Stacy's Blog Has Got It Going On

"Cat dead.  Details later." -Herbert West Medical student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) gets a new roommate, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs), another medical student.  After the mysterious death of his cat, Cain discovers West has found a way to bring it back to life.  Now West wants to try out his serum on human corpses...and he needs Cain's help. What Works: The practical effects of this movie are truly spectacular.  We get some awesome gore and really creative and disgusting body horror.  There's nothing I love more than 80's body horror and we get plenty of it here.  Not every effect is perfect, but I love the effort and the cheesiness. The main antagonist of this movie is Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), who gets his head severed and brought back to life by West.  He spends a large chunk of the film walking around carrying his own head.  That's absolutely wonderful and a lot of fun. I was presently surprised with the writing of the movie as

"You'll have to hide better than that." -Helene Le Domas Grace (Samara Weaving) marries into the wealthy Le Domas family.  On the night of her wedding, Grace is informed she has to join the rest of the family for a game, as is tradition.  The randomly selected game is hide and seek.  Grace goes to hide while the rest of the family gets ready to seek her out, but Grace quickly learns that if they find her, they will kill her. There will be some spoilers ahead, so don't read any further unless you have seen the movie.  I highly recommend it. What Works: Ready or Not has a pretty bonkers concept and has a lot of fun with it.  It's an exciting film with surprising and tense moments and some gruesome deaths.  It's exactly the kind of film the trailer promised and I couldn't be happier. This is a comedy/horror film and it balances both genres well.  The comedy is excellent and there are some really great laugh-out-loud moments.  We

"Did you just call me Blob?" -Fred Dukes Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and his brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber) are recruited by William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join a special military squad of mutants.  When the squad starts to kill innocent people, Wolverine quits.  Years later, someone is hunting down the members of the team and Wolverine is pulled back into a violent world of death and betrayal and allows Stryker to experiment on him to make him an even more powerful weapon. What Works: As always, Hugh Jackman is perfect as Wolverine.  Even with a terrible script, he sells his part.  Liev Schreiber also does a solid job as Victor.  He and Jackman have great chemistry and Schreiber sells Victor's savagery very well. Finally, I do really like the first 10-15 minutes of the film.  It's cool to see Wolverine and Victor fighting in a bunch of different wars and the one mission we see the mutant squad go on is pretty cool.  Each of the mutants pl

"It's a dead end!" -Sasha A group of teenage girls decide to do a bit of cave diving to check out an ancient Mayan city.  After they get trapped by a cave in, the girls have to find a way out of the cave system before they run out of air.  To make matters worse, some Great White Sharks have made the cave their home. What Works: My favorite part of this movie is the use of slow-mo.  There are a handful of absolutely gorgeous shots that are in slow-mo.  The opening shot of the movie shows Mia (Sophie Néliss) falling into a swimming pool and later we get another slow-mo shot of her firing a flare gun.  They look incredible and are the highlights of the film. This movie is pretty dumb, but it does have some fun sequences.  One I really like had the girls using a distress alarm to keep the sharks at bay.  The alarm flashes red light.  The alternating red and black makes for a memorable sequence. The kills are mostly unmemorable with one exception. 

"You don't read the book, the book reads you." -Stella Nicholls On Halloween, a group of teenagers go exploring a haunted house and find an old book of scary stories.  They soon discovers that the book is writing new stories and they are the characters.  As the stories come to life, one by one, the kids begin to disappear.  Will they be able to stop it or will they all become another scary story? What Works: I was a huge fan of these books growing up and I read them over and over.  The stories themselves are terrifying, but the horrific illustrations are what really traumatized me.  We only get to see five of the stories come to life, but they are all effective and terrifying.  This movie has problems, but it gets the most important element right. The most famous story involves a girl getting a weird pimple that turns out to be spider eggs inside of her face.  It's gruesome and tough to watch, especially for a PG-13 movie.  I like spiders and

"Don't you know who I am?  I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" -Juggernaut The mutant world is rattled when a "cure" for mutation is invented.  Magneto (Ian McKellen), worried that mutants will have the cure forced upon them, forms an army to take down the laboratory creating the cure.  Meanwhile, the X-Men have a hard decision to make on how to proceed and to make matters worse, Jean Grey (Famke Jansse) is reveled to still be alive, only her personality has become...darker. What Works: The returning cast members are all really great.  McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Hugh Jackson are absolutely perfect in their roles as always.  The three of them deliver every time they are on screen. I love the different philosophies at play in The Last Stand .  Ideology and philosophy are always the strongest aspects of the X-Men films and the element of the "cure" is pretty fascinating.  I love all of the different viewpoints and the way everyone

"Have you tried not being a mutant?" -Madeline Drake After the President of the United States is nearly killed by a mutant, Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), interest is renewed in passing the Mutant Registration Act.  Colonel William Stryker leads the anti-mutant camp and launches an attack on Charles Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) school and kidnaps the Professor to use him to power a weapon to kill all mutants.  Now the remaining X-Men have to team up with their old enemy, Magneto (Ian McKellen) to foil Stryker's plans. What Works: X2 improves upon the original in pretty much every way.  The story is a lot more interesting because the X-Men have to team up with Magneto.  It's an uneasy alliance to say the least, but it's fascinating to watch. The movie also has a greater emotional impact with the attack on the school being exciting and disturbing.  We also get the apparent death of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen).  It's a heartbreaking loss th

I recently finished my rewatch of the MCU, 23 freaking movies (ugh) and decided to rank all of them.  This is tough because I like all of the movies except for one.  We'll do this from worst to best and in tiers. The Meh There's only one movie in this tier and it's the only film in the MCU I don't recommend.  It's not outright bad, but it's just not worth your time. #23. The Incredible Hulk (2008) The MCU's second film has solid villains, some funny moments, and Tim Blake Nelson, but most of this movie is simply boring, the action sequences aren't memorable, and both Edward Norton and Liv Tyler aren't great. The Good There are seven films in this next tier and while I enjoyed all of them, they have some major flaws preventing them from getting any higher. #22. Thor: The Dark World (2013) It's fun having Loki around when he's not the main antagonist, Stellan Skarsgård is great, the design of the

"I made a mistake." -Charlotte  Before you read any further, if you haven't seen The Perfection , go watch it.  It's on Netflix and it's a great movie.  I knew nothing about it going in and that made it all the more enjoyable.  Do yourself a favor and watch it while knowing as little as possible.  Spoilers below! An extremely talented cellist, Charlotte (Allison Williams) was forced to leave an prestigious music academy when her mother became very sick.  Years later, after her mother dies, Charlotte reunites with her former instructors and meets their new protegé, Lizzie (Logan Browning).  The two of them quickly form a bond and decide to travel together, but Charlotte's motives aren't what they seem. What Works: The chemistry between Williams and Browning is the strongest aspect of this movie.  The connection between them is instantaneous and I was pleasantly surprised to see them hook up so early in the film.  It's a nice f

"See you in another life, yeah?" -Desmond Hume The season 2 premiere of Lost gives us an episode about Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox).  In flashbacks, we see how Jack meets his future wife, Sarah (Julie Bowen), by saving her life in the Emergency Room after a car accident.  With severe damage to her back, Jack operates on Sarah to restore her ability to walk.  Believing he failed, Jack goes for a run, where he meets a man training for a race around the world, Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick).  Later, he returns to the hospital to deliver Sarah the bad news, but discovers a miracle has happened and Sarah has feeling in her legs. On the island, Jack says they don't have enough time to get all of the castaways down into the hatch, so he brings Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), and a reluctant Locke (Terry O'Quinn) back to the caves where everyone is in a panic because Shannon (Maggie Grace) claims she saw Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) out in the jungl

"I got a flamethrower in my tool shed." -Rick Dalton Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a talented actor who is past his prime, and his best friend, stunt double, and driver Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) are trying to find their place in a changing Hollywood.  Things get crazy when they become entangled with the Manson Family and Rick's neighbor, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). What Works: As a film fanatic and someone who lived in Los Angeles, I really appreciated the world of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood .  I like movies that are about the film industry and this movie is one of the better ones.  There are so many little things that go into this film that makes it truly feel like a Hollywood movie.  Is it romanticized?  Sure, but that doesn't mean it's not fun.  It's obvious that Tarantino is a great lover of film and that certainly translates. Surprisingly, there isn't a ton of gore or ultra-violence in the film, which is shocking when yo

"I have been falling, for thirty minutes!" -Loki After Odin (Anthony Hopkins) finally dies, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) realize their older sister, Hela, the goddess of death (Cate Blanchett), has been released from her prison.  She strands them both on a planet run by the maniacal Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) and takes over Asgard.  Now the brothers have to form a team to escape the Grandmaster and stop Hela. What Works: Thor: Ragnarok has by far the best score in the MCU.  I love the music and it adds a lot to the movie.  It feels extremely old-school and it's blast to listen to. The entire movie feels like an old-school sci-fi film with a big budget.  It's exactly the movie I wanted it to be.  Everything on Jeff Goldblum's planet is incredible.  This is a B-movie with a big budget and and director Taika Waititi nails it. Speaking of Taika Waititi, he plays an excellent new character in Korg.  Waititi is hysteri