SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (2021)

'ello, guvna. After cranking these fuckers out one installment per year between 2004 and 2010, the makers of the Saw franchise took a break before returning with the fresh, silly and exciting JIGSAW in 2017. Unfortunately, something stinky this way comes and shit all over the bed because this next Saw installment isn’t very good.  Which is disappointing, cause the posters looked promising in a True Detective, season 1 kind of way.

Anyway, the story, set in an unnamed metropolitan area that looks a lot like Toronto, is about a homicide detective, Chris Rock, who is on the trail of a Jigsaw copycat.  Meow.  Rock's style of investigation appears to be yelling a lot, letting people borrow his phone and scrunching up his face like he just walked into the fart cloud of somebody who eats a lot of plant-based meat covered in Tiger Sauce.  Stuff happens and I found myself straight-up not giving a shit.  Slow pace, overly complicated story, ugly photography, uninspired acting, boring kills, unscary killer and worst off: SPIRAL didn't feel like it had any kind of real connection to the actual Saw Universe.  The whole thing felt like a poorly written fan fiction.

And speaking of poorly written fan fiction...

Jigsaw "Grrr."-d to himself as his latest intended victim escaped from yet another game!  This is the fifth trap this guy has escaped from.  And then, once he's free, he just stands there talking about boxes of chocolate.  I should have never kidnapped this guy.  Looking into the dingy B&W video monitor, Jigsaw presses the speaker button to communicate with his victim.  "Why did you solve that puzzle so quickly, Gump?"  "You told me to, Jigsaw!"  Jigsaw lets go of the button and slams his head down onto his desk.

Part 1 - Saw (2004)
Part 2 - Saw II (2005)
Part 3 - Saw III (2006)
Part 4 - Saw IV (2007)
Part 5 - Saw V (2008)
Part 6 - Saw VI (2009)
Part 7 - Saw 3D (2010)
Part 8 - Jigsaw (2017)
Part 10 - Saw X (2023)

PENINSULA (2020)

Four years after the original zombie outbreak in TRAIN TO BUSAN, gangsters send an armed team of thieves into a zombie populated area of South Korea in order to steal a truck containing 20 million US duckets.  That sounds like a promising idea, but instead of a high-stakes heist film set in a gore-drenched world that looks like a gnarly death metal album cover...all we get is a slow-moving, zero imagination, snoozefest that probably features more screentime of people crying than it does of actual zombies.  Not that the zombies were worth a shit or even memorable.

Honestly, if you and I were talking in real life I could probably ramble on with you about this clunker for hours, but sitting here alone and all fucking depressed after watching this life-draining piece of shit, I just want to put the entire experience behind me and forget this movie even exists.  Skip it with a vengeance.  I wish I had.

Prequel - Seoul Station (2016)
Part 1 - Train to Busan (2016)

FANTASY ISLAND (2020)

I dislike this movie. Not because it's a bad movie (I can deal with that), but because it had the impressive idea of turning the Fantasy Island story into a horror movie and then…did absolutely nothing with it! A talented group of writers could run with this idea forever. There’s no end to the insane things that could go on: zombies, wokalars, zombie wokalars, cannibals, millions of bizarre kink fetishes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in The Walking Dead universe, Jack the Ripper versus Midsomer Murders on the Titanic, dogs and cats living together, Saw versus Fast and Furious, Chucky at the Gettysburg Address…it could go on for eternity!! So, with trillions of awesome story ideas at their disposal, what did the filmmakers choose as their introductory story to really grab the audience’s attention and get this sucker to be the start of a multi-billion dollar horror franchise?! I bet it’s gonna be zombies attacking a nudist colony next to a chainsaw factory! I’m so excited!!!

Oh. It’s just your standard, zero imagination, soulless bullshit about an annoying group of ultra-douchers who show up to a tropical island resort with some lame ass fantasies.  Then the unremarkable guy who runs the island does some kind of weakass Wishmaster shenanigans and twists their already boring fantasies into, I guess, a horror fantasy or something.  I don't know.  This entire movie is a fucking mess.  I don't even think it can even be correctly categorized as "horror".

Zero nudity, zero scares, crap direction, a beautiful island setting somehow presented in the blandest way possible, very little blood or violence, a convoluted story that I wanted to drop a krampus on, lifeless acting by a forgettable cast (Michael Rooker had a small part, but was wasted), dead pacing because nothing ever happened the entire movie. Honestly, I cannot even think of a single reason to waste your time on this stinker. You'll lie on your death bed and regret it. Skip it.