The Return of… Movie Night!

It’s been a busy few days with not a lot of time for reading; my birthday was a highlight and work, well… you can guess ;o)

I haven’t been up to much in the evenings then so took the opportunity to try and make a bit of a dent in my watch list on Prime. Let me tell you about what I’ve been watching. Well, some quick thoughts on what I’ve been watching, at least one movie ended up far too forgettable for its own good.

‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves’ (2023)

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people in this hilarious and action-packed adventure.

‘Honour Among Thieves’ and a hefty dose of pizza made for the best way to spend a birthday afternoon. Maybe a little dark in places, for the youngest member of the party, but there was so much else going on that it wasn’t a big issue. I loved it, especially that cameo, even if it wore its ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ influences a little too obviously. Plenty of swordplay along with a vein of humour that caught all three of us at one point or another. Definitely one that I’ll watch again.

‘Elevator Game’ (2023)

Social media leads teenager Ryan's desperate search for his missing sister to a ritual game played in elevators, which allegedly accesses another dimension, guarded by a dead woman.

Every so often, I remember that I still have a Shudder subscription and I have a little flurry of movie watching. This time round, I saw ‘Elevator Game’ and thought why not…? Well, if I’d realised that I’d struggle to remember the film a couple of days later, that’s your ‘why not’ right there. Half of that’s on me, there’s only so much room in my head, at the moment, and something has to be pretty memorable to stay there. And that bit’s on ‘Elevator Game’, there were a couple of bits that made me jump but the rest was a ‘by the numbers, teenagers dying off’ meander and I needed more than that.

‘Sinphony: A Clubhouse Horror Anthology’ (2022)

You know me but if you don’t… I’ve got a real weakness for horror anthology movies and will watch anything that promises three or more stories held together by an overarching narrative. I got half of that here… The stories were a mixture in quality but were all unsettling at the very least. You know what it’s like; some you’ll like but others don’t hit the spot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anthology collection where I’ve enjoyed every single entry. Having said all that, the entry about the lady who didn't want to grow up, that struck a chord in my 'just turned 48 year old soul'.... Okay, 'Do Us Part' was a good one too, made me laugh but also feel a little sorry for the heroine at the same time. What I came away with though was a feeling that there was nothing holding these tales together, nothing particularly tangible anyway, and that’s the whole point of a horror anthology; finding out what drove the individual stories and how they all come together to push that narrative somewhere you weren’t expecting. It may well be my tired head again but I didn’t get that feeling of cohesiveness here and that left me feeling a little cheated.

‘Evil Dead Rise’ (2023)

This was much more like it. I know some people say that the new instalments are missing the humour of the originals, and they’ve got a point, but ‘Evil Dead Rise’ had enough little nods, to the originals, to keep me happy and more than enough jump scares and gore to hold my attention. More than enough of the key ingredients of any ‘Evil Dead’ movie then. I loved it and I’m certain that you’ll enjoy it if you haven’t seen it yet. You’ve seen it though, I’m always the last to these things.

‘Evil Dead Rise’ is another solid addition to the franchise and I’m already looking forward to what’s next.

What have you been watching recently? Anything that you think I’d enjoy? Leave a comment and let me know.