5) The Reverend
Sometimes my friends will catch a second of a random screener and ask why the hell I’m even giving it the time of day. That answer is simple, because all movies deserve an equal chance – but half the time I’m left with egg on my face. The Reverend is one of those movies that resulted in a string of “I told you so!” comments, thanks to lifeless filmmaking that appeared to be drained by Dracula himself. A vampire preacher who protects a town sounds pretty freakin’ badass, right? Wrong. He’s not.
Based on a graphic novel that’s a bit of a Preacher ripoff, there’s nothing stylized or unique about Neil Jones’ flat adaptation despite being based off of a Blade meets Preacher concept. Rutger Hauer is enlisted for a short cameo and there’s a tiny bit of action, but there’s a stagnant air polluting The Reverend throughout each scene. The action lacks intensity, the dialogue lacks heart, and the gore lacks anything horror fans crave. It’s pretty much dead on arrival.
My patience is running thin, so here’s a quote that I’m stealing from myself:
The Reverend takes what should be a uniquely engaging story and turns it into what could pass as a bloody “Afterschool Special.”
4) Hangar 10
There’s actually been a few standout found footage flicks this year, but I can assure you that Hangar 10 is not one of them. All the telltale blemishes are here – elongated buildups, few payoffs, drastic lulls, an avoidance of any alien reveals, and trying performances that make you wish the camera’s battery would run out and end our misery. It’s bad enough that I’m not really an alien movie fan to begin with, but Hangar 10‘s putrid delivery made things exponentially worse.
The only positive thing about these types of found-footage-crapshoots is the director understands there’s not enough sustainable material for an elongated runtime, yet Hangar 10 holds on for about an hour and fifty minutes – and it feels like an eternity. We’re constantly waiting for the excitement to kick in, scene after scene, but barring one bout of anti-gravity tricks, nothing about director Daniel Simpson’s control of pace commands our attention. The performances are bland, nothing happens worth a damn, and the biggest scares are attempted with flashing lights. That’s it.
Not all alien invasion movies are created equal, and I think I’ve made it obvious where Hangar 10 rests on this spectrum.
