Boys From County Hell is a refreshing vampire film. The Irish tale with Bram Stoker's Dracula lore has a unique take on vampires draining their victims. The cast has great chemistry, and it is full of humor, not slapstick but a more grounded and macabre.
Honeydew is probably the weirdest film of 2021 thus far. A claustrophobic, paranoid, surreal hallucination of Hansel and Gretel. It plays with reality, you don't know what is real and what isn't. Time feels like an illusion and as soon as everything is figured out and you're coming off your trip is when shit hits the fan. Reality sets in and the uncomfortable feeling you felt for over an hour hits you in the face. I dug it at first, found it tedious for a while but it felt like the point, the climax i feel will let down some but it fit perfectly with the narrative here.
Tombs of the Blind Dead is a film i hunted for as a teen, upon seeing it i loved it, same with the sequels. Years later i revisited them and it definitely was more akin to Zombi, where you watch for the effects and not the plot. With a new sequel i dove into the first one more time and enjoyed it for it's atmosphere.....the sequel lacks atmosphere, it also lacks decent effects, storytelling, acting, and pretty much everything else. This film was abysmal, a waste of time and feels like it should be a Full Moon picture, and i like Full Moon. This is a screener heavy turd.
Mortal Kombat, round 2021...fight! So the relaunch of Mortal Kombat isn't as corny as the first but it still contains some corny lines and contrived plot points, but that is not why we are here. If you are going into MK anticipating high art then you didn't know what to expect. If you went in expecting fights, badass characters and bloodshed, then congrats you got what you paid for. This was exactly what i expected, and if you go in just wanting to see the game, you get it. It is fast paced, has some one liners and plenty of bloody fight scenes, exactly what Mortal Kombat represents. Continue? Fucking right i'm for this franchise continuing.
Falcon & The Winter Soldier isn't just the best MCU series thus far but it might be the best MCU property since Endgame. Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson really came into his own here, and Sebastian Stan brings alot of layers to Bucky in this outing. The antagonists all have depth here in this series too, Wyatt Russel is a perfect douche that is torn, The Flag Smashers fight for a great cause, but Daniel Bruhl as Barron Zemo steals the show in every scene. Unlike alot of MCU the humor doesn't slap you in the face, and it feels perfectly aligned with Winter Soldier and Civil War. 6 episodes is the perfect season count, not much padding, well developed characters and plenty of action and political subtext.
Willy's Wonderland is the neon lit, satanic love child of Child's Play, The Banana Splits, and Mandy. In fact as far as the past decade of Cagesploitation flicks, this might be my favorite. It's fast paced, funny, and bloody, with a love of soda and pinball. This is exactly the flick i wanted it to be, and with the proposed sequel i say fuck yes....or like Cage, nothing at all!
