Day 291: Lost After Dark (2015)

One of my favorite decades for film and music has always been the 1980’s especially for the horror genre. That is why when I saw that today’s film, Lost After Dark, was a homage to the 80’s, I had to see it. Adrienne (Kendra Leigh Timmons) hasn’t been able to enjoy her teenage years since he sister disappeared some years back. One weekend, her father finally willingly allows her to go to a sleepover for the weekend, but what he doesn’t realize is that Adrienne and her friends are going to his hunting cabin for the weekend. While on the way to the cabin, the bus runs out of gas and the kids run into a cannibalistic killer who won’t stop until they are all dead. The film also stars Sarah Fisher (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as Laurie, Jesse Camacho (Kick-Ass 2) as Tobe, Elise Gatien (Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days) as Jamie, Justin Kelly (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as Sean, Stephan James (When The Game Stands Tall) as Wesley, Eve Harlow (The Tall Man) as Marilyn, Lanie McAuley (Motive) as Heather, Alexander Calvert (Scream: The TV Series) as Johnnie, Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgement Day) as Mr. C, Mark Wiebe (Sweet Karma) as Junior Joad, David Lipper (Full House) as Adrienne’s Dad, and the film was directed by Ian Kessner (The Puzzle). To see the rest of the review, please go to Moshpits and Movies by clicking here.

Day 27: Turbo Kid (2015)

For today’s Ass Whoopin Wednesday film, I chose a movie that had gained a lot of buzz in the underground world and horror magazines. The name of the film was Turbo Kid and it was directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The film stars Munro Chambers (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as a kid in a post apocalyptic wasteland in 1997. Everyone in this world has to fend for themselves and the kid is essentially a scavenger just trying to make it by. His life gets complicated when he run into a very eccentric girl named Apple (Laurence Leboeuf). Together the two will be hunted by a very aggressive overlord named Zeus (Michael Ironside) so they’ll have to ride their BMX bikes and stick together in order to survive. The film also stars Edwin Wright (Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans) as Skeletron, Aaron Jeffery (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) as Frederick, Romano Orzari (Punisher: War Zone) as Bagu, Anouk Whissell as The Mother, Tyler Hall (RoboCop) as bounty hunter, Orphée Ladouceur as female guard, and Yves Corbeil (Afterglow) as Turbo General. To read the rest of the review, check out the article here.

Day 23: Charlie Bartlett (2007)

For today’s film, I decided to review a film that starred Robert Downey Jr. who made a resurgence in his career in the 2000’s and Anton Yelchin who starred in a film I loved called Alpha Dog. The film I chose for today is called Charlie Bartlett and Yelchin plays the title character. Charlie is a kid who is just looking to fit in, but unfortunately he doesn’t know how to do it the right way as he has found himself getting kicked out of numerous schools. His clueless mother (Hope Davis) decides to enroll Charlie into Western Summit High, where Charlie will become the school’s psychiatrist in order to gain popularity. The only problem is that there are consequences for every action and Charlie has to try and use his new found popularity to do the right things. The film also stars Kat Dennings (Thor: Dark World) as Susan, Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) as Principal Gardner, Tyler Hilton (Walk The Line) as Murphy, Mark Rendall (30 Days Of Night) as Kip, Dylan Taylor (Tideland) as Len Arbuckle, Megan Park (The Secret Life Of The American Teenager) as Whitney, Jake Epstein (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as Dustin, Derek McGrath (Carrie) as Superintendent Sedgwick, Jonathan Malen (Mean Girls) as Jordan, and the film was directed by Jon Poll (Captain America 1990).

You can look at this film in several different ways, is it social commentary on how obsessive our society has been on abusing prescription pain killers? Or is it commentary on how kids will do anything to become popular? Well, if it’s the second one, then that is something that has been happening for ages and even in film. Every generation has their films on what it’s like to be a teenager like what Fast Times At Ridgemont High did for the 80’s. I highly doubt that it was the first one just because the pills are a minor part of the whole film and only serve as a catalyst to get the film going. Although, there is this one line in the film that I thought was superb and exactly how society should look at teens and prescription drugs. It reads like, “Bringing psychiatric drugs and teenagers together is like opening a lemonade stand in the desert.” I thought that was a brilliant piece of writing from the writers. Everything about this film was good from the writing to the director and it’s sort of a coming of age story, but only in the fact that Charlie comes to realize who he really is and what his place is in society. Kat Dennings of course looks fantastic in the film and she does an amazing job playing a teenager with so much angst. Listen check out the film for yourself, it’s playing on one of the premium channels. I am going to give the film an B+ for a final grade.