Tag: Nicolas Cage

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Worst Films: #5: Color Out of Space (2019)

The Portly Politico21 Comments

We’re really getting into the dregs with these worst movies.  This point is where it starts getting hard for me, too—it’s easy to write about any movie, but having to think about the worst ones is surprisingly difficult.

As I had to travel out of town this weekend for a late family member’s memorial service, I decided to use the tactic to which all bloggers must, at times, resort:  reusing an older post.

The film is legitimately bad, and I really would place it on this list.  So, why not kill two birds with one bad film?

Last June, my blogger buddy photog over at Orion’s Cold Fire and I both published reviews of 2019’s The Color Out of Space simultaneously (you can read his screed against this cinematic butchering of the the Lovecraft story here: https://orionscoldfire.com/index.php/2021/06/14/color-out-of-space-2019-a-science-fiction-and-fantasy-movie-review/).

He’d written a brief blog post comparing Nicolas Cage to William Shatner.  In it, he announced that Nicolas Cage starred in an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story, “The Colour Out of Space.”

Naturally, I immediately went to RedBox and (with a coupon code, of course) and rented The Color Out of Space on-demand.  As a fan of Lovecraft’s weird tales and Nicolas Cage’s weird acting, I had to see this film.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Prisoners of Ghostland (2021) and Incident in a Ghostland (2018)

The Portly Politico10 Comments

Today marks the official start of my glorious Thanksgiving Break.  My sage advice—to sacrifice Columbus Day as a day off in exchange for an entire week of freedom for Thanksgiving—has apparently, via osmosis, found its way to my school’s administration, and after slogging it out for three months, we’re finally reaping the benefits of that sacrifice.

This past weekend was also the first time in a few weeks I did not have to travel out of town for one reason or another, so I have watched a lot of movies on Shudder—the good, the bad, and the forgettable (I also managed to get in a late-night session of Civilization VI, eschewing my most recent playthrough as the Celts and cranking up a new run as the Incan Empire, which is slowly expanding across South America at the time of this writing).  I managed to catch two flicks with the word “Ghostland” in their titles, one memorable and somewhat good, the other absolutely terrible:  2021’s Prisoners of Ghostland and 2018’s Incident in a Ghostland, respectively.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Color Out of Space (2019)

The Portly Politico18 Comments

My blogger buddy photog over at Orion’s Cold Fire I are both publishing our reviews of The Color Out of Space simultaneously.  You can read his screed against this cinematic butchering of the Lovecraft story here:  https://orionscoldfire.com/index.php/2021/06/14/color-out-of-space-2019-a-science-fiction-and-fantasy-movie-review/

A few weeks ago, my blogger buddy photog over at Orion’s Cold Fire wrote a brief blog post comparing Nicolas Cage to William Shatner.  In it, he announced that Nicolas Cage starred in an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story, “The Colour Out of Space.”

Naturally, I immediately went to RedBox and (with a coupon code, of course) and rented The Color Out of Space on-demand.  As a fan of Lovecraft’s weird tales and Nicolas Cage’s weird acting, I had to see this film.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

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Back in 2014 the indie game Five Nights at Freddy’s fired the imaginations and nightmares of gamers with its twitchy, fast-paced, stressful management of a low-powered security camera system and a couple of security doors.  The premise of the game is simple:  survive the night as a security guard while the animatronics at a haunted pizzeria come to life.

The game trades on the creepiness of those old Showbiz Pizza (later Chuck E. Cheese) robot concerts and their terrifying characters.  While that ill-fated pizza franchise has struggled with bankruptcy, the interest in deadly animatronics slaying unsuspecting night watchman and would-be pie lovers has only grown.

It’s not surprising, then, that Hollywood would take note of Five Nights at Freddy’s success and attempt to capitalize on this very specific horror niche.  2019 saw the release of The Banana Splits Movie, a horror comedy ludicrously based on the late 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Banana Splits.

I haven’t seen The Banana Splits Movie (though it’s definitely on my list of “weird things to watch”), but I have seen the most recent entry into the subgenre of animatronics horror:  2021’s Willy’s Wonderland, starring Nicolas Cage in a role completely counter to the over-the-top acting style Cage usually employs:  he doesn’t speak a single word in the entire film.

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