Reviews

I wasn't anticipating them exploring this much backstory, but I'm glad they did. It was an incredibly gripping storyline, with Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett knocking it out of the park.

I expected quite a bit of backlash due to the added focus on these characters, but I'm pleasantly surprised that is (at the time of writing) not the case. It's a beautifully done episode, and it deserves the praise it's been getting so far.

I'm optimistic for the rest of the series, although this episode set the bar quite high. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey continue to pull their weight, so I have faith that this show will continue to impress.

The only criticism I'm seeing in these 1 star reviews is that it's either "boring" or "too gay". I could accept boring as a subjective criticism if they elaborated more, but most of them don't. There is the somewhat valid criticism that most of the episode is self contained, but I don't see how that's such a bad thing.

The concept is interesting, and it does a good job utilizing its one location. It builds tension well, with us not knowing where it's headed or whether or not the characters in this episode are safe or not. It doesn't need to rely on CGI or pre-established characters/plot lines. Personally, it's my favorite episode of the season, although episodes 4 and 6 are are right behind it.

While the show had a slow pacing that required patience up till this point, the payoff was absolutely worth it. Not only does this episode make great use of the premise the show built, but it has me impatient for a second season.

If anyone was thinking about quitting the show before making it to the end of this season, make sure to finish it. It's incredibly worth it.

I wasn't a huge fan of the Netflix's other gay high school drama that came out recently (Young Royals), although my husband loved it. Seeing as a lot of the top reviewers for this series loved that show as well, I was somewhat expecting this to be a more typical high school love story with stereotypical characters.

For the most part, I was wrong. It's pretty light, which is refreshing compared to the large quantity of gay films that deal with more depressing storylines. I'm also used to the love interests in these dealing with major internalized homophobia and treating the protagonist horribly. But Nick bucks most of these character traits, and is actually one of my favorite gay/bi love interests out of any movie/series I've seen, really charming character and performance from the actor. The rest of the cast is really interesting/likable as well (minus Harry, who is so far the most stereotypical bully I've seen in a gay project. We'll see if a season 2 can flesh him out better).

If you're wanting a lighter gay series similar to Love, Victor, this should be perfect. In fact, this has the potential to be one of my favorite gay tv shows out there depending on how season 2 turns out. I'd definitely recommend it, especially with how short it is.

To the one review saying that only homophobes will dislike this movie, I am gay, and neither me nor my husband liked this movie.

With that out of the way, there is one positive I have, the directing. Director Jon Abrahams (yes, the guy from Scary Movie and the House of Wax remake), showed a lot of potential here, and was easily the best part of the film. Really solid panning shots, and not any particularly bad shots either. He could easily direct some great films with the right script.

Onto the bad. The acting and script are both mediocre at best. No one turns in a particularly great performance, and some are downright bad (granted, the dialogue doesn't help them any). The script is the main offender, which has a LOT of problems.

First off, this is hardly a horror/slasher, it's basically a mystery with slight (and I mean slight) horror elements for about 80% of its runtime, which an really low body count. As a result, it's kinda just boring up until the over the top crazy finale. I expected this to be bad, but in a fun so bad it's good type of way, which it didn't become until the end (at least those sweet panning shots looked nice though).

The whodunnit aspect was incredibly predictable. If you've ever seen a whodunnit before, you should have absolutely no problem figuring this one out. It's possibly the easiest to figure out of any movie/show/game/book I've ever witnessed.

All that said, there is quite a bit of nudity/sex in this. So that may be a positive for some (although I didn't personally enjoy these scenes, to each their own).

Overall, it's pretty bad, but by no means the worst gay film I've seen. Probably not even in the bottom 20 worst gay films I've seen. So while I wouldn't recommend this, there are worse films out there, and this is arguably the best "gay slasher" since there's little competition. The main takeaway is that Jon Abrahams should direct more films. He's really quite good.

Sundown is a film that I find difficult to explain why I enjoyed it. It's definitely not for everyone, but I was pleasantly surprised since I expected it to be more on the pretentious art film side of the spectrum.

I didn't know anything about the main character at the beginning of the film, and slowly discovering more about him over the course of the film was really interesting. The pacing is consistent, although for some it may be a bit too slow, with entire scenes that have no dialogue. I personally thought this made it feel more authentic, as there were no forced conversations for the sake of drama.

It's very much a drama, but there was an element of mystery there. In the beginning, I didn't understand the motivations of Roth's character, I didn't understand the full scope of what they were going through. Piecing it all together as the film progressed was very rewarding, and the ending gave more closure than I was expecting (movies like this tend to end abruptly).

It's a 7.5/10 for me. I wouldn't recommend it to those that like plot heavy movies or dislike character studies, but I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting.

Going into this, I knew it was an artsy but low budget coming of age gay drama. Surprisingly, the budget was higher than I expected (the cameras were of decent quality, and they somehow got Fairuza Balk to join), and also it was funnier than I expected. Not funny in that it had good jokes, but funny in that the dialogue is truly awful.

From a quality standpoint, the directing is pretty amateurish. A few shots that are actually pretty good, but most are static are trying and failing to be artistic. The dialogue (as I said) is laughably bad. The acting is very mixed leaning towards terrible, with some (Balk) being fine considering what they're given to work with. The lead kid isn't very good, his best friend sounded like he had never acted before, and the guy that was the lead's love interest was pretty bland as well (although I think he was directed to act that way, but still).

Some art films have a lot to say, and do it in an interesting way. This film on the other hand feels like a 10 minute short film with 60 minutes of the lead character by himself in a field, and 20 minutes of seems repeating (there's a telephone call scene that happens three times, each time lasting far too long).

The reviews here seem all over the place. Truthfully, I don't see this being a 10/10. The acting, writing and even the directing aren't even good, let alone masterpiece level. It could have the excuse of being low budget, but Coherence had the same budget (apparently $50,000) and was great. Primer had $7,000 and was great. I've seen a lot of gay films with lower budgets that were better as well. Is a 1/10 too harsh? Considering the main thing I enjoyed was the bad dialogue, I don't think so.

You can check it out, but keep in mind it is incredibly slow, and poor quality, but it's not the worst film I've seen.

Going in to this, I knew the critics thought it was the best one, and that the audience was split. I was also aware that this was a reboot that doesn't feature any cannibals. While the cannibals aren't present, it's still a slasher film with a similar location, and the antagonists are similar with their setting of traps everywhere.

The only major complaint I have for this movie is that it tries to do multiple different things (you'll know what I mean if you've seen it). A good ways into the film, the shift it makes kinda deflates a lot of the tension and quick pacing it had built up. It's still good after that, but it loses its chance at being my favorite Wrong Turn film.

Despite this, everything about it is pretty great. It's the best made in the series, has some pretty brutal kills, and the traps are well used and add a lot of tension. The characters are slightly more developed here (still could've used more), and it's not quite as easy to predict the order of deaths. I do have a pet peeve about "nicer" characters suffering worse deaths than others, but thats minor.

I watched this with two other people (one hardcore Wrong Turn fan, and one who was indifferent towards the original), and both enjoyed it. I'd say if you can accept that this will be different from the previous entries and go in with an open mind, that you might enjoy it. At the very least I think the people giving this 1's and 2's for the title are being a little harsh, as this would've surpassed the original for me if it were more consistent. Started at a 9/10, ended at an 8/10.

I was immediately drawn to this movie for two main reasons. 1. It has John Benjamin Hickey, who I recently became familiar with from Mapplethorpe (knowing an actor in a low budget gay movie means a lot), and 2. It focuses on an older guy (I'm exclusively interested in intergenerational relationships, and I'm a little burnt out on gay films with high schoolers).

Is it good? For the most part, yes. JBH is a good casting choice, I correctly predicted a lot about his character just by observing him. The rest of the cast is good too, and the direction is solid. I'm used to watching tons of micro budget gay films, so simply having decent acting and a director who knows how to work a camera places this towards the top.

The story might not be for everyone. It is deliberately paced, and there's not much drama. You spend most of the film getting to know the two leads, what makes them different, and what makes them connect. The tone is mostly light and fun except for one scene in particular, so it makes for a decent film to put on if you don't want to get too depressed. There's not really any homophobic bullying or violence, which that alone makes it stand out from most of the gay cinema I've experienced.

Overall, I liked pretty much everything about it, especially the characters. I don't know if it makes my top 10 gay films, but it's certainly close. If it interests you, I'd highly recommend it.

Whether or not I'd recommend this depends on how much you care about quality vs entertainment.

For the good, there's a lot of great concepts here. The pacing was decent, and kept me engaged once they reached the cave. I wasn't bored at any point, and I was curious as to what was planned.

As far as overall quality, it varies greatly. The CGI is decent considering this is low budget Sci-Fi, I can't really complain here. The directing is more or less okay. For the most part there's nothing impressive, nor are there any shots that are distractingly bad.

Then we get to what is distracting. The acting is mediocre at best. If you have a high tolerance for bad acting, you won't mind, but most B-Horror movies have better acting than this. The kids aren't the worst I've seen though all things considered.

The dialogue is probably the worst thing about this film. The writing as a whole isn't very good in general. The audience will discover a twist, the characters will make a terrible excuse for why it isn't so, then ten minutes later realize what's going on and try to explain it to the audience by saying the most obvious things. Most of the dialogue is oddly robotic with characters saying things just to fill space in the movie. Sometimes you don't need a character to speak as something is happening. Having them ask the same question over and over when there obviously isn't an answer yet doesn't help either. It's quite baffling with how intriguing the film is that more care wasn't put into making the dialogue at least tolerable. Not to mention I'm pretty confident there's definitely a plot hole that's glossed over involving the professor, but I won't get into that, for the sake of not spoiling as well as the fact that it doesn't bother me as much as the rest of the writing.

The start isn't particularly interesting, but I more or less liked the ending. It's just a shame that this didn't get a few rewrites and some better actors. I could easily see myself giving this an 8/10 if it were done better, but if you're looking for a good low budget cerebral Sci-Fi film you're better off watching something like Coherence or Primer.

If you're a big fan of Sci-Fi, the premise interests you, and you don't mind below average acting and writing, this is pretty watchable. If you're not fully into Sci-Fi, or you can't stand mediocre acting and writing, I'd probably say skip it. Personally, I want someone to take the best ideas from this and remake it into something better, as it has a lot of potential.

As a gay man, I've seen a lot of gay films, and I mean a LOT. For the most part there's a lot of terrible ones out there (as in zero budget and poorly done in every aspect), but there's also some hidden gems if you know where to look. Having seen so many, there's certain plot lines and characters that begin to feel repetitive. School romances have been done to death in LGBT films, so they need to do something different to stand out. This series does just that, as one of the leads is actual royalty.

Initially I thought this was a limited series, so I was somewhat surprised at how open ended it was. I'm not sure how this'll do for a second season, and to be honest I feel as though it should've been a movie.

So to get it out of the way, I wasn't a fan of this season. This is a highly unpopular opinion looking at the massive amount of ten star reviews with hundreds of helpful ratings, but it just didn't work for me.

As I mentioned earlier, school romances are a bit tired for me, but this premise sounds fairly fresh. While the lead's royal status does sometimes come in to play, it's mostly overshadowed by the usual teen drama and romance.

I also struggled to find characters I liked, although I did mildly connect to the girl with Aspergers, seeing as I have that myself. August did have an interesting backstory, but his personality jumps back and forth between vulnerable and obnoxious antagonist. Simon's dad is portrayed to be a bad guy, but we aren't really shown that, just told. So I found it hard to root for Simon when he's constantly putting his dad down for things like doing drugs, even though Simon sells them? Sure his dad doesn't seem to be the best guy out there, but he seems to care, which is something Simon doesn't even attempt to do. He even yells at his sister at one point saying "at least I don't piss on my family", even though that's exactly what he does towards his dad.

Story wise it does get more interesting towards the end, although to keep spoilers to a minimum, a highly convenient and cliche plot point involving a window without the curtains closed is used. It felt pretty odd for Wilhem to be so careless considering how cautious he'd been prior.

From a technical standpoint, everything is pretty good. Reasonable camerawork and acting, etc.

In conclusion, I was rooting for this, especially with the high IMDB score. But the unlikable characters and lack of originality (outside of the royalty aspect of course) really keeps me from enjoying it. Considering how short this is at the moment, it's worth checking out the first one or two episodes as you can pretty much tell if you'll like it from that. For those new to LGBT content, it might be fresh enough, but it unfortunately doesn't do anything new or well enough for those overly familiar with similar films and series.

For me it's a 3.5/10. I really wish I liked it as much as everyone else here, but the characters, and to a lesser degree the story, didn't really connect with me.

The first entry of the Fear Street trilogy was a mixed bag for me, and for the most part the sequel at least makes for a more consistent watch. This one doesn't have as many standout scenes like the first one (mall and supermarket scenes), but it's better in other areas.

The jarring tonal shifts between light/humorous and horror from the first film are mostly fixed here. Once the kills start up they don't really take the time to make out of place jokes. Everything flows a lot better here.

The constantly shifting music is also a bit better here. The still play numerous songs from the time period, but there's some room for each one to breathe instead of playing another one every five seconds like the first.

I'd say I liked the characters here a bit more as well. Perhaps the supporting cast is weaker, but I liked the sisters more than Deena and Sam. The pacing is improved, and the kills are more frequent (although nothing truly stands out unlike the bread slicer from Part 1).

It's not one of my favorite slashers of the last decade, but it's solid. If you thought the first one was at least decent, this may be worth your time.

I didn't read the Fear Street books growing up, although I did read Goosebumps. Considering this was an R rated adaptation, I was cautiously optimistic.

I loved the opening scene. It felt like a nice call back to Scream. It wasn't nearly as iconic, but it did enough right to set my expectations high. Then the plot starts developing, and it goes downhill fast.

The characters are mostly annoying. I could argue I mildly liked two of them, but that's it. The protagonist is incredibly self absorbed, and treats her ex horribly. We've got the nerdy kid who knows literally everything. The comic relief who has maybe two lines in the movie that aren't jokes. Etc.

Then there's the tone. The best way I could describe it is the kid friendly feel of the Goosebumps movie mixed with a slasher film. Anytime someone isn't being murdered, it's really light in tone and kinda jarring. The profanity and innuendos are present during these scenes, but they still feel very kiddish, for lack of a better word. The closest example I could think of for a movie like this is "Summer of '84", but that wasn't nearly as light, and it was far more consistent.

The 90's music, while good, is heavily overused. The early parts of the film feel like someone turned on a malfunctioning jukebox that switches songs every ten seconds. Sometimes less is more.

The horror scenes are actually really good. The opening scene and climax are my favorites, but I enjoyed the rest as well. If the entire film was as good as the horror, I'd honestly consider giving this a 9/10, but I kept getting taken out of the film when there was downtime. There was very little tension or decent drama, just an overly quick pace with humor and exposition to bridge the scares.

It's on Netflix, so if you're interested I guess it's worth a shot. I'm disappointed, as it could've been an absolute classic, but if it sounds like your kinda thing you might like it.

The premise sounds interesting, but not much is done with it. The writing is not only unrealistic, but incredibly dull, not to mention the dialogue. Nothing particularly exciting or thought provoking happens at any point in the film.

I saw one reviewer criticizing the Director (who also helped write the script), but I actually thought his direction was one of the only good things about the movie. Some scenes are average, but some look great, especially the transition in the last scene using the water.

The acting varies. You've got some talent here, but not nearly enough to balance out the script.

I've seen far worse than this, but I certainly didn't enjoy it. It's on Netflix, but even this I can't imagine a scenario where I'd actually recommend it.

It takes a while to really get going, but once it does, it's a pretty unique film. It's a very zany satire, and while a lot of the character actions are greatly exaggerated, the internet culture is unfortunately very accurate. We haven't gotten something this horrific from Content Creators yet, but considering how attention starved some up and comers are (some have died from social media stunts), something like this happening to a lesser degree is somewhat plausible.

As for the quality of the film, Keery is pretty spot on as an annoying influencer, the pacing is mostly consistent with only a couple slow moments here and there, but the dialogue usually lacks any subtlety. Whether or not this is fun or clever is going to vary greatly from person to person. Seeing all of the 1/10's on here seems a bit harsh, but I can see why this type of film might annoy some. If you aren't overly familiar with the current state of social media, or you don't like crazy satire mixed with your horror, you might hate this. I personally thought it was a good, not great, movie that poked fun at the state of internet celebrities pretty well.

Maybe it's just me, but this was one of the most tense films I've seen in a while. It's not jump scare heavy, it's not reliant on gore, it's not scary the way Hereditary was, it's just builds tension, and keeps building without releasing it.

It's not perfect. It's definitely a very slow burn, seems heavily inspired by Ari Aster and Hereditary (the doll house in particular), and I'm kinda annoyed at the dumbness of a certain character really late in the film. But overall I was impressed by this. I know IMDb averages low for horror films, but I'm kinda surprised this scored so much lower than the director's previous film. I don't know that it's a film I would see again, but by the end of the film I was feeling pretty uneasy.

Overall, if you like slow burn films (lets be honest, this film is pretty slow if you don't feel the tension), I'd say give it a shot.

I didn't expect to write a review for this, but after dwelling on the final episode for a few hours, I've decided it's worth it. Especially since most reviews are 8-10 or 1-3.

Overall, the show tends to be well directed, and the cast is good. There are a few interesting episodes (which I'll go over), and a few dull ones. The overarching narrative, is close to non-existent. It isn't an anthology, but it barely tries to tie anything together. Some episodes are just a slice of life for the characters it focuses on.

Episode 1: Decent idea, not so sure about the execution. The twist feels like it comes early, and we don't know anything about these characters yet, so there's little payoff. It's not bad, but it's a relatively pointless first episode.

Episode 2: My personal favorite. The plot line has been explored elsewhere, but I like how they do it here. The pacing is actually fine here.

Episode 3: Another great idea that's been done before, but not explored as well as the previous episode. The girl in this one isn't the best character either, and this episode seems to have little to no attachment to the rest of the show, making it more pointless than Episode 1 (although more enjoyable).

Episode 4: If you like questioning life and all that, this episode is for you. Unfortunately there's nothing interesting plot wise, so that's all we're left with aside from Jonathan Pryce.

Episode 5: My least favorite episode. It's not too slow, but the poor script really shines through here. The man the episode focuses on has a very odd and overly complex "solution" to a problem imposed on his family. I like how the episode explored the grief of the characters in it, but almost none of the character decisions make any sense. You need to sleep at some point in the day, and standing outside every night, doing basically nothing, is such an obvious waste of time.

Episode 6: Despite being the lowest rated episode at my time of writing, I enjoyed this one. It's a bit of a slow burn, but intriguing enough that I wasn't bored. That being said, this episode also had practically nothing to do with anything else in the series. It's pretty easy to skip this one and not need any kind of explanation later.

Episode 7: Pretty solid, and I enjoyed the (admittedly out of place) horror elements, being a horror fan myself. The episode is actually just backstory, although it does give some key information for later. It does help that I like the character it focused on. A bit of an abrupt ending however.

Episode 8: I'm quite surprised that this is currently the highest rated episode. I thought that either A: it'd be another solid standalone episode that barely ties into anything, or B: tie everything in the series together in a clever way. It's unfortunately the worst of both worlds. Not bad, but highly disappointing, and it made me feel like I wasted all of this time for absolutely no payoff. It tries to tie a few loose ends, but it feels like the writers of Game of Thrones trying to "subvert expectations" in a Michael Haneke type of way. In the end it was depressing, barely the most intertwined episode of the series, and featured very few interesting concepts.

So, after finishing the show, do I recommend it? It really depends. Casual viewers wanting a fun Sci-Fi series to watch will likely want to stay away (or watch the second episode by itself). Existential Arthouse fans? I'd say they may like it, but I know someone who loves Terrance Malik and Sci-Fi who had roughly the same opinion on this that I did. It's really not a bad show, but the writing leaves so much to be desired. It's not fascinating the way Black Mirror is, and it's not as cohesive as most other series are. It is free on Amazon Prime Video however, so if it truly piques your interest you might as well give it a go from the beginning.

I'm a bit surprised by the negativity for this episode. Yes, the writing this season has been disappointing, but it's improved in this episode. My only complaints are the continuation of characters going from point A to point B without showing the in between, essentially having them teleport from location to location. And the other being Jaime, without spoiling anything, I was underwhelmed by his usage in this episode. Despite these two complaints, this was a really solid episode aside from slight nitpicks. Is it the best the series has had? Not even close, but it's not worth all of the one star reviews. I was ready for this episode to be a disaster after what we had happen last episode, and luckily I was proven wrong.

There's also a lot of complaints about how Daenerys is handled. I personally stopped liking her a few seasons ago, and this season really accelerated that. I do agree that it's rushed, and would've worked better if they had another season or two, but it's not completely out of nowhere, just a bit rushed.

Even if you disliked the previous episodes this season, give this one a fair chance. It's not perfect, but it's not the worst of this season.