Hillwalkers (2022)

A couple plans a 14 kilometer hike with some friends. But it goes sideways when one guy with a selfie stick isn’t paying attention and falls off a small cliff.  It’s probably a ten to fifteen foot drop and he lands on grass. The bad news is he’s injured and needs medical attention.

The leg injury makes the going slow so they decide to ditch the trail and go as the crow flies to get back to the car. When they get to the edge of the woods, they see signs signaling it’s private property and no trespassing.  The wife of the injured man waves off concerns and shows her lack of cranial functioning when she says it wouldn’t apply in an emergency. 

Elise disagrees and makes them promise to wait at the woods while she walks back to the car to call for help. As soon as she’s gone, the wife rousts everyone up and into the woods. When one of the group mentions the signs, the wife says no one’s there so it’s fine.  She doesn’t recognize no one is there because the posted signs and fence should be enough to keep people from entering.

As they make their way through the woods, they smell something awful and see a dead cow in a barrel. Instead of being alarmed at the possibility the private property notice was something they shouldn’t have ignored,  one girl takes pictures so she can turn them in.  These people have no sense of self preservation. And you just know they’re going to run into someone or something in those woods, and it’s not going to go well. 

One odd moment is as they started the hike, one of them had binoculars and saw a man holding a rifle and wearing a skull mask. That’s super creep to see anywhere, but especially when hiking in an isolated area.  Best case scenario is an illegal hunt, while worst case is a murderer.  Either way, there’s danger. Yet she tells no one about him. They should need this info to decide whether it’s safe to continue or go back to the car.

Dialogue from someone who thinks the world revolves around them:

“In case of emergency, I don’t think that applies, does it.”

Elise, I negotiate multimillion dollar deals for a living.  My husband has a piece of fucking tree in his leg. I think if we meet some yokels, I’ll be able to explain the unique circumstances.”

Did they just park in the road?

Nothing could possibly go wrong

I’m sure this doesn’t apply to us

Alter (2016)

Bo is going to college to major in filmmaking and his sister Maisy decides it would be great for him to come on a trip with her friends.  Maisy is domineering and pushes him rather than accepting when he is uncomfortable and not interested in doing things.  Later we are told Bo has Asperger’s, which explains his demeanor. Here’s hoping Maisy is following a psychologists advise since pushing him could potentially cause a meltdown.

Maisy and Bo meet up with a huge group of people, most of whom end up being peripheral characters who we never see again.  There are six main characters, including high school teacher Ash whose new girlfriend just graduated and was his student. Yup, Ash is a creeper.  As the film goes on, even his girlfriend thinks he’s immature.

When their car temporarily conks out, the group tells the others they’ll catch up with them later. As they’re waiting for the car to start,  a creep with an ax comes towards them. His name is Ripper and he rips wood.  They are far too casual for being approached this way. You’d think they would move away from this guy, but they keep standing within arms reach. They tell him they don’t need help and he goes back to his car and waits for them to leave.

The brainiacs don’t have directions to where they’re going, and there is no cell service. So they keep driving hours down a questionable road until they run into Dave who tells them they are in the wrong place. But they can camp with him and his wife, since it’s hours back to the main road.  They take him up on that offer and set up camp.

Later that night Ash wants to go exploring in the woods. They have no cell reception, no map, are in an unfamiliar place and it’s pitch black.  When not everyone wants to go, Ash brings out the cry of the manipulative douchebag, “Either we all go or none of us go.”  Everyone caves. Just once I’d like to see someone say, “you realize that’s a totally arbitrary thing to say. If I stay here and you choose not to go, that’s on you, not me.”

This leads to a scene where someone dies.Although it was self defense and on camera, they insist they need to bury the body, thus ensuring they look guilty of nefarious shenanigans. I’m pretty sure you guys have now committed a crime. Good god you idiots.

Ridiculous dialogue by people that don’t know basic info:

You can practice your camera stuff.

How does a car just stop?

Ash, the creepy teacher who started dating his
18 year old student right after graduation

Bo and his filmmaking set up

Who opens a hotel door without looking through the peephole? 

How many characters are there in this movie?

“It looks like some sort of like ancient ruin or something.”
No…no it doesn’t.

Devil Story (1986)

A couple goes on a trip, has car trouble, gets lost, and the wife wants to go home. The husband says there’s a town about ten minutes away.  Either he’s lying or there’s a continuity issue since the next scene it’s night. 

They stop outside a massive building that looks like an estate but turns out to be a hotel. The innkeepers let them in, provide them with drinks, and tell them the tale of the five brothers. This involves a shipwreck and the offspring of the brothers signing a pact with the devil.  Is it true or just a story? The innkeepers are divided.

In the middle of the night, there is a noise outside. Inexplicably the wife wanders out the door and down the massive stairway to the sidewalk while wearing only her negligée.  Curious behavior which we already know is a terrible idea.  A horse appears and the wife goes back inside to be safe. No, of course she doesn’t because that would make sense. She freaks out, runs down the down the sidewalk, and hides in the back seat of their car. A short while later puts on a raincoat and drives away.  I pity her husband.

Wherever she drives, the horse appears. She drives until the car has problems at which point she runs into the woods. Good god, why? The horse is out there. And why is she afraid of the horse? I guess it’s supposed to be possessed but it’s not really doing anything other than rearing up and making noise.

So not only is there a possessed horse on the loose, but she’s wandered into the graveyard where a gypsy and her mutant Nazi son are burying a body under cover of night. Instead of staying hidden until they leave, she falls into a hole while trying to sneak through the graveyard, which alerts them to her presence. 

There isn’t much going on after this. She goes into the hole thirty five minutes in.  For the next twenty minutes, there is barely any dialogue other than the mutant grunting and the woman screaming.  And don’t even get me started on the mummy who digs up a girl with the Roseanne Roseannadanna haircut and drools blue goo.  Or the shipwreck that was hidden in a cliff and has now broken free. Or the innkeeper obsessed with killing the horse and claiming to be the master of the ghost ship, while totally ignoring the woman obsessed with the mummy coming after them.

This movie is absurd and part of it is so ridiculous it’s entertaining. There’s people getting scared for no reason and at one point an off camera person throws a cat at someone. (It’s ridiculous rather than horrifying and the cat seems fine.) Adding a mummy into this makes no sense at all and he only serves to scare the woman now that the horse has apparently decided it’s no longer interested in her. 

The soundtrack is Bach’s Toccata in D Minor, which people will recognize from old horror movies or cartoons.  The audio is dubbed from French and you have to wonder about the accuracy. Was the dialogue really this bad?

The problem with the movie is so much of it is boring.  Long periods with no dialogue, the terrible makeup on the mutant, the lack of plot, and long shots where nothing really happens. At one point, we have a long scene with the woman pacing in her room and a cat underneath the bed. It’s pointless. Also pointless? The picture on the cover is nothing like the poorly done Nazi mutant in the film.

Ridiculous dialogue:

Husband - God damn it, you could have reminded me to get some gas!

Wife - No shit.

Wife - The mummy. I saw it. It’s coming this way.

Innkeeper - I don’t give a damn about that mummy.

This is an odd place to park. 

Why would anyone wander out of a hotel and down to
the sidewalk in the middle of the night?

The mummy is in control

our happy couple

The mummy is drooling blue foam? Sure

The ship coming out of the rock

Rainboat, boots and negligee

Who okay’d this wig?

The Lost Vlog of Ruby Real (2020)

There’s a creepy tree in town and Ruby Real is going into the woods to debunk it. She brings her influencer friends Callie and Steven to help her. Ooo how will their followers stand it?

There’s a legend about the tree game which says if you walk around a specific tree, you’ll end up in a different dimension.  Other influencers have done it, gotten disoriented and have no memory of what happened. A hiker recently tried it and no one has seen them since.

Our intrepid influencers go off the path to find the tree, walk around it, and nothing happens. They triumphantly claim it debunked until they try to get back to their car and end up back at the tree. They keep trying with the same result.  Then they decide they won’t leave the trail since it goes to the parking lot. But the next thing you know, they’re walking in the woods or at the river.  Stop doing that.

At one point, they see someone in the woods and argue whether to ask for help or not. Then one says, “Let’s go. If he wanted to help us, he would have come and talked to us.” Yes, because it’s entirely normal for strangers to randomly walk up to you in the woods and ask if you need help. 

The thing that drove me nuts was they decide to try to reverse what happened by walking around the tree. So I expected them to walk the opposite direction, since that’s the reverse of what they did before. Yet the first two go around the tree in the same direction. Also each one waits until the other one has walked around the tree and walked off camera before they walk up and go around it. It’s a plot device as there is no reason they cant follow each other around the tree. 

Ruby keeps asking why there are only two of them left, and what was done differently. It’s obvious to the viewer and oh my god woman, you’re filming everything. Watch the video you shot. She ends up alone and it takes her days to figure out she should try walking the opposite way around.  

While the characters aren’t the worst people in the world, influencers aren’t the most sympathetic or likable characters. 

Dialogue from some maroons in the woods:

Steven: What do you think that noise is?

Callie: I don’t know. Maybe something to do with the magnetic field? I’m no science expert.

Ruby says this normal tree looks super creepy

Ruby, Steve and Callie showing us why they’re influencers

Why would they choose to sleep on rocks?

Virtual Death Match (2020)

Jill gets a letter congratulating her for winning a spot to play a virtual game where the winner gets one million dollars. She kisses her comatose husband goodbye and heads out to the gaming center. There are only four other competitors. No one is suspicious as to why non-gamers would be chosen to compete.  

Some of the competitors are upset to discover this event will only be watched by a handful of rich people. They thought it would be broadcast and they could use it to become celebrities. No one shall ask if any of the contestants have heard of the Most Dangerous Game.  None of them question why rich people would put up a million dollars to watch non-gamers play a virtual game.

Nor are the contestants concerned when they are asked to sign the contract in blood.  No eyebrows are raised in suspicion when told if they sign they can’t leave the game. They also are surprisingly unconcerned about hepatitis since they all use the same knife to slice their fingers.

The game has four levels which increase in difficulty. The first level is scarecrows, the second is nuns, the third is an endurance test with a clown and mime, and the last is a mystery villain. They have three lives in the game and there is only one winner. A virtual death match with one winner played for rich people? I’m sure they’ll be fine.

You’d think they would be cautious about not losing lives, but these are the least careful players ever.  They drop weapons, don’t watch their own backs, and if another player repeatedly scream to watch out, they look confused and remain in place. They don’t even put distance between themselves and a player who’s taken another players lives. 

You won’t like anyone and there is no satisfaction at the conclusion.  The characters all have to admit a horrible secret while in the game, but how did the people choosing the players know they had one? 

This is from the group in the UK who put out tons of movies every year. None of them are good, but I keep watching. I’m fascinated by the volume of movies they release in a year, their stable of actors, and that they managed to get a good distribution deal since their movies are on multiple streaming services. 

Ridiculous dialogue:

Hey, if you’re nervous, don’t worry. I’m shitting it. 

Jill hides with literally nothing in front of her but
the bad guy walks by as if she is behind the corn stalks

They’re rich but this is the quality of what they’re watching.

Yes, this certainly screams we are rich.

It looks like they paid her with a large novelty check. 
The circled item is the check, which she rolls up to take home.

The odd make up with a gap between eye liner and eyes

No one was suspicious when the competition
was in an empty arcade

The finger cutting scene with the knife that bends

The Dolo? 

Can you really keep a comatose person in your bedroom?

Death Link (2021)

A bunch of influencers, who always talk as if they’re aggravated, add a new member to their group because she has 500,000 followers. This is more than the others have, and they’re all trying to increase their followings.  

When they get a video of Albert appearing to die, they wonder if it’s another one of his pranks. But no one can get hold of him which causes them to wonder if he was actually murdered.

These are the type of kids who do awful things under the guise of  pranks and then get indignant if anyone says there should be consequences.  When someone else in the group is killed, they begin to believe someone is after them. 

Perhaps it’s Wayne, the teen who recently escaped from an asylum after their bullying drove him to be committed. Further down on the suspect list is Kelsie, who used to be an influencer until an embarrassing prank ruined her life and is no longer friends with the group.

The influencers prove to be even bigger jerks than we thought when instead of going to the funeral of their friend, they have a party.  Why would we care about a group of self absorbed, unlikable characters?  Also if you go to someone’s home, and it looks like it’s been broken into, call the cops. Don’t go in and wander around through the trashed home. Good god, are you so sheltered that you have no sense of self preservation?

Ridiculous dialogue

He’s not cheating on you. He worships you. He’s really vain and you’re the hottest girl ever.

Not only do the police have their clock and curtains on the
outside of of the building, they also have a
paper sign that slides into a holder 

First thing to do when you escape your bindings at a
kidnapping? My guess would be run away, but she chose
stop and put on her sweatshirt

The new girl is introduced to the influencer group chat

Did the landscaper forget to put in dirt or concrete between
the flagstones? Someone is going to do a header on those.

It looks like he could just slide his arm out of the binding.

If you’re going to threaten murder, maybe not a cartoon dog.

Is it mother and daughter? Nope, it’s two high school students.
Wardrobe and make up didn’t do the one in white any favors.