ethanbresnett

Just One of the Girls surprised me in a few ways. It follows a high school student who decides to disguise himself as a girl when he transfers schools in order to avoid a gang of bullies. It's a goofy but perfectly respectable premise, that maybe isn't quite fully realised.

I must say, for a film from 1993 focused on a boy dressing up as a girl, it was surprisingly non-offensive. There were some icky pervy scenes to it which did date it, but actually the drag element wasn't the butt of all the jokes which was refreshing. In fact, a lot of the characters kind of rolled with it which was a surprising but welcome element of the script. As well as being non-offensive, the story was actually half decent. It had lots of the classic high school coming of age movie elements and tropes. None of them were particularly well done, but they weren't bad either. My main concern was that I just didn't care too much about any of the characters. I needed something to make me invest in it a bit more.

In terms of the humour, I thought this film could have been a lot funnier. There were actually a few clever jokes in what could have been a lowest common denominator script, but on the whole it was just average.

Weirdly I actually really liked the performances. The central performance of Corey Haim was really fun and he seemed to be having a good time with the role. I also thought Cameron Bancroft as the bully was quite entertaining.

Overall then, this film is perfectly watchable. The premise is decent, even if the end of the film is wildly predictable from the outset. It has some fun ideas, average comedy, and a couple of entertaining performances. Worth a watch if you like high school movies and drag!

Only a 5.5 IMDb score (at the time of writing)!? Ouch. Fair enough this film doesn't quite stick the landing and surrenders to a few tropes towards the end, but that feels harsh. I actually thought this film was pretty atmospheric, creepy, and had an intriguing angle to it.

The film follows Mia, whose paranormal investigating sister Riley went missing many years ago. Never giving up hope, a fresh clue sparks an investigation by Mia to finally put to bed the mystery of her sister's disappearance. The film shines when it is following Mia's investigation, as she searches for clues and sets out to uncover the truth. More of this detective angle would have been much better and made the film stand out even more, but it is still sufficient, especially given the short length of the film. Yes, it does surrender to a certain formula towards the end, and the reveal as to what happened to Riley does feel a bit derivative, but the journey there is still an absorbing one.

Performance wise, I thought Camille Sullivan in the lead role of Mia was great. She conveyed a lot of emotion and fear and nailed it in my opinion. There wasn't much of a supporting cast in truth, just a small collection of side characters, but we do see plenty of Riley through videos capturing her paranormal investigations, and this is also a strong performance.

As mentioned already, I thought the atmosphere of this film was great. It was spooky, intense, and genuinely felt like a real mystery. Towards the end it may be a bit derivative, but even then it is still executed well.

Overall then I feel this film is being piled on a little bit! Sure it isn't groundbreaking, but it is a perfectly respectable horror film that has a good plot, decent horror and suspense, and a great lead performance.

I suppose I've only got myself to blame for watching this...

I do actually think that the concept is perfectly good and had potential for some fun action and decent comedy, but that just didn't come to fruition. Everything felt so bland and poorly executed. The characters were all two dimensional and uninteresting. There was a criminal lack of action. The effects were noticeably bad in places (although actually surprisingly good in others). Just all a bit of a bland mess really.

The only reason I'm giving it some stars is because it is relatively short which does it a lot of favours. It also does have good effects in parts, and I didn't hate the design of the creatures. I also liked the simplicity of the story and how it didn't get bogged down in explaining what the creatures were etc.

Ultimately though I wouldn't bother with this film if I were you. There are many other films in this genre that do a much better job with a similar concept.