Reviews, views and occasionally other things…
Ah, film – my first and greatest love!
“Mile 22” is a movie every bit as toxically moronic, tone-deaf and self-flagellating as a daily schedule which starts the day at 2:30am for literally no good reason. It’s a hateful, ignorant and needlessly, excessively profane geopolitical cartoon scrawled in crayon on the bathroom stall of cinema; a Neanderthal cave painting, rendered in excrement. When … Continue reading Mile 22 (2018) Review
I seem to be getting into the habit of watching horror movies at the cinema, so when the fifth instalment of arguably the 21st century’s second most successful cinematic universe gave me an opportunity to start the story in chronological order (I haven’t yet seen any of the Conjuring movies or spin-offs, it was time … Continue reading The Nun (2018) Review
There’s a deep-rooted discomfort at the heart of “BlacKkKlansman” and it’s the fact that instead of being a historical, true story poking cautionary fun at the ignorance of the past, it instead feels like a howl of furious irony at the recidivism of modern-day America. In 1979, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), Colorado Springs’ first … Continue reading BlacKkKlansman (2018) Review
Literally bringing small screen drama to the big screen, social media POV thriller “Searching” may be the most slyly political movie of 2018. To say much more than that would be to spoil the story’s twists and turns and while they’re all Who knew that your search history would be the key to finding someone … Continue reading Searching (2018) Review
It’s not easy to ignore how crass and tasteless this film feels given the real-life incident which the infamous internet phenomenon gave rise to. It’s even harder when, with the release of this film, the creepypasta meme is now responsible for yet another real-life atrocity. In a small Massachusetts town, four friends decide to summon … Continue reading Slender Man (2018) Review
“Beware the Slenderman” is a 2017 documentary which examines the real-life incident in which two girls attempted to murder one of their friends, to appease the Slender Man, a fictional creepy past monster who was created in 2009 as part of a photoshop contest on somethingawful.com. Using real-life footage of court proceedings, various YouTube videos, … Continue reading Beware The Slenderman (2017) Review
What if “Ice Age” but the human kid’s a lot older and it’s not played for laughs? What if “The Revenant” but, you know, good? Delayed for over a year, “Alpha” is finally in cinemas and it’s a real treat, if not exactly what the multiplex crowd may be expecting. Left for dead after an … Continue reading Alpha (2018) Review
Last Christmas, a friend of the family gave us four tickets for the touring show “Forever Jackson” featuring Michael Jackson impersonator Robin Parsons, because Mrs Craggus has long been a fan of the ‘King Of Pop’. The show’s a lot of fun and Parsons pretty much nails his Jackson impersonation (as long as you don’t … Continue reading Moonwalker (1988) Review
Colin Combes (Scott Brindle), 42-year-old gardening journalist, is staring down the barrel of a locked and loaded mid-life crisis. He’s starting to suspect his wife, Freya (Angelique Fronike) still has feelings for her ex, the aging pop star Gordon ‘Midge’ Midgely (Rob Marsden) and as if that wasn’t enough, he’s due for a colonoscopy to … Continue reading Any Major Dude (2017) Review
I’ve long had a love-hate relationship with horror that’s increasingly been completely out of step with the reality of my movie watching experience nowadays. I'll avoid some horror movies purely because of their legendary reputation; I think they’ll end up freaking me out, even though I know I’m too old and too rationally cynical to … Continue reading Suspiria (1977) Review
Back in 1989, Kylie Minogue released a single from “Enjoy Yourself”, her second studio album, called "Wouldn't Change A Thing". It perfectly encapsulates how I felt when I learned "Nailed It" was coming back for a second season: If I had to do it all again I wouldn't change a single thing There's no questioning … Continue reading Nailed It! Season Two Review
25 years ago, on 3rd January 1993, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” made its TV debut in America. It wouldn’t reach UK TV screens until 22nd August later that year. To celebrate the 25th Anniversary, What The Craggus Saw is taking the time between those two premiere dates to revisit and review each season of … Continue reading Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 25th Anniversary Retrospective: Season 7
So it’s come to this: The Last Sharknado. Can I get that in writing? Me and the Sharknado films have had quite the trajectory. At first I was like: ‘this is a joke’. Then I was like, ‘No, seriously, is this a joke?’ And then I was like ‘okay, that was actually pretty funny’ followed … Continue reading The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018) #SharkWeak2 Review
This post is published as part of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Angelman's Place's Lee Grant Blogathon. Arguably every bit as topical and important now as it was when it was released, “In The Heat Of The Night” tells the story of a black Police Detective, Virgil Tibbs (a superb Sidney Poitier) who finds himself pressed into assisting … Continue reading In The Heat Of The Night (1967) Lee Grant Blogathon Review
Once in a while, you come across a film which completely upends any assumptions or expectations you have. As I crawl wearily to the end of this far too long stretch of bad shark movies for #SharkWeak2, “House Shark” has done just that. It may be a cheap, nonsensical under-funded Indiegogo project but it’s also … Continue reading House Shark (2017) #SharkWeak2 Review
“Empire Of The Sharks” scores an early win with a mention of ‘trained ninja sharks’, a formidable weapon on a post-apocalyptic, flooded ecosystem. A biosphere covered entirely in water. An oceanic globe. An aquatic planet. Hmm. If only there was an easy way of saying it... On a future earth where 98% of the surface … Continue reading Empire Of The Sharks (2017) #SharkWeak2 Review
Legendary animator Genndy Tartakovsky returns for a third time to bring us the further adventures of Dracula and his growing family. Although he’s often spoken about stepping away from the series, we should be thankful he’s stayed onboard because it’s his involvement that keeps this amiably undemanding series from sliding inexorably towards mediocrity. Mistaking her … Continue reading Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation (2018) Review
The latest entry in the polycephalic Carcharodon carry-on opens with a decidedly mono-mouthed shark swimming through the ocean. *rings trade descriptions* Oh wait, it's a fake-out. It’s actually just a regular great white; a snack for the real monster... *starts to put phone down* ...which has four heads??? *snatches up phone again* Once again, the … Continue reading 5-Headed Shark Attack (2017) #SharkWeak2 Review
This weird, excruciatingly badly made movie opens on a nun walking through a graveyard while a newscast voiceover reports a local nun accused of murdering and torturing thirteen local boys and girls. It’s one of a number of things the movie talks about but never shows us. But given the quality of what it does … Continue reading Shark Exorcist (2016) #SharkWeak2 Review
When an arctic research station finds itself under attack from aggressive sharks and the break up of the ice shelf its built on, the crew must struggle against the odds to survive long enough to be rescued. There’s a lot that’s confused about this Asylum production and yet its one of few bad shark movies … Continue reading Ice Sharks (2016) #SharkWeak2 Review
I’m enough of a fan of the original TV show “The Equalizer” to wish Antoine Fuqua had found a way to incorporate Stewart Copeland’s superb synth-driven theme tune into this modern reinterpretation. But my favourite part of the TV series was always the helping out of ‘the little guy’ rather than the bigger, over-arching spycraft … Continue reading The Equalizer 2 (2018) Review
There’s no denying the ambition of this frankly barmy entry in the sharksploitation oeuvre, opening as it does with an ominous montage of underwater scenes intercut with Cold War newsreel footage and Robert Oppenheimer quotes. It’s the closest we get to a real explanation of how the shark became nuclear, so just go with it. … Continue reading Atomic Shark (2016) #SharkWeak2 Review
Disney’s latest live-action reinterpretation of its hallowed back catalogue is also easily one of its most muddled, despite the fact it's treading a very similar path to the one “Hook” forged nearly thirty years ago. All grown up, Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) is married with a daughter yet spends all his time at work, under … Continue reading Christopher Robin (2018) Review
Sometime in the future, the world has yet to recover from the last mega shark attack. A voiceover tells us that the near total halt of global shipping plus a general avoidance of the coast and water by the population of the world has had a devastating economic impact. We’re told this over footage of … Continue reading Mega Shark vs Kolossus (2015) #SharkWeak2 Review
A 3-headed shark suddenly attacks a group of partying teenagers, killing all of them except one who was on a buoy while the rest of the teens were at the beach. The shark then proceeds to attack the Persephone, an underwater research facility studying the Pacific Garbage Patch. Some of the research personnel manage to … Continue reading 3-Headed Shark Attack (2015) #SharkWeak2 Review
Previously, on “Mega Shark vs...”, our fishy anti-hero and his reptilian rival were poached to death by an underwater volcano, and it would appear that was indeed that. But fear not, a drought in the Mediterranean has prompted an entrepreneur to tow an iceberg to the afflicted area but – wouldn’t you know it – … Continue reading Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark (2014) #SharkWeak2 Review
Conceptually, this may be one of the best bad shark movies ever. I mean, it’s still terrible, but what an idea! With tongue firmly in see-through cheek, this is one of the funniest and most fun bad shark movies ever made. When rednecks on a dynamite fishing trip kill a great white shark, its body … Continue reading Ghost Shark (2013) #SharkWeak2 Review
It’s always prudent, if you’re going to copy ideas from other films, characters and books, not to have your characters discuss those very stories right while you’re pilfering them. It doesn’t take a ‘green’ to figure that out. When a mysterious virus afflicts the children of the world, killing nearly 98%, the survivors are viewed … Continue reading The Darkest Minds (2018) Review
“Shark Week”, very much not to be confused with the annual Discovery Channel documentary-thon, begins mis-en-scene, with Tiburon (an almost unrecognisable Patrick Bergen) taunting his poolside victim like a cut-price Bond villain/ Jigsaw hybrid. Ultimately our unfortunate introductory victim takes the plunge and bites the big one...well, gets bitten by the big one. So begins … Continue reading Shark Week (2012) #SharkWeak2 Review
While the idea of sharks as merciless killers of the sea is older than Shakespeare’s ‘ravin'd salt-sea shark’, the idea that sharks posed a risk to the land-dwelling general population is just over a century old. In 1916, between July 1st and July 12th 1916, five shark attacks occurred along the New Jersey shore which … Continue reading Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012) #SharkWeak2 Review
Spending a semester at sea conducting research sounds like a dream come true, right? Not when your expedition finds itself under attack from a mutated two-headed shark! Thankfully the boat is stranded near an abandoned atoll but when the atoll itself starts sinking, no one is safe from the monster! Given the title monster has … Continue reading 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012) #SharkWeak2 Review
Way down deep in the middle of the Congo, an illegal diamond mining operation unearths a giant 150-foot crocodile because of course it does. At the same time, in the middle of the Atlantic, the US Navy warship USS Gibson (haha geddit? Because Debbie Gibson was in the first one but isn’t in this one. … Continue reading Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus (2010) #SharkWeak2 Review
Finally, on screen together for the first time, two iconic titans duke it out for ocean supremacy and there’s not a Martha in sight to bring the throw down to a halt. When the deployment of a low-frequency sonar array causes a pod of whales to go berserk and start head-butting a glacier and somehow … Continue reading Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009) #SharkWeak2 Review
“Swamp Shark” sees us returning to the safe waters of the insert-unusual-place-in-front-of-the-word-‘shark’ format and this time we return to the Louisiana bayou for a third time, once again in the company of Kristy Swanson, this time tackling our first proper cryptid critter of #SharkWeak2. When an animal smuggler accidentally releases a rare and exotic shark … Continue reading Swamp Shark (2011) #SharkWeak2 Review
Fun is also in short supply in “Shark Night 3D”, a cynical and insufferable shark movie which somehow managed to get itself a theatrical release despite it being really, really awful. Sara (Sara Paxton) and her friends set out to spend a fun-filled weekend at her lake house on the shores of Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain. … Continue reading Shark Night 3D (2011) #SharkWeak2 Review
The thing I love about sharksploitation movies is they’re generally fun. Fun is a big part of the appeal, even when – or maybe especially when – they’re bad. “The Reef” is not a bad movie, but it's also definitely not a fun movie. When a group of friends find themselves stranded on a capsized … Continue reading The Reef (2010) #SharkWeak2 Review
Subtitles? Oh cool – this is a Japanese monster shark movie. We’ve seen what they make of giant atomic dinosaur lizards, so I can’t wait to see what they make of a giant killer shark. Except we’ll just have to – wait, that is - because most of the brief 69 minute running time is … Continue reading Psycho Shark (2009) #SharkWeak2 Review
“Malibu Shark Attack” opens with that old favourite, an undersea landslide. This one apparently releases some long-extinct sharks who we’ll get to later. First of all, like the Spinosaurus in “Jurassic Park 3”, the main monster of this movie has to demonstrate its prowess early on by symbolically taking out the previously assumed ‘daddy’ of … Continue reading Malibu Shark Attack (2009) #SharkWeak2 Review
Too short to be a miniseries but too long, really, to be a movie, this Hallmark production weighs in at a whale shark-esque two hours and forty minutes, which is a long time to endure a bad shark movie, so it’s a good thing this one is – believe it or not – actually halfway … Continue reading Shark Swarm (2008) #SharkWeak2 Review
A movie so non-union equivalent it could have been directed by Senor Spielbergo himself, “Shark In Venice” dives deep into classic Spielbergian action adventure (in ambition if not quite execution) and boasts a cast led by undeniable Hollywood A-list-adjacent talent. When his father disappears while diving in the city of Venice, David ([Stephen] Baldwin) travels … Continue reading Shark In Venice (2008) #SharkWeak2 Review
We’re back in the realms of mad science with 2005’s “Sharkman” (the internet’s most often confused movie. It’s sometimes called “Hammerhead” and not to be confused with the apparently unavailable (believe me I tried) 2001 film “Sharkman” from which I think the poster I’ve used is taken but plenty of other sites credit this to … Continue reading Sharkman (2005) #SharkWeak2 Review
“Sharkzilla”, known everywhere apart from the UK as “Megalodon”, is a 2004 TV movie set on a deep sea oil rig which breaks through to a hidden undersea ocean. If that sounds familiar, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the first two-thirds of “The Meg”, although this film manages to tell the story without once … Continue reading Sharkzilla (2004) #SharkWeak2 Review
As a long-time reader of Steve Alten’s pulpy aquatic horror novels and a fan of shark movies – bad and good – I’ve long been hoping for a movie adaptation. Unfortunately, “The Meg” always seemed to find itself trapped in development hell, much like the eponymous monster is trapped beneath the thermal barrier at the … Continue reading The Meg (2018) #SharkWeak2 Review
A tiny bit of a step down from the glossy multiplex-friendly “Deep Blue Sea”, this 2003 TV movie may dial down the star wattage somewhat but it doesn’t turn the lights out completely: Lou Diamond Phillips! Kristy Swanson! Coolio! I mean, come on – what more could you want? Down-on-his-luck boat owner John Sanders is … Continue reading Red Water (2003) #SharkWeak2 Review
Fittingly, we open #SharkWeak2 not with a terrible shark movie, but with a surprisingly seminal one with many of the modern sharksploitation tropes finding their roots in this turn of the millennium action adventure. When rogue scientist Dr Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) makes a last-ditch appeal to her corporate sponsor Russell Franklin (Samuel L Jackson) … Continue reading Deep Blue Sea (1999) #SharkWeak2 Review
As a fan of the original Teen Titans animated series, I was deeply sceptical of “Teen Titans Go!” when it first aired. Silly, childish and cutesy, it seemed like Cartoon Network trashing something that had been great. Slowly, though, and thanks to the Cragglings embracing it, I began to enjoy it, especially as it revealed … Continue reading Teen Titans Go! To The Movies (2018) Review
Released as their 20th movie, in their 10th Anniversary year, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that “Ant-Man And The Wasp” is reassuringly reliable entertainment, exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What may be unexpected is how well this tale works as a palate cleanser after the universe-altering … Continue reading Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018) Review
Perennially underrated, often unfairly maligned (even by Schwarzenegger himself) as his first real failure, ironic action movie masterpiece “Last Action Hero” is twenty-five years old this year and way overdue for a reappraisal. Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien) prefers the movies to the trials and tribulations of real life, especially the adventures of his all-time favourite … Continue reading Last Action Hero (1993) 25th Anniversary Review
The unstoppable Tom Cruise, Movie StarTM is back in 2018’s best action movie bar none. “Fallout” completes a “Fast & Furious”-style transformation of the franchise and leaves its famously diminutive leading man head and shoulders above the rest of the action competition. When a mission to recover three stolen uranium cores is interrupted by the … Continue reading Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) Review
*SPOILER WARNING* Donna is dead to begin with. As dead as a doornail. It’s just one of the many, many ways this sequel unpicks all the happy endings of the first movie to cynically give itself a reason to exist. Preparing for the grand opening of the Hotel Bella Donna, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is working … Continue reading Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) Review
