The Babysitter (2017) 1h 25m

I've heard mixed things about this Netflix original.  It's a McG production and, despite sounding like a forgotten 90's McDonald's mascot, you probably recognize that name if you've ever watched the credits to an episode of Supernatural... or Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.  I'm not going to judge you, the Charlie's Angels remakes were actually trashy good.  Just avoid the PS2 game as it's stick your dick in salted glass shards bad.  Now the question is, is The Babysitter that bad?

I just had to look at the IMDB because I forgot everyone's name in this.  Cole is one of those super geek kids that is supposed to be 12 but looks like he is about to graduate high school.  He has an awkward knowledge of sex (despite being able to look up and read the entirety of the plot to Mad Men in a night), thinks Pluto should be a planet again, and still has a babysitter.  Enter Bee: the super cool/hot older girl that Cole has a crush on because puberty crushes on your babysitter isn't weird at all.  Of course that gets complicated by the fact that Cole finds out that Bee is running a demonic cult ritual in his living room while he sleeps.  Complete with murder, stereotypes, and the Korean-American girl from the Pitch Perfect films.

Do you like my script?

I wanted to give this movie a fair shot, despite what I had heard.  I made it about twenty minutes into it before I was pretty much done.  It's one of those movies where I picture the person that wrote the script and I assume it's the Steve Buscemi meme of "how's do you do, fellow kids?"

From there it had the goofiness of Murder Party but none of the heart.  The cheerleader is obsessed with her gun shot tit, the jock attempts to get Cole to stand up to his bully while simultaneously trying to kill him, and I don't even remember what happens to the black guy in the movie because that's how unmemorable they made him.  Also, why the hell is the ground so foggy?!  That's probably something bad and you should move!  It'll make your balls shrink or something.

The only thing The Babysitter has going for it is its use of licensed music.  When we first meet Bee it's cued in by Peaches "Boys Wanna Be Her" which has that dirty 70's two-note guitar riff which probably has the power to give erections in some cultures.  We also get the ending scene backed by Queen's "We Are the Champions," but it doesn't fit as well.  Shaun of the Dead already used "Don't Stop Me Now" perfectly, so I think this should've been swapped out with some "Stone Cold Crazy" or maybe the guitar solo into the end of "Death on Two Legs."  I would much rather write about Queen songs than this movie, in case you couldn't tell. 

I give The Babysitter a 2 copies of Adventures in Babysitting out of 5 because it has merit, just not that much:

The Veil (2016) 1h 33m

Oooohhhhh shit!  I fucking love cults!  Between this NXIVM stuff that's all coming out, a documentary series on the Rajneesh group from 80's Oregon, and meeting someone currently in a legit cult, I've been getting my fill recently.  Now throw a bunch of supernatural shit in it and I'm all on board.  I don't want to join your cult, I just want to watch the craziness.

Think of the Jim Jones cult, then cut that down in size and put them in the south of rural America.  After this group appears to have all committed suicide, the only remainder is a small girl, Sarah.  Fast forward to her adulthood and an indie documentarian wants to take Sarah back to the land where the cult was and film.  The thing that the crew doesn't know is that more than Sarah have a connection to the events that happened there, and the cult killed themselves because they knew they would come back.

I'm legitimately all in with this film.  The setting is creepy, there are strange unexplained things happening all around them, and throughout the whole film you just keep getting handed more and more pieces to the puzzle.  Then, once it's complete, you're treated to one of those "holy fuck!" moments.  It's worth it, 100% worth it.

I give The Veil 5 cult members out of 5:

White Coffin (a.k.a. Ataud Blanco: El Juego Diabólico) (2016) 1h 15m

You should be familiar with the analogy of something having layers like an onion.  While it makes sense, I've never spent time peeling an onion for anything.  I don't think that I know anyone that has actually been cooking and thought "I need to peel this onion to use it."  With this film though, I finally had a real understanding of what it means to have layers skinned away to reveal the new.

White Coffin takes us on an insane adventure.  Virginia's daughter is kidnapped (after she has already kind of kidnapped her own daughter) by some sort of strange cult.  While in chase with the initial kidnapper our heroine is run off the road by an ambulance and killed in a car crash.  Her body is resurrected from her coffin and thus begins a twisted game of riddles, a white coffin, and multiple women attempting to save their children from this murder cult.

When I read the description of this film I wasn't too into it.  The moment Virginia is resurrected then I was ready for whatever.  This movie had so much going on, but it paced itself well and each reveal became more intense until the finale.   Then the ending became a series of madness upon madness.  I loved this film.  It's one of those movies that I will pull out when I want to have rad discussions with friends after it's done.

I give White Coffin 4 cult members out of 5:

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Kristy (2014) 1h 26m

If modern horror movies have taught me anything, it's that the internet was created by the devil to do the devil's work.  This blog: the devil's, Netflix: the devil's, ordering pizza online: absolutely the devil!  With all this fiber optic satanism running rampant, it's obvious that fake 4Chan cults would pop up, right?

That's kind of the baseline of Kristy.  An online forum known as "/the fold/" hunts down "Kristys."  The women aren't actually named Kristy (well, some might be) but it's a general name used for a girl who has her shit together and is attractive.  They refer to them as "Kristy" by saying that it means "child of Christ" (or something along those lines) and that by killing them they are killing god.  Whatever, it's a cult created on the internet.  The point is this cult has sects around the U.S. and they do these murders while filming on their cell phone cameras and upload them to the site.  Cell phones are the super devil, who is stronger than the regular devil!!

One group decides to go after this girl Justine who is staying on her campus over Thanksgiving because she's an idiot and is taking college too seriously.  This cult sect of a woman in a hood and three guys with shitty duct tape/tin foil masks begin fucking shit up on the like three people that are still working on the campus, a dog, and try to wreck Justine.

This film wasn't really anything new as far as a slasher/survival horror film.  The internet thing made me think of the show Dark Net (which if you haven't seen, check that shit out).  I do like that Justine isn't just the typical "run up the stairs instead of out the front door" type of heroine.  There are a lot of times she outsmarts the killers and a few times she impressed with her survival skills.  There was a brief moment too where her boyfriend shows up and I was worried this film was going to take the "straight white male savior" route, but he exists to get killed and be the spark that ignites the real survival fire in Justine.

Survival Fire kind of sounds like a sweet band name...

I give Kristy 2 pilgrim turkeys out of 5:

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Day 8: Convergence (2015) 1h 40m

I feel like Convergence was Netflix letting me know not to let my guard down.  I made my mistake yesterday with Baskin and assuming it wasn't going to be good, but it showed me wrong.  For Convergence I thought it was starting out really well and then it just suddenly shit the bed for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good crazy God-cult bad guy and realms existing between the worlds.  My issue comes when they felt the need to take what has been a really good concept with the movie and suddenly introduce the "real world" and do so with ghost hunters.  It's such a fuck you to the whole battle between "good" and "perceived good" that exists in this purgatory realm.  It cheapened it for me.

I had a much longer review for this film all typed up and ready to go but I deleted it to write this.  Why?  Because this film doesn't deserve any form of recap.  You don't need to describe a turd to someone to get the picture.  We all know a piece of shit when we see it.

I give Convergence 2 abandoned hospitals out of 5:

Day 7: Baskin (2015) 1h 37m

There are times in life where you will make horrible mistakes.  While not my worst mistake, writing this film off early was certainly a lack in judgement on my part.  What started off as a slow crawl turned into one of the most insane things I've ever watched.  It's the kind of horror that is in line with the Silent Hill video games where things are so grotesque and twisted you're not sure exactly what you're looking at.

Based off of the short film bearing the same title, the Turkish film Baskin (which translates to "police raid") focuses on what becomes the most surreal night for a group of police officers.  After acting more like a biker gang than cops at a late night restaurant, they receive a call for back-up at a location not far from them.  Along the way a series of strange occurrences happen, such as seeing a naked man run past and something unseen hitting their van and leaving symbols scratched in it.  Then their van hits a bloody man in the road and veers into a deep creek.

This is where we have the first of many dream realm scenes between the rookie and the "boss" of the officers.  We also find that they both see a cloaked man just beyond the door of the room these scenes exist in.  The rookie is pulled from the water and we briefly meet a group of Romani that give them directions to the site they were called to.  This is the point where things began to descend into madness and I became hyper focused on Baskin.

They arrive at a large building to find a single cop inside hitting his head off of a wall.  After he points to a door our cops decide to split up.  Then they enter Hell.  Literally.  As soon as I finished this film I begin extensively looking things up on it.  They don't enter a Dante's Inferno hell, or a fire and brimstone hell, but rather a cultish human-extremes version of hell.  It's an overly sexualized, bloody, grotesque, absolutely insane portrayal of hell.  To top it all off, their leader was this guy:

Mehmet Cerrahoglu

That is not make-up, he has a rare condition.  All they did was slowly add tattoos to his body as time passed.  This is also the only film he has ever been in and he was fucking amazing!  His voice and delivery and his actions kept me rapt on the entire ending of this film.  You are the fuckin' man, Mr. Cerrahoglu!

Watch this movie.  Trust me, it'll be slow to start but when it gets going it really gets going.  I didn't even go into the full details of the insanity because you need to experience it.  When my fiancé and I woke up this morning I instantly started rattling on about the craziness of this film.  Most people just wake up with a kiss and then shower, I gush about satanic cults.

I give Baskin 4 hellmouths out of 5:

photo of Mehmet Cerrahoglu from twitter.com/ellifdagg