Connect with us

News

[Review] Portal (2019)

Published

on

The new film Portal gives fans of GhostHunting films a new story about Paranormal Investigators. A group of ghost hunters are struggling to make headway with their show called “Ghost Seekers” for the main reason of not wanting to create fake scares to boost ratings, the team Cris (Jamie Tisdale), Mason (Myk Watford), Jen (Najarra Townsend), and Raz (Reinaldo Zavarce) wants to bring an authentic esthetic to the show. Show leader Steven (Ryan Merriman) feels as though he is running out of options and needs to find a solution, quickly. Steven bribes location scout (Travis DesLaurier) from a competitor show called “Ghost Trackers” to find the right house for the crew. The competitors have a very haunted location on file, The Dalva house. A father, a mother, and a daughter (the youngest escaped) fell victim to the Dalva property a long time ago making this the perfect opportunity to boost ratings and deliver authentic paranormal evidence. As Steven and his team begin their investigation into this creepy house it does not take long to realize that the paranormal activity that was sure to emerge has done nothing, this powerhouse of evil has proven to be nothing but that of a normal house. Steven decides to perform a ritual that is highly dangerous and the portal to the other side is opened, ratings are sure to rise, will the team survive to bask in their glory, or will the Dalva house serve as their final resting place.

Portal had a good little back story, which I enjoyed tremendously. The film at times felt like a hallmark to Poltergeist II: The Other Side mainly because of the Native American part to the story (don’t want to give away any spoilers). All-in-all the film was not bad, started off slow but did gain some traction as the story progressed. The story does a fantastic job of allowing the characters to develop with the story.

Going into this film I knew that Elm Street Alumni Heather Langenkamp was going to have a part in this film playing a character by the name of Fiona. We often see films use recognizable actors and actresses from popular horror franchises as cameos to lure the audience in, I was skeptical as to how much screen time Langenkamp was going to have. To my surprise, she had a decent amount of screen time and her character was an essential part of the film, not an afterthought or something just thrown in the mix for screen time. You won’t see Langenkamp until later on in the film, but I promise you it will be worth the wait!

Portal gives the audience quite a few interesting twists and turns and I found the film spooky especially once we hit the third act and are met with characters Fiona (Heather Langenkamp) and Douglas (Gregory Zaragoza). The film is now available on Demand and VOD.

Official Synopsis

When an ambitious ghost hunter performs a risky ritual, opening a portal to “the other side,” he and his team quickly find themselves in way over their heads in a fight for survival against an ancient demonic force.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

on

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

on

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

on

Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading