The Mooonkeee

Oh... oh no....

So there's a toy monkey drummer thing... wind it up and... someone dies. A lot. Violently. Like a comedy horror amount of death. It starts at the toy of two boys, and then they have to deal with it as adults. Something something dealing with life, accidents, and death, and what does that mean, and also comedy deaths.

This is a "black" comedy, which I have a bad track record with. It's either comedy so esoteric you can only tell it's supposed to be funny in hindsight. Or... it's just really bad comedy "but that's all right, because it's supposed to be 'black' comedy!" No, that's not a good excuse for bad comedy, and this is comedy that thinks it's funny, but it really isn't.

Not bad performances, with Theo James doing double work as twins, but you can easily tell who is who as one of them wears glasses. Colin O'Brien isn't terrible as the young punk kid, and hey, that's an Elijah Wood cameo!

The effects look fine, the film clearly enjoys showing splatter and gore, but... it again wants to be comedy splatter and gore, but no, just no.

This isn't a terrible movie. It's just not a good one.

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Les glaneurs et la glaneuse

"Gleaning" is the act of picking up what has been left behind. Usually relating to harvets, but...

We start with the field gleaners, who get potatoes and other crops, left behind after the harvest. Previously they were the harvesters, but with machines doing that job, they are left with the leftovers. And given that machines can only do so much, there is a fair bit to gather. But what can be gleaned there is restricted by the law, so are they breaking it or not? And not just vegetables, but also grapes, apples, other items... But then, on the streets of Paris, what is left behind can be after shops close, after people leave items to be picked up by the garbage men, that is also "gleaned".

Agnes Varda presents a documentary about gleaners, and even gleans herself. She isn't shy about putting herself into the movie if that's what the moment calls for, but we mainly follow people she interviews as they glean for their living. Nowadays this might be called "Freeganism" but back in 2000 (when this movie was made) and in France, it isn't called anything so sexy, and is mainly about people trying to live their lives. (Although there are those who also refuse to take part in "normal society" and scavange.)

According to the law, people are allowed to glean in the fields after harvest, as long as they respect the owners and meet conditions on when, and in the city they can glean because people have discarded/given up their ownership.

And it makes you wonder what you've thrown away that people could still use.

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THE boogermans

What if, get this, trauma was an actual monster?

A family has a dead mother (what is this, Disney?) and the father isn't really opening up with the two sisters. After a visit from a horror movie infector, the sisters start getting the idea that there is an actual monster, with the younger sister being targetted first. After nearly killing the monster, the older sister gets the idea "hey, what if we kill it?" and they all come together to believe in their dead mother to help with beating the monster's ass. And of course, it is totally dead and not coming back...

Yeah, there is nothing notable here, this movie is as generic as I made it sound. Sohpie Thatcher is a lead sister, and hey, that's a cameo by David Dastmalchian! The monster itself is hidden in darkness, which just makes it hard to tell if it is scary or not. The "eating" effect has hints of being interesting, but doesn't fit with the rest of the esthetic.

This has a polish of current horror movie production-wise, but doesn't strive for anything more.

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A Boogerym'ns

Sod it, just gonna talk about three of them at once.

One: A kid is in bed, strange things about in his room, his dad comes in to reassure him, dad gets pulled into the closet. Years later, he has a girlfriend and a good job and... his mother dies. This brings him back to town, meet an old friend, and he decides to stay at the house. As you could guess, this does not go well, and various people end up dying.

This is written by Epic Kripke, and sides more with the horror of the situation. We have a weird house where the guy ends up going through doors to places that shouldn't be connected, and jump about in time too. The eventual boogeyman is a bad CGI man, but Tim will get there. Features a cameo by Lucy Lawless!

Two: Twenty years previous, there was a Nightmare movie where a group of patients were at a hospital and got killed off one by one. And now we are in a hospital with a group of patients that get killed off one by one. However, in the last third of the movie, we switch from being a supernatural creature to a fairly standard slasher killer, and it's like Scream never happened to show how basic that was. We do get a connection to the previous movie where Tim went into a psychiatric ward thinking he was the Boogeyman and killed himself. A note which is repeated with someone else thinkings they the boogeyman.

This is written by Brian Sieve, and it's a definite change. Aside from the nature of the killer, this suddenly has a lot of blood and gore about the place. But it does feel a lot like Dream Warriors all over again, until we get the boring scraping of knife on the wall to show that it's just some guy. Xena connections continue with Renee O'Conner, and we get Tobin Bell as the lead doctor.

Three: The daughter of Tobin Bell's character is in college and is grieving her dad's death, and reads his journal about the boogeyman. This is a change up from the previous movie where instead of a hospital with people dying one by one, we get a college dorm where people die one by one. The nature of the boogeyman changes yet again, back to being supernatural, but this time is powered by the belief of people (back to channelling Freddy again). Sarah, the final girl, decides to take responsibility on herself rather than have people believe in the boogeyman, but this is a supernatural creature that ain't putting up with that.

Written again by Brian Sieve. We get blood and gore again, but as I say, the nature of the threat changes again. Keep it consistent, people! I prefer actual supernatural over slasher, so this is better than two, even if it is just a redress of the second one. No notable cameos.

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Woofies

Want to see more movies with George Clooney and Brad Pitt just acting off against each other? Rather specific, but I got you fam!

When a hookup goes wrong you bring in a guy. But someone else also brings in a guy. So now you've got two guys who are just their own guys, who do what they do. Now they have to work together, all to just get the job done.

This is a fun movie. As mentioned you want George Clooney and Brad Pitt together? This is that. After the set up, it's all them playing off each other. Yes, we have Amy Ryan to start with, and Austin Adams for most of the movie, but it really it the two of them just having a fine time.

The plot isn't deep, and the action pieces feel like they are just there to have action pieces, but hey, that's not really why we are watching this.

Just put this on, and enjoy!

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Invading all those Snatching Bodies

Not just one, but two!

In 1956, a doctor returns to a small town, where some people have been reporting strangeness, but now everything is fine. Except some people are claiming that other people are not themselves. The doctor finds a friend with a strange growing duplicate, and starts to uncover strangeness. He gets his female friend out, but the pods are being distributed. The doctor has to run away, and is only believed at the end. Perhaps the world will react in time.

In 1978, a health inspector has some friends that randomly encounter strange people saying that people are not themselves. They take time to wander around, not doing much, but taking their damn time to go through the same set of motions that the previous movie did economically, but the big difference this time is that we are in a large city! The inspector destroys a greenhouse of pods, and hides away... and then comes back in a rather stilted fashion, encounters a friend, and .... screech!

The 80 minute movie is good. The 115 minute movie is padded out, just extends the scenes for no reason, just must take longer. And the ending is not a surprise that Donald Sutherland is a pod person at that point, it's plainly obvious, not even trying to be a twist.

At best, you can say the first movie is about small town life, and becoming unsettled as people become alienated. The second movie is about alienation in a big city, where there are lots of people, and connections dirft away. But the first movie has hope that this problem might be corrected, the second movie is just everyone gives into it.

See the first, don't bother with the second.

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Moore Boogeym'n

Yes, okay, I watched the two sequels.

Revenge of the Boogeyman is the second one. We return to Lacey, from the first movie, and she goes somewhere else, and accidentally has a piece of the mirror with her. After recapping events from the first movie (ie. replaying all the kills) we get more kills of the new people, in just as silly and stupid ways as the first. And even a really stupid moment at the end where the buried killer suddenly raises a fist from the ground, blows up a car, and then fist is back down... wut?

However, that is far more work than they did for number three.

Return of the Boogeyman features Annie, who is receiving psychic visions. Those visions? Repeat of footage from the first movie. Yes, again! So basically Annie is a device through which they replay the kills of the first movie, with added lore dumping from the psychiatrist, until the eventual boring sting at the end as they pretend it was more than just repeating the movie, and the killer is actually around.

I of course know why they bothered: someone though there was money in this. Not the directors, but even they want a paycheck at the end of the day.

I would say to rightfully ignore these, but you wouldn't be able to find them if you wanted to.

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