Reviews – That Was A Bit Mental

The Exorcist: Believer (2023) review

Published on June 1, 2024June 1, 2024 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Director: David Gordon Green

Starring: Leslie Odom Jr, Lidya Jewett, Olivia O’Neill, Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Okwui Okpokwasili, Ellen Burstyn

Potential triggers: Demonic possession, gouged out eyes, missing children, snakes, death of spouse, child death, miscarriage, psychiatric hospitals, sexual assault references, jump scares, kids generally behaving like dicks

MIRANDA: “Do you know where Jesus went after he died on the cross, Victor? He went to Hell to declare his authority over the devil. And he re-appeared three days later. Three days. Just like our girls.

VICTOR: “You think they went to Hell? Burned their feet in Hell? Got possessed by the devil?

TONY: “Pagan activity. Or talking to the dead. Wherever those girls went, they brought something back with them.”

It’s been a while since I reviewed a film – life got in the way – but now that my kid’s not a baby anymore and now that life is settling into a normal routine I can finally get back to watching horror films at night again, after more than half a decade on the sidelines.

Given that The Exorcist is one of my favourite films of all time, it stands to reason that upon my return to horror I made a bee-line for The Exorcist: Believer, the sixth film in the series but one of the few that serves as a direct sequel to the original.

While I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near as good as the original – and my expectations were correct – it still did enough to keep me engaged throughout. Continue reading “The Exorcist: Believer (2023) review” →

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2022) review

Published on January 10, 2022April 30, 2024 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: Johannes Roberts

Starring: Kaya Scodelario, Hannah John-Kamen, Robbie Amell, Tom Hopper, Avan Jogia, Neal McDonough

Content warnings: Gore, jump scares, zombies, children in peril, big monsters covered in eyeballs

“Your conspiracy theories weren’t true when we were kids. They’re not true now. Right? Why are you even here? Did you lose your job, do you need cash? You show up here, you break into my house, what… what kind of person can pick a lock like that? It’s kind of impressive but also, what the fuck?” – Chris Redfield, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

There have now been more Resident Evil films than I’ve had hot dinners (fun fact: I’ve only had six hot dinners in my life).

This one’s different, though. Rather than offering yet another Paul W.S. Anderson film with Milla Jovovich in the lead role again, Welcome to Raccoon City – the seventh live-action Resi film – is actually a complete reboot. Continue reading “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2022) review” →

Devil Girl From Mars (1954) review

Published on January 3, 2018January 3, 2018 by Chris Scullion2 Comments

Director: David MacDonald

Starring: Hugh McDermott, Hazel Court, Peter Reynolds, Adrienne Corri, Joseph Tomelty, Sophie Stewart, John Laurie, Patricia Laffan

MICHAEL: “Mrs Jamieson, may I introduce your latest guest, Miss Nyah. She comes from Mars.”

MRS JAMIESON: “Och, well that’ll mean another bed.”

Believe it or not, the UK was doing sci-fi themed stage plays as early as the 1950s. Devil Girl From Mars was one such production: what we have here is actually a movie adaptation. Continue reading “Devil Girl From Mars (1954) review” →

Resurrection Of The Mummy (2014) review

Published on January 2, 2018January 2, 2018 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: Patrick McManus

Starring: Lauren Bronleewe, Stuart Rigby, Bailey Gaddis, Elizabeth Friedman, Jessie Paddock, Sarah Schreiber, Alena Savostikova

Also known as: The Mummy Resurrected (original title)

RONNIE: “I thought we need a permit.”

TRALANE: “Not if we’re only going to find the tomb. We’re fine as long as we don’t take anything out. Shall we?”

RONNIE: “I don’t know, that sounds like the archaeologist’s version of ‘just the tip’.”

It’s only fitting that the resurrection of That Was A Bit Mental begins with a review of a film in which something else comes back to life after a long period of death.

In this case, however, it should probably have been left in its coffin. The mummy, I mean, not this website. Continue reading “Resurrection Of The Mummy (2014) review” →

Happy Birthday To Me (1981) review

Published on February 9, 2017May 19, 2018 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Director: J Lee Thompson

Starring: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Tracey Bregman

“You’d be proud of me now, mother. All the kids like me.” – Virginia, Happy Birthday To Me

After the success of Halloween, film studios went out of their way to ensure every other major calendar date was covered by a slasher film.

Graduation Day, My Bloody Valentine, Black Christmas, Friday The 13th – it’s safe to say that if Shrove Tuesday existed in America someone would have made a movie about a killer jamming poisoned shroves up hapless victims’ shitepipes.

It went without saying, then, that someone would eventually make a slasher based on birthdays. After all, everyone celebrates their birthday, so everyone can relate.

Cue Columbia Pictures with Happy Birthday To Me, a Canadian horror film that’s actually a little more left-field than you may expect. Continue reading “Happy Birthday To Me (1981) review” →

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (2016) review

Published on October 5, 2016October 5, 2016 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Director: Tim Burton

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Ella Purnell, Samuel L Jackson, Terence Stamp, Chris O’Dowd

“Because our abilities don’t fit in the outside world, we live in places like this, where no-one can find us.” (Miss Peregrine, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children)

If you’ve read anything about Tim Burton’s latest film you’ll probably have seen countless comparisons to the X-Men movies, due to the fact it’s set in a school occupied with children with special powers.

But I’m not that lazy.

Instead, I hereby declare that Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is in fact Tim Burton’s version of The Raggy Dolls, the popular British ‘80s and ‘90s cartoon in which a group of wee dudes with abnormalities team up to fight crime or something.

(I don’t know if the Raggy Dolls actually fought crime, I didn’t really watch it. I just liked the theme tune.) Continue reading “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (2016) review” →

The House In The Woods (1957) review

Published on October 2, 2016 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: Maxwell Munden

Starring: Michael Gough, Patricia Roc, Ronald Howard

CAROL: “Spencer’s a lonely man I feel I can help, even if it’s only by letting him paint me. I don’t think I’m able to help my husband no matter how hard I try.”

MICHAEL: “I’m sorry darling. But you see, sometimes a man can sense an inner corruption in another man that is hidden from a woman by sentiment and sex.”

CAROL: “Inner corruption in another man! How do you know you’re not fighting it in yourself?”

Michael Gough was a legendary English actor who appeared in over 200 film roles over the course of nearly 60 years.

Perhaps best known to modern and international audiences as Alfred in all four 1990s Batman films, Gough had been a star of British stage and screen for decades before this.

The House In The Woods is one of his earlier roles, and though it’s more or less been forgotten over time it’s still a decent example of his ability to drive a film with his performance. Continue reading “The House In The Woods (1957) review” →

Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) review

Published on September 17, 2016September 17, 2016 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: Joe Berlinger

Starring: Kim Director, Jeffrey Donovan, Erica Leerhsen, Tristine Skyler, Stephen Barker Turner

JEFF – “If you don’t believe in the Blair Witch then why the hell did you come along?”

KIM – “I thought the movie was cool.”

After The Blair Witch Project sold out cinemas and soiled boxer shorts around the world, a sequel was quickly greenlit to capitalise on its massive success.

There was one hefty problem, though. Part of what made the first film so successful was the fact it came out of nowhere.

Here was this film about young filmmakers who had gone into the woods and disappeared, and crucially it had this found-footage style that made many cinemagoers question whether what they were seeing was actually fiction.

Realising (perhaps wisely) that lightning probably couldn’t strike twice in the same place, director Joe Berlinger and the rest of the Blair Witch 2 crew instead decided to ditch everything that made the first film a success and go in a completely different direction. Continue reading “Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) review” →

Sausage Party (2016) review

Published on September 7, 2016September 7, 2016 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Head chefs: Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

Ingredients: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Paul Rudd, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Bill Hader

“We’re the non-perishables, motherfucker.” (Mr Grits, Sausage Party)

Take one hot dog sausage (Rogen) and one hot dog bun (Wiig), destined to be together but forced to sit separate from each other in their packaging prisons on a supermarket shelf.

Pre-heat a premise about a promised land said to lie outside the supermarket’s doors, one in which any foods chosen by ‘the gods’ (humans) will get everything they desire. Keep this premise simmering throughout, regularly adding religious nods to taste.

Add a sub-plot involving two more sausages (Cera and Hill) who find themselves chosen for the promised land but quickly discover that the food paradise they expected is actually a kitchen-based massacre of biblical proportions. Continue reading “Sausage Party (2016) review” →

Actium Maximus: War Of The Alien Dinosaurs (2005) review

Published on July 28, 2016July 28, 2016 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: Mark Hicks

Writer / Composer / Cinematographer / Casting Agent / Sound Effects Editor / Special Effects: Mark Hicks

Starring: Mark Hicks, John McCuin, Jennifer Hamill

“Qava! I want you to start rounding up all of the Laffrodites off the Boulevards en masse! They will become infamous in the Maximus.” (Polpox, Actium Maximus)

Many amateur filmmakers dream of making the next underground smash, the next low-budget gem that does a Night Of The Living Dead or Clerks and emerges from obscurity to take over the world.

Mark Hicks, who is seemingly some sort of real life Garth Merenghi figure, clearly had this goal in mind when he wrote, directed and acted in Actium Maximus. Unfortunately, during this process he failed to notice his complete lack of writing, directing and acting ability. Continue reading “Actium Maximus: War Of The Alien Dinosaurs (2005) review” →