The finale begins with BETRAYAL. The “good” FBI agent who set up the safehouse- Picard was in on it THE WHOLE TIME!!! DUN DUN DUN. KJ is there being a psychopath and for some reason they aren’t just killing everyone. WHY? I mean they were all pew pew pew throughout the miniseries, but now it’s chit chat time??? KJ killed EVERYONE! He killed his Dad, Morrison, Deputy Deadmeat and Mrs. Deadmeat, Reacher’s brother, and the Last Unicorn. I’m not a huge unicorn fan; so, that one I’m fine with that one. AHHH, KJ wants Reacher to find Hubble and if he does it, he’ll release Hubble’s wife and kids. I doubt it, but ok – let’s see where this goes.
Reacher is being forced to track Hubble down and Picard is on him, but why just him? There seems to be no shortage of thugs in this town. Anyway, manages to kill Picard and find Hubble. Ok, why not? Finley is the jail with the crooked cop who’s beating him A LOT, but Reacher busts in the jail with a trick because of course he does!!!
AWESOME! They are grabbing all the guns from the jail. ARMORED UP!!!
Reacher goes to the counterfeiting hideout and there’s fire and killing. It’s awesome.
The episode begins with the one good cop in Margrave – I believe his name is Deputy Deadmeat with his pregnant wife, who knows too much, and is just a few days from retirement. These two people couldn’t be more about to be killed in this show if they jumped into “The Beyond” (shoutout to Lisa). Uh Oh, the dudes in the white garbage bags are heading into Deadmeat’s house.
We have another Reacher flashback. They are forced to move to Germany because they wouldn’t cave to apologizing to the bully in the neighborhood. I’m not sure how I feel about all these flashbacks. They’re good, but we’re in the last two episode’s now; so, as the philosopher Elvis would say- A little less talk and a little more action.
Aaaaand, we’re back.
Deputy Deadmeat and his wife are very very murdered, but at least they didn’t make him eat his own balls; so,….. yay?
This episode is fun because he goes full Rambo!!! Reacher talks to a dirty cop and surreptitiously tells him that he will be at Hubble’s house that night! He leaves the Mercedes outside so that the murderers know he’s there! It’s AWESOME!!! Power chords are workin’ for him as he puts on the camo paint. So many dudes show up in the white garbage bags and it gets Total Recall with the violence! LOVE IT!!!!
The room clear to look for Reacher who has laid a trap, but most are using handguns and only one has a shotgun. Handguns aren’t great for house fighting. The shotgun is a much preferred weapon. Why? Projectiles fly VERY fast and you can miss easily; whereas, a shotgun spreads the pain.
The male shirtlessness after the fight is a bit unnecessary. He neatly figures everything out at once that the paper is 1 dollar bills that they bleach and reprint as 100s. I think this could’ve been teased out better if we didn’t have SO MANY FLASHBACKS.
Meanwhile, Finley is trapped in a crappy motel with dudes trying to kill him. I had a similar experience when I was almost murdered in Spain.
I was at bar and an older lady came up to me and just started kissing me right away and then said- this is my cheating husband’s favorite bar and I told him I was going to sleep with the first guy I met. I’ll show him when gets here in five minutes! I threw some bills at the bar and ran out. Why Barcelona, Why???! As I got out onto those damn slippery cobblestones, I saw very large angry man looking around everywhere.
Yes, life comes at you pretty fast: one minute you’re eating shitty paella and getting loaded on Sangria and the next you’re running out of the back door of a bar to get to your penzione, get your shit, and take the first train out of Spain to ANYWHERE. The next morning, I was in Holland.
I hope you enjoyed this recap/review and stay out of Barcelona! I don’t care how many museums they have- it is actually a lot and they are nice, but for me, it will always be Murderville!
Sorry for the hiatus. I love Reacher, but I also love C8H18 and have to study it ALL THE TIME! Not a lot actually happens in this particular episode- lot of reading, talking, fishing. Yeah, there’s some fishing. We learn that Roscoe’s old boss and mentor knew something was rotten in Margrave, but did not quite know what it was. There’s a river that’s poisoned and we meet Reacher’s old buddy Frances. It does end with a little scare in that Kilner Sr has his throat slit. He was probably a workaholic; so, he was probably going to die at the office anyway.
Episode 6 Papier
The episode begins with the finer points of Venezuelan throat cutting. Charlene is still in a safe house and we learn that Finley’s wife passed away. Charlene’s safehouse is NOT so safe because there’s assassins on trying to kill Charlene and her kids. The question I have is: who isn’t being pursued by murderers in this craphole? Margave is giving Chicago a run for its money! However, we do get to see an assassin killed by his own grenade!
At least, there’s more action than the last episode. I do love the show, but I do think a couple of the episodes were filler and put the bulk of the narrative import at the last 3 minutes. Typically, the show is very tight, but could’ve benefitted from nixing 1 episode.
Reacher decides that he needs to find the people who were helping his murdered brother Joe. Two of them were professors, one is dead. He connects with professor and she explains that Joe was hunting down a counterfeiting ring. It’s all about the paper!!!! They were making the paper for counterfeiting US Dollars in Margrave, shipping them to Venezuela, and poisoning the river to do it!!! DUN DUN DUN! We also learn how Paul Hubbard got pulled into the mob. It’s a lot of…… accounting. So, we’re not going into that.
It does end with A LOT of Reacher- breakin a dude’s leg and stranglin him!!!
Now, with these episodes out of the way, the plot gets goin again!!!
So, this is how it ends. This has been a very challenging October. Midterms, illness, and despair…at least two of those things were caused by Alex Magana. I still don’t fully grasp his motivation to make terrible things. Is it money? No, I checked his revenue from YouTube. Alex Magana makes these terrible terrible things for the love of the game and that game is pain. I wonder if he edits his films cosplaying as Pinhead?
The premise is just so strange! A lady soon to be victim is seeing people cosplaying as the Smiling Woman. I don’t get it; cosplaying as the Smiling Woman is like cosplaying as Sam, my neighbor, who is a fine man in his own right, but doesn’t warrant any fanboys or fangirls. Although Sam is a bit edgy, I mean he does wait until Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday afternoon to bring his garbage cans back from the curb and we all know what that does…..a stern letter/reminder from the HOA….take that society!!! I’ll be seeing a number of Sam trick or treaters tonight with his signature polo shirt and jeans.
The soon to be new smiling woman starts getting the texts!!! Yes, that’s the life cycle of the creature. She slides into your DMs, breakdances, consumes you, and you …. yes you are the next Smiling Woman. Never mind that it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics – Conservation of Mass! You can read about that here and yes poop is discussed!
Look, we’ve all done something that we’re not proud of and we must perform some sort of act of contrition. Yes, you deserve this….you know you do…yeah….that’s right….maybe watch it two times…Feel that SHAME!!!!
If a meme no one know falls in the woods…something something…I whimper alone on the floor.
This is the Horrorthon short that I am used to seeing: a true James Nguyen level of garbage. There was nothing on IMDB to give me a title card; so, I went with this cute Crab-Dog. One note about this film is the outrageous number of easter eggs referring to people no one has ever heard of. It’s like giving yourself a nickname. I don’t understand. It’s also just a terrible short and what makes it worse is that it purports to be a comedy- WHY?
There’s a woman who gets home from a bad date and the date is presumably stalking her or might be Michael Myers from the Halloween films- I really can’t tell. I hope John Carpenter does a Cease and Desist order. She tries to block the creep and he shows up at her house and stabs her- laugh riot…it’s like some people want me to feel pain. Maybe I deserve the pain? Maybe they know that if they make this horribleness that I’ll have to watch it and reflect upon my failed existence?
If you want to punish yourself and the pain of 7 minutes feeling like 7000, this is for you! Maybe Pinhead made this film and I’m in a Hell Dimension in the Houston Suburbs?
This is the 7 minutes and change of my discontent.
Hello Horror Friends! I am taking a break from making meatball sliders and studying for Drilling to review something truly great. WHAAA? Yes, this is legit, guys. I was really worried that I was going to have to review a series of turds and just embrace them, but when I did my search this popped up and it is straight-up scary. It has Hitchcock levels of suspense with a simple story that ratchets up the tension for the entire film. It’s so great to see talent. From what I can tell, they’re Swedish artists and their story craft, directing, and acting just grabs you right by the proverbials and does not let go!
Nathalie is a teleworking IT customer service agent and she gets a rude call. She takes a break and we see a shadow of a man is in her house; I’m still a little goose-fleshed. I know some of my readers are anti-gun. I used to have one for work, but I get your point of view……sort of. What I mean is this, if I were a single woman, I would be armed- ALWAYS….ALWAYS…ALWAYS- the shower, taking out the trash, playing pickle ball, maybe have a shotgun swung around my back The Last of Us style when I’m cooking marinara, and just a wee .22 caliber in an ankle holster when I’m cooking my Nutella gelato (oh yeah I make that, sup?).
The entire film you’re so worried for Nathalie because the actress imbues the character with this sweet sort-of Audrey Hepburn in “Wait Until Dark” quality. Nathalie becomes a Rorschach image of every “girl next door/ nice college roommate” and knowing that she’s in peril is almost too much. I will NOT lie: I had … no joke…. 4 jump out of my seat moments. This is one of the best short films that I have ever seen; in fact, it might be the best short-film I’ve ever seen; now, I need to think on that. One thing is certain, it’s absolutely going to be impossible to top this short film for the 2023 Horrorthon; so, I wish the rest of the filmmakers well in all of their future endeavors.
Happy Horrothon! “I know you’re gonna say, this isn’t horror! This is Thor singing the blues!” I hear your critique and I reject it! The greatest horror stories especially in science fiction have trauma, fear, and hope. Alien, for example, terrible things happen to this crew of…. I guess…. miners, but at the end – there’s hope because Ripley overcomes. I always have a bit of anxiety at the end of the New “Outer Limits” or films like “Life” because it’s a good twist, but everyone is now dead and the heroes failed- that’s too much like life!
In “Rain”, a woman is alone and there appears to be a guy in the friendzone who REALLY wants to be with her and can sing and looks like Thor. For the interest of Horrorthon, we’re going to presume that- I don’t know this lady’s name but I’ll call her Susan- that Susan’s previous guy was eaten by a …got it…. a werewolf! Take that doubters told you I could contrive this into a horror review- BWAHAHAHA!
Side note: Susan, you’re being too picky. I’m sure that youhad a rough time, but this guy even wrote a song for you, looks like Thor, and sounds like Otis Redding reincarnated. Maybe your standards are just WAY too high?
Susan’s boyfriend was werewolf puppy chow and Thor is trying to tell her that it will be okay. He has felt her pain because there is probably at least another werewolf in town that probably ate his girlfriend too. Can you imagine that support group? They must hate Iams and Doggy costumes! The line “Is that rain or are you crying again?” gets to me because when you’re broken-hearted – it’s like the tears can’t stop. “A soul with no face is a lonely embrace” this line is all about not seeing your soulmate again- Fucking Werewolves, we gotta do something about them, but then this song wouldn’t exist; so, I’m torn!
As they try console each other, “now’s there clouds between us all”; so, they likely hooked up, but they also have to worry about the full moon coming- probably. I like that at the end of the song – he says – “You ain’t gonna be ain’t gonna be alone” and notice, he doesn’t say- With me – Wonderful me. He’s left her better off and maybe he will be alone and live out his days as a werewolf hunter?
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Happy Horrorthon! It’s October!!! Yes, I passed my engineering classes last year; so, I will be working for Big Oil. Huh, my mother works for Big Pharma and I work for Big Oil – hmmm if only I could get my daughters into banking; then, we could finally bring about He Who Shall Sit At The Head of All Tables……BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Sorry, I digress. I’m beginning this Horrorthon with a scathing review, but sometimes people just aren’t good at things. “Out There” is 4 minutes and 21 seconds long and I can’t write that everything Laila Iravani did was terrible because in the first 20 seconds there is a title card and everything was spelled correctly; so, there’s that. The other positive is that it was only over 4 minutes long. I had a mild COVID heart attack in 2021 and I think that the heart attack was about the same amount of time….maybe this film was even shorter than my heart attack? So, this film was briefer than that.
“Out There” was a story because there were characters, people, and I guess somethings happened. There were three or four bad actors who kind of could not go outside or the movie would skip. I really couldn’t write about the plot because I would have to do a lot of Laila Iravani’s work for her. Hold on, I’m really trying to be positive…the camera appeared to be on the whole time. There, I did it!
I can’t say that I’m sad after watching this because I love October and maybe like some other years this is the year of the crap short film. I think it’s Alex Magana creep because he makes terrible films and other people are like – “Hey, I’m bad at things too! I’m gonna make something terrible and Case will have to review and I HATE him already without knowing him because he likes art and this will be the opposite of that.” Laila Iravani you made me hurt a little, but only for 4 minutes and 21 seconds! So, Yay?
I got a note that Laila Iravani might not have made this terrible film. Laila, I’m glad that you did not do this. Supposedly, it’s in a film festival circuit going round and round and round. Hopefully, it will stay within the circuit and not spread to the greater world. It is really terrible. I’m not sure who made this terrible film, but maybe that’s sort of its mythos? Maybe, “Out There” is like one of the old ones such as Cthulhu- it has always been …. Waiting and once it finishes the film festival circuitry, it shall be released to the greater world and devour all of mankind????
Happy Halloween, once again my friends! I know many of you read my posts for the extremes. Really, who cares about the 3 Star Amazon Reviews?! It’s all about the love or the rage. This short did not scare me, but the writer and director has some talent. There’s actually no writer listed; so, it fits that it felt like improv. The story has a beginning, middle, and end. It is satisfying. Although this is a middle of the road short, come on keep reading because my last post helped you avoid Space Herpes! You owe me!!!
Vincent and Martin are roommates. Vincent sees his roommate sleepwalking and figures why not talk to him? I’m not sure what he expected of his half-asleep roommate, but apparently he’s communicating with an evil spirit with serious OCD. The half-asleep Martin has his ear against the door and says that “She will tell you secrets if I listen at the door.” Vincent tries it, ah….Martin corrects him- “you have to close your eyes.” My first response would be: Why the F#@& do I have to take orders from some ASMR whispering cretin in my own GD house- you melatonin addict?! I get the wanting to communicate with other side, but what’s with all the pre-requisites?! I’ve already had Differential Equations; so, tell your Evil Spirit Guidance Counselor to go #&*% and other various Q-Bert symbols!
I’m gonna spoil this a little because…. you know what you did! Vincent runs into the monster in the kitchen and she’s… super bendy and naked, which I guess is scary. I’d just be like take your best shot; you-not-showered-for-a-week-orthopedic-nightmare-somehow-forever-damp-naked- #$^& B@!! She’s obviously got bone issues. You have the greater reach!
He does pick up a guitar and try to fight, but defeats him with …… ASMR?! Is she reciting Goodnight Moon?
One note, what’s with the Darkness?! I can barely see what’s happening in films now with the lighting so low?! I’m not sure if he dies here or if she’s just a close talker. In any case, the film’s over and it basically is an ad for getting a deadbolt.
Happy Halloween! I really tried to contribute as much as possible this year. I’ve been beaten down by really really hard engineering classes and a Professor who shows up slurring words- Bombed. It’s annoying/sad. However, this short film is neither annoying, nor sad. I didn’t know that a person could make an alien invasion boring, but here we are.
There are survivors fighting and killing each other over basic staples. There’s a husband and wife, but he’s ill!!!! So, his wife goes on the hunt for medicine. What medicine? Who knows? Also, how would she know what to give him or how much? These questions aren’t raised or answered. She enters a supposedly empty home and fights the owner in the dumbest way possible. She knocks the owner down, but turns her back on her because it’s gotta be stupid.
Another issue with alien invasions stories I have is disease, people are all surviving. How? Our bacteria and viruses would not be able to compete. War of the World would’ve been mutually assured destruction.
I was always weirded out by Mass Effect that way; Shepard is way to eager to jump the bones of an alien species. We just got exposed to coronavirus, does this horny weirdo think that this hot blue alien wouldn’t have some sort of virus? She’s from another planet, you degenerate weirdo! Things evolved there and it wasn’t us! At the very least, she’ll give you an alien cold sore that’s probably Sapient Space Herpes (SSH), there’s not enough Blistex in the world to fight that!
I can’t stand morons! I was yelling at my computer screen the whole time and not in a good way. Listen, it’s either the apocalypse or not. If the aliens are killing everybody, you either fight or jump to your doom because chances are they will eat us. They’re not here to fall in love with us.
Back to my boring short film, you eventually see the floating alien, which is a big jellyfish. This is just dumb; I can suspend some disbelief for a spaceship, but you’re serving up a big Man-of-War jellyfish to take out humanity. We could just all pee on it! Problem solved!!! I’m sorry, things just float about in the air- stop it! I get Brian Otting slept through physics, but come on – haven’t you ever been on a plane before?! I’ll review something else! I can’t let this be the last of Halloween!
Through the Shattered Lens 