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Tag: Blumhouse

‘Upgrade’ is B Movie BlissUpgrade Review

‘Upgrade’ is B Movie Bliss

Published by Maximilian Gray on June 25, 2018

UpgradeUpgrade is rousing, low-brow, sci-fi trash. It plays dumb, dazzles the viewer with gruesome violence, but delivers the goods in the end. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good cyborg film. This is a cheaply made release from Blumhouse, but the lack of funds has lead to structural ingenuity in the writing. Here the upgrade is just a computer chip. It interfaces between hero, Grey Trace’s brain stem, and broken back. He can talk to it. Conversation between man and machine is the hook.

It takes you on a ride.

The fresh approach in this film is the way the upgrade supplements Grey Trace’s confidence and ambitions. It allows us to sympathize with a thinly drawn character because the protagonist himself is only a passenger in his body. The machine, known as STEM is a physical middleman and assistant to his host, played by Logan Marshall-Green. This concept makes for some wildly original action scenes that are motivated purely by STEM’s character. A word of warning – this is a hard edged action film with intense violence. It is not whimiscal, it is not for kids. It will make grown-men gasp.

Get ready for Déjá Vu Again.

You may know Marshall-Green as that asshole from Prometheus who looks like Tom Hardy. Strangely, Hardy will be in Venom later this year giving a similar “action-hero-passenger” performance. From the look of the trailers we have a fantasy/sci-fi theme-battle shaping up. I haven’t seen the likes of this since Dark City and The Matrix told the same story in two different genres. I’m willing to place my bet on Upgrade being the better film. For fans of b-movies and cyborgs – this one is a MUST WATCH.

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‘Happy Death Day’ Is Deja Vu All over AgainHappy Death Day

‘Happy Death Day’ Is Deja Vu All over Again

Published by Maximilian Gray on January 23, 2018

Happy-Death-Day-PosterHappy Death Day is quite simply Groundhog Day as a horror film. It’s smart and well written with satisfactory performances, but no scares or gore. This is YA horror. It’s rated PG-13 and the target audience is clearly teenage girls. Gore hounds should go elsewhere, fans of Twilight or Twilight Zone material may enjoy it.

It Plays with Your Expectations.

It begins with a Universal Pictures title card going through a time loop and restarting. A cool touch. The story starts the morning after a college hook-up. Our protagonist, Tree (Played by Jessica Rothe) wakes up in a strange dorm room after a night of debauchery she doesn’t remember. She extricates herself from the room, careful not to get along with anyone, then takes her walk of shame. She’s a sorority sister, a hard partier who sleeps around and a total bitch. The film runs through every single horror trope about the bad girl who won’t survive the killer because she’s not virginal. Then a dude in a baby mask kills her. Queue the groundhog day loop and the walk of shame commences again. It’s a clever introduction that evolves each time we see it.

We learn what makes Tree tick, we get some plot surprises and she grows as a person. Every time I thought the film was getting staid it managed to bounce back with a twist to the day’s events. I found it a hard movie to dislike, but hard to love either. There are moments where the tone veers from horror to young adult fiction to a zany energy that would fit better in a Nickelodeon movie. The pop songs are upbeat and the performances merely competent. The material explores sexual themes and profane language, but it lacks intensity. The violence is anemic. I longed for some male energy to make the thing dangerous. It’s too safe.

It’s Written by a Comic Book Writer.

Personally, I found the most interesting thing about the film to be its writer – Scott Lobdell. He’s best known for writing X-Men comics in the 90s. He worked on Uncanny X-Men and Generation X and had a large hand in “The Age of Apocalypse” and “Onslaught” cross-over events. He is also responsible for the first gay super-hero, Northstar, of Marvel’s Alpha Flight. I’m glad he’s having some success. The film is clever, but it apes Harold Ramis’ work a bit too much for my taste. It’s a young person’s film. Somebody, somewhere saw this movie first and fell in love.

© 2024 by Maximilian Gray