Why Didn't I See Sting?
Simple, I had no idea this movie existed. But when I looked up films I missed out on this one caught my eye. So I figured I give it a try. It seems like it'd be a fun creature feature.
What is Sting?
Sting is a horror movie that was produced by Screen Australia, Align, Screen NSW, Cumulus VFX, Spectrum Entertainment, See Pictures, and Pictures in Paradise and Well Go USA Entertainment distributing. It was written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner.
The story is, a rebellious young girl named Charlotte finds a tiny little spider and names it Sting. First it just seems like a regular spider, but as Charlotte feeds it more and more, Sting slowly shows it's not an ordinary spider and starts growing at an alarming rate. And as the spider gets bigger, so does it's hunger.
My Thoughts
The Good: Let's start off with the vibe. This has a greatly fun b-movie vibe. I might like my high budget mainstream movies, but also love movies like these. Then there's the pacing. This goes by quickly and never drags. From start to finish this is a breeze to get through. I also gotta give credit for the atmosphere. It's very tense. Once that spider [Sting] starts its killing spree, you do kinda feel on edge afterwards. Then when some family members were captured, I actually felt a little bit of dread. Which I honestly wasn't expecting. The last credit goes to the spider effects. Sure the gore effects were also good, but the effects on Sting were top notch. The CGI was very good, especially for a film that's only $28 million, but those practical effects are incredible. It's always good to see movies, horror or not, value good hand made effects.
The Bad: I've got nothing.
The Okay: One mix bag is the story. It's very uneven. Sure we still get our fun giant spider story, but a lot of times it takes a backseat to the family drama story. Which wouldn't have been so bad if it was more evened out. 50% giant Spider & 50% family story. The other one is the performances. Now Alyla Browne as Charlotte is really good. She brings a lot of emotion to the role and even does a great job showing bravery. But what about the cast members? While some are good like Ryan Corr are also pretty good, the other casts are fine. They're by no means bad, they're just okay.
Final Verdict: Okay.
Why Didn't I See Abigail?
Well my theater did have showings, but sadly they were like a month later after the movie's originally release. So having a review by then would be too late because the movie wasn't new.
What is Abigail?
Abigail is a horror-comedy movie. Project X Entertainment, Vinson Films, and Radio Silence Productions did production while Universal Pictures were the distributors. Stephen Shields and Guy Busick were the writers and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett were the directors.
The story is, a group of criminals have kidnapped a young ballet dancer/daughter of a wealthy man named Abigail. They take her to a secluded manor and are told by their boss to guard the child for 24 hours and after they get paid. But they soon find out that Abigail is no ordinary girl but a vampire. Now, the group must find a way to survive.
My Thoughts
The Good: Now I'm gonna start off with the horror. To be honest I wasn't really all that scared BUT! I still had a lot of fun. So while this is more horror adjacent there's still plenty of enjoyment. There's also the dark humor. I had a lot of laughs. Especially with the dialogue. This cast had so many funny lines, like "Oh yeah. Here's your daughter, Mr. f*cking Antichrist. We're really sorry. Hope she's not too traumatized. Let's play a round of golf sometime". Then there's the special effects. Practical effects are great, the team did a wonderful. But I was surprised with the CGI blood. A lot of films just can't seem to nail CG blood, which often times makes said blood look more like jello, but with this no. It actually looked good. Which now brings me to the performances, mainly from Melissa Barrera, Alisha Weir, and Dan Stevens who play respectively Joey, Abigail, and Frank. These three were great. Whether it was on their own, together, dramatic, or comedic, these three were tremendous and killed it with each scenes they were in.
The Bad: Nothing here.
The Okay: First there's the pacing. Often time there's a lot of slow moments. So sometimes you might feel like you're watching a movie longer than it is even though it's only an hour and forty-nine minutes. Then there's our characters. Now Abigail, Joey, and Frank are all good. We get to know Abigail's motives of why she truly wants to kill these people. Then there's Joey, with her we get to know she's a mother and feels like she's screwed up so bad she thinks she can't go back to her kid. And Frank, we see just how far he's willing to go to get some sort of power. But every other character, yeah they're clearly there to fill out the bodycount.
Final Verdict: Good.
Why Didn't I See The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare?
Now I did have plans to see this, but my theater had other plans. They did show the movie but it was like a week or two after it's original release, so I figured I just save it for later for this segment.
What is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare?
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is an action movie that's based on Damien Lewis' 2014 book, Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII. Production was done by Black Bear Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, and Toff Guy Films with Lionsgate doing distribution. Guy Ritchie directed and wrote the story along with Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel.
The story is, it's World War II and the United Kingdom is struggling to the Nazi's takeover of Europe. In order to stop British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a group of military officials hatch a plan to neutralize the Nazi fleets of U-boats. They assign this mission to Gus March-Phillipps and his team of mavericks to change the course of the war.
My Thoughts
The Good: First up is pacing. The movie's two hours and two minutes and it takes full advantage of its runtime. With a mix of action and humor I was fully engaged and never bored. Because of that nothing felt like it dragged. There's also the production value. The costumes were not only period appropriate but looked really great. The cinematography was stunning, but I think what I liked most were the locations. They were gorgeous. Then we have the humor. I had a lot of good laughs and with most Guy Ritchie films the comedy stems mostly from the dialogue. One bit was when Gus was giving out orders and the last thing he says is "and remember gentlemen, try to fun". Now since this is a war movie how's the action? Well I dug it. It was stylish and nicely choreographed. And a lot of it reminded me of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Because they both have action that's over the top and involve killing Nazis. The last thing I'll touch on is Henry Cavill's performance. He was spectacular in this. His charm and wit carries this movie and I think he was having a lot of fun.
The Bad: Nope. Not a single thing for this part.
The Okay: The slight issue is the same thing with a previous Guy Ritchie movie,
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, and that's this needed more Guy Ritchie. What I mean is this needed more flair and even more unhinged dark comedy. It just really needed take advantage of that R rating.
Final Verdict: Good.
What Didn't I See Boy Kills World
I didn't know this movie existed until I saw a commercial for it's DVD/Blu-Ray release. It looked fun so I figured it'd be a good idea to save a review of it for later.
What is Boy Kills World
Boy Kills World is a dystopian action comedy that was produced by Nthibah Pictures, Vertigo Entertainment, Hammerstone Studios, and Raimi Productions with Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions distributing. The story's written by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers and Moritz Mohr directing.
The story is, in a dystopian future a city is ruled by the Van Der Koy family and once a year they host a television event called The Culling, where they gather twelve people and kill them on live televison. Three of these people are Boy, Mina, and their mother. Sadly Mina and mom were killed but Boy is left for dead. Years later, Boy is fully grown and is on the warpath to get revenge on the Van Der Koy family.
My Thoughts
The Good: I loved the humor in this. Especially from H. Jon Benjamin as the Boy's inner voice. I swear H. Jon's voice can make almost anything sound hilarious. Then there's our main star Bill Skarsgård's performance. This guy has absolutely no dialogue in this, the most we get from him is an animalistic scream. His main way of acting is through his face and body language and he's great. Through just those two things we see Boy's rage, confusion, and wonder without one word being said. Now I move onto the designs. There's a variety of nicely crafted sets or locations. From jungles to decaying cities to a pretty colorful TV set, this visuals are great. My last praise is for the action. It's beautifully bloody. It delivers on the promise of high-octane fights. There's plenty of creative moments, like fighting cereal mascots, to a surprising moment with a cheese grater. So if you're a fan of these much more grittier, bloodier, and almost grimy action flicks like
The Raid, Hardcore Henry or
Guns Akimbo, then this movie's got you covered.
The Bad: Nothing negative here.
The Okay: The only thing I got is the tone. For the first two acts it's very over the top, very zany, and very much a dark action comedy. But when it came to the third act things all of a sudden are much more serious and dramatic. I didn't bother me too much, but it did take time to settle in because I was so use to the more over the top stuff.
Final Verdict: Good.
Why Didn't I See The Spider?
Now I fully intended on seeing this, especially since I'm a fan of Spider-Man. But as time went on I unfortunately forgot about it and by the time I remembered it was far too late to give a review. I think I was like four weeks too late. So much like all of the other films I saved it for later.
What is The Spider?
The Spider is a short fan film that reimagines the origin story of Spider-Man but through a horror lens. It's produced by Locust Garden Pictures and was written and directed by Andy Chen.
The story is, during a school field trip Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and gains new abilities. It first seems like some incredible, but as time goes by Peter realizes he's turning into something else, something horrifying.
My Thoughts
The Good: First let's praise the special effects. Nicely done crew 👏🏻👏🏻. This only has a budget that was estimated at $5,000, yet the effects and sets are great. So once again give it up to the crew 👏🏻👏🏻.
And once again big Hollywood studios, this just goes to show you don't need $200 million dollars for the budget. Ya just need people who know how to properly spend money! I also really dug the horror spin. Now even though I didn't hate movies like the two
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey flicks,
The Mean One, or the more recent
Screamboat, I'm fully aware their horror spin is a gimmick, but here, yeah. I love the Spidey and all, but his story is just ripe with horror potential and Andy Chen did a good job. Speaking of horror, let me give my thoughts on the horror aspect. Again, Andy Chen did a good job. He really nailed the body horror. And when watching this I couldn't help but think about David Cronenberg's
The Fly remake. Cause we see Peter's body grossly break down much like how we saw Seth Brundle's body grossly break down. Then there was that big disgusting nightmare at the end. I won't give away what it is, but if you're gonna watch this on
YouTube, brace yourself. My last praise is to Chandler Riggs' performance. While he does have some bits of dialogue, Chandler mainly has to get the point across by groaning in pain and such. His acting is mostly wordless, but you can just see how much effort he's putting in with anguished facial expressions. Hell he did such a good job I felt really bad for this version of Peter Parker.
The Bad: Now I do like this short, but I'm gonna admit it, I'm not a fan of the ending. I understand it's a fan film and maybe it was because of the budget, but the ending is still abrupt. Sure there's a post-credit scene, and it's cool not gonna lie, but we still have more questions than answers. There was nothing here that felt like a proper conclusion.
The Okay: I've got nothing.
Final Verdict: Good.
So that's all for now and I gotta say not a bad start to this edition of the
Films of 2024, hopefully the rest are just as good. Due come back on Saturday, May 3rd, for my review of Marvel's newest movie,
Thunderbolts. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
P.S. After watching The Spider, I got an idea of what else I want to put on my blog. Found out what that'll be on June 5th.