Killer Countdown - 5ive Girls (2006)

Streaming Service: Amazon Prime Video
Movie Name/Year: 5ive Girls (2006)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Length: 1h 35min
Rating: Unrated
Director: Warren P. Sonoda
Writer: Warren P. Sonoda
Actors: Ron Perlman, Jennifer Miller, Jordan Madley, Terra Vnesa, Barbara Mamabolo, Tasha May Currie, Amy Lalonde, Krysta Carter, James Kidnie
 
Blurb from IMDb: Five wayward teenage girls are sent to a reformatory and discover they possess unique powers to battle the ancient demon, Legion, which holds thrall over the sinister institution.
 

Selina's Point of View:
To say 5ive Girls was a disappointment would be an understatement.
 
If I'm honest, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. I went into it as blind as possible, but looking for the right movies for our Killer Countdown, I definitely saw more about the films than I would have liked, including ratings and a few reviews.
 
One of the bad things about reviewing movies this old is that we're likely to hear other opinions before we write ours. I don't love that, and I worry it will influence what we think.
 
Still, I went into 5ive Girls as open-minded as possible. After all, Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Sons of Anarchy) is in it. It couldn't be that bad… right?
 

I'm sorry to say it's rough. None of the acting was great – even Perlman's. There just wasn't enough material to work with. It was formulaic at best and an excuse to see women pretending to be naked teens at worst. There were plot holes everywhere – sometimes just unfinished ideas. For instance, the film insinuated that Perlman's character was a predator, but the story never really did anything with it, and the movie tried to redeem him instead.
 
It didn't work. It just felt like an unnecessary addition. Edginess, for edginess sake.
 
I added an extra point to my rating because I didn't entirely hate the ending. It wasn't great, but it had potential. A better writer and some better acting could have made that part decent.
 
Unfortunately, I don't think there was enough to the rest of the story for it to have been salvageable.
 

Cat's Point of View:
Okay, so I'm a sucker for anything with Ron Perlman in it. He's occupied an odd warm fuzzy place in my heart since I was little and watched Beauty and the Beast (1987-1990).
 
Not all his projects are slam-dunks, though. 5ive Girls fits squarely into that category.
 
If I were asked to describe this movie to someone, I'd call it an over-sexualized teen melodrama that tried hard to riff off The Craft (1996) but fell far short.
 

The story felt cobbled together, and bits of it were absolutely atrocious. There were a few interesting bits here and there but nothing of any significant substance. I had to attempt to watch 5ive Girls multiple times to get through it a single time without nodding off. I can't blame the movie for all of that, however. Chronic fatigue is always a factor for me, and I'm also still recovering from being sick. However, a good movie that invests in my attention would make it easier to fight against my narcoleptic tendencies. I had no hope here. There were too many loose ends and far too much cringe.
 
I also felt a bit of a disconnect with this entire premise as a former attendee of a parochial school – or, rather, a school run by the church. I didn't attend an all-girls school, mind you – but uniforms, weekly mandatory mass attendance, and catechism classes were all par for the course. I just had a hard time suspending disbelief in general.
 
If you don't put too much thought into it, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that quite enjoy 5ive Girls. I just wasn't one of them and would generally recommend a different selection if you want real chills and thrills for your spooky season.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 39%
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 4.4/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina's Rating – 2/5
Trust the Dice: Cat's Rating – 2/5
 
Movie Trailer: 

Project Dorothy (2024)

Movie Name/Year: Project Dorothy (2024)
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Length: 80 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Director: George Henry Horton
Writer: George Henry Horton, Ryan Scaringe
Actors: Danielle Harris, Tim SeZarn, Adam Budron, Olivia Scott
 
Blurb from IMDb: After a botched robbery, two men take refuge in a remote and lifeless scientific facility, inadvertently awakening a monster within.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
I was really into the trailer for Project Dorothy. There’s so much going on with artificial intelligence these days that new movies based on the worst of it make sense to me. I settled in to watch it with hope in my heart.
 
Although the acting of the two main characters was decent, and the concept of Project Dorothy was great, the execution left much to be desired.
 
I hated the way the AI, Dorothy, was portrayed. I don’t know if it was an issue with the writing or Danielle Harris’ (Roadkill, Creepshow, Inoperable) acting, but there was a disconnect somewhere.
 

Part of what makes movies like this scary is just how inhuman artificial intelligence is. Despite sounding, or even looking, human, it can’t be reasoned with or threatened – there are no emotions to appeal to. It’s the uncanny valley. In Project Dorothy, the portrayal of Dorothy is just too human. She laughs, she has normal inflection in her tone, she even gets scared. It broke any tension the very slow first half of the film created. I would have bought it if the twist was that she was just some psychopath behind a curtain pretending to be AI. Might have even made it interesting.
 
I can’t recommend Project Dorothy; it completely missed the point of its own sub-genre.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 96%
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – None
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 2/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: PG-13
 
Movie Trailer:

5 New Discoveries we Made in 2023 That We Wish We Hadn’t

According to: Cat

 

 

[Note: These are the worst films that we reviewed on Trust the Dice in 2023 that were released in previous years.]

 

As Selina mentioned in her Best New Discoveries Article, this was a weird year for movies and our reviews. We didn’t get to bring you as many reviews for various crazy reasons, and therefore our pool of rated films was a little more shallow than usual. For that reason, we have a Top 5 of the Bottom 5, as it were… and it was a real undertaking to get this many. Maybe that was a mixed blessing; given the theme of this particular list.

 

 5 – My Best Friend's Exorcism (2022)

 

 

Reviewed on: Monday, July 3, 2023 

Genre: Comedy, Horror

Rated: R

Length: 1h 36min

Selina’s Rating: 3

Cat’s Rating: 3

Rotten Tomatoes Blurb: The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries-and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

 

As I just mentioned, we were hard pressed to get 5 movies together that had scores low enough that they qualified for the dubious recognition of this listing. For that reason, we have My Best Friend’s Exorcism placing… but only just barely. If this had been a more typical year for reviews, it probably wouldn’t have made this list.

 

Selina and I agreed that this was a solid 80’s retro genre flick with all the feels for those familiar with that decade to enjoy. It was a general possession/exorcism movie, and at the same time had a few new twists that made it interesting.

 

My Best Friend’s Exorcism was a book adaptation and a love letter to the decade of its setting. I know I resonated with this movie on an uncomfortable level, sending me back in time to my own awkward youth in 1988. Slumber party pranks were miserable for the recipients and all the rage. Trapper Keepers were in every locker and the amount of hairspray that was still depleting the ozone layer back then was ludicrous.

 

My Best Friend’s Exorcism was silly, campy, and a little cringe-worthy. If that’s what you enjoy with your horror or comedies in general, then this film could be a lot of fun. Otherwise, it might not be an audience’s cup of tea. (Quite a few of the major ratings site’s user scores would seem to agree.)

 

That aside, this is the only movie on this… distinguished… list that I would be generally happy with watching a 3^rd time.

 

4 – The Invitation (2022)

 

 

Reviewed on: Friday, January 27, 2023

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1h 45min

Selina’s Rating: 1.5

Cat’s Rating: 3.5

 

IMDb Blurb: A young woman is courted and swept off her feet, only to realize a gothic conspiracy is afoot.

 

I’ll be honest, when I offered my rating for The Invitation I was likely thinking of the Rated R version of this movie. There was a PG-13 release as well, and that was the one we were set to review. The milder rated offering of this film was too watered down, and every quibble that Selina offered in her review article was entirely justified. I much preferred the spicier version. Even then, it wasn’t anything to shout from the rooftops about.

 

I had heard so much about this movie and had eagerly anticipated its release. A friend even had a watch-party with me online before it was widely available to stream. I had to watch it twice, however. I fell asleep during that first watch-through. I will qualify that statement with the fact I do have chronic fatigue due to medical issues and we did try to watch this late at night… so there was that. My re-watch didn’t help though.

 

The concepts that The Invitation explored weren’t bad, but the final product just didn’t quite hit the mark. The sum of the performances paled in comparison to the effort of the lead and the rating requirements of PG-13 somewhat hobbled the end-result.

 

3 – Rogue (2020)

 

 

Reviewed on: Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Genre: Action, Horror, Thriller

Rated:  R

Length: 1h 45min

Selina’s Rating: N/A

Cat’s Rating: 2.5 

 

IMDb Blurb: O'Hara is a mercenary leading a squad of soldiers on their mission to rescue hostages in a remote part of Africa. Unfortunately, the mission goes awry and the team is stranded and forced to survive against the local rebels.

 

Selina didn’t get a chance to watch Rogue before we started compiling our Year in Review candidates. So we unfortunately don’t have her input for it.

My takeaway was that the primary ensemble cast was under-utilized, the effects were hit and miss, and it suffered in comparison to a similar movie of the genre that didn’t even need as many action bells and whistles to make more of an impact. Beast (2022) released relatively close to Rogue and pretty much pushed the 2020 movie into obscurity, in my book at least.

What Rogue did unquestioningly well, however, was raise awareness for the lion farming problem and also human trafficking.

While I don’t regret watching Rogue, I don’t intend to do so again.  

 

2 – Santa Games (2022)

 

 

Reviewed on: Monday, December 11, 2023

Genre: Comedy

Rated: Unrated (Our rating recommendation was PG)

Length: 1h 30min

Selina’s Rating: 1.5

Cat’s Rating: 2

IMDb Blurb: When the manager of a mall where Santa Charles work decides to replace him, he asks to find his replacement. When this ad goes viral, the interview process becomes a series of tasks and challenges leading to an all-out competition.

 

If anyone watched our stream where we discussed our Year in Review and set up the tiers for ranking these movies in order for all of our lists, you might notice that this is a little “out of order” from where Selina and I initially placed it.

 

Selina maintains that this was one of the worst movies she’s seen in quite a while. I hadn’t watched it yet prior to our discussion. (In my defense, I was sick pretty much the entire month of December and there were just some things I didn’t get around to.)

 

I finally watched Santa Games prior to writing this article, and it didn’t leave as much of a lasting negative impression on me as the new #1 movie did – so we revisited and swapped things up. We can meet in the middle and say they were tied for #1, but for the purposes of this list, one of them had to be the runner-up. I digress…

 

Santa Games appears to be a bit of a low-budget indie flick that didn’t have a marketing strategy. Seriously, there simply was no trailer. It just doesn’t seem to exist in any public capacity. (I even tried to get one of the AI web-bots to help me look for one. No dice.)

 

As far as the movie, itself, Santa Games was on the low end of ‘ok.’ On one level, the story focusing on family legacy, the spirit of Christmas, and keeping the concept of Santa inclusive for everyone had the potential to be good. There was a nugget of good-feels in there somewhere.

 

Unfortunately, Santa Games suffered from a mixed-bag of acting, a story a little all over the place, and a generally forgettable experience. Not all of the humor landed, some was simply too redundant, some of the comedic elements were absolutely ridiculous, and the over-all end product ended up being more of a drama than a comedy. There are definitely far better movies out there for the Christmas season – but there are also far worse.

 

1 – White Noise (2022)

 

 

Reviewed on: Monday, January 16, 2023

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror

Rated: R

Length: 2h 16min

Selina’s Rating: 2

Cat’s Rating: 2

 

IMDb Blurb: Dramatizes a contemporary American family's attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world.

 

For this one, I wish I could offer something in counterpoint to my impression of White Noise. Alas, Selina wasn’t able to offer anything additional to my review because she simply didn’t remember enough of the movie to have an impression.

 

That was likely because White Noise was generally structured to be the bane of existence for anyone who has ADHD.

 

I really loathe tearing down movies. I feel that there’s something positive to be said about even the bad ones, because people worked hard to bring these stories to life. I detest having only negative things to say. For that reason, I will interject that White Noise had an amazing cast that clearly delivered exactly what they were directed to do, and they gave it their all.

 

That being said, this movie was pretentious. The trailer was a bait and switch for the actual movie’s contents and I am still mad about it. I was expecting a lampoon-like horror dramedy of a family scrambling to avoid a chemical disaster, and not doing it well. What I got was so much different and it was so boring that it was at a soul crushing level. I struggled to get through this movie, and it was too long. I sincerely hope that the book it was adapted from was better than this.

 

I can’t get that time back. I’m also mad that this movie brings back flashbacks of that angst every time I now see Adam Driver’s (The Dead Don’t Die, Marriage Story, House of Gucci) face.

5 Worst New Movies of 2023

According to: Selina

 

 
[Note: These are the worst new movies of the year that we’ve reviewed on Trust the Dice. If it wasn't reviewed on the site, it's not eligible.]
 
5 – The Lair
 

Reviewed on: January 23
Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Rated: Unrated
Length: 1h 37min
Selina’s Rating: 2
Cat’s Rating: 3.5
 
IMDb Blurb: When Royal Air Force pilot Lt. Kate Sinclair is shot down over Afghanistan, she finds refuge in an abandoned underground bunker where deadly man-made biological weapons - half human, half alien - are awakened.
 
I barely even remember The Lair to be honest. It wasn’t bad so much as it was unmemorable.
 
4 – The Out-Laws
 

Reviewed on: July 10
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Rated: R
Length: 1h 35min
Selina’s Rating: 1
Cat’s Rating: 2
 
IMDb Blurb: A straight-laced bank manager about to marry the love of his life. When his bank is held up by infamous Ghost Bandits during his wedding week, he believes his future in-laws who just arrived in town, are the infamous Out-Laws.
 
There was a lot of great acting in The Out-Laws, but it also had an overdone concept and SO much cringe that it was hard to even focus on what was happening. This kind of comedy might have done better in the 90s. For now, it was just obnoxious.
 
3 – Peppergrass 
 

Reviewed on: June 14
Genre: Thriller
Rated: Unrated
Length: 1h 34min
Selina’s Rating: 1
Cat’s Rating: 2.5
 
IMDb Blurb: During a pandemic, a pregnant restaurateur tries to rob a priceless truffle from a reclusive veteran.
 
When you’ve got a film with only one or two characters on screen for any length of time, they better be perfect at what they’re doing. While the actors weren’t awful, they didn’t command our attention. The movie was also badly marketed. We thought we were going into an action-packed thriller, not a wilderness survival. Maybe if we’d known what to expect, our opinion would have been more forgiving.
 
2 – Quicksand
 

Reviewed on: July 12
Genre: Thriller
Rated: Unrated
Length: 1h 26min
Selina’s Rating: 1
Cat’s Rating: N/A
 
IMDb Blurb: Follows a married couple almost divorcing who become trapped in quicksand while hiking through a rainforest in Colombia. They will battle the elements of the jungle and must work together in order to survive.
 
There were some parts of Quicksand that worked. The story had an interesting hook to it, but the majority of the time we were left with two relatively bad actors alone on screen. It wasn’t worth the time it took for a single watch.
 
1 – Skinamarink 
 

Reviewed on: February 13
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Rated: Unrated
Length: 1h 40min
Selina’s Rating: 1
Cat’s Rating: 2
 
IMDb Blurb: Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.
 
Critics loved Skinamarink and it’s not hard for me to imagine why, but it flew way over our heads. It was not the kind of film to hold onto the kicking and screaming attention span of those of us with inattentive ADHD. We’re just not the target audience.

'Tis the Season - Santa Games (2022)

Streaming Service: Hulu
Movie Name/Year: Santa Games (2022)
Genre: Comedy
Length: 1h 30min
Rating: Unrated
Director: Keoni Waxman
Actors: Marquez Jackson, Faizon Love
 

Blurb from IMDb: When the manager of a mall where Santa Charles work decides to replace him, he asks to find his replacement. When this ad goes viral, the interview process becomes a series of tasks and challenges leading to an all-out competition.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
Holiday films are usually good fun for the whole family – at least the ones that aren’t horror. Since I was trying to avoid rom-coms this season, I thought leaning into the family aspect for some flicks would be a good way to do that.
 
Unfortunately, Santa Games was not the best pick.
 
The premise of the film made me smile when I came across it, so it was an easy add for the schedule. I knew it was going to be a low-budget flick, so I had my expectations ready for exactly that. Even still, it wasn’t good.
 
In the first ten minutes of Santa Games there had to have been about 20 fat jokes.
 

Now, I grew up in the 80s. I can handle fat jokes. They were woven into pretty much all the media at the time. Some of those films/shows I still go back and watch today. The problem is that not one of the jokes in Santa Games was funny. In fact, it was mostly the main character repeating, “was that a fat joke” over and over again. That’s not even creative.
 
As the movie progressed, it didn’t get better. Most scenes had the exact same annoying musical background that got overly repetitive.
 
There was only one scene in Santa Games that I kind of liked. It was a little after the half hour mark, between the main character and his nephew. It was a good scene, meant for a better film, with better acting.
 
It’s a shame. With the premise and the setting of Santa Games, a little more creativity could have made it a good film. Instead, it feels wasted.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 56%
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 3.7/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 1.5/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: PG
 
P.S. Some scenes during the credits.

Book Adaptations - Revisiting Personal Cinematic Landscape

 

Image by Freepik

As much as I love movies, I have even more space in my heart for books. A trip to Barnes and Noble during a sale is one of my favorite things. Finding a book older than my mom at a used bookstore is even better. A good book can be a release, a comfort, or just a kickstart to get me working on my own stories.
 
Movies that adapt books, however, can be hit or miss. Sometimes the people adapting the story get everything just right, but let’s be honest – that’s rare. It’s more likely that people who love the original book are going to be disappointed. Not as common, but still possible, the movie could actually ruin the book for fans completely. Then there are those adaptations that add more perspective, extending scenes from the book – or cutting out some of the filler – causing fans to love the story more.
 
There are a ton of ways a book adaptation can go.
 
In my original article I talked about The Princess Bride (1987), The Hunger Games (2012 -), and Harry Potter (2001-2011). For the most part, all three of those adaptations aren’t bad. I wasn’t so fond of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) as an adaptation, but as a movie it was good.
 
I would like to add one more adaptation to that list that has affected me in a good way. That film is: Dune (2021).

It’s been a very long time since I read Dune (1965). I remember taking an abnormally long time to read it. It was a great story, but there was so much in the way of slow-paced politics that I hate reading about. That’s a problem because, with ADHD, that makes it almost impossible for me to retain information. There were chapters I had to re-read because I’d finish them and find that nothing stuck. I didn’t remember anything I’d read.
 
I’m a heavy reader, so it’s rare that a good story will take me all that long to finish. In fact, I read the last book in the Harry Potter series in one night. The only reason the last book in The Hunger Games took me a couple of days to read was because I had to put it down when Prim died and walk away for a bit. I devour a good story like it’s the air I need to breathe. So, the fact that I couldn’t do that with Dune, despite it being a good story, was a problem for me.
 
Now, Dune has been adapted before, but if you’ve seen those films, you know why they didn’t make much of a difference for me. One of them has a cult following, but it’s certainly not the best adaptation of the book. The 2021 version, though, was incredible.
 
It brought the book back to my memory and helped me process things I simply couldn’t when I read it. Things made more sense than they did when I was reading and re-reading chapters. It didn’t hurt that it was an absolutely gorgeous film with actors that brought every character to life flawlessly. It added something to the reading experience that I lost because of my disability. It was the first movie that really made me understand that sometimes, the adaptation process could be a matter of accessibility.
 
Unfortunately, not all the adaptations that have shaped the way I view movies are for good reasons.
 
Let’s talk about Eragon (2006).

I love reading with friends. Either when someone recommends a book to me, or I recommend it to them, I love having the discussions that follow. In the case of Eragon, my best friend came to me with the story. My friend, at the time, was not as big of a reader as he is now. In fact, Eragon was the first series he ever recommended to me (outside of comic books). So, I took it seriously.
 
I finished them all in about a week. The series was outstanding, and I understood his love for it. Naturally, when we learned about the movie, we were both excited.
 
We didn’t get to see it together, which is a shame because the adaptation of Eragon straight-up requires emotional support for fans. I’ve never seen a movie get a book so wrong in my life. It felt as if the casting director picked actors out of a hat. Not only was each one of them wrong for their part, but they didn’t even put enough energy into their performances to try to convince fans of the new take on each character. The story barely even went in the same direction as the books, and the dragons felt as if they’d been made by a photoshop novice.
 
The adaptation was so awful that I have trouble looking back on the books fondly. Every time I try, I remember some bullshit from the film. I have, on occasion, wondered if the author should have tried to sue the production company for defamation.
 
When movies and books come together, it gets complicated. You can get a masterpiece like Dune, but you can also get a horror story like Eragon. I think one of the best ways to go forward with an adaptation is to include the original author in the movie creation process. When adapting older works, it’s not always possible, but I do wonder how good Eragon could have been if the original writer had been given some control over the final product.

Quicksand (2023)

Streaming Service: Shudder
Movie Name/Year: Quicksand (2023)
Genre: Thriller
Length: 1h 26min
Rating: Unrated
Production/Distribution: Dawn’s Light, Elemental Stories, Sangre Films, Two Twenty Two Pictures, AMC+, Shudder
Director: Andres Beltran
Writer: Matt Pitts
Actors: Andrés Castañeda, Carolina Gaitan, Sebastian Eslava, Allan Hawco
 
Blurb from IMDb: Follows a married couple almost divorcing who become trapped in quicksand while hiking through a rainforest in Colombia. They will battle the elements of the jungle and must work together in order to survive.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
The trailer for Quicksand looked promising. It showed a lot of heart-pumping moments, but still made sure that audiences knew most of it took place in a single quicksand pit.
 
There was no way of knowing that the trailer used every single interesting moment.
 
Aside from what’s shown in the coming attractions, nothing else happens in Quicksand. That, alone, wouldn’t be a problem. With a strong script and even stronger actors, a movie with two people stuck in a single location can still be decent.
 

I’d like to use Malcolm & Marie (2021) as an example. That entire movie is about a couple having a single argument. There’s nothing else involved. There’s never anyone else on screen. Yet, the script by Sam Levinson (Euphoria, Deep Water, Assassination Nation) makes enough sense, while Zendaya (Euphoria, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dune) and John David Washington (Tenet, Amsterdam, Ballers) embody their characters so thoroughly, that it’s impossible to look away. It’s the best example I can give of what can make a two-actor film work.
 
Unfortunately, Quicksand doesn’t have any of that. The actors don’t have enough chemistry to hold up the film on their own. Even if they did, the script is clunky and awkward. As a result, I could barely concentrate as I yawned through the film.
 
Quicksand let me down. It wasn’t worth the faith I put into it.
 
If you want to see for yourself, Quicksand will be available on Shudder this Friday, July 14.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – None
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score –5.4/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 1/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: PG-13
 
Movie Trailer: