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An Irish surveyor gets stuck in a possibly haunted forest.

As I was watching this, I thought to myself, "This reminds me a bit of Vivarium." Turns out the same guy directed both movies. I'm not sure what exactly triggered that thought, but this is just as slow-paced and lonely as Vivarium. If anything, it's even slower paced.

Again, I don't really think this was a horror movie so much as a psychological thriller. If you come into this expecting monsters and gore, you'll be pretty disappointed. It's very European and influenced by 60s and 70s movies, I think. If you're into 70s folk horror, you'll probably enjoy this more than the IMDb rating suggests.

Ireland has some really beautiful forests. I can understand why filmmakers spend so much time shooting in them. Still, Without Name goes to extremes with endless shots of trees and nature. It's very pretty and makes me want to go explore a forest, but a bit more plot and fewer lingering shots of trees would have been nice.

The actors are pretty good, but you'll mostly be following Alan McKenna around the forest. The forest itself is pretty much his costar, though some other characters show up. The sound effects and score give the forest a Blair Witch atmosphere. It was eerie at times, but I'm honestly not especially fond of that whole Blair Witch thing.

If you don't mind a slow pace and a LOT of (pretty) shots of trees, this is worth checking out. If you're expecting bloodthirsty faeries to slash their way through a group of teenage friends, skip it.

A pro wrestler who fills in for his girlfriend at a babysitting job defends his charge from an evil cult.

It turns out I've seen Shawn Roberts in some stuff, but the name didn't mean anything to me. He was one of the guys who got killed off a bit early in Land of the Dead, which is a pretty awesome job on a resume but not all that memorable. However, he was great here, and I'll probably remember his name now.

This is a splatter comedy full of cheesy lines and gore sfx. I'm not really sure I liked anyone but Roberts and the kid he was babysitting, played by Maya Misaljevic. The scenes between them were great. When other characters intruded, the movie often got a bit dumb.

The bad guys are played with extra camp. Roberts' reactions to them were funny, but I didn't find the bad guys themselves all that funny. I think part of the problem was the writing and directing. The bigger, musclebound guys had some presence and made for appropriate challenges for Roberts, though.

That led to some pretty decent fight choreography, and the fights could get pretty brutal. If you don't like gore, you might want to skip this movie, though it's played for laughs. There are constant geysers of blood, which got a bit silly, but I guess that's unavoidable in a 90s horror homage.

I didn't really feel that all the characters were able to satisfactorily justify their existence. However, Roberts was able to keep things pretty fun, and having lots of characters around meant that the body count could keep piling up. If that's all you really need to enjoy a movie, I'd say this is a good watch.

If you like movies like Dead Alive, Botched, and Evil Dead, it's worth a look.

After meeting a thug in a bar, a young guy considers hiring him to kill his step-father.

Christopher Smith has made a bunch of underrated movies, usually with some horror aspect. Detour does something a bit different for him. The stars are younger than usual, but this is this is a pretty cool example of neo-noir.

An interesting twist is that some of the scenes are presented as if there are two timelines. It turns out to be a bit gimmicky, but it's a fun gimmick. Unsurprisingly, this leads to a couple plot twists. I realized that I had already seen this movie after Jared Abrahamson showed up because I liked his character so much when I saw it before.

I kept watching because I couldn't remember the plot twists, but they either weren't too hard to guess, or maybe my memory is better than I thought. Still, I think that if you like twists, you'll enjoy this. Like a lot of noir stories, it can go to dark places. It's not like Smith's horror movies, though.

John Lynch shows up as a bigger, badder thug than Emory Cohen's character. Every time I see Lynch, I get excited because I remember Hardware from way back in 1990. I guess it's kind of silly given that he's been in so many movies since then, but he's always going to be Shades to me. I'm surprised I didn't remember he's in this movie because he was great.

Tye Sheridan wasn't exactly a thrilling protagonist, but his character is supposed to be depressed and hung over. There was one scene where he let his emotions out and hugged his best friend, Jared Abrahamson's character, which really did feel genuine. If he'd been allowed to be more emotional at the end of the movie, maybe that'd have helped.

Emory Cohen and Bel Powley were pretty cool, and their incredibly messed up relationship felt both tragic and a bit disturbing. Smith did a good job with that. If he'd really cut loose, I guess he'd have lost the mainstream audience, and this would drift right back into horror territory, but that would have been interesting to see.

It's paced a little slower than some thrillers, and there aren't a lot of action sequences. It'll probably play best with people who don't mind a bit of slow-burn drama in their neo-noir. If you like the cast or Smith's other work, check it out. I bet you'll like this, too.