danielkarlsson-59736 Reviews

Hagan Reviews: Gayniggers from Outer Space (2012) Season 2, Episode 12

Curious but enjoyable.

[8/10 · 19 March 2024]

A funny yet thought-provoking film about masculine ideals of loyalty and friendship across barriers of language, technology and cultures.

Although the special effects have not aged well, they serve their purpose.

Unfortunately the visual and audio quality of the film is unimpressive, due to the old recording technology and (presumably) from budget constraints.

The actors seem, by an large, to be amateurs but they take on the roles with a proper professional attitudes.

The film is quite short, running at just over 20 minutes and can be found for free on youtube.

The message of the film remains as true as ever: Strive to be kind and always fight to liberate your fellow man.

High-Rise (2015)

Not so bad.

[6/10 · 1 February 2024]

I found this filme to be interesting and enjoyable.

The plot isn't particularly complex but does give some insight into how a society can deteriorate even on a comparatively small level. It also shows how at least temporary isolation can happen in the midst of a modern metropolis.

The mood is similar to A Clockwork Orange, not in the least thanks to the bleak, even misanthropic, view of human nature.

It as been stated, with good cause, to be somewhat pretentious and unfocused. However, I found myself willing to bear it thanks to the fine acting and the evocative setting.

Although I have full understanding how this is not an appealing film to a lot of people, I just happened to enjoy it.

Andor (2022– )

Good show

[8/10 · 26 November 2023]

Far from flawless but gritty and tense.

Actors do a great job and the parallell plots keeps things exciting.

ISB career intrigue, upperclass finance/political shenanigans and boots-on-the ground field work and action blend together well.

You can see that the budget wasn't the biggest. Space battles and comparatively few non-humans. Are shown on screen, compared to other installments of the franchise.

I asumme this is due to budgetary restraints, but despite (or perhaps because of) this, the show pulls you in.

The combination of espionage, conspiracies, intrigue, heists, escapes and action makes Andor well worth watching in my opnion.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Decent work

[7/10 · 9 July 2023]

I enjoyed the film a lot.

The world is a high-magic setting from a RPG and the FX and script strive hard to show this.

The plot is simple enough. Your standard "save the world from evil magics" with plenty of heist-elements , action, cheap humour and a pleasant amount of character development.

It was nice to see Michelle Rodriguez again and Hugh Grant seems to revel in his smarmy role.

Altogether the actors do solid, professional work and play off well against each other.

Although the RPG-medium doesn't translate well to film at all times, the film does a decent job at it.

Sets and scenery are quite well made and add to the temporary suspension of disbelief.

Simply put, I found it to be a nice chunk of entertainment and that's all I ever wanted from it. Given the uneven quality of products in the fantasy genre over the years, I was happily surprised.

Dinosaur Island (1994)

Stupid but honest about it.

[4/10 · 28 May 2023]

It's not a good film, and the film knows it and just rolls with it The plot is your basic "armed people arrive at exotic locale and deal with monsters"-fare.

The lines are cheesy and the acting is hammy but at least the actors seem to have some fun.

Any flaws (and there are many of those) are hidden by plentiful amounts of T&A and the occasional erotic soft-core scene.

Some exposition also helps the film become at least borderline coherent.

What little budget there was, they spent on bad (even for the time) FX. Hopefully the actors got paid.

The film is cut rather poorly.

Still, it does live up to the promise of an island and it does have dinosaurs.

I can fault it for many things but not dishonesty.

I got a few laughs out of it at least.

Color Out of Space (2019)

Very Enjoyable

[8/10 · 30 April 2023]

I liked this film a lot.

Not in the least, thanks to the indoor sets which create a suiably alien feeling and Nicolas Cage can really ham it up, showing a man's descent into madness from the alien influence of The Color.

FX are a bit over the top but in this instance it really doesn't harm the experience.

The added surreal effects just serves to further emphasize the "otherness" of the whole ordeal that the characters are forced to endure.

I can absolutely understand those who have some criticisms of the film, or if it's not everyone's cup of proverbial tea, but it certainly did a good job for me.

As a whole I consider it second only to Die Farbe as far as adaptions of a Lovecraft work.

Definitely worth watching.

Mean Guns (1997)

Entertaining violence

[7/10 · 23 October 2022]

It's Albert Pyun, so you pretty much go in expecting a bad movie.

Nonetheless it is surprisingly clever and the violence, and it is plentiful, serves to move the plot forwards.

A swathe of B-list actors keeps the quality of the acting servicable and provide some professionalism.

Themes of redemption, purgatory and hints of the afterlife provides a veneer of intellectual depth. Of course, as far as most of the audience is concerned, I think this is all "window dressing".

Some scenes are inexplicably hallucinatory, perhaps implying some of the characters are drugged or just plain insane.

But at the end of the day it's just a violent action romp.

And to me, that's all I expected and wanted.

I liked it a lot.

Draug (2018)

Flawed but watchable

[5/10 · 10 September 2022]

The Good: The plot is fairly straightforward and makes for good horror/mystery.

Sets and surroundings are very good. The use of Swedish summer wilderness saves a lot of money and provides a suitable mood.

FX are servicable, but only barely so.

The Bad: Suffers from a lot of problems with pacing The use of filters to simulate night time/darkness is a bit overdone.

The actors tend to overact, as is often the case with Swedish actors in my experience.

A little bit more exposition would have made things easier to follow.

Summary: All in all it is, as is so often the case with low-budget productions, a film of unused potential.

Still, the effort was valiant and the choice of topics was comparatively inventive.

Expect no masterpiece because this is not it. Nonetheless, if you're into (late) viking era stuff and horror and norse mythlogy, it can provide you with some entertainment.

The Barbarians (1987)

Not without merit

[6/10 · 21 August 2022]

Although certainly a silly film, the plot holds together quite well.

The actors seem to have a genuinely good time and are all amping up the hamminess to to the max which makes it all work.

A lot of cheese- and beefcake, sets that are occasionally quite good, some nice shots of pretty landscapes and a wardrobe that seems like someone looted both Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian also increases the fun of it all.

The action scenes are decent and there is even a peculiar reference to The Niebelungen by Wagner when the protagonists take on a dragon.

The music score is generally just fine, except for the strange choice of a perfectly regular pop song at the end.

If you want Sword and Sorcery action, the occasional chuckle and quite a few shots of fine bodies, this is a film for you.

Vilse i pannkakan (1975)

Surreal but well made.

[8/10 · 10 August 2022]

I grew up watching this.

The table flipping over to become a landscape in a giant pancake always amazed me.

There is a strong element of surrealism and a lot of socio-political commentary (which was normal in Swedish television at the time), a lot of which went way over my young head.

Some parts were scary for a child (like the Grand Potato and The Parents) but that just added to the thrill.

The puppets and dolls were very well made too.

It is definitely not for everyone but it nonetheless has to be considered a Swedish TV-classic.

Morbius (2022)

Decent.

[6/10 · 5 August 2022]

90 minutes of action entertainment.

It's all I asked for and it's exactly what I got.

The actors do a good job and the plot doesn't have all that many more holes than any other MCU-film.

I don't think it's nearly as bad as the detractors claim.

Take it for what it is and you'll probably enjoy it a bit more.

Blood Moon (II) (2014)

A solid movie despite low budget.

[7/10 · 27 May 2022]

The script is quite well written and the actors all do a good job with what are fairly (intentionally so, I assume) flat characters, portraying them as reasonably intelligent in the face of a poorly understood enemy.

It suffers quite a bit in the FX department and some of the props are so-so. The sets and costumes are quite good, however.

All in all I found it to be a very enjoyable "weird west" horror film.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Gruesome and well made.

[8/10 · 28 April 2022]

I was unsettled by this film, which is a good thing since it's a horror movie.

The actors all do a great job and the plot is tight and terrifying.

In some way I feel it is akin to The Hills Have Eyes but much more well done and placed in a different era.

The sense of isolation and the grotesque and utterly wicked villains does wonders for the mood.

If you are sensitive to graphic violence and cruelty this might not be a film for you, but if not, I highly recommend Bone Tomahawk.

Weird West is a genre that deserves more attention and this is a story in the genre that is done right.

The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire (1981 TV Movie)

A mixed bag

[6/10 · 3 April 2022]

For a TV-pilot it was quite ambitious.

The premise is perfectly adequate and the actors do good jobs with what they have.

I think it could have been a good TV-series for its time.

However, the special effects haven't aged very well and the music is so off the overall feel of the film, it becomes more annoying and jarring than enjoyable.

Still, I give it high rating for a lot of good ideas. Maybe it deserves a second chance and a remake?

Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991)

Not good but fun

[5/10 · 27 October 2021]

It's a campy film and none of the actors seem to take it seriously.

Neither did the writers, by the look and sound of it.

Everyone seems to have fun while making the film, however.

It has a pair of cool stop-motion monsters.

If you like it cheesy and tongue-in-cheek, with hot ladies and brawny guys you might enjoy this film.

But don't expect an epic masterpiece.

The Last Broadcast (1998)

It works well enough.

[5/10 · 3 October 2021]

A reasonably well made mystery/mockumentary.

The ending wasn't super-surprising but not less believable than in many other films on similar themes.

The actors do a passable job.

All in all, if you have some time to kill and don't expect high art, I'd say it's a servicable little film.

Boss Nigger (1974)

Great fun western

[6/10 · 6 September 2021]

I found this film to be a solid low-budget western/blaxploitation movie.

The actors seem to genuinely enjoy themselves and it shows.

D'urville Martin and Fred Williamson play off each other to great effect.

William Smith also does a fine job as a brawny villain and the fight scenes really gets the adrenaline pumping.

Granted, the limited budget shows here and there, but to me that just adds to the charm of this rip-roaring, two-fisted film.

Carnage Park (2016)

Good enough script, competent actors.

[6/10 · 20 August 2021]

It's no masterpiece and the premise is pretty much your standard "madman in the wilderness"-fare.

You can easily spot where the inspiration comes from.

Nonetheless, it's a passable survival-thriller.

The script is acceptable and the actors all do a surprsingly good job.

An overuse of jump scares is annoying but not enough to ruin the film.

It's not cerebral in the slightest, but I found it to be servicable entertainment.

Wilderness (I) (2006)

Not a bad film.

[6/10 · 18 July 2021]

It's a decent survival thriller.

The actors do a good job, even though the characters are not all that very well developed. Monetheless everyone's motivations are clear enough.

The setting is isolated, as per the demands of the genre and the violence is suiably desperate and gory.

It holds no major surprises but I found it well worth watching.

Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Good, wonky action fun

[6/10 · 14 June 2021]

The wild-west inspiration is obvious.

It could just as easily have been made as a "regular" horror-western, and perhaps a remake/reimaging will make it so.

The sets are OK, the CGI is so-so.

The actors are doing a decent job and all in all, the film accomplishes what it sets out to do: A two-fisted action-romp with a splash of horror and gore.

It's not high art but it is silly fun and good enough for an evening along with popcorn and soda.

Star Wars: Resistance (2018–2020)

It's pretty OK

[6/10 · 26 May 2021]

Although far from a masterpeice, I found this to be passable entertainment.

I found the art and animation a little bit jarring at first but once I got used to it, Resistance turned out to be a decent stand-alone story, despite having a few issues with pacing here and there.

Association with the "Sequel films" probably did this show a lot more damage than it deserved.

Record of the Lodoss War (1990–1991)

Well worth watching

[7/10 · 19 May 2021]

One of the first anime I ever saw, so I may be more than a little biased.

Nonetheless, it is quite good.

The main characters are likeable and so are some of the villains.

The plot is standard fantasy-fare but it works very well within the context.

Although animation is weak on occasion, the quality of the script and voice acting makes up for it.

7/10 for sheer charm.

Dog Soldiers (2002)

I liked it a lot.

[7/10 · 17 May 2021]

To be honest, this is pretty much the only werewolf movie I have genuinely enjoyed.

The actors do their job well, the special effects are good enough.

Even if there are a few plotholes, these can easily be overlooked and suspoension of disbelief maintained.

The werewolves themselves look sutiably inhuman and creepy, memorable one-liners provide the occasional laugh and the fighting is exciting and keeps you in suspense.

If you are into werewolf horror I strongly recommend this film.