leebutler Drama, Horror, Mystery

Grimcutty (2022) – Meme To Death

Released: 10th October
Seen: 2nd November

Grimcutty Info

One of the wild things about horror films is how quickly they can jump on something new and find the terror in it, take the mundane and make it into the malicious. Recent years have shown a lot of ways this can be done, from something as simple as an app being turned into an instrument of foretold death in Countdown to a pair of jeans turning into sentient killers in Slaxx and even if the films aren’t great, they can at least be interesting on some level… and then there’s Grimcutty, a film that takes the concept of a killer meme and turns it into boring sludge that isn’t interesting even if you squint.

Oh, and trigger warning for discussions of suicide because that’s a major theme of this film and it’s impossible not to talk about it on some level.

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Hellraiser (2022) – Raises Hell

Released: 8th October
Seen: 9th October

Hellraiser Image

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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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Sci-Fi

Nope (2022) – Maybe

Released: 11th August
Seen: 14th August

Nope Info

In 2017 Jordan Peele staked his claim as a modern horror master with his directorial debut Get Out. To this day that film is one of the best films that this reviewer has had the pleasure of watching. It was terrifying and had something important to say and did it flawlessly. It’s a go-to example of a perfect film and very little has beaten it. It’s the kind of film that makes you excited to see what a director does next, and sure enough, when Peele dropped Us onto an unsuspecting public it was proof that he had something special. 

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leebutler Review

Deep Water (2022) – It’s Drowning

Released: 18th March
Seen: 1st April

The name Adrian Lynne might not be one of the most well-known directors but his impact on the film industry is undeniable. Adrian Lynne was the director of such films as 9 ½ Weeks, Indecent Proposal and Fatal Attraction, three of the biggest erotic drama/thrillers of the late 80s and early 90s. This was the period of film history when making sexy adult dramas was big business.

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leebutler Review

The Night (2021) – A Blatant ‘The Shining’ Double

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on February 2nd, 2020

Driving home from a night with some friends, Babak (Shahab Hosseini) and Neda (Niousha Noor) become too tired to finish the trip home and so, with their young infant in tow, the couple decides to take a room at the Hotel Normandie for the night so they can sleep off the exhaustion and alcohol. However, the Hotel Normandie is not as peaceful as they would hope and soon their night becomes overrun by assorted strange things that seek to drive them apart and force them to reveal the dark secrets that have caused a rift in their relationship to begin with. 

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leebutler Review

Brazen (2022) – Lifeless

Released: 13th January
Seen: 23rd January

Brazen Info

Normally I wouldn’t expect to be dealing with this until June, that’s the pattern that Netflix has created with their release of Lifetime Wannabes like Hostage House, Dangerous Lies and Secret Obsession. I was meant to have a few months before I had to deal with this bullshit, there was meant to be time to mentally prepare for the onslaught of bad plotting and bad acting one expects from this “midday movie made on a budget of couch cushion change by a writer who had 5 hours to complete the entire script” but nope, 2022 sucks and therefore we have to deal with Brazen now because why not?

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leebutler Review

Old (2021) – Aged Badly Already

Released: 22nd July
Seen: 2nd December

Old Info

The career of M. Night Shyamalan is certainly an interesting one, to say the least. He started with absolute bonafide smash hit The Sixth Sense and then onto critical acclaim with Unbreakable and Signs. He was heralded as a visionary, someone who would have a career worthy of envy… and then he had a decade straight of critical bombs. He’s never really made an actual financial bomb (except maybe Lady in the Water) but his name went from being a sign of potential to a red flag that you’re about to be greatly disappointed. Even when he had a mild comeback with The Visit and Split, people thought he would return to his form… and now after Glass and the film we’re talking about today, Old, I have to wonder if M. Night Shyamalan was ever actually the visionary that people claimed him to be or if he’s just a bad writer/director who got lucky with his early films.

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leebutler Review

Paranormal Activity: Next Of Kin (2021) – Dead Boring

Released: 29th October
Seen: 23rd November

In 2009, the movie Paranormal Activity was given a wide release and signalled a change in Horror movies that would almost dictate what the upcoming decade would look like. Before Paranormal Activity, the Horror genre was knee deep in so-called “Torture Porn” films that relied heavily on shock and incredibly over the top violence and gore. 

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The Night House Promo Image
leebutler Review

The Night House (2021) – Good Night

Released: 19th August
Seen: 18th November

Haunting movies are always a tough one to pull off. They tend to be a little slower to start with and at times just get a little silly because of what’s needed visually to impart the idea of a ghost moving things around. It takes something pretty special to make this genre rise above just a bunch of loud noises and slamming doors… enter The Night House, something special that rises above loud noises and slamming doors.

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