Two very different films, two very different approaches to the horror genre. One thing in common: killer bears!
Cocaine Bear is the perfect example of ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’ when it comes to outlandish films. Take a simple, real life, concept of a bear ingesting cocaine and ramp it up to 100!
What makes this work is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously – how can you take a film about a drug addicted bear seriously? – and injects the right amount of comedy with perfect timing. The CGI bear looks great, and it seems like the motion captor actor had a really good time with the cast while filming; there’s also an injection of personality in the bear itself that adds to the comic relief.
The kills? Fantastic, even if the majority of them were by humans and not the bear. The characters were entertaining and even had some development towards the end.
The downside? A lot of the kills were done by humans. It makes sense in the long run, panic breeds mistakes and who wouldn’t panic with an unpredictable, drugged up bear causing havoc? But it’s just too many.
Rating: 4/5. Needs more bear kills.
I boarded the hype train when I first heard about Blood and Honey. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet on a killing spree? Revenge against Christopher Robin?
YES!
Wait…no?
I feel that three types of people went in to watch this film:
Those who expected the film to be terrible, and only saw the terrible. Those who had low expectations, and got exactly what they expected. Those with high expectations, and were disappointed.
I’m in the middle. Did I expect great things from this film? No, but I didn’t expect this.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey feels like two films mixed together; almost like halfway through filming they learnt Pooh was going to be in public domain and decided to slap him in. What is pitched as Pooh’s revenge against his human friend is actually a typical cabin in the woods slasher against a group of Mary Sue girls; Christopher Robin only plays a small part in the whole thing.
Let me clarify that there’s nothing wrong with an old fashioned serial slasher/cabin in the woods film – it’s a tried and true horror trope – but something about the way Blood and Honey did it feels off. Again, like it’s two films mixed up, as though it started out as serial cannibals in the woods who then became Pooh and Piglet.
The story of how Pooh and Piglet became killers is great. It fits. Their hatred for Christopher is valid. How the girls fit into it? They don’t. They’re just there as killer fodder.
A lot of the kills were uninspired, which for a slasher isn’t a bad thing, but I saw openings for something more creative that just wasn’t taken – this could be down to budget, there are some CGI effects on the kills so the maybe the money wasn’t there for anything better.
Also, it feels like a lot has been cut out, giving it plot holes, and it just glosses over the fact that Pooh can SUMMON BEES!? Can I get an explanation for that?
So, despite what seems to be a negative rant, why don’t I hate it?
It has potential. I can see it with a better budget!
Rating: 3/5. Personally, I would have set the film in the 80/90’s, and tied the girls to Christopher as a group of his friends from college to make it feel more complete. It needs some polish, and hopefully a bigger budget will help with that.
Have you ever wanted to bitch slap your annoying child so hard you leave a handprint? Maybe not, but you will agree that Ashley’s mother has a point in the opening scenes of this film! After Ashley demands her new birthday toys early, and discards her old favourite, the old bear suddenly comes back for revenge by dragging Ashley into her toybox to meet her end.
Cut to Jack, thirty-five, still living at home (nothing wrong with that mate) and scaring away his new girlfriend Tara with the childish state of his room. Jack’s mother is preparing for his thirty-fifth birthday ‘surprise’ while his dad is trying to convince him to learn some DIY; Jack would rather play video games in his room when tragedy strikes in the kitchen: Jack’s dad is killed when his dodgy DIY shelf drops a heavy art piece on his head, which causes his mum to slip and fall face first into the cheese skewers – the many toothpicks piercing her face.
Ten months later, Jack is falling behind on the mortgage payments; Dave of Bayvista Finance graciously lowers the payments but Jack still has to make the first payment by friday. Jack heads to work at ToyBox, where Richard (who pronounces it Rishard) is top dog with his robot product Rosko; Jack’s presentation falls flat when his robot is mistakenly called A.I.D.S instead of R.A.I.D.S, he stays late to think of a new idea when Richard tells him his job is at risk. Ron, Jack’s boss, who stutters on words starting with F, begins searching for him; Jack dodges him for a moment, only to be cornered at the lift.
Ron offers Jack a new position and pay cut, rather than firing him, and Jack heads home; he begins to clear out all the childish things from his room to store in the basement – including his favourite teddy: Benny. Benny takes offence to this and comes alive, massarcering all the other toys that Jack once loved.
Would you suspect such a cute toy?
Jack calls the police, who are less than helpful and are only interested in Jack’s custard creams (when bourbons are the true king of biscuits). Jack heads to work where he meets Dawn, his new supervisor, who covers for him when he still doesn’t have any new ideas; back home, he ignores the messages from Dave about the payments. The next morning, he finds Dave’s head in his bed and the body in the kitchen, where Benny has made him breakfast.
The cops turn up at the door suddenly, and Jack performs the fastest crime scene cover up in history, while the cops dawdle outside and let him! They come inside to get the camera they left behind and ask about Dave, who has suddenly gone missing and his car is just down the street, unbeknownst to them that his headless body is stuffed into the cupboard behind them; when they leave, the body falls from its hiding place and Benny reveals that he’s alive. Unsure what to do, they simply bury Dave in the garden and Jack makes Benny promise not to kill again. Although, there’s the incident shortly after with a cat…
During their bonding time, Benny is watching a horror film which gives Jack an idea: Scare Bears, targeted at horror fans; with Benny as his muse, and Dawn backing the project, Jack’s new idea takes off and gives him the confidence to date Dawn. They agree on a night to get together, but Ron pressures him to dogsit his Pug, Precious, at the same time.
While at work, a realtor shows Jack’s home to Tara who immediately recognises it; while he shows her around there is foreshadowing of her coming face-to-face with Benny, who kills the realtor with the For Sale sign; Tara escapes to the loft, but has no means of calling for help. Jack returns home to a bloody mess.
Nobody puts Benny in a box!
Jack locks Benny in the basement again with some comics to entertain himself; however, Jack’s growing feelings for Dawn tempts the cuddly toy into escaping. Ron drops Precious off, and initially Benny chooses to ignore her – until Jack exclaims that he loves dogs in order to impress Dawn. While Benny takes care of his latest rival (poor dog!), Dawn explains that just before one of her birthdays in her childhood, her favourite doll Amy went missing; she claims her dad threw it out and he denied it, but the night before her birthday Amy suddenly appeared again, killing her parents and disappearing once more.
During her tale, Benny shows Jack what he’s done to Precious, causing him to leave Dawn while she’s talking to clean up the mess; he begins to panic, suggesting that they rearrange the date, but undeterred Dawn leads him upstairs to seduce him. Jack slips away for a moment, trying to figure out how he’s going to explain everything to his boss and searches for Benny – who is going after Dawn; to keep their secret, Jack beats the corpse of the dead dog further, making out the Pug was going to attack her, and throws it out the window onto Ron’s car.
Jack loses his job, as he leaves the building the cops are waiting and show him the pictures of Benny they found on the camera. At home, he ignores Benny, who tries to make it up with a surprise birthday party, but Jack remains angry which causes the toy to get creative: he kidnaps Ron as a present! Jack manages to twist the situation in his favour, convincing Ron to give his job back – with a pay rise – until Jack makes his boss confess that he loves being Jack’s bitch, upsetting Benny.
Last straw. Jack traps his old toy in the prop coffin for Scare Bears and buries him deep in the woods; Dawn arrives at his home to pick Benny up, initially mistaking him for the Scare Bears prototype, and the pair make up.
Benny makes his way back home and leaves threatening messages around the house that Dawn simply walks past while she gets ready for work, and Benny hitches a ride on the top of her car to follow her to work; Jack wakes soon after and realises when Benny is up to, he rushes to ToyBox where he finds Dawn, Richard and some other colleagues with Benny in the break room. Jack tries to explain that Benny is alive, and it’s only when Jack tells Richard he ‘really fucking loves’ him, that Benny becomes jealous and stabs Richard in the hand; the trio manage to escape and trap Benny in the break room…with everyone else still inside…
Back at the house, Jack explains that Benny, although sweet, is easily jealous and is after Dawn and Richard – Dawn because he loves her, and Richard because he’s a tit, all the while Benny is gearing up for his revenge and the trio begin a Home Alone style defence around the house, complete with flamethrowers and the R.A.I.D.S robot armed with an electric saw.
Jack makes Dawn wait upstairs, where she finds a gift for her from Jack – only for it to actually be from Benny, he found Amy online at an antique store. Downstairs, Jack and Richard wait for Benny, who breaks in through the toilet; they’re separated when Dawn screams for help and Jack takes on Benny with R.A.I.D.S. In another room, Rosko appears for his revenge on Richard, scorned for being dumped to take over the Scare Bears project; Rosko manages to slash Richard across the stomach and then suck out his guts with vacuum before moving on to find another victim.
Rosko wants a piece of the action with Benny
As victor against R.A.I.D.S Benny corners Jack, but when Rosko tries to take the kill Benny turns on him; the pair duke it out and Jack saves Benny from Rosko with one of the traps, hoping to make amends there Benny instead heads for Dawn who has destroyed Amy.
The cops arrive as Benny takes Dawn hostage. Jack tells him that this will be the last time they see each other as he can’t follow where Jack will go; they share a sweet moment before Benny leaps through the window to face the cops, who unload BB pellets into him.
Unsure how to explain everything to anyone, Jack, Dawn and the cops pin the whole thing on the dead Richard; Jack finally decides to move on, packing everything into Dawn’s car – including the hole riddled Benny…
And Tara? She never left the loft.
5/5: I love this film so much I’m practically obsessed! Benny is so adorable in every way, I can’t wait for the recently announced doll to release. The film itself is well paced, funny in every scene – including the credits – and even tear jerking; you can tell Karl, who wrote, directed and starred in the film, put his heart and soul into this project. I cannot recommend this delightful flick enough.
Welcome to the first Rapid-fire Review, the place where I quickly review a bunch of horror films with my S/O. Let’s get started!
10 Cloverfield Lane
Well paced film with a poor ending
As much as I hated Cloverfield (especially if you know I normally hate found footage films), knowing that 10 Cloverfield Lane isn’t exactly attached to it – just part of an anthology – I felt giving it a go only seemed fair.
If you were to wake up after an accident in an underground bunker, with some guy telling you the world ended would you believe him? Some signs point to yes, others shout at you that this dude has an unhealthy obsession with his daughter and you’re her replacement.
Spoiler, it’s both. I was actually disappointed that crazy bunker man was right, the world was invaded by aliens – but that’s just J. J Abrams for you.
4/5 just for the disappointing ending.
Benny Loves You
Mother T’razor is my favourite Benny costume!
Your toys love you more than you think, and there are consequences when you try to throw them away…
In this dark British comedy, stuffed toy Benny won’t be thrown away so easily, he just loves you so much he’ll even kill for you! This film turned out way different from what I expected; instead of Benny terrorising his owner, he becomes the inspiration his best friend needs in order to keep his job – and murders everything else that person might love!
Originally 10/5 for cute dog, but lost 5 points for what they did to it. Solid 5/5 for hilarity and cuteness, I very much love Benny too.
Cleaver: Rise of the Killer Clowns & Cleavers
I’m still wondering how it got a sequel…
When a husband catches his wife in bed with another man, he dons a clown outfit and slaughters them both; a year later, on Halloween, he’s back to claim what is his…the daughter he left behind – hunting down every girl her age in foster care, and killing anyone in the way.
The first film is a poor, green washed, poorly directed and obviously dodgy effects with toy cars and tights for intestines; so imagine our surprise when we discovered a sequel! While Cleavers has much better lighting and effects – and a budget as a whole – the acting it still flat and Cleaver the Clown was better without lines of his own.
2/5: For slight improvement.
Slashers
Ummm…
If Takeshi’s Castle was a horror theme show instead of an obstacle course, it would be this…but better! Slashers is a Japanese game show where six contestants try to survive long enough against three killers to with a cash prize, but everything is real, including the blood!
A special show invites six Americans to face Preacherman, Chainsaw Charlie and Dr. Ripper; if contestants kill one of the serial killers, more money is added to the prize. Dr. Ripper has an obsession with the girls boobs, Preacherman is kind of boring but I could have watched a film around Chainsaw Charlie! It’s well paced, but the acting is horrible and the effects are a bit hit and miss.
3.5/5: Curiously entertaining for a cheesy slasher film, but fits in well for a Japanese style game show.
Curse of the Scarecrow
Don’t play the traffic light game with a killer scarecrow!
This could have been something great, with a good lore and backstory; after a man is brutally murdered by the locals, he vows revenge and fulfills that promise every twenty years. In a small British town, one young woman faces her past by returning to the farm where her parents were murdered twenty years previously, and her brother ‘committed suicide’ more recently. She takes her best friend, and her shrink with her; her friend is there for moral support and her shrink tries to use the time to convince her that a scarecrow didn’t murder her parents.
It wasn’t a bad film, but the script lacked obvious dialogue as characters would often repeat the same lines they’ve just said in the same scene; there’s also a part where the friend, in the above picture, is oblivious the scarecrow is alive when it has obviously moved from the back wall where she found it!!
3/5: I liked it, but it needed something more? It needed a less obvious twist to it for sure, though.
Clowntergeist
Not for those with a phobia
Clowntergeist started off strong with the killer clown trope, a monster clown that gives you the date and time of your demise; however…it slows down…A LOT, it felt a lot longer than the hour and a half-ish length.
We found it difficult to fathom why the clown kept tormenting his victim before her actual date of death – to increase her already fear of clowns? She already had a phobia, how much more scared can she get? Or why the clown was going after other people too? Like her friends.
2/5: Drags on far too long, didn’t make much sense for something with potential.
Fantasy Island
Is this really a horror?
I’ve never seen the original TV series, but I can sum up the film plot in one sentence:
Girl gets revenge for not getting the dick of the guy she met once.
Honestly though, it’s a good film! The premise of people’s fantasies not turning out the way they hoped was really cool, and I enjoyed figuring out what would go wrong. The characters are great, I loved the way some of the fantasies overlapped into one another but the main reason for the revenge is just so stupid!
4/5: Seriously could have been full marks if it wasn’t for that stupid reason for revenge, it let the whole film down.
It’s a seemingly normal flight to Paris on the flight Concord 239; Pilot Ray and Co-Pilot Randy are discussing Ray’s retirement plans after landing in Paris. Ray mentions that there is special government cargo in the hold, and if anything strange happens they should contact the scientists on board; one of them is down below in the hold, watching over a cold container.
In business class, Lucas and Sebastian are arguing over the cargo they’re transporting; it is revealed that the cargo is Lucas’ infected wife, Kelly, and he’s worried something may happen to cause the virus to escape; Bennett, the CEO of MedCon calms them down and tells them to keep a low profile.
Meanwhile, we’re introduced to various character dotted about the plane; the Stewardesses: Megan, Emily and Stacey, Agent Burrows and his prisoner Frank, undercover TSA Agent Judd, Pro Golfer Billy and wife Anna, and a pair of young couples.
Concord 239 has to fly through a storm, causing severe turbulence and causing scientist Kevin, in the cargo hold, to be injured by a box falling on his leg; the freezer containing Kelly also malfunctions and she climbs out, confused and disorientated but seemingly normal, until Kevin kills her and she comes back as the undead to eat him.
While Megan and crew run around looking after passengers, and while two on the young couple cheat on their partners in the toilets, Ray tells Randy to take the remaining scientists to check the cargo; Lucas and Sebastian reluctantly go but are attacked by Kelly and Kevin – Randy heads back up to the cockpit to tell Ray.
Meanwhile, another round of turbulence knocks Burrows unconscious, allowing Frank to get out of the cuff and hide; Megan rouses Burrows and he begins the hunt for Frank, assuring her that Frank is just a conman and mostly harmless. In the cockpit, Ray calls for the TSA agent and Randy explains the situation; some wires are crossed and it’s assumed that Frank is the attacker, leading Judd to invite Burrows to the cargo hold to look for him.
Chow time!
Kelly and her fellow undead have gotten out of the hold through the ducts and into the main plane. The infected spread quickly, killing one passenger or crew member after another.
At the Pentagon, the military are trying to convince the higher-ups that Concord 239 has to be destroyed, Bennett’s team created the virus from a strain of Malaria with the intention of making it into a bioweapon to make super soldiers; MedCon are illegally transporting Kelly and they’re concerned now that contact has been lost with the plane – they send a jet to blow it out of the sky.
Last ones alive?
Burrows and Judd make it back to the main plane, but the undead are already out of control; they find survivors Megan, Frank, Billy and Anna barricaded in the tail end of the plane while the undead continue to pull victims into the cargo hold to eat. When Megan can’t reach anyone in the cockpit they’re positive the Pilot is dead and that someone needs to land the plane; Frank knows how and reluctantly agrees to help, he heads to the cockpit with Burrows with the aid of Billy, who is bitten – his wife rushes to help him and she’s also bitten, the pair are cornered by an emergency door and undead Bennett approaches. Billy opens the door, sucking the undead out and Bennett is caught in one of the engines – causing it to catch fire.
The fighter jet has arrived and fires when he believes no one is left alive; Frank manages to gain control of the plane just in time and the jet pilot abords the missile, however, it still blows a hole in the side of Concord and sucks more undead out, causing one still strapped to the seat to collide with the jet. In the cockpit, Frank and Burrows manage to land as safely as possible, leaving them, Megan and Judd the only survivors.
As they make their way to civilization, some of the undead have survived, including Bennett and Kelly…
Bennett might be just as smart undead…
5/5: Full marks! It’s a good, uncomplicated zombie film with very little to complain about; it’s well paced, well thought out and well executed – and, I must admit, the theme Among the Dead is a brilliant music track!
During an exorcism ritual, the possessed Hannah Grace kills one priest and almost kills the other by choking him while suspended in midair; her father, Grainger, then suffocates her to death using a pillow.
Unless you can twist like a pretzel, I’m not scared, hon.
Three months later, Megan Reed, an ex-cop with the Boston Police Department gets a night shift job in the Boston Metro Hospital’s morgue as an intake assistant.
During Megan’s first shift, a man tries to convince her to let him into the building, but she finds him suspicious and informs the two security guards Ernie and Dave. However, shortly after, Megan helps EMT Randy to move the corpse of a brutally murdered young woman into the building and the man secretly enters the building. Randy tells Megan a man stabbed Hannah to death and was then caught in the act trying to burn her body in an alleyway.
When Megan tries to fingerprint and photograph Hannah’s corpse, the camera explodes and the computer breaks when she tries to run the prints. Other strange things occur and Megan has a panic attack, she reaches for some pills and we learn that struggles with depression and an addiction to pills after her patrol partner was shot dead by a criminal whom she failed to subdue.
Once settled again, she notices that Hannah’s bright blue eye color does not match the one listed on her driver’s license.
Megan soon encounters Grainger who had invaded the building trying to drag Hannah’s corpse through the building. Alongside with the two security guards Ernie and Dave, Megan manages to subdue Grainger. The latter screams Hannah’s corpse must be burnt because she isn’t really dead, but they do not listen to him and have him arrested by the police.
Megan’s ex-boyfriend, Andrew, is still employed as an officer and responds to the scene. He agrees to help Megan identify the corpse after she tells him about the color of Hannah’s eyes. Meanwhile, Hannah kills Dave by telekinetically lifting his body across the ceiling and into her refrigerated drawer in the morgue where she breaks his body.
Later, after a strange encounter in the toilets, Megan notices that some of the wounds on Hannah are missing, as if they had healed by themselves. Investigating the security footage, Megan sees Hannah’s corpse crawling around in the building; she shows the footage to Lisa who does not believe her and accuses her of having a relapse on her addiction to pills. Lisa is killed by Hannah soon after after finding Dave’s body in the stairwell.
Still not scary, sweetie.
Soon after, Andrew calls Megan to tell her that Hannah Grace had died three months earlier and asks whether the given fingerprints was Hannah’s; Megan confirms it is and admits she took his pills, but she hadn’t taken any.
When Randy returns to the morgue to deliver another corpse, Megan shows Randy the healing body of Hannah; he says he believes her and shares that he also had an addiction to alcohol.
After Randy leaves the Morgue, Megan notices that the lift closes by itself and is going down; she investigates the security footage and sees a glimpse of Hannah’s body crawling inside the lift. She rushes down to the access bay to warn Randy, but Hannah has already killed him by crushing him between his vehicle and a pilar.
Suddenly, Andrew calls Megan to warn her that Grainger has escaped police custody after killing the two officers transporting him; suddenly, Grainger appears forces Megan to take him to Hannah’s body at gunpoint. Grainger explains to Megan that he is Hannah’s father, he tells her that numerous exorcisms failed because the demon possessing her was too strong; so strong, in fact, that it is even able to possess Hannah’s body after her death by killing people to heal itself. He tells her that Hannah had depression and it worsened until the demon was able to enter Hannah’s body. The blue eye color is the sign of the demon possessing Hannah.
Grainger asks why Hannah killed others but not Megan; she agrees to help Grainger cremate Hannah, but she reanimates and pushes Grainger into the fire; she then locks Megan inside her refrigerated drawer.
Andrew and Ernie come to Megan’s help. Hannah kills Ernie by slitting his neck and then tries to kill Andrew, but Megan forces herself to be calm; she takes Andrew’s firearm and shoots Hannah, she then drags her to the crematorium while Andrew calls for backup. After a brief struggle before the incinerator, Megan pushes Hannah into the fire, eventually killing the demon.
And they all lived happily ever after…
1/5: This was so boring. I liked the idea of a possessed corpse, but everything else around it was so cliche; there’s little to no creativity in the deaths and the jump scares – not that they actually caught me out – were minimal. From the beginning, you knew that someone was going to blame Megan’s past addiction on what she was experiencing, and obviously she was going to redeem herself for her past mistake by saving Andrew.
In the small town of Hawthorne, a man discovers a strange box in an empty field with a metal detector; he takes it home to show the Jack in the Box to his wife, but when his back is turned the box devours his wife and snaps shut.
Twelve years later, Casey Raynolds moves from the US to Hawthorne and takes up a job at the local museum, there he meets part time colleague, Lisa; Lisa explains Casey will see little of Manager Rachel and the museum is very quiet. While Casey helps Lisa clear out the storeroom, they discover a strange box hidden away; a handle suddenly appears and Casey turns it, the music plays and a strange clown doll pops out. Lisa calls an expert to meet with Casey the next day and treats him to dinner.
Creepy little thing
Lisa takes Casey to an American style diner to ‘remind him of home’. Casey asks Lisa what her future plan is, she admits that she hates the museum and there is no plan because her mum is ill, she just needs the money; Casey explains that he doesn’t get much sleep, but doesn’t say why he moved other than ‘a change of scenery’.
During the night, two men break into the museum. One of them finds the Jack in the Box and becomes Jack’s first victim, while the partner in crime tries to find his friend, he sees the figure of Jack down the hallway and hides – only to become victim number two.
Casey finds the door open the next morning and calls Lisa – who complains that it’s her day off; Casey explains there was a break-in and wants to check the CCTV, but Lisa tells him Rachel is too cheap to get it fixed and asks what is missing (but how would he know after only being there a day?). The expert, David, arrives to look at the box. David tells Casey that it likely came from France; he doesn’t know much more than that and can only remember the first name of a Demonology expert: Maurice.
While in the museum, a visitor becomes Jack’s third victim.
The next day, missing person posters have appeared by the museum of the last three victims. Casey researches the box, leading him to Maurice Ainsworth’s website on Demonology where he finds a page on the Jack in the Box; the French used the boxes to trap demons and then released them to do their bidding, Casey laughs at the idea, but then wonders if the toy clown has moved its head to watch him. Rachel arrives and tells him to move the box to the toy exhibit and then he can leave, once that is done Casey says goodbye to the cleaner on the way out and leaves.
While Mandy, the cleaner, wipes down the glass of the toy exhibit the box disappears; Mandy finds it on the stairs and tries to sneak past it, only to become victim number four.
When Lisa arrives at the museum the next morning Casey is already there, sitting in the stairwell and playing back an old voicemail of a woman in distress; he tells Lisa that the voicemail was from his fiance – he ignored her call when she needed him and she died during a mugging, it’s the reason he struggles to sleep at night.
An officer arrives about Mandy, she’d been reported missing and Casey agrees to be interviewed since he saw her last; Casey admits he didn’t know her very well but she seemed normal, but when the officer asks about anything strange Casey falters – thinking back to the box and then brushing it off, suspicion only grows when Casey asks the officer if he believed in the supernatural or if he had encountered something supernatural on a case, the officer says he hadn’t, that stories like that just make people all the more guilty.
Casey tries to call Maurice about the box but is ignored, resulting in him calling an old friend to track him down. After Casey encounters Jack himself, he tracks down the original owner and visits him; reluctant at first, Norman agrees to speak with him.
Norman still fears Jack
Norman tells Casey that he spent ten years in prison for his wife’s murder and couldn’t convince anyone else that it was because of the box – now he just wants to be left alone and warns Casey to get as far away from the box as possible. Instead, Casey tries to burn it only for it to be back at the museum the next day; Rachel has decided to come in and fires Casey over the things he’s said about the box to Lisa.
Casey’s friend has the address for Maurice, so he heads up there to discuss the box; Maurice tells him that Casey is the contract holder and Jack will not hurt him, but Jack needs to kill in order to keep living – three years for every kill and his maximum body count is six; Casey must stab him through the heart and recite an incantation once Jack is back in his box – however, nothing of Jack can remain outside the box, or Jack will continue killing until he reaches his total.
At the museum, Lisa goes out for lunch and Rachel becomes victim number five; once Lisa returns, Jack begins to chase her around the museum eventually cornering her and injuring her just as Casey arrives to save her. Jack knocks Casey unconscious briefly and turns his attention back to Lisa; Casey manages to crawl and grab a fire poker, stabbing Jack through the back. The box begins to suck Jack back inside and the clown grips the edge, Casey recites the incantation and the box snaps shut.
Can Lisa survive?
The police arrive and arrest Casey, who pleads his innocence; they don’t believe Lisa either but Casey tells her to get rid of the box where no one will find it. While being interrogated, Casey is shown a picture of the remains of Rachel when he notices another picture underneath, he moves it aside to find evidence of a single claw and begs officers to help Lisa; meanwhile, while she buries the box in a vast, empty field, Lisa is the sixth and final victim.
4.5/5: Jack in the Box has some great potential. Both the designs on the doll clown and Jack himself are really well done and creepy; there’s a solid, well thought out lore behind the demon and the film itself is well paced. It’s just missing something to make it perfect…
My only nitpick is continuity. First is that Jack never seems to leave any evidence of his killings until Rachel, where he leaves a bloody puddle and her foot; the second is the timeline of events, from Norman’s wife going missing, to the present day plot of the film the passage of time is stated at twelve years, however Norman says that he spent fifteen years trying to clear his name.
Other than that, a good film. I’m looking forward to Jack in the Box: Awakening.
Frankenstein, myth or a truth so bizarre it becomes fiction? In this shark tale Frankenstein was very much real, and towards the end of WW2 a secret experiment on his heart and brain was discovered by Nazis with a plan to create a superhuman army.
Sixty years later, a sleepy town of Katzman Cove is suddenly plagued with disappearances of swimmers and boats; Duke Lawson – Harbor Patrol – is on the case, but isn’t coming up with any leads.
Three friends, Madge, Coop and Skip, are driving down to Katzman Cove to rent a boat for the day; Coop tells them about the incidents, but are unaware they are the work of mad scientist Klaus and his handmade shark. They arrive at the dock and meet Hoskins, their mute captain for the day, and begin to enjoy the sun and cooling waters of the cove.
Look at that cheesy CGI baby!
Body parts and life jackets begin to wash up onto the banks, along with chunks of other sharks; Duke is convinced there’s something larger than a great white out there, but the reality is that the shark remains are the unused parts of Sharkenstein. Duke takes his boat out on the cove and meets with Hoskin and the others, telling them they need to go back to the docks; the three friends convince him to let them finish their lunch first and Duke heads back to shore. As they’re about to leave, something strikes the boat and breaks the propeller; Coop and Skip decide to check out a nearby island and Madge reluctantly tags along.
Skip (middle): hello there, fellow young people
A bag materialises out of nowhere and the trio dry off and change. They begin to explore the island unaware they’re close to Klaus’ hideout. Meanwhile, Duke has sent out divers to investigate the waters, but they’re all eaten by the shark.
Madge, Coop and Skip find an old house and head inside just as Klaus recalls his experiment to its tank; the trio find the tank and are held hostage by Klaus and his poor German accent, he explains he created the shark out of the three most deadly species and now plans to transplant Frankenstein’s heart and brain into it. Klaus forces them to help, bringing it back to life with a well timed thunder storm, and locks them away while he tries to control his new creature; he orders it to kill Hoskins, and after it does it turns on its creator and begins to destroy the hideout with the others still inside.
Madge and Coop manage to escape, but Skip is killed in the water by Sharkenstein. Duke pulls the other two from the water (and they are suspiciously dry) and they head back to the dock with the shark giving chase; they make it back and the shark flops onto the deck, they think they’re safe until another storm strikes it again and it mutates!
A true land shark!
Duke scares it away with some fire and it takes off into the woods. Madge decides it’s safer with Duke and her responsibility to kill Sharkenstein while Coop would rather save his own skin – leading him to be eaten by the land shark later in the woods.
The mutated creature is already attracting attention; while snacking on some cows, the owner discovers it and she begins to shoot at it, chasing it away; she then manages to form a small mob without any proof the monster exists.
Duke and Madge head to the old lighthouse (while Madge flexes her Frankenstein film knowledge) where dynamite is kept and they rig the place from top to bottom with the explosives with a plan to lure the shark inside; Duke ‘cuts’ his arm to attract the creature and is chased inside, but the angry mob isn’t far behind and sets the place alight – Madge tries to stop them, but Duke is trapped and killed in the explosion. Dazed, Madge heads back to the docks and is attacked by Sharkenstein from the water!
3/5: Sharkenstein has the right amount of bad CGI to make it comical, but got a little too silly towards the end; we probably could have done without the ‘sex’ scene with former porn star Bonnie Boom-Boom! The acting is subpar and Klaus can’t hold the German accent, there’s also the CGI rain and fire – and Duke’s ‘cut’ is just a smudge of fake blood on his arm! Other than that, there’s some well fleshed lore but I’m disappointed there isn’t a hint of ‘Son of Sharkenstein’ after that scene with Bonnie.
Gags the Clown is supposed to be a portrayal of how society obsesses over something so simple; how a man in a clown costume standing motionless captivates the media and the world. While this is an interesting concept, it obviously doesn’t make for a good film, so throw together some found footage and a flimsy lore and you have this: Gags the Clown.
The film is from the POV footage of Wisconsin PD officers Renard and Gruber, teenage friends Sara, Tyler and Chris, news reporter Heather Duprey and cameraman Dale, and Podcaster Charles Wright and producer Wayne; there’s other footage from CCTV and other cops as they stumble across other clown related scenes, but it mostly focuses on these four groups.
Renard and Gruber are called to a parking complex where a woman claims they were attacked by a clown, her boyfriend is missing and their friend…exploded off camera during their escape.
Tyler and Chris think Gags is a great way to prank people, so they go with Sara to a party and scare the host – who is afraid of clowns – but when the party is crashed later by Renard and Gruber, it turns out Renard is Sara’s stepmother and orders her home; instead, she tags along with Tyler and Chris to prank random people.
Here’s some thrown together lore for you
While viewers are led to believe that Gags is some kind of supernatural being, as he flickers between distorted frames of footage; the film tries to justify this with some lazy backstory. Poor Heather is sick of being on ‘Gags Watch’, chasing baseless leads and interviewing a crackpot store owner – who claims Gags is a clown from 1974, he was a circus clown and a fire apparently killed the whole troop.
Meanwhile, Renard and Gruber are notified of people being admitted to hospital for self mutilation and covered in a strange white powder, and they’ve all disappeared while receiving treatment; the film explains the powder as either the drug ‘Bath Bombs’, or cocaine in some other footage.
During all this, Charles Wright – self proclaimed military vet – rants on his podcast about how stupid the whole Gags obsession is, promising to go find the clown himself if his video gets five hundred shares; later, exceeding the target, Charles streams to his followers choosing his guns of choice and beginning the hunt.
Heather is chewed out by her boss when she misses the opportunity to interview Charles first and is beaten by a rival news team; he throws her off the Gags Watch and orders them to return the van, but Heather decides to stay with it and find Charles to capture him shooting someone. Heather clearly sucks at her job since it takes her while to realise that to find Charles she should follow his social media!
Elsewhere, Chris and Tyler try to prank a local fairground, but Chris wouldn’t be let in while wearing the costume; they decide to enjoy the rides for a while when Chris finds a black balloon – which pops and covers him in powder, making him violently ill. Tyler discovers Charles’ first attempt to confront Gags was a bust, but has followed him to an old factory; Tyler thinks it’s a great opportunity to mess with Charles, but Sara wants to take Chris to the hospital. Chris stays with Tyler and they prepare their prank.
Does this count as a Ride-along?
Renard and Gruber report to a break-in, where they find the missing boyfriend from earlier in the evening; he has mutilated his face in a restaurant kitchen and makes his way towards the pair, Gruber shoots him, seemingly killing him, but he gets up, runs out the back and disappears. The pair then catch wind of Gags being at the old factory and head over there.
Heather and Dale are already there, making their way through the dark maze of hallways, following the carnival music leading them to a small circus tent.
Tyler has lost track of Chris, but bumps into someone else, who has mutilated their face, and runs away.
Charles and Wayne are still looking for Gags, when a clown screaming for help runs towards them; Charles shoots, killing them instantly. He then admits that while he was in the military it was as a mechanic and he never saw combat – let alone kill anyone; he blames Wayne for egging him on, but Wayne tells him he recorded the whole thing. They’re startled by Renard and Gruber shouting in the distance and make a run for it.
The cops find the dead clown and Renard confirms it’s Tyler; she begins to panic and splits from Gruber while trying to call Sara, thinking she’s in the building somewhere. Renard falls through a floor and lays, presumably dying, as Sara tells her over the phone that she’s never replace her mother.
Welcome to the Gags show?
Gruber has chased Charles and Wayne into the tent where Heather and Dale are already waiting quietly, too scared to move in case the missing people attack them. Charles tries to tell Gruber that Wayne shot the clown and the scene descends into chaos as the show begins; Wayne shoots Charles, Gruber shoots Wayne, Dale runs leaving Heather alone, and the Gags victims begin to crowd around Gruber.
Outside, a rival news team arrives as Heather escapes. The camera follows her as she bumps into Gags on the grass verge; the camera pans and follows the balloons he releases and then switches back to Heather, who has been gifted a balloon of herself, and Gags no longer there; Heather begins to laugh hysterically and spontaneously explodes.
News reporter, Rebecca Chambers, brushes a piece of Heather from her hair and smiles: ‘Go live’.
2/5: I must have missed the joke here because I find this film neither suspenseful nor comedic. It feels like the writers took two different ideas and mashed them into one film, leaving behind a lazy excuse of a found footage horror film. While the choppy story progressed just fine, the ending was chaotic, rushed and unexplained. Was Gags the clown from 1974? What exactly is that powder in the balloons? Why, and how, did Heather explode?
The only reason it has a two, is because I did find the idea of the film interesting – just not the execution.
Twelve days before Christmas, a small town mall Santa is killed in the parking lot by another Santa and Mrs. Claus – the only clue is a bitten pear, the next day two teenagers are burnt alive in their car at Turtle Dove Point; while the Mayor doesn’t see a problem, and Deputy Fullard doesn’t see a connection, Sheriff Mitchell is sure the sleepy town of Woodridge, NY, has a serial killer or two on the loose.
Meanwhile, teenager Jennifer learns that her mother and stepdad are getting a divorce after the holiday season; her boyfriend, David, and friends Courtney and Joe, invite her to an annual drum fest on Christmas Eve.
Parents divorcing? Become a mall elf!
Later, the Claus’ strike at the home of divorce lawyer Mrs. Frenchen; killing her, her daughter and their dog.
Night four of the killings. Courtney and a few of her other friends hit a bar for some underage drinking; they’re being heckled by someone in the background and decide to head to the toilets – as girls do – and hear someone crying in the cubicle. One of the girls peers under the door and ends up with an arrow in the eye before Mrs. Claus and Santa reveal themselves and kill three of the other girls – leaving Courtney alive.
Against the Mayor’s wishes, the Sheriff brings in the FBI; the five agents suggest that there might be more victims but leaves it to the local force to track any down – Fullard then discovers the Frenchen family slaughtered in their own home. While the police investigate the murders, the FBI agents are ambushed at the station; all five are killed and their ring fingers cut off.
Random British coroner is not so random
Fullard heads out to the farm to follow up on a report of the farmers geese being killed over night – six of them, later revealed to be poisoned.
Across town, Jennifer’s friend, Lisa, disappears from her late swin practice; meanwhile, Jennifer gets a mysterious present after her shift at the mall – surprise, it’s the missing fingers of the FBI agents. Lucy, Jen’s mum, tells the Sheriff (unconvincingly) that she has no idea who could have sent Jen the gift and threatens them with her lawyer: Mrs. Frenchen. Fullard tells her she’s dead, which only seems to solidify Lucy’s theory of who sent her daughter the gift. Sheriff Mitchell implements a curfew.
Fullard discovers seven origami swans at the pool where lisa went missing. Later, during a press interview, a reporter tells Fullard that the Mayor told her curfew should have been implimented earlier, Mitchell overhears that and rushes off to meet the Mayor – punching him in the face; the Mayor fires him from his duties and leaves for his nephew’s bachelor party. Fullard tells Mitchell what he found at the pool and that the Farmer called to report his milking machines had been destroyed.
Across town, Courtney and Jennifer investigate the killings themselves, trying to find a connection to Jen’s family; they later discover that Jen’s mum was dating a soldier before she was born.
Merry Christmas to Sheriff Mitchell, Santa has left a gift on his desk! Fullard puts on one glove (but handles the box with both hands?) and opens it carefully to discover a USB stick, on the stick is CCTV footage of the local strip club; the Mayor has been ‘giving back to the community’ there, watching nine lovely ladies dance – except one of them is Mrs. Claus! She and Santa murder everyone inside.
It’s this point that they begin to piece together the clues: the killers have been following the song Twelve Days of Christmas, starting with the mall Santa – whose name was Partridge – to the ten ‘Lords’ in the strip club. Fullard realises that the milking machines at the farm are the maids, and that the farm isn’t too far from Jen’s old house – they finally found the connection!
Jennifer confronts her mum about the news article she found online; Lucy explains that she married a British Marine, Nick, who came back from a war with PTSD and had violent outbursts; Lucy divorced him one Christmas after he attacked her, and later discovered she was pregnant with Jen. She continues that she thought he’d died in a fire in the asylum he was in – they never offically decalred him dead, but did find his teeth with a burnt out corpse three years prior to the events of the film. Jen, upset, goes to meet Courtney and friends for the drum fest; Lucy is attacked at home by Nick and Mrs. Claus.
Father and daughter finally meet
Mitchell and Fullard go to Lucy’s home to check on her. There, they find a random Piper’s vehicle, Jen’s murdered step-father but no Lucy; they realise the last killings will take place at the drum fest and rush over to the venue. At the bar, patrons are counting down to Christmas day when the lights go out and killings begin; Courtney makes a run for it for help, but is caught in Mrs. Claus’ bear trap. Inside, Nick and Jen meet, and he has Lucy and Lisa wrapped up with IEDs; he wants to prove that Jen is just like him and wants her to pick between mum and best friend – going as far as to place a grenade in her hands as incentive. Mitchell and Fullard arrive; Fullard handles Mrs. Claus – rescuing Courtney – and Mitchell injures Nick. Nick convinces Jen that it will never be over unless he dies, so she drops the grenade which turns out to be a stun grenade – Nick disappears in the smoke.
At the station, Mrs. Claus has a very small cell where Fullard tells her it won’t be long until they get Nick. Unfortunately, Nick gets to him first.
Not-so-saint Nick is back!
One year after the previous killing spree, Nick and his Mrs. Claus, Michelle, are back for revenge; they begin with Courtney’s dad, Jim, as he returns home from visiting her in the city. Nick causes Jim to swerve from the road and into a tree; he makes a run into the woods but Nick catches up with him and kills him, making it look like a drink drive accident.
FBI agent Parker is convinced it’s Nick and Michelle and makes the local officers search for extra clues; they find a hachete in a tree and ‘naughty’ written in blood in the snow. Parker decides not to tell Courtney’s family it was Nick until they’re completely sure.
Courtney talks to her therapist, Dr. Mudd, over the phone about her feelings over her dad’s death. Mudd has an open file on Nick, who she treated at the asylum years prior along with Michelle. Later in the evening, Nick and Michelle break into Mudd’s home, attacking her, and killing her daughter and daughter’s boyfriend.
Lucy takes Jen to the funeral in support of Courtney, but the agent asigned to them doesn’t let them inside. At ther service, undercover agents see Michelle there and catch her – a waiting car speeds away and the FBI follow, believing it to be Nick driving; at a blockade, they discover the driver is Dr. Mudd with ‘nice’ carved into her forehead. Nick is still at the church and the FBI are too late to stop him murdering the Priest who held the service.
Parker is convinced that Nick is after his family again, but can’t figure out the connection between the killings and the family; she goes to Mitchell’s home, who has long retired and just wants to spend time with his granddaughter. Parker convinces him to at least look at the file.
Agents can’t get Michelle to talk, so Parker heads to the old asylum to look fore clues; there she meets Clayton, an abusive orderly turned groundsman. Clayton admits he got Jim a job there as an orderly back in the day, but can’t give her much more as everything was destroyed in the fire – and she’d need a warrent to get it anyway.
Parker’s unimpressed by Clayton
Mitchell thinks he’s found the connection, however, Nick goes after Mitchell, who holds him at gunpoint and calls the police, stating he shot in intruder in self defence; Nick taunts Mitchell into pulling the trigger but the gun is empty and Nick kills him. Parker finds Mitchell’s body, but his granddaughter has been left alive.
Maybe you should have shot first and not hold him at gunpoint?
At the station, Michelle tells an agent she’s swallowed razor blades and they prepare to move her to the hospital. Meanwhile, Nick goes after Clayton, hanging him in an empty room of the old asylum; Parker thinks there something Nick doesn’t want them to see when she sees a blank space among all the pictures he left behind, she says the heat from the lights would leave an invisible trace behind.
Meanwhile, Courtney and Jen plan to meet Nick once more.
As the FBI begin to move MIchelle, they bring in a new recruit and advise him to shoot if she does anything fishy during transport. The convoy hit a roadblock along the way, a broken down vehicle, and can’t decide how to proceed; however, Michelle begins to attack the guards in the van with her, pinning one by the neck with her foot while the rookie holds a gun on her and begs her to stop. The lead of the convoy radios back about the car and Parker knows it’s Nick; the convoy give a description of a man in a Santa suit and Parker tells them to run him down. The convoy is hesitant while Nick begins to cut a rope holding up a tree above the lead truck; in the back, Michelle puts her heel through the guard’s neck while to rookie still hesitates.
The rookie should have listened to his superior
Nick begins to kill of the agents and free Michelle. Parker and the others arrive too late to help, but Parker knew no one would be alive anyway.
In a business meeting, a board discuss the care of patients in the asylums they run – one previously being the Woodridge site; the CEO says costs are more important than care, to the disappointment of one of the women members. The lawyer on the board nips to the toilet, where Nick cuts off his penis and then throws it onto the desk in the meeting; he’d heard what they’d said about care in the asylum, and he knows first hand how bad it is; he asks who’s missing from the meeting, pulling out a list of names from his pocket, and is told Joe is having his appendix removed – Nick then asks what happens if he kills everyone in the room and learns they’ll just appoint a new board, but leaving one alive will make them the CEO. Nick and Michelle kill everyone but the woman who objected to the patient’s mistreatment. Nick tells her to be a better CEO.
Parker and a few other agents arrive later, still trying to piece the connections together; she’s then told they found the invisible writing, left behind at Clayton’s death, with the UV light – it’s a company Christmas card list with the names of Clayton, the priest and Jim’s name on it; Parker rushes to the hospital where the missing board member, Joe, is.
Courtney and Jen are already at the hospital. Joe happens to be Courtney’s uncle and the pair seemed to have figured out Nick’s plan before anyone else; when the crazed duo turn up, Courtney convinces Nick to let her and her uncle go in return for Jen; Nick tells them to leave, but sends Michelle after them anyway. When Michelle catches up, Courtney holds her at gunpoint and then hands the weapon to her uncle while she goes back for Jen; Michelle kills Joe anyway and rejoins Nick with the girls.
Nick is still trying to get Jen to see that they’re alike and gives her a gun to prove it; Courtney encourages her to shoot him, but Parker arrives in time and shoots Jen to stop her – then shoots Nick. Parker arrests Nick and locks him up, but Michelle is now the one rescuing him and kills Parker in the process.
Rating: 7/10 overall, averaging 3.5 each. They’re not bad films, but not great either; I prefer Nick and Michelle’s seemingly random spree in the second film, only to learn that they’re getting revenge on everyone who mistreated them in the asylum – and just happens to be on the company Christmas card list; however, the side story about Nick’s family just seems to be wedged in there, and if you don’t realise Nights Before Christmas is a sequel (like I did) then that plot just seems really random – it’s really important to watch them in order or you’re left a little confused and underwhelmed.
I have a confession to make: the only reason I watched this is because I’ve been binge watching House MD and Omar Epps is in this. Sorry, not sorry.
Benton, NY 2015 on Halloween. A group of high school seniors are at a party and playing spin the bottle with a knife; Patrick ‘Trick’ Weaver takes his turn and is teased when it lands on another boy – Trick picks up the knife and begins a stabbing spree until he’s stabbed himself with a fire poker and hospitalised. Party host Cheryl, and friends Nicky and Troy are witnesses and few survivors of the attack; Troy claims he stabbed Trick with the poker, but other statements contradict him.
Foreman is now a cop!
At the hospital, Sheriff Jayne and Detective Denver are assigned to the case; Denver demands the makeup that was under Trick’s mask be removed so he knows who he’s questioning. While Jayne leaves to do another task, Trick grabs Denver and flips the bed – having somehow undone his cuffs – and begins another killing spree in the hospital Jayne and Denver shoot him multiple times and he falls two stories through a window, when they go down to check the body, Trick is gone and only a shocked EMT is there.
Jayne and Denver believe Trick managed to slip into the river and his body in never found; during further interviews with survivors and classmates, no one can give them a matching description of Patrick, teachers tell them he’s a quiet student but no one has ever met his parents – his home address is a dockyard.
The two sided pumpkin mask disappears from evidence.
Riverton, NY 2016. Trick strikes a high school party and slips away.
Hudson Village, NY 2017. A Halloween party ends in bloodshed, Denver is convinced it’s Trick, who has an online following.
Shady Creek, NY 2018. Denver meets with two FBI agents in a bar, warning them that Trick is due to strike soon, as he’s following the river and Shady Creek is his target; the bartender tells them to leave the cop talk out of her bar. Trick kidnaps one of the agents in the toilets and ties him to an elaborate pulley that will slowly decapitate him; Denver and the other agent try to help, but Trick jumps on the weighted end – killing the agent and maiming his partner. Trick gives Denver the run around and manages to kill the second agent.
Trick’s cult following grows.
Benton, NY 2019. Denver has long since lost his job after the deaths of the FBI agents, he meets Cheryl – who had to return home after her dad’s work accident – and explains that he was forced to retire and is leaving town. Nicky invites Cheryl to the Halloween maze with her younger siblings.
At the hospital, Cheryl is visiting her dad and helping him relearn how to talk; the doctor informs her that the insurance is refusing to pay out on further bills as they opened an investigation, Cheryl is positive her dad fell and didn’t jump like some claim.
Across town, Trick has called out Denver in his latest victim’s blood.
Someone here is sus
Troy and his friends hear about the latest killing, but toast to Patrick’s demise and Troy’s heroics at the party years before; they decide to crash the Halloween event and horror maze. Elsewhere, Trick gives Denver another run around and lures Deputy Green to the harbor with false texts from Denver – he contacts Jayne to warn her and she arrives just as Green is injured by a trap; Jayne helps him back to her car, but Trick uses the crane to swing a gravestone through the windscreen, killing him. The gravestone belongs to one of the FBI agents Trick killed the previous year.
Denver and Jayne go to Cheryl’s old house to find Trick has been hiding there. Jayne calls for backup and Denver’s car is stolen.
At the Halloween event, Cheryl sees someone watching her from a car as she goes into the maze with Nicky and her siblings. Troy tries to sneak his friends into the horror film at the church – but is caught by Talbott and they’re all made to pay a ‘donation’; they quickly get bored of the film and head for the maze, Johnny stays behind.
Jayne and Denver arrive at the church after a call in about his car being seen there; they find another deputy killed at the scene and Denver goes into the maze to search for Trick. Jayne calls for more backup and goes inside the church when Deputy Slater arrives, telling Talbott that they think Patrick is alive and nearby; Talbott spots Trick and chases him up to the projector where Trick kills him and injures Jayne.
In the maze, Nicky’s siblings are scared of the actors and one runs away; Cheryl follows him and finds him hiding from an actor with a knife, she tells him the actor is harmless, not knowing it’s actually Trick.
When a killer is about, assume everyone in a mask is him!
Cheryl meets back with Nicky and Trick kills one of the actor’s in front of them, he injures Nicky and is scared away by Denver, who sends Cheryl and Nicky to the hospital before going back into the maze to evacuate; he runs into Troy, warning him that Trick is after anyone who harmed him that night in 2015 – Troy admits it wasn’t him but Cheryl who stabbed Trick with the poker and she didn’t remember due to shock, so he took credit. Denver and Jayne race to the hospital.
Cheryl goes to visit her dad while Nicky is getting treatment and sees a video of Trick pushing her dad off the roof; she discovers Trick as killed him in bed and knocks her out. Jayne, Denver and Slater arrive too late and set out to find Cheryl; Jayne and Denver find her in a construction area of the hospital and are ambushed by Trick. In the scuffle, Cheryl manages to shoot Trick multiple times and an injured Denver tackles him through a window – falling onto a parked car.
Trick, as he lays dying, admits he’s Johnny – Troy’s friend – and suddenly other people dressed as Trick turn up to take him away; Denver tries to stop them, but is stabbed multiple times by the other Tricks before Slater steps in to help him. Denver begins to recognise the others as the EMT from the night Patrick disappeared, the bartender from 2018 and…Deputy Slater!
The real Patrick rolls up in wheelchair and stabs Denver once more as his cult dispurses; Denver manages to push him from the wheelchair before falling unconscious just as Cheryl arrives with help. Cheryl aids Patrick back onto his chair an sees a scar, remembering she stabbed Trick in the same place; she follows him back into the hospital and sees him disposing of the two sided mask before he heads to security to delete video footage of them attacking Denver.
Patrick lets Cheryl into the room, and after a struggle she manages to kill him.
Meanwhile, Jayne is being attended to by a nurse when Slater comes in to says they’ve lost Trick and Denver might not survive his injuries; Jayne notices makeup he’d missed when wiping it off. Cheryl rolls Patrick into the room and announces she got ‘one of them’, explaining there’s a group doing his work; Jayne reveals to Slater that she knows his secret and kills him.
Sometime later, Cheryl, Jayne and Denver begin their search for other recruits of Trick’s cult.
3.5/5: Trick is a predictable concept that leaves more questions that it answers; I figured out Slater, at least, from the second he came onto the scene, but left wondering how and why Patrick was able to recruit people to do his bidding – especially one particular, easy to forget character revealed at the end. There were some interesting killings around the traditional slashings but the plot fell apart somewhere in the middle, leaving a confusing ending.
GONGPO REVIEW 