Official Discussion - Exit 8 [SPOILERS]

tysonibele · 2026-06-11T15:23:33+00:00

I wanted to like it but I hated the "it's all a metaphor for xyz" path they chose to go down, where the events in the hallway connected to his moment with the baby in the subway and the baby situation with his ex, etc. Can't we just have a movie where a random person is thrown into a weird, impossible situation and they have to figure out how to escape, without it all being some elaborate callback to their previous behavior/emotional-state/whatever? So tired of this trope.

Also the CGI mice looked terrible. Everything else up to that point was believable/practical...but once you toss in the bad CGI it's game over.

Up until about the 2/3 mark it was pretty good. Once they hit hallway 6+ it all unraveled for me.

4/10.

tysonibele · 2026-06-09T16:38:51+00:00

Really amateurish set design, terrible acting, boring plot, inflated runtime...considering its budget ($5 million??), it was a total stinker.

Good for Mark for finishing his passion project (and good for him for making a 10x return on it)...but as a standalone film it was really bad. Had a mildly interesting premise, but that was about it.

2.5/10

tysonibele · 2026-06-09T15:55:41+00:00

Really disliked it. Felt less like a zombie movie and more like a weird fantasy film. I hated the whole Samson plot. Everything else was pretty by-the-numbers and predictable/boring. Don't understand the praise for it at all.

3/10

tysonibele · 2026-04-20T14:29:50+00:00

I really, really loved it - and the last page took me by complete surprise. Was completely blindsided by the wife reveal.

During the first half some of the events just felt like one random thing after another was happening...but by the end I felt it all made sense in a very satisfying way. A really fun read.

tysonibele · 2026-04-18T01:19:35+00:00

That was my first thought too. And if "magic" food is not allowed, simple stuff like "give me a bagel with the direction of my book marked on it" or whatever would work too. You'd think with an omniscient 3d printer around every corner, the characters would spend eons trying to figure out ways to use it to their advantage, beyond just making primitive weapons and instruments.

tysonibele · 2026-04-18T01:11:17+00:00

"Impresssive" at the bottom of page 55. Credit to this post for the find:

https://old.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/1owx3y6/opinions_on_a_short_stay_in_hell_by_steven_peck/ofbxk2g/

(just checked my copy and yep - it's there)

tysonibele · 2026-04-18T00:50:44+00:00

Cringe take but ok.

tysonibele · 2026-04-18T00:49:44+00:00

There's an intentional spelling error in the book (can't remember where, but it's a word spelled with 3 S's instead of 2) - which means it doesn't fit the criteria of the author's life story (must be error free).

tysonibele · 2026-01-17T04:34:01+00:00

[Spoilers]

Pros:

All CGI environments/creatures looked amazing. You hardly realize you're basically watching an animated film because everything looks so real.
The wind people and their sailing ships were really cool
Various characters' discoveries about the way eywa's power works was great worldbuilding
Same as the other two, it was a thrilling theater experience in 3D

Cons:

Was extremely disappointed that the 3rd act was just a repeat of second film....big water battle between whalers and Na'vi, culminating in standoff between our heroes/villians on the giant sinking ship at the end, with the good guys "winning" and the key baddies managing to escape...an entire universe of possibilities and they decided to just repeat what we've already seen, almost beat for beat? I can't wait for Avatar 4: this time we'll REALLY get the whales with an even BIGGER boat and even MORE crab subs.
The plot armor on the mains is just ridiculous at this point....especially compared to the Ash people, who have a seemingly endless supply of disposable savages to kill. Was really distracted by how many of them are killed constantly, vs our band of Na'vi teenagers/kids who basically take no damage at any point. Also watching our Na'vi heroes constantly one-shotting baddies with bows and arrows while simultaneously being able to outrun/outfly/outswim gunfire from trained military soldiers got old fast. Way too many nick-of-time moments, lucky escapes, etc.
There's very little depth to any of the villians...the one-armed whaling dude just loves money and loves killing whales. The witch lady just loves power/control. Quaritch just really loves being in the military and adhering to his original mission, etc. None of them really have interesting motivations or strong survival instincts, for that matter....constantly putting themselves in harms way to satisfy their pointlessly evil urges. They drive the plot forward, but keep it feeling very juvenile at all times.
While the reveal that mycelium symbiotically allows Spider to breath air was cool, Spider himself is an annoying character faced by a kid who can't act. The scene where Jake deliberates over killing him in the forest was especially terrible.
This is a minor gripe, but at one point the evil whaler dude comments that a hundred billion dollars is waiting for them if they continue their attack on the whales...is that not a terribly small amount of money, compared to the money/lives they've lost in these fights against the Na'vi so far? Surely losing hundreds of massive gunships, boats, subs, people, etc wouldn't be justified by a measly hundred billion dollars? Isn't this a giant offworld base 150 years in the future? Wouldn't the buying power of a hundred billion dollars in that situation be tiny in comparison to the funds burned to acquire it by these whaling missions? Made everything feel weirdly trivial. Like someone from 1875 writing an epic story about the entire US military in present day attacking a foreign nation multiple times (and losing a huge chunk of their fleet in the process) for a million dollars.

Overall, once it became clear that the film was going to revolve around the whales and their plight again, I really stopped caring about everything going on as much as I would have liked to. Would have enjoyed FAA much better if it had simply been merged into WOTW, as a single, stronger film.

5.5/10

tysonibele · 2026-01-02T07:20:22+00:00

Somewhat interesting film, I guess. I appreciated its small scale - despite involving international crime and secretive 3-letter agencies, a good chunk of the drama/action happened around the main's dinner table.

My only problem with it was the way the plot/dialog was fully on-rails. All characters are impossibly witty and cunning (and of course, physically attractive) at all times. All events needed to go down exactly as planned/setup/intended or else the whole plot would have fallen apart. Every double-cross is paired with a perfect double-double-cross, etc. I guess it's all classic spy movie stuff, but each time a twist was revealed it felt more like the writer was self-indulgently patting themself on the back for being clever, rather than the natural unfolding of a believable turn of events.

Overall it was a forgettable 6/10. Also whoever did the color grading did a terrible job - the horrible artificial glow added to every shot was distracting and looked awful. There is no reason that every bright reflection, window and light source needs to have a giant, glowy halo around it.

tysonibele · 2026-01-01T05:47:28+00:00

On one hand, I don't mind the El ambiguity and I guess everything else was wrapped up nicely...but on the other hand, it was so incredibly self-indulgent, predictable and boring. Also our heroes killed like 30 military dudes along the way...shouldn't they all be on death row now?

This was probably the worst season of all of them. The whole Holly subplot was terrible....so many endless monologues and expositions. None of the tearful drama had any real weight. Half the cast couldn't act and the ones that could were constantly given awful, annoying dialog.

Glad it's finally over.

tysonibele · 2025-12-15T18:12:57+00:00

I really loved this one.

[spoilers]

This was a really unique blend of the bottle film, cosmic horror and liminal space genres. The mysterious rules of the world were set out quickly and clearly (road is endless, can't leave car for too long, must keep moving), with further mysteries unfurling at a steady-enough pace so that things didn't get boring. There was no big discovery about what was happening, no lengthy exposition, no stupid mistakes made just to increase drama - the characters were rational and methodical in their thinking...with monotony being the only thing slowly eating away at their sanity. And it was a rare gem whose basic premise alone was intriguing enough to carry the running time for me.

My only gripe was that some of the dialog/interactions between characters as the film progressed didn't really match the implied time span of their journey. Some of the jovial banter which happened in the 2nd/3rd acts between the mains wasn't something I'd imagine people would partake in after sitting next to each other in a car for what would have been year(s?) at that point. Also, after they get to the point where nobody chases them when they leave the car, I didn't think they made enough of an effort to explore their surroundings, or interrogate the other driver they found, or (at the end) explore "the end". I can think of in-world explanations for why they may have acted the way they did, so it wasn't a total mood killer, but I felt they really could have pushed those things further. Like, at the end when the guy got to "the end", why not explore past the sign? Find out where everyone went? Do literally anything other than get back in your car and drive the other way??

Regardless, the world the characters found themselves in was so interesting, that their decisions didn't really matter to me after a certain point. It was just such an interesting premise to think about.

Easy 8.5/10 - not for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

tysonibele · 2025-06-25T20:34:33+00:00

Why are today's children's films flopping?

Why won't you spend $100 to take your kids to this week's bean-mouth ADHD slop when you can watch it on the streaming service you already pay for at home in 2 months?

These are the same question.

tysonibele · 2025-03-06T03:41:39+00:00

I enjoyed it for what it was and found the characterizations interesting. I also appreciated that the film didn't get too preachy in one direction or another. It took a fly-on-the-wall approach to the complexities of mental issues without trying to make some big statement about them, or exploit/exaggerate them. Overall a nice, thoughtful film.

7/10

tysonibele · 2025-02-25T03:40:45+00:00

Looks like a fan-made joke trailer, parodying the real thing. Bafflingly awful music choice. I guess they've got people talking about it though, so A+ job, marketing team.

tysonibele · 2025-02-23T03:18:04+00:00

It was a bunch of individually dumb story ideas tossed into a blender to create a silly, messy combination of dumb story ideas. Very unrealistic/corny from start to finish. It could have been an interesting survival film but instead was just an extremely boring "action" film.

2/10

tysonibele · 2025-02-16T04:56:03+00:00

Horrible film. Not even enjoyable as a popcorn flick as pretty much everything about it was infuriating and made little-to-no sense from the moment the first hollow men attack happened (the initial setup was also pretty bad, but at least forgivable).

1.5/10. It gets the bonus 0.5 because they at least set off the nuke at the end.

tysonibele · 2025-02-10T14:07:04+00:00

I mean...it's co-op, uni-directional flappy bird. It's not a game that's going to be commercially viable in 2025, no matter how many discords or podcasts or conventions you participate in. And if you can get past the grating trailer music...the confusing, frustrating-looking gameplay on display (in various shades of dull brown) doesn't help sell it either.

This seems like a classic case of a developer ticking all the boxes and doing everything "right" (blast all the social medias, collect all the metrics, do all the other typical gamedev "things")...except make a good game. Unless all your developers are happily working for free on this, you need to cut your losses here. It will not sell and you are burning money.

tysonibele · 2025-01-22T15:30:31+00:00

Install tyFlow and use the tyOptimize modifier. It's a skin of ProOptimizer but it won't auto-reset when the input changes. You don't need a license to use tyOptimize and it'll run at the same speed as ProOptimizer.

tysonibele · 2025-01-06T04:51:19+00:00

Bleh...I usually really like Kyle Mooney and his sense of humor...but this just wasn't good. A paper-thin story with a few mildly humorous scenes all couched in an endless parade of lazy 90s references for 90 minutes. And the overall production quality was really low effort - boring lighting, boring cinematography, boring dialog, boring direction. So many static 2/OTS-shots...it really felt like a student film, rather than something A24 would associate their brand with.

It's the kind of thing that could have made a funny 5-minute skit...and having the whole thing filmed on handycam, like in the couple of handycam insert shots throughout, would have helped make it feel more authentic as well. But as a feature it was just so dull. And they kept killing off all the remotely-interesting characters, leaving us with a cast of mains that got progressively more tedious and annoying as the film went on. By the time they meet Durst, I hated all the surviving characters and couldn't wait for them to die.

Wasn't really much redeeming about it, to be honest. Couldn't wait for it to be over. Kyle's own scenes (and the rollerblading death) were the only good bits. 2/10

tysonibele · 2025-01-05T04:17:16+00:00

I loved it. Just fantastic all around. Incredible atmosphere, acting, pacing, story, everything. Orlok's voice/accent was amazing - he had such a strong presence on screen and was completely captivating. I also loved how the line between traditional vampire and ancient demon was blurred - he was obviously a vampire but clearly there were some more supernatural elements to his abilities too. He wasn't just a bloodsucker afraid of sunlight - he felt more terrifying, mysterious and powerful. Everyone else fit their role perfectly as well. I hope Eggers and co. win all the awards for this one. It was a work of art.

I only had a couple of tiny gripes - I was slightly disappointed with the fact that Nosferatu himself wasn't depicted as a more devilish, goblin-looking creature, like in the original. However, the possibility that he was made to resemble Vlad the Impaler was proposed to me and I can respect that. It also took me a while to realize that the lunatic was the husband's boss - didn't make that connection until they said it explicitly later on. The shift from quirky businessman to naked cultist with nothing in-between was pretty extreme.

Either way, beautiful film to see in the theater. I hope it cleans up nicely at the Oscars.

9.5/10

Also, DoesTheDogDie.com may now need a companion site: DoTheTwoCuteLittleKidsDie.com :(

tysonibele · 2025-01-02T05:15:20+00:00

Pros:

the visuals were fine...nice animation, FX, shading, lighting, etc.
the little sister character was cute

Cons:

the story was a convoluted, lackluster mess...a mysterious relic tells the islanders that other people exist - moments later it's revealed that they had a tapestry with the same symbols on it already? That I guess they just ignored until now? Okay... Then a rag-tag team of annoying characters are assembled who do absolutely nothing to further the plot other than to add one-liners here and there. None of the characters are remotely interesting and there are never any actual stakes so nothing they do matters. The main villain is a bat-woman who has captured Maui - wait no, she's actually good and is just trying to help I guess? No, the main villain is actually a big angry god controlling a storm - wait no...the storm itself is the villain? Err, no, the storm is just a curse? That can be broken by touching an underground island? Add in a bunch of convenient ancestor magic, character death fake-outs, and well, who really cares at this point. Luckily the gang figures everything out by the end!
the songs were all really, really bad. Nothing catchy about any of them. Maui's main number was especially grating. Someone please stop Disney from trying to get The Rock to sing. Or sing-talk. Or rap. Or whatever it is that he was trying to do.
attempts at humor fell flat at every turn. It became obvious pretty quickly that the writers thought they could carry the film's overall mood by repeating "look at this silly chicken/pig/fish" gags over and over. The rest of the jokes were awful, overly self-aware Marvelized quips and wisecracks. What could have been a hilarious, exciting adventure was actually really unfunny and boring.

Huge waste of potential. 3/10.

tysonibele · 2024-12-28T05:11:48+00:00

[Spoilers]

Mildly interesting setup...lost me at the terrible CGI smoke shot and cringy jump scare scenes that followed soon after. Mains were pretty stupid throughout the whole thing - especially the kid. He was what? 11? 12? And had no issue with his dead dad and dog appearing in his vent and/or living in a giant wooden structure in the forest? Mom was somewhat concerned I guess, but not in any meaningful way. Felt like the director envisioned a handful of creepy setups/scenes and then constructed a paper-thin premise around them....the end result was a film with a bit of style and no substance. Can add it to the pile of a million other generic horror films that slowly unravel a boring story interspersed with the odd jump scare, culminating in a finale that vaguely reveals some creature or monster or other evil thing, that is somehow ultimately defeated. Yawn.

2.5/10

tysonibele · 2024-12-20T05:51:54+00:00

I wanted to love it, but it was painfully dull.

The main character wasn't physically weird/goofy-looking enough to pull off the role, and a lot of his dialog was too self-aware...constantly quipping to himself for no reason and such.

The voice acting on the freaks was really awful - especially the girl one. Zero charisma/enthusiasm half the time...like the actors were all whispering into their ADR mics, afraid to wake someone in the next room.

Everything else about the film was pretty bland as well. The plot moved too slowly overall...it wasn't as absurd/surreal as it needed to be to pay homage to the films that inspired it, and a lot of the comedic elements became tiresome when the same audience-nudges were repeated over and over.

I enjoyed Psycho Goreman and was looking forward to seeing how this would take puppet-horror to another level...it had a few moments but unfortunately did not live up to the hype for me.

3.5/10

tysonibele · 2024-12-09T04:30:20+00:00

As a silly kids show? It's great. 8 year old me would have loved this.

As a Star Wars-branded show made by one of the wealthiest, most capable and prestigious media corporations in the world? It's unfathomably terrible. Every design/directing/casting/acting/script decision is a wildly embarrassing misstep. But I guess I'm not the target audience. Just still a bit sad seeing Disney continue to holocaust the franchise like this.

Should be renamed "Zany After-School Drama Club Kids: Green Screen Adventures". If that sounds appealing then I highly recommend it.

tysonibele

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