The Legend of Jack and Jill (2021) - How quickly will I forget this?

Okay, I confess... I've left it almost twelve hours before getting round to reviewing 'The Legend of Jack and Jill' which basically means I've almost completely forgotten everything about it.  

I think I was consciously invested for at least the opening two minutes, where I saw a woman forced to abandon her children (Jack and Jill, would you believe?) in the British wilderness.  Skip forward to when the kids have now grown up and they're mutated killers and there's a bunch of young adults about to take a hiking trip effectively through Jack and Jill's back garden, so to speak.

You can probably guess what happens next.  One by one our 'heroes' are picked off, blah, blah, blah... The problem is that I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has practically forgotten everything about what they just watched in a matter of hours.  This movie is totally forgettable.  It's problems are that you won't care about the people being killed.  Nothing wrong with that in itself.  It wouldn't be the first slasher film where the people you're watching are little more than 'meat sacks' waiting to be slaughtered.  The trouble is that there's nothing that interesting about the killers either.  Add to it that if you're hoping that there might at least be some inventive kills and gore, there isn't.  The kills aren't that grisly.  The acting isn't that sharp.  The make-up you could probably do yourself if you're going out for Halloween and the overall premise of the killers being (horrific) incarnations of a popular nursery rhyme really isn't explored.  Seriously, if you called this film 'Woodland Mutant Killers' no one would ever say, 'Wow, this is like a slasher version of that old nursery rhyme.' 

I can't believe anyone who sits down to possibly watch this hasn't seen a slasher film before.  You're probably at least slightly into the genre.  Therefore, you've seen better.  You probably have better DVDs in your collection.  Just put one of those on.

4/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back

Monster Portal (2022) - Warning: does not contain many monsters

Hey, I've got nothing against horror 'B-movies' - in fact, they make up a significant proportion of my DVD collection.  You don't have to have major actors, great special effects, or even a particularly original story to make a movie enjoyable - as long as it entertains then it usually fits the bill.  However...

If you make a film with the word 'monster' in the title, it does tend to set an audience's expectations.  If you sat down to watch 'Snakes on a Plane' you'd probably not be expecting Shakespeare, but you'd be looking for something that's just a bit of harmless fun.  If you got one sickly-looking adder ten minutes before then end, then you might feel just a little bit 'short-changed' from what the title promised.

'Monster Portal' is an adaptation of an HP Lovecraft story, which is fair enough, but it does relay on giant creatures as part of its central theme.  Sadly, the movie doesn't have the budget to really pull it off.  Yes, there are a couple of monsters sprinkled here and there, but not only is it not enough to justify the title, but they're rendered about as well as your average Playstation 2 cut scene.

Now, I'm happy enough to ignore the special effects if the story is overall engaging and fun (or in a horror movie's case 'scary' would suffice), but here the acting is bad.  Yes, I've seen enough horror movies to know I'm never going to get 'Oscar-worthy' performances, but in this case it basically feels like the actors  are reading their lines off a cue card which is just out of shot.  I guess I shouldn't really put all the blame on the actors, this script is pretty basic and they're probably doing their best with the awfully generic lines they're given, plus you'd think the director might be able to coax something out of one or two of them.

It's not the main characters who are the (total) problem.  They don't turn in very good performances, but I can just about excuse them.  It's more the secondary cast-members who might as well be your average passers by who were roped in to read a line or two here and there.

As I say, B-movies can be fun, but this one just tries to bite off way more than it's capable of.  With a higher budget, better actors and script it might have worked, but, ultimately, it couldn't make anything of its lofty goals.  Oh, and the leading lady goes topless in the last five minutes if you just want to skip to that (best?) bit!

5/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)

The People Across the Lake (1988) - Strangely watchable

I know the words 'made for TV' are hardly a ringing endorsement for a film - it normally denotes a low budget, no real actors you've heard of and shoved on late at night when no one is ever going to see it anyway.  All that may actually be true of 'The People Across the Lake,' but, despite all its shortcomings, it's actually quite watchable.

It's about a 'typical' (i.e. mum, dad, teenage daughter and younger son) moving from the city to a small, rural town to start up their own business.  However, when they get there it turns out to be possibly one of the most least friendly places to go in America - and that's before random corpses start showing up seemingly under every stone that's overturned.

Again, nothing amazingly revolutionary with the plot, but what made it watchable for me was generally the dynamic between the husband and wife.  The kids don't really get an awful lot of screen time, so it's the adults who are the main characters.  I just found something about them very believable as a couple and, for whatever flaws reared their heads, I still found myself wanting to root for the central characters through to the end.

It's hardly a 'thrill-ride.' In fact you could probably call it a bit of a 'slow burn,' as very little of real note happens during the first half of the movie and it's all just generally setting the scene.  Once all the 'red herrings' have been discounted as to what's going on, when the 'threat' is finally revealed there is a slight element of 'scenery chewing' here and there which does make you want to roll your eyes just a little in terms of various people's acting ability, but it is a 'made for TV' movie, so what do you expect?

It's hardly a classic that will stick with you for very long, but if there's nothing else then this one will certainly fill an hour and a half of your time.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

Isolation (2005) - If 'Alien' had simply been called 'Cow'

If someone tried to tell me the plot for 2005's 'Isolation' I'd probably think they were making it up, or, if the film was as they described, I'd think it was some sort of parody film of the 'monster movie' of the horror genre.  But it isn't.

If you think about 'Alien' and how it was set on a spaceship.  Then you think of 'The Thing' and how it was set deep in the Antarctic and sort of combine the overall theme of the two, only set it on a country farm in the middle of Ireland.  One question you may ask is... isn't a farm a lot easier to escape from (as opposed from a deep space craft or totally inhospitable terrain on all sides) - especially if some hideous killer monster was on the loose.  I would say the answer is yes.  But that's just one of the movie's sins.

The cast (or staff on the farm) of the film are some of the most uninspired and generic you'll ever see.  They really are a bland bunch and one guy (who's supposed to be at least one of the main heroes!) spends much of the time crying!  I've never met a quartet with less personality therefore I really couldn't care much for their plight when the monster started its munching.

Oh, yes, the monster... it's hardly the xenomorph from 'Alien' or the insanely grotesque shape-shifter from 'The Thing.' It's a scraggly pink sausage creature that writhes and wiggles about the place.  I think it may have teeth.  It's not in it for long - probably due to lack of budget.  

There's not much to recommend about this film.  I don't want to be too harsh on it.  It doesn't have a million glaring faults making it completely unwatchable.  In fact, it's major fault would be just how mediocre it really is in terms of those in the genre.  There's nothing especially bad, but there's nothing that will make you remember it.  Oh, and the monster came from a cow.  Yeah, the cows incubate them, so perhaps this film is at least a good advert for going vegetarian.

4/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back

Invasion U.S.A. (1985) - Who needs the army?

Oh, no!  Communists!  Whatever are we going to do?  Guess we might as well surrender - arguably - the most powerful country in the world with a population of around three hundred million.  What else is there to do?  Certainly not tell a story, if the internet is believed.

Just in case you find the title misleading, 'Invasion U.S.A.' is about a few busload of armed communists, who rock up on America's shores and decide to effectively invade.  Hopefully no other band of scallywags try this in real life, as the States seems to roll over quite easily in the face of a few hundred rowdy men.  Luckily, one man isn't going to have that and in the same way Tom Cruise vows never to let an alien's boot touch Earth's soil, so here we have Chuck Norris wiping the lot of them out.

Apparently, the film was due to be a lot longer, with various subplots that flesh out our one man army's backstory and motives.  But then - according to what I read online - the film-makers thought, 'Nah, we don't need any of that - just stick to the action!'

And that is pretty much what we're left with.  A load of faceless badguys descend on some poor area of a civilian town and the Chuck does what he does best and ends the life of every last one.  Rinse and repeat.  Obviously, he has the grace to save the lead badguy until last - what hero would do more?

You could almost see this film's 'story' as a computer game.  Each 'scene' is kind of like the next level Chuck has to blast his way through.  All they needed was an end-of-level boss here and there with an extended energy meter and you'd have an excellent video game.

'Invasion U.S.A.' is the definition of 'mindless action.' So, if you're expecting anything even close to cerebral than run a mile.  However, if you've just watched 'Rambo' and 'Commando' in the same evening and are still hungry for more, 'Invasion U.S.A.' would make a satisfying dessert.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973) - Corny, but watchable

During the pandemic, hairdressers around the world were closed, meaning I couldn't get my hair cut for months.  By the end of it, I looked about as scary as a 'werewolf' from this film.  I may be being a little harsh, but what I'm trying to say is not to expect too many scares from this 'horror' film.

Within the opening five minutes you should basically know what you're in for.  After a heavy exposition dump, delivered by a curly-haired boy, we see our first monster.  It's basically a bloke in a Halloween mask (and a cheap one at that) that, at some angles, even looks more like a baboon than a werewolf!  Werewolves are a difficult creature to make look believable on the big screen and it seems you either need to have a mega budget behind you, or some really inventive ways of filming, combined with practical effects.  This movie has neither.

But it's not all bad.  In fact, it's quite good fun - even for a film that relies heavily on a young actor to carry much of it.  Yes, he's a bit annoying, but not as bad as many of a similar age when on screen.  He tries to tell the local population of a werewolf ravaging the surrounding woods, but - as the title suggests - they don't much take to his tales.

There's definitely fun to be had here.  It's cheap and cheesy and if you're in a forgiving mood you can certainly have fun with this one.  Just don't expect any real scares, let alone special effects.  For some reason the scenes which are supposed to be set in the middle of the night (as the characters even state!) are clearly filmed at dusk, or with an odd exposure setting on the film camera, making it look like dusk.  I'm guessing this is simply because it would be too dark to shoot at night, but it adds to the 'low budget' feel of it all.

It's no masterpiece and possibly not even up there with the best of the werewolf genre, but if you're bored and don't have your expectations set too high then you can pass some time with this one.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

Silent Predators (1999) - Jaws with snakes

First of all, let me say how much I loved the 80s version of 'Clash of the Titans.' I don't care how cheesy it is, it was still a childhood favourite.  However, it's star - Harry Hamlin - certainly fell off the radar as far as I was concerned.  I'd never seen him in another film, until now.  Yes, the title 'Silent Predators' certainly says 'B-movie' and for a good reason - it is one.

Its plot effectively is a load of nasty snakes gets loose in a small town and starts picking off random nobodies you won't care about.  Meanwhile, Hamlin plays the local fire chief who suspects that the snakes are the cause of the recent fatalities and desperately tries to warn the authorities - unsuccessfully.  What you get is - effectively - 'Jaws,' but with snakes with the local powers that be not believing the threat until it's literally biting them on the a...

When it comes to horror B-movies and snakes, I kind of expected something like 'Anaconda' (which is truly great fun - if you like your cheesy B-movies!), i.e. a giant computer-generated monster-snake devouring people hole.  What I got was real snakes, generally slithering towards the actors until a prosthetic version of the reptile was shoved in for the 'kill shot.' I know it's a small thing, but if you're going to make a film with such a low-brow, simple premise as killer snakes on the rampage, you really should lean into it and make it fun.  The problem is that these snakes just aren't scary.  We've probably all seen large-ish snakes in the zoo and, while impressive, they're not as terrible as other movie monsters.

'Silent Predators' isn't a bad film, but it's hardly memorable.  It is indeed a B-movie and hits all the beats you'll expect for a film of this genre.  Good people tend to fair better against murderous snakes, while those with low morals almost always get what's coming to them at the end of a pair of fangs.  If you find this film on a streaming service, there are certainly worse out there, but you probably won't remember it for anything other than the 'first appearance of Perseus' in nearly twenty years.

5/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)