Bria Lou Reviews

  The life and legacy of pop superstar Michael Jackson (Jaafar Jackson). I have to preface this review by saying that I wouldn't consider myself a fan of Michael Jackson's life or music, and I probably wouldn't have seen this if I hadn't watched it with actual fans, so my thoughts on it will be different than if I was a big fan. As it stands, I thought the film was fine. I didn't love it, but I wouldn't say it was bad either. Though some of that is definitely tied to not being a fan. If you're not interested in Michael's history then the story itself isn't that interesting. That being said, it does a good job of giving you an insight into the struggles he went through, and definitely draws sympathy. The story became somewhat incoherent when it moved from childhood to adulthood, but individually both periods of the character's life had merit and made for interesting individual stories. The thing that lets the story down is the writing. This would ...

  I'd never heard of this film, but it had a really interesting (if vague) premise, so I was looking forward to seeing it. I liked this film. It gets into the action right away - we're meeting characters, we're seeing murders, at 12 minutes in we're already invested. I really liked the development of the relationship between the main character and the journalist. It's always interesting in horror movies when we get relationship development, whether romantic or platonic, in the midst of some horrific event. Sometimes these relationships are the most compelling when they're not the main focus of the story. It has a really interesting score and soundtrack. It almost feels out of place with the tone of the film, but for some reason, it works. Not only is it memorable, but it underscores the scenes in a way that really makes you pay attention. While looking up some of the background of the film, I saw that there was a significant difference between the original Itali...

  When Jill's (Zoey Deutch) voicemails to her late sister are redirected to a stranger (Nick Robinson), he begins to fall in love with her by listening to her stories. I really loved the premise of this film, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Thankfully, I loved the movie! Considering we only got to see the sisters together for the first 10 minutes of the film, it does a really good job of building a believable friendship and connection that carries through the entire movie. If anything, it would have been nice to see more of them together. In terms of being a rom-com, it's more romantic than comedic, but it definitely has fun rom-com vibes throughout. Deutch and Robinson have great chemistry and you want to root for them. That being said, it's really hard to tell this story without having the male character come across as slightly creepy for the decisions he makes. It's a shame because he's a really likeable character, but even if you can rationalise some of h...

  This is a re-watch that I was really looking forward to. I love this movie and have seen it multiple times so I was really glad to see it on the list. And as always, I loved it on this re-watch too. It hits you over the head from the very beginning. That opening scene is so brutal, and comes so out of nowhere that you have no idea where the film is going.  It's nice to get to know the characters, but we don't get to know them enough to easily differentiate between them. Before they get into the cave, a lot of them are interchangeable, and in the cave with low light, it can get way too easy to get people mixed up. We get into the cave quickly, and once we do, the anticipation never really lets up. Even on a first time blind watch, with no idea what could happen, the atmosphere alone is so tense and unsettling that you're just waiting for something bad to happen. A lot of the dialogue feels inauthentic or hits the ear wrong, but because the plot is so strong it doesn't ...

  A novelist (Adam Scott) staying in a remote inn in Ireland is forced to confront his dark past after hearing tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. This has been such a great year for original horror. Whether the movies are good or not, I've been really enjoying getting to see them all! Unfortunately, I didn't love the movie. That being said, the main character, Ohm Bauman, is a great example of how to create an unlikeable character that you still want to follow and stay interested in.  The beginning feels very odd and discombobulated. It's quite hard to get into or take seriously, and then it starts to feel like a fever dream. The scenes feel disconnected from each other in a way that makes it hard to stay interested in. Though this does add to our impression of the character's state of mind. It also adds to the horror atmosphere. The horrors are overt from the very beginning, which feels original. They come thick and fast, and they don't really let up. T...

  This was a re-watch that I was looking forward to. I'd only seen the film once before this watch, so many years ago that I couldn't remember it, and even the 2021 sequel doesn't stick in my mind, so I felt like I was going into this one fresh-ish. I really like this movie. Not enough horror movies make use of urban legends, and it's such an easy topic to create a scary movie out of. This one does a really good job of creating a myth around a figure, and actually making it scary, before we really get into the story. It moves slowly, but you become so invested in the story that you don't even notice, or really care. You become so wrapped up in the legend of Candyman, and the writing does a really great job of creating it in a way that gives the whole story a tense and creepy undertone without us having to see him, or even knowing if the legend is really true. But they also do a great job of making the story powerful. The scene where we are told the story of what hap...

  After her husband is murdered, patrol officer Jane (Georgina Campbell) sets out to find the killer. I knew this film would be bad. I saw the ratings, I read the description, I went into it with my eyes completely open. I mainly watched it as a fan of Georgina Campbell, but also because I do genuinely like to occasionally watch bad movies, even if it just makes me appreciate how good the good ones are. So this was completely as expected. For a start, you can kind of tell it's going to be bad with a name like this. This is the absolute worst title to give a film about a psycho killer. The story itself isn't the most entertaining. It doesn't do enough to make us care about the characters. At the beginning I thought it might - the opening scene gave a lot of promise, but things quickly went downhill from there. The weakest scenes are the scenes with the killer. Not only do they feel totally unrealistic, but they're not even entertaining to watch. The movie tries to be bot...

  Jet is a procrastinator, still waiting for her life to begin. But after a violent attack on Halloween, Jet's time has run out. With doctors certain she'll die in seven days, she decides to finally do something worthwhile, the last thing she'll ever do - solve her own murder. I'm a fan of Holly Jackson and have read all of her novels, so reading this one was a no-brainer. But the premise itself was so interesting that I probably would have picked it up anyway. It took me a while to get into this book, but when I did, I absolutely loved it! One of my main issues at the beginning of the book had to do with Jet as a character. She felt a lot younger than she actually was, and while I really like reading books about protagonists in their late 20s and older, reading this still felt like reading YA, which felt a bit jarring. You don't really get to know most of the characters, and of the few that you do, it takes a long time. And when you don't know them, it's ha...

  This is another film that I'd never heard of before the bucket list, and I didn't really know what it was about before putting it on so I went in blind. I liked this movie. It gets right into things from the very first second, immediately engaging the audience in a really effective way. We don't know the context of the situation or who these people are, but we don't need to. The story is really compelling. We're thrown into this world, with a character who could be either a victim of a villain, and neither we as the audience, the characters around him, nor he himself, really know which one he is. The characters are great to watch. Between the 'horror' moments, the film kind of plays like a drama. We get to see the different relationship dynamics, we get to know who these people are, and the more interested we are in them, the more invested we are when the 'horror' moments happen. Because the film is so short, there's a limit to how much can hap...

  A team of specialist operatives work together to retrieve a billion-dollar fortune. I was wary about this film, not just because the premise was quite vague, but because I don't tend to enjoy Guy Richie movies (with a couple of exceptions). But because of the cast, I wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, I didn't love this one. From the beginning, nothing about the film felt particularly original. The concept of the mission, and the characters, felt like amalgamations of other things that have already been seen. The voiceover was telling the audience way too much, rather than letting us figure things out by ourselves. The movie never tries to make the audience care about the mission. It does try to make us care about a select few characters, but even then this isn't particularly effective. It moves really quickly and is more than happy to leave the audience behind - it doesn't care if we catch up or not. Throughout the film some of the acting cho...

  One thing I would add to the bucket list is a lot more psychological horrors. I feel like this is a really underrated sub-genre, particularly when looking at classic movies, so even though I knew nothing about this movie, seeing it classed as a psychological horror made me excited to see it. I liked this film. The best thing about movies like this is the way everything builds. Going in blind, you don't even really know what the movie is about, so you get to fall deeper and deeper into it in the same way that the main character does. The pace is great, a lot happens in a short space of time. You're immediately invested, and the more room there is for weirder things to happen, the more interested you are. This does sometimes make the film feel longer than it is, as it packs a lot into a short time, but because you're interested in what's happening the runtime never really becomes an issue. As the audience, we feel like we're living in this apartment alongside the ch...

  Disowned by his wealthy family, Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) will stop at nothing to get his inheritance. I didn't hear great things about this film when it first came out, but the premise sounded interesting, and I've liked Glen Powell in the few films I've seen him in, so it was added to my watchlist. I thought the film was fine - nothing special but I did enjoy it. The idea, while not the most original concept, is an interesting one that allows you to really focus on the character. The outcome of a story like this is completely dependant on what kind of character we're following. It took me a while to really understand or like the character of Becket. The voice-over didn't really work for me, and I never felt particularly interested in him, which is more about the writing than the acting as I do think Powell played him well, he was great in the role and felt suited to it. And to that end, the entire cast is great and make the story fun to watch. Sometimes the...

The film is called 'Mask of Satan' on the bucket list poster and I actually prefer that name! I'd never heard of this film before seeing it on the bucket list, but the premise looked really interesting so I was looking forward to seeing it. I liked this film, but I feel like the idea of it was better than the execution, at least for me. Witches and witchcraft are always interesting genres for horror movies, and there's definitely not enough of them on the list. But combining that with revenge and female rage is such a great idea and makes for a satisfying watch. But this film also manages to be a vampire movie, which turns the typical witch movie on its head. I probably would have preferred it to lean further into the witch aspect but I appreciate the way these are mixed. I wanted to see a lot more of the female characters. Their stories carried the film, so I wanted to know as much about them as possible. And while we do follow them, it wasn't enough for my liking....

  I hadn't heard of this film before the bucket list, and the premise was a bit vague so it felt like going in blind. Unfortunately I didn't love this one. This is a 1973/4 movie, but even for the 70s, everything feels old-fashioned. And it doesn't seem that this was a stylistic choice; it wasn't set further in the past. If I had to guess the time period I would have said much earlier. We're thrown into the story with not much context. We don't know who we're following or why, which is a positive and negative. On the one hand, we're able to understand the main character's frame of mind because she's also in a new place with no context for what the town is. But on the other hand, it makes it harder to get into the story. And for me it was hard to get into for quite a while. The film is at its best when it really leans into the horror. Sometimes subtle horror really works, but for this one in particular I would have preferred much more overt horror...