Leprechaun 2 (1994)

A downgrade in every sense from 1993's underrated "Leprechaun", "Leprechaun 2" finds Lubdan the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) once again going after thieves of gold and anyone else who happens to get in his way, just without the laughs and personality of the first film. A bland horror movie with bland protagonists to match it, Rodman Flender's sequel also has the Leprechaun in pursuit of a new bride, sidestepping the events of the previous film entirely as he seeks to fulfill a thousand-year-old pledge and make Bridget (Shevonne Durkin) his betrothed. This is bad news for co-lead Cody (Charlie Heath), Bridget's actual boyfriend, who's having a hard enough time trying to fend off her other suitors while working at elderly grifter Morty's (Sandy Baron) "dark side" tour business. Cue up what can only loosely be called a battle of wits, in a relatively bloodless slasher movie that at least has the good grace to clock in at less than 90 minutes.

Predictably, Warwick Davis is the standout performer in "Leprechaun 2", comfortably outclassing a mostly talentless cast even if he's mostly given low-tier limericks and one-liners to spout en route to an inevitably underwhelming conclusion where he, Cody and Bridget duke it out for his gold and their lives/freedom. As Cody, Charlie Heath has all the aura of polystyrene, while Shevonne Darkin gives a pretty clumsy performance opposite him. Indeed, the only other actor besides Davis who exudes any tangible personality is Sandy Baron, whose George Carlin-esque mannerisms help make the shifty and greddy Morty one of the movie's two entertaining characters. That's still not enough to really care all that much when Morty eventually succumbs to Lubdan's sly spellcasting, but it's something I guess.

"Leprechaun 2" is bad but inoffensive, never really a slog to watch but almost completely devoid of interest. There are a couple of fun moments that make use of good practical effects work (such as when the Leprechaun brutally excises a homeless man's gold teeth, and another scene in which he rips off a man's finger in order to claim his gold ring) but these fall way short of making up for its glaring deficiency of style and scares. It's an easy but unrewarding watch that makes its predecessor look comparatively brilliant.

THE LEPRECHAUN FRANCHISE
Leprechaun (1993)
Leprechaun 2 (1994)
Leprechaun 3 (1995)
Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997)
Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)
Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (2003)
Leprechaun: Origins (2014)
Leprechaun Returns (2018)

The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

A new and abysmal entry into the annals of misbegotten remakes, "The Strangers: Chapter 1" finds mediocracy merchant Renny Harlin grappling with material previously elevated by directors Bryan Bertino and Johannes Roberts. And while it's not really a surprise that Harlin (he of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master", "Deep Blue Sea", and "The Covenant") wouldn't make a movie as good as either "The Strangers" or "The Strangers: Prey at Night", the scale of this disaster is almost impressive.

Outside of some nice cinematography exploiting the woodland locations of Bratislava (standing in for Venus, Oregon), this is a worthless reboot, which finds Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez (both insufferable) being harassed by the antagonists of the previous movies while vacationing in an Airbnb for their fifth anniversary. But whereas the murderous masked trio brought a constant sense of menace and threat in the 2008 and 2018 movies, enhanced by the alternately suspenseful and stylish approach those movies took, they resemble only shadows of their former selves here, mostly moving in slow motion (or even running away from the protagonists!) as their quarries stupidly fail to fight back or escape despite ample opportunities. If the trajectory of the movie's home invasion plot feels inevitable, it never comes across as natural, as it lamely recreates whole sequences from its predecessors, sans any semblance of authenticity or logic, en route to a flat and predictable ending that sets up for at least two more movies in a trilogy that threatens to be one of the worst in recent memory.

"The Strangers: Chapter 1" never scared or entertain me during a brief 90 minute runtime that somehow felt twice as long, although it did inspire a few groans and head in hands moments along the way. As a fan of the other movies in this series, I really wanted to enjoy this third entry, and looked for positives throughout. Alas, I just couldn't find them. This is a terrible, terrible movie, born of the foolish ideas that the masked assailants of the franchise need to be demystified, and that recycling material from better movies is something to build a trilogy around. Who knows; maybe the next couple of movies will turn things around for Harlin's reboot saga. It could hardly get worse.

Under Paris (2024)

A refreshingly serious take on a shark movie that doesn't skimp on the spectacle, Xavier Gens' "Under Paris" begins with marine scientist Sophia (Berenice Bejo) losing her team to a mutated mako shark, before skipping forward to the summer of 2024, where said shark re-emerges in the Seine, posing a deadly threat to the people of Paris. Forming dual alliances with environmental activist Mika (Lea Leviant) and river police commander Adil (Nassim Lyes), Sophia embarks on a mission to stop this supersized Mako from claiming more human victims -- a plan which is hindered by the mayor (Anne Marivin), who intends to see the city's pre-Olympic triathlon goes ahead.

"Under Paris" is far from perfect, suffering from lugubrious pacing between its highlight sequence in the Parisian catacombs (where a chaotic encounter between multiple makos leads to rampant bloodshed) and a suitably action-packed final act taking place during the mayor's ill-advised sports contest, but it hits enough right beats to be worth its while. It helps that the cast generally share great chemistry, even if Anne Marivin detracts from the efforts of Bejo, Leviant, and Lyes with her somewhat over-the-top display as the aptly delusional mayor. And what helps even more are the multiple shark attack scenes executed throughout the movie, which mercifully attempt to recall the likes of "Jaws" and "47 Meters Down" moreso than cheesefests like "Sharknado", et al. This isn't to say that "Under Paris" doesn't have its moments of accidental cheese, but it's mostly successful at playing it straight.

I went into "Under Paris" with low expectations and was pretty pleasantly surprised. This movie does what a good shark movie really ought to do: it entertains without descending into self-parody and incorporates some important themes (pollution of the world's oceans and the destruction of aquatic species) without becoming a lecture. That its characters' fates don't seem set in stone and it's able to deliver a few surprises along the way is an added bonus. If it isn't quite on the level of the aforementioned "Jaws" or a couple of director Xavier Gens' other movies ("Frontier(s)" and "The Divide") it is leagues ahead of most shark movies being made in this day and age. Give it a shot; you might be surprised too.

Imaginary (2024)

Blumhouse's latest act of terrorism against the horror genre, "Imaginary" is ostensibly a movie about a killer teddy bear -- in the vein of "M3GAN" -- but ultimately becomes a fifteenth-rate knock-off of "Coraline" and "Insidious". The killer teddy bear in question, Chauncey, is actually sidelined in pursuit of a derivative plot that finds Jessica (DeWanda Wise) trying to save her stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) from supernatural forces with links to her family's tragic past.

To call this movie boring would be an understatement, and the dullness isn't alleviated by the cast, especially lead DeWanda Wise, who gives a disinterested performance that recalls Rooney Mara in 2010's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" more than it could ever hope to recall Allison Williams' brilliant turn in the superficially similar "M3GAN". Maybe more killer bear action would have helped, although it's worth pointing out that when Chauncey's monstrous form does interact with the human characters, whatever threat he's meant to pose is negated by the clear and apparent fact that he's a limited animatronic prop incapable of actual menace. A more talented team of filmmakers might have been able to paper over the cracks on that one, but alas. This is a horrible horrible movie that represents everything wrong with wishy-washy, watered-down modern horror. Complete with insufferably dark cinematography and messy writing, this has to go down as pure crap.

Tarot (2024)

In many ways representative of a lot of what's wrong with modern day horror movies (what with its intolerably dark cinematography, lame comic relief, watered-down violence and general sterility), "Tarot" manages to be better than the likes of "Imaginary", but it's still a by-the-numbers affair. It follows a group of friends who unleash a nefarious supernatural force when they misuse a dusty old tarot set they find, which naturally begins to pick them off in ways reminiscent of the readings main girl Haley (Harriet Slater) gave. A la "Final Destination" (a vastly superior movie, by the way), the friends frantically try to unravel the origin of their foe and escape their fates. There's a hint of a compelling horror story here, but its not capitalized on by flat, flavorless direction and neutered death scenes that are more reminiscent of those in the lesser 2000s PG-13 horror movies than the more adventurous and thematically similar "Final Destination" movies. There's nothing particularly novel about the film either, unless you count its fealty to astrology. As for the characters: they're a personality-deprived bunch, even if the cast put in a good shift. Give this one a miss unless you're just looking for background noise.

The Whale (2022)

"The Whale" is a movie built around an essay about Moby Dick, Brendan Fraser in fat guy prosthetics, and the skeletons of the relationships that Fraser's character shares with those around him. It's left up to the actors to fill in the rest, which they (Fraser and Hong Chau in particular) do remarkably well. This isn't enough to make it a good movie, however, and Darren Aronofsky's direction doesn't gel with the performances. The finale, for example, is ruined by a couple of shot transitions (and one horrible thematic indulgence) that took me right out of the drama at a time when Fraser and Sadie Sink were really giving it their all. Maybe a director like Todd Solondz would have done something more interesting with this story. It wouldn't have been Oscar bait -- even for the actors -- but it would have been a better movie.