Tubi Thursday: The Jolly Monkey (2025)

 A deluge of Stephen King Adaptations in Film was upon us last year.

As such, we got a Mockbuster or two.

This is...

Welcome to the Jolly Monkey Motel.

In our Cold Open, a Family in 1975 goes there and is killed.

In the Present day, its owners are now dead and the relatives are arriving.

The Granddaughter of the Owners arrives first with her Cliche Loser Brother.

They look around the place, seeing the creepy sites before the others arrive.

Key amongst the things to see are these Monkey Dolls, which now have leather faces sewn onto them.

That's not an immediate red flag, since the Movie has to happen.

Does this Monkey resemble the title Character of that Stephen King Film?

Yes.

That one was about a strange force killing people in elaborate ways Final Destination-style.

This is about a masked killer dressed up in a monkey suit.

I take back everything I ever thought about you, Primate.  I'll give you a chance now.

Can the family escape the wrath of the man-sized monkey?

Will they figure out the mystery of the Motel?

Will this be kind of disappointing?

To find out, stream it now.

Positives first- this is only a rip-off in the sense that it tries to trick you into thinking that it is the real thing.

Unlike many of these Mockbusters, the Plot isn't exactly the same/the best guess as to what happens in the original.
It is, for better or worse, a different tale with its own Plot.

That said, the Plot isn't great.  It's not the worst though.

I won't SPOIL the killer reveal, but I will say that your expectations are going to be better than the actual result.
If everything was just crazy magical/cursed, I'd be happier.

With that not being the case, that kill I teased earlier by the car raises about 42 important questions that will not be answered.

It is far from the worst idea, but its execution leaves lots to be desired.
And now, they can't be sued over the doll, since they used a real one...

A Film that starts out decently enough and builds up alright.  Sadly, the payoff is not nearly as jolly as I'd like it to be.

Forgotten TV: 'The Outer Limits' vs. Ron Perlman's Reality.

 Another Episode of The Outer Limits for the DVD I bought.
Gotta get that $3.18 worth of value, after all.

This one is actually what I watched first.

Was it because it was the one with Ron Perlman.
Obviously, yes.

To see how Black Mirror got its mojo, check out this Episode here...

A man- Perlman- is first seen lying near dead in a river dressed for combat.

He wakes up from this dream...or memory and is told by his Bosses in a Meeting that they must make Sales.

He's greeted by a Client who arrives unexpectedly.

Later, he goes to a Bar and she greets him again.

At work, he's still not doing well.

He's trying to get in touch with his estranged daughter and he's starting to see a helmeted men around all corners.

He goes to see his ex-Wife and she's not much help.

She says that his Daughter wants nothing to do with him.

As she leaves, the same helmeted man strikes her down his car!

After being talked to by the Police, the woman shows up again.

He's really starting to suspect that something is up.

She reveals that she's actually a Psychiatrist for the VA and wants to help him.

He doesn't exactly want help, but he clearly needs it.

Ron gets in a fight with his Boss and his friend at work & is obviously fired.

While trying to console himself, he starts to feel strange, see flashes and...

Here's the reveal.

Perlman's visions were flashes of his real memory.

He was a Soldier (quite recently) sent to recover some important device.

He was betrayed and left for dead by one of the men and only he saw their face.

They used this machine to stabilize and get him to see the truth- so they can as well.

Despite the risk, the woman goes back in one more time.

He's not stable, his vitals are failing and his grip on this new reality won't last.

She finally gets him to remember and the culprit is...the guy who was his friend in the imaginary world.

Now they can catch him, while Perlman 'makes peace' with his 'Daughter' in his final moments.

I suppose this one definitely qualifies for the 'Death and Beyond' tag/theme of this release!

It was pretty clear that something was off about this world.
Hell, even if you had never watched a single one of these Episodes, your brain would tell you that.

Perlman really sells this, treating his Character with dignity and really portraying the breakdown of his 'world!'

The other Actors/Actresses- like Chris Mulkey (above), Maria Del Mar and Peter DeLuise (below) do their parts very well too.
This is Ron's show though.

Speaking of Shows, this one was Directed by a veteran of many TV Shows (like Wings and NBC's Chicago Shows)- Steven Weber.
It's also his only Directing Credit, so...weird.

This one has just enough of a Sci-Fi hook to qualify for this kind of Show without being potentially being bogged down by it.

A big improvement over the previous Clip Show one.
You do believe me...right?

A very strong and emotional Episode with a nice, if familiar hook.  Here's hoping that a jump back to the very first Season for the next Episode is as solid.

Shudder Day: The Mortuary Collection (2019)

 As a connoisseur of Horror Anthology Films, I'm actually surprised that I've missed this one.

Let's make up for lost time with my Review of...

Clancy Brown runs a Mortuary- naturally- and he has a Help Wanted sign out front.

After a kid's funeral, a young lady is hanging around and asks for a job.

He tells her that he has a Library full of stories about how people ended up in his care...

In the first Segment, a thieving woman gathers her ill gotten wares in the bathroom.

However, there's a danger hiding behind the mirror!

The young lady is less than impressed with this tale.

As such, he tells her another- 'Unprotected.'

A dirty young man- Jacob Elordi- is part of a Fraternity that focuses on hooking up with chicks.
So, a normal Fraternity.

After he hooks up with a young lady without protection, he starts to feel...different.

After a brief bit in the Mortuary, we get the third segment- Till Death.

A man marries a woman and she goes into a seemingly irreversible vegetative state.

A Doctor- the same one who saw Elordi- gives him a way out.

Taking it, however, won't be as easy as he hoped.

Another bit at the Mortuary sheds more light on the new hire before she tells a story of her own- The Babysitter Murders.

A young woman battles a stranger in the House after hearing about a breakout at the Asylum.

Of course, there are twists and turns galore.

The finale is the end of our Framing Device.

The truth about all parties comes out and fate changes for them all.

To find out more, stream it now.

A very different kind of Anthology Film- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

A typical one of these has disparate Stories with a Theme throughout.  A more modern approach is making up the Film out of Segments by many different Directors.

This one is more like the former, having one single Director and a general Theme.
It's also the 2nd one of these I've watched about a Mortician telling tales to someone.

In fact, the last Story is just a Short Film made a few years earlier by the same Director.

With one Director, you get little throughlines and connections, which I like.

The Doctor in every Segment (save the Bathroom one) is one of the guys from the 'Progressive Helps You From Turning Into Your Parents' Ads, so that was a nice refrain.

The Segments were a bit varied in both story and setting, but not direction.  If that's alright with you, great.

As a group of segments, I've seen better.
As a singular Film, it looked pretty good.

Will this face help me with the algorithm?

An Anthology Film that is more of a sampler of a Director's work than anything.  It's still quite fun overall, especially with Clancy Brown in it.

Forgotten Sequels: The Fly II

 A Film I covered in the very early days of the Site.  It was lost talked about in the FIRST Obama Administration, so it is due for a revisit.

This is the least forgotten, but most maligned of the Sequels to The Fly- The Fly II.

Made in 1989 and without Cronenberg's involvement, the Film is considered by many to be a cheap cash grab.  Is it though?

The Plot is in fact a direct Sequel and it involves the birth of Seth Brundle's spawn.  It grows up and is special...but is it also a monster.

There are some overlaps between this and Return of the Fly, but it's not a one-to-one situation.

To find out if this is as bad as everyone says or not, read on...

In a rehash from the last Film (since Geena Davis turned down a Cameo), we see the woman give birth to a strange insect baby.

She dies Padme-style, but the creature is soon revealed to be an infant (in a cocoon of some sort).

A few years later, the kid grows up really fast- like impossibly-so.

Martin's a Science Genius Boy and basically Young Sheldon, if he lived in a lab.
He can already outsmart most of the folks around him.

His 'childhood' is only marred by constant monitoring and seeing his pet dog turned into a monster in a failed Teleporter Test.

At Age 5, he's now Eric Stoltz.
Well, he was the original Marty McFly, so that tracks.

He doesn't sleep- due to his constant growth- and grows lonely.

He falls for Daphne Zuniga (cast by uncredited Producer Mel Brooks after she was in Spaceballs) and they work on the device some more.

He has a freakout when he learns that the dog was actually kept alive (in a matter of speaking) and he mercy-kills it.

Martin also hooks up with Zuniga...only for her to be moved away from him.
It is soon revealed- by Garry Chalk's Goresby- that they filmed it.

Eric does not take this well!

He's also beginning to mutate and soon learns that this was the plan all along.

The tests- a show.
The medicine- placebo.

Stoltz goes through a series of masks (fitting!) as his condition worsens.

We get a brief Cameo from John Getz, who was a co-worker of Goldblum's in the last Film who got maimed.

Him and his clearly fake beard help the duo keep away from the bad guys for a little bit.

Martin transforms so much that he can't escape and he cocoons up at the bad guys' lair.

He emerges as a monstrous Brundle Fly and starts killing people in his way.

This guy gets a face full of acid in an effect that only the '80s could give us.

Who wants cherry syrup?

He kills all of the bad guys, save for the guy who raised him to be an experiment.

Earlier, Martin learned that he can go in the Pod with someone and give them all of his bad genes (just go with it).

He does it to the boss, leaving him as a monster and Martin normal.
To be continued...in a 2015 Comic.

The End.

A better Film than it gets credit for.  That said, it is definitely a Film of two halves.

The first half is an interesting tale of innocence, deceit and corporate corruption.  Martin is led around and used for all that he can be.

The second half is when he becomes a full-on Monster and starts killing folks- bad ones, at least!  There's a bit of a disconnect- to say the least.

That said, they hired a guy (Chris Walas) who did Special Effects for Return of the Jedi, Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep.  Oh, and the original...Remake.
He'd only go on to Direct one other Film, an Episode of Tales from the Crypt and a Documentary...about himself.

Having said all that, I did enjoy the two disparate halves of the Film.  It scratches that gooey and gross Practical F/X itch for me.

Also, is that a young John Fitzgerald Byers from The X-Files?!?

Next up, my detour is over and my return to Bond is nigh.  I hope this one holds up as well as the last one did!  Stay tuned...

Tubi Thursday: ROB1N (2025)

What happens when you rip off a Movie whose Sequel underperformed?

Well, let's hope people still care.

This is...

In a Flashback Scene, a kid kills a bunch of people at his Birthday Party.

See- I was never that bad, Dad!

His name is Robin.

A few Decades later, an old man makes a boy robot.

Why we aren't just making Johnny 5's is anyone's guess.

His name is Rob1n.

A young man with a secret to hide has just gotten engaged.

He tells his new Fiance that he wants to make peace with his long-estranged Uncle.

They go to visit him and stay in his House.

His name is NOT Robin.

Despite clearly not being to actually move on-screen, the titular robot goes around killing people in the House, from the Staff to Cops.

Who will live?
Who will die?

Will this at least be better than a Robert the Doll Film?

To find out, stream it now.

A pretty lackluster ripoff in look and overall execution.

To be 100% fair to this Film, they don't rip off the Plot of MEGAN...much.
They rip off the Plot of different Films and just market it as a rip-off of MEGAN.

Much different!

The Acting and overall presentation of this one isn't bad.  It feels slightly more professional than many of the recent UK Horror Films I've seen.

That said, ROB1N here is a decent, but clearly fragile animatronic.  It never moves while fully shown on screen.  Hell, it never moves while HALFWAY being shown on screen.

When your Killer Doll/Robot can't actually kill, what's the point?

It's alright, but I think my renewed look at The Outer Limits will bring better Boy Robot fare...

A Film with a few interesting Scenes and it's not a total rip-off.  That said, it isn't that interesting either- even as its own thing.

Forgotten TV: 'The Outer Limits' Ends with...a Clip Show?!?

 A Sci-Fi must-see for people who lived in the 1990s, The Outer Limits revival was huge!

It got 7 Seasons.  It was nominated for 49 Awards and won 18, including a Primetime Emmy.

All of that build-up is to then let you down for what would turn out to be the Series Finale.

Season 7 was its last and this Episode was the final one ever...

A man flies his Ship to a Base.

After a whole thing where they pretend to try and steal his ship, they reveal that he is one of 4 Candidates for an important job.

The Trials will take place using a VR device...

These Trials make up about half of the Episode's runtime.

It wouldn't be so bad, but they are all Clips from previous Episodes, like Season 4, Episode 20 (aka Nightmare)...

Or this 'Trial' which is just Season 4, Episode 3 (Hearts and Minds).

This one is actually mined for clips later, so more filler.

...or this Trial, which is just the climax of Season 5, Episode 7 (The Human Operators).

...or, lastly, the extended finale of Season 1, Episode 15 (The Voyage Home).

There is at least a vague throughline here, but still.

Our Hero is told to watch the last applicant (repeat offender here Lochlyn Munro) and shoots him.

He wakes up and learns that EVERYTHING after he sat down in the VR Helmet the first time was a simulation!

Everyone was real and was tested, but only he passed.

The twist- he's so loyal to commands that he's now going to be turned into an AI Program!

We see a quick shot or two of him being tortured virtually ('Monster', 'In the Blood' and 'Worlds Within') and he's even Eric McCormack being attacked by a space bug (Season 3, Episode 9's 'Tempest') as we fade to black.

The End.

To be fair, I have seen worse Clip Shows.  This one at least isn't just people teeing up 'memories' in silly ways.

They did build a Plot here.  The idea was sound.
You knew things would turn out bad, since the Good to Bad Endings Ratio on this Show leans towards the latter.

That said, once you realized that they were just teeing up Clips in THIS way, it was a little disappointing.

They did credit the Actors (as SAG I'm sure mandated), but were they paid again?  Did this Episode count towards their residuals?

For a Show like this to do a Clip Show isn't great.
For a Show like this to have their Finale (planned as such or otherwise) be one is just sad.

Take us away, 90s Morph Effects...

On the plus side, I've got 5 other Episodes in the 'Death and Beyond' DVD and one was already better.

Even so, what a wet fart of a finale.