Movie Reviews

‘Willy’s Wonderland’ Review: Nicolas Cage Delivers a Full Metal Assault

Published

5 years ago

February 12, 2021

Sometimes, there’s a man. The kind of man who stands out for one reason or another. Maybe it’s the way they dress, the car they drive, or the look in their eye. Whatever the case, this man just doesn’t quite match his surroundings. And that makes him all the more powerful for it. Yeah, in this case, the man in question is Nicolas Cage. And the movie is Willy’s Wonderland.

"Willy's Wonderland" 2021

A man’s (Nicolas Cage) sport’s car gets four flat tires on a lonely stretch of road outside the town of Hayesville. A tow-truck picks him up, but if he wants his vehicle fixed he’s going to have to work for it. The job? Clean up the pride of the town, Willy’s Wonderland; a now dilapidated children’s entertainment center and party palace. The Man is now The Janitor and he is dead set on doing a damn fine job. Even if he has to bash the unholy animatronic mascots inside into scrap metal with his bare goddamn hands! All while, the local teenagers led by the rebellious Liv Hawthorne (Emily Tosta, Party of Five) attempt to put an end to the madness of Willy’s Wonderland on their own terms…

Brutal!

Now, that’s the basic set-up, but I think I can sum up the appeal in a few choice words: Nicolas Cage fights evil mascot monsters! Brutally! Of course, there have been some comparisons to the Five Nights At Freddy’s video game series, but could you curbstomp one of those animal critters’ heads into junk in a bathroom stall? I don’t think so. This is an over the top horror-comedy brawl and it’s pretty damn fun.

Image via IMDB

As I built up earlier, one of the most entertaining parts of Willy’s Wonderland is just how out of place Nicolas Cage is in this movie. Not in a bad way, though. It’s just like Nicolas Cage drove from Mandy into this creature feature with the same character and sensibilities and went all out. The Janitor is a man of few to no words and no name. And much like Clint Eastwood’s iconic role, he blows into town to outclass the villains who aren’t used to someone of his temperament. And the scenes of Cage going into no holds barred evil animatronic combat are memorable, to say the least.

The Character line-up

Willy and his pals are the right balance of goofy yet uncanny creepy. It’s a gang of eight unholy felt abominations including Ozzie The Ostrich, Gus The Gorilla, Knighty Knight, Arty The Alligator, Tito The Turtle, Cammy The Chameleon, and Siren Sara. Each featuring an insatiable bloodlust, twisted sense of humor, and special ability.

“Willy’s Wonderland” 2021—IMDb

I won’t go too deep into their origins, but it’s a delightful and bloody throwback to the horror comedies of the ’80s like Ghoulies or Child’s Play. Even utilizing some pretty sharp practical and prosthetic FX for a similar style and old school feeling. This is where the other portion of the movie comes in.

The sections involving Liv and her friends just screams slasher movie. Unfortunately, their sections of the story were often the weaker ones. Both in comparison to Cage’s silent rage and fights with Willy and his cohorts, and the teenagers just not being as interesting characters — with the exception of Liv; Emily Tosta does a great job as the vengeance-seeking girl who wants to make Willy pay for those he’s hurt. But the rest of her friends are pretty much fodder for the body count. Including two of them sneaking off for one of the most ill-advised sex scenes in a horror movie since Slaughter High.

“Willy’s Wonderland” 2021—IMDb

Willy’s Wonderland is about as bare-bones and distilled as a monster horror comedy can get, and yet it mostly works to its advantage. People want to see a movie where Nicolas Cage fights demonic Chucky E. Cheese knock-off robots to the death, you get what you expect and not much more.

But dammit if he doesn’t make it work without uttering a word! And when the comedy hits, it hits hard. I laughed particularly hard about a bit involving The Janitor’s mandatory breaks. While it isn’t reinventing the wheel, Willy’s Wonderland is a pretty entertaining wacko horror-comedy only elevated by Cage’s characterization and fight scenes.

And if Willy’s Wonderland pinball ever becomes a real thing, I will be first in line to play!

Willy’s Wonderland is available On Demand, Friday, February 12, 2021.

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Movie Reviews

Self Driver Runs Out of Road

Published

8 hours ago

May 12, 2026

Luna Gray

Every few years someone makes a movie where a desperate person takes the money and watches his conscience become negotiable. I am always there for it. Cheap Thrills. Would You Rather. The whole subgenre of moral erosion for cash that does not have a name but absolutely should. Self Driver walks directly into that territory and for the first half of its runtime, it delivers.

Nathanael Chadwick plays D, a cab driver trying to keep his head above water, who gets recruited onto a mysterious new rideshare app that promises fast money and asks for increasingly terrible things in return.

Writer-director Michael Pierro shot this on cellphones with a skeleton crew. That constraint should work against the film. For the first act, it does not. Chadwick earns your sympathy without doing anything obvious to ask for it, and Pierro keeps things tense enough that the premise does exactly what it is supposed to do.

Then the psychedelic angle shows up.

I want to be fair about this. I understand the intention. But it lands the way a plot fix lands. You feel the seam. By the halfway point the script has accumulated a lot of threads, and the psychedelic detour is where those threads stop being pulled. They do not resolve. They just stop mattering.

That is the consistent frustration with Self Driver. It is not short on ideas. It is short on follow-through. Almost every interesting thing Pierro introduces gets picked up, examined, and set back down before it earns its place in the film. The bones of something genuinely great are visible throughout. The second half just never shows up to finish the job.

Chadwick won Best Actor at Grimmfest for this role, and it is not hard to understand why. He is doing real work here. He makes D worth following even when the film is not fully following through on its own premise. That is harder than it looks.

Self Driver is out now on UK digital via GrimmVision. At 2.5 out of 5, it is worth your time if you have patience for low-budget genre work and can make peace with a film that is better than it finishes. Pierro has instincts. Watch for his next one.

Indie Horror

Panic Fest 2026 Review: ‘Frogman Returns’ Is A Thrilling Sequel That Goes For The Croak!

Published

6 days ago

May 6, 2026

Jacob Davison

Horror as a genre has a greater propensity for sequels than almost anything else in the world of cinema. There have been scores of slasher sequels from the likes of Friday The 13th to A Nightmare on Elm Street to even sequels to seemingly stand-alone affairs like The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project. While some may be seen as cash grabs or of diminishing returns, it cannot be argued that there have been some phenomenal sequels to horror films such as Aliens and Evil Dead 2 among many others. So imagine my pleasant surprise to see that 2023’s Frogman is back in the aptly named Frogman Returns!

The sequel picks up not too long after the original’s cryptid catastrophe. The Loveland, Ohio Frogman and surrounding cult that was exposed by amateur filmmaker Dallas (Nathan Tymoshuk) has since disappeared and the terror of the magic wand wielding amphibian seemingly ended. Having lost his friend Scotty (Benny Barrett) and a falling out with Amy (Chelsey Grant), Dallas has found a new life heading a cryptid reality web show. But when strange forces call him and his team back to Loveland, will he have to face the Frogman for a final battle?

I was a big fan of the original Frogman upon release, and was interested in seeing where director Anthony Cousins was going to take the story. I’m happy to report that he did the best kind of thing you can do for a sequel like this: made it weirder and wilder! Not only is there Frogman, but a number of classic cryptids have encounters as the genie is out of the bottle and Dallas irrevocably proved that there are truly monsters among us. There is a pretty memorable scene involving a run-in with the living pants-like Fresno Nightcrawler creature that establishes what a brave and bizarre new world things have become since the previous film. Monsters are basically a fact of life now. So, of course, people are finding ways to profit from it.

Dallas’ arc continues from the first film and I do like how he carries the weight and guilt of Scotty’s disappearance and his disconnection with Amy. There are real consequences to the ways things went wrong previously and Dallas is haunted by the consequences of his obsession. Now he attempts to make things right in some form as his adventures bring him back to where it all began. And for those here for Frogman… without spoiling too much, everyone’s favorite amphibious cryptid does make a triumphant return. With a neon explosive finale that left me craving even more.

Frogman Returns does a fine job of documenting the new adventure in the traditional found footage format, with the foundation of Dallas’ new reality web show keeping the cameras rolling. Combining that with ample and memorable practical fx for all manner of beasts and gore to see. Exploding heads, zapped limbs, and so much more get captured on camera in all their visceral glory.

Overall, if you were a fan of the first Frogman, then Frogman Returns is a more than worthwhile follow up to digest.

Indie Horror

Panic Fest 2026 Review: ‘Creature Of The Pines’ Is An Interesting Found Footage Horror That Walks A Beaten Path

Published

7 days ago

May 5, 2026

Jacob Davison

There are certain parts of the world that have an inherent evil or cursed nature to them. The Bermuda Triangle, where so many ships have vanished in its waters. Death Valley, where many have met their end in the unforgiving desert. And then there’s The Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A woodland infamous for the cryptid named The Jersey Devil.

While The Jersey Devil may be the mascot or face of sorts for the area, there are other dangers within those woods. Specifically, an area known as Pine Hollow. Infamous for numerous disappearances of local and hikers. While some attribute it to natural hazards, others say the source of these incidents may be tied to folklore. An ancient mimic of indigenous legend that targets those wandering its woods. After a trio of hikers disappear and leaves only one shell shocked survivor and witness wandering the wilderness, a documentary crew attempts to clarify between fact and fiction… only to find themselves subject to their own torments.

Creature Of The Pines is a decent found footage/mockumentary endeavor, and I’m always a sucker for that kind of framing. I will also give points for taking an original approach on the region rather than using a more well known cryptid or monster. Instead, crafting their own beast with the shapeshifting demon of indigenous lore. It did make it more interesting than relying on a more infamous antagonist, allowing the movie to make up its own rules and history behind the titular creature.

Unfortunately, the story does fall into a lot of the cliches of the sub-genre as well. Lots of scenes building up strange sounds coming form the woods leading to some shaky cam segments as a character is dragged off by an unseen force and such. The talking heads portions of the mockumentary featured some decent actors and subjects that kept things fairly fresh. Especially the former forest ranger who discussed the dark and terrible history of Pine Hollow.

Even still, the third act was kind of a mixed bag with the final confrontation and reveal of the horror. Ambiguity tends to work better in found footage for a reason, sometimes its better to leave the evil up to the imagination. There’s also a twist to the ending that felt a bit obvious considering the build up.

But, if you’re a big fan of found footage and mockumentary horror like I am, (especially for New England based horror) then Creature Of The Pines is worth at least a watch.