The Mitchin Murders (2024)

Jesse, who is doing her post graduate study in journalism, invites her ex-boyfriend Tom to help her investigate the Mitchin murders. They started four years ago in 1990.  A suspect was arrested but later released when he had alibi’s for some of the deaths and a woman was  attacked while he was in jail. 

Interviews are arranged with two survivors, who couldn’t have more different demeanors.  Maisie is reserved and seems traumatized.  Sarah is detached but excited to use this as a stepping stone to an acting career.  

Tom ends up leaving because he thinks it’s getting too dangerous. But Jesse refuses to give up her documentary to stay safe.  She should be more cautious though because there are some risks that aren’t smart, such as going into the woods when there is an active killer in town.

The problem with Jesse’s documentary is that she’s in it too much. Is this about the murders or your investigation?  Also she gets it in her head that a 1924 incident - possibly  due to a raccoon - could be helpful to the police in solving the serial killer case.  I’m wondering if she went to an accredited college.

Since this is found footage, we know Jesse is going to pay for her incautious wanderings and stirring up the locals.

Ridiculous dialogue 

Okay viewers, just to give you a heads up. I’ve been to the library and I may have found something. In 1924, a woman was attacked in the town of Mitchin, but she managed to flee.  She had strange markings all over her body, some say were similar to raccoon bites. The attack happened here on the ridge. Maybe I should tell the police about this. It could help with their investigation.

Devil Dog: Hound from Hell

When their dog is hit by a car, Bonnie and Charlie are devastated.  As luck would have it, they walk out their door a few days later and a truck is stopped in front of their house.  The vendor tells them he has a puppy who needs a good home, and after Bonnie begs to adopt him, Charlie agrees. Surprisingly their parents Mike and Betty go along with it.

While the kids love the new dog, Mike isn’t sure about him.  The dog seems to be watching him.  The maid doesn’t like the dog either and is afraid of him.  After going out for the night, the family comes home to find the maid has died in a fire.  The parents are horrified but the kids are unfazed.

Mike suspects the dog had some role in the maids death, but has no proof.  While mowing the lawn, the dog stares at him which is unnerving. As the dog stares, Mike fights the urge to stick his arm in the mower.  Yup, that dog is a problem.

This movie is ridiculous and kind of fun. I can’t think of another movie that involves a satanic cult that gives out evil puppies. 

 

The Devil’s Mouth (2026)

A group of college friends go to Thailand on vacation. Max and her boyfriend James, Adriana and her new boyfriend Greg, and Sara want to go out on the ocean but no boats are available. Max says she’s charming and hot, and can get anything she wants. I already hate her.

Max’s words prove to be true and the group is soon on a yacht.  While the others play a game, Sara decides to go into the water with a scuba mask. When Max mistakenly tells the captain everyone is on board, they leave Sara behind. To add insult to injury, Sara is repeatedly stung when she swims into a swarm of jellyfish.

After the yacht turns around and Sara receives medical treatment, she and Max make up. Max should be conciliatory but instead she blames Sara, who lets it go so Max won’t ruin the trip.  

The group are going caving, which is important to Sara because this is a cave her father loved.  Their tour guide tells them to follow his instructions and Max prepares to veto that.  When he suggests they take the path based on their skill level, she says it’s too easy and convinces everyone to agree to the more difficult path.  Sara is the only one who objects and the only one wearing a life jacket.

The guide tells them not to damage anything, but Max does what she wants and carves her initials into the rocks. When the guide sees a shark and says they need to leave, Max refuses since they just got there.  Sara is the only one who agrees and urges them to listen to their guide. The others huddle on a rock and refuse to get back into the water. 

As the group argues amongst themselves, their guide says it’s their choice to follow him or stay in the cave. They don’t want to get in the water and are too busy arguing to realize he’s left. Oh but now that he’s gone, they are getting in the water, even though they aren’t sure how to get back.  It will not go well for them, especially with someone like Max who can’t handle anyone who doesn’t agree with what she wants. 

There is always a weasel in this type of movie. The one who sacrifices their friends to save themselves, but demands total loyalty and gets upset if their friend has some sense of self preservation.  Someone who always has to be the center of attention and always get their way, or they play the victim. Sara is blamed by Max for occasionally disagreeing with her, and by Max’s boyfriend for not standing up to her.  You end up rooting for the shark to help Sara so she never has to deal with these people again.

Ridiculous dialogue

James: Don’t pretend like you’re not part of the problem.

Sara: What do you mean?

James: You let her be in charge.

Do Not Enter (2026)

A group of urban explorers want more views for their YouTube channel. They have recently parted ways with a new member because he broke the cardinal rule of urban exploration - take only photos, leave only footprints - when he demolished a wall looking for valuables.

They get a lead on exploring the Paragon, an old hotel where a mobster supposedly stashed 300 million dollars. Everyone who looks for the money disappears, but they believe they’ll have different luck. It’s worth the risk because the location will rack up tons of views and increase the visibility of their channel. They’re not worried about surviving, but they should be. If everyone who enters the building disappears, there is definitely something going on, even if it’s just people falling through rotten floors or inhaling toxic air.

They head to the hotel with a reporter who is doing a story on the exploration.  Once inside they wander around and then Diane disappears.  They decided to search room by room, floor by floor.  Guys, that’s not a good plan since it’s a freaking hotel with hundreds of rooms and at least five floors. 

During their exploration, they find newspapers which state the hotel closed after the Paragon owner went missing after his wife was murdered.  Based on their shocked faces, I assume they have done no research about the hotel they decided to explore. So it’s even less likely they won’t find the mystery treasure since the place is massive and they know nothing about it. 

Soon things get worse when Rick steps in a bear trap in the hallway and a rival urbex group, which includes the banished JD, shows up and demands the $300 million they haven’t even located yet.  The Scavengers are psychos as they have no qualms about pushing Rick off a balcony. What the hell.

Unbeknownst to both teams, there is something in the hotel that is not of this Earth and is not happy to see them.  At least it’s not leaving the hotel and only people foolish enough to go inside will be in danger.

Underground (2024)

 

A group of women go on a bachelorette party trip.  They dress up in costumes and go bar hopping and then get a taxi to go back to the hotel. But they’re obnoxious, throw food at each other, and when one pukes several times, the drives put them out.

They’re in the middle of nowhere in the dark. So they start walking and run across a tourist attraction which is tunnels built by the Nazi’s.  It’s closed for the season so they take a shortcut through a field.  When they turn around Ziggy is gone. 

As they backtrack, they discover a hatch in the ground which is an entrance to the tunnels and she’s fallen down it. There is a ladder but Ziggy is too injured to climb up.  Having lost critical thinking, all of them climb down into the tunnel and set up a camera to film themselves discussing how they should help her. 

When someone on the surface locks the hatch, they have no way out. As they explore the tunnels, strange things happen and they end up back at the museum.  A phone in the display starts ringing which is creepy since it’s not plugged in. Something odd is happening and they don’t know what is real. It’s found footage so you know things will not end well for them.

These people drove me nuts. They all went down in the bunker rather than have one or two stay above ground in case something went wrong.  Also if locked in an underground tunnel in a tourist attraction  closed for the season, be more attuned to the need to preserve your phone battery. You don’t need to film everything. 

The frog costume at the bar

If your friend falls into a tunnel and gets injured,
be sure to set up your camera to film the rescue attempt

Festival of the Living Dead (2024)

It’s Ash’s birthday and she’s taking care of her little brother Luke for the weekend. Her best friend Iris comes over to celebrate but finds out Ash has invited her boyfriend Kevin and his friends over too.  They don’t like Iris and she doesnt like them, so it’s awkward.

When Kevin surprises Ash with a ticket to the Festival of the Dead, she says she can’t go since she has to watch Luke.  Kevin and his friends are irritated and try to pressure her to leave. So good friend Iris agrees to watch Luke so the other five take off.

To avoid waiting in line, they drive in the staff entrance. Kevin hits someone and crashes the car. Instead of focusing on who he hit or his injured friends, he tries to pressure Ash into saying she was driving.  He doesn’t want to impact his college acceptance or potential football career.  Oh Ash, why are you dating this guy?

As one friend is too injured to walk, Ash, Kevin and his brother head to the festival to get help. When they find the first aid station is empty, they wander through the crowd looking for someone working there. But instead they discover the dead have come back to life. So they lock themselves in the first aid station to try to survive the night.

I’m not sure why so many movies make most of their characters such unlikeable jerks. As soon as Kevin and the others show up at Ash’s, you can tell they’re horrible people. Do they even like each other? Everyone is treating Ash like she’s a loser. When the crisis hits, Ash is surprised and dismayed they are only concerned with themselves.  But it’s obvious that’s who we’re dealing with from the start.  

There are many things that bother me about this movie, one being when they crash the car, they never try to start it or even put it into gear. Another is no one looks for the person they hit to see if they’re alive. Granted it was a zombie, but they thought it was a person.   

The Dead of Night (2004)

Some really old looking high school students go to the cemetery to party. They invite a couple of unpopular teens so they can pull a prank on them that involves a gun. 

Darryl wants to bury the nerds in a grave as an initiation. Some of the others don’t think it’s funny, but Darryl assures them it will be hilarious.  

The nerds probably would have died if it wasn’t for the monsters in the graveyard who attacked them.  Now they’re weird unemotional guys who walk around while staring straight ahead and sometimes drooling corn syrup. Nothing good can come from this.

This is a fairly slow movie. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Look, this place is clique central. Where you pick a clique or you’re nothing. You need your clique, you know what I’m saying? Or you die.

We Might Hurt Each Other (2022)

Aka Rupintojelis, aka Pensive

A group of high school students in Lithuania head to an isolated cabin to celebrate their graduation.  They had originally booked a place at the beach, but Marius was suspicious because the pictures did not look like Lithuania. After the reservation falls through, Marius secures a cabin and assures them it’s a better option.

Five cars of teenagers head out to celebrate. Then they get lost because Marius seems confused as to where they’re going.  Once they arrive, they discover some strange wooden sculptures.  These were carved by the man who used to live there, whose family burned to death on the property.  Most of the kids are creeped out. Marius says he was not aware of who lived there when he booked the place.

Some of the kids kick the sculptures over and decide the wood is perfect for the fire pit.  Oh damn, that’s not only disrespectful, but it’s never a good idea to mess with sculptures that may hold the spirits of the decreased who died tragically on the land.

It takes 45 minutes for the killer to show up. While the first few kills are people away from the group, there is a moment where the killer targets the majority of the teens who have hidden in a room in the cabin. So that’s outside the norm. 

My Little Nightmare (2024)

This movie starts with scenes of different people in various places with no information about who they are or what is being referenced. Do they know each other? Will their stories converge at some point? 

Heather meets Alex in his office. She’s upset about a death from seven years ago.  I guess it’s a murder since Alex says there is lots of evidence but they don’t have a name yet. Is Alex a private investigator? Then they talk about a book deal and how she wants to buy his house if he ever wants to sell.  I’m even more confused. But I guess this will all be explained later. No, no it won’t. 

After more scenes of people I don’t know, Alex meets with Amy, who turns out to be his sister. She says what they did wasn’t right. What who did? What happened? They don’t tell us.

Forty minutes in there is no back story and no explanation of the connection of characters.  But we do find out Alex has been seeing weird things, like a little kid covered in blood.

Heather shows up again, fires Alex and will look elsewhere for representation. Oh, she mentioned a book deal. Is he her agent? If so, then is Alex talking about the previously mentioned death and saying “We’ve been working on this case for years” WHAT IS IT??? 

I feel like I’ve been watching this a long time so it must be almost over, right?  I’m fifty six minutes in and there‘s still one hour and seventeen minutes left. How is that possible? Why is this movie so long? It’s unclear what this movie is even about yet.  An editor is desperately needed.

At one hour and twenty minutes, we finally get a flashback about the plot. But even this is filler as there is more time spent showing them drinking in the bar than on the accident. It’s almost a passing thing where we see horrified faces in the car, someone screaming “look out” and then some legs by the side of the road.

In a flashback at the hotel, we find out they are in Mexico and afraid of calling the police. It is revealed it’s no longer an accident, but a murder after the driver kills the kid so he won’t talk. Sure, that makes a lot of sense.  Also there’s some blackmail since the driver and his girlfriend are forcing everyone to keep quiet or they will say Alex’s boyfriend was driving the car, even though they weren’t there.

A movie shouldn’t wait 80 minutes to explain the plot. It’s incredibly frustrating to watch random people talking about how something bad happened, but not having anyone clue you into what is going on. Most of the characters get killed before the plot shows up. Also this is way too long. It does not need to be over two hours. It could have been told in 80 minutes.

Red Eye (2017)

Gage is an aspiring filmmaker who decides to make a documentary about a local legend.  Helping him are his best friend Jake, Jake’s girlfriend Ryker, and her best friend Ryann. Gage has picked a bad group to bring on this project. They are negative as hell about everything, including him 

They hike into the woods until Gage finds the exact spot of where the murders occurred and suggests they camp there for the night. He’s the only one excited about sleeping at a murder site. But they are too far into the woods to go back.

After the camp is attacked in the middle of the night, Gage and Ryker go for help.  Their car won’t start so they start walking. They have no sense of urgency as they slowly meander while talking about future life plans. Good god, people are injured. There is no time to be  lollygagging!

This is one of those movies where exposition is provided by the characters trauma dumping on each other, often at an inopportune moment.  Also Ryann is supposed to be Ryker’s best friend and has known her since junior year of high school.  Yet she doesn’t know her well at all. She doesn’t know she was picked on in school, that her dream is to act in horror movies, or how she met Jake.