Thriller – Page 8 – Movie Meister Reviews

May 12, 2023 leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Glorious (2022) Is Quite Alright!

Originally posted on Soda & Telepaths September 3rd 2022

Glorious Plot

Wes (Ryan Kwanten) is having a bad day, to say the least. He’s just broken up with his girlfriend, Brenda (Sylvia Grace Crim) and in his frustration, he’s gone on a long drive and gotten unreasonably drunk at a rest stop that’s out in the middle of nowhere. After spending a few hours at the rest stop getting wasted, Wes needs to use the bathroom in the rest stop and so he gets into the only unoccupied stall.

After a while he begins talking to the mysterious person in the locked stall beside him, only to discover that the stall doesn’t have a person in it but a cosmic demigod known as Ghatanothoa (J.K. Simmons) who has brought Wes to this rest stop in order to ask for a favour, and to torment him with occasional visions of his past.

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March 26, 2023 leebutler Action, Crime, Review, Thriller

John Wick: Chapter Four (2023) – Mr Wick, Welcome Back

Released: 23rd March
Seen: 25th March

It’s a little stunning to think that it was only ten years ago we were first introduced to John Wick, a hitman who merely wanted to live out his life in peace with his car and his dog who ended up being attacked and having his car stolen and dog killed. Thus began the legend of John Wick which has carried through three of the best action films of the last 20 years. Each entry in the John Wick franchise feels like it’s been dared to one up the film that went before it and so far, every single time it’s pulled that off with some of the most elaborate and intense action sequences to be put on film. Well now we’re here at Chapter 4 and it must be said, they certainly TRY to one-up themselves from the last time.

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March 10, 2023 leebutler Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Scream 6 (2023) – Scream A Little Louder

Released: 9th March
Seen: 8th March

On June 6th Neve Campbell made an announcement that she was not going to appear in Scream 6 due to negotiations with Paramount falling through when they didn’t give her the money that she felt she was worth to the franchise. This was, quite frankly, insane to believe because Neve Campbell is the face of the Scream franchise, as important to it as phone calls and the concept of horror movie trivia so for Paramount to decide to just not give her what she is worth is abysmal on their part. It is my sincere hope that when Scream 7 comes around they actually give her what she deserves and then some because I don’t know how many films in this franchise they can make without the iconic Sidney Prescott… apparently, they can make at least one though because, despite this serious issue, Scream 6 is actually fantastic.

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March 6, 2023 leebutler Comedy, Review, Thriller

Cocaine Bear (2023) – THE BEAR DID COCAINE!

Released: 23rd February
Seen: 5th March

In 1985 a 175 kg black bear in the wilderness of Tennessee came upon a bag of cocaine that had been dumped from a plane by Andrew C. Thornton II, a noted drug dealer (who, hilariously, jumped from the plane with his cocaine and died because his parachute didn’t open). Like any good bear who finds a fuckload of cocaine, this big black bear ate so much cocaine that it was later found dead from an overdose. This bear has since been taxidermied and given the glorious name of Cokey The Bear… this is a completely true story, this absolutely happened. The only thing we don’t know is what this bear did between finding the cocaine and dying from the overdose. Cocaine Bear decides to answer that question and it’s absolutely glorious.

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January 20, 2023 leebutler Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

M3GAN (2023) – Living Doll

Released: 12th January
Seen: 19th January

In 2019, thanks to some wild legalese that still makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, MGM released the film Child’s Play which was a remake of the 80s classic of the same name. The big thing that made the new Child’s Play different (besides it being bad) was that the doll was actually a robot with advanced AI that had violence programmed into it… it was dumb and not good in many ways but the fact that it was a feature-length version of the “Someone switched this thing to evil” gag from Treehouse of Horror instead of the possession story that we loved was a big reason why. However, the idea of a child’s toy that kills due to faulty AI isn’t a half-bad idea, it just didn’t work with the Child’s Play franchise but if someone smart were to take that idea and make it original, fun, maybe a little campy and not stupid as fuck then maybe we might have something.

Pleased to report, M3GAN is original, fun, campy and not stupid as fuck, we absolutely have something here.

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December 10, 2022 leebutler Horror, Thriller

The Invitation (2022) – RSVP-lease Stop Immediately

Released: 25th August
Seen: 9th December

It’s been said a few times that 2022 has just been a fantastic year for horror. It feels like every few weeks there’s another horror film coming out and a shocking amount of them have been absolutely incredible. From surprising microbudget hits like Terrifier 2 to major releases like Scream, horror this year has been on another level of quality the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. However, even in a year full of fantastic horror films there will always be a few major duds and it’s fair to say that The Invitation might be the biggest horror dud of 2022.

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November 29, 2022 leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review, Thriller

The Menu (2022) – Eat Up

Released: 24th November
Seen: 27th November

When reading film criticism, one comparison you will often find is the critics comparing a piece of art to food. It’s so common that it’s basically a cliche, if you want to make fun of a critic you merely need to say something in a slightly upper-crust accent and compare whatever you’re talking about to a common item of food. For example “The painting’s colour palette is as vivacious as a freshly grown strawberry”, it means absolutely nothing but sounds just intellectual enough to work in most cases.

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November 17, 2022 leebutler Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Smile (2022) – It’s Smile Time!

Released: 29th September
Seen: 16th November

2022 is turning out to be a fantastic year for horror, every month just seems to have another great horror flick for fans of the genre to enjoy. Not only has Horror as a genre been doing great, but the kind of horror that’s striking it big is so varied. Films like Terrifier 2, Barbarian, Scream, Hellraiser, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Nope and X are just a handful of horror titles that’ve come out this year and turned this into one of those years that horror fans will mark as a turning point for the genre. Smile is just another film to throw on the pile that we will point to in years to come when proclaiming 2022 to be one of the best years for horror in quite a long time.

Also, time to issue a content warning, this film deals heavily with ideas of suicide and mental illness and those will need to be discussed so consider this your trigger warning.

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October 13, 2022 leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Halloween Ends (2022) – One Last Scare

Released: 13th October
Seen: 12th October

In 1978, John Carpenter changed the world of horror films and indeed cinema as a whole when he released Halloween. A simple but intense slasher film, Carpenter’s film was not only a technological triumph, thanks to its use of what would become known as the Steadicam shot, but one of the most tension-filled horror films to ever exist. Naturally, it spawned sequels, some good and some god-awful before eventually being revitalised in 2018 with another film called Halloween that asked the simple question “What would Laurie be like in the aftermath of such a traumatic night” and it was a genuinely great re-entry to the franchise.

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October 10, 2022 leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Hellraiser (2022) – Raises Hell

Released: 8th October
Seen: 9th October

The Hellraiser franchise is one of the weirder major entries in the horror genre. Built around the idea of mixing sexuality and torture long before the phrase ‘torture porn’ was created as a pejorative for the more extreme kinds of horror, Hellraiser was always a series that sat just on the edge of the mainstream. You certainly knew about it thanks to the iconic image of Pinhead but it’s such a wild set of movies that even some horror fans might have issues with it (and also it kind of infamously started sucking around the 4th-5th movie, depending on which fan you ask). It’s also been the major horror franchise that’s avoided being rebooted longer than pretty much everything else… until now. It also is on the shortlist of “80s horror reboots that don’t suck”, a prestigious list if ever there was one.

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