Tag: b

The Blind Spot, by Michael Robertson

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

On the surface, Scala City is an idyllic, hi-tech world of prosperity, peace and morality, albeit at the cost of omnipresent surveillance of its residents. But there’s a dirty little secret. The Blind Spot is an area where surveillance is barred, and where the citizens of Scala City go to blow off their sordid steam. Its residents have cybernetically enhanced bodies, something rejected by Scala City, and a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of monitoring. It’s run by Wrench, who has kept his daughter Marcie Hugo under strict control since the death of her mother. However, like all teenagers, the 16-year-old Marcie is seeking to spread her wings, and has been making covert excursions into Scala City, with the aim of moving there some day soon.

The problem is, an escalating series of terrorist attacks have been occurring in the city, which it appears someone is trying to blame on the Blind Spot, in order to trigger a war between them and the city. After one of Marcie’s trips is caught on camera, the heat gets turned up, and she – along with the Blind Spot’s most infamous computer hacker – becomes the only person who can prevent a conflict that could lead to the destruction (at least in a digital sense) of both sides. She believes the perpetrators may have help from inside the Blind Spot, suspecting in particular a close accomplice of Wrench, who also happens to be the father of her best friend.

The world-building here is solid enough. As well as Marcie, events unfold through the sad eyes of Nick, an overweight and largely unloved Scala City resident. He’s addicted to the Wellbeing App, which records only the positive things people say about each other, sharing it with them. This is…scarily plausible, to be honest, though the split focus is a little unwieldy. No connection between this pair of story lines is established until about two-thirds of the way through the book, although they work well enough on their own terms. The idea of a city with a Jekyll and Hyde personality is also well-executed.

A bigger problem, for me, was the sudden reticence on Marcie’s end. Initially, we experience things through her eyes, knowing everything she knows. Then, at a certain point, we get cut out of the loop, from a narrative point of view, as she and her hacker pal begin their plot to track down and expose the real terrorists. We’re left on the outside, not knowing what’s going on – and when we do find out, there naturally being a grand reveal, it’s not very satisfying. It relies too much on the “all-powerful hacker” trope, and the identity of the traitor in their midst is also unconvincing. The story ends up being a swing and a miss, though with the book being free on Amazon, I probably can’t complain. Though it’d have to be at the same price point to get me to go any further into the series.

Author: Michael Robertson
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Neon Horizon series.

The Wrath of Becky

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★★½
“Did we learn nothing from John Wick?”

Don’t mess with someone else’s dog. This is a good rule of thumb in most cases, but especially so when the owner is an unhinged teenage psychopath, with the both the talent and desire to inflict carnage in retribution. The last time we saw Becky (Wilson), she had disposed of a gang of neo-Nazis who had invaded her house in search of a key, and killed her father in the process. Now, a couple of years later, she is a waitress in a diner, and renting a room from Elena (Burse). Three more individuals with, um, alternative political opinions enter the diner. This is not going to end well.

In response to their rude behaviour, she pours coffee on the crotch of their leader. The response leaves Elena dead and, worse, they kidnap Becky’s dog. She tracks them to the home of their group’s leader, Darryl (Scott). You know that messy mayhem is going to follow, and will not be disappointed. The film does address the gloomy murkiness which plagued the first one, allowing its gory murders to unfold in the full light of the sun. However, in most ways it falls short of its predecessor: the sequel has seen a new writer-director pair come on board, and the results very much have an air of “second verse, same as the first – just not as good” air to them.

The differences are on both sides. Becky is harder to empathize with, being little more than a teenage psychopath now. Sure, she had issues in the original movie. Yet the trauma she went through meant her reactions were understandable. Here, from the outset she seems a bit of a dick, callously treating foster parents for her own benefit. On the villainous side, it’s a mixed bag. The film repeats the trick from the first film of putting an unexpected actor in the role of the lead villain (there Kevin James) and Scott does well. But the frequent idiocy of his underlings is too convenient. They’re not a credible threat, and Darryl’s failure to secure Becky at a key moment undoes much of the good work that has gone before.

However, don’t take the above criticism as an indication there’s no fun to be had here. You just need to be aware this is a considerably more mean-spirited affair, and it’s probably only the kills that will stick around in your mind. I did laugh out loud more than once, for example when one of the gang reveals his son’s name to Becky, sealing his own fate [though again: why not just lie, dude? It isn’t hard…] The ending sees the CIA recruit Becky, because they are now apparently responsible for domestic counter-terrorism. Wait, what? Oh, well. If they’re going the Nikita route for further sequels, I suspect the authorities have bitten off more than they can chew. Maybe next time Becky can go after Antifa.

Dir: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote
Star: Lulu Wilson, Seann William Scott, Denise Burse, Jill Larson

The Bleeding Game

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★½
“Bleeding terrible, innit?”

It is possible to do Lovecraft on a low-budget and make it work. Earlier this year, I was introduced to the delightful films of Lars Henriks, who did a whole trilogy of micro-budget movies, loosely in the Lovecraft universe. Taken in the right spirit, they’re quite charming. Then, there’s this… I think I can safely say, it’s neither delightful nor charming, regardless of spirit. The best I can say is there is a non-terrible core concept here.  Mr. Temple (Bolton) wants occult power, and feeds on blood, so summons a trio of Shoggoths, mystical minions who possess a sleazy businessman, a metalhead, and a rent boy. They prey on the women who frequent his bars, bringing their essence back to their master. Arrayed against him are three sisters (one adopted), the Proctors: Aida (Mixter), Flo (Bland) and Lizzy (Alison), who come from a family of white magicians. When the corpses of the Shoggoth’s victims start piling up, they seek to stop first them, then Temple, from continuing their dark harvest.

I should have recognized the director’s name: I’m presuming he’s the brother (or something) of Sean-Michael Argo. That is the Argo who gave us one of the worst ever action-heroine films in Iconoclast. He shows up here as The Grin, an Oracle-like figure to whom the Proctor sisters turn for advice. His relative Ian is, at least, able to tell a coherent story, so that puts him well ahead of his relative. However, there are still way too many problem present for this to be successful, even by the low-standards of incredibly cheap horror. The audio is inconsistent from scene to scene, varying from muffled to incredibly echoey. The pacing is terrible, with scenes that serve no real purpose, and the backstory involving their father is murky, at best. Though I was quite amused by the way that shotguns are basically more effective than any traditional tools, and there is a half-decent impalement.

My biggest complaint, however, was the flat-out terrible British accents sported by the Shoggoths. I’m not sure why being taken over by a demonic entity causes the victims suddenly to channel Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, but here we apparently are. I feel personally attacked by this blatant example of Britwashing, not least since it’s an accent that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever, any more than the top hat sported by one Shoggoth. The film is at its best least worst when they aren’t speaking on screen, simply because I no longer had a rising desire to put my fist, the living-room table or our cat through the television. Even writing this paragraph is sending my blood pressure spiking. The sisters don’t bother with fake accents, and occasionally border on being interesting characters: looks like two of them have an on/off sexual relationship, though we cut away from ever seeing anything there. Like the rest of the film, that demonstrates its disappointing failure to deliver.

Dir: Ian Argo
Star: Whitney Mixter, Shey Bland, Alison Tussey, C. Jason Bolton

Black Site (2022)

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★★★
“Better Red(box) than Net(flix).”

This has a fair amount in common with the disaster which was Interceptor. Both films were produced for streaming companies, and are about a sole woman in a remote military location, that is attacked by a terrorist or groups of terrorists. She then has to survive, take on the threat, deal with treachery on the inside, and handle a ticking clock scenario. It is fairly basic storytelling, occasionally dumb, and there’s nothing of note in either, we haven’t seen a hundred times before, with male or female leads. However, this is significantly more watchable, perhaps because it doesn’t push the envelope. One problem with Interceptor was its #MeToo messaging. There’s no such soap-box concerns here, and Black Site is better for it.

The heroine is Abby Trent (Monaghan), a CIA analyst whose husband and daughter were blown up in a terrorist attack on an “Istanbul” hospital. I use quotes, because when the camera zooms out to a satellite view, Istanbul has apparently relocated, from Turkey to somewhere down the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. It’s not the last time the film’s geography is shaky. Anyway, Abby devotes her life to tracking down “Hatchet”, the man responsible, and is currently working at a secret interrogation facility in the Jordanian desert. Two things about it made me go “Hmmm.” Firstly, it doubles as a data storage location: that’s a no from me in IT. Second, a Mossad (Israeli intelligence) agent is wandering about. Seems unlikely.

Anyway, #2. Hatchet (Clarke) is captured and sent to the facility, only to escape almost immediately. A lockdown is put in place, but comms get cut off, and the rules – at least in this movie – are that after an hour, they’ll be deemed compromised, and a drone strike will wipe everyone out. Abby has to figure out Hatchet’s agenda, deal with insubordination and flat-out double-agents on her side, and discover the truth about the hospital bombing before the clock runs out. Despite the various idiocies noted above, it is all kept moving forward at a decent pace. Once things kick off with Hatchet’s Houdini-like escape and particularly vicious stabbing of his first two victims, there’s little slack or down-time until things go boom.

I’d like to have seen Monaghan given more to do on the action front. There is a decent fight against the in-house traitor; otherwise, she is largely limited to creeping about corridors with a gun. There are subplots, such as the team member who thinks his active experience puts him above taking orders from Abby, which ends with him taking on Hatchet hand-to-hand in a decent battle, albeit with an entirely expected outcome. Indeed, the same can be said for the film as an entity. There are no surprises, yet the action is handled in a professional manner, and this helps paper over the obvious flaws. Director Banks does solid work, considering this was her first feature, so we’ll see where she goes from here.

Dir: Sophia Banks
Star: Michelle Monaghan, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Pallavi Sharda

Bae Wolf

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★★
“LARPing for all.”

There is certainly room for reworking of the tale of Beowulf and Grendel, and making the heroines of this version female is what got me interested in it. However, the warning signs were out very quickly. Opening titles which said “Denmark… 500 AD… (-ish)” are a good sign of what to expect, for it’s clear that the makers were not happy to leave their changes at that. Indeed, they consciously embrace anachronism, especially in the dialogue, which is thoroughly modern, and could not be further from the epic poetry of the original if they tried. And I suspect they did try: congratulations on erasing one of the main reasons the story has survived down the millennia.

The basic story is, at least, largely unchanged. The land of Queen Walchtheo (Petsiavas) is under attack from the monstrous Grendel (Kern), and she sends her daughter, Princess Freawaru (Renew) out to find someone who can slay the beast. Freawaru finds a party of Danes led by Beowulf (Hill), who is disgruntled about the legends making her male: “As if you need balls to hold a sword.” They are commissioned for the job, which is where it gets murky, in a variety of ways. The Danes are a bit sketchy, in terms of delivering the contractually required slaughter; Grendel has mommy issues; and the princess falls for Beowulf, because this is 2022, and everyone has to be gay for no particular reason.

This was apparently shot at a Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP) camp, and to be honest, it shows. This is very much at the “running around in the woods” level of fantasy cinema, and at no point even remotely approaches selling its time and place. It leaves the film precariously perched between two stools, neither historically authentic nor modernizing the story. It drops contemporary characters, attitudes and dialogue into the 5th(-ish…) century, and the results don’t typically work, unless you’re playing for comedy. They can’t quite commit to that either, with a jokey tone, that simultaneously feels like it wants its opinions on gender and sexuality to be taken seriously. The net result at points feels like a political lecture delivered by someone wearing a pink pussyhat.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to dislike this as much as I might. Beowulf and Grendel are both given more complex characters than in some other adaptations, and are helped by decent performances from the leads. I will also admit, the final confrontation between Beowulf and the much-feared dragon is a great example of how you can genuinely yank the carpet from under your viewer. Let’s just say, very little in this world is as it seems, and the film works best when playing on this line between myth, legend and the facts, along with the way they mutate into each other. If they could have developed this aspect more, in lieu of the less successful elements, the obviously low budget and clunky writing would perhaps not have been so glaring.

Dir: David Axe
Star: Morgan Shaley Renew, Josh Kern, Jennifer Hill, Rachel Petsiavas

Ballistic

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★★
“Can’t spell Ballistic without balls…”

You know you’re in for a slice of stinky, nineties action cheese from the opening sequence. Undercover cop Jesse (Holden) has just taken down a sleazy yuppie drug-dealer, and a homeless woman tells her, “You know what you are, sweetie? You’re ballistic!” We probably need to explain why the film is titled that way, because there’s really not an enormous amount of great action here to justify it. Jesse is your typical, no-nonsense cop, who has just transferred from homicide to the Urban Crime Taskforce, where she is meeting resistance from her new colleagues. She is also trying to help her father (Roundtree), a former cop now doing 20 years after being framed with kilos of coke.

Jesse inevitably makes enemies: she comes under suspicious when a witness is killed on her watch, and is then suspected of the murder of the other cop who was in the safe-house. In reality, it’s all a plot by “respectable businessman” Braden (Jones), who inevitably is a dealer in both drugs and illegal weapons. He runs illegal fights in a warehouse lined with cardboard boxes: his top henchman, the person who killed the cop, is actually a woman, Claudia (the impressive looking body-builder Corinna Everson), and we get a small role from Michael Jai White, who would go on to considerably better things than this. As would the movie’s composer, Tyler Bates, and the cast also includes veteran cult actor Charles Napier as Jesse’s superior.

Despite a relatively good cast, it’s largely dull, often almost painfully so, with the action scenes suffering from a particularly brutal style of editing. Holden comes at at six foot even in height, towering over some of her male co-stars even when not wearing high heels, and does have a degree of film presence. It’s just that Bass, making his directorial debut, does not appear to have any idea of how she should be used. Early on, she’s treated as not much more than a slice of cheesecake, e.g. the opening credits feature Jesse showering in slo-mo, for no reason beyond titillation. The sex scenes with her boyfriend (a character which serves no purpose) are little better, and you could make the case Claudia is actually treated more seriously than the heroine.

The film does at least have the courtesy to give us a fight between the two women, though like much of the rest, the results are far from overwhelming, with them lazily snapping kicks toward each other, at a glacial pace. That’s about the peak as far as Jesse is concerned, with the movie’s climax thereafter largely involving a lot of running round the warehouse by everyone involved. It’s difficult to believe this kind of feature would ever have passed muster, even in the days of straight to video schlock. Though given this was the effective end of Holden’s career as a leading lady, perhaps it didn’t.

Dir:  Kim Bass
Star: Marjean Holden, Sam J. Jones, James Lew, Richard Roundtree
a.k.a. Fist of Justice

Breath

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★★
“The hole story”

Lara Winslet (Daigh) is a vulcanologist, who is on the side of a mountain in Italy, taking samples, when the ground gives way beneath her, and she falls into an underground pit, damaging her leg in the process. Help isn’t going to come, so with limited resources (not to mention a count of functioning limbs that stops at three), she is going to need to cope with the situation on its own, and figure a way out of what could easily become a fatal scenario. Meanwhile, on the outside, her father (Cosmo) is becoming increasingly frantic. This is erhaps because if Lara doesn’t come back, he’s going to be stuck permanently with her kid (Di Mauro). That would be my reaction, anyway…

There may be ways to make this kind of thing exciting. I imagine 127 Hours must have been able to manage it, though not having seen it, I can’t be specific on the techniques it used. Breath could have used some help, as there isn’t a great deal of adrenaline pumping through the veins of this situation. To try and generate some, it keeps flashing back to sequences set earlier and off the mountain, covering things like Lara’s affair with fellow scientist Adam (Chupin), or her more or less abandoning her daughter for the sake of career advancement in the name of scientific discovery. While this does provide some fill-in colour for her character, we eventually go back to her sobbing in a literal pit of despair.

I can’t really complain about the performances, and the photography does generate a decent sense of claustrophobia. I get the message that there are times when you can’t rely on anybody else, and have (again, more or less literally) to pull yourself up. Though I tend to feel that most life-threatening situations like this require more than a stern self-talking to, in order to get out of them: that is, however, what we get here. Lara’s leg seems injured only when necessary to the plot, and while being buried underground does bypass the usual cellphone issue, I can’t help wondering why she didn’t lob it (and its GPS) out of the pit – the hole wasn’t that deep. Or eat the nutritious, if not delicious, snake sharing it with her.

In the end, it’s just too simplistic a story: it’s almost binary, with the heroine either being in the pit or out of it. A more stepped approach, e.g. overcome the issue of her leg; figure out the water situation; try and attract attention, etc. would perhaps have done a better job of sustaining interest. Hell, even her background as a geologist never comes in useful, and it could have been anyone ambling around that mountainside. There’s a near-complete lack of ingenuity needed. In the end, it purely comes down to brute strength, as to whether or not Lara can make it out. Dare I say it, this was hole-y unremarkable.

Dir: John Real
Star: Rachel Daigh, James Cosmo, Neb Chupin, Alba Di Mauro

Blood and Gods, by Nathan Bueckert

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

What I’ll remember about this one is the arc. Not so much of any character, more as to whether or not this would qualify for the site. The story began on solid enough ground, but around the end of the first volume (this omnibus contains parts 1+2), it plummeted well below the threshold needed. I almost gave up reading at that point, but persisted, and the book did rebound with an extended, gory finale in which the heroine and her ally took on what felt like an entire city. Okay, it’s back in. But I’m not happy about it, for reasons I’ll get to in a bit.

The focus here is Tratalja, a city-state which rules over a wide swathe of countryside. In this world, writing is comparable to magic, and those who practice it without royal authority are subject to summary execution. This takes place at the hands of the Sceyrah, the enforcers of the ruling religion. In training to become one of them is fourteen-year-old Lilija, whose fighting skills, demonstrated in arena exhibitions, have caused her to become popular with the inhabitants – a cause of concern to her masters. 

When a tribe of barbarians, the Blood-Eaters, under their young leader Ari, sack the city, Lilija becomes the scapegoat, and narrowly escapes execution, fleeing the city to join forces with Ari. But their meeting… well, let’s just say it doesn’t go well. It was at this point I thought it was done, in terms of review purposes here. However, a new heroine arose thereafter, one possibly even more highly-skilled than Lilija, and she does manage to team up with Ari. Together, they face the threat of a high priest possessed by an evil god, with an unquenchable taste for human sacrifice. It gets a bit messy, though Book #2 does finish in a tidier way than #1. If I’d just had the latter, I’d have been annoyed.

Instead, however, there were still two significant problems. Firstly, the concept that certain people can have whatever they write, come true. It’s basically a massive get out of jail free card, which could be used as an excuse for sloppy writing. I don’t feel Bueckert necessarily does: however, it’s a questionable can of worms to open, especially when apparently done with few limitations. The other issue is the reduction of death, to something which is barely an inconvenience, little more than a spiritual time-out. After one character comes back – even if in a different physical form – then it’s hard for the reader to commit fully, to believing anyone else has ever ceased to be. I feel the story would have been significantly stronger, if other methods had been found to achieve the same plot results. While not devoid of positive elements, they aren’t what I’ll remember, and I don’t think I’ll be bothering with the second half of the series. 

Author: Nathan Bueckert (Timothy Frame)
Publisher: Black Rose Writing. available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1+2 of 4 in the Creators Quatrain series.

Bad Girls

  By

★½
“Faster, Pussycat! Dull! Dull!”

I didn’t realize until this started, it was by the director of the (non-GWG) The Theta Girl, which was a self-indulgent and flawed, yet ultimately not worthless, drug-trip revenge flick, made for no budget and with obvious passion. This is more of the same, yet wears out its welcome considerably quicker. It doesn’t feel as if Bickel has learned anything of relevance from making his previous effort. It may be more technically flash (not quite the same thing as “proficient”, you should note), yet he seems to have learned nothing about narrative. The film here unfolds at two speeds: dead slow and utterly manic. If this was a person at a party, you’d quietly sidle away from them.

It begins in the latter mode, with three strippers led by Val (Renew) robbing their club, and going on a crime spree, leaving a trail of dead bodies in their wake. Their goals are vague, partly heading to Mexico (the part of Mexico is played by South Carolina roadside attraction, South of the Border), and partly kidnapping each lady’s favourite rock stars, who conveniently mostly happen to be playing shows that night in the same area. Throw in a random hotel clerk, and you have a six-pack of characters, sitting around in motel rooms and cars, revealing their innermost secrets and taking quite a few illicit pharmaceutical, as the largely unlikable authorities close the net on them.

I think I greatly preferred it when Val and her gal pals were killing people. The first 5-10 minutes of this are insane, a genuine assault on the low-fi senses that positively burns the retinas. You have to wonder how Bickel could possibly keep up the level of manic energy, and to some extent, it’s probably a good thing he doesn’t, or your television would probably melt from the raw heat. However, there’s almost nothing offered in its place, in terms of plot or character development, until the final few minutes, where the police finally track the trio down and launch an assault, which is resisted with all the fire-power available. It’ll certainly wake you up if you dozed off: something which I will neither confirm nor deny happened to me.

At points, it feels as if this is intent mostly on checking off a list of film influences, most obviously Russ Meyer and Jack Hill. Though it’s largely superficial i.e. for a supposed trio of strippers, they really don’t show a lot of skin, and might as well have been secretaries. Or nuns. [Hmm. I have an idea for a movie] As with Theta, Bickel deserves credit for simply making his own damn movie. I just hope the next one actually is his own. For rather than a homage to classic exploitation movies of the sixties and seventies, this plays as a third-generation VHS copy of them, and you will be considerably better off sticking to the original inspirations.

Dir: Christopher Bickel
Star: Morgan Shaley Renew, Senethia Dresch, Shelby Lois Guinn, Cleveland Langdale

Borrego

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★½
“Borrego? BORE-rego, more like…”

Sorry, couldn’t resist it. For the recent string of suboptimal Netflix movies continues with this tedious bit of work, which feels like the first journey across the South Californian desert filmed in real time. It begins with Ellie (Hale), a botanist carrying out a survey near the Mexican border. She meets a teenage girl, Alex (Trujillo), who is skipping school and the two have an awkward conversation. I initially thought its stilted nature was intended to tell us something about the two characters, but nope. All the conversations here are awkward. Writer-director Harris just has no ear for dialogue, which may explain why so much of this is people wandering about instead.

Anyway, the plot proper kicks off when Ellie witnesses a plane crash nearby. Rushing to the scene, without any attempt to call for help, she finds the pilot, Tomas (Gomez) crawling from the wreckage with his cargo of drugs. At gunpoint, she is coerced into helping him carry what remains of the merchandise to its delivery point, where the intended recipient is growing increasingly antsy. Meanwhile, the only local cop (Gonzalez) is on the hunt, both for the missing botanist, and Alex, who is his daughter. All these plot threads lead to the copious trudging across the terrain mentioned above. Though people also bump into each other with the frequency required by the plot, so that the desert appears to be the size of your local convenience store.

Things unfold with the predictability of the sun in this arid corner of the country. Tomas and Ellie bond over their campfire, Tomas’s grasp of English waxing and waning as necessary. Turns out he was only involved in this sordid business to help his family, a casual excuse used by criminals since time immemorial, which cuts no ice with me. Hell, even antsy intended recipient says the same thing. We can clearly end the War On Drugs, by killing every drug dealer’s family, to remove their motivation! The movie opens and closes with po-faced captions about the societal problem of drug abuse, both prescribed and otherwise. I think if you need a Netflix original movie to tell you, “Drugs are bad, m’kay?”, there are bigger problems.

You will get an hour and a half of the various parties, showcasing some rather pretty locations, in lieu of anything approaching genuine tension or action: a car hitting a cactus is as close as we get. The photography is easily the best thing about this, with some excellent aerial footage that brings home the scope of where the participants roam. However, I did not sign up to watch “Drones Above the South-West”, and any goodwill generated falls into a canyon, as a result of the poor excuse for a climax. I’d not blame you for tuning out well before that point, however. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s all almost enough to make me wish for the ludicrous stupidity of Interceptor. 

Almost…

Dir: Jesse Harris
Star: Lucy Hale, Nicholas Gonzalez, Leynar Gomez, Olivia Trujillo