I actually had time to watch some movies this weekend!
Premeired on Shudder this past week. I've heard a fair amount of praise for this one so I was excited to finally watch it. The set up is great, a guy get's attacked by a vampire but survives as the sun comes up he realizes he is becoming a vampire as his skin begins to burn, he runs to seek shelter from the sun and finds a shed. Next we experience this weird scene with the main character, everything is being overly acted and blown out of proportion, I thought to myself if this is what this is going to be like then I'm shutting it off. It ended up being a dream and he wakes up to his awful miserable life. From that point on the acting was normal for a pretty low budget affair. He discovers something is in his shed, sends his dog in to get it out only to have the dog torn to shreds. He locks the vampire in there and sets off with the rest of the film. Unfortunately from there they double down on the 80's/early 90's tropes, bullying, guy hung up on girl, girl used to be misfit now pretty, jock beats the fuck out of two misfit friends, abusive grandfather who hates having to take care of grandkid, bad muscle car, guy gets mad at friend for ruining chance to kiss girl he's loved since he was a little kid. Shit goes on forever. It was an ok film that could have been a lot more fun but instead chose to follow the worn out road map the previous 30 years have laid out. Also it abuses the "wake up from dream" trope, they did it 5 times. Watch if you're bored but don't expect too much out of it.
Korean found footage film that I've had recommended to me by a few friends. I'm not a big fan of found footage most of the time but when done well they are enjoyable. Add this one to one of the few I like. There is some creepy moments to be found with in, good characters and a decent amount of humor in the first half to make the group of people feel relatable. I wont' say much other than they try to live stream entering a room in a cursed asylum. You expect a lot of typical jump scares in films like this and while this does have them they are effective and they actually play with your expectations a little. There was one scene in particular that I loved, the character wakes up in room, looks around and sees something standing in the distance making very unnatural movements. First she looks away and then back, you expect a jump scare and it to be right on top of her, nope it's in the same spot just doing it's thing being creepy. She then moves through the room, the camera keeps perspective but is moving to the right, she stops and doesn't look around just sits there, the thing just moves back into her perspective but stays the same distance away, she does the look away two more times and it doesn't move, just stays there being creepy at a distance. Eventually it does move towards her but not in a jump scare "surprise it's right on top of you now" kind of way. I loved it and thought it was a brilliant way to mess with your expectations as a viewer. Worth a watch, it's available on prime in the US.
A new Jackie Chan bluray arrived from 88 Films last week and I had to make time for it. The Fearless Hyena, Jackie's directorial debut from 1979. You can tell it's from some one who hasn't directed before but honestly that doesn't matter, the film is 85% fight scenes and 15% plot. I had a blast watching this, even though it's humor based Jackie it's not full blown physical comedy like we get in the 80-90's. This is more humor during the fight scenes with the characters, lots of hitting people with their butts, Jackie messing with his opponents while they are trying very hard to fight seriously. There's the famous chop stick battle in this and it's an impressive scene, I can't imagine how many takes it took to get some of those moments. I highly recommend checking this out if you like the original Drunken Master, it's a natural follow up to that film. While not as good it's still a very enjoyable time.