Author: Joel Fisher

Chad (Andy J. Carlson) and Ryan (Shawn Knox) are best friends who work for a removal company called Movers Ultimate. Chad is getting tired of the job and he’s disrespectful to his boss whereas Ryan is going through some relationship issues and is being offered a promotion. They’re very different sides of the same coin but somehow, they work well together.

Then one day Chad and Ryan are brought to Meredith’s (Annalese Poorman) house, a woman moving after a divorce whose adult children want the best for her. However, what starts out as a typical day at work turns into something more demanding as Meredith doesn’t really know what she wants. This leads Chad and Ryan to do their best to make their day go smoothly, no matter what obstacles are thrown at them.

Movers Ultimate is a work-based comedy written and directed by Ben Rood. Billed as the next Office Space, it’s clear where Movers Ultimate draws its inspiration and as the story unfolds, the audience may be reminded of comedies such as Clerks and maybe even a little Dumb and Dumber. However, Movers Ultimate may be a comedy about the gripes of a couple of manual labourers, but it still has a heart.

Rood’s script is what makes Movers Ultimate work so well and whilst comparing itself to other comedies focussing on ordinary people, it’s safe to say that it delivers on that promise. Carlson and Knox also have a good chemistry and their friendship is believable despite their differences.

Their characters are also shown to have more depth than first impressions allow which shows that Movers Ultimate is not just a comedy about dude bros, for dude bros.

There’s also a surprising amount of material that is brought out of working in a removal company and as everybody has had to move once in their lives, there’s plenty in which to relate. In fact, there are many moments which may make the audience smile or laugh out loud no matter what side of the experience you’ve had.

Perhaps not all the actors are suited for the challenge that comedy brings and there may be one too many, but Movers Ultimate sets itself a high bar and just about reaches it.

Wes (Ryan Kwanten) is not having the best day as he’s still processing things from a bad break up. He finds himself at a rest stop and like anyone on a long journey, he decides to use the facilities. The trouble is that once Wes regains consciousness from an unknown force, he finds himself trapped in the bathroom with no way to escape. That and there’s an ominous voice telling him that he may be his only hope.

So, Wes has to talk through his problems with the voice known as Ghat (J.K. Simmons) and find a way to get out of his lonely bathroom stall. However, Ghat may have a solution that Wes may not be able to handle.

Glorious is a horror movie directed by Rebekah McKendry and written by Joshua Hull, David Ian McKendry and Todd Rigney – it’s also exclusive to Shudder. Those horror aficionados may also be quite familiar with a setting such as this as it is bound to evoke the Saw franchise for some. Although its Lovecraftian twist is quite different, if a little disjointed.

This is because Glorious is clearly a movie that was made during lockdown and with the limited cast and budget, director McKendry had to make do with what there was. Unfortunately, this means that sacrifices had to be made and it’s easy to imagine Simmons recording his lines at home only to send them over having known very little about his character.

Simmons’ performance is still as good as the script allows and there are still enough funny moments to form bonds and increase the chemistry between the main characters. However, it may not be quite enough to fully suspend the audience’s disbelief.

However, Glorious is too reminiscent of things that have come before and audiences will surely see it as a movie made while killing time until the next project. There is a rather major reveal that does turn the story on its head a little, but on closer inspection it comes across as rather two dimensional.

Pulling the rug out from under the audience’s feet for shock value rather than anything more original rarely works, and in this case it seems like it was done to wrap things up early.

Corrina (Karen Scobie) is an aspiring filmmaker who one day she finds an old man named Tom (Keith McKie) busking by the side of the road and his music inspires her. Telling her mother, Alice (Lisa Kovack) about the man that she met on the street unlocks a series of memories in her as despite not seeing him for a long time, Alice and Tom grew very close once upon a time. So, Alice recounts the story of her younger days when Young Alice (Haley Midgette) and Young Tom (Tyson Coady) met and fell in love.

A Song for Us is a heart-warming drama about a time in the Sixties where everybody felt free and alive. Written and directed by Peter Hitchcock, A Song for Us tells a sweet story of love, regret and finds a way to make amends for the past.

Taking the audience back to the mid-Sixties, Hitchcock’s script and the production gently gives the audience a glimpse of a time gone by in a mostly authentic way. Although not having the kind of budget that a Richard Linklater film may allow, Hitchcock manages to evoke a time where half the country wanted to be free and the rest were embroiled in war.

For most of the film, the story focuses on Midgette and Coady and they have a real chemistry which makes the audience warm to them as they become a couple. However, there are issues with the depiction of the more troubling side of their relationship which doesn’t feel real. Also, there are times that the script doesn’t feel all that authentic, like Hitchcock threw in a few facts about the time to keep the audience immersed when it didn’t need to do so.

However, as the story goes on then it goes back to the present day and although the story there is somewhat predictable, the performances by the older pair still seem to match their younger counterparts. Particular attention has been paid to the older Tom and McKie gives a great performance as a man who has seen better days.

A Song for Us may come across a bit too saccharine and sentimental for some, but if you let yourself go and enjoy the music, then it’s a pleasant film to watch which will give you a warm hug.

Daphne (Libby Ewing) and Wilson (Evan Dumouchel) have always been close, ever since they were little. Growing up together has been hard, but they’ve always been there for each other even when times were hard. However, things got especially hard when Daphne became addicted to drugs, nonetheless Wilson stood by her and nursed her back to help, doing everything he could not to lose his sister.

Then one night Wilson finds Daphne and she is dead. Overcome with grief and guilt, Wilson soon finds himself in a downward spiral of depression, but Daphne suddenly appears to him and convinces him to fight. Not fight through the grief perse, but to fight the demon that has taken his sister’s life and get revenge.

When I Consume You is a psychological horror written and directed by Perry Blackshear and may be an example of what these days is called elevated horror. That’s because the film deals with things such as depression, addiction and grief and gives them life in a horror setting.

Much like The Babadook, Daphne’s addiction becomes manifest and the way that it’s dealt with is similar to the depression that is depicted in the more famous Australian horror. However, with the comparisons between the two being so evident, it’s hard to separate them.

Using the depiction of addiction as if it is a real person and something that is tangible is indeed a clever idea and the way that Daphne and Wilson interact with it gives the audience a good idea of what dealing addiction is really like.

The way that it fights back also gives the audience a well thought out example of what addiction does to people whilst portraying it in a palatable horror scenario.

However, in the end this kind of depiction of an emotional compulsion has been done before and unfortunately it doesn’t do it as well as its more famous predecessor. Saying that though, When I Consume You is a bold and unflinching depiction of addiction and the affects that it has on family. It just could have been a little more subtle in its execution.

It’s after the first lockdown and people are starting to feel like there’s a little bit of hope ahead of them, but they’re still feeling cautious. However, Enzo (Leonardo Fuica), Polly (Caitlen Cameron), Ace (Alex Gravenstein), Coco (Hannah Forest Briand) and Billy (Jonathan Vanderzon) haven’t seen each other in what seems like forever, so they take the opportunity to go away to a lake and spend some quality time together catching up.

The problem is that while they’re all having fun, there are bad men taking the opportunity to make some money.

Camping Trip is a crime thriller written by and starring Leonardo Fuica who directs alongside his brother Demian. Being set during the pandemic, there is a certain kind of trepidation into watching a movie like Camping Trip, because there’s the thought that the filmmakers may be exploiting the situation for monetary gain. However, these are just the times we live in and so the Fuica brothers used this background to tell their story.

However, their story is rather cliched and although there are a lot of well-meaning scenes, the jarring shifts in tone may raise more smiles than intended. This is particularly evident in a scene early on where the friends share an intimate moment and it seems to come out of nowhere. Meaning that the audience may be too distracted from what they’ve just witnessed to focus on the rest of the movie.

Add to that an action scene which plays out entirely in slow motion and considering how long the movie has dragged up until that point, it may break some members of the audience. Although to its credit, it does seem to have accidentally recreated that point during lockdown where we all lost our sense of time.

Camping Trip wants to be something like Shallow Grave, but between the indulgent direction, the amateur acting and the slow pacing, it just comes across as shallow.

There’s something comforting about watching a movie like Camping Trip though. It must mean that the distributor must have had much better things to release, so bringing out Camping Trip wouldn’t have hit them with much of a loss. Good to know that in some ways, things are getting better.