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Halloween (2019) was a solid instalment in the Halloween franchise. I had high hopes going into the sequel but it was a huge disappointment.

Weird editing choices resulted in a choppy and disjointed narrative which flicked between past and present and attempted to tackle too many subplots at the detriment of a cohesive central plot. It seemed to plod down a winding, never-ending road with no apparent rhyme or reason. It lacked suspense and was entirely anti-climatic. There was no build-up and the ending was abrupt. By the end I wondered exactly WHAT this film trying to achieve.

Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), the star of the show, was barely present throughout the whole film and the snippets we did see of her she was confined to a hospital bed. Instead more focus was put on Laurie's daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak). We also saw the reintroduction of familiar characters including Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace, the children that were babysat by Laurie and Annie in the original 1978 film. On paper, this could've worked but it resulted in a melodramatic and ridiculous subplot where the citizens of Haddonfield formed a mob to hunt down Michael Myers (you know, the cold-blooded, violent killer that has a track record of leaving bodies everywhere he goes and surviving multiple gun-shots, fire and stab wounds -face palm-)

I believe the cast did the best with the material they had, but the acting was atrocious and the character detestable. The script was nonsensical and the performances were over the top and unbelievable. As a result, it was more funny than scary throughout. There were so many moments where my friend and I couldn't hold back laughter because of how ridiculous the actions of the characters were.

Nearly every horror film requires viewers to suspend disbelief, particularly when characters made illogical and idiotic decisions, but these characters took this to the extreme. They repeatedly acted without any logic or reason and put themselves in the path of danger. Not a single one of them felt like the type of character audiences could connect with or root for, not even the main characters. In fact, the most sympathetic people in the entire film were the poor couples that Michael brutally killed and were on-screen for only a few minutes.

The kills were OTT and unnecessarily brutal, long and completely uncharacteristic Michael Myers style killings. It wasn't the fear or gore or shock that dominated during those kills, it was boredom. It was gratuitous and that's the one thing that Halloween has always done so well; to tow the line with violence to make the kills chilling and effective.

Overall, this was a poor addition to the franchise and hardly worth watching. It's managed to bag 4 stars from me because it was mildly entertaining in places and Michael Myers still stands the test of time as one of the most iconic killers in horror.

Beneath is about a group of 6 friends go to a lake where they're terrorised by a huge killer fish. Anybody that reads the premise for this film is unlikely to go into it expecting to find their new favourite film. If you're watching it, it's just to watch something a bit trashy for an hour and a half that you can switch your brain off whilst watching. In that regard, Beneath does deliver, but in every other way it FAILS to deliver anything of value.

Being hunted by a big killer fish is dumb but with a good cast, this could've been pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, the characters were actually DUMBER than the large rubber fish that was hunting them. The acting wasn't even that terrible (it was mediocre) but the characters were so poorly coneived and written that there was nothing for the cast to do with them or for viewers to attach themselves to. Every single character was a disgusting person that only cared about their own self preservation. What are the chances that out of 6 people every single one of them is willing to sacrifice their "friends" to save themselves? They didn't even really struggle with the choices they were making it was just, "We need to escape now toss him/her into the water to their death so we can try and get away." Honestly, these people acted in ways that were SO RIDICULOUS that the killer fish was actually more believable.

The plot itself was SO contrived that there was no part of it that was enjoyable. It was just like wash, rinse, repeat. Someone died, they used the body as a distraction to escape on the boat, the fish attacked and destroyed whatever object they were using to paddle, they voted someone off the boat and so the cycle continued. There were no stakes, nothing to get invested in and no reason to watch to the end (I'm surprised I even made it to the end, if it wasn't for the fast forward button, I doubt I would've).

This film is proof that the "most popular" function on Netflix does NOT guarantee a good watch. It's a real shame that this has been propelled into the top 10, because it's going to continue circulating and more and more people are going to waste 90 minutes of their life on a film that's so terrible it's actually embarassing it was even made.