Cinderella Curse (2024)

Cinderella, aka Ella, is a slave for her stepmother and stepsisters. She is beaten and abused on a daily basis, and the only kindness she knows is from another servant and her son. After Ella’s stepmother and stepsisters beat the servant almost to death, they force Ella to deliver the death blow and dispose of the body. 

The only bright spot in Ella’s life is the prince has asked her to the ball.  Her stepmother is furious since she wants one of her own daughters to be the prince’s date and Ella is forbidden to go.

When Ella finds an old book, her fairy godmother appears and offers her three wishes.  This isn’t the godmother of the typical Cinderella fairy tale, but a faceless goon looking for payback for the wishes. 

Ella gets dressed up, heads to the ball and dances with the prince.  But she quickly learns it was all a prank as the prince throws her to the ground and spits on her. The crowd laughs at Ella for thinking a prince could love her, and the prince encourages everyone to spit on and beat her. 

At this point the clock strikes midnight and Ella realizes she has one final wish.  If you guessed it’s revenge, you’d be correct. Thus starts a blood bath with the godmother and her minions, as well as Ella going Carrie on those who’ve wronged her.

This is a miserable movie about miserable people. They play it as if they are doing Shakespeare, but it’s so far from it. The score is distracting rather than adding tone to the scene. For an ITN movie, the production values are better than usual. However there are numerous haircuts that do not match the time period, as electric lamps throughout the castle and ballroom. 

The guy in the fade destroys any semblance of the time period

The modern lamp

Another modern lamp with a cord

There appears to be a light switch on the wall

Jack and Jill 3 (2023)

It’s been ten years since the last murders so Wendy feels safe to meet her teacher alone in the hills. This is unfortunate since her professor is a predator and the lack of murders seems to have been misstated.  The characters are dispatched and never spoken of again.

Over on another hill, the Bloody Bones reality show meets with their  seven contestants who need to spend 48 hours in Jack and Jill country. Their first task is to go into the hills to find Jill’s book.  How do they know about the book, and is it actually possible to find it?

When some of the contestants aren’t comfortable with splitting up and roaming the hills, the host threatens no agents will want to work with them if they don’t do what they’re told. I’m not sure how that’s a viable threat since none of them are actors.

One contestant is a true crime enthusiast and tells everyone there is definitely nothing to fear. She reiterates her knowledge of the case and that there have been no murders for ten years. So why all the missing posters? They obviously aren’t ten years old. It seems murder would be the first thought if people are still going missing.

At one point the hosts pretend to be Jack and Jill, hoping to get reactions from the contestants.  When the contestants attack them, the hosts call them idiots.  But it seems more the other way around.

Once again like in the first two movies, the biggest question about Jack and Jill is why do they talk like cavemen? They were around 10 years old when they went into the hills. It’s not like they’d lose their vocabulary and speech patterns.  

It’s a low budget, barely watchable movie.  Watch for the most lack luster choking with a phone cord ever. The phone on the table doesn’t even move. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Only people with a death wish would dare spend the night at Newberry Hill.

The best tv comes from the people who don’t know they’re on it.

I will remind you all that if you don’t abide by the contracts that you all willingly signed, we may have to take legal actions.

Agents and professionals like us won’t want to work with you if you don’t play right.

Missing posters taped to a rock

The camera is reflected in her glasses

Why are missing posters on the chimney inside the house?

This is why you don’t give everyone a camera

Scarred to Death (2024)

Film student Marina answers an ad for a videographer and as a safety precaution, brings some friends with her. She never considers one way to be safe is tell the guy you’re bringing your film crew and see if he tries to pressure her to come alone or cancels the meeting.

They meet Stan, whose seventeen year old son committed suicide in the woods. He wants to hire Marina to get proof that something supernatural killed his son or forced him to take his life. If they accept the job, he’ll give Marina $500 up front. If she gets something supernatural on film, he’ll pay her an additional $5000. 

Marina agrees and as they’re driving away her friends say they should fake a supernatural experience to get the $5000.  As a documentary film student, Marina says it goes against her ethics, but she’s willing to do it. Marina may as well kiss her documentary career goodbye.  Also what sort of animals take advantage of a grieving father, and film themselves discussing defrauding him? 

The group plans to camp overnight in the woods and have another friend play a spirit, complete with greasepaint and a sheet draped over her.  But things don’t go as planned.  You won’t care what happens to anyone.

After watching the movie, I’m not sure if the title was supposed to be Scared to Death and they misspelled scared as scarred. There is no scarring in the movie, and the only mention of a scar is one that disappeared. So… not a scar at all.

The description on IMDB says it is about “a beautiful documentary filmmaker.”  It seems really weird to include the attractiveness of the character in the description of the movie.  The beauty, or lack thereof, of a character in a found footage movie doesn’t matter.  Plus beauty is subjective.

The best description of the movie is one I saw on Reddit, which made me want to see it. They described the movie as a “community theater version of Blair Witch made by a group of people who had heard about it, but never seen it.”

Ridiculous dialogue

As a documentarian, faking something goes against my ethics, but a grand would go a long way in getting my thesis film in an actually decent place.

Maria: It will be ok.

Chloe: Ok? You keep saying everything will be ok. Do you now what that stands for? It’s from an old war. The generals would report a battle scene. They say this when there are zero kills. Ok. Doesn’t apply to this situation at all. 

I had a scar on my forehead for years.

You thought you could turn me into a drug addicted criminal and get away with it?