VOD Review: Fear Inc. (2016)

"Decent, but flawed."

Be Warned: This review contains spoilers below, so if you want to watch this one unfettered, skip the Quick Word section. And the little blurb right below these very words. Or maybe just the whole thing. If you don't mind spoilers, then read on!

Fear Inc. is one of those Horror Comedies that tries to be meta, and does a pretty good job of it, but it pretty much ruins its own cleverness by trying to be too clever. It tries its best to emulate movies like The Game and April Fool's Day, but it gets lost in trying to pull off one too many reveals, or "Holy shit!" moments, along the way, which I imagine were supposed to keep us guessing.

Abigail Breslin is running for her life through a parking garage, with a masked creep slowly pursuing. She calls someone on her cellphone (turns out to be Fear Inc.), telling them that she wants to stop, as this is all going too far. Believing that she's safe, the the fat kid from The Sandlot shows up pretending to be a security guard, and then she dies painfully.

PRETTY SURE HER ONE SCENE WAS AN AFTERTHOUGHT.

The story moves on to an mentally-challenged dude bro named Joe, who wears a bun in his hair (un-ironically), and has a way-too-hot-for-him girlfriend named Lindsey, who is obviously the adult in the relationship. Joe is a Horror fanatic who is always dragging Lindsey to all sorts of creepy places to get his morbid fix. When the fat kid from The Sandlot show up at the freakshow they're at, offering the services of a mysterious company called Fear Inc., which specializes in scaring people beyond their wildest imaginings, Joe is all for it.

OMG, IT'S HAM!

Of course Fear Inc. ends up being a haven for maniacs who kill people for real, and so Joe, Lindsey, and two of their friends end up fighting for their lives... but wait, here comes a twist... and, oh, another twist... and then... this shit gets too twisty and clever for its own good.

YEAH, HE WEARS A FREDDY SWEATER THROUGH THE WHOLE MOVIE.

Fear Inc. is a pretty good little Horror Comedy that is hindered by two things: the ultra-annoying main character, played by Lucas Neff; and the twist at the end, which was like the 4th twist, and made no sense at all, and kinda killed everything that we had just watched.

Lucas Neff may be a funny actor and all, but his character was so annoying throughout this one, that it took all of 10 minutes for us to wish that he'd be the first to get killed off. His whole over-the-top shtick was not only unfunny as hell, but it was mostly unbearable. Seeing that the movie is basically about him, that's a pretty big issue. It's mostly the writing that's to blame, with the whole "No way man, this is fake!" think going way too far, but it killed a lot the movie's momentum for us. Are we really supposed to believe that a hot chick, who seems to be smart and successful as well, would actually keep this tool around?

And about that last twist... This movie had too many twists to begin with, but we could have lived with the first few had the ending twist not killed everything that the previous ones had achieved. This movie had too many reveals for its own good.

Aside from all of that, Fear Inc. manages to take a fun premise and make something fairly decent with it. The gore gags were cool, even if they were rendered moot by the fact that the movie ended up being very similar to April Fool's Day (1986). If you've seen that movie, then you have a pretty good idea about what Fear Inc. is going for. 

At least Caitlin Stasey was solid (and sexy) as the leading lady here, and she may have had the best comedic timing of all of the cast. It was also cool to see Stephanie Drake in something post Mad Men, too. Duck Phillips even showed up, which gave us double Mad Men nostalgia feels.

YOU DON'T SAY...

A few choice cuts towards the end which were pretty good, especially the part with the arrows.

THAT SCENE WAS GOOD TOO.

No nudity in this one, but Caitlin Stasey was looking damn good in her bikini.

WE LOVE HER.

Fear Inc. was a mostly cool flick that irked the hell out of us, mainly because of the seriously irritating performance/character of Lucas Neff. Caitlin Stasey kept us interested though, and even with the lame duck ending, we liked most of what we saw.

Just know that this is one of those movies that is bound to piss off as many people as it entertains. Or maybe it's just us.

C-

Fear Inc. is available now on VOD.

Caitlin Stasey, Stephanie Drake, and Abigail Breslin should start a company called Boner Inc. I'm copyrighting that.

Theatrical Review: The Darkness (2016)

"This is Hollywood Horror at its most bland."

(aka The Blandness.)
Release Date: May 13th.
Country: USA.
Rating: PG-13.
Written by: Shayne Armstrong and Shane Krause.
Directed by: Greg McLean.
Starring: Kevin Bacon, Radha Mitchell, Lucy Fry, Tara Lynn Barr, Paul Reiser, and Jennifer Morrison.

Having directed the Wolf Creek series and Rogue, and having produced moves like Red Hill and Crawlspace, it's safe to say that we're big fans of Aussie writer/director Greg McLean.

So the idea of him doing a Supernatural Thriller like The Darkness, especially when it stars a the always awesome Kevin Bacon, is one that makes us all kinds of excited. I mean, with that kind of talent on both sides of the camera, it's destined to be great, right?

Well...

On a family trip to the Grand Canyon, the Taylor family awakens a long-dormant evil when autistic son Mikey falls into a hole and discovers some sort of hidden Native American Demon chamber. In this chamber, he finds five rune stones that are clearly not meant to be touched, but he thinks that they're shiny, so he takes them home with him... which means that he's also bringing back five Demons as souvenirs of their trip as well.

THOSE LOOK LIKE SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULDN'T EVER TOUCH. EVER.

Back home, odd things begin to happen around the house: the sink turns on by itself; hand prints appear of steamy mirrors; there are noises in the attic; the garbage smells funny... which makes me wonder, what in the hell do Demons actually do with their time? Honestly, they're supposed to be a terrifying powerful, ancient other-worldly force, and they tip over lamps and shit? And why are they called "Jenny"?

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, DEMONS.

Anywho, scary things begin to happen, and the family get real scared, and none of it is particularly scary at all; at least for we, the viewer.

You've-seen-it-done-much-better-before ensues.

[NOTHING INTENSIFIES]

With a guy like Greg McLean at the helm, you'd figure this movie would be scary, or at the very least, intense, but The Darkness is neither of those things. In fact, it's about as bland and uninspiring as these types of Hollywood Horror flicks get, and that's saying a lot.

Not being scary is really the biggest sin that any Horror movie can commit, not counting Horror Comedies, of course. If you're going to make a movie that plays like every other Supernatural Thriller that's come along over the last 15 years, then it's at least got to be scary, or offer up some sort of visual terror that makes up for its lack of originality. If not, then what's the point?

Then again, this is Hollywood we're talking about here, and they don't make PG-13 Horror flicks like this to be good; they make them to test well with audiences, so that they can have a big opening weekend, and then shuffle them off to Blu-ray & VOD 2 months later. We should know better by now than to expect anything from these types of efforts, and yet we're always sucked in...

IT'S AN ABUSIVE CYCLE THAT WE'RE IN.

The cast does and admirable job at going through the motions. Kevin Bacon is the man, and he's always a credit to anything he's in, and Radha Mitchell is at her usual level here, but neither of them have anything to fucking do throughout this one other than look concerned or bicker about some trivial bullshit. Like the lazy script, the actors do little more than go through the motions here, which I won't blame them for.

And that's really the problem with this movie: it never builds up any steam. Something scary or unusual happens, the characters freak out for a minute, and then in the next scene they're going for a jog or worrying about the grocery list or something... until the next  scary thing happens, and they the cycle repeats. Worst of all, this movie doesn't even go through good motions over and over again.

YOU KNEW WHAT THIS WAS.

The Darkness is a well-made movie, and it's got a solid cast doing the best job that they can with the lackluster, unoriginal script they were given, but it just doesn't pack any punch, and even worse, it's not scary at all. Like a lot of Blumhouse movies, this one probably sounded great on paper, but something must have got lost in translation. Maybe a lot of things.

D+

The Darkness is in theaters now.

The ladies of The Darkness.

*Not sure where this Ilza Rosario (bottom) came from, but we'd be fine with seeing more of her.

VOD Review: Most Likely to Die (2016)

"We're most likely to forget this movie just as soon as this review ends."

We went into Most Likely to Die hoping for a fun, 90's throwback of a Slasher flick, and instead we got a dull Lifetime Movie of the Week.

Having done some great movies like Dread and Cassadaga, we expected more from director Anthony DiBiasi with this one. Then again, it was the lazy script (which was written in the 90's) and not the direction that kept this movie from going anywhere. The fact that Jake Busey and Perez Hilton are the biggest names in the cast doesn't help matters much, but really, it was the convoluted storyline and the "who wrote this" level of duologue that killed it for us. Mostly.

On the eve of their 10 year High School Reunion, a gaggle of friends gather at a remote mansion to party it up before the big day. None of them have seen each other since High School, but apparently they're close enough to get together and pretend that they're still great friends, just like most people do on Facebook.

"ADD ME, AND LIKE ALL OF MY POSTS!"

When its revealed that the group tortured one of their classmates back in the day, playing a prank in which they designated him Most Likely to Die in the yearbook, you just know that someone is going to show up in a cap, gown, and creepy paper mache mask, and start killing them off one by one. Because if anything drives people to kill their friends in elaborate ways, it's a mean-spirited yearbook prank.

NOW THAT'S NOT NICE.

If you Google the plot of this movie, here's what you get:

"It's the night before a 10-year high school reunion and someone's been holding a grudge. One by one, former classmates are slain in ways befitting their yearbook superlatives."

Superlatives? That's your hook? Forget that most of those superlatives are pretty vague ("Most likely to do what she wants"), but that's what a maniacal killer bases his murder schemes off of? How does the one dude being the most likely to "Be a legend on ice" have anything to do with his death?

Let's back up a bit here, and cover the good stuff first.

Most Likely to Die had its moments. It's a visually-sharp movie; the killer looked pretty cool; one of the kills was awesome; and the acting was better than I expected from a B-grade flick like this, especially from Heather Morris, who has a really likable quality about her. And I don't know who this Tatum Miranda girl is, but she's pretty nice to look at.

WE DIG THE OUTFIT.

That said, the movie got a lot of things wrong, mostly due to an underwhelming script.

• There's an awful lot of characters sitting around and talking in this movie, and aside from Heather Morris's character, none of them were interesting enough for us to care what they had to say. 
• With the way that they sat around and had casual conversations after finding their friends dead, it was like the characters didn't even find themselves interesting enough to care about, so why would we? 
• The reason for the killer's rampage was pretty lame. It was a stretch for us to accept the shitty explanation of why they felt the need to kill this group of friends off.
• Aside from the one in the kitchen, most of the kills were lame. This movie would have been much better if it had given us some graphic, clever kills to watch... you know, like the Slasher flicks of years gone by that it tries so hard to emulate used to do. 
• When the first dead body is discovered by the friends, why do they leave a girl all alone in the big house, while they travel as a group down the dark road to go check it out? 
• And why, when the guy who goes for help has his car run out of gas (cut fuel line), does he make the LONG trek back to the house, instead of walking somewhere else for help?
• And are we really supposed to believe that Perez Hilton's 40-year-old ass went to High School with these 20-somethings?
• And the ending that was obviously supposed to be some sort of set-up for a sequel was pretty stupid. Aside from whoever survived (they walked off at the end), everyone else was dead, so who was that who put on the mask? GAH!

 A BOX CUTTER? COME AT ME BRO.

There are a few gory kills in this movie, one of which was pretty damned awesome.

THIS IS NOT THE AWESOME KILL. THEY DIDN'T EVEN SHOW THIS ONE HAPPENING.

There's a tiny bit of brief nudity when a girl is getting changed, and a sex scene, but nothing too explicit.

MOST LIKELY TO LOOK GOOD IN A BIKINI.

With the way that it's constructed, the level of scriptwriting (especially the dialogue), and all of the cheesy drama on display, Most Likely to Die feels like a movie that would be right at home on the Lifetime Network. It's an alright effort, but it's also one that's easily forgettable. At least for us.

We're pretty sure that lots of people are going to dig it though.

C-

Most Likely to Die is in limited theaters, and on VOD now.

Heather Morris is a QT, and so are her movie classmates.