The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Movie Review - FIFTY SHADES DARKER

4/15/2019

Fifty Shades Darker..... more like fifty shades of why the hell was this movie made and why am I wasting my time with it?

Anna has decided, in this part two to the fifty shades series, that she is willing to give Christian another chance, but only if he follows her rules. While she is still willing to be spanked, and is intrigued by some of his toys, she is upset by the way his past keeps finding her, and threatening her future with Christian.

This movie basically had zero plot, and the ending was so abrupt that I literally shouted, "Are you serious, that's how we're going to end this one?" Anna goes through the same motions she went through in the first movie, several deer in the headlights moments when she has no idea how to take care of herself, then she tries to take a stand just to fall back into her deer in the headlights ways. She is faced with the woman who taught Christian everything he knows, and she goes so far as to throw a drink in her face (oh the horror), and she is confronted by a former "slave" who threatens her life and wonders why Anna is so special, and Anna just runs away when Christian tells her he can handle it, then the whole situation isn't spoken about again.

I don't know if it is the story or the acting by Ms. Johnson, but this was not good. The character of Anna was not very likeable or interesting, and a lot of the time I found myself wanting to slap her myself. I am thinking the writing of this was not well done, as none of it remotely fit together. There was a lot of hey let's do this, then no let's do this, then maybe we should stop, and I just want to be my own person. Also, it wasn't believable that Anna's boss gets fired and she moves from his assistant to his job - yeah sorry, spoiler alert.

Also, there is zero chemistry between the characters, and the sex scenes are washed out and boring. I was not at all interested, or turned on, which if we're going to watch a movie like this, I expect to be turned on at least a little bit.

So, do I recommend this movie, absolutely not. Am I going to watch the last one, most likely yes because apparently I am a masochist. Should you watch these movies, no, in fact run away, no, in fact, why don't you just watch porn. Even the worst porn is more interesting than this crap.

Apologies and Movie Review for STRANGERLAND

1/7/2019

Before I review this movie, I'd like to apologize to all of my readers for the lack of posts these last few weeks. I was on break from work and unfortunately I spent most of that time sick. I am back to work, but I am also feeling much healthier, which means back to real life and all work. I am working on two books, one I am sending queries out for, and the other I am writing. Sometimes my writing has to take a backseat as I have papers to grade, but I am down to three classes this semester and I feel that I've managed my grading time well. So, without waiting any longer, here is my review of Strangerland. You may not have heard of this movie, and now you can read my review before deciding on if you want to or not.
*********************************************************************************************************************************************

Strangerland starring Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes, and Hugo Weaving, is a movie about a family who has moved to a rural area in the outback (is there any other area?) and try to escape the doldrums of this new life.

The family, of which Kidman and Fiennes are the parents, have been forced to move to this new town because of the actions of their teenage daughter. They have two children, their daughter, Lily, and their son, Tom. These two children are precarious and I found them incredibly annoying. The couple have some serious issues in their marriage and they seem to be on their way to divorce, as the audience sees they don’t sleep in the same bed, and they don’t seem to be on the same page when their children have issues.

In the movie Kidman seems to be a desperate mother, while Fiennes is a distant father. Kidman walks through the movie trying to figure out her daughter and save both of her children, while Fiennes not only continues on with his regular day, but he doesn’t see the trauma he is causing his wife to endure. In the end, this family seems broken, and there is no way to fix them or put them back together.

I have to say the most interesting characters were Kidman and Weaving, as they both go through a lot in the movie. The movie itself however, wasn’t a very engaging one. As the family goes through a huge trauma nothing about them, or what they are going through, falls strongly with the viewer. There are issues that don’t make them interesting, and I couldn’t feel anything but blah for them. I wanted to be more interested in what they were dealing with, and I wanted to feel something about what was happening to them, especially since they were dealing with the possibility of losing their children. I just didn’t feel sympathy or happiness or anything for them.

The ending of this movie didn’t settle well with me either. It left the movie unfinished, which isn’t horrible, but it is a little overdone, as a lot of movies seem to end with a mystery still left to be solved. I wanted it to have an actual ending. I wanted this movie to give me answers, but instead it created more questions.

While I enjoyed the acting of the top actors, they weren’t enough to keep me interested, nor were they a reason to watch this movie.

My recommendation is to skip it. Don’t even waste time watching it on streaming, it isn’t worth the time.

Movie Review - Infini

12/26/2018

Infini is a horror science fiction movie released in 2015. It is about a search and rescue team who travel through time slips to other worlds. The company that trains and operates the slip streams are a mining company, and their practices don’t quite take the human element into consideration. One planet where mining is taking place erupts in a horrific outbreak, and no one is quite sure where it has come from.

The movie revolves around a young man named Whit, who has left his pregnant wife for one last job. These jobs are dangerous and they pay very well, which is why Whit has decided it do it one last time. Once he arrives things start happening and the other people on the planet begin showing signs of a sickness that makes everyone a little violent. A search and rescue team is sent to not only find out what happened, but also make sure the product is still being produced.

This was a very bloody movie, which was fun for a horror movie. However, the science part of it wasn’t explored as much as it could have been. The being behind the outbreak was interesting, although it has been done before, I liked how it was interweaved between the horror of what was happening, and the reality of what humans do when they see or meet an alien being.

I didn’t think this was a great movie, and at times I was impatient for the characters to do something together or figure things out, instead they were at each other’s throats and it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen in a movie like this before. It reminded me of movies like Sunshine and Event Horizon, which were both better movies. I would have liked to see the characters do something new, and I would have liked less of a religious view on motherhood in this film.

This was not a bad movie, but it was lacking in some of the elements and originality. It isn’t a bad movie to watch on streaming, but I wouldn’t recommend paying for it.

Movie Review - IT'S ALIVE (1973)

12/10/2018

SPOILERS included in this review. You have been warned.

I previously watched the remake of It’s Alive, and after watching the 1973 original movie I really don’t think it needed to be remade, because the remake is a million times worse than the original (which wasn’t the best movie itself). The 1973 version of It’s Alive is about a couple who have a monster of a baby. The baby goes on a killing spree to survive and get home to his parents. Frank, the father, feels an incredible desire to destroy the infant, but the mother has other ideas after she returns home and tries to start life back up. Their older son, Charlie, is left in the dark as the parents try to protect him from what happened, but in the end Charlie doesn’t need protection from his baby brother, the rest of the world, they might.

The original version of this movie was very different from the remake. In this version the mother hides the child for a few days in the basement of their house, only wanting to protect him. She doesn’t get to take him home from the hospital because after he slaughters the medical staff he runs in fear, whereas in the remake they take the baby home and find that the only weird things about him are his teeth and his size (he grows incredibly fast). The father in the remake doesn’t seem to take an interest in the movie, and the mother in the remake tries hide her infants murderous deeds by moving and concealing bodies.

One thing I liked about the original is that the father eventually comes around and tried to protect his child, unlike the remake when the mother sets the house on fire, killing herself and her baby. In the original the parents seem to really care for their oldest child, Charlie, while in the remake the kid seems to be left on his own, or he disappears and the audience has no idea what might have happened to him.

Since the original was made in the early 1970’s it is a little bit hokey, but the fun of it is the badly done effects and some of the interesting acting. In fact one of the best lines of the movie came from the lead detective trying to find and destroy the infant. The line was, “Hunting and killing babies doesn’t seem to be my specialty,” and I thought it was the most apropos line in the movie, since how does one justify hunting down and killing an infant, even if it is a homicidal monster?

I actually enjoyed the original version a million times better than the remake, and I thought it not only had a better story, but a better ending. If you haven’t watched it, look for the 1973 version, and skip the 2008 version.

Movie Review - OUIJA SUMMONING

11/19/2018

The synopsis for Ouija Summoning from IMDb is: A beautiful woman is haunted by an evil spirit after an innocent game of Ouija board goes horribly wrong.

First off, in this day and age are there any “innocent” games of Ouija. I mean I am sure everyone has read the warnings and seen the other movies where teens have played with an Ouija board and have died.

Ouija Summoning begins in an older house where one women arrives and is attacked by another. As things happen the police arrive, and the crazy woman is arrested, all while chanting that it had to be done.

This was a problem for me as I had no idea who these people were, or why this was happening. So while it starts in the action, it doesn’t do anything me because I have no idea what is going on, or really why I should care. Plus, this isn’t something that is returned to later in the movie, so it is a scene that doesn’t matter. Later three young college age students stop at the house because one of them needs to pee. They don’t stay in the house but they do step in, and from there bad things happen.

The main character, Sara, is haunted by someone crying and telling her to kill people. As people start dying around her, she is viewed as insane and her parents seek help for her. Her parents, who are divorced, attempt to help their daughter, but they find that they don’t really know how, and then they decide that they think she might actually be killing people.

Bad acting and a bad story line were the biggest issues throughout this movie. There was a lot going on and nothing was explained. The audience has no idea what is up with this specific Ouija board, or why it is the one that is haunted, or who the woman that keep crying is. With so little information the movie doesn’t make much sense. It also isn’t very interesting as a horror movie because there is nothing scary throughout it.

I felt that this movie seemed like a half-hearted attempt to make a scary movie that was attempting to bank on the Ouija board fears created by other movies. However, there was no character or story development, nor was there any reason for the audience to feel fear or suspense. So there wasn’t anything to redeem this movie to the audience, and there was nothing to make it worth watching.

I absolutely do no recommend this movie to anyone, not even if you are bored and looking to watch something on streaming. If you watch it you have been warned that it is a waste of an hour and a half.

Movie Review - Charlotte

9/10/2018

Sometimes I feel like I only hate movies, and it is because I watch movies like Charlotte. This movie was awful, and I have to ask myself at times why I put myself through these things. The movie is about a girl who is in her “teens.” She is babysitting when she sees a a creepy doll in the house. After talking to the homeowner who says the doll is not theirs, she ignores this as a potential warning. The doll, who is weirdly horrible, makes the babysitter watch several “gruesome” tales on TV.

First I have to say that this was a very low budget movie. I mean if you are getting business cards to use through the free cards on VistaPrint it is obviously a small or non-existent budget. There were several things throughout the movie that led me to believe the quality was not going to be the best, and that is telling since even movies with little or no budgets are still good, some are even cult classics.

This movie is not going to end up being a cult classic.

Of the videos that the babysitter is forced to watch, none of them are very frightening or horrifying. They all seem to take after other sources. For example, there is a creepy doll and it kills people who don’t treat it nice… yeah, I’ve NEVER seen that before (said dripping with oily sarcasm). None of the ideas were original, and none of them were really well done.

Honestly none of these little clips caught my attention, and none of them were scary, horrifying, or even a bit suspenseful.

I do not recommend this movie, not even of streaming because why waste the hour and a half? I mean I am sure everyone has something better to do that sit, watching a horrible movie that isn’t even worth the video used to make it.

So, no, don’t watch this mess of a horror film. Watch The Twilight Zone instead, it is awesome and it is also where a lot of these ideas originated.

Movie Review - THE AXE MURDERS OF VILLISCA

8/27/2018

Where do I start with The Axe Murders of Villisca? I think I will start with the most interesting tidbit about the movie, there really were axe murders in a house, and they happened on July of 1912. Another little bit of interesting information is that the murderer was never found. This movie is supposed to take place in the house of the murders, and it revolves around three misfits who all have something dark in their past.

The main character somehow was never convicted of being complicit in the robbery his father took him along to commit, even after both his father and the clerk were killed. Apparently his best friend took the fall for him, but it still doesn’t make sense. His best friend is a young gay man who lost his entire family in a car accident. And the day they decide to go visit the house for their small time, and small town, show about the paranormal, they meet a young female peer who has made friends with the wrong men.

This movie is honestly just a huge mess. It doesn’t delve deep enough into the reason behind the horrors that happened at the house, where apparently eight people died. This in itself makes things hard, because if I have no idea what causes the evil to happen, then I am not going to care much about why it happens. It might involve something about regret, guilt, and possession, but it isn’t really given much credence or thought.

There were no really scary moments, and for a movie about ghosts or possession I would have liked something to be frightening or suspenseful, but there was neither. In the end I don’t have much to say about this movie except, don’t waste your time. It isn’t even a movie that you’d watch simply because it is on streaming. No matter how you watch it, it will feel like a waste of time. So, if you heed my review, and listen to what I am actually writing here, then you will skip this movie and find something else to watch. There are several movies on this blog that I have reviewed better than this movie.

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.

Movie Review - IT'S ALIVE (2008)

6/5/2018

I don't know why I decided to watch this movie. It was awful, just awful. And after looking it up I saw that it had less than two stars on IMDb, and that only six percent of 946 people liked the movie on Rotten Tomatoes. When I received this movie I thought it was the original movie, not the remake, which I didn't even know existed. I was disappointed to get the remake as I have yet to see the original. I will actually be watching it next and will review it and compare it to this remake.

First I have to tell you all what this movie is about. It is about a young woman Lenore, who finds out she is pregnant by her longtime boyfriend, Frank. Frank lives on a farm and takes care of his wheelchair bound younger brother, Chris. Later in the movie we find out that Lenore tried to abort the baby by buying pills online. They did not work and she had a monster of an infant. Not only does the child incessantly cry, but he loves the taste of human flesh.

I hate being hard on movies, but there was nothing redeeming or interesting in this movie. The kills were dull and not explored. The bodies were not shown in any form after or during the kills. The characters were all incredibly flat and boring. Also, the movie, while only lasting an hour and a half, seemed to last for much longer than it should have.

The character of Lenore has a best friend at the college she is attending, Marnie, but the relationship doesn't seem very strong or interesting. There are no relationships that seem very strong or interesting. One would think that Frank would be there for his brother, Chris, but he isn't. He leaves Chris all of the time and he goes to work (only one day is shown in the movie) and leaves Chris in the care of Lenore, who he is worried about.

Once Lenore has the child the room she has given birth in becomes a crime scene, and nothing seems to faze with the father, Frank, or the mother, Lenore. No one seems to worry that the baby was born and the mother and baby were left in a bloodbath.

Lastly, I have to address the acting of Bijou Phillips. While I have no problem with her personally, and I can't admit to seeing her in anything else, although I may have, she was the most annoying character in this movie. As a mother she cares nothing for Chris, and is disgusted by what her child does, but she also sees nothing wrong with it in the same breath, which was annoying. But, overall it was her high pitched, and very whiny voice which annoyed me the most.

So, was this a good movie? Absolutely not. I don't think anyone should suffer through this, even if it were available for streaming, just don't waste your time. There are better really bad movie out there, like FROGS or PIRANHA 3D.

Movie Review - FRIEND REQUEST

3/4/2018

Every one has that moment, that one moment of Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat where you question if you should accept that friend request, or be cool with that person who just followed you. You wonder if they really know the mutual friends they are showing, and you look at their profile to see what they have posted or what pictures they have themselves tagged it. Honestly, that doesn't tell you much. Now, consider this, you've noticed this person around, and once looking at their profile you are a little sad when seeing they have zero friends. This is basically what the movie FRIEND REQUEST about.

This movie felt a little like it had been done before, then I realized it had, in the movie UNFRIENDED, which I thought was a better movie. Since I obviously didn't care for this movie, I have to write about what I thought was wrong with this movie.

This movie was incredibly slow and the death scenes were anything I hadn't seen before. I would have liked something more interesting. I thought that the main character, Laura, was bland and didn't have enough personality. Plus it isn't really obvious how things start for her, or what in her background might hint to her being this kind, caring person. The reason behind the terror of the movie wasn't really explained in a way which made me care at all. I didn't know why Laura was being torments, nor did I know why the antagonist, Marina, was doing what she was doing.

Then there was the ending of the movie, which didn't help at all. It wanted to be a circular movie with a beginning that lead to the ending, but since the reasoning behind what Mariana did wasn't explored, the audience never really got the idea why Laura is the way she is at the end of the movie.

One more thing I want to write about is this is the "scares" in this film. Now I hate jump scares, and this movie solely relied on jump scares to frighten and horrify the audience. Most of the time jump scares don't work very well anymore, in fact, they don't really make a movie scary at all. What do they do? Make people like me feel annoyed because obviously there wasn't enough of a story for this be a good horror movie on its own.

Don't watch it, it isn't even worth the time to stream it.