Slender Man (2018)

High school students Hallie, Chloe, Wren, and Katie are best friends who dream about running away from their small town together. When the guys of their group are hanging out and plan to summon the Slender Man for fun, the girls decide to rise to the challenge and summon him as well. They watch an eerie video and close their eyes after a series of bells. Nothing happens for while and everything returns to normal until Katie suddenly disappears. Hallie decides to investigate theories behind the Slender Man to try to get her friend back.

Slender Man is a supernatural horror film based on the infamous creepy pasta. This film tries to take a sweet, wholesome group of girls and throw the Slender Man in to make their lives fall apart. They all have their own problems and reasons for wanting to get out of the small town they live in. Most of them are essentially interchangeable and not well acted, but Joey King seems to be the only committed actor. These girls are supposed to raise emotional stakes, but the audience doesn't really care about them. One character disappears at the beginning of the film to kick off the mystery. Wren disappears for most of the movie for no reason only to reappear for a second at the end. Chloe has creepy stuff happening but is never mentioned or seen again. The emotional stakes for the characters are about the same as for the audience: very low.

Even though it has its own lore and mythology, this Slender Man steals from The Ring with a much less creepy internet video. The people who watch the video have weird stuff happen as time goes on, but it comes off terribly. The effects look awful and come off unintentionally funny. On top of that, the latter half of the film is about as boring as watching dirt. The Slender Man is barely seen and is less threatening than The Bye Bye Man. That film is a masterpiece compared to this one. There's also the added factor that the real life attempted murder in Wisconsin put Slender Man in the public eye. The film avoids direct parallels, but the concept of sacrificing things or people to the Slender Man is there in addition to characters growing obsessed with him. It's distasteful.

The Slender Man is one of the worst cinematic experiences I've had in recent years. There is no tension, little scares, and numerous dropped plotlines and characters. The visual effects are lackluster at best and there's no reason to care about any character. The one brief shining thing was Joey King's performance even though she was gone for a third of the film. Avoid this like the plague unless you have insomnia or just like being bored.

My rating: 0.5/5 fishmuffins

Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco

Audrey Rose Wadsworth has a privileged life with a wealthy family. After her mother dies, a rift appears in her family as her father isolates himself. She turns to science and throws herself into studying anatomy and forensics at her uncle's laboratory against society's expectations and her father's wishes. One day, the body of a mutilated woman is delivered for her uncle to collect evidence in a disturbing case of multiple murders. Audrey throws herself into the investigation along with an annoying but brilliant rival Thomas Cresswell despite the risk of danger and irreparable damage to her reputation.

Stalking Jack the Ripper is the story of Audrey and her unconventional science education, her endeavor to solve the true crime mystery, and her first love. Some of these aspects work better than others. Audrey is a smart young woman who suffers from "not like any other girl" syndrome. She soundly rejects other women as frivolous and beneath her, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Victorian society pressures women into a certain mold that doesn't necessarily show how they are inside. This goes against her anachronistically modern view of women and their abilities. I relate to Audrey's grief about her mother's death and the negative changes she sees in her father. Her grief also led her to learning about anatomy and forensics. She takes courses dressed as a boy and stays silent even though she knows the answers. As a whole, I didn't hate Audrey, but she annoyed me.

The biggest problems I have are with Thomas Cresswell, the picking and choosing of what part of Victorian society are used, and the way the villain is treated. Thomas Cresswell is incredibly intelligent and also incredibly arrogant. His condescending nature has a misogynistic tinge to it as he mocks Audrey for not being as educated as him (because women are barred from classes). He seems to be there only to be better at everything than Audrey. I didn't find him likeable in any way and grew even more annoyed that she grew attracted to him when he's so awful. The book played lip service to some aspects of Victorian society at the beginning and then completely ignored them by the end. Audrey gallavanting around the city with Thomas and no chaperone would have destroyed her reputation. The final nail in the coffin of this book was how they treated the villain when his identity was revealed. Audrey and Thomas has the audacity to offer him resuming his normal life if he agrees to stop murdering. I felt so angry reading this because this isn't the action of a hero and it shows such privilege.

Stalking Jack the Ripper is not my favorite book. It has numerous flaws that include an annoying love interest who puts her down at every turn, inconsistencies with Victorian society (either go with it or ignore it), and an infuriating protagonist. My favorite part of the book is Audrey's view of anatomy, how she's adapted to work with the bodies, and her skill at finding clues. I also didn't guess the mystery before the end, which is rare for these teen mysteries. I am a sucker for Victorian era mysteries and this one lost me. I won't be continuing the series.

My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins

The Devil's Doorway (2018)

The Vatican sends a team of two priests, Thomas Riley and John Thornton, to investigate a possible miracle in 1960 Ireland. At a remote Magdalene Laundry, a statue of the Virgin Mary supposedly cries blood. Father Thomas expects its nothing, but more idealistic and young Father John sees the possiblility of an expression of the divine. As they stay longer, children can be heard playing at night and more and more about this place shows that there is much to hide.

The Devil's Doorway takes the very real horror of the abusive Magdalene laundries with the supernatural. This institution within in the Catholic church hid "fallen women" (meaning sexually active, pregnant out of wedlock, or sex workers) from their communities, abused them, forced them to work, and keep them confined. In the last few decades, the mental, physical, and sexual abuse of the women by priests and nuns who ran the laundries in addition to taking thousands of children born and selling them overseas. All of this is much more horrific than anything supernatural writers can come up with, so I thought some of those aspects fell flat.

The whole investigation starts because of a statue of the Virgin Mary crying blood and it turns out to be so much more than that. Strange sounds are heard at night including the eerie sound of children playing. All of the Mary statues cry and then explode in one of the most effective scenes of the film. A particularly violent pregnant woman is chained up in the basement, apparently possessed. These aspects could have been a bit more streamlined. It's a lot of supernatural just thrown around that don't really seem to be connected to each other. The possession in particular seems to be there just because it's expected to be rather than furthering the story. The payoff for the creepy children voices wasn't executed very well and seemed rather cheesy even though it pointed to the reality of children dying in the "care" of these institutions.

Father Thomas and Father John are the duo sent to investigate the miracle. Thomas is borderline atheistic and jaded while John is idealistic and fairly innocent. This type of pairing is pretty typicaly in possession movies and works well here. They are a bit shocked when the Mother Superior directly calls out the corruption of priests and points out that quite a few girls at the laundries were abused by priests. Her character had great promise, but she remained one dimensional and villainous. The priests are the most likeable characters as they stumble around trying to solve this mystery and getting caught up in the deeper, sordid secrets of the laundry. I didn't like the nuns are basically painted as what's wrong in this situation (even though they aren't blameless) considering that they have no real power in the church as a whole.

The Devil's Doorway does some interesting things. It's a found footage film set in the 1960's and has the visuals to match. The atmosphere can be suspenseful and the plot is fairly well crafted. With the subject matter, I was hoping for a much more critical view of the Catholic Church and it turned out to lay the blame to the nuns who are partially at fault, but don't make the overarching decisions that made the institution and its abuse a reality. Having the priests clutch their pearls about the abuse didn't ring true to me at all, let alone anything else. Overall, it's a decent horror film, but I left disappointed at the tired tropes and random grab bag of supernatural.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins 

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Kris Pulaski founded a metal band in the 90's called Durt Wurk with her high school best friend Terry Hunt. They were on the verge of something big when Terry threw a tantrum and ruined it for them all. He split from the group, made them all sign contracts to never play music again and sign over ownership of their music among other things, and left them. Twenty years later, Terry is the height of corporate rock music while Kris is reduced to managing a Best Western. She rediscovers her love of music and sets out to reunite with her bandmates, confront Terry over his betrayal, and make music again.

We Sold Our Souls mixes a deal with the devil, a Lovecraftian cult, and a scrappy metal band to create its weird and wonderful mythology. It all starts with Kris moldering at the Best Western, struggling to deal with naked, deranged patrons.  Because of Terry and his contracts, Kris has no prospects or real future. I am completely on board with her when she sets out to rebuild her band and face Terry. The situation is all the more heartbreaking when their relationship is shown. She and Terry grew up together, mourned legends, traded tapes, learned music, and finally founded Durt Wurk together. He threw it all away to become the Blind King and head Koffin, the most commercially successful and soulless metal band. It merges the commercial nature of Kiss mixed with Nickelback, only with metal music. Melanie is a huge fan of their music who is disillusioned and drowning in college debt. She proves to be significant to the story in surprising ways.

I love the way Hendrix talks about music. Kris started out as a kid in a basement struggling to make music with hurting hands and strings only to transcend the pain and frustration when she finally plays the opening chords of Iron Man. The same music heard by thousands finally came out of her own guitar. Later on, Durt Wurk played for a different crowds (hostile and not) and succeeded in transforming them with their music and energy. Melanie and Kris bond over their shared love of Dolly Parton (after butting heads over their differing views of Koffin) and pass the time singing her music all the way to Vegas. The manufactured to appeal to the widest audience type of music fro Koffin is described very differently than Durt Wurk's earnest and heartfelt but imperfect songs. The way music is described borders on magical but feels accurate. It has a way of bonding lovers of the same music and transforming listeners and performers alike.

The horror elements took me by surprise. I thought it would be similar to The Devil's Candy or something more straightforward. The creatures that gave Terry the contracts are bigger and more monstrous than our perception allows us to see. They never communicate directly because they don't even speak the same language. The minions are only aware that they know human greed and feast on souls. Their main minions are cookie cutter UPS drivers that aren't much more than automatons. In addition, all the followers of Koffin act as their eyes and ears. When enough followers gather, they stop truly being individuals and answer commands to destroy. Kris isn't safe anywhere. The creatures have already gotten to anyone that might matter to her and every person is a potential informant or attacker. The eldritch nature of the villains plus their far feaching eyes and ears keeps the suspense and sense of danger high as the novel moves along.

We Sold Our Souls is a treat to read. There are so many different elements that Hendrix melds together to make this unique novel. I loved everything from the music to the characters to the villainous monsters. The story is a love letter to metal music that still critiques the negative things about it like how women can be harassed at concerts. I have no issues with this book and I loved how it ended like it started. I highly recommend this and any other Grady Hendrix novel.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

The Meg (2018)

Jonas Taylor, rescue diver, had a traumatic experience with something unknown crushing a nuclear submarine and forcing him to leave his best friends behind in order to save others. Five years later, the underwater research facility Mana One discovers an even deeper section of the Mariana Trench. The crew of the small craft is attacked and stranded due to the damage. Drunken Jonas is pulled from his island retreat to save them only to face the gigantic creature of his nightmares.

The Meg is yet another killer shark film except this particular shark is a Megalodon, a giant species from millions of years ago. The stakes are higher because of the extend of the devastation it could cause. Like most of these types of movies, the shark seems to actively go after individual people it has a grudge against and after large groups of people to eat. The shark looks awesome. Its ability to jump in the air and move at breakneck speed makes it daunting as hell. The size of it is crazy, but it isn't really believable that the people had any chance at all to beat it.

Most of the human characters have a sense of community and meaningful relationships to each other. Even the very first character to die (who had very little screen time) made me a little emotional. The research team felt like a family who truly cared for each other. Suyin and Jonas had an adorable romance where Jonas didn't just go around saving her. Suyin's daughter Meiying is the cutest kid. The writing for her is a little too precocious for a kid her age, but it didn't annoy me. Her interaction with Jonas gave him a little softness to his stereotypically gruff action hero facade. Jack, the billionaire funding the program, had no consistency to his character at all. First he was comic relief, then he was the greedy boss, and finally settled on the villainous big game hunter.

The Meg is a ridiculous movie, but it was fun and over the top just like I wanted. The emotional stakes with the well built relationships and warm fuzzies with Jonas, Suyin, and Meiying are unexpected and very welcome in this type of movie. The big flaws for me are the inconsistency in Rainn Wilson's character and the entirely too long run time of the movie. It should have been at least a half hour shorter to keep up the momentum. The Meg isn't Jaws, but it's not trying to be. Don't go in expecting logic or realism and you'll be fine.

My rating: 3.5/5 fishmuffins

Dance of Thieves by Mary Pearson

The Remnant Chronicles continues with Jase, the new leader of a fearsome outlaw family, and Kazi, a former thief and current guard of the queen. The queen has set out to overthrow Jase's family, but they must join forces to survive despite their conflicts.

Dance of Thieves takes place in an already established world that I was unfamiliar with. I never read the Remnant Chronicles and I expected this book to be part of an all new series. Establishing the characters, setting, and current politics felt choppy and stilted. The author seemed to assume that the reader already knows the world and didn't fill in many gaps besides the backgrounds of a few characters. The prose completely changes to being fluid and easier when the plot finally moves forward, but I didn't feel much of a connection to the characters. I didn't finish this book. Sixty pages felt like it took forever and I decided not to invest the time in the rest of the four hundred plus additional pages.

What I read had some good aspects. Kazi AKA Ten is an interesting character. She's a legendary thief because she worked for a long time and kept her ten fingers, meaning she wasn't caught stealing. When the queen went by, Kazi spit on her and the queen responded by training her. Kazi pushed back and kept defiant for a while until the others earned her trust. The only trouble after that was when she had a traumatic flashback and attacked someone violently. I felt for her, but Jase was only introduced a few pages before they met. We only saw him being generally drunk and arrogant before the two characters on opposing sides are thrown together, presumably to become attracted despite their best efforts.

Dance of Thieves had some good aspects, but I couldn't connect with it. Maybe I'll read the previous series and get on board, but the way it's written doesn't seem to account of unfamiliar readers.

My rating: 1/5 fishmuffins

Shark Movie Mini-Reviews: Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

* Jaws 3-D (1983)

While stalking water skiers, a great white shark gets into the gate leading to Sea World Orlando attractions. No one seems to notice except for the dolphins Sandy and Cindy. Dr. Kay Morgan (senior marine biologist) and Michael Brody (architect of attractions) work together and investigate the missing mechanic whose body never surfaced.

I thought I never saw this film, but watching it had me feeling so nostalgic and I remembered almost every scene. I used to watch it so many times as a kid on commercial TV with my siblings. Jaws 3D is one of the cheesiest movies and I love it so much. The character are shallow, the dialogue is awful, and their reactions are over the top. Kay and Michael are the only remotely likeable people in the entire film, but they're also a pretty cute couple. The park manager Calvin is only interested in profits and puts the animals in dangerous situations, ignoring Kay's valuable advice. I'm not exactly sure why Sea World would want their name on this especially when the officals of the company are so toxic. Phillip is another awful character who treats Kay like garbage and wants to kill a shark on life TV.

I am more on the shark's side this movie. 90% of the humans are awful and I don't really care if they die. The death of the baby shark is a truly sad, sobering moment in this campy film. It was put in a tank that was too shallow just to show it off to patrons without assessing its health or identifying its environmental needs. I don't blame the mother shark for wanting reveng. It then destroys parts of the underwater tunnels and crashes into the window to the underwater cafe in one of the best worst shark scenes ever. The shark attacks look incredibly awkward and more like people swim into its mouth on purpose than the shark trying to eat them. The 3D moments look pretty terrible, particularly the last scene of the film. Even though it has flaws galore, I love this movie in all its cheesy glory.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

* Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

The Brody family is back, but forever changed. Martin Brody died of a heart attack and his son Sean (also working as a police chief) was killed by a shark. Ellen grieves for her husband and son, clinging tight to her remaining family in Michael, his wife Carla, and their children. They convince her to go the Bahamas for the holidays, but Ellen can't shake the feeling that the ocean is dangerous and sharks will never leave them alone.

Jaws: The Revenge is the weakest in the series, but manages to have some interesting moments. Sean's death scene in the ocean being relentlessly attacked by a shark while the community performs Christmas carols. It's a chilling moment that illustrates how he is so close to help that is still unattainable. This is the best moment of the whole movie. From then on, it's all Ellen lecturing Michael, a marine biologist, to stay out of the ocean. I do like how the film focuses on Ellen and how going to the island prompts her to let go of the past a little bit. I hate how this film seems to stand alone. Last movie, Michael was an architect dating a marine biologist named Kay. Now, he is the marine biologist and his wife Carla (who looks EXACTLY like Kay) is an artist with almost no personality. I really hated this change.

The shark shows up everywhere and literally stalks the family wherever they go. It took 4 movies, but a shark finally got to eat one member of the Brody family and it's hungry for more. The action sequences are lackluster except when it attacks a helicopter. The mechanical shark is overused and looks fake. The ending so this movie seriously bored me. There are so many ridiculous things wrong about sharks (way more than usual) including having it swim over 1,000 miles in three days and roaring like a lion. I'm glad I watched it, but I don't see myself revisiting this film any time soon.

My rating: 1.5/5 fishmuffins