Victor spent the night studying the box and finally believed he had the answer, and opened the box. “Le Bail” then, true to his word, helped Victor build a game playing card business. When Tony took over the business after his father Victor passed away, he expanded into board games and built it into a gaming empire. As part of the deal, any new member to the family must insert a blank card into the antique box at midnight and play the game that was written on the card after it was removed from the box.

Grace takes the box from Tony and draws the card. She smiles as she turns it around for the family to see and asks, “Are we really going to play Hide and Seek?” Noticing the strange expressions on everyone’s face Grace asks, “Is everything ok?” Alex, looking white as a ghost says, “Sure….Hide and seek, right Dad?” “That’s right Alex, Hide and Seek…..tradition is tradition.” He then explains to Grace that they are going to count and that she must hide until dawn. The Butler puts on a very creepy “Hide and Seek” music record complete with countdown and Grace goes deep into the creepy Victorian Mansion to hide. The family then arm themselves with all types of antique weapons and prepare for the countdown to end.

Alex wants no part of what is coming as his mother tries to console Alex that it is a necessary evil for them to kill Grace so that the family can appease “Le Bail”s Ghost, and continue to live and enjoy their fortune. As the countdown ends the heavily armed family heads out of the gaming room to hunt down Grace. Grace is trying to find a suitable hiding spot giggling how silly this is, not realizing that unless she can make it to dawn, she will be killed by the family. Offered up as a sacrifice to Le Bail in exchange for building their family and fortune. What follows is a wild, comical, horrifying, very bloody game of survival for Grace as she evades the family and tries to escape.

Samara Weaving is fantastic in this movie. She reminds me of Margot Robbie and Jamie Pressly. Like Margot, Samara is Australian and grew up in an acting family. Samara is hilarious at times as she realizes her dilemma. In one scene she is cussing at a passing car that refuses to stop to help her in a diatribe that would make Chevy Chase proud(reminds me of the speech at the end of Christmas Vacation). In another she is in the car she commandeered from the butler and turns on the Onboard Vehicle Assistance Feature and tries to explain to “Justin” that she needs his help as her life is in danger. “F*ck you Justin!” It is a hilarious exchange between the two.

I have to mention Andie MacDowell in her role as the Matriarch Becky. Definitely a different role than we are used to seeing her play. And Adam Brody as the brother in law that would rather get drunk and help Grace than help his family kill her. Nice job! It is campy, dark, bloody and well worth the watch. I came across it again a couple of nights ago, having completely forgotten about it. I had watched it when it first came out and remembered liking it.

There is a READY OR NOT 2 in the works with Samara reprising her role as Grace. The film making trio RADIO SILENCE responsible for READY OR NOT are quoted as saying, “There is a sequel in the works with an absolutely f*cking banger of a script.” I can’t wait. I am a fan of this movie and Samara Weaving and look forward to seeing Grace in action again.

Highly Recommended!

Two Thumbs Up!