Benny Loves You 2019 Written, produced and directed by Karl Holt. It's a British horror comedy about a murderous puppet with Karl playing the main character.
Karl still lives with his parents, he's a toy designer who's having a poor time at work where he's not coming up with interesting toys. On his 35th birthday his parents are killed in a freak accident, nearly a year later he's about to lose the family home because he's crap at his finances. He's never had to survive on his own because he stayed at home with mom and dad. Karl is a big loser at work too, he's fallen so far in the company the owner fires him. He then hires him back for a low level job with a big pay cut. Loser that Karl is he stays on.
While packing up he's convinced himself he needs to adult up and he decides to throw Benny, his favorite toy as a child, into the bin. Benny becomes a homicidal murder machine, starting with all of Karl's stuffed toys and then grinding up the neighbor's cat with a lawnmower. Karl calls the police and they come by, they think he's been stalked by someone but they can't find any evidence of a break in.
Benny kills the estate agent and Karl has to clean up and hide the body. The police turn up to pick up a camera they left there. More and more people are killed and everywhere Benny goes turns into an abattoir. For no reason that any of us could understand Karl hooks up with his co-worker. Most of the other co-workers are killed when Benny is taken to the office by that co-worker. Benny can't stand anyone but him getting any of Karl's love so he tries to kill her. Lucky for them the local coppers save their lives and help cover up Benny's murder spree by blaming it on one of Karl's co-workers. It's OK he was a pretentious twat and no body liked him. Besides, who would believe it was a puppet anyway.
The movie struggles to be funny, many of the jokes fall flat. I found it predictable and I'm usually pretty blase about that sort of thing. It could really have used a punch up in the script department. I think Karl is a better director than he is a writer. He made a decent looking film that cut together pretty well. I did get a few laughs out of it, Benny was usually entertaining. I don't feel I need to see it again but I was glad to have seen it. That Benny doll above is about $35 on Amazon. A little too much for me but I like it.
Bleeding Steel 2017 Written and directed by Leo Zhang. I bought a copy of the Blu-ray because I like to have Jackie Chan movies. I don't keep up with him though, I'm usually playing catch up. I see from a quick scan on Amazon I need to order a few more Jackie films. I'll have to go check the IMDb and make a list so I don't miss any. I'm not sure I'm that interested in the mountain climbing movie.
Jackie is a cop with a dying daughter, he's on his way to the hospital to be with her but police work interferes. He gets involved with a massive fight with a grotesque costumed villain called Andre and his black leather clad henchmen. They're after Doctor James and his metal heart. There's a big battle and Jackie blows up the villain. Jackie is lucky to be alive but he finds his daughter has died.
Thirteen years later we meet some other characters in Sydney Australia. Turns out that Jackie's daughter didn't die, she received the Doctor James metal heart and magical cell rejuvenation serum. She's grown up in an orphanage and doesn't know that Jackie is her dad. More costumed villains show up, the baddie from the big explosion among them. There's plenty of action as Andre tries to kidnap Jackie's daughter. He wants her blood for a transfusion.
The action scenes are big and noisy, there's plenty of bullets flying, high tech pistols blasting, explosions and people jumping around and punching each other. There's a big fight on the roof of the Sydney Opera House and you really get a good view of the roof tiles. Sadly the script is so poor that it lets the movie down. It's filled with nonsense and cliches, it lacks any good humor. The dubbing isn't very good either. I bought my copy from Hamilton Books and it's the Canadian edition. It only has English or French audio, the US has a Mandarin track. I put that on my Amazon Wishlist. It might be worth the tenner.
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