The Asylum ventures into the sex comedy genre with “#1 Cheerleader Camp”, an unspeakably bad movie that feels as though it was written by every grubby and overweight creep on the internet. This is a film that I found uncomfortable to watch and I don’t really get who the target demographic is.

A pair of slackers go to work at a cheerleading camp where they can lust after all the sexy women doing their cheerleading practice. One of the men intends to have a threesome while the other hopes he may have found himself the perfect girl. However, the cheerleading squad will need their help if they are to win the upcoming competition.

We do get to see a lot of young and attractive women in tight outfits and sometimes, they have no clothes on at all. I get that there is undeniably an audience for that but then this is a film where we have to see several scenes where a fat guy pleasures himself as some sort of method to burn calories. We also have to endure some rather militant homosexuals. The problem is that none of this is done in amusing way so the film has to rely solely on the sex appeal but who out there would find all of these things appealing. The acting throughout from everybody is just horrendous.

Few films are as awkwardly written and unpleasant to watch as “#1 Cheerleader Camp”. This feels so far removed from genuinely amusing sex comedies such as “Animal House” and “Private School”. This is also bad even by the incredibly low standards of The Asylum, a company that specialises in making terrible films. There is not a frame in this film where any significant thought or effort went into it. “#1 Cheerleader Camp” is a truly dreadful experience and one that I urge you to avoid.

“The Book Of Boba Fett” serves as a spin-off to the hit “The Mandalorian” tv show. The “Star Wars” franchise keeps expanding and I’m all for it. Boba Fett is one of my favourite characters so I was looking forward to a show focusing on him. Overall, I was impressed but I cannot help feeling that more should have been done to keep this separated from “Mandalorian”.

Boba Fett (Temeura Morrison “Once Were Warriors”) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen “Street Fighter: The Movie”) look to seize control of the criminal underworld on Tatooine, taking over territory once administered by Jabba the Hutt. After his experiences living with the Tusken Raiders, Fett looks to establish a more sustainable rule than his predecessors, one built on respect and loyalty.

Temeura Morrison is great as Boba Fett. I really wanted to see a show focus on this character and seeing him try to run a criminal enterprise and become a crime boss like he’s a sci-fi version of the Corleone family in “The Godfather” is just brilliant. Sadly, I feel that as the series goes on, focus is lost a little. Fett becomes underplayed in some episodes. Mina-Na Wen is great as Fennec Shand too. Keep an eye out for various “Star Wars” characters from previous films and shows including a brief appearance by Max Rebo (the big blue elephant from “Return of the Jedi”). Next, I would love a “Max Rebo Band” series.

“The Book Of Boba Fett” definitely has its moments. I’ve wanted a film or show that focused on either Boba Fett or Jango Fett for many years. This show is not as creative and captivating as “The Mandalorian” but that series set such an insanely high bar for “Star Wars” shows to follow. I think “The Book Of Boba Fett” is best when it just does Boba Fett stuff. When it tries to tie itself more closely to “Mandalorian”, it’s certainly not bad but it just isn’t what I wanted from a series based on Boba Fett. I’m happy to wait for another series of “Mandalorian”.

For anybody hoping that M. Night Shyamalan (“Signs”, “The Sixth Sense”) had learned how to consistently make good films, get ready for a return to his usual silly shtick with “Old”. Like “Lady In The Water” or “The Village”, Shyamalan once again descends into complete and utter goofiness.

A family travels to a luxurious holiday resort. A staff member directs them to a secluded beach for the hotel’s preferred customers. Things initially seem perfect with the hot weather and beautiful sea but things take a terrifying turn. Along with a handful of others, the family members soon find themselves rapidly ageing. Can they escape the beach before they die? Also, who or what is behind this sinister situation?

Shyamalan films are often noteworthy for their ridiculous performances and “Old” is definitely no exception. Some of the performances here are just terrible. While some of the cast members such as Thomasin McKenzie (“Last Night In Soho”, “Jojo Rabbit”) get away relatively unscathed, some really do embarrass themselves. Ken Leung (“Rush Hour”) gives arguably the most awkward performance. The most entertainingly bad performance comes from Rufus Sewell (“Dark City”). Shyamalan himself has a cameo as usual. A lot of the dialog is really awkward throughout with the most interesting part being a conversation about an obscure film with both Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando.

“Old” has some interesting ideas that may have worked well in something such as an episode of “The Twilight Zone”. Unfortunately, Shyamalan embraces the silliness at every turn. Some of the special effects are also hilariously bad. I won’t spoil it but near the end, one character gets rather mangled and it looks so funny. If you love Shyamalan’s other work then you may enjoy “Old” but for most people, this is just another goofy film from a director that really needs to learn to control himself. I admire Shyamalan’s passion but it is so often very misguided.

The “Fear Street” trilogy is somewhat interesting in that all three parts of it were made before any of them were released, which shows that the people behind the films were confident it would be a hit. “1994” is the first part of the trilogy as it essentially is a setup for what feels almost like a horror movie multiverse. It’s very ambitious but as a film itself, it’s pretty unremarkable and borrows way too heavily from other horror films.

The town of Shadyside has a history of regular folk going crazy and killing people. The latest incident sees a guy in a skull mask massacre people in a shopping centre (the whole first sequence is so clearly inspired by “Scream”). Deena (Kiana Madeira “After We Fell”) and her friends become endangered and so they desperately try to solve the mystery of what has been plaguing the town for so very long.

The characters in this film are just not very likeable. They’re not terrible and they’re not total idiots but I just found them unnecessarily mean and of course, they are way too eager to bed each other… or themselves, if you know what I mean. Deena in particular just feels like a real jerk. The Skull Mask killer is clearly meant to be a homage to Ghostface from the “Scream” franchise. We also get to see another killer that is clearly a homage to Jason Voorhees from “Friday The 13th”.

“Fear Street: 1994” has a great mix of 90s music in it and I think the visual style of the movie is very appealing with a great use of colours. Unfortunately, the characters are rather uninspired and the whole thing just feels way too similar to other horror films. I get that this is all meant to be a tribute to some of the most popular horror franchises of the past but that almost seems like cover for making a lazy horror flick.

The 2021 version of “Dune” feels like a miracle. While the 1984 “Dune” from David Lynch was an indecipherable mess, this manages to be relatively clear and fully immersed me in the exciting sci-fi world of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. This new version wisely decides to break the story up into two films and I’m so excited to see the conclusion.

The House of Atreides is entrusted with running the mining operations on the planet Arrakis. Arrakis is a desert world where all the universe’s spice is made. Spice is used for interstellar travel but it is also used as a drug and considered sacred by the mysterious Fremen people of the planet. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet “Lady Bird”) will learn that he may have a special role to play as enemy forces attack Arrakis in a move that appears to have been orchestrated by the galactic Emperor.

There are a lot of recognisable faces in here. The colossal cast includes Zendaya (“Spider-Man: Far From Home”), Oscar Isaac (“Ex Machina”), Jason Momoa (“Aquaman”), Stellan Skarsgård (“Thor”), Josh Brolin (“The Goonies”), Javier Bardem (“Skyfall”) and Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy”). However, the best performances still come from Chalamet as Paul as well as Rebecca Ferguson (“The Greatest Showman”). I actually understood things about the characters and the iconic giant sandworms looked great.

“Dune: Part One” looks absolutely amazing. The old “Dune” looked kind of cheap but almost every frame of the new “Dune” is just breath-taking. I just felt so drawn into the world. I would favourably compare this film to the “Star Wars” films as well as the “Star Trek” tv shows. I can’t wait to return to Arrakis and see the epic conclusion. Also, this hopefully opens the door to the other “Dune” novels being adapted for the big screen. Frank Herbert’s work was made virtually inaccessible through the 1984 movie, the new “Dune” fixes almost every problem I had with that old film and is a masterful sci-fi experience in its own right.

Zack Snyder (“Watchmen”, “Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice”) has become synonymous with films that are flashy and stylish yet overly long and without any real substance. Snyder’s addiction to all the tropes of his previous films is on full display in “Army of the Dead”. This is a zombie film with a surprisingly interesting premise. It’s such a shame Snyder doesn’t know how to keep things interesting.

After a zombie outbreak, Las Vegas has become sealed off. The U.S. government now intends to nuke the place to wipe out the zombies. A Japanese businessman (Hiroyuki Sanada “Sunshine”, “Mortal Kombat”) hires a team of mercenaries to go into Las Vegas and perform one of the greatest heists in history by stealing the contents of a vault hidden in the city.

Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) is basically the star as he plays the leader of the mercenary team. Unfortunately, the script gives him very little to work with and the character just comes across as a real bore. It’s a shame because I think Bautista could work well as the lead. Hiroyuki Sanada is good despite his brief appearance. Most of the characters and the performances are just forgettable. Tig Notaro is terrible though as Peters, who flies the helicopter. The zombies look okay.

“Army of the Dead” is a slow and boring movie. Some of the actions where the mercs are running around the casino and blasting zombies are actually decent. If this film was an hour shorter, it might be somewhat engaging but it is so unbelievably slow and it’s just filled with talking. I came here to watch zombies being blasted and instead, we get bland conversation after bland conversation. Snyder started his big movie career with a remake of “Dawn of the Dead” and after all these years, you would hope he would have learned from some of the mistakes of that movie to make a better zombie flick. Snyder hasn’t learned because he never learns, no matter the genre.

For all their faults, the old “Resident Evil” films with Milla Jovovich maybe were not quite as bad as a lot of people made them out to be. “Welcome To Raccoon City” is a reboot of the franchise and supposedly, it follows the videogames more closely. Unfortunately, its ability to stick closer to its source material does not help it be any more engaging. This is sadly yet another victim of the videogame movie curse.

Set in 1998, we follow Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario “The Maze Runner”) as she and other survivors are desperately battling against hordes of zombies and other monsters. The survivors must uncover the truth behind what is happening and how the evil Umbrella Corporation is behind it all.

The characters in this movie are so uninteresting. I just didn’t care about anybody here or anything that they were doing. Nobody is memorable and as soon as they are off the screen, I forgot that they even existed. At least with the old movies, I remember Jovovich’s Alice. The zombies and monsters do not look very impressive. Some of the special effects are rather bad. I think all the older films look better than this so that’s pretty embarrassing considering this new movie comes almost two decades after the first Jovovich movie.

“Welcome To Raccoon City” may be enjoyable for devout fans of the game franchise. However, as someone that has not really engaged with the games all that much, this is just a really lousy zombie flick. While the Jovovich films did undeniably get really bad by the end of their run, this attempt to inject something new into the franchise just does nothing for me. This is just further proof that studios still have not worked out a reliable way of turning popular videogames into enjoyable films.

“Bad Trip” is an aggressively unfunny film. It’s another hidden camera film with extreme pranks like the “Jackass” and “Borat” movies. It feels very much like “Jackass” meets “Dumb And Dumber”. While all those films were mixed bags, there isn’t a single second of “Bad Trip” this is even vaguely amusing.

Eric André stars as the goofy Chris, who hits the road with pal Bud (Lil Rel Howery “Free Guy”). Chris is hoping to get the girl of his dreams and along the way, the duo of idiots will get into all sorts of woefully unfunny scenarios including being sexually assaulted by a gorilla.

I’m not really familiar with Eric André but apparently, he has his own tv show. If it’s remotely like “Bad Trip” then I feel sympathy for anybody who has had to endure it. I can’t imagine André to be amusing, even in incredibly small doses. The characters are just not engaging and their interactions with the public are not amusing either. Hidden camera comedians can be really funny, just look at some of the “Impractical Jokers” episodes. Also, some of “Facejacker” was entertaining as well so there is just no excuse for the work of André and his colleagues to be this poor.

“Bad Trip” has one of the most appropriate titles of all-time. In fact, its only flaw is that it doesn’t go far enough to help you contemplate just how awful an experience it is going to be. This is a despicably bad movie. It’s about a road trip but it feels more like a hostage situation. It’s one unfunny scenario after another, glued together with some abominable writing and performances. If you really loved the “Jackass” films and you think “Dumb And Dumber” is one of the best movies from Jim Carrey then maybe, you will find something of value in “Bad Trip”. If you do, it will be something that eluded me.

The number of shark movies out there is absolutely astounding. We’ve got everything from sharks in a tornado in “Sharknado” to Danny Trejo battling a multi-headed shark in “3-Headed Shark Attack” to sharks eating female prisoners in “Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre” to sharks protecting Noah’s ark in “Noah’s Shark”. It feels like anything and everything with sharks has been done. Now, we have “The Requin”, which sees Alicia Silverstone (“Clueless”, “The Crush”) trying to survive a shark attack.

Jaelyn (Silverstone) and Kyle (James Tupper) are husband and wife on holiday at a beach tourist retreat in Vietnam. Jaelyn is still traumatised after suffering a miscarriage and hopes that this will be a trip to lift her spirits. However, a storm comes along and causes devastation. The couple try to find ways to survive the already challenging situation. Things get even more sinister turn when a shark begins to terrorise them.

The acting in this film is absolutely horrendous. Silverstone is just staggeringly bad. If you thought she was bad in “Batman & Robin”, she makes her younger self look like Oscar material in this travesty. Just every single frame of her performance here is so bafflingly awful that it almost reminded me of some of the surreal performances Nicolas Cage has delivered. James Tupper is completely forgettable as Kyle. The shark looks pretty pathetic in a lot of the shots. I’ve seen plenty of bad shark effects and while this isn’t the worst shark effects I’ve seen, it’s still noticeably poor. The shark also doesn’t feature nearly enough in this film. The shark has been used extensively in promotional material so I feel misled.

“The Requin” shows just how bloated the world of shark movies is. Who was sat there demanding a film where an ageing Alicia Silverstone fights a shark? In what universe did anybody need this? Aside from the absurdity of the premise, the film itself is so mundane. It’s also about as likely to draw tourists to Vietnam as “Rambo: First Blood Part II”.

“Red Notice” is an impressively bad film with a colossal budget and some big stars. Any thirty seconds in this film seems like an expensive advert for a car or a perfume rather than an actual movie.

F.B.I. profiler John Hartley (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson “Doom”, “Rampage”) is on the hunt for two art thieves: the fast-talking Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds “Deadpool”, “Free Guy”) and ‘The Bishop’ (Gal Gadot “Wonder Woman”, “Fast Five”). His mission will take him across the world to exotic locations including Rome, Bali and Argentina. Hartley even finds himself working with Booth to catch the more elusive Bishop.

Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot are all big stars at the moment so the real incentive to see this film is to see these big stars in one movie together. The problem is that the movie itself is terrible. While I’ve liked Gal Gadot in “Wonder Woman”, I’m not particularly fond of the other two. Reynolds’ constant quips get old rather quickly. I’m not surprised that Johnson is in this film as there is a jungle scene and after a string of films including “Jungle Cruise” and the new “Jumanji” films, it’s clear that he just agrees to be in any film where he’s in a jungle.

“Red Notice” is totally soulless. Every single second of this film feels like it was designed by algorithm or a team of people in marketing. There’s not a line of dialog written or a single shot film that feels like there was any passion behind it. “Red Notice” cost a fortune to make but it’s got no substance. The whole film just takes elements from “Mission: Impossible”, “Indiana Jones”, “National Treasure”, “James Bond”, “Fast & Furious” and whatever else is popular. This film seems so fake that I was reminded of the fake film “Trio” in “Burn Hollywood Burn”.