The Midnight Club | Halloween 2022

I generally try to stay away from series during the Halloween and Christmas review season. Not because I dislike them or I think they are going to be bad but simply because I don’t usually have the time to dedicate to an entire series when I’m trying to post a new review each day. Thankfully, I was able to fit The Midnight Club into my schedule this year.

Ilonka (Iman Benson) is a teenager with terminal thyroid cancer. She decides to move into Brightcliffe, a hospice for dying teenagers. Every night, the group of eight teenagers get together at midnight to tell scary stories. Is there more to the tales they tell and is Brightcliffe just a hospice center?

Last year, Mike Flanagan gave us the brilliant Midnight Mass. While The Midnight Club is based on a handful of young adult novels by Christopher Pike, I had high hopes that this would be a good series. While there are some slow parts, I was not let down.

To be honest, I don’t want to give too much of the story away. I think that this is a show that should be experienced without a lot of knowledge ahead of time. There are a few things that are up to interpretation but some other things are explained eventually. But I think my favorite thing about the series is that each story told by a teenager is based in other Christopher Pike books. They aren’t exact replicas of the books, that tends to make for terrible television anyway, but they are versions that fit the members of The Midnight Club. It is definitely an imaginative way to make the most out of all of the source material available.

In short, yes, I think you should watch it. The Midnight Club is set up to be a multi-season show. I hope that Netflix doesn’t let us down and renews the series. We could definitely use a good spooky series like this every Halloween season. And since the show is set up to have the characters die and get replaced with new ones, having the actors age out of their characters shouldn’t be a big deal. I really would love to see more of this.

Umma | Halloween 2022

The more horror movies I watch, the more I realize how much I really like Asian horror movies. Umma may have been made in the United States but it was both written and directed by a Korean-American woman. Hopefully, it will be on the same level as last year’s The Medium from Thailand.

Amanda (Sandra Oh) lives on a rural farm, raising bees and chickens with her teenaged daughter Chrissy (Fivel Stewart). Since Amanda gets sick when there are electronics around her, the pair live without modern technology. One day, Amanda’s uncle (Tom Yi) shows up at the farm to inform Amanda that her mother (MeeWha Alana Lee) has died. Slowly, Amanda relives the traumatic events of her childhood, brought upon by her own mother, her Umma. Can Amanda overcome her trauma to become a good mother to Chrissy or will she be fated to transform into her Umma?

Despite the fact that there are quite a few scenes that are way too dark and a few scenes that have little explanation, I found Umma entertaining. I don’t think it was quite as scary as some of the other Asian horror movies I have watched but the feelings of a child constantly disappointing an abusive mother came through clearly. As I am not of Asian descent, I can’t quite connect with those feelings or any of the abuse that comes from them, though I do see it depicted a lot in Asian media. I can understand it, even if I can’t relate. It does make me feel bad for Amanda and I hope that she’ll be able to seek therapy to overcome her past.

I think that, if you consume a fair amount of Asian media or are actually of Asian descent yourself, you might enjoy Umma. However, if you aren’t familiar with Asian culture, I’m not sure how the movie will come across for you. There are explanations as to why Umma is so terrible to Amanda but without that background of understanding Asian family dynamics, even a little bit, it might not be enough of an explanation to understand why it’s happening. Either way, Sandra Oh is a fantastic actress. If you have no other reason to watch the movie, watch it for her. You won’t be disappointed there.

The Curse of Bridge Hollow | Halloween 2022

Every year, I try to make sure I review some family friendly Halloween movies in addition to the scary slasher-fest films. This year has given us a few decent sequels with Under Wraps 2 and Hocus Pocus 2 but the originals, like Spirit Halloween The Movie, haven’t been as good. Netflix’s The Curse of Bridge Hollow has the potential to be the next big family Halloween movie. Let’s see if it lives up to it.

The Gordon family - Howard (Marlon Wayans), Emily (Kelly Rowland), and Sydney (Priah Ferguson) - are moving from Brooklyn to Bridge Hollow. Since it is Halloween, all of the houses are decorated. Each with it’s own theme. But Howard isn’t a fan of Halloween so there will be no decorations or celebrations of any type at the Gordon house. When some classmates tell Sydney about the history of their old house, she searches the attic for anything cool or haunted. She comes across an old jack-o-lantern and, during an argument with her father, lights it. This awakens the ancient spirit of the town, Stingy Jack. In order to stay in Bridge Hollow after midnight, Stingy Jack has to find another soul to send to hell.

Bridge Hollow is chock full of comedic geniuses. Obviously, there’s Marlon Wayans but there’s also Rob Riggle as the next door neighbor, Lauren Lapkus as the mayor, and John Michael Higgins as the high school principal. And while Priah Ferguson doesn’t have the history that her co-stars do, she has amazing comedic timing. This should have been a shoo-in for a cult classic. But there are a few downfalls.

For the most part, Bridge Hollow is funny and entertaining. However, it also takes a running joke and runs it straight into the ground. Howard, Sydney’s dad, is a science teacher. As a result, he is into science hard core. To the point that at least once in every scene, he says “Pop Quiz…” followed by asking Sydney some science-related question that is supposed to get them out of a sticky situation. It was cute at first but after the fourth “Pop Quiz,” it got tedious. The same goes for Emily’s, Sydney’s mom, baked goods. She is trying to open a bakery featuring vegan, gluten free pastries. But all of her food is terrible. To the point that her own family won’t even pretend to like it. Why would they let her waste money trying to start a business that they know will immediately fail? Why do they let her open a stand at the town festival to sell food to the locals when absolutely everyone says the food in inedible?

If you are able to overlook the minor quips in the script, it is a fun movie. I can’t wait to see where Ferguson’s career takes her. She has a bright future as a comedic actor but I think she could handle more dramatic roles if she wanted. Anyway, Bridge Hollow may not be the “watch every year” cult classic that I hoped it would be. At least I didn’t feel like I wasted my time watching it.

Mr Harrigan's Phone | Halloween 2022

Cell phones aren’t scary, right? Stephen King wants to prove you wrong with Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.

When Craig (Jaeden Martell) was a young boy, he was hired by the elderly billionaire Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland) to read to him twice a week. As Craig gets older, he continues to visit the old man, resulting in them becoming friendly. Well, as friendly as Mr. Harrigan can get. One Christmas, Craig wins $3,000 from the scratch off lottery ticket Mr. Harrigan gifted him. He saves most of the money but decides to use some of it to buy Mr. Harrigan an iPhone to match the one his father gave him. Craig teaches Mr. Harrigan how to use the phone, though the old man is reluctant. After Mr. Harrigan passes away and Craig places in the phone in Harrison’s coat pocket at this burial, Craig continues to call the phone to vent about the troubles in his life. Those people then start to die themselves. Is Mr. Harrigan avenging his young friend from beyond the grave?

This movie version of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is based on a novella Stephen King published in a 2020 collection called If It Bleeds. As this is a short story, it’s only about 88 pages long, there isn’t a lot that happens. The back story that we get for Craig is basically that his mom died, leaving both him and his dad (Joe Tippett) very sad. I don’t think his dad even gets a name in the movie. For Mr. Harrigan, we’re told that he’s hated by a lot of people…I think because he was a rich businessman that may have been an asshole? I’m not completely sure. And there’s a scene where Craig looks in Harrigan’s mysterious closet after the elder man dies. Somehow Craig figures out that Harrigan was like him, in that his mother also died when he was a boy. I know that King is trying to equate Craig with Harrigan but it comes off messy. There are scenes to insinuate that Harrigan was an uncaring rich man that maybe bullied the people that worked for him where Craig does nothing but care for the people around him and he is terribly bullied by Kenny Yankovich (Cyrus Arnold) at school. I think it would have been better if we just left it as the revenge being Harrigan’s way of showing Craig that he cared for him, even if he couldn’t show it when he was alive.

Does all of that mean this was a bad movie? Not at all. It’s just not very interesting. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is something that you watch when you want a movie that won’t make you think too hard. Or if you really like Stephen King, I suppose. It wasn’t a waste of 106 minutes but it wasn’t super enjoyable either. Very middle of the road.

The Munsters | Halloween 2022

Rob Zombie - singer, songwriter, filmmaker - has rebooted the 1960s sitcom The Munsters into a 2-hour film. I watched a lot of the reruns on television when I was a kid so I was looking forward to seeing the 2022 version of The Munsters on Netflix. Did it live up to it’s predecessor? Let’s take a look.

The Count (Daniel Roebuck), an ancient vampire, is trying to find a husband for his daughter, Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie). He would prefer a rich vampire but Lily has fallen in love with Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips), a creature formed from dead body parts put together by Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang (Richard Brake). Lily and Herman date for awhile before getting married. Just before their wedding, Lily’s older brother, Lester the werewolf (Tomas Boykin), gets Herman to sign over the deed to The Count’s castle to The Count’s ex-wife, Zoya (Catherine Schell). With nowhere to live in Transylvania, the family moves to Hollywood, California for a better life.

I wanted to like this movie so badly. I have fond memories of watching the old TV show as a kid. This version doesn’t have any of the heart or comedy that the series had. For one, they spend way too much time on Dr. Wolfgang getting the parts and putting Herman together. We don’t need to see him building a Frankenstein monster to know Herman is a Frankenstein monster. After that, they spend an agonizingly long time on Lily and Herman’s courtship. The movie doesn’t actually start to get good until the family travels to the United States, which is pretty much the end. While there are a handful of funny moments, there aren’t nearly enough to make up for the 110 minute runtime. As a matter of fact, my husband and I noted that there was an entire 40 minutes at the beginning that was completely unnecessary.

On top of that, none of the lead actors are strong enough to carry the movie. Zombie has this weird on-again-off-again accent for Lily. I think she was trying to replicate Yvonne De Carlo’s accent but it was terrible. Phillips was OK as Herman but he seemed to lack the good-natured heart that Fred Gwynne gave him. And don’t get me started on Roebuck. I don’t think he ever saw any version of Lily’s father. The Count is supposed to be a loving sarcastic man. Roebuck’s Count was just dull.

If you have never seen any version of The Munsters before, you might enjoy this take. However, there are some extremely dated references that you might not understand if you aren’t familiar with 1960s American sitcoms. To be honest, I would recommend you just stay away from this one. It isn’t worth your time or energy.

Lou | Halloween 2022

I’m at this weird part in my review schedule where the spooky/scary/Halloween movies haven’t really started yet. There are a few movies that fit the bill but most are in this “thriller” category, like Lou. Hopefully, Shudder will come through for me later in the month. For now, we have Netflix’s offering,

Lou (Allison Janney) is a loner who lives on a remote island with her dog, Jax. Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) and her young daughter, Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman), rent the house next door. During a major storm, Hannah’s ex, Philip (Logan Marshall-Green), kidnaps Vee. Without power or telephones, the distraught mother turns to her neighbor for help in finding her child. It’s during their trek that Hannah learns the truth behind Lou’s mysterious past and their connection.

Before I get into what I thought of the movie, I want to note my biggest problem with this movie since it’s an issue with a lot of movies nowadays. There is a large portion of the movie that takes place at night, during a severe storm. Needless to say, that means a lot of it takes place in the dark. So there are entire scenes, important scenes, where you can’t actually see what is going on. It’s really annoying.

With that said, I really enjoyed Lou. Allison Janney is such a badass. I’m used to seeing her in comedic or supporting roles. She absolutely rocked kicking ass in an action thriller. There wasn’t any point where I thought she was unbelievable. Jurnee Smollett, on the other hand, was a little annoying. As a parent, I understand the terror you feel when your child is in danger and you want to do whatever you can to save them. However, she straight up ignores everything that Lou tells her do to, putting everyone involved in danger. Girl, listen to your weirdo neighbor/landlady.

Do I think you should watch Lou? Duh, yes. If you don’t watch it for any other reason, watch it for Allison Janney being a complete and total badass at 62 years old. I really and truly hope that there is a sequel. I would watch every single movie about Lou, whether it’s about her current life or her previous life. I don’t think any of us would regret seeing more Lou.

Do Revenge | Movie Review

As I was scrolling through Netflix, trying to find a movie or series to talk about, I came across Do Revenge. Led by Maya Hawke from Stranger Things and Camila Mendes from Riverdale, I just knew I had to check it out.

Drea (Camila Mendes) is one of the popular girls at Rosehill Country Day High School. When her boyfriend shares an intimate video she made for him, her life is all but ruined. At tennis camp that summer, Drea meets Eleanor (Maya Hawke), who is transferring to Rosehill next year. The two soon find out that they have both been terribly wronged by people they thought were friends. So they team up to take down each other’s bullies.

Do Revenge is based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train. While I’ve never seen the movie myself, I am familiar with the plot. Familiar enough that I actually thought it was the plot to a completely different movie. My bad.

Where Strangers on a Train dealt with adults and actual murder, Do Revenge takes the plot to high school and goes with social murder instead of physical harm. And I actually think this movie handles the change quite well. There is an additional twist toward the end that Hitchcock did not have in his movie, which I think raises the stakes a bit. There definitely were some parts that kept me on the edge of my seat. I thought I knew what was going to happen but it was worse than I thought.

The acting in Netflix original movies can be hit or miss. Thankfully, this one is a hit. Hawke’s Eleanor starts off as an awkward newcomer but Hawke is able to pull over the amazing transformation into one of the “cool kids” and make us believe that she would get accepted into their group. Meanwhile, Mendes is perfect as Hawke’s conniving counterpart. Adding to the talent is Sarah Michelle Gellar as the school’s headmistress, Austin Abrams as Drea’s ex-boyfriend Max, and Alisha Boe as Drea’s ex-best friend Tara. All of them are their own special brand of terribleness.

Yes, Do Revenge should be on your “must see” list. Even if you can’t get into the high school drama, which you know you will, you will absolutely fall in love with the soundtrack. I found myself singing along more than once. For me, that is always a sign of a good show. Take the plunge and add it to your Netflix queue.

Love In The Villa | Movie Review

Kat Graham from The Vampire Diaries and Tom Hopper from The Umbrella Academy are in a Netflix romcom. So Love in the Villa can’t be that bad, can it?

Julie (Kat Graham) is a third grade English teacher from Minneapolis. She books a dream trip to Verona, Italy, setting of her favorite story - Romeo & Juliet, with her boyfriend, Brandon (Raymond Ablack). When Brandon backs out of the trip at the last minute, Julie decides to go alone. After an awful trip, Julie arrives in Verona to find out that her villa has been double booked. With no other option, she has to share the villa with Charlie (Tom Hopper) for the next week.

Love in the Villa is another one of those ‘hate turns into love’ movies. A good portion of the movie consists of Julie and Charlie being absolutely terrible to each other. The argument culminates in a giant food fight where they basically destroy an apartment that neither of them owns. But, for some reason, the two decide to call a truce and spend some time not trying to kill each other.

Of all of the romcoms that I have watched, this one is not the worst. It’s pretty rare to see an amazingly good romcom. This is not one of those. However, it is definitely watchable. Both Graham and Hopper are decent actors and the script is not completely terrible, even though the writer (who is also the director) likes to litter random Italian all over the place. There isn’t a ton of chemistry, just a lot of unexplainable googly eyes when they happen to get their faces too close to each other. We do get a little bit of a third act twist but, honestly, that is probably the worst part of the movie.

Fans of Graham and Hopper will most likely love Villa. Everyone else that wants to watch it should do so with a glass of wine or their phone in hand. Something that will distract them from the bad parts but let them enjoy the good parts.

Devil In Ohio | Series Review

I thought about saving Devil in Ohio for the 31 Days of Halloween but it doesn’t really fit the vibe I’m going for with the October reviews. I was hoping that the series would be more scary or thrilling. But let me tell you more about it first.

Suzanne (Emily Deschanel) is a hospital psychiatrist. When a trauma patient comes in, Suzanne takes it upon herself to find out what is going on with the young woman, who eventually reveals her name is Mae (Madeleine Arthur). With nowhere else to go, Suzanne brings Mae home to her family. Little did they know the truth behind Mae’s trauma.

There are so many problems with this series. I think the main problem is that the series isn’t long enough to develop the characters well enough. The writers want us to dislike or be wary of Mae. But, for the most part, she doesn’t do anything blatant to cause either of those emotions. Examples:

Suzanne has a daughter, Jules (Xaria Dotson), who is about the same age as Mae. Jules is jealous when Suzanne raids her closet for clothes for Mae. She gets upset when her friends like Mae, even though a judge forced Mae to enroll in high school when she has never had a formal education before. The one thing that could have maybe possibly been seen as an “evil deed” by Mae was that she included a picture of herself that Jules willingly took in an envelope of pictures to be used for a school newspaper column about her. In the picture, you could see a little bit of a giant wound that Mae has on her back, which somehow gets a bunch of kids at school to like her. Mae says that she included the picture because she thought it made Jules look good as a photographer. Are we really supposed to believe that Mae is manipulative enough to know how all of these kids would respond to one picture of her that barely shows her back? Especially since high school kids can be vicious. I don’t know that they would have responded with “you’re my hero!” They would have responded with “you’re a freak.”

Peter (Sam Jaeger), Suzanne’s husband, knows that Suzanne lived through a traumatic childhood. She literally has scars to show us. However, Peter gets upset when Suzanne does things to accommodate Mae. As a matter of fact, he is the one that insists that Suzanne find somewhere else for Mae to stay even though Mae has straight up stated that she feels safe with Suzanne. When Suzanne and Mae toured another foster home, Mae told Suzanne to her face that she didn’t feel safe there and that she wanted to stay with Suzanne. But, no, let’s send away the traumatized 15-year old because you think your wife isn’t prioritizing your family. (For the record, Suzanne is almost always there for the kids. In some parts, she is there MORE than Peter!)

Another problem is that the cult that is after Mae isn’t that scary. We see a few instances where they leave some marks to show they know where Mae is but they don’t follow up on most of those. The cult doesn’t actually do anything until the last three episodes. In those episodes, we get told of some other things the cult has done but we don’t see a whole lot.

In the finale, we finally get a reason to dislike Mae. However, I think her actions are a direct result of being told that she was getting sent away from Suzanne and her family. I don’t know that we can really blame her for those actions. Sorry, Peter, those are all your fault.

After all of this, I don’t know that the series is worth watching. It is based on a book so maybe the book goes more in depth on everything. But I really think that this should have been at least 10 episodes instead of 8. There are much better series about cults out there. Go watch one of those instead.

1000 Miles From Christmas | 2021 Christmas Movies

I‘ve done it! 1000 Miles From Christmas is the last 2021 Christmas movie on my list! It has taken forever to do it but I have watched 91 Christmas movies. That is such an exhausting number. And I bet there will be more movies this year. I’m scared.

Raúl (Tamar Novas) is an auditor that hates Christmas. This year, he has planned a vacation to Cuba to get away from the Christmas festivities. Instead, his boss sends him to a small town to audit the local nougat factory. Will he ruin Christmas for the town or can they bring the Christmas spirit to him?

This was such a lovely movie. Even though it revolved around the town putting on the largest nativity play in the world and there were a lot of Christmas flashbacks for Raúl, it never felt like the Christmas season was being forced onto us. Christmas just happened to be the time of year and I love that.

I also liked that there were actual reasons for Raúl to hate Christmas. Thanks to the flashbacks, we got to see all of the traumatic things that happened to him during Christmas over his lifetime. If I was him, I would hate Christmas too.

If you don’t mind foreign films, 1000 Miles From Christmas is absolutely worth watching. It has romance, it has friendship, it has an evil backstabbing character, and it has the best parts of Christmas. I can’t think of a single thing that I didn’t like about the movie. It really might be my favorite Christmas movie of the season. And I am so happy that this was the last movie I watched. It leaves me hopeful for the 2022 Christmas movie season.