Scream 7 (4 Stars)

It's OK. That's probably the best way I can describe it. I enjoyed watching it, but when the final credits rolled I felt that something was missing.

For a start, there aren't enough teenagers. That might sound like a strange criticism, but this is supposed to be a teenage slasher movie. The teenagers have always been an important part of the formula, and there simply aren't enough of them here. There are too many adults and not enough of the young characters who made the earlier films so much fun.

On the positive side, Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers are still a great combination. The chemistry between them works. It always has. Put Sidney and Gale together and there's an instant familiarity that reminds you why these characters have survived through so many films.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same way about Sidney's husband Mark. He irritated me almost from the moment he appeared. He has no charisma, adds very little to the story and, frankly, I wasn't sorry when Ghostface killed him.

In fact, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then it was revealed that he'd survived.

"Oh no!" I thought. "That means he'll be back in the next film".

And then there's Ghostface. Or, more accurately, Ghostfaces.

Yes, there are three killers again. I don't actually have a problem with that. Scream has done multiple killers before and it can work very well. The problem here is the motivation.

Karl Gibbs is basically random. He's talked into becoming a killer by Marco Davis, who's the real brains behind the operation. And Marco, in turn, has been talked into it by Sidney's jealous neighbour, Jessica Bowden.

That's quite a chain of events just to get to a group of people wearing Ghostface masks.

The trouble is that none of their motivations are particularly convincing. When the killers are finally revealed, you're supposed to have that wonderful Scream moment when everything suddenly makes sense. Instead, I was thinking "Why?" And then, when the explanation came, I was still thinking "Why?"

That's disappointing, because the identity and motivation of Ghostface are such an important part of the fun. The best Scream reveals make you look back at the film and realise that the clues were there all along. Here, the explanation feels more like the writers needed three people to be Ghostface and then had to find a reason for each of them to be involved.

Having said all that, I didn't hate "Scream 7". Far from it. It's entertaining, there are some good kills, and Sidney and Gale are still fun to watch together. I just don't think it works as well as the best films in the series.

It's OK.

But when you're watching a Scream film, "OK" isn't good enough.

Success Rate:  + 2.8

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Megan 2.0 (4 Stars)

I loved the film "Megan", stylised as "M3GAN". It was a simple but brilliant horror film with a great idea at its centre. Megan was created to protect a young girl, but her interpretation of that job became increasingly murderous. It was funny, creepy and, most importantly, it didn't need to complicate things. "Megan 2.0" takes a different approach.

The sequel is turned into something closer to a science-fiction action film, with a new AI threat, military technology, conspiracies and one plot twist after another. There are some entertaining moments and Megan herself is still the best thing about the film, but the story has become unnecessarily complicated. It's still a good film, but it's disappointing in comparison with the original. The first film knew exactly what it wanted to be; the sequel seems to have forgotten.

Success Rate:  + 0.6

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Heavier Trip: Road to Wacken (4 Stars)

Not as good as the first film.

Too much comedy.

Not enough music.

But Babymetal is cute.

Lust for a Witch (4 Stars)

The first time I watched this film I was a bit confused. It looked like a Medina film, but not quite. It features four of the regular actors from the early Medina films, Evan Stone, Alexandre Boisvert, Nicole Sheridan and Rebecca Love. I was particularly curious about the director, Michael Windsor, who's never made any other films. I wrote to Fred Olen Ray and received this reply:

"That movie has a long history. It was made by a British adult video company called Unionjaxx/RudeBrit. We used to rent them an office and some warehouse space when we had a large presence on Winnetka. Adult stuff had just become legal in the UK and they were trying to distribute their product in the US but it was awful. They wanted to make something here and came over with one of their starlets Poppi Morgan. They hired Evan Stone to put it together for them. We agreed to do their music tracking, special effects and titles in exchange for a softcore cable friendly version, but it was not up to our level of acceptability and we sat on it as being unusable for maybe what seems like a decade. I finally cut it down as far as it could go and still be a feature when I needed something to release one month and it maybe sold 1000 units. I don't remember. Windsor was one of the Brits. His wife was also one of their UK starlets known for having the biggest tits in England. Her names escapes me".

Today I did some research and found the answer. Michael Windsor was a pseudonym. His real name was Michael John. His wife was the actress Tanya Hyde, who was promoted as having the largest breasts in England.

Fast & Furious 10 (4 Stars)

Dante Reyes is completely insane.

That's not meant as an insult to Jason Momoa's performance; it's probably the best thing about the film. Dante is the son of Hernan Reyes, the drug lord Dom and his crew brought down in Rio in "Fast Five". Dante witnessed his father's downfall and has spent twelve years planning his revenge. He doesn't simply want to kill Dom. That would be far too easy. He wants Dom to suffer, and he wants to destroy everything Dom loves along the way.

Dante's plan is so elaborate that Dom and his family are constantly several steps behind him. He manipulates the authorities, frames Dom's crew for a disaster in Rome, steals the surveillance technology known as God's Eye and eventually focuses his attention on Dom's young son, Little B. But Dante isn't interested in simply kidnapping the boy. Everything he does is part of a carefully constructed game in which Dom is forced to watch his family being destroyed one piece at a time.

And Dante enjoys every second of it.

The film eventually brings the two men back to Brazil, where Dante recreates the circumstances of his father's death. Dom manages to save Isabel, Elena's sister, but Dante escapes with God's Eye and uses it to track Little B. The chase eventually moves to Portugal, where Jakob attempts to protect his nephew. Jakob sacrifices himself, destroying a group of Dante's men and giving Dom the opportunity to rescue his son.

You'd think that would be the end of Dante's plan. It isn't even close.

Dom and Little B head towards an airfield, believing that Aimes, the head of the Agency, is going to help them escape. Instead, Dante reveals that Aimes has been working for him all along. Aimes shoots down the plane carrying Roman, Tej, Han and Ramsey, apparently killing them all. Dante then traps Dom and his son on a dam with two enormous tanker trucks racing towards them from opposite directions.

Dom does what Dom does. He drives his car off the side of the dam, races down the concrete slope and escapes the explosion. For a few seconds, it looks as though he's actually beaten Dante.

But, of course, Dante has thought of that too.

The entire dam has been rigged with explosives. Dom and Little B are now stranded at the bottom with no car and nowhere to go. Dante detonates the explosives and the film cuts to black.

That's the end of the film.

And then we wait.....

I'm perfectly happy to accept that "Fast & Furious 10" isn't meant to be a complete story. It was intended to launch the final chapters of the saga, and a cliff-hanger was always going to be part of the plan.

But there's a difference between ending a film on a cliff hanger and simply stopping halfway through the story.

When I saw "Fast & Furious 10" in the cinema, I gave it five stars. I assumed that the next film would follow fairly soon and that I'd get the answers to all those questions before too long. Three years later, I'm still waiting.

So now the ending doesn't have quite the same effect. Dom and Little B are apparently about to be blown to pieces. Roman, Tej, Han and Ramsey have apparently just been killed in a plane crash. Jakob has sacrificed himself. Dante has won. And we're expected to sit here for years wondering how everybody is going to survive.

Because we all know they're going to survive.

This is Fast & Furious. People come back from the dead in this franchise. Gisele, who was supposedly killed in "Fast & Furious 6", turns up alive in a submarine at the end of this very film.

So the cliff-hanger isn't even particularly suspenseful. It's just irritating.

I like "Fast & Furious 10". I like it a lot. Dante is a wonderfully deranged villain, the action is spectacular and the film is enormous fun. But that ending has now cost it something.

If "Fast & Furious 11" had arrived in 2024, I'd probably still be giving "Fast & Furious 10" five stars. But three years of waiting for the story to continue is a different matter.

A cliff-hanger is supposed to make you desperate to see the next film.

It isn't supposed to make you think the filmmakers have forgotten to finish the film.

Success Rate:  - 0.1

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Five Nights at Freddy's (4 Stars)

• Mike Schmidt struggles to keep custody of his younger sister Abby.
• Mike is haunted by the kidnapping of his younger brother Garrett.
• Mike takes a night security job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
• The restaurant's animatronics come alive and attack intruders.
• Abby befriends the supposedly murderous animatronics.
• The animatronics are possessed by murdered children.
• Mike dreams about Garrett and the murdered children.
• Mike discovers that the murdered children were killed at Freddy's.
• The policewoman Vanessa knows the truth about Freddy's and its history.
• The children were murdered by the serial killer William Afton.
• Afton is Vanessa's father and Garrett's kidnapper.
• Afton murdered the children while wearing the Spring Bonnie suit.
• Abby helps the murdered children realise that Afton betrayed them.
• The children turn against Afton and drag him away.
• Afton is trapped inside the Spring Bonnie suit.
• Vanessa is seriously injured and falls into a coma.
• Mike and Abby survive and remain together.

Success Rate:  + 12.9

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Pearl (5 Stars)

Müde bin ich, geh zur Ruh,

Schließe beide Äuglein zu.

Vater, lass die Augen dein

Über meinem Bette sein.

Hab ich Unrecht heut getan,

Sieh es, lieber Gott, nicht an.

Deine Gnad und Christi Blut

Machen alle Schaden gut.

Kranken Herzen sende Ruh ,

Nasse Augen schließe zu.

Lass den Mond am Himmel stehn

Und die stille Welt besehn.

---

I am tired, I go to rest,

And close both my eyes.

Father, let your eyes

Be upon my bed.

If I have done wrong today,

Do not look upon it, dear God.

Your grace and Christ's blood

Make all harm right.

Send peace to sick hearts,

Close wet eyes.

Let the Moon stand in the sky

And watch over the silent world.

Success Rate:  + 8.1

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