The Beach House (2019)

Written and directed by Jeffrey A. Brown, The Beach House is his debut feature, and folks, this film is an impressive beginning. It looks amazing (WOWEE do I love shots where the horizon slices through the middle!); the action slides along at a steadily increasing pace; it's weird and squishy and ultimately pretty sad... It's all here, and the grains of sand of this story really stick.

As usual, I went in as clueless as possible to watching, and it was particularly enjoyable. It turned out I had assumed completely wrong with regards to the type of film this was going to be, having seen little more than the poster (above) and some positive reactions on Letterboxd. Knowing almost nothing and assuming wrongly made the plot developments even more unsettling.

With that in mind: I'm not going to heavily spoil The Beach House here, but I do urge you to stop reading (and to not read the tags on this post) if you haven't seen this movie and plan to do so soon!

Emily (Liana Liberato) is visiting the family beach house of her boyfriend Randall (Noah Le Gros) for the couple to attempt to reconnect after he dropped out of uni and started behaving strangely.


(...If I had one criticism, it would be that Randall's backstory seems to be developed more than is ultimately necessary. It gives us some meaty insight into him as a person and fleshes him out, but I felt as though what we're told might be more relevant by the end. It isn't. This is barely a complaint, however, and I'll take over-developed characters over under-developed pretty much always).


Emily is portrayed as sensible and smart, with some canny and portentous info dumps about her fascination with organisms and bacteria (she's an organic chemistry student), but she's still shown as young enough and in love enough to be putting up with a bit of a crappy boyfriend. 

Not long after they arrive, Emily realises the house isn't empty of inhabitants, finding medication (a lot of medication), a stocked fridge, and dirty dishes. It appears that Randall - who, now that I think about it, spends most of the first two acts laying down or asleep 😆 - didn't ask his father if they could use the house, he just assumed it'd be free. Unfortunately, it's been promised to some family friends.

Mitch and Jane (Jake Weber, who I recognised from the Dawn of the Dead remake, and Maryann Nagel) are a slightly odd but seemingly harmless older couple who invite Emily and Randall to stay in the house - "there's plenty of room!" - and have dinner with them that night.

Exposition ensues. Randall suggests the group do edibles together. The night starts to get weird.

There's a sense of groggy clamminess that begins around this point, and it sticks until the final shot. Whatever is making these people feel so sluggish, be it drugs/drink/something else (or a combination of all three), the physical and mental effects of it are revealed in such a way that it makes you want to mop your own brow. That sense of being drowsy, muddled and heavy-feeling. Even the clichéd perception-shift shot of the ground coming up to meet Emily when she passes out seems incredibly appropriate and effective here.

The Beach House is full of fog, outside, across the water and land as far as possible, and internally, inside the character's heads as they sweat and crawl and panic.

A slow burn within a tight 88mins. An It Follows bedfellow with icky visuals (I'm looking at you, kitchen scene and basement scene!) and cosmic threat. It's a tale of an intimate undoing within a planetary one.

Cosmic horror is defined as: 

"fear and awe we feel when confronted by phenomena beyond our comprehension, whose scope extends beyond the narrow field of human affairs and boasts of cosmic significance". 

I'd say that The Beach House can definitely be filed under that.

Jeffrey A. Brown proves that with vision and imagination, a limited budget means absolutely nothing. Streaming on Shudder right now!

Evil Dead (2013)

This artwork by Laz Marquez is EV-ER-YTHING.

I remember when I first saw a trailer for this, and it looked INTENSE. So much so that I didn't go and see it on its theatrical release. Tongue slitting?! Wow... that's a bit much.

Well, times have changed! And just recently I was in the mood to pop this on and finally see how I felt about Fede Alvarez's take on the Evil Dead thing. And, honestly, I felt pretty entertained!

After a gorgeous title card/opening shot one-two punch, we're introduced to a group of college kids. In a spin on the original set-up, Mia (Jane Levy, doing most of the work but doing it brilliantly) is being isolated in this cabin in the middle of nowhere in order to go through drug addiction withdrawals. Her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) accompanies her to supervise, along with his girlfriend and Mia's friends (including Spring's Lou Taylor Pucci).

David is warned that his sister has paid lip service to quitting before, with all the heartfelt declarations and ceremony they just witnessed as she threw her drugs away moments before. So, he's told, they have to be harder on her this time if it's really going to work. This is obviously almost instantly the cue for demonic shit to go down and no one initially believing Mia, assuming she's either attempting to manipulate them or hallucinating through her withdrawal.

But as we know: she's not. This is demon dinnertime.

Fans of the originals will recognise some iconic plot points like the tree assault (feeling WAY less exploitative than the 1981 version but still horrible [I watched that to remind myself and YIKES x100]), the Book of the Dead (bound in trash bags and barbed wire; nice touch) the tool shed and an Oldsmobile sitting out to rust near the cabin.

This was neither as sick as I had assumed it would be, nor as redundant. And what I really enjoyed about it was the dirt under its nails. 99% of this film feels deeply unclean; slick with sweat/rain/vomit/blood and caked in mud (and blood!). When horror successfully feels so tainted, I'm so completely on board. I love it when world-within-the-movie feels this soiled.

Sure, the drug comedown madness/evil infiltration thing is a horror trope, but it works like a charm here, and once the demons have an "in" with this group, it's almost non-stop evisceration, self-amputation and screaming.

Taking into account the serious, practical gore + solid story + exceptionally bold visuals (the cinematography was by Aaron Morton, who's since worked on Black Mirror) I feel I must recommend Evil Dead. There's not much about this I can fault. Perhaps the ending? Just slightly? But that may only be because it's where we veer off from the known path more than at any other time and I wasn't quite ready for that. On subsequent viewings, I suspect I'll appreciate it more. For its pure insanity if nothing else.

Now that I've come to accept reboots, reimaginings and their ilk, it's easier to get excited about them. At the end of the day, it's more horror, and that's a good problem to have. None of these films will ever undo the classics, so why not enjoy them? Especially when they are as competently made as this is.

Perhaps the most disturbing shot in the movie, for me.

Raimi and Campbell were in fact producers on this movie. Apparently, the original plan was to make a sequel connecting both this and the originals, as this iteration was said to be set in the same continuity. Such info kind of boggles my mind as tonally they are so different; there are very few moments of levity here. I'm sad a connecting sequel didn't happen, as I can't imagine the middle ground. Would have been interested to see Raimi/Campbell and Alvarez mashup?!

I rented this on Google Play so I imagine it's easy to get hold of if you've yet to see it!

The Stuff (1985)

I've never really given much thought to The Stuff, but this artwork gave me a flashback to seeing its VHS cover as a child and feeling repulsed and fascinated - a vibe I still chase to this day, within the genre!

Anyway, The Stuff, written and directed by Larry Cohen, is a satirical, campy, if slightly untidy B movie sci-fi/horror/comedy.

The "stuff" in question is a mysterious creamy dessert that's taken America by storm. The pink and purple signature colours and neon are seen everywhere: billboards, delivery trucks, street vendors... as well as sexy TV commercials and its claim of "Enough is never enough!".

A few people are rightly convinced that something sinister is going on, though. We have David 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty), an industrial espionage expert hired to find out about this enigmatic product; Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), an advertising executive who up until now has been peddling it to the masses; 'Chocolate Chip' Charlie (Garrett Morris), the face of another once-popular snack whose business got swallowed by the Stuff grabbing so much market share; and a young boy by the name of Jason (Scott Bloom) distrustful of the creamy goo after witnessing it moving around his fridge on its own, then being forced to run away from home when his parents and brother (played by his real brother: they both have crazily striking blue/green eyes!) all go nuts and try to attack him.

At one point Jason comes home to find all other food in the house tossed in the rubbish, and his mother serving a huge dish of Stuff to the family, in a bizarre take on a family dinner. 

Where did this delicious and dangerous treat come from, though? We're never told. The closest we get is in the opening scene, with an old geezer finding it oozing up from a hole in the ground. He tastes it(!) and decides that it's delicious enough to sell. Then it's back to present day (in 1985) with the immersion of the dessert into everyday culture and Stuff-induced mind-control of the population well underway.

We follow the aforementioned group of level heads as they travel around trying to uncover what the Stuff actually is, and then attempting to get the word out about its dangers. Their adventures even have them crossing paths with Paul Sorvino, chewing the scenery up as a military dude.

Effects are either goo or body-horror based, taking the form of practical (upside down and miniature sets, crazy fake heads, and just plain ol' pumping the stuff into and through things) and CGI (now laughably dated looking green screen). There are some inconsistencies with exactly how the Stuff affects a human body; sometimes people appear to bleed it when attacked, and others appear to be empty vessels after the alien pudding has left them. This isn't the worst thing in the world (this is a B movie after all) but it's a bit confusing.

I'm pretty sure I used to conflate this and The Blob, for obvious reasons, and it's not unlike it, of course. But the 1980's Blob brings nastier gore and a sense of its substance being actually dangerous. The Stuff, despite clearly turning people into zombies and occasionally (and far too seldom) oozing its way out of bodies, never really feels like a palpable threat in the moment. Everyone is obsessed with it, but ultimately the tide turns in public opinion and we're even shown riots against it, by the end of the movie?! It got one thing right: humans are fucking fickle.

The slightly chaotic plot seems to be the result of edits made from the original cut. Formerly longer than its now 87min runtime, edits were demanded to help with pacing. And help the pacing it did... only, it sacrificed anything the film ever had in the way of the art of crafting a story. Whereas presumably the longer cut fleshed out character decisions and actions, this version bounces speedily from one sequence to another with no time to lose!

According to Cohen the studio still wasn't too happy with the finished film, despite the cuts:

"New World wanted a straight-up horror film, and, in retrospect, The Stuff had more comedic aspects to it than the executives were perhaps expecting. They thought they were going to get a flat-out horror movie with a lot of gore and scares, and we made a film that was more satirical and had a lot of humour and commentary in it."

He's right, this definitely plays as a silly satire with occasional nasty moments, rather than an all-out "let the bodies hit the floor" horror movie. And that's cool! It's perhaps better viewed in company rather than alone, as it's so nonsensical it'll have you exclaiming out loud as it all plays out. Even the score sounds like it would be more at home on a chirpy Spielberg movie than this.

Streaming on Shudder at time of writing. Watch while eating something creamy!

Spring (2014)

Relevant to this time of year, Spring is a beautiful film about love ❤

This one was recommended to me ages ago, but I've a habit of deliberately putting off films I'm certain I'm going to really like. Does anyone else do this? The timing has to be right, my mood has to be just so... I want to honour the film properly. So on the eve of Valentine's Day, I was ready. I dove in.

Spring benefits from you knowing as little as possible going in, so we're going to circle around the real meat of the plot here. We're introduced to Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), a Californian with nothing much left to keep him there: he's lost both parents in quick succession, his best friend is wasted all the time, he has no job prospects and he's in trouble with the cops. Life is shit and he's miserable. To escape it all, he books a random ticket to Italy.

Once there, he meets a couple of rowdy Englishmen who show him the sights, and when they peace out and head to Amsterdam, Evan decides to stay and find work. He gets a job and lodging on a local farm and then attempts to get to know a gorgeous woman he keeps seeing around town.

Louise (Nadia Hilker) is at once mysterious, haughty, and captivating. The first time they talk she makes it clear she literally just wants to have sex with him. Finding this a little full-on, Evan suggests getting a drink together first: "I gotta make sure that you're the kind of crazy I can deal with."

They spend time together, and they eat, they drink, they talk and fuck. In the span of less than a week, they grow close. Louise is affectionate but evasive, sometimes unexpectedly running off or ducking out of dates early. Evan just accepts her as a tempestuous Italian woman, but we're shown tantalising peeks into her world, showing it's way weirder than that.

The layers are expertly peeled back, with the audience faintly aware of Louise's "issues", but not understanding the hows and whys. When Evan arrives at her apartment for the the most jaw-dropping scene of the movie, it starts a series of scenes of natural exposition, unfolding Louise's tale in all of its astonishing glory, and following Evan as he processes it.

I have to give special mention to the character of Evan, who is a genuinely good bloke. He wears his heart on his sleeve and he's just trying to get over some awful personal shit from back home. In his new situation we witness him work hard, have a cool relationship with his boss (an old olive farmer) and fall hard for Louise. You absolutely believe him when he expresses his feelings for her. The softness in his character is portrayed so well by Lou Taylor Pucci; he's vulnerable, but not mawkish; sensible (not just bedding Louise the minute he meets her, like she suggests) and self-deprecating. This is a male lead written in a way a lot of others could learn from!

With a story told so well, and mostly using natural locations (rather than dressed sets), this reminded me a lot of Monsters. It's a film whose location is a strong part of the story, acting almost as an additional character, and despite Spring's settings often being immense - wave-battered coastlines, churches, tombs, ruins - it all still feels so intimate. 

That feeling of falling in love, when you feel like the only two people in the world... Spring captures that.

My congratulations to directors Justin Benson (who also wrote the story) and Aaron Moorhead, and actors Nadia Hilker (who is also fantastic, please don't think otherwise) and Lou Taylor Pucci. This is a beautiful little monster and I'm already looking forward to watching it again.

Available to stream on Shudder right now ❤

Cabin Fever (2002) & Hostel (2005)

Do you like Eli Roth? I can't make up my mind. I kind of accidentally watched two of his films back-to-back the other night.

Both Cabin Fever and Hostel show us a group of friends way out of their element, far from home and under threat. Both are satisfyingly (and practically, effects speaking) gory and gross, and both were strong enough in premise and critical/audience reception to have spawned sequels and remakes. Let's take a little look at them...

Even though I've never considered myself an Eli Roth "fan" as such, I remember having an appreciation for his work. Sure, it's a little immature, but it comes from a love of the genre, right?

Hostel's Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova)

To focus first on the women in these films (because that's where my representation interests lay most heavily), I have to give Roth his due; there's an evolution from the standard "helpless and topless" female characters. Natalya (above) is actually by far the most interesting character in Hostel: she's presented in more than one dimension and has something approaching a character arc! Natalya begins as a sexually liberated hook-up, and progresses through lure to full on traitor, with her appearance following the disintegration of her morality. More thought went into that than I remembered, to be honest.

Cabin Fever has another strong brunette in Marcy (Cerina Vincent). She is comfortable with her sexuality (which I guess in these films amounts to "is willing to get naked" but I'm not judging - women like sex!) and she's also brave and capable.

She's also the bum in this Texas Chainsaw Massacre homage shot!

Female representation is, surprisingly, not as poor as I recalled. There are still ample scenes of sex (centred on the male experience, of course) and boobs, but at least we have characters who are ultimately more than their body parts. They are somewhat multi-faceted personalities, not just a walking pair of tits.

Male characters... don't fare so well. Let's just say that the most striking thing on this rewatch was the reminder that early 2000's Roth sure did a fine line in absolute douchebags. From Bert (James DeBello, below left) in Cabin Fever to all three male leads in Hostel, if you ever feel an inexplicable need to hear characters call one another "fag" and "gay" repeatedly, then you're in luck, I guess?!

Cabin Fever's Jeff (Joey Kern, above right) experiences the best/worst reward for his selfish arseholeness, in another horror homage moment at the film's climax. Having saved himself from infection by abandoning his friends, he staggers out of his hiding place and back to the cabin. In a less shocking but still cool nod to hero Ben's fate in Night of the Living Dead, he's promptly shot and killed by police.

In terms of gore, I feel like it's kind of redundant to comment on at this point. Hostel shows us so much realistic violence that it was rolled into the whole "torture porn" debate. Cabin Fever too, is stomach-churningly gruesome (the shaving scene!) but comes under less fire due to the intent; sick shit is happening to these kids, but it's not directly at the hands of others gaining pleasure from it. In Hostel, people are deliberately captured, sold, sat down and tortured. It all looks very real.

To some this is too much, it's a step too far to show such extreme pain with no real message behind it. Personally, I use the "torture porn" label as a way to know what the movie is about, and gauge if I'm in the mood for it, but it's not a deal breaker by any means. Experiencing the pushing of boundaries is all part of being a horror fan, for me. And if the characters are set up the right way, well, I want to see those kills. Not everything has to have a message!

And if we're talking sick stuff, I'll take this opportunity to say that I've a real soft spot for films that use sexual arousal and infection as an interchangeable/confused notion. The scene with Paul (teen Jo crush Rider Strong) and Karen (Jordan Ladd) in bed, where he's trying to initiate something and moves his hand under the sheets, only to take it out a minute later covered in blood and goo...

Contracted plays with this too, when the main character passes on her virus to a lover and her putrefying pussy is mistaken for being wet from sexual arousal. It's so sick, it's a little questionable if you think about it too much... but I kind of love it.

Both of these are on US Netflix at time of writing, and worth revisiting if it's been a while since you've seen them and are happy to take them for what they are. Roth certainly knows what works for an uncomplicated and few-holds-barred horror movie, and he clearly loves being part of the genre. The cringey homophobic language is hard to stomach, and no one is going to fault you if that in itself means a hard pass to revisit them. Honestly though, they were not quite as "from a mind of a ten year old boy" as my memory had me believe. I'm not sure how comfortable I am admitting I was pleasantly surprised by how much I still enjoyed them.

It must be said though that the director cameo in Cabin Fever is one of the worst I've ever seen.

Edited to add: Ugh EVERYONE IS TRASH. So I checked rotten apples and even though nothing comes up there, this interview (the gross stuff is in number 3) is troubling. It's no real surprise, and that in itself is a shame.

*shrug* It's your call but there's probably as good or better shit to be watching without thinly-veiled homophobia, made by a sexist douchebag.

Last edit on Feb 1, 2019.

Shelley (2016) & Antibirth (2016)

This turned out to be an inspired "fucked up pregnancy" double bill I made for myself. While both about an unconventional pregnancy, these two films could not have been more different.

Where Shelley was a quiet, slow build; Antibirth was an obnoxious, trippy mess. Where Shelley was set in nature, at a remote cabin on a lake; Antibirth took place in the slums of a city, full of warehouse raves and low-budget motels.

Muted natural colours (aside from a blood red title screen) versus an overload of bright colours, loud music and ever-changing TV commercials. Simply living characters, without even electricity or running water in their home, versus relentlessly bong-hitting, drunk party girls.

Shelley tells the story of Louise and Kasper (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Peter Christoffersen), a married couple living a quiet life. Louise desperately wants a baby, but is unable to bear children after her last failed pregnancy resulted in a hysterectomy. When their new Romanian maid Elena (Cosmina Stratan) decides to help them, her surrogacy quickly becomes very unusual.

Antibirth, meanwhile, deals with a surprise pregnancy. Lou (Natasha Lyonne, basically playing her Orange Is The New Black character but not in jail - not a complaint) wakes up from a heavy night of partying feeling decidedly worse than just her usual comedown/hangover. Her stomach starts growing at an alarming rate, she's hungry all the time, yet sick to her stomach. 

Is this just one rave, one bong hit too many? Or does the sinister local drug dealer/pimp boyfriend of her friend Sadie (Chloë Sevigny) have something to do with it?

Oh yeah, and Meg Tilly is in this, too!

The differences go as far as pacing, too. The pacing of Shelley is extremely measured, it's a very, very slow burn, and even its conclusion is quiet and still - though not without making the viewer think about what the future holds for this family, and the world at large. 

It's a film that demands your attention, not least because a fair amount of the dialogue is subtitled (languages spoken, according to IMDb: Danish, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Romanian!) but a lot of it also is non-verbal, with reactions, realisations and contemplation taking place silently. It's a sense of creeping dread, rather than a loud announcement of horror.

In contrast, Antibirth moves along pretty quickly... though not always making complete sense. Lou is a train-wreck, and you can't help but feel for her as things finally start getting explained as to just how messed up her situation is.

Its climax, as one quote on its poster suggests, is "especially fucked up!". It's pretty fucking insane and amazing. I did not see that coming!

Being so different, I don't feel forced to choose a favourite between these two films... though if I had to recommend one over the other, it would probably be Antibirth, just for being so out there and such a trip to watch. I really don't want to give anything away, but if you've seen it feel free to comment with your reaction to that ending!

Both films are streaming on Netflix at time of writing.

The Blob (1988)

This was a pretty nice one to help ease into my October, as it was just the right balance of 80s cheese; "where have I seen this actor before?" moments, and lovely lovely gooey practical effects.

For the record, the actors I recognised were:

• Shawnee Smith (from the Saw franchise) as female lead Meg
• Kevin Dillon (Entourage) as bad boy Brian with the incredible mullet
• Jack Nance (Twin Peaks' Pete Martell) in a small role as a doctor
• Erika Eleniak (old school Baywatch) as a sleepy drunken date, Vicki

In this remake of the 1958 sci-fi horror classic - real talk: I've never seen that one - a meteorite crashes in a forest near the town of Arborville, California. It makes first contact with a local, and when some teens find him and take him to the hospital, they unwittingly start a series of events that are going to leave one of them, and a lot of the townspeople, dead.

The blob itself (reminding me very much of the psychomagnotheric slime from Ghostbusters 2, which was released a year later) is a lot more dangerous than it appears, and if you let it touch you, you're basically done for. Not great news for the locals, but awesome news for us...!

A whopping $9 million of this film's $19m budget was spent on FX, and it shows! Some bad green screen aside (which must have been inescapable in 1988), the practical effects for gore and blob shenanigans are really impressive and still stand up. The blob genuinely seems terrifying!

Who's going to look after his dog now? :(

In amongst the poor innocent victims of this gooey menace, is one who definitely deserved what he got... and even if his death scene wasn't one of the best, it warranted the biggest cheer. Back then I suppose this type of character was considered funny, if a bit of a slimeball, but watching it now, he just comes off as rapey. 

Parked in his car, complete with a fully stocked bar in the trunk, he's too busy getting gorgeous Vicki drunk to notice the approaching ooze (in a blob POV shot! Genius!). When she passes out, he doesn't think twice about "continuing" the date.

What a creep. Thankfully the blob has quietly made its way into the car, and unfortunately, into poor Vicki too, and it isn't long before this guy is kicking, screaming and dying. Byeeee!

The carnage continues, bravely killing off some characters I wasn't expecting, until a big showdown in the centre of town and a very obvious set-up for a sequel (that never happened due to this being a box office fail at the time).

In a cast of entertaining but still rather clichéd, one-dimensional characters (bad boy, weirdo priest, town sheriff, diner waitress, little brother...) Shawnee Smith's Meg is the most well-rounded, avoiding the trap of shrill female lead and instead emerging as a strong, likeable survivor.

The first time we see her she's a cheerleader, but refreshingly there's no big deal made of her also being a badass wielding a gun by the end. She's just able to do that too, because she's a multi-faceted, "get shit done" kind of person.

She's not technically a final girl, but she's the closest thing to it here, and she's cool.

Side note: I just came across a mention that Joss Whedon had this character in mind as inspiration for Buffy, which makes perfect sense if true.


So The Blob has plenty to recommend it for a pretty chilled out, but fun and pleasingly gross watch:

1. Goo. So much goo. And there's something eminently satisfying about watching the blob pump itself into a tiny enclosed space like a hazmat helmet.
2. A cheeky reference to another film within the horror genre, with the blatant Friday the 13th rip-off the kids are watching. Fact: The real Friday the 13th franchise was on its 7th film by the time this came out!
3. A character getting fatally sucked into a sink,
4. Lighting! Cool 80s lighting throughout, plus X-Files-y shots of huge shards of light cutting through a forest, and hazmat suits with the little light inside. 

Speaking of 80s, we've got a sweet closing credits power ballad, too. Enjoy!

Stung (2015)

What makes a good killer bug flick? What makes a bad one? And, most aptly here: what makes a movie about giant killer wasps just... okay?

First, the plot: A fancy garden party is attended by the mayor (Lance Henriksen!), a bunch of other blink-and-you'll-miss-them characters, and a couple of caterers, Paul and Julia. After the family dog digs a hole that unearths an underground hive, killer wasps erupt and start attacking everyone.

But you don't just get STUNG by these bad boys. Once you've had contact with their stinger it's just a matter of time before a huuuuge bug bursts out of you.

You have a little something in your teeth...

The best part is the first eruption. The wasp decides to come out of a poor lady's mouth, splitting her head in half in the process. Said bug then comes literally face to face with Paul (Matt O'Leary) while the woman's husk of a head is still hanging off it.

And yet, something about Stung just didn't capture my imagination, and it struggled to hold my attention. It's got gooey practical effects, splendid gore and wet clicky bug sounds. But that's really all I can think of to recommend it.

I spoke in my last review of being out of practice hoping more than one character survives to the end of a horror film. Well this one made me feel kind of ambivalent about anyone making it out alive.

The characters aren't bad as such, just not particularly interesting enough or despicable enough to sway me in either direction. Paul starts as a boob obsessed, dopey stoner man-child and becomes brave; Julia starts blandly pretty and becomes brave and prettier. Then they kiss.

My notes say "the kiss at the end of Tremors I really wanted to happen. This one I just wanted over with." 

It should have ended when they crashed the car.

🍺 For this film I was sipping on... 🍺

Punkin Ale by Dogfish Head 

It's a school night so I "only" had two (they are 7%!) but this film would probably benefit from the viewer drinking more. Taste wise this is a little on the bitter side for me. It's a brown ale, something I'm not usually a fan of, and even though I'm definitely getting the spices (allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg) coming through, it's not ringing my bell. I'd give it 2/5.