Scream 7 - My Take (Spoilers)

 

With the previous six Scream movies fresh in my mind it was time to see Scream 7. On IMAX even.

One thing I like about the Scream franchise is that there's no singular "bad guy". It's a role that various and sundry bad guys take on. That makes the movies more than just horror with some comedy. It adds a "whodunit" aspect where you're really trying to figure out who Ghostface is and why they're doing what they're doing.

The general formula is that it's some connection to people in the past. Generally. I think they broke that in one of the movies that really aren't Scream movies. But overall the reason(s) are revealed in the third act even if they aren't something that could be guessed from the rest of the movie. It's more a reveal than a mystery but what do you expect? It's a Scream movie.

This one felt like a comfortable continuation of the first ones and I found out that's because it's the same writer for the first, second, and fourth movies. They took on the directing role this time as well because Wes Craven is dead and the originally chosen director dropped out due to death threats. I guess people take the Scream franchise seriously. And the guy who took the director role probably decided it couldn't get much worse for them because they were already the writer.

Most of the movie slides right into the feel of the original four movies. They kept the bigger, more emphatic kills from the last two but I'm guessing that's to keep up with the times. Overall the movies have been comparatively restrained when it comes to the actual blood and gore aspect. Lots of stabbity stabbity but not a lot of results. You get more results in this one.

The trailers for the movie were all fakeouts. I find that amusing. What's in the trailers happened but not like you'd expect. The one with Ghostface burning the house down? Happened. But it's the original house that was turned into a tourist AirBnB and in the opening scene you have the first kill being the couple who booked it, then Ghostface burned it down. I guess that could be an allegory for cutting ties with aspects of the movies that came before. Sure. Go with that.

This one does cut ties tho. The meta aspect that was building in the first four is cut back to almost nothing and I think that's a good thing. By the fourth movie it was starting to get tired. The fake "Stab" movie franchise is still part of the Scream universe but they make fun of it and how it's getting tired too. By taking that out they were able to move the location to where Sidney lives now and while the original Woodsboro is referenced it's not the center of the universe anymore. This gives them freedom to move around more. The rules that every movie to date that the characters listed was also started and cut as being lame, so another homage to the originals while moving beyond them.

We're down to two of the original actors since they killed off Dewey/David Arquette. Neve wisely bowed out of the sixth movie which makes Courtney the only one who's been in all seven movies. Well. The actor who is the voice of Ghostface has been in all of them too and the continuity is great but not being on the screen and using a voice modulator means that it's less obvious that it's the same one. Both of them are producers now so either they believe in the franchise or they wanted the extra money. Regardless they're back in character.

Time has moved on. Sidney has stepped out of the limelight and has been raising her family in a small town and running a coffee shop. Gale lost her big New York gig, hasn't written any more books, and is trying to get back into the reporter groove. The two younger kids are staying with grandparents and are no part of the movie. The newest character is Sidney's daughter Tatum (named for the Tatum that died in the first movie). The daughter is being a typical teenager and has issues with her mom not talking about her life previous to being married. It's kind of a plot hook because I don't think many teenage girls give a good gosh darn what mom was like when they were teenagers.

She's married to a police officer. He doesn't get a lot of screen time but that's what happens when you're not an essential character. 

The teenage guy next door is obsessed with the whole Ghostface thing and puts Sidney on the spot a couple of times, with his mom breaking it up. Tatum has a boyfriend, very similar to how Sidney did at the beginning. There's a friend group again, similar to the first movie.

This movie is unique in that there's three Ghostfaces in action. One is also more of a fakeout and a plot advance but there's two active ones working together. Of course, given that we're used to two Ghostfaces (except in Scream 3 but there's fan speculation about a second one that got left out of the final cut) having one killed early means we might think there's only one more out there. Another fakeout for us!

The whole thing starts up with Sidney getting a call from Stu, who is supposed to be dead. He was always an iffy one rife with theories that he wasn't really dead. And darn it all if he isn't on the phone talking about things that happened and what he's going to do. Gail shows up with the twins from the Scream 6 movie right about now, actually running over the first Ghostface.

The first Ghostface to die is unconnected to anything and is an escaped mental patient. Sidney and Gail go to the mental hospital to try to figure out what's going on and the friendly nurse tells them the guy hadn't seen the Stab movies or had any interest in the original events. But there was a John Doe he spent a lot of time with who was there for a couple of decades and recently left. He even shows them the nice tidy room where he stayed. They show him Stu's picture, he recognizes him as the John Doe. OK. We've now got our link! It helps that the other guy had drawings resembling stuff from Scream/Stab/Sidney on his bulletin board yet.

I had to look up the kill count because there's also survivors so it messes with things in my head.

The boyfriend is sus and ends up on the floor. The friends end up getting picked off one by one. The obsessed guy is also a kill but that one has a bit of extra to it I'll get to in the Ghostfaces. There's also the two unrelated people who get it in the beginning but that's kind of a hallmark of the movies to have some initial kills so they don't really count so much. There's six kills, not counting Ghostfaces.

Here's the survivors.

Gale takes a hit and survives. 

Gale brings two characters back from Scream 6 as her crew and while they get attacked, they survive.

Sidney's husband takes a lot of hits and survives.

Sidney takes some hits and survives.

I want to say Sidney's daughter Tatum takes a hit or two, maybe a slice, but don't quote me on that one. If she didn't she should have.

As with all survivors they get minimal medical care and function just fine with various and sundry stab, bullet, and slash wounds except where the script requires that they don't. That's a consistent thing in every single movie so it's barely worth mentioning anymore.

Ghostface deaths

Now we get into the "why" aspect of the movie. It's always about why these people put on the mask, sparkly robe, and boots. Yes, people have identified, or tried to identify, the various brands and models of boots in each movie. They need hobbies too.

Ghostface 0

The first one, and the first one to get killed, is the stalking horse. He's got no real motive except being primed to kill the whole family in residence (remember, only the daughter is at home) and botches it.

Ghostface 1

This one took me a bit to recognize but he's the helpful nurse from the mental hospital. He's the one who primed the escapee to try to do the work. He's the one who had them looking for Stu.

Ghostface 2

This is another one from left field. It's the neighbor mom with the obsessed kid. Turns out the mom was even more obsessed with being the new Scream Queen, kind of infected her son with her own obsession, and wants Sidney to finally die because it's just stupid she's survived so much. It's confirmed she killed her own kid. Even if that turns out not to be her it was her accomplice.

Ghostface Kills

Ghostface 0 - Gale's van does an excellent job of it.

Ghostface 1 - As is proper etiquette with a Ghostface, shot to the head. He also gets body shots from Tatum but when she's wavering about the proper shot to the head he escapes.

Ghostface 2 - This one gets the long fight scene, many stabs, and a final lot of shots to the head by both Sidney and Tatum.

So what about Stu? There's a scene in Sidney's very smart house which is full of screens which has him there and then morphing into other characters from the past, including the beloved Dewey. They're taunting her with how easy it was to manipulate her. Of course they never confirm that Stu is really dead or not so there's that. Or maybe they did. It was late in the movie. But the AI thing is part of what they're doing, which fits in with the movies moving along with current technology.

We end with Sidney telling Tatum the story of why she got her name. It's quite obvious what skills her mother has when it comes to evading masked killers in weird robes. There's also a bit where Gale grows a heart and lets the twin take the microphone for the story instead of keeping it for herself like she did earlier. The twins are probably part of the franchise for at least one more movie.

I enjoyed it. Seeing it on IMAX isn't necessary but if you can and you want to pay the extra for the ticket, go nuts. It doesn't have anything that especially needs IMAX so go ahead and watch digital or wait for streaming. If you're going to marathon go right ahead and skip 5 and 6. The only thing you'll miss is the introduction of the twins with Gale. And Dewey's death but that's sad so you may want to skip it for that reason.

Scream 5, Scream 6 - My Take (Spoilers)

 

Another late set of reviews but because of the new one I figured I could get away with it. I reviewed the first four in a previous post and this gets us current with the 2022 and 2023 releases.

I chose to separate them into two posts not for length but because they're different types of movies. Let me explain.

The first four are a contiguous set. They tie back into each other, the stories interweave, they're tight. The next two are the attempt to hand off the franchise to new characters. Notice that word "attempt". I won't say it's a bad thing to do because it can get really stale to have the same things happening with the same characters over and over and over, even if the ghostface killer(s) are never the same people with the same motivations. The victim group is what needs refreshing, especially once they've been thinned out.

Unfortunately this didn't work out well, in my opinion. I have nothing against the characters they created and the main one has a pretty interesting backstory. But it was missing the spark.

In the 5th movie they still had all three of the main characters from the beginning. The directors made a deliberate choice to kill one of them and do it as a perma-kill. This falls back to the "no one is safe" concept but it is still a divisive topic in the fandom today. I was even sad that it happened. I liked that character.

These movies start getting into overkill and sloppiness, which are kind of endemic for the time. The kills weren't just several stabs - they were dozens of stabs. That much stabbity-stabbity all but ensured that the prop knives were more obvious and the ability for people to linger and survive such things was kind of an eye roll time. The sloppiness came when they departed from canon.

They strayed from canon in a couple of ways. One - the ghostface killers didn't always have that direct personal connection to the people they killed. Two - the ghostface killer did things that they hadn't done unmasked in the past. Those may seem like small issues but when you're dealing with an established franchise with fervid fans and you're taking over from a beloved director you gotta walk a fine line. You want to make it yours, you want to pay credit to the original director/creator, and you want to make a good enough movie they let you make more.

Of course this isn't always true *cough cough Batman Forever cough* but in this case I think they did. There's a crapton of Easter Eggs in them that reference Wes Craven, enough that it's kind of overkill in my opinion. I think they would have been better off sticking closer to his core themes than putting in bird pictures on the set because he liked birds.

Again, I get it. Rebooting the franchise with new characters to take the lead and using the legacy ones for continuity and nostalgia. Plus using the legacy characters adds a patina of legitimacy to the newer movies. There were big boots to fill and this is one way to add some padding. Of course killing off one of the legacy characters may seem like it was the wrong thing to do but it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Back to the overkill and sloppiness thing. The kills were much gorier and I think part of that is changing opinions in movie rating boards. It's also part of the meta where the reboot has to be MORE. The sloppiness has to do with things like the ghostface killer getting whapped upside the face with a frying pan and shaking it off, etc. There was a lot of stuff where the violence level was upped but the effects were minimized. It's again a systemic thing but it also makes the restraint of the first four movies more obvious.

The new movie is out. It's why I made myself watch all of these in a short period of time. From the trailers and from what I've heard it seems like they're going to pretend these two movies never happened and go back to the original premises. The trailers promise more of the thriller aspect and I expect there to be some overkill because it's expected. I'll do a review on that one, of course.

As with the first movies I won't be watching these again. It's not that I don't think they're not good because they're still good enough to be entertaining and keep you wondering who the ghostface killers are and why they're doing it. It's for the same reason as the first - when you know the ending to movies like this you need a reason to watch them again. You know the ending so all the tension is gone.

Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4 - My Take (Spoilers)

 

Yeah. I shouldn't have to explicitly state that there's spoilers, given that the movies were released in 1996, 1997, 2000, and 2011. I did because I hadn't seen them until this week and neither had my friend who was over for the (short) marathon. I've said before that I'm woefully behind on my pop culture movie viewing.

This isn't going to be a standard review of each movie. I don't want to type that much and it's not what this particular post is about. This is about the franchise and an overall review.

Note that this is the first four movies of the franchise. That's important. These are the ones that are the franchise. There will be more of that in the next review. These, even with the long gap between 3 and 4, are a cohesive whole. They're also the ones directed by Wes Craven so that has a lot to do with it.

First and foremost I found these not just entertaining but good. I'm not even saying "good for a slasher movie". I'm saying good without qualifications.

The entire series builds on itself and draws you in with all kinds of continuing meta references. There's a movie within a movie (the in-movie "Stab" movies) and those really start getting meta when they're doing recursive references. That's a very interesting take on the whole concept of life vs movies, within a movie. It's confusing, it's a little head-tilt at times, and it works for these movies.

I watched the first three with a friend and we were both trying to figure out who the killer was, and then who the killers were once we figured out that it's two people doing the killing. Just like in the movies we would go back and forth on it. We had a pretty good average of getting it right eventually.

The concept of the ghostface killer being a role and not a person I believe was unique or very new when these started. In later movies it's referenced as meta, where there's not a singular killer to stitch the movies together. I think it was a good choice because it makes every movie a new thriller and mystery to be solved. They did tie together motives so there's continuity there beyond the three surviving characters.

One thing you need to get past, fast, is how characters who have been very well stabbed and slashed continue to function. They're also given rather minimal medical assistance about half the time. This has to be done to keep the action going. When the story calls for it the same wounds will disable one character but let a different one keep on truckin'. Once you can accept that and not keep saying "Oh come on!" to the screen you'll be happier.

Watching them as a marathon is darn amusing because Dewey's moustache gets fuller with each movie. That had to be a deliberate choice, given how it started. And it's darn amusing without being referenced in the movies in any way.

This set of movies is well constructed, well structured, has strong callbacks to previous ones without being held back, and has legacy characters that keep on going in each one. They all get injured, they all heal, they all come back again. It's pretty cool since at least two of them are or became pretty well known actors during this time.

It seems like doing opening cameos in the movies within movies became a thing because there's some big names involved. The first movie had Drew Barrymore on the poster when she was A Big Thing and then she was the first kill. This was done intentionally to show that no one is off limits and frees up the movies to bring in and then take out anyone they deem necessary, or amusing.

I chose these four to "review" together because this is the core of it and the new Scream 7 goes back to these roots. The ending of Scream 4 sets things up for what's going to be discussed in the next post about Scream 5 and Scream 6. Overall they didn't do a bad job on the setup and it didn't feel like they were throwing in the towel.

Good writing, good acting, and consistency are what I would say make these movies good for this long. Of course people will disagree because, well, they like to disagree. Let 'em. The movies specifically didn't do much with topical subjects so they don't feel dated. The technology is older but that makes it more fun to yell at the screen and then see the technology evolve over time as newer movies were made. Even then newer technology didn't solve problems. It was used to replace the technology that was used previously. Landlines to cell phones is a big one, even though landlines seem to be one of the consistent things in all of them.

I don't know that I would watch them again. Now that I know what's gone on and read the IMDB trivia there's no mystery or surprises. Even the jump scares won't hit as hard. That's the problem with mysteries and thrillers - once you know the ending there's not much to draw it into rewatching. Unless you get into the fandom, which is also addressed within the meta of these.

My one big beef is that ghostsface uses unlimited shiny stainless steel knives. First, the unlimited thing. Second, the stainless steel thing. Everyone rightly rags on movies where there's shootouts with unlimited ammo and the same holds for when a character has an unbelievable number of the same kind of knife. The shiny stainless steel is just me being annoyed because those crap knives don't hold an edge. But they shine on camera and that's more important here. I can still gripe to myself about it.

What The Hell Kind of Blog Is This, Rastl?

 

So yeah. There's a whole lotta movie review and a whole not a lot of hobby stuff going on. I'm not exactly apologizing.

I've got the AMc A-List movie subscription, I'm retired, and I live literally two minutes from the theater. I get to see up to 4 movies per week and darnitall if I'm not going to get my money's worth. I don't see everything and there's going to be a slowdown for a while due to what's being released. But I like giving my reviews so I put them on my blog.

Here's where I get a bit real. I've been keeping personal stuff off of here but decided to start putting a curated part of my life back online. Why not? If people aren't interested, they can skip the post.

I didn't get to ease into retirement. One day I was working, the next I was retired. That happened ten years ahead of schedule. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. I highly recommend being retired if you can manage it. I can manage it from the practical side but I've had problems doing it from the mental side. When there's no pressure to do anything then things don't get done. It's simple, at least for me. That's why my hobby blog is missing hobby stuff.

I will also say that I'm at a point now where I will be talking to my doctor about adjusting my meds. I think I'm high on the anti-anxiety side since so many of the things that I was anxious about no longer exist and I have enough of a social network I feel less uncomfortable messing around with my medications. I'm thinking that the overbalance of anti-anxiety is pushing the depression. And depression means I want to do things but I don't.

So that's why there's not that much on the hobby side. It's not that I don't want to do them. It's that I'm not set up to do them. I haven't had my 3D printers running since I moved and I'm just getting that back. The house is so not unpacked. My painting area is in enough of a state I can use it but it's not nearly what I want it to be. I can't use the gaming table I got because there's stuff on it that I haven't dealt with. I've had some help but it hasn't been enough to finish anything. That's why I'm saying it's the depression.

I do want to finish painting the tanks, especially since the next pieces are coming out. That means really dealing with at least part of the office so I have a place to process resin prints. I have projects stacked up after those are done and I'm looking forward to them. But I'm also going to keep chipping away at the paint area so that it's finally in a usable state and can stay that way.

The next thing will be testing some skin tones for orks. Not my ork army, mind you. For a Combat Patrol box I was given and that doesn't fit into my ork army so I can paint it different. After that is assembling the box set. After that is painting the box set. I'm not sure what happens then but that's plenty to keep me busy going forward.

There will still be movie reviews. I like doing that. I need to push myself and do more hobby stuff. I think I'm just going to schedule it like I would any other thing so that I have to make the decision to do it or not rather than a nebulous idea of what to do. I'd say it would help if I painted at the game stores but I do not like to paint anywhere but my own area and that's that.

Anyway. Expect more tank pictures since they're getting closer to getting color on them. Then the post showing all the ork skin tone tests. There should be some interesting stuff in there. At least I hope so. Then the box set. And while I'm doing all that I get to think about the next project in line. I have enough of the freaking things.

GOAT - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I've wanted to see this since I saw the trailers. I like a good animated movie. I like simple entertainment. I did not ask my movie buddy if he wanted to join me. I know better.

I liked how they kept a lot of the animal traits for the characters without losing the anthropomorphic aspects. They were animals first and had the humanoid traits second. They also took the time to develop not only the primary but the secondary characters.

At heart this is yet another underdog sports movie. It just happens to involve animals instead of people. But those animals are so darn likeable (mostly) that you accept them for who they are.

My favorite is still Jett the cat. Having her sitting on the bench lapping out of a bowl of water instead of using a sports bottle was perfect. Using water spritzers to correct her behavior was also a chef's kiss.

There's the standard crew of characters you would expect - the low esteem coach, the greedy owner, the anxious player, the low self-esteem player, the insecure player, the weird player. And as you would expect the intent is to forge them into a team using the publicity stunt character of the goat.

I will say, thankfully, they did not overuse the goat "bahhh" and well they could have. It was done correctly and with restraint. Everything seemed to be fine-tuned to use to maximum advantage and stay just on this side of the line for not making it annoying.

All the sports tropes are here plus the whole big vs little thing. There's the down to earth goat who dreamed of playing but the game was never meant for anyone but the big animals. He still practices and finds what he can do well. He also finds out what the weaknesses are of playing against the big animals. It takes some help from the team for him to figure out the way to use what he does best.

Jett is the aging superstar who desperately wants to win the trophy. She's been the one taking charge, leaving the coach out in the cold. She, along with the rest, figure out how to be a team.

There's a single protagonist and that helps keep everyone focused on the goal. There's plenty of other animals on other teams but this one is the only one that has a personal beef with the team so it keeps the story tightly focused on that. He's a star player, of course, so it's important for them to beat him.

Like so many of these movies the main character - the goat - lost his family. Father was never in the picture, mother died when he was younger. I kind of dislike how often that card gets played. He's got a found family in the diner where he did delivery but still, it feels cheap to do that. They bring it up at appropriate times how she wanted him to play and dream big. It's his inspiration and he writes it on his shoes.

The various themed arenas are interesting and the games are fun to watch. The team owner is quite literally a pig so calling her that when she sells off the team just when they're going to the finals isn't out of line. That one has a "Major League" feel to the story aspect. It makes sense from a financial perspective to take a losing team that's doing well and sell it tho. The piggy part is that she sold the franchise and none of the players are going with. She tells this to Jett (captain) and Goat hears it. They disagree on whether or not to tell the team repeatedly. She says no, he says yes.

The final game involves the player they all hate. He plays dirty and injures Jett. At that point they tell the team what's happening and they decide to go all out to win anyway. Jett has a knee injury and is out of the game but shows up to play more as a distraction. The other team puts more players on her, letting the rest of the underdog team play to their best advantage. It goes down to the wire and of course, the underdog team wins.

They're still being sold so their press conference isn't really happy. Until the weird player shows he bought the team, well, actually won it from the other owner playing some odd card game with cards from all kinds of different games. So everyone is happy. Redemption happens where it needs to happen and where it doesn't they stay the way they are.

It's got enough going where kids will be entertained by the animals and parents can enjoy the rather good story. I recommend it.

How To Make A Killing - My Take (Spoilers)

 

This was a Screen Unseen and it was one I wanted to see based on the trailers. It looked interesting. It also took me looking up the actor after I saw the movie to realize that the main character was the main character in "The Running Man". That doesn't matter unless you have opinions about him.

This starts with him in a prison cell, sentenced to death in a few hours, talking to a priest and laying out what happened.

The premise is simple. He's the heir to a fortune but his mother was disavowed, but not disinherited. Not really. She made a life for herself and when she got sick none of the family did anything for her, which set the path for her son's plan to make it right. She told him to have the life he deserved and it was a theme as he grew up. She didn't get buried in the family tomb either.

When he was a kid he had a crush on a girl and after his mother died and he went into the foster system they didn't see each other again. It was more of a fade away but that was the end result. He went on to get a job he liked doing deliveries for a custom tailor shop.

When he was told he was being moved to a warehouse job so the owner's son could have his job he got to thinking about what his life should have been, and what was in the way.

The bulk of the movie is him finding each relative and offing them in some way that looks accidental. Then showing up at the funeral to see the coffin being put into the tomb. He never gloats or lets them know who he is. The FBI check on him after the second relative is gone, more as a procedure than an investigation. He says he doesn't know that he's an heir, which is quite the lie.

At this point the old crush shows up again and she's getting married. She dangles herself in front of him and keeps him on the hook.

He meets his uncle and the guy has genuine remorse for what happened and how his mother was treated. He gives him the job his recently deceased nephew had and suddenly he's on track to have a nice life. He knows he's a nepo hire but so was the nephew. At this point he also meets someone and starts having a nice life with her. Well. She was the girlfriend of the second one he killed but she wasn't right for him and was going to leave him anyway. But it works.

He takes out another one while he's working his way at his real job and the old crush shows up again, keeping him on the hook.

The uncle passes away naturally and this one is the only time he's upset. It also means that there's only one person left to deal with and that's the patriarch who kicked out his pregnant mother. But at this point he doesn't seem that interested. The FBI show up again and he now knows he's in the much shorter line of heirs but there's nothing to pin on him.

The crush now puts his nuts in a vice. She got a hunch that he was behind all the killings and had him followed. She had pictures. Her price was money since her husband didn't have as much as she wanted. If he didn't get it to her, she'd give the pictures to the police.

This is the same day as his engagement party. He also gets an invitation to dinner with the patriarch. So much going on! The soon-to-be fiancé expects him at the party. The crush wants the money. He wants his chance to talk to the man who didn't help his mother.

He embezzles the money to pay the crush and brings it to her husband's office. He says he doesn't care about the money because she's just going to use it to divorce him. There's a bit of a scuffle because our guy is upset about the whole evening.

He goes to the patriarch in the huge mansion and what happens is that they guy knows what he's been doing and plans on killing him first. So there's some indoor hunting going on and using the archery his mother taught him he takes out the patriarch in self-defense.

He's got the money. He's got his girlfriend. At his big party the FBI arrest him for the murder of the crush's husband, which he actually didn't do. But his fingerprints were on the letter opener that he'd shoved out of the way. Funny how life works.

The crush shows up while he's in jail and says she's got a suicide note but she's got a price and that's everything he has. He signs it over and has to hope she'll come through. She does at pretty close to the last minute and he's cleared.

His fiancé is waiting for him in the parking lot. She's there to give him the locket with the lock of his mother's hair, which she gives to him with a decent amount of velocity before she drives away. The crush is there in a very nice car now suiting her station to pick him up. He gets in the car. It ends with them driving through the gates of his family's estate and her smiling at him. He got the life he deserved.

This was a comedy with a healthy dose of nihilism. It needed both to work. It started with comedy then gradually introduced the nihilism until that's where it ended. There's a ton of moral lessons in there that weren't put out in the forefront so it was a more subtle movie than it could have been and I applaud the restraint. If you like that kind of mix then you'll enjoy this.

Cold Storage - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I went into this one expecting to be entertained. It's not a genre that lends itself to high art.

I was entertained. It's a good mix of horror and comedy. That's a difficult balance and they achieved it. I think a big part was that the main characters all acted intelligently in the situations. That let them continue the story and add humor without it being at their expense.

It starts with a part of Skylab being left in the Australian outback after it broke up. Turns out someone found it, put it in front of their store, and charged admission to look at it. Sounds about right. But then there's a phone call made to an army call center that there's a problem. That sets up the situation.

The army calls in specialists who take a look. Time and cleaning have scratched up the damaged tank enough to create microfissures. The tank contained something nasty they wanted to study in space and it brought it back. The stuff got through the microfissures, infected everyone in the town, and they all exploded as it tried to spread.

Everything goes to heck when some of the goo gets into the boot tread of the scientist who got a sample and then into her system. They're in the proper protective gear otherwise. She gets infected and does what she knows she needs to do, with a 9mm. They blow up the tank and get the heck out of there.

The sample is put into a government storage facility with all the necessary safeguards - underground, pressurized, temperature controlled, etc. and then forgotten. The facility is abandoned then sold to become a storage unit facility. Cut to present day.

I might get out of sequence here but it all works either way.

The manager is, of course, a jerk. He's into fencing stolen goods and being obnoxious to the employees. He tells the overnight guy coming on shift that there's some noise to look into and that there's a new girl starting and he's got her on walk and lock check duty. Of course he makes sexist remarks about her.

A customer comes in and heads to her storage unit. She's an old lady and once she's in her unit she pulls the door shut and gets out a gun. She's talking to a picture of what turns out to be her husband and it's their anniversary. She puts up the gun and then decides to take a nap before doing more. Remember her.

The guy hears the noise but doesn't pay much attention since it's an intermittent ping. She and he get to talking, they hear it, they locate it behind drywall, and decide to check it out. She's more eager for it than he is but he goes along with it.

The noise is an alert that there's a problem with one of the government storage units, of course the one with the ick. That alerts the army call center who then contacts the guy who found it the last time. He's retired now but has been keeping an eye on things and writing up reports and contingencies that no one bothers with. The girl who takes the call decides to help out more than the officer on duty wants to do (there's a beef between him and the guy who found the stuff) and reads his last report. She's willing to get him what he needs to fix it. All they talk about is item numbers on the list, not what they correspond to. Item Seven is noted a few times.

Back at the storage facility they break through the wall to find the control display and the alarm that's going off. It's in a sublevel they didn't know existed and the way there is down a two story ladder down a tunnel. After more coaxing they decide to head down. They find the unit without a problem, read the label with the army department acronym that they have no idea what it is, and go inside. There's ick growing on the walls and they find a bunch of rats in a pile infected with the ick. They intelligently get out and close the door again, taking note of the acronym.

Now for the not so smart secondary character. Her ex and the father of her daughter shows up and is sitting in his car, upset. The reason for his upset is in the trunk and he's waving a gun around. There's a thump from the trunk and we find it to be a dead cat. Except that it's not dead even with half its head gone (not a pretty thing if you like animals) and it runs up the building to impale itself on the top of a light post, and explode. It got the ick while the car was in the parking lot we find out later. He's infected as are some nearby deer.

The two of them go back upstairs and call the department. They get patched through to the same person who has been helping the original guy. Now it's all tied together. They know not to touch the stuff, like they needed to be told, and that someone would be coming out to deal with it. A nice change of pace from how these normally go.

The infected deer walks into the facility, wanders around, then explodes in the lobby. No one gets infected. The baby daddy is wandering around looking for the girl. The ick has gotten smarter about how to infect humans and he's trying direct contact. The two of them hide in a storage unit while he zombie walks around looking for them.

The official guy finds out he's the only one who's going to fix this and his partner gets him what he needs but doesn't go with. The army is sending him more as a placate thing than taking it seriously. But he gets what he asked for and is on the ground to help. A problem is that it spreads faster in water and a storm is approaching so now there's a time element. Not a bad thing.

Wow. I'm doing the whole screenplay here. I'll try to shorten things up.

The manager comes back with his friends to take a bunch of TVs out of a unit to fence. They get infected by baby daddy and the overnight guy is smart enough to slide the lock so they're trapped in the storage unit. The manager lets them out and now it's two of them and three infected. Well. And one who saw what was going on and wisely decided to bug out. The manager moves the infected ones out at gunpoint and the other uninfected one ends up slipping into the exploded deer.

The army guy is there now and getting the two of them to help him out. They get protective gear and they also get the job of planting the small nuclear weapon to deal with the problem. The reason for that is the guy got a back injury in the original situation and can't do it himself. He'll keep everyone inside while they do their thing and get out. He makes a very good point about the need to kill people in cold blood just on the suspicion that they might be infected. They choose to plant the bomb instead.

There's another time element in that the bomb has a timer, of course. And it's on the fritz so it isn't exact. But they have enough time to plant it and get out. At least that's what their led to believe. The army guy takes out the tires on all the vehicles in the parking lot except his own and waits to do the same with anyone but those two coming out of the facility.

One of the infected people breaks away and the old lady has come out of her storage unit after hearing noise. She wisely shoots the infected one when she sees the ick. Then she gets out of there, giving the gun to the guy. The manager and all the rest end up dead. The army guy hurt his back so he's on the ground. The two of them get the bomb placed and find out the army guy started the timer back when he gave it to them so now they're moving fast to get out.

The army guy's partner shows up and helps him into the vehicle just as the two of them run out of the storage facility. They don't get shot. The four of them drive off and drive just ahead of the nuclear explosion that's taking out the underground stuff. They're not too worried about using a nuke because it's deep enough underground that it will be mostly contained on the surface with the bad stuff being underground. Sure.

The army girl who's been helping shows up in the army guy's hospital room to introduce herself and they have a little chat about what happened and why she went against orders. The commanding officer who didn't take it seriously is on the news trying to explain why there was a nuclear explosion in the middle of nowhere and it wasn't going well. The guy and girl are sitting in the park playing with her daughter.

Everyone was smart and got their happy ending. Then they show some deer grazing and you remember that several deer were in the explosion radius but only one was in the facility. They went a little gratuitous by having the deer throw up at the camera but hey, they had to have their fun too. There could be a sequel if this does well enough. The only expensive talent is Liam Nielson so they could make it happen.

It was fun. Having everyone be smart was a refreshing change so that it made me more invested in seeing who got through to the end. The obnoxious manager was an obvious "not gonna make it" and it was more a matter of how and when, which is fine. Mixing up the ick with the comedy parts was well done and I actually liked all the characters, even the old lady you see so briefly.

I want to say this is a movie you can point to and show that just because it's a horror type movie it can be more than people getting infected and things blowing up. There can be tension, humor, and strong characters. A pleasant surprise indeed.