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jmichaeltodd
Reviews
Alcatraz Prison Escape: Deathbed Confession (2015)
Was this edited with Windows Movie Maker version 1.2?
Obviously, the sound quality is terrible and you can read all about that from the other reviews that talk about how the music is so loud you can't hear most of the dialogue, which begs the question if anyone ever previewed it before slapping it onto Amazon video to get some money off of the notoriety of the content. But let's also discuss that the video quality itself looks like it was filmed on an iPhone 4 at best and then edited using some freeware QuickTime conversion software to push it to a Windows Movie Maker or other freeware video editing software. I don't even think they could have used iMovie to edit this as it doesn't even look that professional. It's an interesting theory and story, but it's unentertaining. At one point I saw a very older MacBook Pro model in the documentary and I wished that they had used that to edit the film instead of the DOS or Windows 95 PC that they must have used instead.
The UFO Incident (1975)
What just happened?
Similar to the loss of time the Hills encountered, this movie magically zaps over an hour and a half from your life, leaving very little in the way of recollection. The filmmakers spend the majority of their time focusing on the therapy sessions in order to tell the story from a first person perspective. Unfortunately, this creates a pacing problem that plagues the film far more than the terrible special effects and costumes do. The other issue is the need to make a seventies television suitable film from a horrific event. The result is a lack of clarity and a sense of missing information. It seems that all of the most interesting details and information from the encounter have been omitted in favor of giving the audience more banal exposition about the Hills and their relationship history, as well as the ways in which their friends reacted to their claims. Again, this would have been ok if we could have had a better understanding of what their claim was in the first place. Ultimately, the audience is left confused by not only what the Hills are claiming occurred and for what reason, but also about the purpose for the making of the film.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)
Horror take is to the slasher genre what we all hoped it would be!
If you are walking into a theatre to watch your beloved childhood Disney characters massacre a series of innocent victims, then you most likely have a certain level of expectations that you are going to see something that lives in a world that exists among satire, horror, and general bad taste. If you walked into this film expecting the next Scream or Halloween series then you have clearly not gotten the whole point of its creation.
Throughout the film, the over-the-top gore (although mostly limited to a few brief moments) and careful attention to incite every possible slasher-film cliche proliferates the bulk of the film. You're left with two options: you can either dismiss the film due to this and claim you wished for a serious horror movie, or you can rock out to it and revel in the satirical horror film that is Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.
During the screening I attended, the audience clearly chose the latter. What began as stifled smirks and chuckles quickly turned to laughing out loud at the entire ludicrous nature of the film by the final scenes. The conceptual framework of "so bad it's good" makes this film worthy of a watch in and of itself; however, there are some additional aspects that make it worthy of a closer look.
This film knows it doesn't have the budget to compete with a serious horror film, nor does it pretend to be one. The over-the-top gore and cliches are reminiscent of scenes in which a character's body is mutilated beyond recognition and the characters foolishly wonder if they should call an ambulance to help. Nearly every scene is constructed in which the obvious solution is not only ignored but the characters double down on the wrong things to do. Not since Scream has there been such a blatant satirical approach to the filmmaking process of horror films. Perhaps I'm reading much too much into this, but I feel the creators set out to create something unlike anything we had ever seen before. They were partially successful if you accept that the film is a unique take on a classic children's story. They were entirely successful if they chose to use this conceit as a vehicle from which to make a satirical statement about horror and the ways in which society embraces the genre through its own sense of nostalgia and predictability. Which perception is real is entirely up to you. Either way, you have a brilliant satire at best and a decent ride at worst.
Return to the Hiding Place (2013)
Horrible acting
Seriously horrible acting. My first clue that this was going to be a pitiful movie should have been the DVD insert that tried to get you to call a number to get a license to show it to large groups. You would never find such a shameless money grab in any seriously respected movie. They even flash the licensing information before the movie. I'm surprised they don't have it running along the screen throughout the movie. Anyway, after watching Julie Harris in the original film, all of the acting seems fake and farcical. It seems very disrespectful toward the victims by producing a silly and unrealistic movie that would obviously not be taken seriously by anyone who wasn't involved in the disrespectful cash grab that is this movie.