Bria Lou Reviews

  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...