Screener Review: Inoperable (2018)

"Danielle Harris vs. a Haunted Hurricane."

When we received this screener for Inoperable, we thought "A new Danielle Harris flick, this ought to be good!" Because honestly, as self-respecting Horror fans, we have to recognize Danielle Harris as one of the greatest Scream Queens of all-time. She's just had a hell of a career, and she always entertains. Also, cute as a button.

As a flick where we got to see Danielle Harris being the damsel in distress for 90-minutes, Inoperable was all good.

As far as the movie being all good overall... well that's a different story.

Anyone who has ever been to Tampa Bay has no doubt wanted to escape it, and Danielle Harris is no exception. She's trying to get out of town in her bitchin' 80's-style corvette before a Category-5 Hurricane Sybil hits. Stuck in a traffic jam, listening to a song that sounds like a failed American Idol audition, she... wakes up in a hospital bed?

MAYBE SHE CRASHED?

The hospital seems to be abandoned, and coincidentally looks like a hurricane ran through its halls. She gets dressed and searches for a way out, failing to notice that there are spirits roaming the halls with her... but then nurse and doctors and patients start showing up, none of whom seem to notice her. Then in another blink, she's back in her car, trying to escape Tampa.

WE HAVE NO IDEA EITHER, DANIELLE.

Is Danielle Harris stuck in a time loop? Is the hurricane haunted? What in the hell is going on here?!? Far be it from us to spoil things for you, but suffice it to say that it will all make sense in the end. Not good sense, but sense.

OOPS, THIS MUST BE THE PROCTOLOGY LAB.

Danielle Harris is always fun to watch, even if the movie she's starring in doesn't offer much, which is the case here. Inoperable is a boring mess of a movie, that has an interesting idea going for it, but never really does anything compelling or scary with it. Sure, there's some good gore throughout, and Danielle Harris is a gem, but it felt like this movie was little more than her running around the hospital hallways, looking scared, and jumping back and forth in time.

There's a point to the "jumps" that happen throughout, and had the reveal at the very end happened about halfway through, this would have been a better movie. Or at least, a more interesting one.
 
Truth be told, as much as we love DH, it's Katie Keene that does the best work here. Hotness aside, Keene actually makes the film (and the bad acting going on all around her), a bit more watchable.

LOOKS LIKE HE LOST HIS HEAD. ZING!

Syringe violence, graphic surgery, a close-up of a brain, and various other hospital-themed moments of bloody fun throughout.

WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?!?

Katie Keene looks sexy throughout, but no nudity to be found here.

OPEN YOUR EYES, YOU'RE MISSING THEM!

Inoperable is not a good movie. It's boasts a pair of pretty starlets, and it has some solid FX work going for it, but it's not scary or intense in the least, and it's a bit of a mess plot-wise.

If you dig Danielle Harris, or want to discover the greatness of Katie Keene, then check it out. Otherwise, it's a hard pass.

D+

Inoperable is available now on DVD and VOD.

Katie Keene is a hot little sassbox.

VOD Review: Jigsaw (2017)

"And you thought "The Final Chapter" meant it was over. Ha!"

(aka Part 8.)
Release Date: January 23rd (Blu-ray)
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg.
Directed by: The Spierig Brothers.
Starring: Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Laura Vandervoort, Matt Passmore, Brittany Allen, and Hannah Emily Anderson.

It's been 7 years since Saw 3D "ended" the franchise that probably should have ended with part 4, if not part 3. People love Jigsaw and his traps though, so you knew that Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate would milk it for all its worth. It's a billion dollar franchise, so someone out there will always want more.

The Spierig Brothers have a small but impressive body of work to their credit including Undead (review HERE), Daybreakers (review HERE), and Predestination (review HERE), and so with them at the helm, we had a reasonable amount of hope that they could breathe some life back into the franchise with Jigsaw, or at the very least, make it a "better than the last 4 " kind of entry.

And they did a pretty decent job.

5 people wake up in a room with buckets chained to their heads, and out of nowhere, Jigsaw's voice tells them that they're all evil fuckers that have to pay for their sins. That payment involves saw blades embedded in doors, which is pretty cute, because the series is called Saw.

HERE WE GO AGAIN.

After the initial game, the 4 remaining survivors realize what's going on, and they are forced to play Jigsaw's games, to atone for the shady shit that they did which caused harm to other people. One of them, Anna, seems up to the task of beating Jigsaw at his own game, which makes us wonder just who in the hell she really is.

HMM...

All the while, detectives Halloran and Hunt are finding bodies all over town that seem to suggest that The Jigsaw Killer is still alive and well, and is starting up his social rehabilitation program for social deviants again. With the help of a a pair of doctors (one of whom is a smoking hot redhead who looks like trouble), they race against time to find Jigsaw, and stop his newest game before another group of scumbags is killed in clever, and fairly fitting ways.

THAT'S GONNA HURT.

I've got to admit that I liked Jigsaw way more than I thought I would. It's not without its flaws,. but the heart of its series has always been the punishment that bad people receive via Jigsaw's judgment, which is played out via a series of brutal and painfully relevant games, and this movie has no shortage of that.

The Saw movies have always been great because Jigsaw, and his motivations, have always been intriguing as hell, and it was nice to see Tobin Bell back in action. There's something compelling about him as an actor, and as Jigsaw, you can't help but like the guy, what he does, and why he does it, because he's got a point.

You know what you're getting with the average Saw movie: bloody, creative traps; and a silly plot that makes you think "Hey, I could write movies!", but that's alright, because sometimes we're in it for the visceral thrill, and on that level, Jigsaw delivers.

READ THE DOOR, DUMMY!

This movie needed more Jigsaw, because at 75-years-old, Tobin Bell still plays a hell of a villain.

WE WOULDN'T MIND A RETURN IN SOME FORM OF AMANDA, EITHER.

The real problem with these movies after lets say, Part 3, is that their plots get so over-complicated and unbelievable, that they make us roll our eyes. It's like they kept coming up with implausible and very convenient ways to keep the series going long after its titular villain had been killed, and that irks us a bit.

Jigsaw is no different in that way, stretching our limits of believability and giving us two twists that existed only to allow another Saw movie to be made, albeit in a way that made sense.

NEVER TRUST A SEXY GIRL WITH AN ARM SLEEVE!

Lots of bloody goodness throughout this one, courtesy of Jigsaw's new traps. The bike trap and the laser were our faves.

THAT ONE WAS PRETTY GOOD TOO.

No such luck.

FOR SHAME.

The first Saw movie is one of the best Horror films of the new millennium, and even though Jigsaw, the 8th installment in the series, comes nowhere near the original in terms of quality, it keeps the spirit of the series alive and well, and gives fans another dose of the mayhem that they've come to expect from the films.

If you like the Saw series for what it is, then Jigsaw will most likely make you happy.

C+

Jigsaw is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Hannah, Laura, and Brittany: the lovely victims of Jigsaw.

VOD Review: Mayhem (2017)

"An oddly timely movie."

If the idea of Glenn from The Walking Dead and the hottest Babysitter ever (review HERE) running around an office, killing vapid, assholish business types in a variety of nasty, bloody ways doesn't pique your interest, then we're not really sure what will.

Mayhem is like a hybrid of The Belko Experiment (review HERE) and Office Space, bringing overt violence and black humor together to make a statement about how corporate America is killing the little guy, and then allowing that little guy to get the kind of payback that will no doubt strike a chord with anyone who has been wronged in the same way.

Timely, indeed.

The Red Eye Virus is making its rounds across the country, causing those it infects to lose their inhibitions, and act impulsively. That can mean that they turn hyper sexual, but mostly it means that when someone who is infected gets pissed off, they attack others around them, which usually results in someone being killed in a nasty way.

LIKE THIS GUY. DID HE RALLY DESERVE A PEN TO THE NECK?

Derek Cho is an up-and-cummer at the Towers and Smythe law firm, but he's having a bad day. Not only has his shark-like co-worker set him up to be fired, but the building has just been put on lockdown, due to and outbreak of the Red Eye Virus. And then there's Melanie, a sexy girl who has come to the firm to plead her case, only to have Derek turn her away. She's pissed, he's pissed, and they're both infected with a virus that makes them want to kill.

WHAT A CUTE COUPLE.

Together, Derek and Melanie decide to take their complaints to the top floor of the building, where management is waiting out the viral outbreak, and kill them all, because they're all assholes and they have it coming. And because Derek and Melanie are infected, they basically get a free legal pass to kill whomever they want to.

Mayhem ensues.

KILLING IT. LITERALLY.

Mayhem is a fun, bloody little movie that might not be as funny as we'd have liked it to be, but delivers the goods in such an entertaining way that we can forgive it for its shortcomings.

The cool thing about Mayhem is that it feels like a very timely movie. It seems like everywhere you turn these days, the powers that be are sticking it to the little man, mainly in the form of Washington taxing them more while paying less benefits; doing its best to kill Net Neutrality; and otherwise dividing the country to keep everyone focused on everything besides the fact that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and there's not much that anyone can do about it.

Mayhem allows its hard done by, average Joe characters to rebel against the system that is holding them down, and maliciously so, and it does so in a bloody cavalcade of, well, mayhem.

Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving are what make the movie work so well, as the two have a great chemistry together. If we're being honest, it's really Weaving who shines brightest here; she's a star on the rise who chews the scenery in everything she's in lately, and she's and absolute treat to watch work.

NOT SURE WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO WITH THAT HAMMER, BUT WE'RE DOWN.

If Mayhem is anything, it's a gloriously violent and bloody movie.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

This one is really light on the sex. There's a bit of nudity, but if you blink, you'll most likely miss it.

SHE'S SEXY EVEN WHEN SHE'S A BLOODY MESS.

We're giving this movie a B+ because of Samara Weaving and Steven Yeun. The former is a wicked actress who is quick becoming one of our faves around here, and it's nice to see the latter in something other than The Walking Dead. Together, they make for a really likable duo in this one, and even though the movie as a whole could have been a bit tighter, they made it work.

B+

Mayhem is available now on VOD, and will hit Blu-ray on December 26th.

Samara Weaving is one of our faves starting now.