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Bastette54
Reviews
Another Plan from Outer Space (2018)
Not as bad as some people say, but not a 10
I hate it when I read reviews of a movie, and some of them are 1s and 2s condemning it as total junk, while others are 9s and 10s, and filled with gushing praise - with nothing in between. I've been told that this is a sign of fake reviews, and it sure looks that way to me.
I enjoyed this movie. It held my interest throughout. Yes, it was low-budget, but I have no problem with that. Not every filmmaker gets a Hollywood blockbuster budget. It's interesting to see what they can do on a small amount of cash, and this one seemed to have a homeopathic amount.
I agree that this felt like a Twilight Zone episode, but I love TW, so that's a good thing. Filming it in B&W, along with the low budget, gave it the look of an old TV show. I kept wondering which of the familiar tropes would turn out to be the final reveal. Would they turn out to be not on Earth? Did they do a bit of time-traveling? (But I was thinking far future, long after humanity had destroyed itself.) Were they Dead All Along? (I still have no idea how anyone could have survived the crash.)
The one thing I really didn't like was when one of the characters started acting hostile and paranoid, eventually becoming delusional and murderous. Could we have one story about people in a life-or-death struggle to survive, without at least one of them acting like a complete jerk and causing trouble for everyone else? I guess writers think we would be bored unless they introduced some "conflict," but most of the time, it just feels forced. Besides, the situation itself offers plenty of opportunities for danger and suspense.
So overall, the time watching the film was worthwhile. The acting was ok, and most of the characters were likable. I didn't feel a need for more action, so the pace was fine. It was hardly a masterpiece, as some of the 10/10 reviewers would have you think, but I've seen a lot worse. This was not as bad as some people thought it was.
Solitary (2011)
Not a great film, but I don't regret watching it
Warning: It's not that this review *might* contain spoilers, it *does* contain them.
Because the Amazon Prime blurb about this said that the main character would have to face a "mind-bending truth," I was expecting something science fiction-y. What was in that locked room? Was her husband a multi-dimensional traveler or something? Was there a portal to another universe in the locked room? Well, that was my initial theory, anyway. But then it just got annoying and frustrating. Why was this woman so unresouceful about getting that door opened - how hard could that have been? And why was every human being she interacted with so weird? Well, the answer to the second question is probably that the acting pretty poor. It had the quality of a subpar TV movie. Not as bad as some Amazon movies whose actors aren't even professional, but not up to the standards of the Lifetime channel, either - and that's saying something.
As the movie progresses, she starts to think that her husband and sister are trying to drive her crazy by gaslighting her, so they can rob her of a large inheritance. They already had a head start with that, because she was severely agoraphobic and couldn't leave her house. I really didn't want that to be the answer to the mystery, because it's been done so many times, and I hate seeing sleazebags destroy a perfectly decent person. I was still holding out for the parallel universes.
I won't reveal the "mind-bending truth," but it did take me by surprise. I've seen a lot of this type of movie, where a big twist at the end changes everything you thought the movie was about. This movie does a good job of misleading the viewer, setting them up for an unexpected ending. And in this case, a lot of what went on in the movie makes more sense in the new context.
So it's a B movie, and it looks pretty low-budget, but it worked for me as escapist fun.
Deadly Switch (2021)
Trash
(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A MAJOR SPOILER.)
This movie is trash, no doubt about that. But sometimes I'm in the mood for trash. And I might have given it an extra star or two, but the ending made no sense, at all. Why would they go to all this trouble to capture and imprison a substitute Camilla, when the real one is still alive? And what was Camilla doing in her sister's house at the end? Did she want to be caught and brought back to her crazy family? Stupid.