Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 284

The Babysitter: Killer Queen – Review

Let’s be honest, most horror enthusiasts would agree that the 2017 film ‘The Babysitter’ didn’t need a sequel. It got one anyway, with pretty much the same cast. The makers need to be applauded for their over-confidence.

The new 2020 horror comedy ‘The Babysitter: Killer Queen” picks up two years after where the last film ended. Cole (played by the Cole Sprouse lookalike Judah Lewis) is in high-school and everybody thinks he is a psycho, since he claims to have killed a bloodthirsty cult of five people. Even his parents think he is a nut-job.

Cole’s best-friend Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind) convinces him to go away with her friends for a weekend by the beach and shit hits the roof. All the crazy cult folks he had killed 2 years ago are back. They want Cole’s blood and are as idiotic as ever. Here’s the thing – I saw the prequel last month, after watching the trailer to Killer Queen, since it seemed fun. The prequel was mediocre, so I had my hopes very low for this one. And that helped me enjoy it a lot more than under regular circumstance. I mean a girl’s gotta enjoy a horror comedy once in a while and put logic aside.

In fact, this sequel is definitely better than the last film and has its high points. The background score is damn good, never sounds jarring and some hip retro numbers are blended brilliantly with what’s happening onscreen. Also, the director seems to have learnt a little from his past mistakes and didn’t have characters dropping excessive pop-culture references that only a niche set of viewers would understand. Not a lot of time is wasted in setting up the conflict points either. However, just like the predecessor, ‘Killer Queen’ too is a little to long and could’ve been chopped off by a good 15 minutes. Also, they throw in some unbelievable romantic bullshit.

As far as the sets are concerned, since a lot of scenes are outdoor this time, there are some pretty cool looking shots. There is also a lot of old school exaggerated slasher scenes that are bloody gory and hilarious. Just like any horror comedy films, they don’t make sense and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

The climax was a total dud. It’s when Cole’s old babysitter and cult leader Bee (Samara Weaving) finally shows up and a BIG TWIST is revealed. I feel like the scriptwriters did not re-read what they wrote, because their gigantic surprise didn’t make any freaking sense. It’s so brainless that I cannot even begin to write the myriad questions that were bubbling in my head when the film closes. “What the fuck?!” is the only question that matters amid all of them.

The makers have an 16+ rating for this film (21+ in some countries like Korea) but they give you an ending befitting a toddler. Only a 10-year-old would be happy with how this one ends. Anyway, if you just want to see some mindless horror comedy film, this one makes a pretty good pick. Non-horror enthusiasts will not be able to sit through it.

Get ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’

To any book enthusiast looking at this post – my debut fiction book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ is FREE for just the next few hours. It’s free for all and not just kindle unlimited subscribers. So grab your copy now.

A little about the book – It falls under contemporary fiction and is a collection of 10 short stories, each dealing with a different theme. The only thread binding the tales are that they are loosely set against the Covid19 pandemic.

If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to new independent authors like me; especially since I do not pay for reviews and rely on organic reader feedback.

Following are some links –

Amazon India

Amazon U.S

Amazon UK

Amazon Germany

Amazon France

If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.

FYI – It’s also an Amazon Bestseller.

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#Alive – But Barely

While horror fans eagerly wait for ‘Train to Busan’ sequel to arrive on Netflix or any streaming platform, director Cho II-hyung’s South-Korean zombie film “#Alive” seemed to offer a perfect distraction.

The plot is standard zombie territory – an unknown virus sweeps through cities and turns people extremely violent and cannibalistic. The makers waste no time in setting things up and diving into chaos.

Actor Yoo Ah-in plays the protagonist Joon-Woo, a gamer, who wakes up to a message from his mother that his folks have headed out and he should buy some groceries. He chooses to play games first (obviously) and while still at the console, he finds out people are going crazy on the streets outside the building. Cut to zombies ruthlessly eating humans, while a horrified Joon-Woo watches the mayhem from his window. Television news helps him understand the situation and the rest of the film is about Joon surviving alone in his flat.

I loved how the film starts, Joon looks the part of a gamer, who might slay monsters virtually, but in real life? Not so much. This film had so much going on in its favour, but the scriptwriters put in too many glaring and unnecessary loopholes that completely spoils all the fun. For example, Joon soon runs out of water, but 5 days later, he still looks absolutely fine. How? At one point, he is surviving on alcohol, which should lead to more dehydration, but Joonie looks as lively as ever. So, logic can go to zombie hell.

The movie also gets slow and irritating towards the second half. There of-course comes a point where Joonie boy is losing his sanity while zombie hordes continue to walk the streets. But just when Joonie decides maybe he should kill himself, a girl from the opposite building flashes a laser beam on him and gives him hope.

“Where the hell was she all these days?!” I wonder out loud at the cheesy convenient new entry. But at this point, the viewer is relieved at the new character, because just ‘Joonie against the flesh-eaters’ starts to get tiring.

What makes for the biggest disappointment in the zombie film is that there is very little action. There is one sequence where the girl hacks her way with an axe through the zombie masses and I can’t even begin to tell you how underwhelming the scene was. It was very unrealistic, because there are hundreds of those monsters and this chick manages to survive it all. My deal is – if you are going to make it over-exaggerated, why not go the extra mile and give us some kick-ass action? I am talking ‘resident evil’ type, where the girl kills it. Our silly Joonie just equips himself with a stupid hockey stick. Dude you are supposed to be a pro-gamer, is that all you can think of?!

The climax was also frustratingly slow and slightly idiotic. Just like most South-Korean films, director Cho tries to give us some poignant emotional moments, but just doesn’t hit the right chords. ‘#Alive” just does not have enough heart in it and is a mediocre forgettable zombie caper. Although it had all the ingredients to be a cult classic. Or maybe I have very high standards. This film was a 5/10 for me.

21 & Over – Silly AF

Don’t know if the staying at home 24*4 due to the pandemic is dumbing me down, but my movie choices seem to be getting worse by the day. All I wanted was a comedy film, so I picked ’21 & Over’ which has two directors – Jon Lucas, Scott Moore. Guess what – two many cooks spoil the broth.

There was however another reason why I picked this film on Netflix – it stars Miles Teller in the lead, the guy who shot to fame with the 2014 film ‘Whiplash’. Teller plays college drop-out Miller, who insists on taking his friend Jeff Chang out for a wild night of partying to celebrate his 21st birthday. This is just day before Chang has a big interview for medical school.

Miller drags Chang and another friend to first get the birthday boy pissed drunk, quite literally, because our boy Chang chugs so much, that he pees on people in the bar. That scene was mildly funny and largely gross. What follows is your typical crazy college night out gone wrong, it’s like ‘American Pie’ meets ‘The Hangover’, but with some very bad script-writing. Until I began writing the review, I wasn’t even aware that the film is from the same set of writers. So they basically plagiarized their own plot, put a bunch of younger guys in it and made a stale silly dick flick.

The first half has some fun moments, but things get excruciatingly contrived and boring in the second-half. The boys sneak into a sorority house to get a girl’s number and create a mess. After that they do a lot more stupid stuff that begins to get on your nerves because it’s not hilarious at all.

As far as the cast is concerned, the choice of actors is not bad. But what can you do with a good cast if the script sucks? Justin Chon, who plays Jeff Chang, was very likable as the drunk idiot and nails his role.

Well, there is not much else to say about this film except that maybe you are better off not watching it. Unless you are pissed drunk with friends. Maybe that will make the movie seem funnier and more enjoyable.

Tales Of Beedle The Bard

‘The Casual Vacancy’ is the last JK Rowling book I consumed. That was way back in 2012. Five years prior to that, in 2007, I had finished a borrowed copy of ‘Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows’ in three days. Most of it was read in the bathroom after my parents went to sleep, because I was in an important school year and mom had banned me from reading fiction.

So reading ‘The Tales of Beedle The Bard’ by Rowling stirred a wave of nostalgia, especially because each tale has an afterword from Dumbledore, an important character from the Potter world. In fact, I enjoyed reading Dumbledore’s thoughts on the fables from the wizarding world more than the stories themselves. It was like hearing an old friend. But the stories are interesting too, even though a little shorter than expected.

The first one titled “The Wizard and The Hopping Pot” is perhaps the most quintessential children story with the age-old moral “love thy neighbor”. It’s about how a wise wizard teaches his hard-hearted son a lesson in kindness and forces him to help the muggles(non-magical humans) in their times of misery.

While this is supposed to be a children’s book, there is one tale titled “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart” which is a little too dark for kids. It’s safe to peg this as a 13+ book. The twist in the end is unexpected and could give kids quite the nightmare if they read it before going to bed. I remember clutching my heart while reading the climax, just wasn’t expecting such a gory twist in a children’s story. But it is also my favorite tale of the lot.

Just when I was beginning to enjoy the book, it ended and I was quite disappointed. Wish Rowling had put in a few more tales for us to read. This reminds me – while Rowling might have us believe in the foreword that the book has strong women characters, unlike the fairy tales of the typical human world, that’s not the case. Except for the story with the three witches who are out to seek a magic fountain, the rest of the stories are all largely male-dominated, even the one about Babbity the witch. Not like I have a problem with the poor women representation, just that I don’t like how Rowling pretends that the book is more than it really is.

Well, keeping aside the author’s airs about the book, “The Tales of Beedle The Bard” is a pretty quick fun read, both for 13+ children and older adults. Especially for the Potter era kids, who wouldn’t mind a slice of the wizarding world they grew up reading. It’s basically a collector’s item for ‘Potterheads’.

P.S. You can find me on  Facebook, GoodReads and Instagram 

Love, Guaranteed – Review

“I wanna sue Love Guaranteed”

“The dating website?”

“I have gone on 986 dates and not one of them has provided me love!”

“You have been on 986 dates with human women?”

That’s how the conversation starts between the lead pair in the trailer for “Love, Guaranteed” a new Netflix film that’s supposed to be a chick flick. The plot is pretty interesting – Nick (Damon Wayans Jr.) hires lawyer Susan (Rachael Leigh Cook) to sue a site for fraud because they guarantee one would find love via them, provided they go on at least 1000 dates. Classic ‘gotcha’ case.

Here’s the deal – just watch the trailer and that is pretty much the entire film. The 2 minute 46 seconds teaser gives you a fair idea of what is going to happen. You know that Nick is going to fall in love with the laywer and that the lawsuit will hit a hiccup. I decided to watch it anyway, hoping it would be fun, but all I got was – cliched, boring, sappy, silly stuff.

While Damon Wayans is quite charming and sweet as Nick, his charm cannot compensate for the blandness of Racheal Leigh Cook, who plays the ‘do-gooder’ lawyer. There is very little chemistry between the two. And there was this super fake, forced idiotic little scene in the middle of the film where Nick and Susan end up baby-sitting a kid who is supposed to be a nightmare. The makers have probably never dealt with kids.

Despite being only 90 minutes long, including credits, ‘Love, Guaranteed’ was a drag, with caricatured characters and predictable twists. It was barely funny and had very little romance. Okay, well, it did get a few little laughs from me, but they were too few. I could’ve done without watching this one and husband cursed me for wasting his time. If you still want to watch it, you always have the fast-forward button to help you skip the slower bits.

A Borrowed Book

I borrowed a copy of ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’ by Charles Mackesy from a friend. It’s a quick 10 minute read and is filled with age-old wisdom and often heard quotes from pretty much everywhere – poets, philosophers, preachers, plays, films, love-songs and what not.

For a 10 minute book, it’s quite expensive and am glad I could just borrow it. However, it’s a pretty cute book for adults who want to read something to distract themselves or draw some inspiration when they are feeling down. The book is a reminder that life’s not all bad.

“Sometimes, just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent” – this was one of the nicest quotes in the book.

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There is so much deep meaning packed in that little line, it made me think of all of us who might be struggling to find the will to wake up and carry on with a day we don’t look forward to. Almost every page is peppered with such wisdom – to be kind, to not be ashamed in seeking help, to not compare ourselves, to love without judging and to not be too hard on ourselves. That pretty much sums up the book.

I expected there to be more story in the book since the hardback looked quite big, but was disappointed with how soon it was all over. There are just a lot of random thought-provoking quotes ping-ponged between the four characters in the book, with nothing really happening. It was like watching a self-help group take a walk along the woods, where the members are all close friends and each of them keeps saying something nice or motivating to the other.

While I wasn’t blown away by the book or the illustrations in it, reading it served as a nice little distraction. Definitely brings a smile on the reader’s face.

P.S. You can find me on  Facebook, GoodReads and Instagram 

Shifting During A Pandemic

For the first time in months, I haven’t written anything for two consecutive days. The only person I would like to pin the blame on – my flat owner. Thanks to them, we are looking for a new place.

Two months ago, our flat lease was close to expiring. When we asked our owner about renewing the rental contract, they demanded a whopping 25% raise on the rent. WHAT THE FUCK.

I don’t have a regular job, the husband wasn’t going to get his annual raise, everybody else in the world was getting either fired or taking a pay-cut or living in anticipation of the same. Amidst all of this, our flat owner wanted us to pay an extra twenty-five-fucking-per-cent. If a pandemic wasn’t plaguing our streets, we would have never considered renewing our contract and would have looked for a new place.

Let me give you some context. The flat we live in is a 2BHK – it has two bedrooms with attached bathrooms, three balconies, a decent sized hall and a very poorly made kitchen. Except for the lights, fans and one broken shelf, the flat did not come with any furniture or appliances. We had to buy everything. Everything. Husband had picked the flat when we were both working in different states. I was supposed to be moving to the same city soon and he had told his current flat-owner that he needed to look to a bigger house because the wife was going to join him.

Let me tell you something – NEVER PICK A FLAT BASED ON ITS PHOTOS. It looked fine to me in pictures, but once we moved in, we realized how poorly designed it was. In Husband’s defense – he didn’t really have the time to look too closely.

Here is what infuriated us the most when the flat owner decided to ask us for an obnoxious extra 25% – the owner is a doctor. It’s not a random rich person who could’ve been ill-informed about the economical hardships most people were facing due to Covid-19. I mean a lot of people do live in their own bubbles, don’t they? We tried to reason with them on keeping the rent the same and after a lot of convincing, they finally settled for a 10% increase and refused to budge. At that point, there was a pretty strict lockdown in our city, with Sunday curfews and other restrictions. House-hunting at such a time would have been a giant pain in the ass. So we sucked up and renewed our lease, but only for 6 months, with a 10% increase.

Now things have relaxed a lot in our city and we gave our flat owner a 30-day notice on the first of this month (September 2020). This meant scouting for new places. So our weekend was burned up in browsing flats and then then going to see them for real. In-fact we saw two really good places, that we bigger, better furnished and the caveat – even cheaper than our current house! The building we live in right now is just a random stand-alone building in a nice area, but with no other facilities, except for a security guard at the entrance. The two flats we really liked were in gated communities with a swimming pool, gym, tennis courts and all the other fancy things that gated communities come with.

All of that still doesn’t change the fact that house-hunting is a pain in the ass. And that just thinking about packing everything and moving again is giving a LOT of anxiety. I mean it’s 4 am in my part of the world and all I can think of is – shifting. And ranting about shifting.

“I think just my kitchen stuff will take up a whole truck!!” I had frantically messaged my close friends last week when I went into my kitchen to get some water.

And my bookshelf! It is a fragile wood shelf that could easily get damaged the moving guys are not careful. The last time we moved, the packers damaged the book-shelf’s glass, but since it was all insured, they replaced the glass and it was as good as new. So these things do happen, it’s not like I am worrying for nothing. I think I am going to try and sleep and not think about the boxes and the trucks.

Enter – Into Poetry. Exit Reader

Ugh, I feel so terrible as I begin to write the review of a “poetry” book I just finished reading. I picked the kindle book because the cover looked really nice and it was free for me. Perks of being a Kindle Unlimited member. Anyway, it’s called ‘Enter’ by Anshika Sharma and Mahesh Mali and the “poems” in the book are basically quotes.

Call me old school, but as someone who loves to read & write poetry, I don’t think 15 words make a poem. Heck, that sentence was longer than some of the “poems” in the book. I am not exaggerating and here’s proof. Following is a screenshot of a “poem” from the book.

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Now you know why I keep putting the word poem in double quotes every time. Literally half the page was empty after that poem. I was misled by the cover.

Perhaps this is what they call ‘insta poetry’ these days. Just not my cup of tea. I’ve never read Rupi Kaur, but am starkly aware of her popularity. So I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people who perhaps would appreciate the quick four liners in this book. I don’t fall in that category.

If you know some good poetry books, please suggest some. Also, you can find me on  Facebook, GoodReads and Instagram 

All Together Now – Review

The new Netflix film ‘All Together Now’ starts with an overtly enthusiastic teen Amber Appleton teaching English to a bunch of Korean ladies. The energy seemed very fake and forced right off the bat.

Amber might be an optimistic, happy teen, but unknown to all her friends, she is homeless and spending the nights in a bus with her mom. The story follows her financial and personal struggles as her widowed mother fails to keep things together and veers towards her abusive ex-boyfriend.

I felt the first twenty minutes of the film was very superficial and cheery, despite the seriously strained circumstances the protagonist is in. Everything is conveniently perfect despite the dire poverty the family faces, at least in the first-half. However, fortunately things finally start to feel more genuine towards the middle of the film. A series of unfortunate incidents and an unexpected tragedy makes life exceptionally hard for Amber. While she is shown to be doing great in school and in her two part-time jobs, Amber refuses to take help from anybody, despite being pushed to the point where she would have to drop out of school.

While I did not find the pace of the film to be a problem, I felt like there was something lacking in the story-telling and direction. The cast, especially Auli’i Cravalho who plays Amber, lacks the charm to carry the entire film on her shoulders, since it’s her who gets the maximum screen-time. In-fact nobody in the cast stands out in this film and you can’t really blame them, since they get too much space in this 90 minute film.

To the credit of the makers – the climax was satisfactory, even if a little predictable. Some of the music in the film was quite good. All in all, ‘All Together Now’ is a forgettable little flick, but if you are in mood for a high-school movie with a financially struggling teen, you can give this one a go. It’s good for some weekend distraction and might even get your water-works on, so keep some tissues handy. It’s a 6/10 for me.