Category: Film

~ Venom ~
~ Venom: Let There Be Carnage ~

I think that in this age where everything streams digitally, we all have “to-watch” lists a kilometer long. I am certainly no exception. My Netflix queue is always growing, contracting only when something I’ve been putting off watching is removed from the service. However, this past weekend, I was finally able to remove Venom from said queue.

Venom is… well, it’s a Marvel movie. It seemed to fly under the radar when it was released because it’s an anti-hero movie, and also it didn’t tie into the MCU in any way. Venom’s story has always been very closely tied in with Spider-Man, but in his starring role, he’s got absolutely no connection to everyone’s favourite web-slinger.

Despite all that, though, it absolutely has the same feel as any other Marvel origin movie. It follows all the same plot beats, our hero is defined by his snarkiness, and it’s a massive cornucopia of special effects. So you pretty much know exactly what you’re in for, and whether or not you’re gong to like it before you’ve seen even a second of the actual footage.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage also feels like a pretty cookie-cutter sequel. The headbutting duo (reporter Eddie Brock and space-parasite Venom) that learned to work together to save the world in the first film find it too difficult to continue their partnership, and end up going their separate ways. That is, of course, until another evil shows up that threatens them both, which forces them to put aside their differences and discover that they truly make a great team.

Honestly, I don’t quite know what else to say about these movies. I think they’re considered to be C-tier Marvel movies, but I would say that I enjoyed them just as much as any Iron Man. Maybe even more! I couldn’t even tell you what Iron Man 2 was about. And when I say that, I mean immediately after having walked out of the movie theatre. So yes, I would recommend the Venom movies. They are perfectly adequate!

~ Halloween Kills ~

You know what’s the absolute worst thing? An unnecessary sequel. And, I get it, lots of sequels are unnecessary. Probably 95% of them are made it hopes of cashing in on a film or game or book or whatever that made a lot of money. But at the very least, most of those at least put some effort into being entertaining. What I’m talking about are the unnecessary sequels that don’t even try to validate their existence.

Halloween Kills is exactly one of those movies.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. “But Ryan, every slasher sequel is a soulless cash grab!” But that’s not true! Many of them up the stakes! Or throw in some fun/”fun” new lore. Usually they try to come up with creative new ways to slaughter people. At the absolute minimum, they amp up the amount of naked boobies. But Halloween Kills doesn’t really do any of that.

I think what mostly makes me mad about this one is that 2018’s Halloween reboot/sequel thing was just about the perfect way to close the book on the franchise. It completely ignored every movie except for the original (which is still great), and focused on Laurie Strode’s crippling PTSD from what happened that horrific night. I mean, there was a lot of nonsense in that one too, but the finale alone was worth it.

Halloween Kills ruins it all by basically undoing the end of the previous movie by taking place immediately afterward, and of course, putting good ol’ Michael Myers back into the fray. And it makes the entire town of Haddonfield completely obsessed with the whackjob that killed four teenagers 40 years ago. It’s kind of an interesting take on mob mentality and the dangers of misinformation, but it still doesn’t make any damn sense. Laurie has a very good reason to be terrified and mentally scarred by what she went through. The rest of the town… probably would have mostly forgotten about it by now. Unless Haddonfield is one of those itty-bitty hick towns where everyone is related, but it doesn’t seem that way.

I don’t know. I didn’t hate it while I was watching it, and it didn’t necessarily bore me, but it also didn’t do anything really special or entertaining. It wasn’t entertainingly corny or funny in the least. There were no creative kills. There are at least two subplots that exist entirely to pad out the run time. The ending sets up yet another sequel. And the more I think about it, the more I dislike it. Obviously, can’t recommend this one. In fact, I might even suggest that you should deliberately avoid it.

2021 has been speeding by at an unprecedented rate. It seems like last week it was May and then suddenly it’s the BEST DARN SEASON OF THE YEAR, and I’m not going to let it just shimmy on by! And so, I have begun breaking out the spooky-type movies in FULL FORCE to get m’self in the mood. I mean, it’s not like there’s anyone else around here with which to get any other kind of moods going…

Anyway! Horror movies! 2021! Let’s go!

I don’t know about you, but I’d never heard of The Banana Splits until recently. I guess maybe, for once, I’m too young.

For the uninitiated, it was a live-action variety show produced by Hanna-Barbera in the late 1960’s that starred four large, costumed animal characters. It lasted two seasons but stayed in syndication until the 80s. Last year, somebody turned it into a horror-comedy movie. This movie (and the franchise in general) was only brought to my attention about two months ago, when I watched a YouTube video comparing it to Willy’s Wonderland and how the latter looked like it would avoid a lot of the problems that The Banana Splits Movie suffered from.

Thank goodness I watched that video, though, because my soul would be so much emptier without having ever seen The Banana Splits Movie.