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Another hit-and-miss from Matt Rife. I got into stand-up in the past few years and his social crowd work clips pulled me in. Those two minute reels were sharp and funny and they pushed him into the spotlight. He kept saying he is a stand-up first and that crowd work is only a small part of his set, yet his whole online presence relies on those clips.

His first stand-up special proved why. It ran for more than an hour and the jokes fell flat. The ending felt like he snapped at the room then walked off with a line about how he only does crowd work. The whole thing bombed and the reaction showed it.

Then he tried a full crowd work special. That also bombed. No real laughs and no real spark.

Now we get this. A "crowd work" Christmas special with an audience that feels staged. The jokes are weak and he repeats the same bit across shows. The questions and answers feel stiff. The laughter sounds short and forced. The faces in the crowd look like they got cues from a producer. The timing gives away how scripted it is. The bit about masturbation shows it clear as day. He sets it up like it's spontaneous but both he and the camera hit their marks too clean.

He also opens with twenty minutes of plain stand-up and none of it lands. It feels dull and awkward with jokes that sound childish.

I said this back in his first special and I see more people saying the same now. He is sliding fast. I hope the water sponsor pays well because the comedy is not doing it anymore.

I honestly don't understand why The Wailing has such a high rating. I went in expecting a top-tier horror film and ended up genuinely bored. It's almost three hours long and never earns that runtime. The pacing is uneven, there's no real flow to the story, and the film constantly drifts between sub-genres without committing to anything.

The biggest problem? The noise.

Everyone is shouting, panicking, crying or overreacting in every scene. It becomes exhausting to the point of irritation. Instead of building atmosphere or tension, the film relies on constant chaos, loud emotional outbursts and endless confusion. After a while it stops being immersive and just feels messy.

People call it "deep" or "symbolic," but honestly it comes off as overrated simply because it's Korean and automatically treated as "art-house horror." Personally, I found the storytelling scattered, the emotional tone all over the place, and the whole experience far more frustrating than frightening.

A long, chaotic, overhyped film that didn't justify its length or its reputation - at least not for me.