Review – Page 48 – Movie Meister Reviews

November 15, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Home Sweet Home Alone (2021) – Homesick

Released: 12th November
Seen: 12th November

In 1990 a little film called Home Alone was released. On a budget of a little under $20 million, the film went on to make about $476 million worldwide and become an instant classic that spawned exactly 1 good sequel and then 3 films that technically exist. Home Alone influenced so many other film makers who all took a shot at the “Kid makes an elaborate set of traps around the house that leads to an endless amount of slapstick” genre, which is why we have atrocities like The War With Grandpa. So many people have tried to recreate the magic of the original film and no one has pulled it off… and adding to that “Can’t pull off the magic of Home Alone” pile is Home Sweet Home Alone, a film that doesn’t even pretend to understand what made the original special and just desperately cashes in on a 30 year old property without any effort whatsoever.

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November 13, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Candyman (2021) – Sweet

Released: 26th August
Seen: 11th November

In 1992 the world was introduced to one of the modern horror icons, The Candyman. The mythology behind him was simple and powerful, he was the vengeful spirit of a man killed in the 19th century for being part of an interracial relationship. He returns if his name is spoken into a mirror five times and, with a hook where his hand should be, does that thing you expect people to do in slasher films. It’s a not even slightly subtle tale about racism and after the third film didn’t do well either critically or financially the series has been on a hiatus since 1999. Well, we’re going through another grand resurgence of classic horror franchises lately with the monster hit Halloween showing that some of these series still have life in them so it makes sense that Candyman returns now when his particular kind of political horror is most definitely welcome.

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November 12, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Don’t Breathe 2 (2021) – Take My Breath Away

Released: 12th August
Seen: 11th November

The 2016 film Don’t Breathe was one of the best horror films of the 2010s, certainly one of the most fascinating. It was dark, unapologetically so, with a creative set of visuals (That I have talked about in a previous article) and a truly fascinating antagonist in the form of The Blind Man. It was a film that let every character live in the grey area, no one was perfectly good and no one was perfectly evil. It was a fascinating little film that really pushed some buttons… so the sequel decides to play it safe and just turn The Blind Man into a hero, because we can’t have nice things.

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November 11, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Antlers (2021) – Prickly

Released: 28th October
Seen: 9th November

Horror has always been a great genre for talking about the more difficult, darker topics that might be a little too much for other genres. The use of allegory and metaphor can be even more powerful than just discussing a certain topic outright, look at recent hits like Get Out which was just a 2 hour allegory for racism but touched on more elements of the subject than any drama could ever hope for. It’s a powerful tool when used well and Antlers certainly tries to use it and gets a lot out of it, but there’s something kind of off here that makes it fail to live up to its full potential.

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November 10, 2021November 10, 2021 leebutler Review

Behind the Monsters: Episode 1 – Halloween

So this was going to be run on Soda & Telepaths but with that place being rebranded and reviews no longer being a thing I’m going to run it over here instead. Why yes, this does mean at some point I might end up having to do a whole bunch of work moving 50+ reviews over here, you caught onto that… anyway, enjoy this look at a pretty great series

Behind the Monsters is a documentary series on Shudder that explores a different villain from horror history in every episode, covers the franchises that turned them into the iconic characters that they are and discusses their importance to the culture. Made up of interviews with cast, crew, critics and fans of each film, the franchise promises to cover such classic horror villains as Chucky, Freddy Krueger, Candyman, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead and the subject of the pilot episode that will be talked about today, Michael Myers from Halloween.

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November 9, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Wrath Of Man (2021) – That’s Some Good Wrath

Released: 29th April
Seen: 5th November

Guy Ritchie is one of those directors who can be a lot of fun when he really wants to be, presenting an over the top world of blokey blokes doing obscene amounts of violence to each other while yelling as many assorted curse words as they can imagine in thick English accents. When he’s at his best, he creates great things like The Gentlemen, a rip roaring grand old time that I still regularly think about to this day (especially Fletcher, one of the best characters Guy Ritchie has ever created and one of the best performances Hugh Grant will ever give in his life). When he’s at his worst, he phones in absolute garbage like Aladdin, which is still a pale, painful imitation of a classic film that didn’t need a remake. So, what does just an average Guy Ritchie film look like? Probably something like Wrath Of Man… which, hilariously, is itself a remake.

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November 8, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Eternals (2021) – Not Your Normal MCU

Released: 3rd November
Seen: 3rd November

It’s kind of nice having a whole bunch of Marvel films back in cinemas again, with several coming out this year and even more next year, it’s like it was before the world went to hell and back. Well, now it’s time for one of the big ones… Eternals, directed by the woman who brought us Nomadland and that has been getting a thrashing by critics who proclaim it to be the worst MCU film. Is it really the worst MCU film or is this some backlash to actual serious attempts at diversity? Yeah, probably the second one.

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November 7, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (2021) – WeWork Hard, WePlay Hard

Released: 2nd April
Seen: 5th November

In the history of business, there have been some spectacular company deaths, be they big businesses that once cornered a market but failed to keep up with the times (Hi Blockbuster) to little businesses that tried so hard but exploded under their own weight. Then there’s businesses like WeWork, a company that leased out office spaces and homes to people in a way that somehow allowed them to not legally be classified as rental agencies. They were huge, a $47 Billion dollar Titanic just waiting for an iceberg to take it down… this documentary is the story of that iceberg.

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November 6, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Locked Down (2021) – Lock It Up

Released: 14th January
Seen: 5th November

Covid has had an interesting effect on the world of cinema, not only have people had to postpone some pretty major films or change how they film them but some have decided that they’re going to use this hellish time as inspiration. This has led to some genuinely incredible films like Host but it’s also led to absolute drek like Songbird. One of the films that I remember being advertised very early on in this pandemic was a little comedy heist film called Locked Down and the memory was that the trailer promised a good time… the trailer lied, this film is shit and I’m going to complain about its shitness.

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November 3, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Bingo Hell (2021) – Bingo Heck

Released: 1st October
Seen: 1st November

In October of last year, Blumhouse films released 4 movies direct to Prime Video as part of a series titled “Welcome To The Blumhouse”. The films (The Lie, Black Box, Evil Eye and Nocturne) may not have been great but they all displayed a certain amount of promise, introduced some new talent and all broke from tradition by having a diverse cast that wasn’t the typical set of teenage dirtbags that litter the genre like so many soon-to-be-carcasses. Clearly that little experiment did pretty well because this year they’re back with 4 more films and today we’re going to look at Bingo Hell, because evil killer bingo is right up my alley.

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