Netflix And Chill: Theatre Of Fear (2014)

AKA The Midnight Horror Show.

I'm sure I've been quite mean about writer-director Andrew Jones before, and it will undoubtedly happen again if I watch more of his movies (which I will, I have the memory of a goldfish and often jump into my movie viewing choices without too much forethought), but it does give you reason to pause and reconsider your approach when you find out that the man you're about to perhaps harshly judge died in 2023 at the young age of 39. I was genuinely sorry to find that out, and decided it needed mentioning here, along with the fact that Jones was certainly prolific, at the very least, having helmed 21 low-budget British horror features in 15 years.

Having said all that, this is another poor one though, and there's no easy way to sugar-coat the pill. Jones was someone who seemed to enjoy making movies, despite the fact that he was never able to rise above the many limitations working against him.

What you get here is a very standard set-up. There's a family of travelling performers who like to lure innocent victims in and kill them. The Moreau family (headed up by Doctor Deimor Moreau, played by Jared Morgan) seem to have been doing this for a while, and don't look ready to stop any time soon. Some feel more strongly about it than others though, and they may all end up being forced to stop when someone ends up hunting them down to avenge the recent death of a young woman.

What should be a fun and easy watch is, sadly, dragged down by a whole heap of issues. What should be an opportunity for some interesting visuals, at the very least, is presented in a load of shots that are drab and framed to cover up the varying quality of the production design and the special effects. The characters aren't given enough to do (although both Lee Bane and Nathan Head benefit from being allowed to portray the more memorable family members). There's none of the blend of menace and glee that you'd expect from this type of thing, and certainly none of the atmosphere you would expect to be created from the classic juxtaposition of theatrical merriment and sadistic horrors.

Morgan, Bane, and Head are okay, if I'm being kind, and Sam Harding and Shireen Ashton can also be damned with the same faint praise, but what was really needed here was someone not afraid to deliver something much bigger than the film surrounding them. It would absolutely have unbalanced things, but something being unbalanced is better than something being tiresome, and completely forgettable as soon as the end credits have rolled.

I'd advise everyone to stay away from this one. It's less Something Wicked This Way Comes and more Something Tiresome Is Here To Be Endured. And everyone reading this can consider my final rating to be generous, considering the context I mentioned in the opening paragraph.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Curse Of Robert The Doll (2016)

It has been about eight years since I watched Robert, a spooky doll movie made to cash in on the success of Annabelle. This was the movie for those who weren't satisfied by the shots of Annabelle sitting there and just looking spooky. This was the movie that said "of course the doll moves, and it kills, and there's no need to be ambiguous or atmospheric". Oh, and it was apparently based on a true story. Robert has since had a good four or five sequels (maybe more, maybe some are prequels, either way you can consider it a potential cash cow for someone) so I figured it was time to check out another instalment in the series.

Robert has been placed in a museum. A young woman (Emily, played by Tiffany Ceri) takes a job at that museum, spending her nightshifts cleaning the exhibit areas, and soon starts to get freaked out by the presence of the spooky doll. She has good reason to, because Robert is able to get out of his glass case and kill people. As the bodies start to pile up, Emily and the security guard she has formed a connection with (Kevin, played by Jason Homewood), needs to convince people of the reality of the situation, which coudl also convince them of her own innocence.

Once again written and directed by Andrew Jones, The Curse Of Robert The Doll is probably a tiny bit better than the first movie. Or it's maybe just as bad. I would be lying if I told you that I remember anything from my viewing of the first movie. There are at least two human characters here making a reappearance (Jenny Otto, played by Suzie Francer Garton, and a toymaker, played by Lee Bane), which makes me think that Jones has at least attempted to maintain some continuity here. Of course, that's easier to do when it's only the second movie in a series, but I've seen some sequels that immediately discarded everything we'd seen in the first movie (yes, Full Moon Features, I'm looking at you).

The acting isn't superb, but nor is it awful. One or two people stand out for the wrong reasons, but Ceri and Homewood do well enough in their roles, Steven Dolton is a typically gruff detective, and Nigel Barber enjoys a small amount of screentime as the owner of the museum that has "lucked out" in gaining possession of the deadly doll.

As well as the writing and directing duties, Jones also takes on the editing. His approach is quite crude and clumsy, and unhelped by the lacklustre cinematography from Jonathan McLaughlin or weak score from Bobby Cole, two names that appear again and again throughout the filmography of Jones.

Although it avoids being painfully bad, The Curse Of Robert The Doll is disappointingly lazy from start to finish. Even the doll itself doesn't look as scary or menacing as it could, and it doesn't have any sense of escalation. We know from the start that Robert is a dangerous killer doll, which leaves us just waiting for the main characters to get up to speed. They piece things together far too slowly, and the moments that show Robert in full-on menacing mode are just a bit silly.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Poltergeist Activity (2015)

There are very few, if any, times when it is acceptable to be personally insulting to anyone making movies. I would argue, however, that someone treating viewers with complete disdain, delivering them a product that is clearly slapped together with a lack of care or consideration, is one of those times when reciprocating with a certain brusque manner, or overt rudeness, is generally okay. Because why give someone respect who seems unable to respect the people who may have spent some of their money to be suckered in by a terrible (usually horror) film?

And that is why I am starting this review by confidently stating that writer-director Andrew Jones should step away from film-making, or maybe he just needs to get himself in the company of financiers and producers who can better help him realise a proper movie. Jones has been responsible for some of the worst movies that I've seen throughout the past decade, and all of them are given some decent artwork to lure people in, as well as a title that either plays on some other movie or hints at something MUCH better (e.g. Poltergeist Activity, The Amityville Asylum, and anyone using the name Amityville in a title that isn't an official part of the series should have a warm seat kept for them in a special circle of cinema hell, The Manson Family Massacre, The Jonestown Haunting, Cabin 28, and Alien: Battlefield Earth). Who knows, maybe something like Jurassic Predator manages to be daffy fun. I'm not brave enough to check it out yet, I believe it is safest to only watch one Andrew Jones film a year, at most. The BEST thing I have seen from him is Robert, a killer doll movie that has inexplicably turned into a whole series by now (about 5 films so far, unless I am miscounting). And I gave that a mighty 3/10. The worst I have seen from him is The Curse Of Halloween Jack. Well, that was the case until I saw this film.

Lee Bane plays David Prescott, a man who moves into a new house with his daughter, Katherine (Natalie Martins). Unfortunately, it turns out that the house has a dark history. Before you can say "is that clown doll there just to reference the best Poltergeist movie?" things start to get freaky and scary. That's what is supposed to happen anyway. What actually happens is father and daughter arguing with one another, things becoming more unbearable for them in the house, and the eventual help of an occult expert, Hans Voltz (Jared Morgan). There's also a neighbour, Mrs. Blankenship (Judith Haley), who knows about the history of the house. And one scene in which Sam Harding plays Alex, a character he seems a bit too old to be playing.

Absolutely horrible, almost painfully so, from start to finish, this is amateur film-making at its very worst. Although the acting is quite bad, I am loathe to blame the cast. This feels like one of many British horror films that is made with the approach of "well, we have a central idea/title/poster, I am sure we can work out the rest while filming". If you know me at all then you will know that I always try to find some good in everything. Very few films have nothing at all going for them. This is one of those rare ones. And the less said about the audio mix, and music from Bobby Cole, the better.

Consistently ugly, there's genuinely not one moment here that even accidentally frames the action in a way that you can acknowledge resulted from a conscious choice, absolutely lacking any actual scares, often laughable when it's trying to be serious, this is a disaster. Destined to be a solid choice for any bad movie club, the only other place this should appear is in a wastebin. Which is then dumped in the sea.

One final note, a warning to the curious (if you will), is that I've probably oversold it here. Although mentioning it as a contender for a bad movie club choice, this doesn't even manage to be laughable in the right way. You just end up growing increasingly incredulous as you realise that people worked on this, people thought they were making something worthwhile, and then they thought that others might pay to see it. Do NOT ever exchange any money for this. Ever. Because a penny spent on this is a penny you could have used as a sacrifice in one of those wonderful "Make Your Own Penny" machines that can be found at numerous tourist attractions up and down the UK.

P.S. If anyone involved in these films ever wants to contact me and put forward their side of things then I'll be happy to email back and forth, and allow some space here for that dialogue. My email address is kevinjmatthews75@gmail.com

1/10

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Prime Time: The Curse Of Halloween Jack (2019)

Here's that rare beast, a film so irritatingly lazy and awful that I don't even want to waste time by trying to summarise the plot. So allow me to share with you how it is detailed on IMDb - "Notorious cult The Lords of Samhain resurrect long dead serial killer Halloween Jack and all hell breaks loose in the town of Dunwich." Trust me when I tell you that the film isn't as good as that summary may suggest.

Written and directed by the prolific Andrew Jones (who also gave us Robert and Cabin 28, to name the two other films from him that I have inadvertently endured), this is one of many cheap horror movies that seem to be cropping up with tiresome regularity nowadays. Arguably in line with the kind of stuff that would go straight to video about 15-20 years ago, although that's quite insulting to some of the fine movies I have discovered in that format, this is something that feels designed simply to sucker people in. The clues were there as soon as, if not before, I pressed play.

First of all, the title is clearly tempting to those seeking a horror movie when they want to cram in some more genre fare throughout the month of October. Anything with Halloween in the title will get people mildly interested. Halloween Jack? Jack-o-lanterns may be involved, or there may be references to Jack Skellington. Not at all. It's simply a name based on familiar terms that will fool casual browsers.

Second, the town of Dunwich seems to be based in the UK. Which would make the events of the film set in the UK. But there are a number of little touches, and wobbly accents, that make you think that Jones wanted to have the film set in America. Maybe that was in the early stages of the script, before the budget ensured that there wouldn't be money to dress and detail everything to make it convincingly American. Maybe Jones couldn't make up his mind. Or maybe he just didn't care about anything like continuity or in-world logic, or the possibility of helping viewers to enjoy their viewing experience.

Third, there are many scenes without any real sense of location. Shots are either tight and keeping focus away from anything in the background that shouldn't be there or they are able to show off a more general and nondescript bigger space when the lighting is kept low and no recognisable landmarks are looming over the actors. This happens often in low-budget/independent movies, but there are ways to make it a lot less noticeable. 

As for the actors, it would be too easy, and a bit rude, to single out those who don't do a very good job. I'm only going to mention two people here. Tiffany Ceri was okay, despite the horribly weak script (and it is HORRIBLY weak, but full of dialogue exchanges that Jones either thinks highly of or assumes will further pad out the runtime). Peter Cosgrove is also worth mentioning, playing Duke Tanner. Unfortunately, his character is one of the most annoying I can think of in the horror genre. He's supposed to be the grizzled veteran who knows the danger that everyone is in, and he has an awful fake American accent throughout, but he's asked to deliver every line in a stilted and breathy manner. That wouldn't have been quite so bad if we weren't stuck listening to him for almost a full ten minutes in the final act of the film, a stretch of time that brings everything to an absolute halt while Cosgrove's character delivers all of the exposition that could have been drip-fed elsewhere throughout the slim runtime.

I don't like to review movies without offering some constructive criticism, but there are a few occasions when there isn't anything to say that can sweeten the bitter pill being administered. The score is sometimes alright, I guess, and that is genuinely the only positive I can remember from a film I am already trying to wipe from my memory. Oh, the main character design wasn't actually that bad, to be fair. Nothing else worked, from the dialogue to the performances, from the camerawork to the disappointing death scenes.

2/10

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Cabin 28 (2017)

"Based on the true life murders which inspired The Strangers" - that is the main blurb written on the front cover of the DVD of Cabin 28. So if you liked The Strangers then you should very well like this film. That's the implication. The reality is that The Strangers was a competent, at times chilling, horror film. This is not. But it has killers entering a house while wearing masks. That's where the points of similarity end.

To be fair, and to start off on a positive note, this film seems to stick to the main points of the unsolved case when it comes to the details that are known. Sue (Terri Dwyer) and members of her family were staying in the cabin when it was invaded by people who viciously murdered them. And that's the good stuff out of the way.

A quick run through the filmography of director Andrew Jones shows that he has a canny knack for helming films that end up trying to cash in on some recognisable horror genre names. He did The Amityville Asylum, he did Poltergeist Activity, and he has just completed his third movie about an evil doll named Robert. All of them either insinuate that they are connected to something they really aren't or state that they are based on a true story (always something that we horror fans take with a pinch of salt anyway).

He's working here from a script by John Klyza, and neither man seems to have a clue of how to build characters or tension. It's hard enough for the film to overcome the issue that it is full of Brits pretending they're all Americans (and if there are any actual Americans in the cast, well, they can't even manage to do their own accents properly), the fact that it fails in that regard while also lacking any competence in the writing, directing, and technical departments just makes the whole thing a real chore to get through.

I can't even feel angry enough to rant about the cast. They don't do a good job, but I suspect that's largely down to the awful script and a director who has assured them that all of their accents are fine and every scene has been nailed down just as he wants it (while he looks at how fare ahead of schedule and under budget they are). Dwyer is especially poor, although she's also given more screentime than some others, but Brendee Green, Derek Nelson, Lee Bane, Gareth Lawrence, Jason Homewood, and Ryan Michaels all give very weak performances.

You might spy this cover, see a low price, and think it can't be that bad. It can. You might think it's at least worth having on your shelf until an evening when you have nothing better available to watch. There's always something better available to watch. You may receive it as a gift from someone who knows you're a horror fan. Unfriend that person, move, and never let them discover your new address. Alternatively, regift it to someone you dislike. You get the picture.

2/10

The disc is available here.
Or, if in America, here.