Platypuschow

Plot

On January 8th, 2015, a man with a black umbrella broke into 818 Hilltop drive at 3:38 a.m., committing a double murder. The investigation that ensued proved that some murders shouldn't be solved.

Cast

Nobody of note. And top 5 one of the worst director/writers in the history of filmmaking.

Verdict

I watched The Man with the Black Umbrella without seeing who created it oddly enough, if I'd known I'd have skipped it.

Within the first 10 minutes I started seeing signs, things that looked awfully familiar, which is very impressive in a film where nothing happens.

A found footage film made for a budget comparable with the cost of a McDonalds cheeseburger and small fries, it's one of those type where it tries to counter this by building tension. And by building tension I mean, nothing actually happens throughout its run time and the whole things looks unforgivably ugly.

Is it as bad as the fear Footage Trilogy? Absolutely, it's on par as it's ultimately the same thing tweaked.

Want something that will assist you with sleep? Want something to recommend to your worst enemy? Want something that will kill your faith in the movie industry? This right here, is it.

Rants

Ricky Umberger shilled his Fear Footage trilogy badly, he first denied it then later admitted it claiming he did it to counter the bad ratings/reviews which he believed were appearing in some kind of hate campaign. Truth is the faux 10/10 reviews came before any of the negative ones so survey says, that was a lie. If you have faith in your movie, why lie to the world? Let it succeed off it's own merits.

The Good

Literally nothing

The Bad

Incredibly boring Very ugly Nothing happens Totally unoriginal and uninspired.

Plot

A cult is about to waken H. P. Lovecraft's most feared creature.

Cast

Unfamiliar with those involved

Verdict

When you go into any ITN movie you should naturally assume the worst, whatever you think it's going to be it'll almost certainly be worse. Then the Lovecraft element, nobody seems to be able to do his work or anything even vaguely resembling it justice and therefore also going in you have to assume it'll be bad. Therefore a ITN Lovecraft title? Never really stood a chance did it?

To its credit it starts well enough, the production values feel higher and the cast aren't your usual suspects and that's for the most part a good thing. Sadly it doesn't last, ITN's ability to tell a coherent story rears its head at around the 1/3 mark and the film falls into illogical chaos.

It's easy enough to follow, but it's all over the place. It's unoriginal, not engaging and screams yet another movie cashing in on the good name of H. P Lovecraft.

Building to a messy predictable finale Monster Portal is as poor as the title suggests it would be. There are plenty of passable Lovecraftian tales, choose one of those after this travesty.

Rants

Without Danielle Scott, Chrissie Wunna, May Kelly etc is it really an ITN film? It feels weird at this stage. Same cast, every film, when none of them are present it feels.......wrong! And yet probably the best decisions considering movies they're in are consistently terrible.

The Good

Based on the works of a horror genius

The Bad

Most of the CGI is of a very poor standard Story is a mess This is far from Lovecraftian.

Plot

Three couples and a lonely friend visit an isolated escape room in the middle of the desert run by a mysterious Ukrainian performance artist.

Cast

Outside of Annie Hamilton I knew nobody involved, and even then she's a background player and a face you'll remember but not be able to put a name to.

Verdict

Safe Space was the missus's pick, after last weeks horrendous In The Lost Lands (2025) she had a lot to make up for and after reading the premise she thought this was that horror sub-genre we love so much but is hard to put a name to. Well it's not, it's not even horror, it's barely even a movie at all.

The film opens with character development and got our attention, the characters were a cluster of stereotypes, a combination of uninspired, boring and unlikeable and then when things start to happen (And I use that very very loosely) it falls apart. It kept my attention because I was interested to see how they were going to put it all together but by the half way point I realized they weren't going to be able to and this would just be a disjointed arthouse mess with ambiguous meanings.

I cannot stress how bad Safe Space is, when the credits rolled the pair of us looked at one another in disbelief. I joked that she now can't be trusted to pick movies and we spent the next few minutes picking the film apart, trying to make sense of it, but there was no sense to make.

I cannot fathom who Safe Space is aimed at, what genre it falls under, or how anyone would find this even remotely entertaining.

Rants

I would rather watch in The Lost Lands again than endure 5 more minutes of this. I think I'd rather watch Birdemic and it's sequel, directors cut editions! You know what, I'd rather watch every Sharknado back to back without breaks, having only shaved toe nail clippings and sloth pee as my snacks. What were these people thinking?

The Good

Gets your attention initially

The Bad

Your attention is grabbed, for the wrong reasons Bland characters Makes no sense Pretentious nonsense.