The blog of author Stacy Kingsley

Movie Review - PANDEMIC

7/30/2018

Pandemic is a 2016 zombie movie that really wasn’t up to par, even for a zombie movie.

The plot summary from IMDb is: Pandemic is set in the near future, where a virus of epic proportions has overtaken the planet. There are more infected than uninfected, and humanity is losing its grip on survival. Its only hope is finding a cure and keeping the infected contained. Lauren (Rachel Nichols) is a doctor, who, after the fall of New York, comes to Los Angeles to lead a team to hunt for and rescue uninfected survivors.

This movie has a small cast of characters that don’t really get developed enough for one to care about. It starts with a family and short snippets of their life, but then it goes nowhere. The movie wants you to care about the family, but it doesn’t give you enough to actually care about them. The only person, really, that you care about is one of the soldiers, Denise, and a little about the driver, Wheeler (which I thought was a somewhat cliché name for a driver). The main character, Lauren, only seems to be in the movie to make the audience mad and to do all of the things one shouldn’t do during a zombie apocalypse.

After watching this movie I looked it up and it doesn’t have good review on either Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb, which is something I should have looked at before I wasted my time watching it. As a zombie movie it wasn’t even satisfying, as it didn’t at all delve into the reason behind the infection, how people changed during or from the infection, or how life changed in places where people were infected. There were a few scenes of the little bad of soldiers being chased by those who were infected, and one unfortunate scene of one of the soldiers being hit by a car, kidnapped, and then eaten, but it didn’t impact me the way it could have if I had been involved in either the characters or the zombies.

So to say this was a dull movie is really giving it more credibility than it deserves. I was not only bored, but I just didn’t want to continue watching it. If I wasn’t watching it for this review I would have turned it off long ago, instead I wasted my time so that none of you would have to waste yours.

And if you are getting what I thought of this movie, I thought I would have watched almost anything else but this sad farce of a zombie/infected/let’s save people film.

0 Comments

Movie Review - THE LOFT

7/23/2018

0 Comments

The Loft is a 2014 movie that I had wanted to see in the theater. The movie revolves around five married men who join together to secretly share a loft. This loft provides a place of their own where they can take their extramarital affairs if they so choose. One day the unthinkable happens, and they find a body in their loft. They must decide what to do, and which of them might be the murderer.

This movie, when I first saw the trailer, looked like it might be an interesting horror film. It is actually more of a suspense movie, with a little extra infidelity in it. None of the men are really good guys as they all either want to or do cheat on their wives. The movie does however start with a shock as we open on a car being struck by something heavy, which one can only presume to be a body due to the tone of the movie. This beginning also sets up the overall dark tone of the film itself.

Of the five men the leader, or the one who provides the loft, is Vincent. Vincent is a man who doesn’t seem to care for anyone, his wife, his friends, or the women he sleeps with. Marty is a drunk who tends to do whatever he wants, and say whatever he wants, when he is drinking. Chris tries to believe he is a good guy, but he is like every other guy, although his wife doesn’t make things any easier as she doesn’t seem to like him, or any of his friends. Phil is a man who plays until the day he marries, and he really does play until the DAY he is married. Lastly, there is Luke, a man who seems to have his life together but who also seems to have a secret, which everyone thinks is his attraction to other men.

Throughout most of this movie it goes round and round, showing all of the bad deeds done by the men. Each one of them confesses to a problem they have had, and each one shows how little they care for others. This movie didn’t have many likeable people in it. The only one any of the audience could feel in the least bit sorry for is the character of Sara. But, to talk about her too much is to give away a lot of the story.

There was suspense, as we could wonder throughout who the killer was, and who the victim was. Also the depth into which the men go to live their lives as degenerates, it makes none of them likeable characters. In the end we do want to know what is going on, but it is almost a little anti-climactic. The story behind it was a little tedious, and finding out that some of the men get what they deserve while some of the others don’t was a little frustrating.

This was not a movie with a happy ending, and when it did end I felt bad for Luke. If you do end up watching it then you’ll understand why. His character was very sad, and he even though in the end he was not a great guy, just like his buddies, he did leave us with something to feel.

0 Comments

Book Review - GHOSTED

7/18/2018

0 Comments

I won a copy of Ghosted by Rosie Walsh and I thought this might be an interesting read. In all honesty parts of it were, but it was also very hard to read and get into. Most of the book follows Sarah, a woman who sees a man for seven days and then she loses her mind searching for him, becoming an annoying character that I did no like. The book follows several different people it seems, although it really only follows two, Sarah and Eddie.

The breaks between characters, or the breaks between chapters - this is difficult because there are chapters that go from present to the past. It really interrupts the story, and makes it difficult to read, or to stay interested in the characters. I especially disliked the ending, when it went from Eddie to Sarah.

I also have to say I didn't care how the story ended. It wasn't as if I didn't expect it, but there were things in the book that were misleading, and after the third or fourth time that it happened I realized I was getting bored and I didn't care anymore if Sarah and Eddie found each other or not. Or really what happened to Sarah in the end. After learning about the secret that tore them apart, I was even less interested, partly because it was obvious to me that it was a horrible accident and that some of it didn't seem at all believable. In reality, while this wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't a book for me, which is why I would give it three of five stars.

I also had an ARC, so I did notice there were a lot of grammatical errors which did annoy the English teacher in me. I hope that in the final draft these errors were corrected.

0 Comments

Movie Review - PATCHWORK

7/16/2018

0 Comments

Patchwork is a horror comedy surrounding the hard partying night of three girls. They wake up thinking they had too much to drink the night before only to find themselves Frankensteined together in one body. They must try to work together to find the person who did this to them so they can get revenge and stop the monster from doing it again.

The idea of this movie isn’t a new one, as obviously Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was the first story involving a pieced together monster. The three women, Jennifer, Ellie, and Madeline, start their new day trying to figure out what to do, with Jennifer trying to take charge. After they realize that can’t quite go back to their old lives, they decide they must find the person who did this to them and make sure they don’t do it again. They desperately want to live their old lives, but when they are told it is impossible, they need to come up with a new plan. That new plan involves revenge, lots and lots of revenge.

This was a fun little movie. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it or not, but it was fun. I think it could have been a little better if the movie wasn’t separated into parts. Each girl has a different story to tell, then there are their parts together. It does disrupt the fun the movie could have had if it had been kept whole and not pieced out.

I think there could have been a little more development in the man behind the surgery. There was no development in why he was doing what he was doing. There was no mention of how long he had been doing it. And lastly, there was no noting of how he could be found.

In all honestly I will say that while this movie did have funny parts, they were lost in the lack of follow through on those jokes. The movie didn’t keep the jokes and comedy going, instead it went to darker jokes and they didn’t quite work as well as the jokes in the beginning.

So, while it is streaming if you have the chance to watch it, and there isn’t anything else good on, then go ahead give it a try.

0 Comments

Book Review - DOUBLE BLIND

7/10/2018

0 Comments

I haven't read any of the previous books in the Kendra Michaels series, so I don't know as much about the character as some others probably do. But this book, Double Blind, wasn't a bad one. I do feel like I was missing some information, like how she went from blind to seeing, but I also feel like that may be something that wasn't part of the books, just background information. There were moments that I thought were slow, and Kendra wasn't my favorite character because at times she seemed a little whiny, but if she had twenty-seven attempts on her life I feel like she'd be a little less squeamish, and maybe a little more willing to actually help. She seemed hesitant and blundering.

While I liked the characters of Olivia and Jessie, both Lynch and Kendra annoyed me. The plot of this story also led to what would obviously be the next book. They were all following an evil company to follow to Afghanistan, where they hoped to get more information to close them down. Then there was the serial killer twist, which wasn't really a twist at all.

I expected a little more out of this book. While I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, and I felt that the more interesting characters didn't get enough time in the story. Even the ending disappointed me a little as Olivia had something horrible, yet not horrible happen to her. I was a little confused by what happened. I'm not sure I will read another book in this series. Usually, if I pick up a book in a series that is one set in the middle somewhere, I feel the need to go back to the beginning of the series, to learn more about the development of the character. I didn't feel the need with this one. And I really do have a with the fact that six books in the main protagonist, Kendra, has had twenty-seven attempts on her life.

If you have enjoyed the series, and have read other books in it, you may like this one more than I did.

0 Comments

Movie Review - HEREDITARY

7/9/2018

0 Comments

Hereditary is a movie about a family in the grip of grief. After Annie, the matriarch of the family, loses her mother things begin to become disturbing as one thing after another passes and things become more tragic.

In the beginning I have to say the acting by Toni Collette as a grieving daughter was very well done. If you have a dysfunctional or complicated relationship with one or more of your parents, you will absolutely feel for her character, Annie, as she speaks at her mother’s funeral. After the funeral her family returns to whatever they had been before she had come to their house. No one is as sad, or at least not very sad, but part of that may be because the grandmother had been ill for a while.

After the son, Peter, goes to a party with his sister, Charlie, more tragedy interrupts the family, and the fractures really start to appear. Annie, who has a history in her family of mental illness, starts to show a disruption in her regular actions. She stops working on the miniatures for her upcoming art show, and she starts to obsess over her son and what has transpired between them in their lives.

The father, Steve, played by Gabriel Byrne, isn’t quite an absentee father, but he doesn’t seem to be fully aware, nor does he seem to want to care for his son, or maybe he doesn’t know how.

There are moments in this movie that are very creepy, and they are small moments. For example, one moment when Peter is just waking from a sleep, he hears a noise and thinks he sees someone in the corner, but it isn’t who he thinks. The setup to this scene was fabulous, and while it wasn’t frightening, it was creepy enough to garner attention, and to create suspense for the audience. The acting of Toni Collette was fabulous. There is one scene in particular, at a dinner the family tries to enjoy, where she lets everything loose, and the scene leads one to wonder at the title of the movie. Later there is another at the end, that not only seems impossible, but it is a good use of what horror is.

While this was well acted by Toni Collette, Byrne and the children seemed a little lax, although there are scenes when one hopes that Peter does get a break, in the end we get to see why everything happens the way it does.

This leads to comments about the ending of the movie, which is something that many seem to have an opinion about or argument for. I, after giving it a moment’s thought, found it horrifying and interesting. It brought the entire movie together, and it really relayed the title of the movie. Not only does Hereditary make one think of things that we inherit in our genes, but what we receive after someone dies, or what might possess us while we are alive. It’s a weird movie, and some might think it was written by someone far into an acid trip, but I thought it said a lot about itself, and people in general. And it made me wonder what, if anything, is in the world we can’t see, the world just behind the screen of out periphery vision.

So see it, don’t see it, but if you do, think about it for a moment before finalizing your thoughts about if it is or isn’t a good movie. You might surprise yourself if you give it a little bit of thought. Plus, I'd like to know what others think of it.

0 Comments

Movie Review - PANDEMIC

Movie Review - THE LOFT

Book Review - GHOSTED

Movie Review - PATCHWORK

Book Review - DOUBLE BLIND

Movie Review - HEREDITARY

Stacy Kingsley

Archives

Categories