"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Obsession

Hey guys, just arrived at the OBSESSION discussion. Got held up by traffic. Is anybody still here? Hello?

Yeah, this movie made by some fresh-faced twenty-something Youtube guy named Curry Barker for less than a million dollars made $519 million in theaters alone. Stuck around forever, got great reviews, became one of the go-to talking points for hammering the big budget super and star related franchise movies that had underperformed around the same time. This and another hugely successful low budget horror movie made by a youth from the internet were pointed to as proof that we’re through the looking glass, it’s a generational shift, Hollywood as we know it is dead, buried and desecrated, it’s a whole new ball game, nothing will ever be the same, adults might not even be able to set foot in a movie theater without being attacked and having sixes and sevens carved into their flesh as part of a viral TikTok trend. It’s time to panic because a newish director’s low budget horror movie has never once in history been a surprise hit, unless you count NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE EVIL DEAD, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, SAW, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, TERRIFIER 2, and all the other ones.

Actually now that I think about it it’s pretty much one of the central horror traditions since before I was born for stuff like this to happen. But this time it’s brand new and will change all the rules, I’m sure.

Before all the excitement I saw a trailer for OBSESSION, the one where Bear (Michael Johnston, UNTITLED THE MUMMY RETURNS SEQUEL) calls the number on the package for his “One Wish Willow” and asks an operator (Barker himself) if he can alter his wish. In context it’s a good scene, but seeing it then I thought “Some magical realism shit about making wishes? I can skip that one.” Only after it had been out for a few weeks and the praise was practically unanimous did I decide I needed to see it. Eventually. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 1st, 2026 | 33 Comments »

Fly Away Home (30th anniversary revisit)

FLY AWAY HOME is one of the great PG-rated movies of 1996, and a true family film as opposed to one for kids. It’s for all ages, because it’s about cute animals, but also a 13-year-old girl trying to find herself after life-shattering loss, but also an eccentric adult trying to get his shit together as a parent while staying true to his ideals, and how they do those things together by both caring about the goslings orphaned by developers intruding on their land.

It begins unusually heavy for any rating, with a musical montage in which a mother and daughter are joking around in the car and then are blindsided by a truck. There’s no diegetic sound, just Mary Chapin Carpenter singing “Fare Thee Well,” the ladies laughing, then the P.O.V. from inside the spinning and rolling car, blacking out, seeing lights shining and emergency workers breaking through the already cracked windshield. When Amy (Academy Award winner Anna Paquin in her third movie) wakes up in the hospital and her dad Thomas (Jeff Daniels following SPEED and DUMB AND DUMBER) is by her side she says, “Why are you here? Where’s Mom?” Devastating.

She moves from New Zealand to his farm in Ontario. He says don’t worry, I’ll get all the junk moved out of your bedroom so it looks just like you remember it. She says I don’t remember it. The house is big and cluttered, full of tools and trinkets, his metal sculptures and award-winning inventions, evidence of an adventurous life she wasn’t ever a part of. When he’s trying to explain why the fuck he has a life-sized replica of the lunar lander he starts saying how he built it around the time she and her mom left, and seems to become self-conscious mid-sentence of the obvious fact that him building a fucking space ship was part of what precipitated that. (But he continues to explain why it’s great.) (read the rest of this shit…)

September 30th, 2026 | 5 Comments »

The Surfer

THE SURFER is one of the movies from recent years that I’ve meant to get around to because it seemed like a promising Nicolas Cage role. It’s from the Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (VIVARIUM) and writer Thomas Martin, set and filmed in Australia, and Cage plays a guy who grew up there and has returned to try to buy a house his late father used to own.

I did not notice until looking at Wikipedia for this review that Cage’s character doesn’t have a name, he’s just “The Surfer.” He seems more like a guy with a name, because he has a complicated life: investment firm job he needs to hurry up and return to, teenage son (Finn Little, THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD) he’s struggling to bond with, wife (voice of Brenda Meaney, FEAR THE NIGHT) he’s separated from and wants to get back together with but she’s with somebody else, constantly on the phone hassling his mortgage broker (Greg McNeill) and real estate agent (Rahel Romahn, FURIOSA) about how to raise the money to outbid the other potential buyer. And yeah, when he was young he travelled around the world living in a van, finding places to surf, writing for surf zines, but he gave that up a million years ago for a family and a job and everything. There is no evidence he deserves to be called “The Surfer.” But his son surfs so he wants to bring him out to this beach from his childhood and surprise him by showing him this house.

Trouble is, before they even get to the water a guy named Pitbull (surfer and Muay Thai fighter turned actor Alexander Bertrand) tells him, “Don’t live here, don’t surf here!” Locals only. While the Surfer presses the issue the leader of the Bay Boys, Scally (the late Julian McMahon, FANTASTIC FOUR 2005), comes over saying, “No need for all this fuss,” like he’s the reasonable guy who’s gonna straight this out. But with that tone he basically threatens The Surfer and says, “You gotta know when to back down.” So he does. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 29th, 2026 | 7 Comments »

She Rides Shotgun

A classic scenario: dangerous man and innocent kid on the road, her presence eventually reveals his soft side, as much as he tries to hide it. He learns from her and finds a purpose in protecting her. Some shit goes down and he tries to find redemption and we have a hard time not feeling something for him. In the case of SHE RIDES SHOTGUN (based on the book by Jordan Harper), the kid is Polly (Ana Sophia Heger) and the man is her father, Nate McClusky (Taron Egerton, CARRY-ON). When her mom doesn’t show up to pick her up after school, and her dad shows up all frazzled, she’s definitely scared. Asks if he’s supposed to be there. Yeah, he got out, he says.

Man, this starts out dark. We figure out before she does that her mom and stepdad just got murdered. We assume Nate did it and now he’s kidnapping her. He’s in a hotwired car (all he can afford right now, he says) and trying to lay low at a cheap hotel by the airport. When she sees the double homicide on the news he tells her it wasn’t him, it was this prison gang that’s after him, that’s who he’s running from and trying to protect her from. Too late though, she already called the task force phone number. So she tells him they have to go. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 28th, 2026 | 5 Comments »

The Weight

THE WEIGHT is a movie playing theaters right now that I’m not sure everybody has heard about. It stars Ethan Hawke (EXPLORERS), and Russell Crowe (THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS) is also in it, two great actors who are probly gonna be good no matter what they’re in, but you’re not always guaranteed they picked a keeper. This time they did. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen this year.

Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a widower struggling to provide for his daughter Penny (Avy Berry, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE) during the Great Depression. He stays positive and tries to shield her from their predicament, but it’s not looking good. When they get evicted from their apartment she (over his objections) sells her beloved teddy bear to a neighbor to try to raise cash. She’s a good kid. When they go to check on renting some godforsaken rathole some plain clothes police officers harass him, decide he’s trying to squat there, beat him up and arrest him. He tells Penny through the bars of the jail cell don’t worry, he’ll come find her, and she’s like… what do you mean? Where am I going? My eyes were misty before the title even hit.

He gets sent to a labor camp run by Clancy (Crowe), a tough warden but with a nice side to him. When he gives them a seemingly impossible task of moving a large boulder, Murphy engineers a method to cut holes into each side and turn it using the handles of pick axes. Clancy is impressed. Lets him hang out on his porch. Gives him a Dr. Pepper. Talks to him about his life. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 24th, 2026 | 8 Comments »

One Last Shot

ONE LAST SHOT is an event movie within the world of indie action: director James Nunn (GREEN STREET 3: NEVER BACK DOWN), writer Jamie Russell and star Scott Adkins have successfully completed an ambitious trilogy. Like ONE SHOT (2021) and ONE MORE SHOT (2024), this is a military action thriller shot ROPE-style (simulating one unbroken take). To do this kind of action on a VOD budget and schedule is an astonishing technical achievement, but honestly the stories are engrossing enough that I don’t think about that too much while watching them.

As I said about ONE MORE SHOT, I think this new one would make enough sense if you hadn’t seen the others, but I recommend watching them first because they do happen one after the other. That’s also a unique thing about this as a part 3: Adkins’ character Jake Harris begins the movie with two full movies worth of injuries and exhaustion. One of the people transporting him to the location of this movie says that he should be in the ER, not getting new orders. But you know how it is. He’s the only man for the job. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 23rd, 2026 | 7 Comments »

Resident Evil (2026)

I come bearing good news: the new RESIDENT EVIL movie is a very fun time, even if you never played one of the games in your life, even if you wouldn’t notice that it “feels like game play,” even if “a more faithful adaptation of the games” does not remotely sound to you like a good alternative to 14 years of trend-chasing Paul W.S. Anderson joints about Milla Jovovich doing flips and stuff. I mean come on. How ya gonna keep e’m down on the farm after they’ve seen Milla flying around doing Matrix shit in 3D? Or at least, how are ya gonna keep me. I wasn’t looking for RESIDENT EVIL without the main thing that RESIDENT EVIL means to me. If not for some theories I’ve heard about auteurs I would not have gone to see this reboot on opening day.

Let’s face it, as a never serious, long retired game player, there is almost no chance I will ever play or see somebody play these games. It’s honestly none of my business what they’re about. Don’t even tell me, I’ll cover my ears. But I respect the games for the movies they’ve inspired. I really got a kick out of four of the six Milla joints (just not the first and last ones), and I thought the unrelated WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY was fun too.

But this is probly the best one. It’s directed by Zach Cregger, in what sounds in interviews like risky nerd dream fulfillment more than a sellout. I honestly thought the brand name would be a deterrent, but it’s his biggest opening to date. It’s simpler and more straight ahead than BARBARIAN or WEAPONS, but it moves, rips, etc., and it’s funny as hell. He told the Hollywood Reporter that “people really liked the movie, but they thought it was too funny. So over the course of my testing, I stripped out as much of the jokes as possible.” I believe it, actually, because this has that rare, perfect EVIL DEAD II tone: so many laughs from the lead character and the absurdity of the situations, but not at the expense of the horror. Not a horror-themed comedy, but legit horror with a great sense of humor. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 22nd, 2026 | 22 Comments »

The Stupids (and the conclusion of 1996 – Slam Evil Summer!)

August 30, 1996

As I often say, writing about comedies can be hard, because humor is so subjective. I always end up listing parts that I (and not necessarily you) think are funny. And today I’m trying to write about a comedy that was universally shat upon. It was nominated for Razzies for Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Picture, and I could not find any positive reviews from the time; I couldn’t even find any that didn’t call it “painfully unfunny” or similar. It was also a flop, making around a 7th of its budget in theaters. I am not aware of it ever being subject to any kind of re-evaluation, and when Nathan Rabin wrote about it in 2011 he classified it as a fiasco. But my objective today is to try to explain why, since 1996 and continuing through 2026 and the foreseeable future, I have found THE STUPIDS, directed by John Landis (in his follow up to BEVERLY HILLS COP III), to be extremely laugh out loud funny. I sincerely can’t fathom why a normal, joyful person would have a reason to look down on it, and not find it at least a little amusing. But they don’t. And I have to try to convince them to change their ways. Wish me luck! (read the rest of this shit…)

September 21st, 2026 | 31 Comments »

Hope

HOPE is the new movie from the great South Korean director Na Hong-jin, his first since the horror movie THE WAILING nine years ago. Before that he did two really excellent, bleak crime movies, THE CHASER (2008) and THE YELLOW SEA (2010). This shows some of the detail, personality and mastery of those films, but it’s Na’s version of going into blockbuster mode – a big, action-packed monster movie. And though it shares some of the matter-of-fact horrors of his previous movies (it’s not the anti-septic death and destruction we’re used to from PG-13 Hollywood), it’s pleasant by comparison, because it’s very funny, and even a little warm at times. (Other times it’s mean as hell.)

Oddly, a movie it kept reminding me of was TREMORS, because it’s about the quirky residents of this small, rural area called Hope Harbor gathering their resources to deal with some crazy shit involving a monster. The lead is the police chief, Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min, THE WAILING), who in the opening scene pulls up to the spot where some guys found a dead cow with giant claw marks on her. His second cousin Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung, HUMINT) has gathered some of the boys and their hunting rifles – there’s a great running joke that Bum-seok keeps being surprised by how many illegal guns everybody has – and they tell him about sightings of a tiger in the area. He’s incredulous until they insist and tell him detailed stories about it, but later we find out they were just fucking with him. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 17th, 2026 | 6 Comments »

The Trigger Effect

August 30, 1996

David Koepp’s THE TRIGGER EFFECT is the last movie in this review series that I hadn’t seen before. It’s not one anybody seems to talk about, so I could’ve gotten away with skipping it. I’m glad I didn’t, though. I don’t think it’s good, but it’s deranged in a really odd way that I appreciate.

It opens with two coyotes playing tug-of-war with a dead animal, then howling, then walking past a power station. This is meant to encapsulate the movie because it’s about people not getting along during a power outage.

But for now the lights are on, and there’s a DePalma style tracking shot witnessing a chain of small conflicts between strangers at a mall: a drink spilled on a shirt, the person spelled on bumping into a lady and offending her boyfriend, etc. – and it’s a very unsettling intro because for one five minute shot we get this onslaught of characters and incidents where not one person ever reacts to anything in a way that seems natural to me. The culmination is in a movie theater lobby where a woman (Kerri Vickers) strolls past two long lines of customers, right up to the concession counter and just starts ordering. The person who was next in line, Raymond (Richard T. Jones, RENAISSANCE MAN), calls her on it, but she says, “Well, I didn’t see you” and goes back to ordering… so he leaves without buying anything. (read the rest of this shit…)

September 16th, 2026 | 4 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
  • Hey bud, thanks for reading.

    Don't feel obligated, but here are some

  • WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM

    if that's your thing:

  • 1. Patreon

    Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!

  • 2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody

    click here for my Amazon author page

    (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)

    EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.

  • 3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines



    (you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)

  • I also have an Amazon UK one:

    (I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)

  • 4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products

    (I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)

  • 5. Spread the word

    Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.

    THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN

    * * * *

  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

    • geoffreyjar on Psycho Killer: “PSYCHO KILLER is a better movie for being bad. If it were competent, it’d be a forgettable police vs serial…” Oct 22, 04:54
    • Dreadguacamole on Pulse (2001): “I love this movie – one of my favourites and yes, I like it a little more than CURE (which…” Oct 22, 02:20
    • The Winchester on Psycho Killer: “Psycho killer is fine and all, but have you caught Psycho Granny yet?” Oct 21, 16:22
    • grimgrinningchris on Hallowarrior / Bloody Tennis: “Wait!!! A real, LIVE Shannyn Sossamon?!?! In the wild!??!? WOW!!!” Oct 21, 13:02
    • billydeethrilliams on Pulse (2001): “I also heavily endorse Cure. Watched it earlier in the year and it’s easily the best movie I’ve watched in…” Oct 21, 03:26
    • Dooley the Gravedigger on Pulse (2001): “I like PULSE a lot. Please please please watch his CURE next, and avoid all trailers and reviews as much…” Oct 20, 14:10
    • Dan the Man on Pulse (2001): “I wholeheartedly second Hammer Time’s position on Cure. It’s Kurosawa’s masterpiece and one of the all time great horror movies.” Oct 20, 10:46
    • The Humaniac on Pulse (2001): “I know just what you mean, Hammer. That stunt in Pulse is a jaw-dropper. And is there a better movie…” Oct 19, 20:17
    • Hammer Time on Pulse (2001): “I take it back – the stunt I was thinking of came from this movie, Pulse (2001). Still, you gotta…” Oct 19, 12:05
    • Hammer Time on Pulse (2001): “Yay! Vern covered one of the greats! I don’t have much more to say beyond what you said and I…” Oct 19, 11:28
    • VERN on Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: “It’s really more of a hatred for the Fraser one than a love for the Cruise one. But Cruise’s is…” Oct 18, 21:55
    • KayKay on Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: ““the best modern mummy movie (the Tom Cruise one).” Sigh…Vern’s love for Cruise MUMMY which runs in parallel with his…” Oct 18, 18:08
    • Dustin on Psycho Killer: “Glad you liked it, Vern! Happy to be of service.” Oct 18, 17:43
    • Skani on Psycho Killer: “I’ve been within striking distance of buying an on sale digital copy of this from jeffbezos.net on a couple of…” Oct 18, 07:27
    • CJ Holden on Evil Dead Burn: “(Not sure why I accidentally keep calling the movie BURNS though)” Oct 18, 06:17

  • Recent Commented on Posts

  • Most Comments