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The Ugly Stepsister (2025)

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All we ever hear about Cinderella is that her stepmother and stepsisters were evil.  As usual, there is a lot more to the actual tale than what is presented in a Disney film or a bowdlerized children’s book.  It’s an ancient tale with origins in oral folk tales in Greece and later Western Europe, with other variations appearing around the world. The most common versions are from the 17th century and were further popularized by the Brothers Grimm in their 1812 retelling, Aschenputtel .  The Grimm version is the most violent, with a revised version describing the harsh punishment for the stepsisters for their abuse of the title character. The Ugly Stepsister takes elements from the more popular versions of the story, mainly from the Brothers Grimm and the earlier telling by Charles Perrault.  It updates the setting to the late 19th century and focuses on the older of the two stepsisters, emphasizing her mother’s attempts to reshape her into someone worthy of the prince...
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Malignant (2021)

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Malignant is one of those movies that have a twist that can easily be ruined by getting too much into the plot in a review.  In fact, if I did get to the meat of what is going on, it would sound ridiculous.  Perhaps that is why the trailers for this James Wan vehicle were vague to the point of being misleading.  It was also during the height of the pandemic that this was released and, just as quickly, disappeared.  That's a shame because despite bad timing and bad marketing Malignant is one of the more interesting modern horror films.  Madison Mitchell (Annabelle Wallis) is a troubled woman trapped in an abusive marriage.  One night her husband (Jake Abel) causes her to suffer a serious injury.  Shortly after he is attacked by an unknown intruder in the house and murdered.  Detectives Kekoa Shaw (George Young) and Regina Moss (Michole Briana White) suspect that Madison may have been involved, but there is no direct evidence pointing to her. Since ...
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Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

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Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare was an underwhelming end to a classic movie series.  To his credit Wes Craven had only directed A Nightmare on Elm Street , while Heather Langenkamp only played Nancy in the first movie and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors .  Robert Englund, of course, played the role to the end, even in the short-lived television series.  However, despite the fact that the series, like many, slowly fizzled, there were still fans clamoring for more.  This was Wes Craven's personal peon to them.  Heather Langenkamp is living in California with her husband Chase (David Newsom), a special effects expert, and their young child Dylan (Miko Hughes).  Although the Nightmare on Elm Street movies ended a few years before Langenkamp is still being asked if she will ever return to the role of Nancy.  She gamely goes along with an interview despite the fact she is being stalked by an unknown person that taunts her with the "One, t...
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Hokum (2026)

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"Hokum" is a word that basically means nonsense, often in reference to something supernatural.  It doesn't really do anything to tell the viewer what the movie is going to be about, but what I understand about writer and director Damian McCarthy is this is something he likes to do.  Previous movies have had one-word, eye-catching titles meant to make the potential audience curious.  In this case it is a rather routine haunted hotel story with a healthy dose of folk horror thrown in. Ohm Baumann (Adam Scott) is an American writer with a significant amount of family baggage.  As he begins the finishing touches on the last entry in his popular Conquistador series he decides it is time to give his parents' ashes a proper resting place.  He travels to a rural hotel in Ireland where they enjoyed their honeymoon to leave their ashes in a nearby tree.  Baumann has an elitist attitude that does not make him popular with the staff, although he does strike up a friend...
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Deadstream (2022)

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I can safely say not many people really like influencers.  This is not a blanket dismissal of content creators, many of whom work hard and do a great job on presenting commentary.  It should not be a surprise that I like seeing people reacting to music or movies for the first time and many of them have interesting or new takes on the subjects.  That is much different than those who make a living trying to call attention to themselves by doing ridiculous stunts and then wonder why they are suddenly looking at having to navigate the job market in the real world.  Shawn Ruddy (Joseph Winter) runs a YouTube channel called The Wrath of Shawn  in which he films himself facing his biggest fears.  That may sound fine until one realizes he does so in the worst ways, such as filming himself being smuggled over the U.S. border from Mexico or making himself a general nuisance to others and law enforcement.  After getting cancelled for one of his stunts and losing ...
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Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)

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When I heard about the recent version of Resident Evil a thought crossed my mind: "Didn't this happen already?"  I wasn't a huge fan of Paul W. S. Anderson's original series of films but each one was enjoyable.  Definitely not great movie making, but they entertained, even if they had little to do with the games.  They managed to tell a story of sorts and, after they ended, I frequently heard about the possibility of a reboot.  I didn't remember anything about it until Zach Cregger's movie came out this year. What surprised me is that Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City was already five years old.  2021 was a year when many movies were still coming out on streaming due to the COVID-19 pandemic and those were by and large films that were already completed before the shutdown in 2020 and the writers' strike shortly afterward.  It is no surprise that a reboot to a series that was more of a cult phenomenon would slip through the cracks, especially one ...
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V/H/S/99 (2022)

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The V/H/S series has been around for 14 years now.  Despite the fact that a number of now-renowned directors have provided shorts for the series it is almost tempting to say that of the 9 movies in the series there have been 9 good segments.  That's exaggerating a bit, but despite the fact that this has carried on from its humble beginnings none of the films up to and including V/H/S/99 have surpassed V/H/S/2 in quality.   We begin the film with a kid making a movie with his army men and see various other flashes of things on the same VHS tape.  After a bit we are introduced to a group of teenagers who film their vandalism and trespassing, in this case going to an old music venue in which a band tragically after being trampled to death by their fans when a fire broke out.  As can be expected the band's ghosts can't wait to play an encore.  Next, we have a woman named Lily (Ally Ioannides) pledging for a sorority in which part of the hazing ritual is t...
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