48 posts categorized "Franchise"

October 21, 2023

PSYCHO II — SHOCKTOBER!

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.comWelcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.comLA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)ColeSmithey.comSHOCKTOBER! rolls on with episode #75, featuring PSYCHO II. Anthony Perkins reprises his role as Norman Bates "22 years later." Stone Vengeful Spirit IPA is the perfect beer for our chat. 

THE BLOOD OF DRACULABon appétit Bouffers!ColeSmithey.com

THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
ColeSmithey.com
4 Stars COLE MONSTER

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

October 19, 2023

FINAL DESTINATION 5 — SHOCKTOBER!

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.comWelcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.com The "Final Destination" franchise settles into its comfortable shock horror rhythm in this latest outing. Notable is the film's proficient use of 3D — the best such example of any 3D movie so far this year. Debut director Steven Quale and his production team break the window with a purpose and regularity that puts other "3D" movies to shame.

As with its previous installments, the unfolding body-count of accident victims is predicted in a complex opening sequence of Rube Goldberg-styled outrageous disaster.

ColeSmithey.com

Here, the Grim Reaper’s youthful targets are co-workers at a paper production company going on a work-related retreat. Needless to say, not much "team-building" is in store for the core group. A crumbling suspension bridge — not unlike San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge — sends our doomed twenty-somethings fleeing their bus only to meet with gruesome deaths of blood-spattering, body-piercing, eyeball-popping variety.

ColeSmithey.com

In keeping with the franchise's constant recipe, the sequence is a premonition envisioned by one member of the party who attempts to "cheat" death by sounding the alarm just before the actual calamity strikes. Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto) is the brief crystal-ball-reader. Sam's newly ex-girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell) is also aboard. Naturally, Sam does everything he can to save Molly. Since the condemned will die in the order that Sam predicted, he and Molly are far down the list.

ColeSmithey.com

There’s irony in how entertaining this 11-year-old horror franchise as compared with the torture-porn stylings of lesser efforts, such as the “Saw” films. The filmmakers and actors here all seem to be having a blast. If you start to become award of the inherent dangers constantly hanging over your head and hiding under your feet after seeing “Final Destination 5” then the filmmakers have done their job. Even if that doesn’t happen, at least you’ll get to experience a 3D movie that properly exploits the process.

ColeSmithey.com

Rated R. 95 mins.

3 Stars SF SHOCKTOBER!Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

October 07, 2023

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET — SHOCKTOBER!

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.comWelcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comMore contemplative and thematically muscular than Wes Craven's 1984 original slasher flick, Samuel Bayer's updated version has a quieter surreal edge rooted more in suspense than in the former film's regular bloodletting.

That's not to say plenty of quarts of the red liquid don't flow freely from a group of teens who had the misfortune to have been molested by Freddie Kruger when he worked as a nursery school janitor a dozen years earlier.

ColeSmithey.com

Jackie Earle Haley breathes fearsome life into the horribly disfigured monster that lives in the dream-lives of his victims.

Screen Shot 2022-06-26 at 11.10.02 PM

The movie has a sustained sense of morbid dread that's abetted by the narrative's adult characters who conspire against the truth of their own complicity in their children's sustained terror.

ColeSmithey.com

Subtle nods to films like "Psycho," "The Exorcist," and "The Shining" work to create a grotesque universe of the sleep deprived where nightmares nestle like Russian Dolls. Where Craven's film was campy, Bayer's movie is just plain dark.

Rated R. 95 mins. 

3 Stars Screen Shot 2023-10-05 at 12.33.50 PM

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

Featured Video

SMART NEW MEDIA® Custom Videos

COLE SMITHEY’S MOVIE WEEK

COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA

Throwback Thursday


Podcast Series