Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-06-19 (Wednesday)

On 6/20/24 6:37 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

What Did You Watch?

On my (holi)day off, I mostly watched... horror movies off the Tubi!
soaps: DOOL - Chad and Julie finally get into the safety deposit box to find... grainy footage of a woman being held hostage, but you can't see her face - IOW, it was *nothing*: no "proof" at all!! EJ shows up to the going-away party that Paulina was throwing for Chanel and Johnny, and manages to blackmail his way back into the DA job (unfortunately, we don't get to see Melinda Trask's face when she was fired again!); Eli and Lani also showed up to this. Jada tries to convince Stafan to use his DiMera ways to get Clyde Weston to help free Gabi, but Stefan says he has other plans for that.
    GH - Diane reveals to Alexis that her disbarment has been vacated. Chase is told by Stella that Chase needs to "build a case" against Finn on behalf of Violet if he wants to get temporary custody. Idiot Brook Lynn tells Sonny that Finn has fallen off the wagon (Sonny will probably do something now!). Mac is back! (I wonder if they are going to write the actor's real-life cancer battle into the show...)
    Y&R - I actually watched this asynchronously off Pee+ (interestingly, unlike GH ep's on Hulu where "same-day" ep's don't show up until after 5pm, the same-day Y&R ep was available on Pee+ by noon or before!). Victoria's and Billy's rotten kids come home from boarding school and treat Claire poorly, esp. the younger daughter. Lily and Danny bury the hatchet. Audra shows up towards the end to meet up with Nate, and returns apparently victorious over Tucker.
And then I watched three Tubi films! - note that I'm including the year for all three of these, as each of these has multiple different films under these titles...
Darkroom (2013) (Tubi) - I was shocked to learn that this 2013 horror flick is the last thing Kaylee DeFer (prob. best know for WB's "The Mountain" and "Gossip Girl") ever did in Hollywood - I could have sworn she turned up on "Grey's Anatomy"! Probably explains why she even does some brief partial nudity in this - this was her "last gasp" in the business.
    This flick was annoying, and wasn't very good - once again unnecessarily told in excessive non-linear fashion.
    DeFer plays some YOUT! who apparently is in some halfway house for wayward YOUTs! (run by Elisabeth Röhm!) because of some car accident whose details we are only filled in on much later. Also at the halfway house is Britne Oldford (remember her?!).
    On her way out of the door of the halfway house, DeFer is apparently pointed in the direction of some job at some abandoned mansion which quickly becomes a "modeling" gig.
    But then she's seemingly abandoned (or is she?!) in the mansion and can't get out...
    Anyway, this was mostly annoying, right down to the ending which while not hopeless felt really incomplete.
Then I watched two movies starring Christine Evangelista (The Arrangement, Fear the Walking Dead) when she was young and incredibly hott!!
Escapee (2011) (Tubi) - In this 2011 flick, Dominic Purcell plays the titular(heh) "escapee", who becomes obsessed with Evangetlista's co-ed after seeing her in the prison for the criminally insane (too long to explain).
    Of course, Purcell then proceeds to break out nuthouse for violent felons and slowly proceeds to track Evangetlista down (and seems to benefit from insanely lucky coincidences).
    This flick co-stars:
    - Melissa Ordway, when she was also still young and incredibly hott - it amuses me that Ordway spends about half her time in this film in her skivvies! (Gah! Ordway, who is still on Y&R, is now 41 ILR!!  :S  ) And,
    - Carly Chaikin - it amazes me that Ordway gets third-billing in this film over Chaikin, when Chaikin is in the film a lot more - but Chaikin was only 21 at the time and was just starting out when this was made, while Ordway was 28 (Evangetlista was around 25) and Ordway was already somewhat established having appeared in "17 Again" and having recurred on WB's "Privileged" and the "Melrose Place" reboot before this film was made. (Chaikin hasn't appeared in anything since 2022 - has she really hung it up at the ripe old age of 30?!!)
    Anyway, this also wasn't very good (though better than "Darkroom"), but was so chock full of hotties that it easily passed the time for me. Once again, the ending was unsatisfying and inconclusive (possibly setting up a sequel that never came?...).
Underground (2011) (Tubi) - Of the three films, this was the best horror-thriller in that it pretty quickly ratchets up the suspense and sense of dread and doesn't really let up.
    I suspect this one was made before "Escapee", despite also being released in 2011 - Evangetlista who should be fourth-billed based on character prominence is instead sixth-billed in this, so this must have been made earlier in her career.
    Fun fact: This film "introduces" Inbar Lavi!! (Lavi would have been about 25 at the time), though Lavi's actually barely in this film.
    This opens with a sequence in which a military assault team enters the tunnels below an abandoned military base to eliminate some "deadly (humanoid) creatures" - but the team is utterly wiped out by the monsters.
    Two years later, a rave is getting thrown on the same abandoned military base. (FTR, this was filmed in Netwon, Iowa - I have no idea if an old army base is there, though the Maytag Dairy Farms are!...)
    Three ex-vets (Ross Thomas! (I forgot about him!!), Adrian R'Mante, and Sofia Pernas(!! this must be very early in her career! I didn't know she went back this far!!) and various young hot-to-trot YOUTs! (Evangetlista, Jeff D'Agostino and Hayley Goldstein credited as "Hayley Knight", among them) are at the rave to party(!). But the vets get into a fight with some gangbangers, and are chased into the same tunnels that the assault team were slaughtered in and are locked in. So the vets and YOUTs! must travel deeper into the tunnels to find a way out.
    It's not long before they come across the homicidal creatures who start picking them off one-by-one.
    This wasn't deep, and the premise ends up being ridiculous, but it's a decent "run for your lives (in the tunnels)!" ride. As per usual, I didn't care for the inconclusive ending.
    P.S. Evangetlista's death scene was the most horrific of the bunch.  :/
What did you watch?