“TMZ explores the many, stunning security failures that lead to the attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally.”

Like short people and women, according to one person in this.

We live in a time and place where incidents like the one in this documentary have already been forgotten, questions have gone unasked and we just move on because we are so overwhelmed, left and right, by the news and its endless cycle, which beats us into the rocks like we’re a bloated dead body bobbing in the salty sea, lashed to the coral, unfeeling as our forms are obliterated by nature and time and shock and awe. I am exhausted. I have so little left, and I can’t doomscroll any more just as much as I can’t place my head in the sand. Quite frankly, I have no idea what to do.

Also, I grew up close to Butler and drove past these fairgrounds all the time, and no, I am not surprised that this would happen there.

You can watch this on Tubi.

It is yet another movie I watched on an airplane, which is the best place to watch as you’re going to be happy you lived through the flight and not concentrating on how you wasted your life watching this. Yes, it’s another M. Night Shyamalan movie. Still, this time, it’s a vanity project because his daughter Saleka Night Shyamalan plays Lady Raven, the Taylor Swift of his universe, a singer beloved by young ladies who draws Riley (Ariel Donoghue) and her father Cooper (Josh Hartnett) to her concert. The problem? Cooper is a serial killer known as The Butcher, and this is all a trap — get it? — to arrest him.

He’s been hunted by Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills), an FBI profiler who has enacted her own parent trap — ugh, get it? — to arrest him.

The review from Benjamin Lee in The Guardian sums up so much of how I feel about Shyamalan’s work: “Trap is a thriller that incorrectly thinks it’s fiendishly smart. Maybe if it had been more aware of how stupid it actually is, it might have been a lot more fun.”

Each successive film from him — Old is nearly unwatchable and Knock at the Cabin was infuriating —  is dumber to the point that no human being acts like a real person, as if it was made by an alien who has just come to Earth with the kind of budget that allows him to keep making shitty movies no matter what. The Happening and The Last Airbender would end most careers, but here we are, almost two decades later, and we get a new Shyamalan movie nearly every year. And each time, I walk in saying, “This is it. This is the one.” And again, like burning my hand on the stove and never remembering that open flames can set my hand ablaze and how much it hurts, I watch his movies and wonder why my fingers are singed.

Here’s the pitch: “What if Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?” I hate that today’s movies keep using that superior film as a reference point and can’t come close to it. This was shot on 35mm and had a huge budget, but it had all the ideas of the lowest-budget streamer.

This feels six hours long with multiple end points that just end up being the next part of the movie, the best example of a movie where I look at how much time is left and being shocked that 35 minutes have passed and I am only a third of the way through. By the end, which has a surprise- he is ready to escape again- I was praying this was the movie’s end. It was, but then the post-credits sequence made me worried that this would have even more.

Look, I know I love some terrible filmmakers. Mattei, Franco, you name it. But yet, their movies speak to me, despite their ineptitude at times, because they are made by someone who seems to love making movies while making money. And I guess that M. Night loves movies too, but he should really embrace his inner scumbag. If his films had any edge or felt dangerous or scuzzy, I’d probably be one of his most prominent apologists. Instead, I’m covering my burned hand with creams and salves, wondering how I got into this situation all over again.

“This is the first release of Stubios, a fan-fueled studio for aspiring filmmakers and their fans. In addition to welcoming creatives from varied backgrounds into Hollywood, Stubios puts the power to greenlight content in the hands of the viewer. This program is an evolution of an expansive content strategy that is built on viewer-driven trends underpinning the need to build new pathways for creatives to find success in Hollywood and for fans to find more stories they can see themselves in.”

You can learn more about Stubios here.

This is the first original comedy special for Tubi, with 15-minute sets from up-and-coming comics Cris Sosa, Danielle Mora and Grant Moore. All three have really strong material and I really enjoyed this; I’ve been loving stand-up on cable since the early HBO specials and Evening at the Improv. I’m excited that Tubi is doing this and I hope that there is more stand-up on the way. I’d recommend following all three of these comedians and checking out their acts, as I laughed more than once, which is good for modern stand-up.

You can watch this on Tubi.

What if there were two — well, for now — Mickey Mouse public domain slashers both set in arcades?

Once called Mickey’s Mouse Trap, the film was announced on January 1, 2024, the same day Mickey’s Steamboat Willie version went into the public domain.

Rebecca (Mackenzie Mills) is the only survivor of a mouse massacre. She starts to tell her story to some cops in the framing device and we learn that her boss Tim Collins (Simon Phillips) got possessed by watching Steamboat Willie and killed all of her friends, including Alex (Sophie McIntosh), who gets a surprise birthday party in the arcade where she works. Let me tell you, workplace birthday parties are the worst, because you spend your whole life there anyway and suddenly, a place that gives you trauma is supposed to be a source of fun.

This was filmed in Funhaven in Ottawa, which has Ottawa’s only roller coaster.

For some reason, the evil Mickey can teleport and is afraid of light. A lot of this movie feels like it was barely edited together and they keep going back to the police station scenes to cover things, which kills the slasher vibe. If you expected nothing, The Mouse Trap is ready to award you with abundance.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Doesn’t Lionsgate feel above making cash in Amityville movies?

No?

Let’s look at the logline: “When Heather West, a paranormal investigator, receives a call from a terrified woman who claims her house is inhabited by a ghost, she discovers the building has a horrifying history. After a presence from beyond our world reaches out to her, Heather begins to feel a pull to the other side of the spirit plane. Can this hunter of specters deliver an innocent soul to a place of peace and discover an eternal truth in time to save her own life?”

Notice that Amityville is nowhere to be named. At least the Echo is the student news site of Amityville Memorial High School.

This was made as The Girl from the Other Side, and like all Amityville movies, it has nothing to do with the house or the place. It’s about paranormal investigator Heather West (Saran McDonald) and her need to learn what happened to Maryanne and her killer, Ronny Bushik (director and writer Carlos Araya). The owner of the house where it happened allows her to come in and explore, but as you can imagine, things get bad once the Tarot cards get dealt.

However, much of the movie is about Heather watching a TV show called Hauntings of the South and House On Haunted Hill. There’s a lot of voiceover, supers on the screen, and unconnected dialogue, making me think this was a foreign movie re-edited for American streaming. This movie wasn’t well-made, or there was something in between. That said, even as bad as it is, it’s still heads, shoulders, and bloody walls above most Amityville movies, but that bar is so low that you can’t limbo under it.

I have no idea why this was divided into chapters, why some scenes looked all gauzy, or why there were so many slow-motion moments. It’s trying to be arty, stumbling and then getting up and running full-speed into being arty all over again, but it never gets steady, so it runs right into a wall and kind of pauses a bit before it falls down.

How did this end up on Peacock? I could see Tubi, but people are actually paying to watch this!

Directed by Traci Hayes (Blood, Sweat and Cheers) and written by Sarah Eisenberg and Becky Wangberg (who have primarily worked in cartoons), On the Run is set up years ago when bikers Vince (William Mark McCullough) and Rick (K.C. Clyde) end their friendship over a drug deal. Vince goes to jail and the moment he gets out, he comes after Rick, who has a new life with his wife Laurie (Kara Luiz) and daughters Kayla (Sofia Masson) and Paige (Taylor Geare). It’s no spoiler to tell you that Paige is Vince’s daughter and wants her back as much as he wants everyone dead.

Rick and the girls are on the run—yes, Mom dies, there’s another spoiler—but there’s also the woman they think is their aunt, Steph (Pamela Rose Rodriguez), who is the witness protection agent who has been protecting them for years.

One daughter is the good girl, the other is kind of bad, their dad used to be a criminal biker, and their mom is dead. There’s everything you want in a young girl on the run movie. It’s not life-changing, but like most Tubi Originals, it’s a competent film other than, you know, cops never acting like cops really act, such as calling for backup, not taking innocent people into dangerous situations and not indiscriminately shooting everyone around them.

You can watch this on Tubi.

How do you know this is from Cleoptra Records? The soundtrack has The 69 Cats, Front Line Assembly, Pink Fairies, Switchblade Symphony, Hawkestrel, Synaesthesia, The Brains, Mike Pinera and Hollywood After Dark on it.

Directed by Mark Polonia and written by Ford Austin and Tyger Torrez, this is set in the familiar woods of Pennsylvania where Polonia has made so many movies, but never one where a New York stockbroker named Jack (Brice Kennedy) gets bitten, the moon gets full and he snorts a whole bag of coke. Actually, the moon doesn’t even matter. It just takes cocaine to make this beast go feral.

There’s also a movie getting made in those woods about an evil clown, but mostly, the actresses (Jamie Morgan and Greta Volkova) are making out with each other. This bit of exploitation follows a girl in a Little Red Riding Hood outfit shooting content for her adult site who gets torn up by the original werewolf. This leads to Jack’s Uber driver getting killed, and we have a movie.

I want all Mark Polonia movies to come out on this label from now on, and I want more goth and rockabilly bands to find their songs in microbudget horror movies. I’m used to these films just showing up on Tubi, so seeing them on Blu-ray makes me overjoyed.

You can get this from MVD.

Why is this Amityville movie better than almost all of the other cash-in films? SRS has put out so many of these, but not one directed by Matt Jaissle, the director of The Necro Files. So while this has all of the things you expect from an Amityville movie — scenes shot on camera phones and edited in to appear that actors are all in the same place, lots of Zoom calls, people screaming at the screen — it’s also strange enough that it keeps you engaged.

Stuart Birdsall (William Childress) has moved into a new house in Amityville, which he feels is the perfect place to experiment with VIC 3000, an AI program he invented.  I have to share the sell copy for this, because I love the capitalized parts: “The only problem is that the house is possessed, and now so is his PROGRAM. What began as a technology designed to make our lives easier has transformed into a SATANIC FORCE Hell-bent on making our deaths GHASTLIER.”

Have you ever wondered, “How do those people appear disconnected from the movie and seem to be in it?” That’s an IndieGoGo perk. When will I pay the money to be in one of these? Do you think Becca would stay with me if I spent money on that?

This has a possessed sex bot (Laura Reyes), a chubby longhaired and bearded hero — am I triggered? — who can do a roll under a garage door and has an attractive wife (Laura Schubring) yet all he does is yell on Zoom calls. I mean, did they film me down here in my horror basement? This also ends abruptly because there’s a sequel, Amityville VR. Yes, I will watch that.

If you haven’t watched 62 Amityville movies like I have—check out the Letterboxd list—you may watch this and think it’s horrible. But for those who have been through microbudget horror and keep watching these Amityville films, you will see the magic that this has and the others lack. I do wish the flying baby from The Necro Files was in it. That said, I want to say that it was in every movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Before Adopted even has its credits, ten-year-old Dylan (Jayden Aguirre) has already killed his foster family, a fact that no one believes except for Detective Dante Miller (co-writer Marques Houston). The story that he tells about a killer biker who came into their home seems a bit too wild. Yet, who can not believe a child? Indeed, all kids are innocent.

Nope. Get ready for a Chris Stokes take on The Bad Seed, but instead of killing another child over a handwriting contest, people of all ages get killed.

Carrie (Drew Sidora) and James (Daniel J. Johnson) have always wanted a family but can’t. Luckily — well, you know — they are able to adopt Dylan immediately and never learn that his past family died. He’s the perfect kid and even calls them mom and dad on his first day in the house. But in just minutes, Dylan and Ryan (Jahlil Muhammad) — the nephew of next-door neighbor Diane (Shalet Monique) — are playing with a real gun and faking deaths. He also gets way too into Melissa (Victoria Nuckles), who is much older than him, but Dylan is already coming on to her, and when she tells him that she has a boyfriend, he shoots both her and her mother, Diane.

Somehow, Carrie and Jamescano adopt a second child, Bella (Livy Neachell), days after Ryan kills himself mysteriously. Bella might be just as bad as Dylan, but he’s all for killing her before we find out by drowning her in a pool.

Dylan is my favorite Tubi villain now because he’s risen above being verbally abused by his mother and physically attacked by his father — his legs have been scarred and burned from being doused with boiling water — to turn the tables on everyone else, shifting from being a good little boy to suddenly questioning his parents’ abilities ranging from being able to raise him to even calling Carrie’s cooking out by telling her that he’s never had chicken this dry before. It’s incredible how good he is at being the worst child ever.

The end of this movie is something. I’m not going to spoil it for you—Tubi has already teased a sequel—but I didn’t see it coming. Moms will be thrown down the steps, fathers will be attacked, and police will be called. It’s really got the most “woah” cut to credits I’ve seen in some time, as well as a square-up reel PSA before the credits.

This may be the best Chris Stokes movie ever.

You can watch this on Tubi.

My brother has a significant sneaker collection. As I am to Joe D’Amato, he is to Nike. When I watched this movie, I recognized so many people who live for the next drop. But is it any different than collecting physical media, toys or comic books? Well, you can probably make more money investing in shoes.

I liked that this goes back to Chuck Taylor shoes and the world of athletic equipment, which all looked the same, as well as the athletes and brands that changed how we see shoes and sports. Beyond that, it goes into celebrities and shoe customizers, so if you have no idea what shoe collecting is about, this is a good introduction.

My brother could find a lot wrong with it, but he’s an expert. As someone naive to the scene, I thought it was a good hour to watch.

Directed by Sia Savvy (Gone Before His Time: Kobe Bryant) and written by Christine Nusbaum (Famously Haunted: Hollywood), this doesn’t shy away from some of the issues with shoes, from gangs wearing their colors to people being attacked and killed for their shoes, as well as the difficulty of even getting some Nikes.

You can watch this on Tubi.