Adam Sandler comedies are like marmite. They're an acquired taste. Netflix made that huge deal with him a while back and they seem to be just throwing stuff at the proverbial wall to see what sticks. This time around we have a family comedy centered around Halloween. It this one a winner? Here's my review.

Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem (and its Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something is going bump in the night, and it's up to Hubie to save Halloween. (Premise from IMDB)

So was this a winner? Short answer? No. It's not a winner. Long answer? It's complicated. There was a lot I liked about Hubie Halloween. It oozed with Halloween spirit from the very beginning which is a true bonus while we're in the season. If you're anything like my wife and I, you watch a lot of horror movies around Halloween, but sit back and think of how many of them are actually based around the holiday and out of those, how many actually make you feel the Halloween spirit.  Off the top of my head I can think of Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, Trick r' Treat, maybe a few of the Halloween films. But that's when my memory starts to wane and I'd have to rely on google to think of more. So this film has that going for it.

It also has a good cast. Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Kevin James, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Rob Schneider, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows, Michael Chiklis, June Squibb, George Wallace, Kenan Thompson, Shaquille O'Neal, Ben Stiller, Noah Schnapp, and a handful of current SNL players.  That's a good cast right there. Not really an A list, but a list that's perfectly set for a fun movie. But there's a catch. For a fun cast to make a fun movie, you have to have a fun script.

That's where Hubie Halloween fell short. It wasn't a bad idea, but there was so much hate and negativity in the film that it kept me from really enjoying it. The townsfolk hate Hubie. They hate him with a passion. He's weird and they hate him because he's weird. That's it. It's the classic story that's been told for years. The popular people hate and ostracize those who are different. Don't misunderstand, I'm not jumping on a soapbox here. While bullying IS wrong, that's not the point of this blog. It's just an old plot told without a speck of joy in it with so much negativity that it holds the film back. The towns people of Salem are horrible in this movie. There are only a handful of characters even worth a damn. If this was a slasher film, most of that cast would be dead at the end because they deserve it. 

The other issue I have with this movie is Sandler's Waterboy style of comedy. If you look at his comedies, they can be broken down into two main categories. He's either a screaming asshole, or a mentally slow moron. Hubie is the latter of the two. And since we're now in the woke year of 2020, we have an important question to ask. For his characters like Bobby Boucher and Hubie Dubois, are they mentally handicapped? Is that why they have that affected voice and act so weird and don't understand social norms? If so, isn't that not okay? 

This is running long so let me wrap this up. The biggest and most blaringly unforgivable issue with this movie is the fact that it's just not funny. It tries to hard to tell boring and rehashed jokes, there's nothing original, and there's not even enough to enjoy to make the lack of originality ignorable.

There was a good idea in this film but it's beyond saving. The only reason to watch this is because of the over abundance of Halloween spirit. That's it.

Hubie Halloween gets a 4.5 out of 11

Special Note: I wanted to love this film. I wanted to love it because the young actor Cameron Boyce from the Grown-Ups movies, was supposed to play the role of Mike Mundi but passed away just days before filming. Boyce's parents asked that Karan Brar be cast in the role as Karan and Cameron were best friends. I wanted to love this movie because of that story that's equal parts sad and uplifting.

 Yay! We're still going strong. It's time for the next five movies I've watched this Halloween season. There's a fun mix so you may just find your next spooky watch.

Cursed

This is a film from way back in 2005 starring Christina Ricci, Jessie Eisenberg, Milo Ventimiglia, Joshua Jackson, Judy Greer, Portia de Rossi, and Shannon Elizabeth. It's about a pair of siblings who get cursed by a werewolf and have to figure out what to do to avoid becoming werewolves themselves.

This was a truly fun movie. Werewolf films are fun but not nearly as popular as zombies or vampires, so it's always nice to find a new one. It's especially nice if it's a good movie. This film here may seem like a 90's cheesey horror holdout, but it's really a fun and cleaver film that wasn't entirely predictable. 

This isn't a perfect film, but it's good enough to be entertaining and stands the test of time. There's nothing hugely problematic or cringey that would keep me from rewatching it so this will now go on my yearly rewatch list. The few times they use CG is obviously outdated but practical effects are used to which keep this from being hard to watch.

Cursed gets an 8 out of 11

The Forest

A woman goes into Japan's Suicide Forest to find her missing twin sister and confronts a supernatural terror (Premise from IMDB) This stars Natalie Dormer from Game of Thrones.

I had been wanting to watch this one for a while. Since I'm half Japanese, I'm quite interested with anything having to do with Japan. Asians don't get a lot of love in Hollywood in general so I'm jump at the chance to see anything with Asian representation (unless it's an awful remake of an Asian film). But for one reason or another I never got around to this one but this year I finally did.

And it was okay. It was just okay. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't particularly enjoy it. The acting was fine, the plot was okay, but it never quite clicked. The characters were a big let down in this film as Sarah was the biggest idiot ever and everything bad that happened in the forest was her fault. I won't say to much so I don't spoil it, but when you go somewhere and experts are telling you not to do something and you go and do it anyway, you fully deserve your fate.

There were also too many jump scares and dream sequences. It was hard to feel any fear when you knew the jump was coming because they were setting you up for it, and also some of the scares had no effect because they ended up being dreams and thus the fear didn't carry over into reality. 

This isn't a bad film, like I said. This was just a mediocre at best film. The Japanese Suicide Forest still has a lot of potential that someone else can try and work with later.

The Forest gets a 5 out of 11

Don't Knock Twice

A mother desperate to reconnect with her troubled daughter becomes embroiled in the urban legend of a demonic witch after her daughter knocks on the witches door, incurring  her wrath.

I had no idea what to expect from this film. I had never heard of it. But my wife wanted me to watch it and she knows my tastes pretty well. What I eneded up watching was an interesting B list horror movie. It has an interesting plot with a little bit of mystery thrown in. Though I could see what the red herring was, I didn't see the ending coming and that served as a nice surprise. 

This movie had good characters who didn't make stupid decisions, which is always good to see in modern horror. The acting was good, better than you'd expect from a non-artsy indie horror. This stars Katee Sackhoff who is no stranger to horror and Lucy Boynton who has been in more well received movies than I had realized (and she was good in them too). So this film has a good plot with a twinge of mystery, good characters, and good actors playing said characters. So all in all, this is a fine horror that I wouldn't mind adding to my yearly rewatch list. 

Don't Knock Twice gets an 8.5 out of 11 

Hubie Halloween

Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem (and its Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something is going bump in the night, and it's up to Hubie to save Halloween. (Premise from IMDB). This stars a lot of people so to keep this short I'll just mention Adam Sandler.

TLDR for my longer review:

The best thing about Hubie Halloween is the strong seasonal atmosphere of the film. Just like Hocus Pocus or Trick 'r Treat, this is a great film if you're really wanting something full of the Halloween spirit. As for the plot? It's mediocre at best. It has promise but is just not very good. Also, is Adam Sandler's Waterboy style voice still okay? Isn't he doing an impression of someone with a mental illness or birth defect? 

Hubie Halloween gets a 5 out of 11

Would You Rather

Desperate to help her ailing brother, a young woman unknowingly agrees to compete in a deadly game of "Would You Rather," hosted by a sadistic aristocrat. (Premise from IMDB). This stars Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), Jonny Coyne (Alcatraz), John Heard (Home Alone), Eddie Steeples (My Name Is Earl), Logan Miller (Love, Simon), Robin Lord Taylor (Gotham), and porn star Sasha Grey.

Have you ever wondered what kind of movie someone would make if they just kind of watched Saw once and thought they got the general idea then tried to remake it with an evil Rich Uncle Pennybags as the villain? You'd get Would You Rather! Yay!

This film had a lot of promise. It was an interesting idea that felt like it never got fleshed out. It feels like the script was going through rewrites and they just ran out of time and submitted something half finished. There's a gem of an idea hidden somewhere in the mess that was presented. The cast wasn't bad except for Sasha Grey who felt like a dollar store Megan Fox. 

Would You Rather gets a 4 out of 11

 This movie was sitting, waiting to go for quite a while. We know that COVID pushed it back and that for a while the hype behind it claimed that it was going to single handedly save cinema. Theaters were hurting due to lockdown and this was the film that was going to bring everyone back. But it didn't go that way. America didn't get the pandemic under control and movie after movie got pushed back to 2021 and beyond. Some were released straight to VOD. But Tenet came out anyway. Here's my review.

Quick note. If audio is more your thing, I talked about this film as well as my experience going back to theaters on my podcast Future Flicks with Billiam which can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts. Look for Return to Theaters and Tenet Review - Ep 183

Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. (Premise from IMDB).

This stars John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga), Elizabeth Debicki (Everest), Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla), Himesh Patel (Yesterday), Michael Caine (The Dark Knight), and Indian actress Dimple Kapadia. It was written and directed by Christopher Nolan who did Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy.

Let's be honest, You know if you like Christopher Nolan's work already. If you like movies at all you've seen something he's done and by now you should know your feelings on his work. The question now is, how confusing is it?

Before the movie came out there were quite a few stories of the actors having no idea what the film was even about or how things worked within it, but that could have just been Nolan's strategy from preventing leaks. Michael Caine was only given his scene to work with and given nothing else of the plot. John David Washington was only allowed to read the script in Nolan's locked office. So the fact that no one on the cast really had a clue, doesn't surprise me.

I do have to be honest though, this film took a while for me to get into for one good reason. This begins faster than a coked up greyhound race and the protagonist (he's never given a name) just kind of goes along with it and knows what to do. He's told about the word tenet, he's introduced to a scientist that tells him how the weird time stuff works, he's told what he has to do, and he's just sent on his way without anything else. It's a jarring beginning to a film that could have used a little more to start with. The film was already two and half hours, would ten more minutes of exposition really been that bad?

But that aside, I eventually go it. I understood what was going on in the movie and I felt confident watching the film that I wasn't missing anything hugely important. I have no doubt that a rewatch will reveal even more to me, but one time through didn't leave me with any unanswerable plot related questions. 

The acting was phenomenal. John David Washington is the new hotness and he's already ready to explode. I wouldn't be surprised if he surpasses his dad in pure acting talent. His dad is Denzel Washington, if you didn't know. Robert Pattinson is further escaping his Twilight/Harry Potter past and showing us he's much more than a teen heartthrob, and everyone else involved was, at the very least, good. There were no wooden or lackluster performances in this movie. 

The cinematography was astounding with no wasted shots. Not once did I stop to wonder why we saw a certain scene or why anything was needed. Christopher Nolan knew what he wanted and it translated flawlessly to the screen. Nolan is no stranger to CG or other computer aided movie telling tools, but what sets him apart is his use of conventional means. Remember the scene in Inception when Joseph Gordon Levitt was walking up the walls? Do you also remember that was real and they built a rotating set for it? That's the kind of stuff that sets Nolan apart from other blockbuster directors. For certain scenes the actors had to learn how to speak backwards, they had to learn how to fight backwards, a lot of this was done conventionally and that will only add to the film's longevity. 

 Tenet was fantastic. I loved it. I loved it even more once I got passed the slightly confusing beginning. Do I love it more than Inception or The Dark Knight trilogy? Maybe not. But this was a fantastic film that was well worth a watch. Yes, you should watch this. Yes, you should own this, and yes, you should watch this more than once.

Tenet gets a 10 out of 11

 Anne and I have decided to watch at least one movie each day in October to at least get 31 flicks in this season. Early on in the month is when we branch out a bit more and watch new movies or movies that may be "scary" but not doesn't really put us in the holiday mood. We like to watch the same old reliable movies. So what have we watched so far? Here are the first five.

The Visit (2015)

This is a film by M. Night Shyamalan about two siblings who are sent to stay with their estranged grandparents who they have never met. During their vacation they become increasingly frightened by their grandparents disturbing behavior. 

Being a Shyamalan movie you know there's going to be a twist but I must admit that I saw this one coming right away. If I ever do guess the twist of his movies it's usually near the end, but this one I guessed in the first quarter of the film.

It still wasn't bad though. It was creepy and the documentary style way the movie was filmed suited it quite well. The main two kids were good, which isn't easy for a non-kids film with children main characters. 

So The Visit was enjoyable but ultimately predictable which could hamper any reewatchability. It wasn't bad at all but it lacked that special thing to put it anywhere on my yearly rewatch list.

The Visit gets a 7 out of 11

Child's Play 2019

I already wrote a review for this movie which you may, or may not, have seen. If you haven't read it and would like to, you can find it here. But if you want the very short cliff notes version, here it is.

This is a great example of a movie that was doomed from the start. It has a good cast but that did little to save it. The fact that Chucky was a rogue AI instead of being possessed by the soul of a serial killer took away a lot of the inherent evil from the doll and, in fact, made Chucky the sympathetic character. 

Child's Play (2019) gets a 4 out of 11

The Bye Bye Man

Wow, where to start. Maybe with the premise and then I'll talk about my disappointment? Sure. Here we go:

Three friends move into a rundown house and stumble upon a name that, once said, will haunt you until you die. Don't think it, don't say it, don't talk about The Bye Bye Man. 

This had so much potential. It could have been really cool, but it makes one too many mistakes. The first is the characters are idiots AND the woman who plays Sasha was horrible. It's like someone took a real person and sucked their soul out and still made them act in a movie. She's as uninspired and boring as Elle Fanning and Jennifer Lawrence but without the fame. The other actors were just okay and not enough to save a poorly thought out film.

The Bye Bye Man never felt like a villain. All he does is make you start to see things so either you kill yourself or you start killing others. He could be replaced by a new street drug and the movie wouldn't change. His appearances were never scary and he felt like a half hearted Candyman rip off that was written to be PG-13. 

The movie wasn't scary it wasn't thrilling, it was boring and had a ton of wasted potential. 

The Bye Bye Man gets a 4 out of 11

Halloween 2

Yes, this is an old film and it's the first rewatch this season. We always rewatch quite a few Halloween films but this one is usually left behind. We watch Halloween 1 and the reboot, we watch 4 and 5 because they're the Jaimie movies. We watch 3 because it's rediculous and funny, but 2 gets left behind. We even make a point to watch H20 because it's my wife's favorite one.

If you're not familiar, Halloween 2 takes place right after the first one and has Michael Myers hunting for Laurie Strode as she's laid up in a hospital. this is the film where we learn that Michael is Laurie's brother. This is also the first film cut out in the new cannon by the 2018 reboot, which was still a really weird choice.

It's not as good as the first, but it does help make Michael a slasher legend as it ups his body count by 10. The best thing about Halloween 2 is that it's not the Rob Zombie version. Rob Zombie is highly overrated.

Halloween 2 gets a 7.5 out of 11

The Boy

An American nanny is shocked that her new English family's boy is actually a life-sized doll. After she violates a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive. (Premise from IMDB)

I had wanted to watch this one for a while but never got around to it. Thanks to the wonders of streaming services, I got to watch this and was pleasantly surprised. Though the film is 4 years old, I will avoid spoilers which means that this will be a short wrap up.

This movie impressed me because it was quite creepy, had good characters, AND it even surprised me with the direction it took. I like it when a horror movie can surprise me and do so in an interesting way. After the ending of this book I'm still surprised they did a sequel, but it may be worth checking out.

The Boy gets an 8 out of 11.