Happy Horrorthon! We are in the thick of it! I’ve been really spoiled with talented filmmakers. This film is listed a dark comedy, but I put it closer to horror.
There is a Jazz DJ who has decided to take his life and he calls Lenny. Lenny sets you up with means to take your life that are quite creative and, in exchange, he takes your furniture after your death so he can sell it. I would argue that the furniture business is his real business and the suicidal people are his vendors.
When Lenny meets the Jazz DJ, he discovers that the DJ is really just bored and not facing the typical existential crises that lead one to taking their own life. The film switches to horror because Lenny can tell that the DJ is indifferent to the means of his death; so, he willing to do a “Combo”- multiple death methods at the same time. However, Lenny does not think enough about safety and focuses too much on rigging the death methods, leading to his own quite funny death!
“Last Call Lenny” takes the darkest subject that I can think of and makes it funny. I hope you enjoy it!
I actually thought that I reviewed “Backrooms” already, but I had not. However, since it is October, it’s a perfect time to review this …. story. The fanbase is Star Wars-level obsessive and just because I don’t particularly care for something, it doesn’t mean it’s terrible- it usually does, but maybe this time is different. I can’t be correct – all the time…. or can I?
This film started as a 4chan post that went viral and the writer/director Kane Parsons built his life around this 4chan post. Then, he went all found footage on its ass. From the age of sixteen to twenty, his entire life was devoted to this magical world that looks a lot like a cubicle farm without the cubicles. The backrooms is a place where you expect to see sad data entry professionals working in sweatshop conditions. Maybe the backrooms is really just a front for an H1-B scam? Whenever a person enters the backrooms, all the workers are gone; so, maybe they used the backrooms as a means to move around their illegal data entry group and things got out of hand, creating a H1-B multiverse?
The film’s quantum mechanics are very intricate, but the movie itself has a very thin plot like saran wrap thin. Backrooms is 95% lore and the plot exists just to have more scenes wandering around the backrooms. Clark is the vehicle we use to get into the backrooms; he is the protagonist – sort of. He is an abusive alcoholic and failed architect who likely killed his wife. He also runs a furniture store and has employees who hate him, but that’s pretty normal for Clark because Clark is an asshat. In fact, his asshattery is so well-developed that even his therapist thinks he’s a boring jerk.
During one of his self-loathing sessions, Clark goes to his store’s basement and tries to do some electricity maintenance and he falls through a portal in his wall to …. wait for it…the backrooms! They basically look like the same room that he was in, but crappier and there are infinite backroom dimensions and quasi-fake people who you can eat- if you want. Apparently, it is okay to go Dahmer on these freaky people because they are “still lifes” – copies of copies of the earth prime people- I think.
He tells his therapist about the backrooms and she checks them out and nearly dies. I would have avoided this adventure and I would’ve been just fine. Clark, unlike me, becomes obsessed with the backrooms, gets his employees to explore them with him, and all the employees die because of a monster or because Clark eats them. Yes, Clark is a quasi-cannibal or a full-on cannibal or he is long pig curious. Don’t worry, Clark is stopped because he gets eaten by a paper mache version of himself. I always knew that arts and crafts were the devil’s workshop.
You could say that the backrooms are a Clark eat Clark world….
If you want to understand the backrooms, be prepared to have A LOT of homework like D&D dungeon master levels of homework!
Well, at least, Cthulhu wasn’t woken up by Antarctic explorers. I went to Antarctica, but when you’ve seen one abandoned city of madness, you’ve seen them all!
This short has dumbass explorers too, but they are scuba divers; so, that’s new. I wouldn’t describe this short as good, but it something that was made.
The divers discover elder gods and the residents of a coastal town head into the sea to be its food. If you’re looking for more of a plot, you won’t get it. I just wish that this film didn’t take itself so seriously; it even had some black and white shots. UGHHHH. Check it out or don’t…I’m not a cop.
This was a hard book to review. I had avoided reading it for years because there’s an SA, but also- A CLOWN! Look, clowns are out to murder you! I mean for real they are clowns – see below
Why would you think these creatures would not want to murder your face?! Yes, they have balloon animals, but that that’s just to lure you into for their feeding! “The Killing Joke” is a Joker origin story and how he was born out of one bad day. We begin with Joker as a struggling comedian with a child on the way. He is desperate for cash and decides to participate in a heist to get out of poverty. The crooks that he teamed up with to do the heist target the Joker’s former job at a chemical plant had always planned on making him the fall guy for the heist. His wife dies by a product malfunction, sending Joker spiraling. Technically, Joker is not born until after he falls into the chemicals, but we see his name pre-Joker; so, maybe he was always Joker? I’m not sure.
The origin story is interwoven with the Joker shooting and SAing Commissioner Gordan’s daughter and generally driving him insane. There is also A LOT of nudity that I wasn’t prepared for with a fair amount of leather. Joker kidnaps Gordan, strips him nude, puts some leather on him, and then makes him look at horrify images of the SA. Honestly, why not just kill Joker? Of course, we would. We’d shoot him on sight as a terrorist. Instead of doing the normal choice and having Joker killed, Gordan wants him taken alive. WHY? Really, why? What more does he have to do? They make a point that Joker wants to show that anyone could be driven insane by one bad day, but the real insanity is not shooting all of these super villains on sight!
The book ends with a joke with the symbolism that life itself and all of the evil he committed was also a joke. It was purposefully ambiguous, but it did scare me- BECAUSE CLOWNS!
Happy Halloween! I see A LOT of terrible movies for your pleasure. It’s a really weird relationship we have. However, I am glad to do it because there are some gems, not from AI because that’s pretty much the worst. “The Mountains of Madness” AI short wasn’t terrible, but maybe I have trouble seeing it now because I have been so mentally hurt….for you. I have seen so many ham-fisted AI slops this month that you’d think that I worked in a deli! Unlike the usual dreck I watch for you, this short is a treasure and I am almost thinking I won’t review any other shorts because I want to end on a high note or maybe I’ll go all in and end on a very low note.
A couple escaped their home where a demon they summoned called “The Choir” has killed all of their friends. One problem: they forgot the cat- Mr Whiskers; so, they have to re-enter the house of horrors to save their pet. There is a recurring song the couple wrote to get the cat to play: “Littlest Man” … it’s cute. As they struggle to rescue their cat, we learn that they are an unhappy couple.
The unhappy duo must fight “The Choir” demon to get the cat. The demon’s only weakness is loud noises and being stabbed. The couple’s relationship is like The Choir demon because they have endless awkward silences, which has destroyed their relationship. The cat was used by the couple to avoid their awkward silences; in fact, the cat was the only glue in their relationship.
By fighting the demon and rescuing their cat, they healed their relationship… a little. I still think that they will break up, but it is ok because the cat is safe and I got to review something good! It’s weird to be able to look a film up on IMDB again because AI films are excluded as far as I am able to ascertain. I recommend this short and I really do believe that you will like it! Enjoy the rest of Halloween!
Happy Halloween! This is the end to an awesome horrorthon! I will have some more posts today. I will try to find at least one good thing to review for Halloween. It’s not easy and will likely NOT be done by AI because they’re terrible.
The Book Chose Him answers the question: What if Harry Potter sucked and was ninety seconds long?
The film opens with a realistic teenager in a library and magical glowing book starts to open in front of him. I suppose this is the whole “choosing him thing.” Why though? Why stick around to look at a radioactive book? Then, the main character becomes a cartoon, but race swaps from Indian teenager to a eight year old white kid. Why couldn’t he have been Indian the time? It’s confusing and unnecessary.
The protagonist is walking around a fancy library library with glowing candles that are an obvious fire hazard and he switches nationalities 6 more times from white to Indian and back again. It’s super weird. Was there another kid in the library? The protagonist goes to another world where gravity is just not “in” anymore. This is just horrible in every way. This creator should go to the sharks! This is the worst. Don’t even bother.
No title card; so, I used this as the title card. *sigh* This AI short gave me a little jump. It did have some suspense; so, I won’t feed the creator to the sharks. Sorry Sharks.
Woman alone brushing her teeth, but there is a malevolent force in there with her. The bathroom is by definition private and you’re almost always vulnerable. The film has some suspense and payoff. It is worth watching.
There’s the Summer of the Shark; so, this is the Horrorthon of the Terrible AI shorts. Technically, I don’t need to review these things, BUT I feel like we at the beginning of a new way to tell stories and if the technology gets better and it will, maybe it will attract some people who are good at things? Maybe?
I’m not saying that the people who create these films should be parachuted into an actively shark-infested section of the ocean wearing a meat-based wetsuit and slathered in a blood-based suntan oil, but if you’ve already left with these people and you had parachutes, the suits, and lotion ready; then, I’m not getting in your way. Who knows? Maybe stopping bad AI art could bring us together? Also, the market share for meat wetsuits is wide open for the taking!
So, let’s determine if “Whisper in the Woods” is cause for shark-time!
There is a car driving in a haunted forest. A woman sees a spooky woman standing in the road. The driver investigates. Then, a hooded figures presumably kill her. Technically, it had a beginning, middle, and an end. So, it’s as good as anything Alex Magana ever made, but I’m Team Shark!
Case’s Confessions: I am not scared of werewolves, vampires, or climate change. I am scared real things: serial killers, disease, and big government.
This ad for Australian AIDS prevention was before my time, but I saw it in the 90s when it was shown as a compilation of the scariest ads ever. The ad featured a grim reaper knocking people over like pins. The randomness and the victim’s helplessness gave me nightmares for weeks.
The ad’s message was terrifyingly clear: do NOT have sex with Australian women because they will give you AIDS. The ad worked because, TO THIS DAY, I have never slept with an Australian girl. When I went to Australia, I never had even a slight temptation to have any congress with any Australian lady or as they are also called there- Sheila, which I suppose is a common name there like Jenny is in a normal country like America that is not ravaged with disease.
I knew that as long as I avoided those women, I could engage in all kinds of debauchery. Whether I did or not I think I will save for my exclusive patreon blog (if I make one). You can see the ad and an interview of the creators of the ad below.
Wow, only 6 days left! I can’t believe it, until I need to review another horrible AI short. Why am I reviewing these universally terrible films? It’s the new thing and someone needed to catalog the beginning. Of course, it had to be me; yes, I am martyring myself, but come on… you don’t want to have to watching this waste of a perfectly good two minutes of your life.
Here we go…there’s a lot of hotties with cleavage in a museum and a number of priests. I’m not sure what’s going on, but there is cleavage; so, you can ignore the terrible film that way. A strange cleavage-showing lady asks odd museum goers to look at a painting and imagine God. I would say, “Lady, I already paid to get in here can you just get out of the way of the exhibits?! Do you even work here?! Where did you get that desk/podium?! Security!!! Security!!!” Sadly, no one made this choice to call security and the film continued.
It turns out it’s a Spirit Halloween skull face that giggles, even though it does not have an obvious respiratory system. This was really dumb. I wonder if when AI gets smart, it will tell these “creators” – “you’re really bad at this….just stop and do something else.”
