Sanctuary (2023) - Movie Review

For about as long as I’ve shown any real interest in film, I’ve always tried to advocate for enjoying films regardless of where that enjoyment comes from. I have sat through way too many bad films that I went into knowing that they’d be bad, of my own free will, to turn my nose up at what anyone else chooses to do for fun in their off-time. And while I can’t say I have all that much first-hand experience with S&M and other such play routines, quite a bit of my understanding of engaging with media, and indeed my championing of Edgelord Optimism (finding positivity in disturbing and weird shit), shares a lot of DNA with BDSM philosophy. Pain can lead to its own form of pleasure, even if it’s the hyperbolic pain of a bad movie.

Deep Water (2022) - Movie Review

After a twenty-year hiatus from filmmaking (save for a brief stab at screenwriting in Alex Pettyfer’s Back Roads), one of the few directors that could actually get his head around erotic mainstream cinema, Adrian Lyne, has returned. And true to his sweaty and mentally fucked-up trappings, it’s an unsettling take on the idea of romance, but there's a fair bit of rust showing through as well.

The Next 365 Days (2022) - Movie Review

 

This is not a review.

Oh sure, it’ll be written the same as any review I’ve ever put on here or elsewhere, and I will be giving my unvarnished thoughts on the film in question same as always. But this is not a review. This is target practice.

I could have easily just let this one go by the wayside. Anyone who has even heard of this film beforehand will already be aware of how trash it is, why it’s not worth watching even for the highly specific nature of its existence, and therefore anything I have to add to it would be rather pointless.

But I’m not about to give this film special treatment. I didn’t spare Fifty Shades. I didn’t spare The Kissing Booth. I’m still not sparing the After series. And even outside of the Wattpad set, I didn’t spare The Invitation or The Exorcism Of God. This wave of cinematic fanfiction is only growing stronger, and I’ll be damned if I let any of it get past me. So… yeah. Let’s have fun with this one. Dude knows it’s not letting me have any by any other means.

365 Days: This Day (2022) - Movie Review

I’m not going to say that I was looking forward to this film in any reasonable fashion; after how disastrously its predecessor turned out, that’d just be dishonest of me. But between the thoughtful examination of sexual liberation in X, and me re-examining my understanding of films primarily targeted at women off the back of How To Please A Woman… I’m at least open to the idea that this film could be a little easier to sit through. And to a degree, it is… but only in one specific aspect. Everything else has somehow taken a turn for the even worse.

Fatale (2021) - Movie Review

Oh goodie, an erotic thriller has made it to cinemas. I get the feeling that I could have just put up that single sentence as the entire review, as that’s pretty much all that one needs to know about it in order to gauge whether they’ll be at all interested in it. And even then, as are the trappings of the genre, I doubt there’s a lot of legitimate entertainment value to be gotten out of a film like this. However, while I would be more than happy to proclaim a new ironic favourite, this film can’t even get to that level of quality. Or, at the very least, it insists it’s above that level of quality.

Sequin In A Blue Room (2020) - Movie Review

Here’s a rarity for you: An erotic thriller that’s actually good. Like, beyond any potential for Googling the raunchier clips to watch for ‘the articles’, this is a nice and effective mixture of the sensual and dangerous. And like with the better examples in the genre, it works because the two are ever-present within the narrative framework, here shown as a look into hook-up culture in the age of social media.

365 Days (2020) - Movie Review

After how much of a big deal I made regarding the Fifty Shades series… not gonna lie, I feel a certain obligation to look at this thing. This is the kind of cinematic masochism that admittedly gives me a better idea of the supposed ‘draw’ of stories like that, but that doesn’t make the experience any more pleasurable for myself. So, let’s take a look at the Trojan softcore porno that’s taken Netflix by storm and highlight how, by some tremendous anti-miracle, this is all kinds of worse than its inspiration.

My Teacher, My Obsession (2018) - Movie Review

There is something profoundly icky about this movie, and indeed its entire sub-genre. This student-teacher tryst brand of psychological thrills is rarely if ever done well. Partly because that kind of relationship has a whole slew of baggage behind it, not the least of which being how it is reflected in reality, but mainly because psycho-thrillers involving romance are rarely done well in the first place. When Basic Instinct, a film famous for a flashing scene, is leading the pack, there’s a need for some serious talent both in front of and behind the camera to make something like this worth watching. This ain’t it; not by a long shot.

Fifty Shades Darker (2017) - Movie Review

Well, the heavily-publicised holiday(?) of Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and hopefully you spent it better than I did. Back in 2015, I forewent the usual nothing I was planning on doing for this special day, put on my best suit and tie (that is to say my only suit) and went out to see Fifty Shades Of Grey on the big screen. I didn’t like it; here’s over 2000 words explaining why. Last year, things turned out a lot better with the release of Deadpool, and even considering my own misgivings with the film overall, it was still a fun night out. This year, it’s back to what I guess can be called business as usual with the follow-up to that film I am so utterly apathetic towards. So, I dusted off the same suit and (somehow) got someone else to tag along with me this time around, and sat down to prepare myself for what will be coming my way next year with the finale. Time to dig into this bewildering follow-up and see how exactly this managed to be even worse than the original.

Knock Knock (2015) - Movie Review

Every so often, the Hollywood scheduling system looks at the crap that gets screened and bestows a boon on the viewing public with a double feature from an acclaimed director. 2013 was an amazing year in this regard as we got not only two releases from David O. Russell with Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, but also the ‘supposedly’ final two theatrical releases from Steven Soderbergh with Side Effects and Behind The Candelabra. But then, there are times when the scheduling results in a dual release from a… less reputable director. This is unfortunately a latter case as we are discussing another film by Eli Roth. I once again don’t want to completely badmouth his abilities as a director, as the guy definitely has talent in certain areas. However, his insistence on filming his own scripts is his biggest flaw; the guy has character sensibilities that make Mark Renton look like Oskar Schindler. For as much credit as I was willing to give his last film, it still makes me feel slightly ill thinking back on it. So, is this film as bad as that… or is it, by some terrifying miracle, even worse?

The Boy Next Door (2015) - Movie Review

Rob Cohen might be one of the best examples of how not to age gracefully when it comes to the more creative fields. I think at some point after making The Skulls, Cohen had a mid-life crisis that he still hasn’t entirely gotten over because every single film he’s made since then reeks of someone desperately trying to relate to “them young people today”. The Fast & The Furious was full of so much posturing that I’m still surprised that it ended up creating a legitimately good action franchise overall, xXx tried (and failed) to show how it was cooler than James Bond, Stealth was just plain stupid, The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor was a CGI-ridden missed opportunity, and Alex Cross made the oh-so-bright decision to cast Madea as a genius criminal investigator; I’ll probably never forgive him for replacing Idris Elba after that crap. It’s already a bad sign whenever someone wants to make an “erotic thriller”, but when that someone is primarily known for overblown action spectacle, the already low chances of success drop even further. Let’s just see how this turned out.