Night Explorers: The Asylum (2023)

Ozi and Jim partner with another paranormal team to explore a reportedly haunted asylum scheduled to be destroyed. They’ve paid $10,000 to get access to the entire building and will be the last people to explore it.  

Ozi thinks it’s a good investment and expects to recoup their costs and make income when they post it to their channel. It’s the age of scripted reality shows and viewers want entertainment. They’ve been faking their videos and he wants to take their channel to the next level and get real footage.

The two teams meet the night before their investigation and party into the night. They get up late and arrive at the asylum after the sun goes down. You’d think after spending so much money, they’d want to get there early to set up, look around and plan what they were doing, but nope.

As they start filming, they mention there’s only one door to get in and they’ll be inside all night. Then they shut the cameras off and talk about how they don’t really have to stay there. They can explore, gets shots of themselves inside and then leave. This makes no sense based on the money they spent and wanting to do real investigations rather than faking things.

As they split up and explore, the small groups hear noises and it sounds like something is heading towards them. Although their whole purpose is to discover evidence of the supernatural, they run away. They’re doing everything they can to avoid confirming if the asylum is really haunted. 

Once they realize someone or something is attacking them, you think they’d try to avoid detection. However there is a lot of screaming which is helping the menace pinpoint them. Emma is a total liability and these idiots keep yelling to each other, which is attracting the attention of what they are trying to avoid.   

Another movie with unlikeable characters who make bad decisions. And why would they pay $10,000 to get full access to a location and then decide to half ass it, just shoot some footage and go home?  

This Never Happened (2024)

Matteo goes to Mexico for his father’s funeral and brings Emily, his girlfriend of six months.  His father’s home is going to be sold so his mother offers to let Matteo and his friends stay there over night.  Matteo doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but Emily convinces him it will be fun.  Oh Emily, if your partner doesn’t want to do something with his friends, there’s probably a reason.

The group decides to party and after drinking and taking drugs, they break out tarot cards and crystals.  Emily's grandmother believed in both and used to have visions of the dead.  When Emily holds the crystals, they turn red and burn her. Emily is alarmed but the others thinks it’s a party trick. 

Is Emily truly having visions? Is it the medication she’s taking? Did one of Matteo’s friends drug her?  And why does she keep seeing horrifying visions of a woman? Emily should have listened to Matteo when he said they shouldn’t stay in the house.

Scarecrow (2013)

Right out of the gate things make no sense when a group of teens get bused to an old farm for high school detention.  The farm is being sold so they need to dismantle the old scarecrow and bring it into town.  

This is the 100 year celebration of the yearly scarecrow festival. The farm has been abandoned for twenty years. Kristen, whose family owns the farm, says she’s not sure how the legend started.

Oh what legend, you ask? The one about the farm being haunted, and thirty people being killed and eaten by the scarecrow. But nothing has happened in twenty years so it’s fine for these teenagers to be playing around. Except that instead of getting to work, they run  around in the fields. During their tomfoolery, some minor cuts occur which is unfortunate since spilling blood on the land brings the scarecrow to life again.

The movie is mostly the group holed up in the abandoned farmhouse trying to figure out how to escape or get help.  At one point a sheriff shows up and instead of explaining what is going on, they keep saying “It’s not what it seems.” Thus ensuring the sheriff has no idea there is a killer scarecrow on the loose and he’s the only one outside with it.

The Devil’ Door (2022)

Tori and her cameraman Dean have found a coyote, aka human trafficker, who agrees to let them come on his next trip.  Dean thinks it’s suspicious he’s letting them film, but Tori says it’s not suspicious at all. Tori doesn’t seem like a good journalist if she has no qualms about this.

When they meet, the coyote says to leave their cell phones in the car and shut off their camera.  They must agree to stay out of the way, let him do his job, and do exactly as he says. They agree they won’t interfere. They also need to put sacks over their heads because he doesn’t want them filming while he transports them to a new location. Dean is apprehensive and Tori says it’s no big deal.  Tori doesn't seem to have any self preservation skills.

After getting under a tarp in the back of his truck, they ignore his instructions and start filming.  Once they stop in the middle of the desert, they turn on a bright light. It seems like a bad idea to broadcast where you are in an area known for smuggling humans.

The coyote reminds them they are only observers and can’t get involved in anything that happens.  He leads them to a locked grate in the rock. A scared young woman begs to get out and Tori immediately forgets her promise and gets involved. As the coyote asks for the package from the young woman, Tori  grabs the cage and insists the coyote let her out. Tori thinks she’s an investigative reporter, but comes off as a college student on her first assignment.  

While this is a found footage movie, there is background music in parts of it, which is a bad idea. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Dean: Why is this guy going to let us expose him as a human trafficker?

Tori: There’s more to it. He has a story. And this is our chance to stand out from those shitty border crossing stories.

How are we supposed to tell your story if we can’t see it?

Tori: What do we do?

Dean: We do good.

Tori: Let’s wait

Dean: Let’s go

[repeat endlessly]

Nothing suspicious about a bright light in the
middle of the desert where human trafficking occurs

Tori immediately forgets she is an observer

Factory of Paranormal (2017)

Carrie decides to do a paranormal investigation at an abandoned factory.  She plans on filming everything and convinces her friend  Vanessa to go with her. Vanessa doesn’t believe they’ll find anything. They drive separately to the old factory so if there is a problem, each can get away on their own.  So they’re going to abandon each other if something goes wrong?

The factory has a barbed wire fence around it to keep people out. Carrie says she’s heard there is a hole in the fence and plans to ignore the warnings to keep out. Vanessa doesn’t want to go past the fence or break into the building because they could get in trouble. 

When Carrie sees someone she thinks is security, they freak out, hide   behind a bush and then run away.  When they come back, they see a black sheet on the ground near the fence and freak out.  A real estate agent walks up and says they should leave because it’s dangerous. They take an attitude with him and after he leaves, they freak out.

A large amount of time is spent talking about how creepy real estate agent Kyle was. But the problem is he wasn’t creepy at all.  He calmly told them to leave and they copped an attitude and told him they knew something was going on and they were going to figure out what it was.  They are obsessed with Kyle.

Their frontal lobes don’t seem to be functioning since they can’t do basic reasoning or understand the simplest things. Security guard at an abandoned building? There’s no reason to have them.  Real estate agent tells you an abandoned building is dangerous? That’s suspicious because he didn’t tell you why it was dangerous. Agent asks them to leave private property? He must be hiding something. Black sheet on the ground? Nothing like that has ever been seen before.

Even after they get past the fence, they’re still  idiots.  As they walk along the length of the building, they see someone far behind coming towards them. They run, turn the corner of the building and duck down. Vanessa says they should hide, but Carrie has no sense of self preservation and stays right around the corner.  If someone is walking towards them, he’s going to have to stop quick once he tries to round the corner.  

  

In their minds, everything points to something weird going on being hidden from them. Carrie wants to film her documentary and tell the world what it is - even though Carrie can’t even comprehend simple things and has never made a documentary. Holy crap, Carrie is useless.

The dialogue is ridiculously repetitive. Don’t do a drinking game or you’ll die of alcohol poisoning.  They repeat the word creepy so many times that after 35 minutes, I started counting the number of times they said it.  The movie is 72 minute long and in the last 37 minutes they said the word creepy 32 times. .

Most of the last half of the movie is clips from the movie.  To what end? We’ve already seen the footage and it adds nothing new.  It seems to solely be due to padding out a short film to the length of a movie.  Some of the footage is seen more than two times. Also none of it is that complex or deep enough to need to be seen again. 

If you’re hoping for paranormal events, it’s almost non-existent. There are two short scenes towards the end of the movie. Other than that, it’s just two teenage girls talking about how everything is creepy and being flummoxed by simple concepts. The scenes of them obsessing about why Kyle would tell them it’s dangerous but not explain what is dangerous is brain numbing.  If someone told them molten lead was dangerous, would they think it was suspicious because they weren’t told why it was dangerous?

Some of the footage looked like it was shot through a screen door.  Also since they were shooting outside in the wind, there are scenes where the dialogue is unintelligible and all you can hear is the wind.

Ridiculous dialogue

Why would an abandoned factory have a security guard though? It makes no sense.

Carrie: We just walked across something really creepy. This is like, I don’t know, a black sheet or something? Where…

Vanessa: I’ve never seen anything like that.

Carrie: … did this come from? It’s really creepy. I don’t know why it’s laying here. What’s it doing.

There’s this creepy black sheet. So…what’s that all about.

Kyle: You guys need to get your stuff and head on out of here.

Carrie:  There was definitely something here. Something creepy is going on [scoff] and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.

Why don’t you see it from my perspective.  That guy is creepy. He wants us to leave suddenly. He’s like, it’s dangerous in there. Like, what does that even mean? What’s so dangerous inside?

There’s something really weird about a him and that fact he’s saying it’s dangerous, but wouldn't say why? Like why would you even say that if you’re not going to explain yourself.

The way he was saying it’s so dangerous and not explaining why? It was so creepy.

There’s definitely more that’s going on. I don’t think it’s paranormal. it’s something creepy on another scale is happening and it has to do with that guy

We have to do our duty to film something.

How did I hear something and then all of the sudden the sheet appeared out of nowhere.

Vanessa: Are you serious? I never agreed to do that. We’re not breaking the law for a paranormal investigation.

Carrie: On my god, calm down. How are we even going to get in trouble?

Our two intrepid investigators 

The creepy black sheet. Oooo isn’t it scary kids?

Lots of shots like this

Waiting around the corner to see if someone is following them

it looks like it was shot through a screen door

Leprechaun: The Beginning (2025)

After their father dies, estranged sisters Mary and Judy head to his estate.  Judy and husband Colin want to sell the house so they can get the money. While Mary, husband Dave and their three daughters - Faith, Sky and Lisa -  are more interested in keeping the home in the family.

Mary doesn’t want to sell because she wants the house to go to the girls. Judy says she needs the money because she’s pregnant.  You’d think Mary would question this since both sisters appear to be post menopause. 

Their father used to talk about leprechauns and there are multiple books about them in the house. The girls decide to look for the treasure and sure enough, one of them finds a box full of gold in the house.  

Everyone celebrates their new riches and then things get weird.  Judy and Dave argue about who owns the gold.  Dave thinks that finding the gold constitutes ownership, even though it would be part of the estate.  Mary doesn’t think they should do anything with the gold since they don’t know where it came from. 

When Sky disappears, Mary and Dave get mad at their other children because she is their responsibility. What?  Is Sky mentally challenged? She told them she was sleeping in their parents room so how would they know she disappeared? The mentally deficient argument is closed when Dave insists she’s a smart kid and will be fine. So again we’re back to why are the other children expected to be responsible for her? Also I’d argue she’s not the brightest bulb since she did manage to crawl into a cage without knowing it.

This is a hard one to sit through. There’s not much of a plot and the acting is not good. Are the daughters supposed to be teens or adults? Based on how old they look, I thought they were adults, but that runs counter to the assertation they are responsible for their sister.  The books on leprechauns were obviously pasted together for the film.  Lisa’s accent is different from the rest of the family.  Dave has no energy and his angry voice sounds the same as when he’s not angry, except he talks louder.  The cell phones stop working when it’s necessary for the plot.

The leprechaun is more odd looking than scary. There is one scene where the make up is worn off or fell off his face near his mouth. In a scene near the beginning, he forgot to wear his gloves and his hands have no make up.  He also plans the recorder upside down so no way is anything coming out of that instrument. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Lisa: You broke it. It won’t switch on.

Faith: No, you dropped it. Just put it in rice or something.

Dave: I will not let you get your grubby hands on [the gold] Judy, not after everything you’ve done.

Cut to Judy and Colin

Judy: We absolutely must get our hands on that gold, if it’s the last thing we do.

Leprechaun: What has an eye but can not see?

Colin: I, I, I don’t know. A potato.

Leprechaun: A potato. Really Colin?

Colin: What?

Leprechaun: You just might be the worst playmate I’ve ever come across. It’s a needle, you fool.

They forgot to put makeup on his hands

One of the large font leprechaun books

Shouting Sky to a closed window won’t help
if Sky is actually outside

The ineffective search for Sky continues

No one questions when she says she’s pregnant

Playing the recorder upside down

Did they not notice the make up is worn off his neck?

Mermaids Curse 2 (2025)

The second installment with a journalist trying to make a living in a town full of mermaids. What ever will they write about? 

Dylan and his brother Connor live in a small apartment while they try to make it as journalists. But there are no local stories so Connor suggests they make one up to bring in new readers. He says they’re not lying, just planting an idea and if people want to believe it, then they can give enough info to support that belief.  

The town has a long history of disappearances, which you think would be an obvious place to start since they don’t even need to make anything up.  Then comes the revelation that their father disappeared when they were kids and all hopes of these two being good investigative reporters fades. 

They interview their mom, who tells them sailors would go out to sea but not everyone would come back. It seems like there should be a bigger focus on this ongoing issue, but apparently the town isn’t that concerned about it.

When Dylan starts dating Serena, Connor is upset. Not only does this take him away from their plans but he’s jealous Dylan has a girlfriend.  After he sees Serena lead a man down to the beach, he tries to blackmail her into breaking up with Dylan and dating him instead. Connor is not only a bad person but he’s a terrible brother.

This is mostly a whole lot of nothing.  There are only a few mermaid attacks and they are lack luster since they consist of a dazed man walking on the beach, a scream and then close ups of a mermaid lazily trying to consume the man on the ground.  And once again, the news in town does not see fit to mention a half consumed man on the beach.

Ridiculous dialogue

Serena: I can’t leave the ocean.

Dylan: But there’s ocean everywhere.

The small apartment

Continuity - Dylans hair is swept back

But at the end of the movie it’s short