Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire -- I really enjoyed Ghostbusters: Afterlife for two reasons: the introduction of a new, younger cast to the franchise, and the fact that it takes place in the completely different setting of Oklahoma. Frozen Empire takes place back in New York City, eliminating the freshness of having the story be in a new place, and the new cast is basically reduced to being guest stars.
There are just too many people, here. The old Ghostbusters are shoehorned into the story, along with new characters who have been introduced in Frozen Empire. This doesn’t give the new cast much room to shine. And the nostalgia factor is getting very annoying; we have to see Slimer, and all of the ghosts from the previous films, in needless cameos that don‘t help tell the story. Meanwhile, the main villain of the film isn’t even seen until the third act, and by then it’s too little, too late.
Night Swim -- A haunted swimming pool? Really? Seriously, that’s what we’re running (or swimming) with, here? Wyatt Russell, who was so good as the low-rent Captain America wannabe in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, stars here as a Major League baseball player who’s had to cut his career short because of illness. He and his family move to a nice house that has a really big, and haunted, swimming pool.
While I honestly tried to get into this, I just couldn’t buy the concept of Night Swim. Victims are dragged down into the sinister waters, but they have to actually want to go swimming, first. Either that, or they’re tricked into falling into the pool, which is very lame. The actors (including one of my all-time faves, Kerry Condon, from HBO’s Rome) all give it their best shot. But the material they’re given just isn’t very good. Plus, some of the ghostly effects look very sub par and really badly done. Do yourself a favor and stay out of the pool.
Tarot -- Strangely enough, Tarot was the one movie I thought I would hate going in, but instead it wasn’t really that bad. A group of feckless college students rent a mansion in the deep woods for a party. During a search for more booze, they encounter a deck of tarot cards, and since one of the kids, Haley (Harriett Slater), just happens to use the things, she gives everyone a reading, including herself (awfully nice of Haley to include herself in the curse).
This makes them targets of a ghost who hunts each one of them down and kills them in stylish ways, and the remaining film winds up being a frantic struggle with the survivors to find out what supernatural force has it in for them and why. It also stars Jacob Batalon, who plays Ned in the recent Spider-Man films starring Tom Holland. Is Tarot a cinematic masterpiece? Oh, hell no. But it’s an enjoyable horror flick that runs with its concept in a very effective manner. It was also a hit, so maybe we can get a sequel with more dopey college kids playing with the Tarot deck of doom.
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