RRR - Randall's Review Room

"Pleasure" Where I watched it: Crave "Pleasure" is the story of a young Swedish woman who travels to LA to make it big in the porn industry. Not knowing much about her backstory except that she finds Swedes "boring" we are thrown headfirst into an explicit world of smutty casting calls and porn shoots that reek of predatory vibes. One thing this movie is really good at is making you second guess your gut instincts and clearly this is done with intent. Some scenes will keep you on edge as you fear the worst, but then will alleviate those fears moments later when the productions prove themselves to be handled in professional/consensual manners. At other times, the opposite happens. One scene in particular will make you never want to watch porn again. The acting is surprisingly good despite the majority of the cast being actual porn stars. Not that porn stars can't act, but the bar has always been substantially lower. The film basically serves as a chara...

"Enter the Drag Dragon" Where I watched it: The Fox Theatre This film is an absolute blast. If anyone has seen other films by Ottawa native/legend Lee Demarbre (Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Smash Cut) you'll kind of know what to expect, but nothing can truly prepare you for this wild ride. The film centers around a part-time detective/ full-time drag queen named Crunch. Along with his friend, Jaws, he embarks on the case of a stolen painting that turns out to be a treasure map.   The film casts 3 different actors as the lead, Crunch, as he gets comically disfigured in various ways throughout the movie.   Speaking of cast, there are about 20-30 characters in the movie, all of which get their own glorious grindhouse-style freeze frame intros. There are even some notable cameos from B-movie legends Lloyd Kaufman (Troma Entertainment) and Greg Sestero (The Room). The film also stars Phil Caracas, who played Jesus in Lee Demarbre's cult classic "Jesus Christ Vampire ...

"Two Witches" Pardon me for what may seem like a complete digression but I just thought of this analogy and I think it's perfect.... This movie is a Pterodactyl. Hear me out. Imagine this... you have a dinosaur egg... you don't know what's in it.... it could be any dinosaur. Your mind is going crazy with the possibilities. Maybe it's a T-Rex. Maybe it's a velociraptor. The egg starts to shake. Holy shit whatever dinosaur is in there is about to come busting through. Your heart is racing. This is nuts... a dinosaur?! These things have been extinct for millions of years and here you are about to witness one being born. This is truly wild. The egg cracks a little. You hear a tiny shriek. Cute... but also foreign in a way you know is the noise only a dinosaur could make. The egg cracks a little more. A smile envelopes your face as you feel more and more like John Hammond in that baby raptor birthing scene in Jurassic Park. You even adopt a Scottish accent as y...

"Someone's Knocking at the Door" Obviously there is something wrong with me. I'm strangely drawn to all these awful movies that lure me in with their boisterous claims of being the most shocking film ever made. Call it curiosity... call it madness... either way I'm the one losing out here. "Someone's Knocking at the Door" comes across as a student film and actually looks like something I would have made 10 years ago with rapid glitchy Chris Cunningham style edits and horrible piercing synth tones that are so painful to withstand that I had to mute my TV for an entire scene. The acting is so bad it's offensive. Actually I almost forgot... EVERYTHING IN THIS MOVIE IS OFFENSIVE. Ok big time content warning here... and I have to be careful because I just got out of Facebook jail for a photo of some lamp covers that looked like boobs. This movie is about supernatural rapists that literally rape their victims to death. So yeah, just atrocious stuff. I ...

"Watcher" Where I watched it: Shudder Maika Monroe stars in this sequel to "It Follows." The ghost from the first movie will just not let up and has now taken the form of a rent-paying citizen in Romania so that he can keep a close watch on his precious Maika Monroe. Obviously, I'm kidding. There are a few similarities between "It Follows" and "Watcher" but they have nothing to do with each other. "Watcher" is about a young couple that move to Romania for the husband's job and while staying in their temporary abode, the wife played by Maika Monroe sees the shadow of a person watching her from the building next door. This film is about paranoia, it's about fear and in many ways similar to that of Lvx Æterna is about being a woman ("watch-her"). This film coincidentally also stars Karl Glusman. I can't go into too much without giving it away but the take away here is that this film is great. It's a wonderful ...

"Llamageddon" Where I watched it: Tubi Obviously I was drawn in by this amazing poster and movie title. I did some quick maths (unheard of movie + tubi + this poster) which brought me to the conclusion that this was going to be terrible. Well guess what? It was pretty awesome. In its own way. The opening sequence (the first of 2) is animated and really sets the film up for success depicting a fleet of alien llamas leaving their planet in small trailer shaped space ships to presumably conquer other worlds. After this the movie takes a turn for the worse as we are introduced to the live action student film that it truly is. Bad audio recorded in camera and silenced in between lines only adds more attention to the roaring wind sounds that accompany the dialogue. Flat angles with DSLR cameras complete with dead pixels. Multiple times the crew can be seen in reflections including one scene where the camera man is seen in between 2 actors as he shoots directly into a mirror. Oh and...

"Red Rocket" Where I watched it: Crave Don't watch this movie with your parents. I didn't know anything about this movie before watching it which I actually think makes for a great viewing experience with almost any movie but this was a seriously wild ride. Red Rocket is about an ex-adult film star who moves back to his hometown in Texas. Everyone is weird, down and out and drug fuelled. It's actually shocking that this isn't a Harmony Korine film. But what's even more shocking is that a great deal of the plot is concerned with Simon Rex's character Mikey Saber trying to hook up with a 17 year old high schooler named Strawberry. Simon Rex was 47 years old when this film was shot. It's bizarre in its tone as Mikey is never openly criticized for his pursuit of Strawberry, despite the obvious areas of concern and the fact that he constantly lies to her for his own personal gain. Simon Rex gives the performance of his career... not that it's too di...

"The Crooked Man" Where I watched it: Netflix The Crooked Man has no affiliation with The Conjuring universe. A public domain nursery rhyme that a production team decided to capitalize on after the success of The Crooked Man's appearance in The Conjuring 2. I believe there are plans to release a Crooked Man movie that is directly linked to the character in the Conjuring film... hopefully with Javier Botet reprising the role as he is the lankiest of the lanky bois. This film came out almost immediately after The Conjuring 2 and its release can be likened to the release model of the Asylum films: Make movies that your audience might mistake for other better made films, ie Transmorphers, Ape Vs Monster, Fast and Ferocious, etc. This film is extremely low budget, the effects, camera work and acting are all in the vein of Asylum/SyFy movies. Actually I think this is a SyFy movie. The main actor is so bad she actually reminded me a lot of Maria Sofia from Curb Your Enthusiasm. ...

I had the exquisite pleasure of attending (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) the world premiere of OUIJA SHARK at Toronto’s oldest and most run down theatre, The Grand Gerrard . I had no prior information about this film other than it’s title and poster but that was more than enough to convince me to take the plunge. Although the director is credited as Scott Patrick, his real name is Brett Kelly , and he explained after the screening that he uses the pseudonym to give him the option to distance himself from his extremely low budget films, if need be. With almost 40 films under his belt, Brett Kelly might be a hidden gem for fans of “ Best of the Worst ” style films. Having had no knowledge of Brett Kelly’s caliber of film making beforehand, I was immediately thrown off by the extremely low quality. The film was shot on a budget of $300 CAD ( $216 USD), a prop shark taking up the majority of the costs, at 200 bucks. Most of the actors worked in exchange for exposure as Brett Kelly’s fil...

MAKING MONSTERS was one of the standout films from this year’s TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL . In a very timely premise, we follow a YouTube prankster couple as they take a weekend trip to a friends little getaway. Alana Elmer and Tim Loden play said couple Chris and Allison, and do a fantastic job delivering sincere and realistic performances. Chris is an unlikable, self-centered bro-type prankster . Within seconds of being introduced to his character, his douchey-ness shines. His wife Allison is the victim to his pranks and does a great job of portraying her unwillingness to be involved in her spouse’s vision as a content creator. After starting treatment to increase her fertility in order to get pregnant, Allison informs Chris that their pranking days must come to an end. Chris of course is reluctant but eventually agrees that the prankster’s lifestyle is not a sustainable one. In a chance encounter the couple bump into an old friend who invites them to his remote home, a ren...

Written by video game and children's show writers, this might be the worst film I've seen all year. The writing is seriously embarrassing. It actually feels like it was written by children. The acting is on par with the writing. Nothing is plausible. I will admit the last 2 minutes are hilarious when it goes full SyFy movie (frognato?). Whoever "they" are... they shouldn't be "watching" this. 1/10

  I really enjoyed this. I get that some people will find it annoying and call it a waste of time. I think that's the point though. It's a fish that constantly swims against the current... and does so for completely juvenile and reprehensible reasons... but seeing that fish persevere despite all odds, well that's kind of heartwarming too. 8/10

I loved this movie. The writing was super on point. The comedy in all of its cringeworthy nature was gold. There's great tension in the drama. I had no idea Aubrey Plaza could act... I'm actually kind of stoked for her performance in Childs Play now. 9/10

"Mandy" is a weird movie. Let me see if I can unpack this... First off, it's Nicolas Cage's best performance in years. Being able to feel Cage's pain in a film in a non-funny way is something I have rarely experienced. So kudos to him for that and kudos to Panos Cosmatos for bringing it out of him. Secondly, it's a beautifully shot film. Visually stunning in its psychedelia and haunting in its imagery. I watched this film in the dark while very stoned and the colours that bled from the screen into my room made me truly feel like I was one within the surreal world of the film. Thirdly... and this pains me to say... I think I hated this film. As an abstract art film, it's meh. As a revenge film it's meh. As a horror film about a satanic cult (*edit: catholic cult)... it's meh. Not that every film has to have profound meaning but this film didn't bring anything new to the table. It felt to me like a film student's homage to Hellraiser, Enter ...