Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi's reviews

WAR OF THE WORLDS tells an alien invasion story that was originally published in 1897 by H. G. Wells but adapted to the 21st century. One notable and infamous adaptation prior to this film was a 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles which caused a mass panic because people thought the invasion it described was real. I suspect the success of that version in convincing people of the reality of the story might have helped convince the filmmakers to tell this story here as a so-called screenlife movie.

For those who don't know, a screenlife movie usually plays out entirely on a computer or smartphone screen, depicting a protagonist as they interact remotely with other people. This format has been mainly applied to the horror and thriller genres, and some of the resulting movies are truly impressive. If you want to see how far this format can be pushed, I recommend the thriller SEARCHING (2018) and/or the horror movies THE DEN (2013) or HOST (2020).

Anyway, this newest adaptation of Wells' story turns out to be wildly uneven: on the plus side, it does contain interesting examples of how the government could in principle surveil and track you, and it has some suspenseful passages. On the minus side, Ice Cube is badly miscast as a senior domestic surveillance analyst, the story not only has a ton of plot holes, but is actually incoherent in some respects (For example, the protagonist is able to reroute cell phone call via satellite, but about 20 minutes later we are told that the entire satellite network had been taken down two days earlier. There are also a lot of cringy scenes, surprisingly crappy special effects, especially in the second half, and the nod-nod-wink-wink condemnation of consumerism, including of that offered by Amazon, of this Amazon-produced movie, rings hollow in light of blatant product placements.

Ice Cube is actually doubly miscast for the role: First, the way he acts is not at all like what one would expect from such an high-ranking government official. Second, it appears that many of this fans do not like (o are unfamiliar with)with screenlife movies, so the casting likely attracted the wrong crowd.

I like found footage and screenlife movies, so I could enjoy parts of the movie, but I realize that many others might not. But even my enjoyment has its limit because the flaws of this movie are so irritating. Overall, a mediocre effort, and unless you are a fan of the format, I'd recommend watching the much better Steven Spielberg version.

UNLUCKY CHARMS (or just "Charms" on Youtube) is a computer-animated short which follows the unfortunate fate of a bored night attendant at a gas station who decides to participate in a Lucky Charms-lookalike cereal sweepstakes and ends up summoning an Irish Demon instead.

The animation is first-rate: crisp, colorful, atmospheric and with just the right amount of whimsy. I was reminded of some of the Pixar works. The story is fun and leaves the audience eager with anticipation at what happens next. There is even something like a moral in there.

Overall, this is about as good as an animated comedic horror short can get. Kudos to the talented creator, who seems to be largely a one-man operation.

THE SHADOWS SIDE is a mystery horror movie which has received especially low ratings. This made me curious because typically, one can recognize the bare bottom of the lot from the first few minutes, and this was not the case here.

While the opening did seem a bit cheesy, it did not feel like other grade Z- movies: the set design of the opening scene and the opening music seemed nice enough, so I decided to watch.

First off, I think one thing that works heavily against this movie right away is the aural experience it offers (apart from the music score, which is actually not bad): the sound design is not good, and the actors are clearly not native English speakers, both of which imbue the scenes with a stilted feel that repeatedly takes one out of the movie.

This is listed as United States movie, but I suspect that is a marketing/distribution ploy. A more honest and IMO more effective approach would have been to market this as a foreign movie spoken in Portuguese with subtitles. There is an audience for that, even in the States. It is not nearly as big as the audience which wants to see American-made movies only, but it won't be as harsh in judging the language issues.

Another problem is that many tropes in this films are familiar and have been done better; I kept thinking to myself "haven't I seen a scene like this before, but executed with more skill?"

The concept of the story, about a woman trapped in a vacation chalet where the boundary between dream and reality is blurred, is not very original, but could still have turned into an interesting B movie. Unfortunately, the problems mentioned above and a general cheesiness, particularly of the monster, undermine this effort.

The cinematography maintains a consistent color tone yet it is uneven when it comes to the quality of tve shots. A few inspired takes are sandwiched among many mediocre ones.

The movie does not resolve whether what the woman experiences is real or not, and bookending the film with philosophical quotes struck me as pretentious.

All in all, not a good film but still a little better than bottom of the barrel.

INFLUENCER starts out as the tale of the dangers that await a social media celebrity who is too trusting of a woman who befriends her. Madison is a successful influencer who has traveled to Thailand. After staying there for two weeks, affording her some time for reflection, she realizes that her lifestyle no longer fits well with who she really is. She contemplates getting out of it, which includes breaking up with her boyfriend and manager, Ryan. She becomes acquainted with the mysterious CW, who seems a bit overly friendly, and who helps her out when Madison's passport is stolen on her last night, necessitating a longer stay in Thailand. CW takes Madison to an isolated Island, culminating in the movie's opening credits, after which the main story begins.

This movie is billed as a horror-thriller, but it is more thriller than horror. I rated this highly because it not only almost flawlessly executes what it sets out to do, but in the process transcends several problems that beset similar movies.

The direction is impressive. It opens with a zooming wide-angle shot of the island that commands our attention. Even minute details in some scenes reveal meaningful information. The movie flows well, and a flashback scene is well-placed.

I really enjoyed the cinematography. The first time we see CW, she is shot in such a way that we can immediately sense that this beautiful woman is dangerous. Further, we get to see more than glimpses of breathtaking nature scenes, and the atmosphere conveys well the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Actually, the atmosphere and the plot have more than a passing resemblance to those of the story by Patricia Highsmith which was made into the excellent THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY (1999), but this story has enough twists and turns that it can stand on its own. Moreover, it is updated appropriately for the 21st century, and I really liked the fact that technological advances of this century formed an essential aspect of many plot progressions.

Most of the characters are drawn with some depth, and while obviously CW is not who she pretends to be, in fact no major character is what they appear to be. For example, Madison seems like a highly sensitive person who could easily break under pressure, while Ryan seems aloof, bordering on the uncaring. Neither turns out to be truly like that.

All the actors do a great job, but the movie's credibility rests mainly on the shoulders of Cassandra Naud, who conveys the chameleon-like qualities of CW spectacularly.

The villain in this movie is extraordinarily resourceful and intelligent, which is something that unfortunately few thrillers like this manage to pull off credibly. I would never wish upon anyone to meet someone like that in real life, but in this movie she is the perfect psychopath.

I think the last ten minutes or so can be quite polarizing. Without giving away too much, there are basically two ways a movie like this can end, and I think the director appropriately chose the way that fits a movie primarily meant as a escapist entertainment, rather than as a serious cautionary tale about the dangers of social media.

The only real flaw I can discern is that CW is a little bit too much of an enigma. Someone with her combination of determination, ruthlessness, keenness, intelligence and beauty could presumably get what she wants by choosing far less risky endeavors. What is it that really drives her to do what she does? Even just a few minutes spent on a backstory or even just hints of it would have truly rounded out this thrilling tale.

DARK AMAZON documents the travails of a research team trying to find a species of frog in the Amazon Rain Forest that produces an enzyme which can cure cancer. The team is warned of the Anhanga (pronounced anyanga), an evil spirit which is actually a figure in the mythology of some real-life Amazon tribes. The expedition starts out routine, and after several days the Team finds the frog. But then the trip takes a deadly turn...

I love found footage movies that transport the viewer to exotic locations. While there are many, many found footage movies which play out in some regular (i.e. Temperate) forest, including the pioneering BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), I know only of a handful which are set in a rain-forest, including THE DINOSAUR PROJECT (2012), set in Congo, The WOODSMAN (2012) and ALIEN ORIGIN (2015), both set in Belize, AMANUDA (2021) and VAZHIYE (2022) (the latter an unofficial remake of FOLLOWERS (2017)), both set in Southwest India, THE JUNGLE (2013), set in west Indonesia, THE BORNEO INCIDENT (2013), set in Malaysian Borneo, as well as two other movies also set in the Amazon, EXTINCTION (2015) and the grand-daddy of Found Footage films, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980) (in fact, the opening shot of this movie immediately reminded me of its opening shot).

Despite the super-interesting settings, only a few of the above movies are good. I would categorize DARK AMAZON as being among the better ones in this group, even though it is flawed, because this group of movies also contains some real duds.

The greatest strength of this movie is that it really does a marvelous job of immersing us in the Amazon. No time is wasted on pre-trip exposition and we find ourselves in the jungle within the first 5 minutes. Some of the nature shots are gorgeous, and on that front the movie excels.

Events do take their sweet time to get to the horror, about 2/3 in, though it is foreshadowed by rather hokey video effects. In fact, I found the entire treatment of the supernatural aspects of this movie to be hokey. Also, when the first couple people end up dead, with one being decapitated no less, the group seems not nearly as much in fear or panic or even concerned with identifying the threat as one would expect. I don't think this was due to the acting, as I thought it was fairly decent, but rather a problem with the script. I think as a result, the deaths and disappearances in the shrinking group feel oddly impactless.

There is a plot twist toward the end which, I admit, I did not foresee, but it is set up clumsily, with one character's disappearance and reappearance not being explained at all and the relevant motivations totally unconvincing. The faulty set-up and its conspiracy-theoretical nature render the twist ho-hum. Finally, the film tells you right in the opening card that no team members survive, which is a perpetually perplexing pet peeve of mine. Why do film-makers deflate their own movies this way?

So overall, I would say if you like exotic found footage, this movie is worth a watch, but if that is not your draw, then unless you really like found footage movies, you may be disappointed.

I had already seen several of the writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn's ultrastylish art-house movies and was surprised to see that his early movies were completely different.

I watched all three Pusher movies in a row because I wanted to have fresh in my mind how they relate to each other, so I will provide a brief review of each below.

The bottom line is that while the movies all play in the same neighborhood of Copenhagen (Nørrebro) and are suffused with a similar nihilistic crime-laden atmosphere, each is a stand-alone movie only loosely related to the others, and Pusher III is the best of three excellent crime tales.

PUSHER shows us a week in the life of Frank, a small-time drug dealer who tries to pull off, along with his jackass buddy Tonny, a major drug deal on short notice with an old prison acquaintance. The deal goes bust and thereby lands him in a lot of debt and trouble with the gangster Milo.

His predicament is made worse by Tonny, whom he beats up severely after tolerating many prior provocations. This event turns out to be only the opening to increasingly desperate actions Frank undertakes to get the money for Milo.

Pusher is gritty, grimy, hectic and full of unexpected twists and turns. The criminals are drawn realistically and there is none of that Hollywood glamour in this depiction of broken people who constantly use drugs as crutches to get through a life full of danger, despair and disappointment.

It is kind of predictable how the story will end up (though the movie has an open ending) but the journey is what makes watching this movie worthwhile. I rated this 8/10.

PUSHER II maintains the same ambience as the first movie, but focuses now on Tonny. Fresh out of jail, he tries to reconnect with his father, a local crime boss called "The Duke" who owns a garage that is a front for a Chop Shop, an enterprise that takes in stolen cars to disassemble or disguise them for further distribution. Unfortunately, Tonny is a complete idiot, and his efforts to ingratiate himself keep backfiring. On top of that, he finds out that he has become the father of a baby with a prostitute, that his Mother had died while he was in jail, and that his willingness to help his friend (or cousin?) unexpectedly lands him in hot water with his own father.

Although I thought the story in this movie was even better than in PUSHER for showing the crime analog of an unexpected redemption arc as it neatly ties together several story threads, the movie overall was a bit weaker, only because the character of Tonny is the least nuanced in this trilogy, and Mads Mikkelsen's convincing portrayal of this character in a way exacerbated this problem: it is difficult to make an excellent film that has to be carried on the shoulders of a character who consistently does very stupid things. I rated this 7/10

PUSHER III now focuses on Milo, several years after the events of the previous movies. The movie plays out over the span of about 24 hours and is an extraordinary tour de force.

It is his daughter's 25th birthday, and he, as the owner of a restaurant, has promised to cook for 50 guests by the late afternoon. He tries to balance this with his Narcotics Anonymous meetings to help him stay clean of heroin, and an unexpected complication in a drug deal which brings him into contact with some new unsavory characters.

I loved all the rich layers in this movie which show that even though Milo is no idiot, he still does a lot of things that make his life needlessly stressful and complicated.

As a small example, we see him early on carelessly and unappetizingly preparing the food with a cigarette in his mouth and shortly after, his own henchmen eat from it and become incapacitated due to stomach problems. This, in turn, sets in motion a series of much more serious problems for Milo.

As with the previous movies, the plot neatly ties together several disparate threads while going in unpredictable directions, but here the threads are enriched by an international ensemble: Milo, who is Serbian, has to deal with a Turkish small-timer, a Serbian drug supplier who uses an Albanian translator in a hilarious drug deal via translation, the latter of whom unexpectedly brings along a Polish sex trafficker. Multiple languages are spoken in this film, adding another layer of realism with respect to international crime (Make sure to watch with subtitles). I read that this film was criticized in Denmark for its unflattering portrayal of ethnic minorities, but I feel that, given that the entire point of the movie is to depict the lives of criminals, not normal people, this criticism is spurious: criminals come in all ethnicities. Also, it seems to forget the highly unflattering depiction of ethnic Danish criminals in the first two movies.

In fact, the criticism is belied by the fact that Milo's character is the richest-drawn by far in the entire trilogy: he is a gangster, but not a psychopath. He is sometimes careless, but he tries to make things right. He can assert himself, but he is willing to swallow his pride when necessary. He genuinely loves his daughter, but she seems actually more of a predator than him. Finally, while he does bad things, he is not entirely unaffected by the suffering of others. The end result is that while we acknowledge that Milo is bad guy, we still root for him. I never saw the series THE SOPRANOS, but I imagine that it did something similar with its protagonist, the head of a crime family, except that, again, there is none of that Hollywood glorification here.

As the day goes on, Milo's life becomes increasingly hectic and stressful leading to a situation a little reminiscent of the pasta scene in GOODFELLAS (1990). However, here the events become increasingly bizarre and approach insanity. Yet they do not lose their realism, which, I think, is very difficult to pull off. The end result is something of a unique and highly entertaining crime thrill ride which is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. I think PUSHER III hits it out of the park, so my rating is 10/10.

LIFE OF BELLE is found footage horror film in which most of the footage is evidently shot by a young girl (I would say about 5-6 years old) which already is somewhat of a daring proposition. Fortunately, the children in this movie are very natural in most scenes, and this dramatically helps us stay in it. As the main cast and director all have the same last name, I suppose this is a family project, and this may have made it easier for the child actors to act naturally.

The movie's title comes from a Youtube show the girl wants to put together after her parents gift her a camera. Unwittingly, the camera ends up capturing the gradual but relentless mental decline of Belle's mother, apparently because she seems to suffer from some kind of dissociative disorder and refuses to take her medication when her husband has to go away on a business trip.

It helps the movie in setting up the horror to come that both Belle and her brother Linc are adorable. Most of the playing time is spent on showing us ordinary family scenes as they occur in any family with small children, except that they are interspersed with alarming moments of the mother's increasingly eerie and frightening behavior. Still, the increase in discomfort right up to the climax is very gradual, which makes for a very slow burn.

Unfortunately, the movie shows us right at the outset where all this leads to, thereby robbing us of the hope that everything will still turn out well. I honestly don't understand why so many found footage give most of the ending away right at the beginning; it is an editing or directorial choice I strongly disagree with.

Still, when the movie got to the last few minutes, I imagined how what I was being shown seemed so realistic that there probably were actual children with mentally ill and dangerous parents who had to face similar life situations, and it was this thought-such a fate of hapless real-life children as seen through their eyes- that struck me as deeply disturbing.

It was then all the more disappointing to see that the movie made a supernatural turn at the last moment. The horror of having your own loving mother pose a mortal threat to you as a little child is so great that I don't think anything supernatural can top it. This just came off as a cheap, cheesy and unnecessary.

So, all in all, the movie is very good at what it intends to do, and my only criticism is with the revealing beginning and the unnecessary coda. I suspect viewers with small children will be especially affected by this.

OBAYIFO PROJECT has one of those horror movie premises that immediately propels it to the top of my watchlist: a trio of filmmakers want to repeat and film an African Invocation Ceremony originally held 20 years earlier, which ended in a blood bath.

Exorcisms, Seances, and traditional invocations are a staple of the horror genre, and have been almost done to death (pardon the pun) in found footage movies, but a movie based on a supernatural entity of real-life African Folklore I knew nothing about until this film? Hell yeah!

Let me get straight to what this film does best: once the chain of events is set in motion and the obayifo, in this movie portrayed as a sort of African vampire-zombie, is unleashed, it makes for one hell of a scary ride. In this one respect, the movie is outstanding among found footage movies. I am a big fan of such thrill rides in found footage, and I think they do not occur nearly as often as they should in this subgenre (incidentally, the idea of a camera strapped on a monster was also used to great effect in the segment "A ride in the park" of the excellent found footage anthology V/H/S 2 (2013)).

Unfortunately, everything else falls short.

For example, many found footage movies set in exotic locales treat the audience to some of the local scenery and culture. When done well, it enhances the atmosphere and helps transport the audience to that faraway setting. INCANTATION (2022), THE MEDIUM (2021), and JERUZALEM (2015) are examples of found footage movies which are especially strong in this respect. But there is none of that here, except for some generic B-roll. I suspect the movie was not even shot in Africa. The beginning of the movie, however, was definitely shot in Spain, where the filmmakers meet the person who gives them the contact information for the shaman at an amusement park called Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood, of all places.

Another problem concerns character development: the protagonist undergoes a rather extreme and difficult to fathom character arc, the supporting characters seem really not bright, and the shaman seems oddly unconcerned about the mortal danger to the locals, his own neighbors, his invocation might bring. His subject also seems oddly unconcerned with what might happen to him during the invocation. Even the filmmakers seem oddly unconcerned with the potential danger they wish to bring about. I find their motivations hard to understand. Even if they do not believe in supernatural entities (they don't), I would have expected them to be wary of the possibility that a person who is sincerely convinced that he is possessed might suffer a non-supernatural psychotic episode that poses a danger to others.

There is also a problem with too much shaky cam, too little lighting and really bad CGI, which partially took me out of the film. The footage of the original invocation is teased but what is shown of it is disappointing.

Finally, the ending is not good. An implausible and poorly shot final sequence (where was the security camera footage?) is followed by one of the most cliche epilogues one could think of.

This film could have been so much better if all these other aspects had been attended to with greater care and more money. However, I think many found footage fans will still love this movie for its thrill ride.

THE PILOT's eponymous protagonist is a drone operator for the French military, who is engaged, along with his colleagues, in an anti-terrorist mission in Mali. His wife and young daughter are kidnapped and he is given the ultimatum to sabotage his mission or watch them die via videostream.

Although thematically, THE PILOT is somewhat similar to previous movies such as EYE IN THE SKY (2015) and GOOD KILL (2015), which involve a military drone operator who is conflicted in some way, what sets this film apart is its format as what has been called a "screenlife" movie: the entire story plays out on various computer and cell phone screens, putting us right there with the characters.

For those who are not familiar with this format, it has been used to make some excellent gripping movies, mainly in the horror genre, such as THE DEN (2013), UNFRIENDED (2014), UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB (2020) and HOST (2020), as well as in the thriller genre, such as SEARCHING (2018), MISSING (2020) and CTRL (2024).

THE PILOT takes the bells and whistles of this format to a new level, as we witness high-tech drone operations, ground operations and, of course the events in the drone operator room as well the hotel room where the hostages are held.

The acting, particularly by the main protagonist and the child actress, and the production values are very good, the pace is fast and one hardly notices some of the CGI, but more importantly, the story is told in a genuinely suspenseful manner. Perhaps because this is a French movie, the plot deviates from typical Hollywood fare in that it does not shy away from showing the ugliness of the whole enterprise. Overall, I am really impressed with this film.

There are a few minor quibbles, on which your mileage may vary: the movie gives the impression that it plays out in real time, but it seems to me that there is no way that some of the plot points could be reached so quickly, one after the other. But I forgive this as a necessary compromise in the interest of maintaining a fast pace and suspense.

At times the screen is so busy it becomes reminiscent of watching a video game, but then, that may well have been part of the point, given that a major ethical challenge in military drone operations is that they gamify human death and suffering.

For those who are not fluent in French, the subtitles can present a challenge, as there is sometimes so much going on that it becomes difficult to both follow the action and read the subtitles. This film definitely deserves an English-language dubbing, though even then there will be still a need for subtitles for all the text messages that are exchanged.

This is one of those hidden gems which, perhaps because of the language barrier, or perhaps because another movie by the same name came out the year before, has not received the attention and love it definitely deserves. Writer/Director Paul Doucet deserves a lot of kudos for his finely crafted action thriller.

In 2013, the movie "To Jennifer' was released which billed itself as the first movie shot entirely on the iphone (interestingly, only 2 weeks later another found footage movie HOOKED UP (2013) (which I found quite entertaining but is not to everyone's taste) was released which also claimed to be shot entirely on an iphone). This was followed in 2016 by 2 JENNIFER, 2017 by this movie and finally 2018 FOR JENNIFER (notice the puns).

I just binge watched all four movies, and would like to briefly review these here. The bottom line is that unless you are a hardcore found footage horror movie fan, the only one worth watching is FROM JENNIFER, which can be treated as a stand-alone movie.

TO JENNIFER is a kind of road trip movie in which the main character wants to assemble footage for a film to give to his girlfriend whom he suspects has cheated on him. He is joined by his giggling cousin who has an unerring penchant for making the worst decisions in a given situation, and another friend who personifies every negative personality trait associated with Frat Bros. What sinks the film are three really unlikable main characters and plot twists which can be predicted way ahead of time. This movie is light on horror and gore and more a psychological account of somebody already barely holding on to reality completely descending into the dark side of madness. I rated this as a 5/10.

2 JENNIFER goes meta in that it treats the event of the first movie as fiction which inspires events in the real world. The main character in this movie is creepier than the main guy of the first movie and his sidekick, a clueless but well-meaning friend serves as a good foil, reminding one of a similar dynamic in the movie CREEP (2014), where it is however depicted much more effectively. Like the first movie, this film takes its time before it gets to the horror, but once it arrives, it is way gorier than the first film. In fact, whereas one of the weaknesses of the first film IMO is that it does not delve enough into horror, the problem in 2 is that it delves into too much too quickly after holding back for for a while. One loses interest and stops caring, even if the director and one of the main actors of the first movie show up as fictionalized versions of themselves. I also rated this as a 5/10.

FROM JENNIFER stays at the meta level with respect to the first movie, but switches it up in that the protagonist is now a woman called Jennifer who repeatedly insists not to call her Jenny because that is the name for a female donkey. Whereas the first two movie had some black humor, they were not really funny, but FROM JENNIFER has several genuinely funny laugh out-loud scenes. But even dramatically it holds interest on the basis of the relationship between Jennifer and her devoted bumbling giant Butch, who is just about the most hilariously inept help one could not wish for. Rounding out the main characters is a bubbly blonde who perfectly personifies the vapidity and self-centeredness of influencer culture. While the first two movies might have arguably carried some kind of message relating social media to social harm, it comes across as muddled and unclear. Not so in the third movie: the social critique is razor-sharp, as illustrated by the fact that its protagonist wants the film she makes to be the first member of a novel movie subgenre, namely a "revenge porn revenge movie". Keeping this in mind, the movie ends on a brilliantly ironic note. I rated this 7/10 which in my rating system means that I consider it a good movie.

The last movie in this quadrilogy, FOR JENNIFER, is unfortunately also the weakest. It begins chaotically, and the main characters fail to convince. It is set in a universe in which the first movie is fiction and the second and third movies are real. There is a sort of reunion of the surviving cast members of the previous films, culminating in a gory climax, but there is little logic or sense to it, other than that it seems to attempt to poke fun at horror tropes and fans of horror movies. I think the general concept was not bad, but it was quite poorly executed. I rated this 4/10.

So, again, if you are an avid fan of found footage movies, you might enjoy all four, but if not, then the only one which I think comes under consideration is FROM JENNIFER, especially if you like horror comedies.

NIAS is the name of the cat at the center of this story about a loopy but well-meaning old lady who tries to save a cat she thinks is being abused by the bratty daughter of its owners. She proceeds to kidnap it, and thereby sets in motion a cascade of unexpected events.

The entire film is shot from the perspective of a camera inside the carrier box of the cat and, surprisingly, it works. Apart from a few scenes in which the carrier is turned to the side to let us see what is going on, when clearly just the person needed to turn around, this conceit did not strike me as contrived.

The concept of the movie is unlike that of any other found footage movie I have seen, and the minuscule budget of $6500 proves that good ideas trump lots of money in film.

There is some black humor as well as social commentary, especially on the role and treatment of pets in society and I found the film very entertaining. Some of the acting was wooden, but the main actress did a great job conveying the character that carries the story.

Overall, I think found footage fans and cat lovers will really like this movie. Even if you don't like found footage movies, the short duration of about an hour might make it worth a try.

A teenage girl whose mother suffers from some mysterious debilitating illness notices strange changes in her body while also suffering continued harassment at her new job at a fish processing facility and has her first experience with love. Little does she know what her bodily changes will lead to....

I recently also saw the Norwegian VIKING WOLF (2022), and can't help contrasting these two Scandinavian entries into the werewolf oeuvre. Whereas VIKING WOLF is a conventional horror film in the manner of Hollywood horror (somehow the Norwegians seem to be consistently great at emulating Hollywood), WHEN ANIMALS DREAM is much less conventional, not just with respect to the basic story but also in how it is filmed and even how it changes some of the rules of werewolf lore (for example, there is no temporary full moon transformation, talk of silver bullets or rabid blind lust for killing).

I ended up rating both movies the same, just short of good, but for very different reasons. While VIKING WOLF is quite entertaining, during the last 15 minutes or so it suddenly changes gears and begins to unnecessarily pile one implausibility after another, to such an extent that I wonder whether that part of the screenplay was written by somebody other than the person who wrote the earlier parts. WHEN ANIMALS DREAM, in contrast, stays consistent, though it is so understated that this takes a bite out of its entertainment value. Fans of more conventional horror fare will likely find this film too boring, and even the climax in which multiple people are dispatched has trouble generating excitement. I guess people who like introspective, quiet movies may be the most likely audience for this film.

A woman somehow becomes convinced that she will die the next day, and the meme "I will die tomorrow" begins to spread among her circle of friends like a virus.

This could have been the premise of an intriguing and disturbing mystery/psycho/horror thriller, but the film-makers decided to go the arthouse route and basically threw any potential away. I actually enjoy arthouse movies, but there has to be substance, too.

We are introduced to several characters in an increasingly cursory fashion, caring for each new person less. The cause of this phenomenon is left open and the reason why people see mysterious red and blue lights when they "get infected" is unclear. The story appears to be told in a nonlinear fashion, which makes the slow-moving and boring events more difficult to make sense of, one person gets injured but we don't know why or how, it appears the "patient zero"(?) who "infected" the woman we are shown initially did indeed die, but we don't know why or how, and then the movie simply ends.

I found this film deeply frustrating. It ended up feeling like an elaborate near-1.5 hour prank played on the audience by the filmmakers, too see how much they can get away with wasting the viewer's time. That many movie critics rated this highly just tells me that their judgment is unreliable. The acting and some of the cinematography were decent, but that is not enough to make a good movie by a long shot.

An atmospheric historical prologue sets the stage for this Werewolf movie set in modern-day Norway, which is enjoyable for most of its runtime.

There is gorgeous scenery and some family drama as the mystery of the first victim's attacker unfolds slowly, with care and sensitivity, and the main actress who plays the police chief holds it all together with her excellent performance.

I happened to coincidentally watch the short horror film FOXES (2011) yesterday which used the heterochromia idea in a similar way as in this film.

The story makes a few unexpected turns here and there, and then comes the finale, where the film somehow goes off the rails by piling one illogic on top of another. This part is so poorly written it almost feels as if the last 15 minutes were written by a different person than the one who wrote what came before.

The werewolf remembers how to get home but not who its family and lover are? The vet wants to use a tranquilizer with no prior experience in this animal? The hunter simply runs his truck into a store intentionally and without a seat belt? The Werewolf with its monumental biting power is unable to bite through a simple protective arm sleeve?

There is also a cutting away technique used repeatedly enough that it becomes annoying. Finally, the ending is left open in exactly the wrong way. We don't know the state of key characters, whether there are more infected people and whether the secret came out. This was a really poor way to end the movie, and it mitigated much of the goodwill engendered. This is mainly just for Werewolf movie fans.

What if there was a door which could take you literally to other worlds, guided by your imagination?

This is the very fun concept explored by HOSTILE DIMENSIONS, a found footage movie in which all the action is seen either via cameras held by the characters or placed elsewhere.

Found footage is a niche genre, and unfortunately there are many such movies which are just not good, probably because they look like anybody and their brother could make one. Consequently, many untalented people attempt to, filling this subgenre with a lot of drivel, Also, there are certain story lines which are used over and over (example: film crew explores abandoned house/hotel/asylum/prison or what have you, and then experiences misfortune), making a lot of these movies quite predictable.

I have seen many found footage films and find it really refreshing to see one that explores a story this potentially mind-bending. It is also quite clear that this is one of those movies where the vision far exceeded the budget. Though the special effects are not top notch, they are adequate to convey that vision, and other nice cinematographic touches, like the colored doors on the beach, effectively contribute to a strange but fun feel for this movie.

The biggest drawback I find is the screenplay, which draws characters who seem unconvincing in their motivations (might be partially also be due to wooden acting in some cases), has some plot holes, could be better on the dialogue and does not quite explain certain things, including the ending. On the plus side, there is a plot twist I did not see coming somewhat around midway. I feel a couple rewrites would have helped a lot here.

So, while this is a flawed film, it is still better (and especially more fun) than the majority of found footage movies and that is how I rated it. Now this concept I would love to see milked more often.

What if there was a malevolent demon which could possess multiple people at once, and use technology to spread faster?

This is the intriguing idea explored in e-DEMON, a live streaming type horror film, in which all the action is seen via livestreams on a computer screen. The unique format has been used to excellent results in horror movies like THE DEN (2013), UNFRIENDED (2014), and more recently and THE HOST (2020) and INVITED (2024). E-DEMON does not quite reach the greatness of these movies, but it is by no means a bad film. The current 3.7 IMDB rating is definitely way too harsh.

I suspect the reason for the low rating is that many people may be turned off by the contrived way the "freakouts" are handled in the first third of the movie, the term referring to elaborate pranks that the four protagonists have a history of playing on each other. This aspect does seem far too forced at times, but once we are past the first third and the protagonists realize something serious is happening, the movie picks up steam.

Other quibbles I have are that an anonymous announcer of the "e-demon resistance" bookends the film, which I found worse than useless because it not only brings nothing of value to the table but spoils the ending, and that some plot progressions at times seem a bit choppy. Leaving the bookends on the cutting floor and smoothing out several transitions would have made for a better (meaning: more disturbing) movie watching experience.

Still, there are some genuinely disturbing moments as the movie takes the live streaming concept to interesting places, and features innovations like a first-person view of a drowning and jumping out of a car.

Throughout watching this I was reminded of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) which I still consider one of the best horror films ever. It is in a completely different league than this film, but what e-DEMON does demonstrate is that the basic concept of people being replaced by malign versions still has a lot of life in it left, particularly in light of new technologies.

A burglar enters an apartment and discovers the long-dead body of a man in a locked chamber. While he storms out of the apartment he sees a mysterious man clad in white, and making it to his car, he sees him again but this time burning himself in front of him.

Fast forward, and a string of unexplained suicides starting with that of the burglar plague the city, a repeat of an event that occurred years earlier that stopped as suddenly as it had started. Among its victims were relatives of the protagonists who must now solve the riddle of what it all means.

This is the setup of SINDROM, an obscure Russia horror movie which does not really deserve its obscurity. It is well-constructed, well-shot, well-acted, atmospheric and has a reasonably logical ending.

Though the mystery turns out to be variant of the trope of that seeing something can have adverse consequences, common to movies like RINGU (1998) and its American remake THE RING (2002), THE GRUDGE (2004), SHUTTER (2004), and a number of other such movies, its slow reveal is effective while retaining a modicum of its own interpretation. SINDROM does not quite reach the aforementioned movies, especially with respect to the scare factor, but it is by no means a bad horror film and it does have its own disturbing moments.

The main problem is that the characters (thankfully only occasionally) do not proceed very intelligently, and that even with an apparent dub, the voice actors all have a Russian accent (which I did get used to).

I liked that the conclusion even posed something of an ethical dilemma, though it gave an easy way out.

In short, if you like movies like the above, you will probably like this one as well.

AMBER ALERT gives a vicarious experience for something that could realistically happen to any of us:

you sight a car matching an Amber Alert; what would you do?

Would you just call the police and leave it at that, or would you try to do more?

Most people would probably just alert the authorities and then go their own way, but if the protagonists did that, there would obviously be no movie.

There are several things I liked about this film: the originality and realism of the setup; how initially small decision like tailing the suspect from the distance lead to bigger decisions down the road, so that before long, the protagonists end up doing something they would have never agreed to doing at the outset; the prolonged sense of mystery, keeping alternate possibilities requiring drastically different decisions alive as long as possible; finally, a lesson about the consequences of one's actions.

Unfortunately, there are some flaws, too: a significant portion of the dialogue is yelled, which suggests to me that the dialogue was improvised, there could have been a dose of humor, and the protagonists were not as likable as they should have been, straddling the border of being annoying. Without these flaws, this would have been a great found footage movie.

I enjoy Found footage movies most when they manage to help me immerse myself in the movie's world and vicariously explore a hypothetical "what if" scenario. This film did that.

AMBER ALERT is not for people who let difficult characters ruin their viewing experience, or for those who hate found footage movies, but others will find this probably to be interesting and enjoyable.

I just finished watching ENCOUNTER (2021) and found it to be a pretty good drama-thriller. Since I had not heard of its director, Michael Pearce, I checked on some of his other works on IMDb. I noticed that he has several short movies which are rated under 2, an unusually low rating on this site. This made me curious enough to watch one of them.

In STRANGER, a young man and woman are frolicking outside by a meadow, passed by a stranger. Soon it becomes apparent that the woman is actually blind, and an unexpected tragedy befalls them...

There is not a single word spoken in this short, and the ending is somewhat open. Perhaps people thought that this was too pretentious, but I did not. The moment of the life-altering event is actually delivered quite effectively using the audio, and contributes to a growing sense of unease.

I do not understand how anyone could give this such low ratings. It has an original idea, it achieves what it sets out to do, and while it may not be among the very best that short film has to offer, it is not bad. The IMDb rating of 1.7 at this time is entirely unreasonable.

COSMOS joins a small but eclectic group of excellent movies which give an emphatically realistic account of how a first encounter with an extraterrestrial lifeform might play out. These include CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), CONTACT (1996), ARRIVAL (2016), and if we include a story set in the future, EUROPA REPORT (2013).

All of these are well worth watching, but what makes COSMOS stand out is that whereas the others all had sizeable budgets, this one was made with no financial backing while seemingly sacrificing no production quality. To accomplish this, the brother duo of film-makers, Elliot and Zander Weaver, either used pre-owned equipment, borrowed it or rigged creative solutions to achieve the desired result. They also employed a small cast, took on virtually all crew tasks except for composing, got Mom to help and used basically a single location.

It did take 5 years to make it, and there are no spectacular CGI effects, but the cinematography and production values are every bit as good as with a movie with a seven- or even eight-digit budget. It is truly an impressive achievement.

But even setting the no-budget considerations aside, this is an excellent hard science fiction movie.

As a physicist, I appreciated how well it captured how real-world science works: there are long periods where nothing truly exciting happens but during which one must still pay just as much attention to everything and work just as hard as any other time, enlivened only by the camaraderie with one's peers.

Very occasionally, something exciting happens, and if it is confirmed that one has made a genuine discovery, that one is the very first person in the history of all of humankind to find out that particular thing, then it more than makes up for the mundane proceedings at other times.

The first hour or so captures the mundaneness of regular science, enlivened by a sense of camaraderie. Notably, the movie does not dumb down what the scientists are doing. Because of this and the slow pace, I can imagine that some people might be turned off, especially if they don't have a good idea of how science is carried out in real life. But those who persist will be rewarded in the second half.

During the second hour, as it becomes increasingly clear that a small team of scientists might have made a major discovery, the film kicks into high gear and adds a heavy dose of suspense. The suspense is not generated by entirely realistic means, but it is easy to forgive this in light of the movie's overall realism.

The cinematography is simply a pleasure to behold, full of atmospheric shots, and the plot injects a good dose of humanity into what could have easily become an emotionally sterile story.

Most impressively, the movie truly manages to capture the sense of excitement such a discovery might produce, not only for the discoverers, but for all of us. This is an inspired work of film-making.

GHOST WEBCAM is a horror movie in which all the action plays out on a computer screen, as people communicate with each other via video calls.

A young man under house arrest chats with a young woman via a dating app. She directs him to the eponymous website, and before long she seems to fall victim to a ghost right on his screen.

There are by now a number of horror movies in this format, and some of them are quite good to excellent: THE DEN (2013), UNFRIENDED (2014), HOST (2020) and this year's THE INVITED (2024), for example. Each of these starts with a unique premise and develops the story in a direction that is not only unexpected but builds on what came before to present an overall coherent story in an entertaining and especially a gripping way.

In this movie, we have a unique and even intriguing premise, but the direction the story takes is neither particularly coherent nor particularly gripping.

I want to be clear that while it is obvious that this is an extreme low-budget film, I am not holding that against it. Rather, I see the main problem with the screenplay. A few more rewrites could have for example made a more coherent connection between events from 30 years before and the present, reduced the "dead time" moments in the film while cranking up the intensity in the latter parts of the film, and made the motivations of the ghost as it relates to the bystanders more plausible (for instance, via surprising plot twists or unexpected connections) while taking the story in surprising directions.

The implausibility that struck me the most was that a ghost with the powers shown in the final scenes would have no need to contact people the way it does.

Since the film is at about an hour pretty short, it may still entertain fans of the genre without overstaying its welcome, but to me it represents a missed opportunity because its biggest problem is not a a lack of money but a lack of ideas.

THE INVOCATION OF ENVER SIMAKU documents the effort of a man who tries to find out what exactly happened during a particular night in 1997 when his wife and dozens of local Albanian villagers were murdered by a seeming madman, and a period of upheaval began in the entire country.

This is a slow-burn story which takes its time to follow various leads and in the meanwhile introduces us to various topics of Albanian culture, geography and history. For a movie that is not a real documentary, it contains quite a lot of such information, and I found this aspect the most interesting. Now I know, for example, that Albania during Communist times was declared the world's first atheist country, prohibiting the exercise of religion altogether until the regime's downfall in 1990; that superstition and belief in folk myths such as the kukuth, a demon-like creature that is supposed to make people do horrible things, began to occupy the vacuum of belief in at least in some people; and that the fall of the Albanian right-wing government in 1997 was catalyzed by the failure of Ponzi schemes and subsequent losses in which the overwhelming majority of the population had invested based on the irresponsible endorsement by their government.

When it comes to the story itself, it doesn't generate too much excitement, save for a couple of unsettling scenes, of which the seeming slow emergence of a kukuth from behind a couch (or was it just the imagination?) is probably the most notable. The ending, which recapitulates the beginning, seems to have been conceived as poetic but ends up being anticlimactic.

The film is at pains to say that it is based on true events. Whether it really is or not I can't tell, but all the background info I checked turned out correct. So, this is probably most suited for people who like to learn more about other cultures in general and Albania in particular.

Coming across this title in an article that called it a "cult classic" and having never heard of it but hoping that it might be something like other enjoyable mid-80s horror comedy fare like GREMLINS (1984), THE GOONIES (1985) or even CRITTERS (1986), I decided to give it a try.

Wow, it just has to be seen to be believed how utterly bad this is at everything except the special effects: a non-plot with pointless dead-end plot lines, aggressively stupid characters who are so flat that only their stupidity makes them character-like, lack of continuity and non-sensical event progressions, atrocious acting, all rounded out by intrusive synth sounds. Also, this is one unfunny "comedy".

The special effects are the star here, and for 80s movies they are not bad. The monster creature designs are not the very best that this era produced (see, for example THE THING (1980) or AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) ) but they are passable and there is a copious number of them.

This movie could have still gotten by as a monster effects showcase if it weren't so aggressively stupid and annoying. As it was, despite the fact that I do enjoy even hokey 80s special effects, I could not wait for this to be over.

A teenager finds an old-fashioned pair of glasses with a Latin inscription by the wayside and discovers that when he puts them on, he can suddenly perceive demons and, moreover, this effect only occurs when he puts on the glasses, not when anybody else does.

What sounds like a potentially intriguing premise for a supernatural horror film is utterly ruined by insisting on making this film a vehicle for heavy-handed Christian propaganda.

The problems already start with the overall structure, where the story is framed as a reminiscence of youth of the now-older protagonist to his teenage son, a structure which serves no discernable dramatic purpose. Presumably, this was meant to lend the story and its lesson (to accept Jesus into your heart) an air of authority, but that is undermined by the sometimes inane exchange between father and son.

Then we have the protagonist not just being able to see the demons when he puts on the glasses, but hearing and possibly feeling them, too! How is that for religious logic!

Early on, the film argues that even from a science standpoint, there are things which we may not be able to see, such as microorganisms and atoms, but which nonetheless exist. This is true, as far as it goes, but if we want to draw an analogy between these and demons to lend the authority of science to the idea that the latter exist, we cannot just stop half-way: microbes and atoms are not the kind of things which can be perceived by only one person under the same conditions. In fact, the more reasonable conclusion is that if only one person sees things that others fail to perceive under the same condition, then that person is probably hallucinating.

While early on the film drops hints that this is "Christian Horror", the proselytizing gets ever more blatant and cringy. The production quality is okay for the 90s, but the script is hilariously inept, even if we set the religious stuff aside. The constant interruption of the flashbacks by the superfluous father-son exchange breaks the flow, the characters are cardboards, and the emotional climax involves an absurdly contrived situation.

The people who rated this drivel highly did not do it because of its quality but because they agree with its religious message.