Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Game of Death (2020)/Verotika

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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated 1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going to review every single movie I see.  I’m going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future).  You can always ask me why I gave the ratings for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses under the ‘About Me’ section).
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Game of Death                                                            OK/G
I guess you can say this is a combination of Jumanji and Battle Royale (ironically there’s a poster for the former hanging on a wall); I was even reminded of The Frighteners at the end.  In it, a group of teenagers end up playing the titular board game at a party and it instructs them a certain amount of people have to die (24) or they all will.  Of course no one takes it seriously at first before finding out one of their heads will explode if someone else doesn’t die.  Now, there are only about 7 of them, so that leaves at least 17 more people.  Oh, the moral dilemma.  The film is very gory, and that doesn’t just involve the exploding heads, and there is a bit of fun in its barely 73-minute run-time (although it felt a little longer than that), but there really is not much more to it than its simple premise, the violence being the sole factor making it a bit distinguishable.  3/27/2021

Verotika                                                                       B
Anthology film written and directed by Glenn Danzig based on a comic book series I never read.  Perhaps you know Mr. Danzig as the original singer of horror-punk band, The Misfits, and/or his own band, Danzig?  You at least had to have heard his one single, “Mother.”  If not, that’s what modern conveniences like Spotify are for.  Anyway, I haven’t heard too many good things about this film.  It only received a 22% rating out of 18 critics on Rotten Tomatoes and was voted worst film of 2020 by Rue Morgue magazine, or, as they label it, “Worst Cinematic Atrocity to Wound Your Retinas.”  Now, even though that publication is one of my favorite magazines, if not the favorite, I don’t always agree with them.  Case in point, they voted His House as the best feature film of last year, a film I didn’t dislike, not at all, but felt was overrated (100% out of 112 critics on Rotten Tomatoes, really?!).  In regards to this film, I don’t disagree with their decision.  This film was bad, it was awful, it was one of the worst anthology films I’ve ever seen.  There are three tales presented by a hostess that fails horribly at trying to emulate Elvira.  The first tale was dopey, there being “boob eyes” and a mutated human spider, and goes on longer than necessary.  The second one involves a scarred woman stealing faces from women, and if Leatherface was supposed to be paralleled, it was another failed attempt; I was also reminded of a much better film I reviewed a couple blogs ago called The Stylist.  The final tale was a horrendous Elizabeth Bathory-type story set in medieval times, or some time in the much long-ago past.  I didn’t enjoy a single moment of this film; the production looks awful, the acting is terrible, and while there may be violence, violence does not a good movie make (as proven here).  Avoid this.  I expected better from you, Glenn!  3/27/2021

Other movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):

After Midnight (2020)  >>>OK

Another Round  >>>EH/OK

Braid  >>>EH

Let’s Scare Julie  >>>OK/G

Lucky (2021)  >>>EH
  (Shudder)

The Pale Door  >>>EH

Stay Out of the F**king Attic  >>>EH
            (Shudder)

Violation  >>>EH/OK
   (Shudder)

---Sean O.
3/30/2021

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