VFW (2019) Blu-ray Review

VFW (2019) d. Joe Begos (USA) (92 min)

After attempting to stretch with his modern vampire flick Bliss, Begos crashes back to earth, seemingly content in being the worst kind of Tarantino imitator, i.e. interested only in serving up “tributes” of established tropes and subgenres under his own byline. Having done body snatcher (Almost Human) and psychokinetic (The Mind’s Eye) flicks, he now offers up a siege film (Assault on Precinct 13 is the obvious model and, yes, I know that John Carpenter was himself riffing off Rio Bravo, thank you very much) combined with Stallone’s The Expendables series by hiring over-the-hill cult actors (Stephen Lang, William Sadler, Martin Kove, Daniel Patrick Kelly, George Wendt, Fred Williamson) to play a group of retired soldiers defending their local watering hole from a horde of strung-out (and wildly ineffectual) druggies.

THE MIST (2007) movie review

Mist, The (2007) d. Darabont, Frank (USA)

In the arc of Darabont’s screen treatments of Stephen King stories, this novella’s long-awaited cinematic incarnation falls somewhere in between the magnificence of The Shawshank Redemption and the not-badness of The Green Mile. Following a massive rainstorm, inhabitants of a small Maine village head to the local grocery store to stock up on supplies. Before their shocked eyes, they witness a strange fog enveloping their town and soon learn that there is something within the mist…something hungry.