Review – Ouija 3: The Charlie Charlie Challenge

An hour and a half of “Charlie bit my finger” would have been less of a challenge to watch. This has no obvious connection to any other Ouija movie, and it’s justly listed on IMDb only as Charlie Charlie. The cast appears to have been recruited from an undergraduate theatre program. The setting is a struggling-to-get-by haunted house attraction. If you’ve ever seen a movie that met those two descriptions, then you already know exactly what you’re in for here. If you haven’t had this experience already, please don’t feel like you need to. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Camera Obscura

Any number of interesting stories might have been spun using this title as a starting point. Alas, the only spinning going on here results in a tangled mess of loose threads. A photographer with a stereotypical mental illness finds that the pictures he takes with an antique camera foretell violent ends for his subjects. He tries several clever twists to make it stop, naturally only managing to make the problem worse. The only bright spot here is that the “how are you going to explain this to the police?” issue is an actual part of the picture rather than an afterthought or an ignored detail. See if desperate

Review – The Limehouse Golem

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a story so thoroughly eclipsed by its own background characters. The main plot surrounds a series of murders in a lower class district of Victorian London, and changing the specifics around a little doesn’t serve to depart in any meaningful way from the well-trodden path. But some of the suspects are actual semi-celebrities from the time period: actor Dan Leno, author George Gissing, and Karl Marx (who of course needs no further introduction). Other than 19th century name-dropping, however, this is an unimaginative murder mystery and not much more. See if desperate

Review – Jeepers Creepers 3

I’ve never seen a movie more unevenly budgeted than this one. The producers put together the cash for cinematography and a few vaguely familiar faces in the cast. But then they spent next to nothing on other parts of the production. The most glaring divide lay between good creature effects and bargain basement everything else. But the thing that really spoiled the picture was the unkillable monster. The Creeper gets a metal bar rammed through its head (popping its right eye in the process) and then shot dozens of times in the chest (by a gun prop that looked like it was cobbled together from an old barbecue grill). And just a few minutes later it’s back in fine fettle. Even the bullet holes in its shirt healed up. If the thing can’t possibly be defeated, what’s the point? See if desperate

Review – Cars 3

Somehow I managed to miss Cars 2, but it doesn’t seem to have affected my ability to follow this episode. That’s at least in part because there wasn’t all that much to follow. Lightning McQueen finds himself superannuated by the next generation of sentient race cars, so he goes in search of training, platitudes or whatever else might help him get back in the game. See if desperate

Review – The Wave

Story-wise, this is a fairly standard disaster movie. But I admit I’ve never seen this particular set up before. A geological event dumps a huge amount of water into a Norwegian fjord, bringing destruction to everything in the wave’s path. Sadly, that includes the resort town where the protagonist’s family lives and works. As usual with movies like this, a series of cliff-hanging improbabilities ensues. Mildly amusing

Review – Nightworld

At least this one’s actually set in Eastern Europe rather than merely being shot there. That said, this could be set anyplace where there might conceivably be an old apartment building with a gate to hell concealed in its basement. Robert Englund supplies a familiar face for the mysterious expert summoned by the newly-hired security guard when strange things start happening. The premise isn’t terrible, but the actual story is a slow-moving, muddled mess. See if desperate