This Critters Collection is another nicely done work from Shout through their Scream Factory line featuring two solid movies and two… not so good ones. The transfers are all relatively well done and the features packaged together were fantastic.
I suppose there are worse ways to spend 90-minutes than sitting through Critters 4, even if the titular creatures don’t seem to have as much screen time with only two on-screen kills. Of note, though, the inclusions of Angela Bassett and Brad Dourif did make it more interesting.
Critters 3 is a step down from the previous installments but still fun, albeit more seeing Leonardo DiCaprio before he made it internationally huge some years later with Titanic. The rest of the cast were fine and the Critter designs were still impressive.
Critters 2: The Main Course might not be as good as the original, but the humor still mostly worked and I actually enjoyed the interactions between the critter bounty hunters, each of them providing a bit more personality (and seriously, wouldn’t have minded seeing some sort of spin-off).
Critters is a fun first film in the quadrilogy with some really impressive puppetry and animatronic work to go along with just a enjoyable flick from the silly beginning to the even sillier finale.
Mara is basically The Ring without any tangible back-story for our vengeful demon/spirit and although I really wanted to like this, especially since it stars Olga Kurylenko, it just didn’t work and the demon herself, when fully revealed, was hardly scary.
Mile 22 had a good premise, along the lines of The Bourne franchise, completely ruined by poor editing and obnoxious and annoying characters that were absolutely unlikeable, not sure what Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg were thinking.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey isn’t my favorite of the two movies and I know one has its fanbase, but for me, it never quite worked, though does have some interesting visuals.
Streets of Fire is a rare breed of film that features a unique yet familiar style and with some interesting casting choices, two of them brilliant with the young Diane Lane and Willem Dafoe.
Final Score was a surprisingly successful action-thriller that does showcase Dave Bautista’s charisma now in a leading role, compared to his ensemble work on the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and Avengers: Infinity War.
Candyman might not be some horror classic in my book, but it was incredible enjoyable with a few good twists with taking it down an unexpected path, at least compared to others in the supernatural-horror subgenre; but what was especially noteworthy were the performances from Madsen and Todd.
I was relatively surprised that I enjoyed Star Trek: Discovery especially considering some of the backlash among certain segments as well as that the writing could be a bit clunky but got roped in as the season went along.
S.M.A.R.T. Chase is a poorly scripted action-thriller in an otherwise competently shot film. It’s also Orlando Bloom’s foray into the abyss of the direct-to-video realm.
Urban Legends: Final Cut was a poorly made horror sequel to a movie that wasn’t all that good, though at least in that case I appreciate the passion behind it, this one seemed to be cooked from numerous producers.
Urban Legend is one of many slasher movies to come out of the late 1990s/early 2000s thanks to the massive success of Scream. I never was a big fan of the movie mainly because I never found it all that scary.