Movie Review: Popeye's Revenge (2025)
Synopsis: A deformed child is burned to death in his home after he kills a classmate. Fifteen years later, the house, which has been rebuilt, is left to Tara's mom and since her family is struggling financially, she convinces her friends to help her turn it into a tourist attraction. As they are working, however, a fog rolls in and an adult "Popeye" appears to get revenge with help from his sister, Olive.
Who's in it? The movie stars Emily Mogilner, Connor Powles, Steven Murphy, Atlanta Moreno and Karolina Knight.
Review: I got the lawn mowed early enough to spend the afternoon hanging out with my wife. After purchasing some loaded nachos from the local bowling alley, we settled on the couch and gave Popeye's Revenge a try. While I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, it proved to be a bit of a disappointment.
There was a lot about this movie that made me think of it as a film that was ripping off both Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This included a main villain who, as a child, allegedly drowned (yet appears as an adult) and, as the movie reveals later, also had the ability to haunt dreams. Strangely enough, the lack of originality wasn't even the worst part of the film.
This honestly felt like a film that was being filmed as the script was being written. I say that because there were a lot of things that just didn't make a whole lot of sense, whether it was Tara's (Mogilner) ability to check the weather on her laptop when the movie made a point to say there was no Wi/Fi or the fact Tara and her friends are implied to have been Popeye's (Murphy) classmates but seem to have no memory of him. And don't even get me started on the movie making no attempt to explain why he was now an adult, how he ended up with a ship and why he's now dressed as a sailor.
I'm not sure if it would have helped much, but the movie, which was running a bit on the short end at 79 minutes, could have spent a bit more time giving some of the characters a bit of depth instead of relying on the traditional horror movie stereotypes - the responsible friend, the slutty friend(s), the drug addict, the nice boyfriend and the womanizing jock. It was really hard to care about any of them when none of the characters are developed.
A little bit of misdirection would have gone a long way as well. It wasn't difficult to figure out who Popeye would kill next and, in many cases, how. A few fake outs might have kept it from being as predictable as it was.
Final Opinion: The movie had some potential but failed to achieve it because of the decision to borrow from other films and not make any real effort to set the movie apart from so many like it. As I said before, it was a disappointment.
My Grade: D
_______________________________________________________________
Here are some reviews of other horror movies:
Movie Review: Day of the Mummy (2014)
Movie Review: Death Ship (1980)
Comments
Post a Comment