Category: Movie Review

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Sting

John Stark

Sting- A Spooky Season Review Are you afraid of spiders? Well, then Sting is for you! When you think about what a scary movie is supposed to do, then you realize you should watch things that scare you. Alien spiders? Sign me up. Thinking back to all those cheesy monster movies from back in the day where actors looked like they were acting in front of a large screen with some insect being blown up to extraordinary size, and Sting feels like how far we’ve come. I do nod my head to Eight Legged Freaks, and of course Arachnophobia, for … Continue reading Sting

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Carved

John Stark

Carved (Hulu)- A Spooky Season Review I would not be surprised at all if the VFX didn’t live up to the expectations of sighted audiences. Luckily for Carved, you can have Asylum level VFX, and I’d have no idea, but I can just assume this production didn’t have the highest of budgets. that’s not to say you need a large budget, and for something like Carved, it would be hard to play broadly. Carved is a horror comedy about a mutated pumpkin that reaches its breaking point, coming alive, and murdering all those who dare to carve a pumpkin on … Continue reading Carved

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Woman Of The Hour

John Stark

Woman Of The Hour- A Spooky Season Review? As someone who can see the FYC campaigns coming my way, it dos make me wonder where Netflix is with Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut. This is something that should be in the mix, and very much has opportunities to be honored at least by various critics groups. Certainly, Anna Kendrick for a first time feature category seems like a strong contender. But, Netflix is leaning hard on Emilia Perez, The Piano Lesson, and Maria.In comparison, I’ve received FYC campaigns for everything from Sonic The Hedgehog 3, Horizon: Chapter One, to the maligned … Continue reading Woman Of The Hour

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The Last Breath

John Stark

The Last Breath- A Spooky Season Review Shark movie. It’s a shark movie. It’s not really even worth much consideration, but it does happen to be the final film featuring the late Julian Sands.It is actually an unfortunate film, since they clearly shot it not knowing, so his character is allowed to make awful life choices, and no one will remember this film. I always think about these random movies and the often thankless audio description made for them. Congrats on getting the gig, but it’s for a film most won’t like, and will fade away due to lack of … Continue reading The Last Breath

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Caddo Lake

John Stark

Caddo Lake- A Spooky Season Review M. Night Shyamalan rarely jumps on board as a producer, but when a directorial team he worked with on his Apple Plus show Servant has a great idea, the man jumps. I’ll be honest, you are in November, checking out a review of a film from October. I’m sure you’ve already seen this, but if you haven’t, it really does have this interesting twist which suffices as all the reason in the world that Shyamalan would want to produce. I actually watched this twice, because when the movie starts to shift, it is such … Continue reading Caddo Lake

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Nathan-ism

John Stark

Nathan-ism- An Important Exploration Of A Man With A Very Specific Historical Relevance Back in film school, one of the classes I had to take was tied into the Florida Film Festival, where the films at the festival were given out as products for us to essentially “street team”. I was given a documentary that Nathan-ism reminds me so much of, which was someone being captured in documentary form, and my partner and I ran a “Who Is” campaign, trying to drum up interest in our documentary. We had shirts, and we got high marks for always being present, but … Continue reading Nathan-ism

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Bagman

John Stark

Bagman- A Spooky Season Review Sam Claflin has had a weird career. It seemed like he would be positioned as one of the next big things, after landing a kush role in Catching Fire, which led to the sleeper romance hit Me Before you, but ever since he’s been on a Sam Worthington train to nowhere, with his latest film I’m not even sure getting a theatrical release from lionsgate. And I didn’t even hate this movie. They just had no faith in it. bagman means you have to accept this lore that somewhere out there is a boogeyman type … Continue reading Bagman

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Strange Darling

John Stark

Strange Darling- A Spooky Season Review It is actually funny how I’ve seen a few films this year that I adored the twists to, and I want to encourage you to experience this movie cold. All you need to know, is this movie worked on me. I was aware of the film, and its contents going in, and I found it interesting that the person doing the most press for this was Giovanni Ribisi, who isn’t in the film, nor did he direct. He’s the cinematographer, and that’s something that is often really hard to appreciate in terms of audio … Continue reading Strange Darling

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Maxxxine

John Stark

Maxxxine- A Spooky Season Review Ti West has finished the trilogy we never knew we needed. Honestly, I’m not even sure need is the right word, though I’m aware people love Pearl and X a lot more than i do, with those same fans having been hopeful Mia Goth would get an Oscar nomination for Pearl. The Oscars almost never nominate horror films, and even some of the films that might loosely qualify are pretty tame. Sure, there were nominations for The Sixth Sense, including Toni Collette, but when the Oscars were faced with watching her saw her own head … Continue reading Maxxxine

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Cuckoo

John Stark

Cuckoo (2024)- A Spooky Season review I’m not really sure I actually followed Cuckoo. I’m fascinated by it, but I’m not actually sure I know what the heck was happening all the time. That might actually be the point. A24 and Neon have been increasingly challenging their audiences by releasing artistically divine films that people are often confused by and love at the same time. Yes, some people write off these as artsy messes, and that’s to be expected. But what we’re cultivating here is original artistic expression in a way that doesn’t feel like a streaming movie of the … Continue reading Cuckoo

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Mr. Crockett

John Stark

Mr Crockett (Hulu)- A Spooky Season Review He was not born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, that is for sure. Hulu’s original horror film takes a page from some other films like The Babadook and Come Play, and hopes for the best. This Mr. Crockett is a nightmare fuel children’s television host that comes to life after a young boy finds an old VHS recording. Suddenly, that boys mother finds herself in a battle over this boy’s soul with H.P. Lovecraft’s answer to Mr. rogers Neighborhood. The other films are better. The Babadook features a mom who has to fight … Continue reading Mr. Crockett

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Apartment 7A

John Stark

Apartment 7A (Paramount Plus)- A Spooky season Review No one asked for this. This isn’t even a franchise. Who was sitting around at Paramount so desperate for attention that they pitched a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby? Julia Garner wasn’t even born. She’s younger than I am, and that movie predates me. It is largely regarded as a classic, while this will fall into the category of “WTF” for the rest of time, like when Disney overreached and started making sequels to everything. Like… Bambi 2. I had actually forgotten this was a thing, but halfway through, I realized what this … Continue reading Apartment 7A

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Salem’s Lot

John Stark

Salem’s Lot (2024)- A Spooky Season Review A seemingly impossible to adapt Stephen King novel hit MAX quietly. That has to be a good sign. This movie has been in the can for a while, and had a theatrical release briefly scheduled, before drawing the ire of Stephen King by winding up heading straight to streaming. is it really that bad? Well, it certainly is better than last year’s Pet Sematary prequel. It is also a far cry from many of King’s best film adaptations, including Brian DePalma’s Carrie, Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption, and the most recent two-parter adaptation … Continue reading Salem’s Lot

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Long Legs

John Stark

Long Legs- A Spooky Season Review An unnecessarily divisive movie. I watched so many critics join in on the artistic backlash of Long Legs, which originally had the vibe of being the scariest movie of the year, only to see the late stage critics writing it off as self indulgent and boring. Is it perfect? No. this is not in my Top 10 of the year either, but I can put each of the little problems in their own bubble and enjoy the totality of what was intended. And when you do that, Long Legs is just shy of brilliant. … Continue reading Long Legs

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The Platform 2

John Stark

The Platform 2 (Netflix)- A Spooky Season Review This quietly slid onto Netflix in time for October, and my initial reaction was “There was a first one?” So, I basically watched these two films back to back. They compliment each other much the same way the first two films in A Quiet Place do. The first movie is clearly the better one, as they introduce the premise, and the second film expands upon that, hoping to show you that there’s even more to be afraid of. The platform as a franchise is just a tower system in some alternate version … Continue reading The Platform 2