Good evening ladies and gentlemen, in tonight’s episode we’re getting dark and entering the realm of fear and horror, that’s the theme we’re going for here. We’ve got three movies for this episode, all of which are from recent memory. It’s probably best to mention that all of these movies are pretty dark and have some themes that may make certain people feel uncomfortable. So if anything I just said concerns you then I recommend not reading this review, especially if you are under age. Anyway here are the three movies that I have just watched.

Us is coming out this week so I thought I should finally watch Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out. Get Out was pretty much 2017’s Black Panther but this movie’s intention wasn’t just to rake it in at the box-office.

Get Out is about a guy named Chris who joins his girlfriend on a visit to meet her parents in their fancy house. Our main character is black and his girlfriend’s family act very odd around him. The plot thickens when weird stuff happens around this guy and he slowly discovers what the deal is with these people.

I was quite surprised by how much I liked this movie as it did a really good job of showing the view point of our main character Chris. Throughout the movie we see that the girlfriend’s family don’t seem to hang around a lot of African American people as they treat him like he’s a dog or some sort of alien. They tie him in with his race’s stereotypes and they’re constantly referencing famous black figures. You can really feel how uncomfortable it is for this guy and it’s organically tied into the overarching plot.

Jordan Peele did a pretty awesome job for a first time director. The cinematography and the camera work is very impressive. It’s very nicely edited and it helped make the movie a bit more tense which we’ll get back to in a minute. The performances and the characters are pretty good too. This is a solid movie but I do have some issues.

For a horror movie I found the intrigue behind the weird family more tense than the actual tense scenes. They got pretty bad when it tried to be a typical horror movie and got progressively worse by the end. I did find the movie somewhat predictable where I had already figured out the big reveals and mysteries of the movie and I’m just frustratingly waiting for the main character to hurry up! Also the ending I found pretty ridiculous and it pulled me out of the movie.

Even with its issues I don’t think it’s a deal breaker and there is plenty of enjoyment you can get out of Get Out. Get Out is great so get out of here and watch it! (I couldn’t resist!)

4 – Watch Soon

Our first Netflix Original for this series is a movie called Velvet Buzzsaw. It’s a drama/art piece/horror thing that kind of sucks at all of these.

We follow a bunch of rich assholes discovering some paintings of a recently deceased man who we learn was quite disturbed. Since we’re following Art hipsters they need an excuse to continue overflowing their Scrooge McDuck’s vault. Then mysterious murders start popping up and our unlikable heroes slowly start to raise eyebrows.

The first half of the movie follows multiple characters with their own storylines, all trying to make it big in the artistic world. It’s kind of hard to follow any of these characters since they’re all pretty unlikable and most of them don’t seem to add much to the overall story other than to die. It’s especially hard when everyone’s got a weird stupid artsy name. Is that what’s expected if you want to enter the world of rich hipsters? (RazzleDazzle HevyPopper at your service!)

There are some things that are good about this movie. Jake Gyllenhaal is great but the recurring trend of a weak character damages this great actor’s performance. The camera work is pretty good and it’s quite artistically impressive, particularly some of the scenes at the art gallery. I don’t doubt that the people who made this movie did their best but it’s still a bit of a mess. I’ve got a couple of spoilers I want to mention so read on or skip ahead a bit.

Spoilers

This movie is a horror movie which I didn’t pick up until people started getting brutally murdered. Most of the movie felt like a drama about rich people fighting over valuable art pieces and it was like a battle of wits. Towards the last third of the movie it became a full on horror movie where the art tries to kill our main characters. I didn’t really find any of these scenes particularly scary and two of the scenes I really enjoyed for reasons that I don’t think the movie intended.

The scene where Toni Collette died was pretty damn funny. I kind of enjoyed her cartoony character but I especially liked her cartoony end, where the big ball thing that she loved to gloat over cuts her arm off and she dies. It was so dumb that it was funny.

My other favourite scene is where the main girl of the movie is eaten by paint. I enjoyed it because I really despised her and I wanted her to die. This character deserved a much better death but I’m glad she’s dead.

Spoiler Free

Overall I think this movie had some good ideas but it didn’t execute them properly. It’s a bit of a mess and a waste of a good cast and the horror isn’t really that good. This movie came out in January or February so it’s another one for the early year void.

2 – If Interested

The last movie for this episode was a coin toss between Polar and Paddleton. I chose Polar because it’s somewhat similar to the other two and also I thought an action movie would be a fun thing to talk about.

The cool looking covers of Velvet Buzzsaw and Polar sold me before I clicked to watch. Now I have learned that is not a smart plan because, like with Velvet Buzzsaw, I found some enjoyment in Polar but the bad outweighed the good.

Polar has Mad Mikkelsen as this middle aged hitman going into retirement but since this is an action movie everyone on the god damn planet wants him dead. It’s a good thing he’s like the ultimate badass so no matter what he goes through he’ll always come out on top in his current predicament. We also discover that the corporation that hired Mad Mikkelsen wants to off him because he’s a couple of days from retirement (in this business you get to retire a couple weeks before your actual retirement date??) and since he has no family the company will get all his earnings if he dies. This is a funny reason to kill someone and especially since this is the type of movie I think would make the obvious ‘He was just two days from retirement’ joke.

All of the characters in this movie are terrible. Mad Mikkelsen tries his best but the writing is really bad and it also feels like he and Vanessa Hudgens’ character belong in a completely different movie. Especially with the villains in this movie who look like the rejects for Suicide Squad. The main villain is one of the guys behind Little Britain and the women on team evil are completely over sexualised with one of them having no purpose but to be hot steamy bait while the rest of the team goes in for the kill.

This movie also has really terrible pacing issues as the plot doesn’t deserve it’s almost two hour long run time. One part in particular is when Mad Mikkelsen is bonding with Vanessa Hudgens and it’s very awkwardly cut with the way less interesting assassins trashing people’s houses looking for Mad Mikkelsen. Another part is when Mad Mikkelsen is being tortured by Mr Bad Guy and this sequence adds absolutely nothing to the movie besides some more blood and gore.

I cannot overlook that awful plot twist which I’m just going to spoil. Throughout the movie Mad keeps having this same dream which you presume means something important. Until we find out that Mad killed Vanessa Hudgens’ entire family but he let her go for some reason because he has a soft spot. This makes no sense for several reasons as I always thought Mad was like Agent 47 from Hitman, a cold blooded killer with no remorse and I know it would suck but I imagine killing children would be like slicing bread for him. Also he killed her other siblings what makes her so special???

The more obvious problem is that he doesn’t remember her which makes me think that he wouldn’t care if he axed an entire school of children. I also don’t understand why Vanessa Hudgens waited until after they formed an intimate relationship and after he killed his former employers to finally tell him that she wants justice for her family’s death. In the end she forgives him, God knows why?? Then the movie is over.

There are some things I liked about Polar but with the lack of focus and all the other issues I mentioned it’s just not worth it. There are some okay things about it and if you watched it with the right people you could have fun with it or make fun of it.

1 – Don’t Bother

That’s the end of another Watchlist episode. Like, Share, Comment and Subscribe for more Watchlist episodes or more stuff in general. I have some interesting ideas for the next episode and I’m looking forward to putting it together so until then I have been The Blog Complainer, Signing Out.