JeruZalem Movie Review – Better Than You Might Think

Runtime: 94 minutes

Release Date: July 7, 2016

Rating: R

Director: The PAZ Brothers

Who doesn't love a good apocalypse flick? If you always wanted to see how the world ends through found footage shot with a pair of glasses, now is your chance.

JeruZalem started out with a few scenes that made me wonder if I was actually watching the movie I thought I put on. We see footage shot in the early 1970s by three priests from different denominations called in to exorcise a woman. Her son claims that she died several days ago and went from being calm and sweet to crazed and psycho. Before they can do much, she shrieks at the camera as wings sprout from her back before flying off.

We then meet Rachel and Sarah. Srah lost her brother about a year ago, and Rachel convinced her that they should take a trip to Tel Aviv to have some fun together. Sarah's dad gives her a pair of glasses that function like a tablet/computer. She can remain in contact with him, get directions, take photos or videos, and even post on Facebook with her glasses. On the trip over, they meet a student named Kevin who convinces them that they should go to Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv. Though she thinks he's hot, it takes Rachel some work to convince her to change their plans.

Things go okay at first. Rachel hooks up with a local named Omar who shows them a side of the city they never expected to see. Sarah attempts to hook up with Kevin, but it ends when he puts on her glasses and sees her posts with her brother. Thinking it was an ex, he makes fun of the guy, which leads her to ditching him pre-blow job. No worries though, they later hook up after he apologizes.

Sarah and Rachel head off alone to the Western Wall and make their own wishes. Sarah naturally wishes that her brother would come back. After seeing a swarm of bugs and some other strange things, Kevin tries to convince them to leave town. It turns out that he's a student of the apocalypse and obsessed with all things creepy. He basically sees the signs before anyone else. By the time they realize the apocalypse really is upon them, it's too late. They need to find a way out of Jerusalem or die there.

JeruZalem is a really fantastic little flick. The directors actually add in a scene of a kid stealing Sarah's bag with her only other set of glasses in it to explain why she keeps wearing the pair she shoots with. They also added in scenes of the glasses not working because of no internet signal or because she falls down and damages the glasses. A lot of flicks would have us just believing that the glasses worked perfectly the whole time. There are even a few heartbreaking scenes of her dad trying to contact her to make sure she's okay after seeing the footage on television.

It's hard to explain what I liked about this film, but I think it's because most of the apocalypse flicks out there are so bad. We either get way over budgeted films like 2012 or incredibly cheap flicks from The Asylum. JeruZalem shows that you can make a great apocalypse flick on a limited budget that is still entertaining and just plain interesting.

Movie Review: Flight 7500 – Thanks XBOX!

Runtime: 97 minutes

Release Date: April 12, 2016

Rating: PG-13

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Every so often, I use my XBOX One as a way to check out upcoming horror flicks. I go through, check out the horror section, watch some trailers, and add some films to the internal list in my brain. Flight 7500 was a flick listed on there that I had a heck of a time finding. It turns out that it was filmed in 2011 and set for release the following year, then pulled from the schedule and held back until earlier this year. Though I did locate a copy at Family Video, I probably could have just skilled it.

Flight 7500 tells the story of a “doomed” flight. Our cast of characters includes Brad an Pia, a couple heading off on vacation with their close friends despite having broken up. They decide to just not tell anyone until after they come back. We also meet a weird guy who keeps a tight handle on a random wooden box, a thief, and a stereotypical goth chick. Suzy and Laura are the two flight attendants, and Laura is the midst of a not so secret affair with Pete, the captain on the flight who is also married.

After flying for a few hours, the plan hits a patch of turbulence that freaks everyone out for a few minutes before it passes. They then find that the man traveling with the box suddenly starts bleeding before dying. The captain makes the decision to quarantine his body in the first class section and move all the other passengers until they can get to their destination. A bunch of random stuff happens, including the air masks dropping and water bottles collapsing, and one woman even sees a fighter jet next to the plane that the captain and others can't see. As people begin disappearing, the others must figure out what happened to the plane and what connection the mysterious wood box has to their flight.

Look, I love films that take place on planes. I'm still a big fan of Snakes on a Plane despite it being so awful, and I have a fondness in my heart for Outbreak on a Plane, which I should totally review in the future. Flight 7500 though was just kind of middle of the road for me. It had a few interesting moments, but much of it just felt like a filler.

One problem is that they spend way too much time setting up all the other characters. Instead of having a scene between the flight attendant and the captain, we have to hear them talk about the two having a relationship and then have a scene or two between them. It serves no purpose in the film except to have her break up with him later. It's a filler story that has no place in the movie. We also have to hear Brad and Pia talk about why they decided to divorce and deal with multiple scenes between the two of them just so they can reconcile at the end.

I figured out what happened pretty early on but kept hoping it was something different. Did the wood box contain a virus that would kill everyone? Was it all just a dream caused by a cabin pressure change? Nah, it's exactly what you think happened judging by a few scenes that occur within the first few minutes. I was hoping for more, but Flight 7500 gave me less than I expected.

13 Cameras Movie Review – Lots of Hidden Cameras in the World!

Runtime: 87 minutes

Release Date: April 15, 2016

Rating: NR?

Director: Victor Zarcoff

Depending on how and where you watch 13 Cameras, you might also know it as Slumlord or apparently Landlord/The Landlord.

13 Cameras opens with a few notes about the number of hidden cameras out there in the wold today and how many people are recorded daily before introducing us to our main characters. Claire and Ryan are newlyweds who just moved across the country for Ryan's new job. While he goes to work, she stays home to get things ready for their new baby and to spend some time just being pregnant. They rent their new home from Gerald, one of the creepiest men I've ever seen before in my life. He's the type of guy you could probably smell before you saw.

As you might guess from the name of the film, Gerald placed a series of hidden cameras all around the house. No one but him knows that they are there, but even without knowing that, Claire isn't exactly comfortable having him around. Not only does she find him creepy, but she doesn't like how he always seems to know what's going on. To make things worse, when they need help around the house, he only seems to have time in his schedule when Ryan is gone.

And, Ryan is gone quite a bit. Despite having a heavily pregnant wife at home and having just moved to a brand new city, he manages to find a woman with an interest in him. Hannah works in his office and has no problem starting an affair with a man who has a pregnant wife at home. What a keeper! They totally deserve each other. Ryan claims that he needs Hannah because she can fulfill the needs that Claire cannot. He somehow thinks that he can juggle both women and then dump Hannah later without Claire finding out. That becomes less realistic when Hannah starts showing up all the time, making demands, and even threatening to tell his wife. Gerald loves all this because it gives him more chances to masturbate.

I'm not even joking about that last part. He literally uses the CCTV footage as a masturbation aid while chilling at home. As 13 Cameras progresses, Claire grows more paranoid about Ryan spending time with a hot girl, Ryan begins worrying about the future, and Gerald amps up his creeper appeal.

13 Cameras is great because it doesn't give us a lot of information about Gerald. Other films like this might tell us about how he killed women in the past or how his mom beat him/worked as a hooker, but this one leaves us to decide why he would do this and why he would do what he does at the end on our own. The actor really gets into the role and will terrify you way more than someone in a mask would.

And yes, the relationship drama is a little much at times. Ryan is an extremely unlikable character, especially once you learn about his affair and after he explains why he started it. You completely feel for Claire and are on her side, especially when she learns about it and decides to throw him out. That relationship drama really does add to the story though and explains why Gerald finds them all so fascinating. While I may not give it two thumbs up, 13 Cameras was fairly entertaining.

Movie Review: Invoked

Runtime: 85 minutes

Release Date: September 5, 2016

Rating: NR?

Director: Humberto Rosa and Thairon Mendes

I'll be upfront about my review on this one. I don't know how much I can write because it didn't hold my attention and I wound up playing a game on my phone for most of it.

Invoked opens with a series of title cards to tell us that everything we see actually happened. A group of young people visiting an island in Ireland mysteriously went missing, but they just so happened to have cameras with them to capture everything that happened. It's up to us to decide the fate of the group and to determine what actually happened to them.

If you're looking for more of a synopsis, you need to look elsewhere. That it almost the only thing I know about the movie because it didn't take long after those title cards to lose my interest. We meet a bunch of characters who are the stereotypical people you see in horror movies like the couple who just love each other so much, the prankster who loves playing jokes, and the guy who comes across as a total douche canoe. They go to the island, start playing games with each other, and weird stuff starts happening.

Unfortunately, it takes way, way, way too much time to get going. I felt like I spent more time listening to the characters bicker and argue or talk about random shit before anything happened. I tried really hard to pay attention, but it felt like there was nothing to pay attention too. When I watch a horror movie, I expect the horror to start early on. This one left me wondering if it was a horror movie or a movie about some friends on vacation.

One of the other reviews I read said that the action didn't start until 45 minutes in, which seems about right. That means that over half of the movie has nothing to do with moving the story forward. We get scenes of the characters on a boat, in a vehicle, them talking about what they'll do on the trip, them reminiscing about stuff that happened in the past, and of course, them having sex. Nothing says horrifying like two young people having the sex!

It doesn't help that this is the type of found footage movie I dislike. I understand that there is a big difference between found footage films that look realistic and those that look too slick. Hell, I've called out films for looking too produced, but this one is possibly a little too realistic. The scenes are so dark and so gritty that it looks like they shot on cameras from the 1980s. Even my cell phone camera could shoot brighter footage than this film has. That makes it hard to see what's happening, especially when characters start screaming and running away, which makes the film even darker and more jumpy.

Though I have a fondness for bad horror films and a special place in my heart for low budget flicks, Invoked wasn't my cup of tea. If you make a horror movie with a run time of 90 minutes or less, you shouldn't spend half of the movie or longer just getting to the horror elements!

Most Likely to Die Movie Review – The Best High School Reunion Ever

Runtime: 90 minutes

Release Date: April 25, 2016

Rating: NR?

Director: Anthony DiBlasi

Ashley is your classic high school popular girl who still thinks she's in high school. She landed the hot hockey player who just recently got cut from the NY Rangers and is less than happy about it. Since the two made plans to host some of their former classmates the night before their big reunion though, she tries to cheer him up on the way to his remote beach house where he's waiting for her. She arrives, puts on the smallest graduation robe I've ever seen, and follows a series of notes around the house that she thinks he left for her. The notes actually come from a killer who stalks her through the house before killing her.

Not long after, the other guests begin arriving. Gaby became a professional poker player who somehow plays professionally despite choking on big hands and having huge tells. She's not too happy to learn that Brad, the high school boyfriend who dumped her and became a big star, is coming. Nor is she happy when he shows up with his supermodel new girlfriend. There's also the girl most likely to succeed, the guy who was the class clown, and Freddie, who was/is gay, later became an alcoholic, wound up in jail, and broke parole to hang out with his old friends. Jake Busey even pops up as Tarkin, the former owner of the town's liquor store who sold alcohol to minors, later lost his job, and is now the caretaker of the house.

Not long after arriving, they talk about something bad that they did years ago. It's super confusing, but the gist is that they defaced a kid's picture in the yearbook. They also did some other stuff to him I guess, but the school recalled the yearbook, which featured his face scratched out and most likely to die beneath it. The kid was so depressed that he moved to San Francisco with his mom, and rumor says that he later killed himself. This is really all just exposition that leads up to the moment when the killer finally strikes.

This killer is one of the best I've seen in recent years. Instead of running around with a ton of weapons, he primarily uses his graduation cap, which has a thin and super sharp razor along the edge. Literally, what can you say about a film that shows a killer killing someone by slamming the corner of his graduation cap into the center of her forehead multiple times as blood spurts out? Or when someone gets a utility knife right across the eyes? My roommate came down in the middle of one death scene and kind of just stood to one side to watch what happened, then went upstairs and probably added it to his own Netflix queue.

And yes, there were moments/scenes you know are coming. You know that as soon as Brad sees Gaby that he'll somehow realize he doesn't love his supermodel girlfriend because he's still in love with her and that they'll wind up together. Though honestly, who wouldn't fall in love with Heather Morris? You also know that two other characters will wind up in bed together because they conveniently had a crush on each other in high school.

It's even pretty easy to figure out who the killer is, if you pay enough attention. I had a theory in mind that it would end like the original Scream and have two different killers, but I was completely wrong. I don't recommend movies a lot, but I definitely recommend Most Likely to Die. It gets my nod as the top horror film of the month and one that may be hard to beat.

Last Man Standing Season 1, Episode 4: Last Halloween Standing

I thought I would try something new this year and recap/review some of the television shows that I watch that have a horror theme or a special Halloween episode. Since I'm currently working my way through Last Man Standing for the second time, I just finished watching its very first Halloween episode. If you never saw the show before, Tim Allen plays an extremely conservative republican who lives with his wife and three daughters in Denver.

Kristin, Mike's (Tim Allen) oldest daughter, got pregnant in high school and raised her son Boyd at home with her parents after his dad left town. His youngest daughter Eve recently decided that she's too old for Halloween because a boy she has a crush on thinks the holiday is immature. Though Kristin doesn't want her son going out because he's too young and because she has to work, Mike takes him out anyway. He accidentally mistakes another kid for Boyd, and another family takes Boyd home. Kristin gets home, discovers the problem, breaks down, and finally confesses that she just wanted to take him out herself. Problem gets solved when Mike encourages her to take her son out anyway.

Top Moments!

Vanessa, Mike's wife, dresses up like a sexy pirate in a costume so inappropriate that when she bends over, you can see her underwear. Naturally, her girls are completely grossed out. A neighbor brings his kid over for trick or treating, sees her, and becomes obsessed because she looks so great. He keeps showing up and talking to her with stars in his eyes. When he comes by in the middle of the night, he finds her with ratty hair and in her pajamas, realizes that she doesn't always look like a sexy pirate, and sheepishly says he'll see her next year before leaving.

Mandy, the vapid middle daughter, wants to dress up like a sexy cat and asks Mike to pick up her costume for her. Mike describes it as a furry bikini with ears and puts his foot down. Since she wants to dress up like a cat, he rents the biggest Garfield costume he can find for her to wear all night. Though it's one of the cutest costumes I've ever seen, it makes me sad that she doesn't really know who Garfield is. When did they stop showing his Halloween special on television?

While trick or treating with Boyd, Mike runs across Ed, his boss at Outdoor Man, which is pretty much a rebranded Bass Pro Shop. Ed introduces him to his close friend who turns out to be Elvira. I cannot believe how great that woman looks! Not just for her age but for any age. She has a few one liners that will make you laugh, though she's really only in the episode for a short bit.

If you do want to give Last Man Standing a try, I highly recommend the first season. They brought in a new actress to play Kristin in the second season and completely changed the character. In the very first episode of the second season, she becomes this complete and total liberal that is a stereotype of what a liberal is. If there is anything you can think of that describes a hipster vegan, it's her. They also bring back her former boyfriend and make the two incredibly annoying to the point where I roll my eyes every time I see them because I know it's going to be bad. While Mike is a stereotypical conservative, he's somehow not nearly as bad as those two, and this comes from someone who is liberal! Still, the show's first Halloween episode was pretty good.

Scream Queens Season 2, Episode 1: Scream Again

Scream Queens, that little show that started last season with a bang and went out with a whimper, is back. Seriously, what were the writers thinking? They made the biggest red herring actually be the killer. I never even considered her because she was so suspicious that I assumed only an idiot would make her the real killer. Well, Ryan Murphy & company are back again with a completely new season that I just watched the first episode of the other night.

You may remember when he originally said that Scream Queens would work like American Horror Story, as in each season would feature some of the same actors but in brand new roles and with a brand new setting. He apparently decided to throw all that out the window because we have some of the same exact actors playing the same exact characters. The only thing missing is the extremely gorgeous Oliver Hudson. Luckily, we have John Stamos to make up for that.

Dean, the ever wonderful Jamie Lee Curtis, became a best selling feminist author and used her cash to buy a new hospital where both Stamos and Lautner now work as doctors. She then tracked down Zeyday, the only one from the old sorority that she actually liked, to also work in the hospital since Zeyday apparently graduated college in just a year and a half before starting med school. Denise got Hester to confess to being the real killer, which led to the Chanels getting released from the mental institution. They got jobs working in the health care field, and when Zeyday complains about the hospital not having enough women on staff, Dean adds the Chanels to her hospital/med school.

We also learn that Jerry O'Connell was a truly terrible doctor. Way back in the day, a hugely pregnant woman came in with her dying hospital. O'Connell lied about his condition, and he and a nurse dumped the poor guy's body in a swamp behind the hospital so they could go out and party. We also have Kristie Alley popping up as a hard ass nurse working in the current hospital. As much as I once loved her, I have to give her the side eye since she came out in support of Donald Trump.

Scream Again was kind of meh in terms of a season opener. If it were the first episode of a brand new show, I'm not even sure I'd pick up and watch a second. While Curtis was great as Dean, it felt just a little too unrealistic, even for a Murphy show. Dean somehow manages to open her own teaching hospital and medical school with no experience, Hester randomly gets caught because she doesn't know what double jeopardy means despite being the one most obsessed with killing, and the Chanels constantly complain about being broke and poor while living in an apartment full of mid-century modern furniture and decor as they walk around in designer clothing.

It also sucks that there was a large lack of killing and any interesting kills. I still remember the moment in the first season where deaf Taylor Swift got run over by the lawnmower and how I couldn't stop laughing and feeling shocked at the same time. This episode gave us a guy getting thrown in the swamp and a woman getting her head chopped off while locked in a hydro bath. I do have to give a nod to the episode playing a song from Dirty Dancing since Chanel #5 will play Baby in the remake of that film.

Scream Again pretty much sums up the way Murphy works. His shows start out good and then fall off pretty fast, but I'll still try to follow along this season and see how it goes.