Have You Been Watching...? Hundreds of Beavers (2024)

Sometimes along comes a movie that is so off-the-wall and unhinged that it just makes me happy. Hundreds of Beavers is just that.  It's an ambitious and highly creative film that stands out with its unique blend of slapstick humor, silent film-style storytelling, and surreal visuals. Directed by Mike Cheslik, this black-and-white feature brings back the charm of classic comedies like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, but with a whimsical twist.

The plot revolves around a down-and-out fur trapper (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) who, after losing his business, embarks on an increasingly absurd quest to capture a hundred beavers in order to win the hand of the lady he's fallen in love with, as a directive of her father. The film's genius lies in its simple premise, which slowly escalates into a chaotic adventure full of exaggerated physical comedy and inventive set pieces. Without any dialogue, the movie relies on strong visual gags and expressive performances to convey its story, and it succeeds brilliantly.

The film's aesthetic is deliberately old-school, with grainy textures and exaggerated facial expressions. The homage to the silent movie era is a refreshing break from dialogue-heavy films, proving that pure visual storytelling can be as engaging and entertaining as ever. The beavers themselves, portrayed by actors is furry suits and oversized heads, add to the surreal charm of the movie, creating a playful and unpredictable atmosphere.

What makes Hundred of Beavers stand out is its dedication to its style and humor. It’s quirky, bold, always ridiculous, but never dull. The pacing is quick, ensuring that the audience is constantly entertained, and the variety of slapstick set-ups keeps the laughs coming.

Hundred of Beavers is a delightful and offbeat comedy that pays tribute to silent-era filmmaking while embracing its own quirky identity. It’s perfect for audiences looking for something different, whimsical, and rooted in the joy of visual comedy.

Year: 2024

Rating: 10/10

Availability: digital streaming, DVD and Blu Ray

Have You Been Watching...? Nightsleeper (2023)

 

Night Sleeper is a BBC limited series set mostly on an overnight 'sleeper' train from Scotland to London. The series plays out in real time, almost. It stars Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders, Skins) as Joseph Roag, a police officer with a secret and Alexandra Roach (No Offence, Sanditon) as Abby Aysgarth, acting "Technical Director" of the National Cyber Security Centre. It is these two characters that lead the drama.

Night Sleeper had all the makings of a gripping drama, but unfortunately, it fell short of expectations. The show suffered from pacing issues right from the start, with sluggish storytelling that made it difficult to stay engaged. The plot, which promised a high-stakes thriller on a sleeper train, was bogged down by unnecessary subplots and flat character development.

Written by Nick Leather (CBBC's Rocket Island), the script lacked the punch needed for a series like this, often relying on clichés and predictable twists that were more frustrating than thrilling. The characters themselves felt underdeveloped, making it hard to invest emotionally in their fates. Some performances were solid, such as David Threlfall (Shameless) as "Pev", in a role not far removed from his well known role as Frank Gallagher , but others felt wooden, and the dialogue often seemed forced, further undermining the tension the show was trying to build.

Visually, Night Sleeper had moments of atmospheric tension, but even that couldn't save the overall experience. The CGI looks poor indeed, and removes the viewer from the drama instantly. What could have been an edge-of-your-seat thriller ended up feeling more like a long, uneventful journey with little payoff at the end. In the crowded landscape of British dramas, Night Sleeper unfortunately fails to stand out.

I really want to like this, but it turned out to be overlong and padded with unnecessary moments. I wanted to give up after episode 2, but wanted to give it a chance. Sadly, it was a chance the series squandered.

Year: 2024

Rating 4/10

Availability: currently streaming on BBCiplayer

Have You Been Watching...? Generation Z (2024)

 

Channel 4's "Dead Set" created a bar for TV zombie serials that was very high indeed. So it was with great anticipation I sat down to watch “Generation Z”, the channel's latest Zombie series written, produced and directed by acclaimed film-maker Ben Wheatley. He did the movie of JG Ballard's "High Rise": great! And the movie "The Meg 2: The Trench": not so great! How would Generation Z play out?

The 6 part series aims to deliver an edgy, hyper-modern take on the concerns and lives of today’s young adults. It's title can be read as 'zombie generation' or as the current generation of young people 'Gen Z'. What it ultimately serves up is an exaggerated caricature of Gen Z culture that feels like it was put together by a committee of 'oldies' trying to guess what “the kids” are into these days. The show attempts to tackle complex themes like mental health, social media addiction, and identity politics but does so with a shallowness that renders every serious topic trivial. Topics such as County Lines are touched upon and skimmed over like a stone in a lake, barely addressing that very real social problem. It's supposed to be "satirical" in that the older generation suddenly becomes powerful and begin picking off the younger ones, but that's what zombies do, isn't it? 

The writing is especially disappointing—filled with cringey, outdated slang and meme references that feel stale by the time they hit the screen. Dialogue is often contrived, and the characters, instead of being the nuanced, multidimensional people this generation deserves, are flat stereotypes: the "influencer with no depth," the "activist with no real convictions," the "overworked student," and so on. Each seems designed to represent a hashtag more than a person. It's also wildly inconsistent. We are told that the virus will kill young people if infected and we see one go through this, but then another gets infected with zero side effects at all. Towards the end of the series it becomes less about the zombies and becomes a bit of a Mad Max style revenge tale. There's so much going on, there just isn't time to spend on anything of substance.

Plotting and pacing are all over the place. For instance, in the midst of the army rounding up people and oldies eating younger folk, the students find their geography A levels are back on in school. I think this was meant to be funny, but it's such a stupid thing to do that it takes the viewer out of the moment and reminds them why they can't forgive this awful programme.

Visually, the show leans on gimmicky editing techniques that do more to distract than enhance. It’s as if the directors watched a few viral videos and decided this must be the dominant Gen Z aesthetic—ignoring that an actual TV series has a different pacing and visual language. It then has strange 80s style home video graphics throughout, which jars with the 'modern' approach. There's a lot of running around The Woods which wastes an opportunity to do a real zombie show in a modern town and rehashes the old zombie movie cliche of....running around in the woods.

Casting television legends such as Sue Johnson, Robert Lyndsey and Anita Dobson and then lumbering them with this flat, bland dialogue seems a waste of their talents, and as for casting a bunch of teenagers who are clearly way older than the roles they play hark back to the days of Beverly Hills 90210. 

The real tragedy of “Generation Z” is that it squanders an opportunity to tell meaningful stories about a complex, misunderstood generation. I almost felt as if the poor plot, script, acting and production WAS the satire. That Wheatley and Channel 4 had pulled some kind of social experiment trick on its audience that would be revealed as the series climaxed. I wish it had, but I was to be disappointed.

Generation Z is one of the biggest disappointments and one of the worst serials I have ever watched. There is genuinely nothing to enjoy here, except perhaps, the much-hyped demise of a cockapoo. Dead Set, Shaun of the Dead even Cockneys v Zombies have shown how good modern satire can work within the Zombie story setting. 

I wanted to give up on this series after episode 2, but in order to give a genuine review of the series I felt obliged to watch it all. 

Rating: 2/10

Year: 2024

No of episodes: 6

Availability: currently broadcasting on Channel 4 Sundays and Mondays or streaming on Channel 4 on Demand

Have You Been Watching...? Zombie Night (2013)

  

Syfy/Asylum studio movies can be a bit "hit and miss". Apparently the studio have never made a loss on any of their flicks. Yes, they are cheap with lousy effects, but sometimes they have a charm that encourages a level of forgiveness for trying to achieve something. Zombie Night, a SyFy movie from 2013, is not one of those.

Someone, somewhere thought it would be a good idea to put 80s icons such as Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Daryl Hannah (Splash) and Anthony Michael Hall (Weird Science and The Dead Zone TV series) together in a film about zombies that exist for one night only, and then handed the production over to some people who should never be let near a film again.

I was not expecting much, but that bar has never been so low. Our story begins out of nowhere with zombies suddenly appearing out of the ground, which is fun, but the scene itself is prolonged and our cast running about doing absolutely nothing to get away. It's embarrassing for them.

This is a problem throughout the film. Set pieces take place and the cast make increasingly poor and illogical decisions simply to put them into further jeopardy and pad out this abomination of a movie. I don't think I've ever watched a film shouting "They deserve to die!" at the screen. 

Sometimes, I will say a script could do with another polish, another point of view, but this one needs something poured on it and set on fire, then put in a bin to make sure the fire doesn't go out.

Hall, Hannah and Ruck do the best with their characters, and they are so good, but I just felt sorry for the cast having to read these lines and act these scenes with some kind of conviction. There's an elderly lady who just moans and whines, a neighbour who joins the group for reasons of plot, cries and moans, a little bit who moans. There's more moaning from the cast of characters than all the zombies put together.

Even the Zombie "rules" only come into play when it suits. A character get bitten and turns into a zombie. Other characters get bitten and absolutely nothing happens, or they take forever to turn, when it suits the story. Sometimes the zombies are slow, other times they're so quick the cast can't react. It is just so inconsistent it takes the pleasure away. Daft decisions include characters mistaking the yellow flashing of a construction crew lights for...., wait for it...., the blue and red flashing of police lights. They even go into a GREENHOUSE to get away from the zombies. Then there's a whole "thing" about trying to get past some vines in a tunnel which ends up taking no effort whatsoever.

I like to say something positive about a production even if it is terrible. So, in this flick, there ARE some decent zombie effects. That's it. Nothing more. It's a horrendous film and should be consigned to the bargain basement of Doom. Save yourselves. Avoid this. It's just under 90 minutes of my life I'm never going to get back. I've wasted them on this travesty.

Rating: 0/10

Year: 2013

Availability: I won't tell you. I don't want you to seek it out. It's out there, that's all you need to know...

Have You Been Watching...? Uglies (2024)

Uglies is a 2024 Netflix movie based on  the book by Scott Westerfield. It stars Joey King (The Conjuring), Keith Powers (Straight Outta Compton) and Laverne Cox (Orange is the New Black).  It's a new "teen/Young Adult" flick, and like it's contemporaries such as Divergent/Maze Runner/Twilight/Hunger Games etc al, it is intended to launch a new series of movies.

The story is set in an undisclosed dystopian future after some unexplained catastrophe and the world has decided that people  who are pretty have ended world division. No one gets picked on for their looks or background. Once a resident reaches the age of 16, they move from their sterile Boarding School existence, to a glamorous new life in the "City", having undergone a plastic surgery style transformation to make them pretty and vacuous , for  some reason.  Once this transformation takes place, the person loses all sight of who they were and their previous beliefs etc

It's all very vague. There's some discussion about a powerful orchid that has given mankind some kind of unlimited power supply as well. 

Our story centres on Tally Youngblood (King), whose friend reaches the ripe old age of 16 and undergoes the prettification. She then loses.contact with her friend and when she inexplicably breaks into the city, finds her friend doesn't care about her anymore. So she promptly makes a brand new best friend.

In true teen movie style, not everyone likes this new status quo and there is a rebellion forming run by an enigmatic young person called David in a place called "the Smoke" but is actually a forest. David, for some other reason of plot, falls in love with our Tally and together they try to bring down the bad guys of the piece, who have not just been making people pretty and vacuous, but also mindless soldiers. 

Apparently there are four books in this series, and our movie gives every indication that intends to follow suit. I hope this doesn't happen as this movie is a mess. Tally is a rebel for no real reason. There is little to no background for this character. There is some attempt to make her a flawed hero, but even this is a weak excuse to cause unnecessary, and quickly redundant, conflict. There is no clue as to her motivation. So her friend isn't bothered about her anymore so she stalks him? Security in The City is so weak I'm surprised the Uglies haven't overrun it almost by accident.

For a movie that is an allegory for the pointlessness of fake beauty, the film is just as guilty. For a bunch of "uglies", none of them actually are. The characters have the bare cliched bones of motivation.  The rebellion hide in a forest but the baddies cannot locate them without a little inside help, despite their advanced technology. The pretties are led by Dr Cable (Cox) who, again has no motivation other than "power". If this was the case, then why wait til the uglies are 16 to begin the transformation? Nothing about this film makes sense. Do the pretties not contact their families after they move to The City? Does no one bother about their loved one that much that it takes Tally to make enquiries? This is attempted to be addressed by the fact the Transformed no longer care about their pasts, but comes across and clumsy and lazy writing because the plot holes are so big any halfwit would be able to see the flaws.

I had never heard of the Uglies franchise before this film landed on Netflix, and I suspect this is because I am not part of its intended audience, but a good story should appeal to all, or have something to appeal to a wider audience. This movie doesn't. It's a shame as the mostly young cast do well with what they have been given, but the adult characters are just written as "generic adult". David's parents are integral to the story but are painted in only two dimensions, the same with Dr Cable, who just swans about trying to be enigmatic and important, but comes across as if they are just bored to be there. 

It would be no spoiler to reveal the movie is set up for a sequel, but even if the sequel did build upon this weak mess of a part one, it would be too little too late, and on the strength of this first instalment, it looks like the franchise has been killed stone dead.

Rating: 2/10

Year: 2024

Availability: streaming on Netflix

Have You Been Watching...? Damsel (2024)

 

Mille Bobby Brown (aka Elle “Eleven” from Stranger Things) is a great actor. I loved her in Stranger Things, I love the Enola Holmes movies and she is a great role model for young women. She is in control of her career and executive produces movies she appears in, including this one, Damsel.

The movie is a Netflix production and is a subversive retelling of the traditional damsel in distress trope. In this case, our Damsel, Elodie, is the daughter of the lord of the unnamed country they reside in. The weather is cold, the population are freezing, food is scarce and they must do something to help their people. The answer?: marry Elodie off to the handsome prince of another, richer, country. Elodie reluctantly agrees, and the family head off to meet her would-be suitor with younger sister and step-mother in tow.

Unbeknownst to Elodie and her family, the Royal Family of Well-To-Do-Land “Aurea” have a secret, and it means danger for Elodie. Owing to pact made with a dragon generations before, Elodie finds herself fighting for her life in a labyrinthine network of caves, stalked at every turn by a molten lava-breathing dragon.

Being a Millie Bobby Brown movie, our heroine is a fierce, strong and independent woman who doesn’t need to rely on any man to keep her safe. This is a quality Prince Rich-Boy and his folks hadn’t counted on. There are some nice twists on the usual fairy-tale/fantasy tropes as the story progresses. Elodie, it transpires, is not the only one being lied to, and the step-mother plays against type by being not only genuinely lovely, but kind and caring.

The special effects are great, the Dragon is beautifully realised with a design that makes it really stand out. There are a number of well realised set-pieces utilising CGI, but it becomes wearisome the more we see it. The music for the movie is from renowned composer Hans Zimmer, and his style is ever present, which is a good thing. Casting is also great. Brown is her usual self in Elodie, Ray Winstone plays against type as a weak Lord, Angela Bassett is just lovely as the Step-mother (although the constant referring to her as “Step-mother” diminishes her role). Our dragon is voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo, and American-Iranian actress, known widely as Chrisjen Avasarala on The Expanse TV series. She imbues the character with a creepiness and compassion which adds so much to what could have been a by-the-numbers role. Love, Simon actor Nick Robinson plays Prince Henry of Aurea and is woefully underused, but this isn’t his story so its understandable. House of Cards star Robin Wright plays Henry’s mother Queen Isabelle, and if this movie was a panto, you’d “boo” every time she appears. She’s definitely the dominant character in that Royal Family as her husband the king (Milo Twomey) barely has a word in the whole film.

The script is where the movie falls down. Characterisation beyond Elodie is next-to-non-existant. The plot barely makes any sense. Who made the pact between the dragon and Royals? Why is it even there? The Dragon has no issue leaving the cave so why doesn’t it just pop out one day and blast the city away? The whole "getting girls into the cave for the Dragon" just seems an elaborate plan for no real pay-off. Surely word would have gotten around from other countries that women keep marrying the Prince and disappearing! Something happens in the film between Isabelle and Elodie’s sister Floria (Brooke Carter) that makes the whole scheme pointless. Why didn’t they just do that from the outset?

Overall, the movie isn’t terrible and is a decent enough fantasy flick, if you're not expecting anything too much. It’s probably a bit too scary for young viewers, though

Year: 2024

Rating: 6/10

Availability: at the time of writing, streaming on Netflix

Have You Been Watching...? Slotherhouse (2023)

 

The comedy horror is a tough act to pull off. For every “Gremlins”, there’s a “Slaughterhouse Rulez”, for every “It Follows”, there’s a “The Stairs”. Some low budget horror movies come up with a witty premise but then squander it with poor acting, effects and script. They fail to make the most of their premise. Cocaine Bear is a case in point. It could have been totally hilarious.

Slotherhouse (yes, it’s a play on the word “slaughterhouse” so you get where this is going from the outset) is a case of “it knows exactly what it is and plays on it”.

Set in a sorority house, Emily Young wants to be elected President. However, mean girl and reigning Queen Bee wants to remain president and has no intention of losing her crown to Emily. Trying to increase her social standing, she adopts a sloth from an exotic pet collector, who had previously collected it from its home in the Panama Rainforest.  The cute little critter starts winning over the girls and Emily becomes a favourite to win. However, in between the scheming and shenanigans of sorority politics, all is not well with our little sloth, who has been named “Alpha”. Unbeknownst to Emily, Alpha has already done away with a large crocodile and the exotic pet owner. Alpha now moves on to the girls of the Sorority house.

I don’t want to spoil things for you, but just sit back and enjoy this one. In increasingly insane and creative ways, Alpha sets about dispatching the girls. Alpha also seems to settle into 21^st century life very well which culminates in the utterly bonkers sight of a sloth taking a selfie with it’s next victim.

This movie is HILARIOUS from start to finish. It's so refreshing to see a movie be this bananas and not shy away from the ridiculousness of its premise. Alpha is as cute as a button, but even cuter when it becomes a psychotic teddy bear with razor sharp claws. One of the characters even comments that its like a cute Chucky (referencing the Childs Play franchise about a killer doll).  Just wallow and enjoy the spectacle.

The story is by Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan, both writers and actors who make appearances in the movie, and directed by Matthew Goodhue (who has directed and written a number of short movies). I’m not familiar with any of their previous works, but if this is evidence of what they are capable of, then they should do well in the future. 

The cast is headed by Lisa Ambalavanar (Emily) an English actress known for Teen Scifi series “Titans” and afternoon medical soap “Doctors” no less! Other names you might recognise are Sydney Craven as Brianna. She is another English actress known for teen werewolf drama Wolfblood and Evening market soap “Eastenders". Stefan Kapicic plays Oliver and he is best known to me as the voice of Collossus in Deadpool 1&2, and rounding off the more familiar faces is Tiuff Stevenson, from BBC comedies Gameface and White Gold. They, and the rest of the cast, are so tuned into this bizarre movie that none come across as simply playing this for the pay cheque, they are totally believable and having a great time!

This movie deserves to be one of those Halloween classics that gets put on every year. It truly is the perfect mix of horror and humour. You'll enjoy this one! (I hope)

 

Year; 2023

Rating 7/10

Availability, streaming on the isual platforms