Shower Beer Vol XLVI: Stuff We’re Watching

Hey there fellow movie and television fans. If you've ever listened to our podcast you know that the second segment of our show is called our "protein shake" where each bro discusses things that are "in our cup", or what have we watched lately. Well recently I've been watching too much shit to bring up on just the podcast, so with the help of our creative team (Nate Thurmond) we decided to blog about a few of the things we've seen recently that we wanted to discuss that we might have left out. We're naming it after the greatest pre-gaming invention of the 21st century, the shower beer!

Here are the things I've seen lately as well as the link to their IMDB page if you want a little bit more info to see if it's something down your alley. In addition, I write Letterboxd reviews for all the movies I see without any spoilers, but I might go into a bit more detail in this blog than I do over there.

1) F*** Marry Kill - (Hulu) There is something in my algorithm that knows I love Lucy Hale so whenever she’s in a new movie it gets shoved in my face and I’m like a pig to slop. The premise here is interesting as it takes the slasher genre and mixes it in with a rom com style series of tropes that somehow isn’t awful. There are equal number of laughs to kills, and there’s a whodunnit element that really plays well. The characters are absolutely absurd as you’d expect, and the third act gets a little wonky, but never fully lost me. I was a bit shocked at how much fun I had with this.

2) Phantom of the Megaplex - (Disney +) An every year classic for me around spooky season. This year I think it moved up my Disney Channel Original Movie list, and is still one of the sickest scores that a DCOM has ever put out. I with I could go back and watch this for the first time again not knowing who the Phantom of the Megaplex was, but it still plays like a neutered version of Phantom of the Opera, but with way cooler costumes. I want to frost my tips every time I watch this because it takes me back to the days when that and a full head of gel was all you needed to be the biggest swinging dick in the room.

3) The Babysitter: Killer Queen - (Netflix) Sequel to The Babysitter which I watched a few weeks ago, but this entry has an up and coming Jenna Ortega as the fresh blood. The movie starts off seemingly playing the classics of the original which lures you in, then things go really off the fucking rails in the second act and it continues to go downhill from there. There is bit of retconning that really fucks up the original movie, and while I’m not a stickler for the plot points established in the first film, it does feel a bit cheap and disingenuous. Ken Marino is a total scene stealer in this though and I really want to smoke weed and play VR with his character. We all need a neighbor like him who will let you get away from your responsibilities for a few hours and not be a snitch.

4) Friday the 13th Part 2 - (Peacock) Had to scratch that slasher itch when I was in full swing with my Halloween movies, and realized I’d never seen the second Friday the 13th. It really gives you everything you could ask for. It looks like shit, the sound is awful, the characters are one dimensional almost to the point of actually having depth, and the kill count is probably in the double digits. Sign my ass up. The horniness of the camp counselors in this really is what started all the parody movies and tropes of the genre. It’s like everyone at Crystal Lake just got out of prison and has taken ecstasy. Jason himself runs rough shot through the main camping area, and even considers making his way into town to pick up a pack of cigarettes and some snacks, but gets tuckered out from all the slashing he does. The ending of this is almost as wild as the ending to the first one, and I love how this franchise just refuses to do anything in a chill manner. Swing for the fences.

5) Trick or Treat (1986) - (Roku Channel) I’d heard really good things about this movie as a Halloween classic, and the totally unrelated Trick r Treat from 2017 is one of my favorite scary movies so I figured it had to have named itself after this as an homage. Unfortunately this thing is a flaming turd that goes for a really trippy high concept only to end up as a really boring horror movie that doesn’t even do the high school tropes correctly. We have the jocks hanging out with the nerds, and the lunch room seating is a total fucking mess. Give me a white board and fifteen minutes with the writers of this thing and I will set them straight. There is one interesting scene set in woodshop class at the high school that feels a bit Final Destinationy which I did enjoy.

6) A Big Bold Beautiful Journey - (Digital rental) Probably my favorite trailer of the year, and with Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie I was in from the jump. You learn to love the characters pretty early, and it’s quite charming even though I felt like Farrell and Robbie really did not have much chemistry. They’re having fun in the role regardless, and the concept is something that you can’t help but relate to. The general plot idea of getting to go back and relive some of the seminole moments of your life with the perspective you gained is really fucking cool and as a result this movie couldn’t have sucked no matter how you sliced it for me. I was a bit underwhelmed, but I also think I had way too high of expectations for it.

7) A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge - (HBO Max) This was a Halloween where i realized that there’s a big gap in my filmography with a lot of the classic horror franchises, and I’m trying to correct that. Nightmare on Elm Street is a franchise that has always interested me just based on the concept alone. We did a commentary track on the original a few years ago you should check out on our youtube channel, and I vividly remember seeing Freddy vs. Jason in theaters. Here we visit the first sequel in the franchise which always has the tough task of reinventing the ideas of the original enough to keep fans interested, but also sticking enough to it’s guns that it feels like it has the same DNA. The cool idea here is that Freddy is possessing a new teenager in the same house as the original which keeps the mythology pretty tight while still feeling fresh. Unfortunately all the stuff at the high school really sucks, and the friend groups are really weird like we have jocks and band keeps intermingling which as we know is against the rules of the jungle. There is a really cool set piece in woodshop class, and the end party is worth the watch all on it’s own. We also get a hysterically stereotypical “hard on his kid” dad who just will never give his son a fucking inch. I will probably check out part three next year as this one had my interest.

8) Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge - (Disney +) Let me start by saying I am a fan of the original Halloweentown. While it’s no Phantom of the Megaplex, or Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire, it is a strong Halloween Disney Channel Original Movie. Here my complaint rests largely with both the title, and where we spend most of this movie. Spoilers ahead…in the film we not only never see Kalabar who we’re told is getting his fucking revenge, but we see maybe one and a half minutes of Hallweentown and are relegated to some old dude’s house who is clearly a hoarder, and needs an intervention not a coven reunion happening in his living room. I know there is a third one that features the OG cast members and I will check that out at some point, but here we have what I have to consider a failure.

9) The Woman in Cabin 10 - (Netflix) Trailer for this had me harder than a diamond in an ice storm, and my wife spoke really highly of the book. I’m a sucker for a good whodunnit, and the cast here is like Knives Out light. The movie doesn’t have any of the levity you see from the Rian Johnson or Agatha Christie murder mysteries done by Kenneth Branagh, but it still kept me interested and I do like how the “twist” is revealed earlier than the third act which creates some interesting tension. I feel like there were a lot of things left out from the book, and it could’ve used another 20 min of runtime, especially in the beginning as I was trying to figure out who the fuck all the characters were, and who I might suspect as the killer. Ultimately this was one of my favorite thrillers of the year and I highly recommend it.

10) Dracula (1931) - (Prime Video) If you think John Wooden was a great recruiter, I’d put him up against Count Dracula in this film. It’s clear to see how this OG horror villain has gotten so many adaptations when you look at how deep the mythology is, and how many different settings the story traverses. The boat alone has led to one of my favorite horror movies of the last half decade in The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and if you’re a fan of Renfield you get a ton of him in this movie. Once we get out of Transylvania it’s a little less interesting, but the over the top way Dracula is portrayed and how he doesn’t give a shit about societal norms or how you’re supposed to act at a cocktail party are great. I wonder how “scary” this was at the time it came out, because it shows people getting attacked in about as aggressive a way as you could’ve shown in the 1930’s.

-JH