The Lazarus Effect (2015) Review

Guys, this is legitimately the worst horror movie I've ever seen. I sincerely mean that with all of my heart. I have never seen a more disorganized, nonsensical, completely not scary mess of a movie in all of my days. It's like it didn't even try. It was honestly a chore to make it through this movie. I wanted to turn it off SO many times due to the sheer boredom that comes out of it. It's dull, it's repetitive, it's predictable, it's everything that's wrong with modern horror movies condensed into one giant hunk of garbage. I've been putting off this review for a while, partly because I wanted to efficiently collect my thoughts about this to properly describe why this movie is as bad as it is and partly because I just straight up didn't want to think about it ever again. So without any further ado, this is.........The Lazarus Effect. Ugh.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ACTUALLY WANT TO WATCH THIS MOVIE, A DECISION THAT I HIGHLY DISAGREE WITH

Comprised of an all-star cast including Olivia Wilde, Evan Peters, Donald Glover, and Mark Duplass, The Lazarus Effect manages to make even less sense than Memento, if that's even possible. You'd think that with a great cast of talented actors like that, they'd have a good script for them to utilize. LOL WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, THE 70'S? KIDS DON'T CARE ABOUT GOOD SCRIPTS AND WRITING YOUR STORY WELL! THEY JUST WANNA BE JUMPSCARED EVERY TWO SECONDS! THAT'S THE TRUE ESSENCE OF HORROR! 

OH MAN GUYS HER SKINS BURNING IN THE FIRE SPOOKY RIGHT?! RIGHT?!

You can tell that the actors are really trying to do a good job in this, but everything about this movie is just so chaotic and nonsensical that they can't seem to get a grip on the situation long enough to make it work. I guess I should talk about the plot now, right? Cool, let's get this over with. 

Here's how this movie works: Olivia Wilde is married to Mark Duplass. They're both scientists working in a lab and trying to invent a serum that can bring the dead back to life. Okay, two things: 1. Why? and 2. Have you learned nothing from Re-Animator? Those type of things are never good. Actually, this movie could learn a lot from Re-Animator, for one, HOW TO BE A GOOD MOVIE. I ask why they're inventing this reanimation serum because it's literally never explained. They're just doing it right from the start without any explanation, which is a trend you'll start to see in this movie. It's so convoluted that it doesn't even try to properly explain itself. Everything is just brushed off and you have to take it as it is. "Use your imagination you idiots. I don't have to explain my art." - the director, probably. 

"HELP I DON'T BELONG HERE! I'M A GOOD ACTRESS!"

Alrighty, Mark and Olivia are joined by the sometimes comedic, sometimes serious duo of lobster boy from American Horror Story and black dude from Community.By the way, I'm not calling any of these characters by their in-movie names because they're literally the most forgettable characters ever. The thing about using well-known actors and actresses and giving them bad scripts is that if they have no structured characters to make their own, they just look like their actor selves trying to be something they're not and it's highly distracting. Anyway, they make the raise the dead serum and they test it on a dog and it works. The dog is back and kicking, but only for a few weeks before it start to experience violent mood swings. This also results in one of the most hilariously stupid scenes I've ever seen: one where Olivia Wilde is asleep in her bed and the dog just comes into her room and stands on the bed, staring at her. 

He's just standing there......MENACINGLY!

Okay, so the government finds out that they've been experimenting with dead bodies and junk and apparently they weren't supposed to be doing that, so the government comes in and shuts everything down. This is where the movie takes a turn for the worst. They literally break into the government facility heist-style and try to get their equipment back. During this time, Olivia Wilde is electrocuted and dies. Mark Duplass obviously loves his wife unconditionally and would still love her even as a zombie, so he shoots her up with the serum. It works and Olivia is back, but not the same as she was before. She keeps talking about going to hell and she begins to act violently, just like the dog. And here's the kicker. Are you ready for this? No, I'm really gonna need you to sit down for this. SHE DEVELOPS PSYCHIC POWERS. WE'VE GOT A MOVIE ABOUT A FREAKING PSYCHIC ZOMBIE HERE. I sincerely wish that I was kidding when I say that. If that sounds ridiculous and stupid, then congraduration a winner is you, you're completely right, it is. Here's a fun fact for you: THEY NEVER ONCE EXPLAIN HOW SHE STARTS DEVELOPING THESE PSYCHIC POWERS OR WHY THE DOG DIDN'T GET THEM TOO. NOT ONCE. THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND YOUR MOVIE IS LEFT UNEXPLAINED. THAT IS NOT OKAY. 

So Olivia Wilde begins to use her psychic powers to go completely insane and start killing everything in sight. This leads to some of the silliest, most unnecessary deaths I've ever seen. She pushes Donald Glover into a locker and picks it up and crushes it with her mind and, get ready, Evan Peters? That guy who's been smoking an e-cigarette for the whole movie? Well sonny boy have we got an ironic death for you! He's looking at Olivia Wilde's now completely black demon eyes and she goes nuts and makes his e-cig shoot at his face and go down his throat, causing him to choke on it. DEATH BY VAPE. I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE THE DAY. 

So Olivia Wilde ends up killing everybody by the end of the movie. The climax of the movie is her chasing the last person alive through the lab while the lights keep flickering on and off because ooooohhhh spooky lights. We also see flashbacks in her head throughout the whole movie about her being in a burning hallway with a little girl and people pounding on a door at the end of it, seemingly burning to death. This is also never explained in the movie. From what I gather, that little girl was Olivia Wilde as a kid or something freaking stupid like that. Now, this whole chase sequence COULD have been an effective scene. HOWEVER, the movie royally screws over any chance it had of this being scary by BLARING OPERA MUSIC DURING THE ENTIRE THING. It's not even creepy opera music either. It's like happy, classical kinda opera. This is because Olivia Wilde's character really likes opera music. You could tell because she was listening to it on vinyl earlier in the movie. So now, when she's chasing this girl and trying to kill her, she decides to turn it up to full blast. You know, for scary effect! 

SHH if we hide in here long enough, maybe the director will hire someone else to do this!

Are we almost done? Actually yes. Olivia Wilde succeeds in killing everyone on the map without dying and with her shiny new Perfection medal in hand, she takes Mark Duplass' body and pumps it full of the serum, hopefully making an army of psychic zombies to overtake the world with. And that's it. You got the bad ending. Would you like to reload your save from before the final boss to see the good ending? 

Alright, this movie was bad. Like REALLY REALLY bad. Granted, I say that for a lot of movies, but this one legitimately made my hope for modern horror dwindle to almost non-existent levels. If this is the kind of schlock that can get a theatrical release while good movies are left to rot in straight to video hell, then I have no faith in this genre surviving long in theaters. Now, I'm not saying that horror movies are going to die out anytime soon, far from that actually. Horror movies are going to thrive as long as people want to see them and over the past few years, people have made it very clear that they're willing to pay money to see crap like this in theaters. These kind of jumpscare-riddled, incoherent, garbage movies will continue to get 15%s on RottenTomatoes but people will still go see them because why not? It pisses me off that this is what horror has become. Everytime a horror movie comes into theaters, you automatically think to yourself "that's probably gonna suck" because we've had such a bad track record with horror movies lately that it's been burned into your brain that horror in theaters = awful. And you know the worst part? That thought is completely correct most of the time. This movie is everything that's wrong with modern horror and I hate it with every inch of my being. This movie holds a special place in my heart as being my least favorite movie of all time at this point. It might not stay like that for long, though. If this is the rate that bad horror movies comes out, I'll probably have another one in that spot by next year. It just makes me so sad to see what my favorite movie genre has become. It's mutated in the worst possible way. It's really quite depressing. Anyway, don't watch this movie. In fact, make a conscious effort to never speak of this atrocity ever again. I give The Lazarus Effect 0 psychic zombies out of 10. It's seriously the worst thing I've ever seen and it makes me sad for the world of cinema. 

If only Olivia Wilde would look at me like that when she's NOT a crazy psychic zombie

Unfriended (2015) Review

SPOILER ALERT: THIS WHOLE REVIEW IS IN CAPS LOCK BECAUSE I'M UPSET AND I NEED TO SHOUT MY WORDS TO CONVEY MY ANGER

THIS MOVIE HAS A 62% ON ROTTENTOMATOES AND THAT IS THE MOST UNDESERVED SCORE I'VE EVER SEEN (BESIDES GRAVITY, BUT I'LL COVER THAT EVENTUALLY I PROMISE). INGENIOUS FILMMAKING MY BUTT. ITS BEING PRAISED AS ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL MOVIES EVER BECAUSE SOMEBODY GOT A FREAKING UNREGISTERED HYPERCAM 2 ON THEIR MAC AND RECORDED THE SCREEN FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT CRAP. THIS IS THE MOST UNNECESSARY MOVIE I'VE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF SEEING AND I COULD'VE SPENT MY HOUR AND HALF WATCHING SOMETHING OF VALUE BUT NO I HAD TO WATCH UNFREAKINGFRIENDED.

OKAY RIGHT OFF THE BAT, THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT A GROUP OF FRIENDS WHO ARE IN A SKYPE CALL AND THERE'S THE GHOST OF A GIRL THEY BULLIED INTO KILLING HERSELF IN THE CALL WITH THEM AND ITS MAKING THEM KILL THEMSELVES AS REVENGE FOR WHAT THEY DID TO HER. THERE. THAT'S THE PLOT OF THE MOVIE. IF THAT SOUNDS STUPID, WELL BUDDY THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS EXTREMELY STUPID AND I'LL TELL YOU WHY. 

EVEN THE SEXY SCENES ARE BAD OH GOD WHY

THE GHOST TELLS THEM THAT IF THEY DON'T FOLLOW HER GAME OR IF THEY LEAVE THE CALL THAT THEY'LL DIE BUT THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE MOVIE, NONE OF THESE IDIOTS EVER THINK TO CALL THEIR PARENTS ABOUT THIS SITUATION WHICH WOULD BE THE SMART THING TO DO. AT FIRST, ONE TRIES TO CALL THE COPS BUT THE GHOST GETS HER BEFORE THE COPS CAN SHOW UP. AND JUST IN CASE THAT PARENT THING DOESN'T WORK OUT (ALL OF THESE KIDS ARE HOME ALONE ON A SCHOOL NIGHT AT LIKE 10PM WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS), YOU COULD, I DUNNO, HARD SHUTDOWN YOUR COMPUTER?! THESE KIDS HAVE PROVEN THAT THEY'RE GOOD WITH TECHNOLOGY, ONE EVEN SENDS A FREAKING TROJAN TO TRY AND GET RID OF THE GHOST, BUT NOBODY THINKS TO HARD SHUTDOWN THEIR COMPUTER SO THEY CAN GET AWAY. ALSO, JUST. WALK. AWAY. FROM. THE. COMPUTER. YEAH, IF YOU LEAVE THE CALL, THE GHOST GETS YOU, BUT THERE'S MULTIPLE TIMES WHERE SOMEONE JUST WALKS INTO ANOTHER ROOM AND THEY'RE JUST FINE. JUST LEAVE. GO TO YOUR NEIGHBORS HOUSE OR SOMETHING. JESUS.

OH THE VIDEO IS LAGGING, THAT'S SCARY RIGHT GUYS?

AND THAT'S NOT EVEN THE WORST PART! THIS MOVIE IS BASICALLY JUST TEENAGERS ARGUING AND SHOUTING CURSE WORDS AT EACH OTHER FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF AND SOMETIMES ONE OF THEM DIES. THAT'S LEGIT ALL THAT HAPPENS. IT'S SO BORING. LIKE A BORING EPISODE OF JERRY SPRINGER. SEE, WHAT HAPPENS IS THE SKYPE GHOST GETS THEM ALL TOGETHER AND BEGINS TO TELL THEM AWFUL THINGS THAT THEY'VE DONE TO EACH OTHER SUCH AS CHEATING ON YOUR BOYFRIEND WITH HIS BEST FRIEND AND MAKING A CRAPPY MEME ABOUT IT AND STEALING $800 FROM ANOTHER DUDE AND MAKING ASHLEY DANE (UNRELATED CHARACTER WE NEVER SEE ON SCREEN)GET AN ABORTION AFTER YOU ROOFIED HER AND GOT HER PREGNANT (WUT). BASICALLY THE WHOLE SECOND AND THIRD ACT OF THIS MOVIE IS JUST THESE KIDS CONSTANTLY SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER FOR BEING DOUCHEBAGS AND BOY OH BOY ARE THEY ALL DOUCHEBAGS. EXCEPT FOR THE FAT KID. THE FAT KID IS A PRETTY COOL DUDE. YOU ALRIGHT WITH ME FAT KID. 

REMEMBER WHEN AUGUSTUS GLOOP ATE TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE?

BUT THAT'S. STILL. NOT. EVEN. THE. WORST. PART. ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT. ALL. OF. THAT. THIS MOVIE HAS THE PURE UNMITIGATED GALL TO BE AN UNSCARY JUMPSCARE FEST. THERE IS NO BUILDUP TO ANY OF THESE SCARES. IT'S LITERALLY JUST SILENCE WHILE A WEBCAM IS LOADING AND THE OTHER, NOT-BEING-KILLED KIDS LOOK ON AND THEN BANG! SOMETHING LOUD HAPPENS AND WE SEE ONE OF THE KIDS BEING KILLED. IT HAPPENS 4(!) TIMES IN THIS MOVIE AND IT'S ALL THE SAME EXACT THING EVERY TIME. BUT! THAT'S! NOT! EVEN! THE! WORST! PART! THE END OF THE MOVIE, RIGHT? IT'S REVEALED THAT THE MAIN GIRL WAS THE MASTERMIND BEHIND THE WHOLE RECORDING THAT ONE GIRL AND BEING MEAN TO HER SO SHE'D KILL HERSELF. AND SHE'S THE ONLY ONE LEFT AT THE END. AND THE SKYPE GHOST POSTS A VIDEO TO HER FACEBOOK PAGE WHERE SHE REVEALS THAT SHE WAS THE ONE WHO RECORDED THE SUICIDE GIRL. GOOD ON YA SKYPE GHOST, THAT'LL TEACH HER. SHE'LL HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE. EXCEPT NO SHE FREAKING WONT BECAUSE RIGHT AFTER THAT HER LAPTOP CLOSES BY ITSELF AND WE GET A SPOOKY FACE GHOST GIRL JUMPING IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA AND MAIN GIRL SCREAMING SO LOLNOPE SCREW AN ACTUAL GOOD ENDING, WE'RE GONNA GO FOR A CHEAPO JUMPSCARE TO FINISH THIS TURD.

HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING FROM SINISTER? THAT'S NOT COOL, MOVIE!

SO WAS UNFRIENDED ANY GOOD? OBVIOUSLY FREAKING NOT WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT? IT'S NOT SCARY IN THE SLIGHTEST, THE CHARACTERS ARE JUST ABOUT THE WORST I'VE EVER SEEN, AND IT'S JUST PLAIN BORING. IT'S BAD ENOUGH WHEN A HORROR MOVIE ISN'T SCARY, BUT WHEN I'M SITTING THERE BORED OUT OF MY MIND FOR THE ENTIRETY OF IT, YOU KNOW YOU MESSED UP. THERE IS NOT A SINGLE THING GOOD ABOUT THIS MOVIE. I GIVE UNFRIENDED 1 SKYPE GHOST OUT OF 10. HOLY CRAP THIS WAS BAD. I SUGGEST THAT YOU NEVER EVEN THINK ABOUT WATCHING THIS.

The Boy (2016) Review

Yo, this movie is really dumb. Like, you kinda expect it to be really dumb going into it because it's a spooky doll movie and spooky doll movies don't exactly have the best track record *COUGH ANNABELLE COUGH*, but I tried going into this with an open mind and what that resulted in was me still laughing at how bad this movie was along with the 3, yes 3, other people who were in the theater with me. If this movie does anything well, it brings people together to collectively laugh at it. I give you.....THE BOY

SPOILER WARNING: THE DOLL DOES SOME SPOOKY STUFF

So in this movie, Maggie from the Walking Dead once again is forced to put on an American accent, but this time it's even worse because the movie takes place in freaking England so why? But that nitpick aside, Lauren Cohan plays a girl named Greta who is tasked with babysitting an elderly couple's "son" when they go off on holiday. Spoiler alert: they're not going on holiday, they're actually going to kill themselves by putting heavy rocks in their pockets and willingly walking into the ocean? Like, that's a really bad way of doing that but okay whatever. So their plan is to leave Greta with their son, who if you couldn't figure out is a porcelain doll the size of a regular 8-year old boy. His name is Brahms and boy oh boy is he quite the little troublemaker. See, the real Brahms is dead (wait, no he's not, but more on that later) because of a fire over 20 years ago that his parents started in an attempt to cover up the fact that Brahms was a little brat who bashed a girl's skull in. Anywho, the old couple makes a doll of Brahms so they can have something to take care of and he comes with a set of rules that you have to follow, which are kind of implemented in the movie, but not really until the last act so you kind of forgot about them already. But anyways, this doll is kinda creepy but at the same time, it always has this look on it's face like you just lied to it but it knows you were telling a lie.

Oh really, Felicia? 

Alright, back to the story. Greta gets spooked by the doll moving around while she's not looking and some grocery delivery boy gets involved too and they start doing tests to prove that the doll actually moves while you aren't looking and they celebrate when they finally prove it like freaking scientists just discovering a new species of ant or something. So, there's also this subplot where Greta reveals that she ran away to England to get away from her crazy abusive ex-boyfriend who has been stalking the crap out of her over in the States. So he finds out where she's at in England and he goes there and threatens her so that she'll come back to the US with him and then after all that, that's when the climax of the movie happens. Douchebag boyfriend smashes the Brahms doll and then the house starts shaking and then the real Brahms bursts through the wall and he's a grown adult wearing a turtleneck sweater and a mask of the Brahms doll face. He's super tall and gangly and just really really not scary at all. So they have a nice chase scene through the walls of the house where real Brahms has been living all this time, sometimes coming out to move the doll around, and in the end Greta stabs him with a screwdriver and her and grocery boy get away while douchebag boyfriend gets himself shanked in the neck with a piece of the broken Brahms doll. And just before the credits, we see that Brahms isn't really dead, he survived being stabbed somehow and he's in the walls again, gluing the doll back together. One thing I give this movie credit for: it didn't have a cheap out jumpscare at the end like I expected it to. It's just a slow zoom in on the doll's cracked face. I fully expected real Brahms and his burnt up face to jump in front of the screen during it, but nope. 

Lauren Cohan, upon seeing this movie's RottenTomatoes score

So is this movie any good? Lol nope. Imagine every single horror movie cliche you can think of. There's a good chance that all of those cliches are in this movie. It does nothing original. If you've seen any of the Chucky movies, then you've seen this movie, except this movie is far worse than any of those. The characters are absolutely unbearable; every scene where Greta talks to the grocery boy is just cancer. They have absolutely no chemistry. What makes this worse is the fact that the acting isn't half bad. When good actors are given bad scripts, then it's always a recipe for disaster. The scares are extremely predictable, you see them coming a mile away. She slowly looks at a painting on the wall while music slowly builds? Oh, something's gonna jumpscare through the painting. She slowly approaches the doll and turns it's head to the side? Oh, it's definitely gonna move and do a jumpscare. She's in the wall and then she looks through a crack in the wall and we shift to first person view? Get yourself ready for something to run right in front of her face. This is where this movie fails as a horror movie. You know when literally everything is going to happen. A good horror movie is able to build suspense and give you a scare without you knowing when it's going to happen. I'm not talking about a jumpscare coming out of nowhere like the infamous poptart in the toaster from Silent Hill Revelations, I'm talking about something like the ghost on top of the wardrobe from The Conjuring. An already creepy scene where you're expecting something to happen, but it comes completely out of left field and catches you off guard. That is how you do a proper scare and this movie has no idea how to accomplish that. 

Brahms is also sad about Beth, Maggie. You're not alone.

Alright, should you go see this movie? Probably not. It's really boring and really dumb. You've seen this environment before: it's a spooky house with a dark attic and no cell service and it's prone to thunderstorms. This movie MIGHT be scary if you've never seen a horror movie before but for someone like me, I was super bored. The only thing this movie has to offer is that it is laughably bad. If you see it with a group of people, chances are you'll all find humor in poking fun at it. However, that's literally the only good thing about it. Just save yourself the trouble and never watch this garbage. I give The Boy 2 creepy dolls out of 10. Just don't.