Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween 2022: Day Two: Orphan: First Kill (2022)

I am always a little skeptical about sequels because they can usually never capture the magic of the original, but there are some films that are exceptions. We saw some success head the way of Evil Dead II, The Devil’s Rejects, Halloween II, Friday The 13TH Part II, and so many more. It is also risky to do a prequel as your second film when the original came out 13 years before and that is definitely the case with today’s film in Orphan: First Kill which was directed by William Brent Bell (The Boy) and it once again stars Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan) as Esther, everyone’s favorite 30 year old with a disease that makes her look like a child. The film tells the story of how Esther was able to escape a mental institution in Estonia only to make her way to the United States as the long lost missing daughter of a wealthy couple who begin to suspect that she may not be telling the truth. The film also stars Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) as Tricia Albright, Rossif Sutherland (Possessor) as Allen Albright, Matthew Finlan (My Fake Boyfriend) as Gunner Albright, Hiro Kanagawa (The Man In The High Castle) as Detective Donnan, Samantha Walkes (Good Sam) as Doctor Segar, Gwendolyn Collins (The Return) as Anna, David Lawrence Brown (The Grudge) as Dr. Novotny, and Lauren Cochrane (I Am Somebody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story) as Officer Leahy.

One of the problems they could have run into when doing this film was what if Isabelle Fuhrman looked too old to play the part of Esther 13 years later. I mean she played the role when she was 10 year old the first time so it was kind of believable then. That was a huge risk/reward situation there for these guys, but it paid off for the most part thanks to make up, but even then they couldn’t completely hide the fact that she had gotten older, but she still managed to look small enough for the role. If you are expecting huge slasher moments in this film, you get it right in the beginning because the movie all of a sudden does an 180 and the complexity of the film completely changes. It’s almost as if she goes from being this villain to being an anti-hero as the film progresses because after all she is looking for love and to belong no matter how she needs to get there. It was such a crazy turn of events that I did not see it coming and I was actually pleasantly very happy about that. That is how in my opinion you win people over when you try to do a sequel so many years after the original or prequel I should be saying. I actually enjoyed the film and where they took it that I definitely recommend this one to anyone that has Paramount Plus or whatever app you use to watch your films. They took a huge risk with this one and I have to say that it definitely paid off, but I am going to give the film an B+ for a final grade because some of the cgi was a little weak in the film. Check out the Podcast version by visiting these links: Amazon, Anchor, Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora

Trailers Part Quatro

For today’s Trailers Part Quatro (number four in Portuguese), we are going to look at some movie trailers of upcoming films. I’ll tell you exactly what I think as to whether I think it’s worth my time, but you never know it could be worth yours. Trailers can be misleading like the one to The Witch, but sometimes they are accurate. Let’s check out some trailers:

Hairmetal Shotgun Zombie Massacre– That is not a typo my friends, that is the name of the film. I love b-movie/low budget horror films that mix in my favorite genre of music and let me tell you I am super excited for this one. It says it’s the bastard child of Evil Dead and Heavy Metal Parking Lot and it looks good from the soundtrack to the film itself. The film even features cameos from heavy metal titans like Slayer’s Tom Araya, Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe, and Morbid Angel’s David Vincent. Check it out for yourself below and check out their Facebook page here:

Sadako Vs Kayako– Are you a fan of The Ring or The Grudge franchises? Then I may have the movie for you right now. Did you ever wonder what it would be like if the ghosts from both films fought each other? The teaser trailer that is out there doesn’t show you much other than what the two ghosts do, but this should be interesting. In theaters June 2016

10 Cloverfield Lane– The first trailer didn’t really tell us much about the film other than the fact that they are in a bomb shelter and John Goodman does not want them to leave. In the second trailer, we find out that she (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) was in a car accident and he supposedly saved her from a chemical disaster of some sort. She starts to question why they are there and it could be that Goodman is the monster. J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) is attached to this film which means my butt will be in a seat seeing this. In theaters March 10, 2016

Pete’s Dragon– On the lighter side of things, we have the new Disney film Pete’s Dragon which is about a boy who claims he was never alone in the woods for the six years he spent out there alone. The film also stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Robert Redford. To be honest, probably not a film I will go to the theaters to watch even though it looks good.

Alice Through The Looking Glass– I have never seen the first film and it was because of the fact that I hated the way Johnny Depp looked and was convinced Tim Burton was ruining classics. Now I may have to give that film a shot just so I know what is going on in this one because it looks visually stunning to say the least. In theaters this summer.

Ass Whoopin Wednesdays: Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

Once again, we are continuing on our countdown to Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation with our Ass Whoopin Wednesdays presents the Mission: Impossible series. For today’s film, we are looking at Mission: Impossible 2 which was the sequel that took four years to make and once again stars Tom Cruise (Top Gun) as our favorite IMF Agent Ethan Hunt. This time around, a deadly virus that was created by a scientist named Dr. Nekhorvich (Radé Sherbedgia) called Chimera which has been stolen by a former IMF agent named Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) and he plans to sell it in the market for lots of money. With the help of a former girlfriend of Ambrose (Thandie Newton), Hunt has to destroy both the virus and the cure before it gets into the wrong hands. The film also stars Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction) as Luther, Anthony Hopkins (The Silence Of The Lambs) as Swanbeck, Richard Roxburgh (Van Helsing) as Hugh Stamp, John Polson (Swimfan) as Billy, Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) as McCloy, William Mapother (The Grudge) as Wallis, Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) as Ulrich, and the film was directed by John Woo (Face/Off). Let’s check out some stats from the film before we get into the review of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can definitely tell the difference between the first film and this one just by who the director of the film is which happens to be John Woo. Just from that little piece of info, you know that the action sequences are going to be more epic and more outrageous because let’s go for broke after all. For one, Ethan Hunt knows some bad ass martial arts moves in this film and his kills/knockouts count triples in this film than what it was in the first film as he has 26 kills/knockouts overall. Once again, Ethan has no origin story to speak of in this film, but he does gain a love interest and he has a sexual conquest with her. In the film, she is infected with Chimera virus so Ethan is on the hunt for the cure before it is too late and the big boss is eventually defeated. Now the question going into this film is do I think that it was better than the first film? To be honest with you, while the action was turned up a notch for this film, I still find the first film to be better than this one. There was  more of a clever story in the first one than there was in this one, but this film is still pretty good in it’s own right. One thing that it has working for them is the cinematography as we get some great shots of Sydney, Australia during the film. While the rest of the series is not available to stream on Netflix as we speak, the first two films in the series are and you should definitely check them out if you love the whole action spy espionage thing that so many of us have craved for years which is why we continue to love James Bond. I am going to give this film four fists out of five for a final grade.