Jim first solo short dives into Nick Frost’s terrifying taxi thriller ‘Black Cab’ on this week’s Streamin’ Demons, awarding it 4/5 Cthulhus. Discover why this nail-biting British horror deserves your attention. Spoiler-free review.
(4 / 5)
Black Cab review Transcript:
00:01.17
Jim Phoenix
Everyone Jim Phoenix here and today’s stream and demons. This is definitely not take 18. By the way, we are doing a small stream and demons. One of the solo shows. We’ve been teasing this for a while because sometimes brandic is at a convention. Sometimes I am. But those movies keep coming in. And for our solo stream and demons, we’re focusing only on what’s current. but We’re not doing deep dives and older films. This is the new and what is absolutely current.
00:32.66
Jim Phoenix
And do I have a surprise for a very first one? I’ve been sitting on this screener for some time now. And if you read the title, it’s not a surprise. Just read the title of the podcast you’re viewing, really. But we’re going to do Nick Frost’s Black Cab, a shutter original, all this nut and next demon demons.
01:05.19
Jim Phoenix
and We’re not going to play the entire thing. You know, I miss the banter I do. You know, there’s no one else to do that with me. mr Yeah. I know. During that banter, I’ll get Rise of the Drow, the collector’s edition. You can actually kill someone with from AAW games. Love it. Coming soon as a review, by the way. Spoiler alert, five out of five.
01:32.62
Jim Phoenix
Oh, wait, we’re back. Hey, kids, a year one. That’s actually day 11. Wow. I’m ripping off Letterman in my very first show. Good for me. All right. So today it’s just me. Don’t change. Don’t change. Don’t touch that dial. You do not touch that dial. I’ll use my sexy voice if I have to. But you were not going to touch that dial on our very first mini stream and demons. We’ve got black cab.
02:01.08
Jim Phoenix
with Nick Frost. It came out this year, it came out this month. What am I talking about? It came out a couple of days ago on Shutter. It’s a Shutter original and I’m gonna read off the IMDB. A couple who find their Jovio cab driver, diverse them into a remote haunted road, revealing disturbing motives and his true intentions. If you don’t understand that this is a Nick Frost movie, it’s horror and it’s really well done.
02:31.02
Jim Phoenix
This is written by Virginia Gilbert and IMDB gave it a little bit of a toss, which is weird. Usually ah myself and IMDB are kind of on the same spot on this. But here we go. I think I will give the IMDB the best review so far, apparently. It’s like I’m a taxicab driver, so I wanted to watch a movie, but I didn’t Google it first.
02:59.75
Jim Phoenix
if If you are a Tastic Cab driver and you’re like, oh, Black Cab, it must be about me. I don’t know. I can’t help you. I can’t help you. What I can help you right now is the setup and the premise for Black Cab is great. From the moment the picture actually starts to roll, the psychological drama starts.
03:25.99
Jim Phoenix
And it’s only an hour, 24 minutes. So it’s it’s actually a pretty tight movie. I will give you some spoiler free reviews because there’s something in act three that didn’t work for me. So I’m going to parse that out as a spoiler free review, because this is brand new. It’s on shutter. If you don’t have shutter and you’re a horror fan, why the hell don’t you have shutter? Honestly, if you have like five bucks, wherever much it is, don’t quote me at five bucks. No more. I have no idea how much shutter it costs anymore.
03:54.75
Jim Phoenix
And you got to spend it. Well, you’re going to spend it on like another Winnie a Pooh latte from Star Fox. No, you’re going to go to Shutter and you’re going to put the streamline and Joe Bob Briggs, whatever it’s going to be and get all this cool Shutter originals like Black Cab. This is worth it alone. Think about this. It’s like renting a movie, writing a movie once a month pays for your subscription at Shutter. Do it thus. Thank you, Shutter. Oh, wait, wait. They just texted me. OK, cool. The money’s in the bank.
04:24.24
Jim Phoenix
But for real, I don’t know what else I can say about this movie other than if you’re a Nick Frost fan, it’s all you need to know. And if you’re not, don’t read the IMDB. If if you’re not a Nick Frost fan, don’t read the IMDB. Go directly to Shutter and start watching it. It is a mix of practical and like spooky, spooky looks like Luba CGI. and But not enough to really throw you off. This story is not this big fantastical CGI ride. No pun intended. It’s scary because. You could probably feel parts of this being real. Meaning. The beginning where the abusive guy is the abusive guy, right? And of course, the controlling his his wife or soon to be a wife or a girlfriend.
05:19.28
Jim Phoenix
into getting one cab, they know ah the mail, I’m in the mail, stuff like that. That’s all gross. And I love how they did the dinner party because it feels real. It feels real and it sets up the characters really well. And you have a flashback prior to this.
05:38.18
Jim Phoenix
that will actually fit in when you watch the rest of the movie. So you have to piece a bit of it together. So maybe that’s why people didn’t really love too much of the editing because yeah, you do have to piece a bit of this together. It’s not hard. They kind of do it for you in the movie. I mean, if you can’t pay attention for more than. Kidding. Just paying making sure you’re paying attention. I’m paying attention. You’re paying attention. You know who else got to be paying attention?
06:07.49
Jim Phoenix
Wrong one. I should be paying attention. I want to say baby Yoda. Baby Yoda. I’ll just do it myself. So you you have this thing and you are getting into a cab after a bad night out. And it’s England or whatever city or small town or it’s an Uber driver or whatever it’s going to be. And the point is you’re trapped with a monster and you think the monster is your significant other. And they probably are a bit of a dick.
06:35.01
Jim Phoenix
But you realize that the cabbie, this is not spoiling the movie whatsoever. I mean, it’s actually in the damn log line. You know, is he mad or just plain evil? That’s actually the synopsis from Shutter. You see this and it’s really not quite stranger danger. Because we think cab drivers aren’t strangers to us. And yet we get in. We.
07:02.39
Jim Phoenix
don’t know their driving background. We don’t know who they are really. We know they’re providing a service and really the only thing that separates us from them is that small piece of plexiglass or if you’re in an Uber nothing whatsoever. So it preys on those fears of the familiar yet the unknown. And I think that does really well. And the acting, by the way, is phenomenal. There’s there’s no one, they’re like, oh, it’s a bad that’s a bad acting job. No, no one’s gonna say that if they attack the acting, they’re just wrong. I’m sorry. You’ve got, beyond Nick Frost alone, can carry this movie. And he doesn’t have to. That’s the cool thing about it. Nick Frost could carry this movie, but he doesn’t have to.
07:46.77
Jim Phoenix
You know, Chanel Carlson does a fantastic job as Ann. And you have people that you absolutely will hate in this movie. And Nick Frost ain’t one of them, really weird. it i Because he’s, you know, the antagonist for us.
08:03.06
Jim Phoenix
But this is where the story kind of gets convoluted. And this is where act three, I think. So I think, you know, act one is great. The setup’s awesome. They spring in the two. That’s amazing. I love it. I love the isolation. He’s taken people from the downtown city center all the way through like this isolated country. You know, we we know the fear of going out to the countryside because no one can hear you scream. Oh, that’s whatever. No one can hear you scream in the countryside either. Trust me.
08:31.44
Jim Phoenix
like
08:35.75
Jim Phoenix
We have the psychological happen. And we start seeing a little bit why Nick Frost’s character is doing what he does. And you’re almost sympathetic for a while. You start sympathizing with the bad guy. Because you realize if you were in his situation, would you do anything differently? Would you do anything differently? And it’s not like he’s just doing this on a whim.
09:06.18
Jim Phoenix
there’s actually something compelling him to do this a pretty decent reason. And if you take away the supernatural part of it all, bring it down. I’m not going to spoil the movie, but bring out the supernatural and bring it down to the very human elements, the very human elements. If this was you in a Nick Frost situation with things happening that you could rationally explain. So not supernatural. So a rational explanation.
09:37.59
Jim Phoenix
And that’s really hard to say without giving it away. And you had the decision to make someone else like pay for it, would you? How how far are you gonna protect your own world versus someone else’s? At what point do you just go eff it? At what point do you become that monster?
10:05.59
Jim Phoenix
And I think each of us has to answer that ourselves. And I think Black Cab poses the question beautifully. It really does. Because if you’re like me, you actually start thinking like, man, I don’t think I’ll do the anything differently. you know So you have the acting great, the writing, the premise is great. The premise and the premise is great, right?
10:29.38
Jim Phoenix
You have the setup is fine, the act one is smooth, act two goes well, act three, it derails. Notice, I didn’t say derails and cars the car crash and burns up in flame. I just said it derails, and I don’t know if this is editing, I don’t know if this is part of the writing at the end, I don’t have the script in front of me. Although that’ll be pretty damn interesting. I don’t know, but something happened where the audience has to fill in a significant gap.
10:59.57
Jim Phoenix
And it’s like, well, what the actual fuck? Oh, by the way, I swear on this one anyway, motherfuckers. So I don’t. Think that works for the ending. Which is what some people are. are Also, this is one thing I will agree with and with IMDB. They give an eye for incomplete, like one guy is giving an eye for incomplete, the cabbie, the cab guy.
11:25.25
Jim Phoenix
And you’re like, well, you’re right. It’s and I don’t I think that’s too a little too harsh to say it’s incomplete, but it’s not an incomplete movie. I think just something happened in Act three. That we’re not exactly sure about. We’re not exactly fine with. It’s just.
11:47.08
Jim Phoenix
you know, like the the set designs, the ambience, the music, everything is great. It’s just, damn, act three just kind of like derails it, it does. But I could be wrong, and maybe this dude on IMDB who I’m not, Red Robin 62, oh my God, there’s a bunch of numbers, fuck it. Red Robin’s also could be wrong, who knows? We might be wrong.
12:13.30
Jim Phoenix
Maybe we’t not ah one way to find out, hour 24, it’s worth it. Cthulhu rating, you already know it, four out of five. Four out of five kafoolos, if the act three landed, it’ll be a 4.5 and easily a sequel-able movie, depending on who lives and who doesn’t. like though I think the premise is sequel-able, without giving it away, right? I think this could be ah along the lines of ah Woman in Black, Purge, stuff like that. It could you it could be sequel-able to the part where it’s franchisable.
12:51.10
Jim Phoenix
but act three really need to work. and I don’t know what I’m wrong. So four out of five, I’m not gonna drop down on 3.5 because it’s just the the acting and the rest of the story don’t deserve to get lower than four. And that’s it, oh my God, that’s it. A 13 minute streaming demons, holy crow.
13:10.49
Jim Phoenix
All right, next up, we’ve got more. we he He never left. We’ve got some stuff, another video coming out, another movie review. And if you like this format, let me know. We can do a few more of them. Basically, this is just the box and I taking me some time to breathe and movies keep coming in. So if you like this one, let us know. If you hate this one, go fuck yourself. All that and more in the next stream of demons. Wait, what? Hit it.
13:40.96
Jim Phoenix
Meow, meow, meow. And we really are going to start reviewing games, video reviews, which means Jim’s going to be very awkward in them. This game is brilliant, by the way. Rides of Drow. Five out of five.
14:03.00
Jim Phoenix
Meow, meow, meow, meow.
14:09.97
Jim Phoenix
Do we have to listen to the entire thing? I guess so.
14:20.11
Jim Phoenix
Do you hear, Kat? Yeah, motherfucker.
We’ve reached the final episode of American Horror Stories, season three. After the ups and downs of the season, I didn’t know what to expect. I felt that we were due a big finish, Killer Queens. But I feared we were in for a big letdown.
As it turns out, The Thing Under The Bed was neither.
The story
We begin our story with a little girl named Mary, who is scared of something under her bed. She sneaks out of her room, only to be caught by her father and sent back to sleep. And of course, there is something horrible waiting for her under her bed.
This scene cuts away to a woman named Jillian. She has strange dreams, including one about Mary. But her husband, Mark, doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s only interested in a little lovemaking because he wants a baby. Jillian doesn’t, which makes total sense because she’s already married to one. But her irritation with her childish husband goes away when he goes away. And by goes away, I mean he’s sloppily devoured by something vicious under their bed.
What worked
In short, this episode just worked. The acting was professional and believable. The cinematography and lighting work were wonderful, adding spooky effects and startling moments without impairing visibility.
Best of all, the story was solid. There were no plotholes to be found. Our main character, Jillian, was relatable and sympathetic.
This was maybe my favorite part of the story. I thought Jillian was a remarkably sympathetic character. She was dealt a hand she never asked for, having her husband slaughtered in their bedroom. I don’t think she missed him, so much as she was afraid of the legal ramifications of being caught with literal blood on her hands.
Then, when it would have been safest for her to just lay low and save up for a good defense attorney, she instead goes into unlikely hero mode. She does her best to save people, putting herself in legal and physical danger. It’s hard not to root for her.
It’s also a little hard not to root for the antagonist, too. I don’t want to ruin the twist for you, so I’m going to tread lightly here. But it’s great when you have an antagonist who might be off their rocker, but also maybe has a point.
What didn’t work
I can only really think of one complaint with this episode. And that is how frequently one character says the word Chickadee. And if you’ve seen the episode, you know what I am talking about.
I get it, he has a pet name for his daughter. It’s adorable. It’s meant to convey that the two of them have a healthy loving relationship and I get it. We all get it. Blind monks get it. But the fact remains that no parent on Earth calls their kid by their pet name every single time they speak an individual sentence to them. It was just too damn much.
All in all, this was a good episode. It was a classic story, turned on its head, told by professionals from start to finish. And I hope that if there is another season, we see more stories like this one. But after the efforts put into this season at large, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last we see of American Horror Stories.
(4 / 5)
If you’ve watched enough short-form horror anthology shows, you’ll notice that some stories are mainstays. Each show seems to put on the same sort of episodes, with the occasional surprising storyline that we’ve never (or at least rarely) seen before.
Leprechaun was an example of a repeated story—the story of a greedy thief whose punishment far outweighs the crime.
The story
We begin our story in 1841, with a drunk man leaving the bar one late night. He’s distracted by something glowing at the end of the well. When he reaches down for the glowing thing, he falls in. Moments later, he screams.
We then cut to the modern day. The well is still there, and now it’s surrounded by a dying town. In this town lives a young man named Colin. He’s married, his wife is pregnant, and he’s out of work. Like many of his friends.
Desperate for cash, Colin and his friends decide to rob a bank. They put together an Equate version of Ocean’s Eleven, and break in one night. But, of course, they find that the gold is nothing more than bait. And the creature waiting for them is something they never expected.
What worked
The first thing I want to point out is how real this episode felt. At least to anyone currently living in the same small town they grew up in. These characters felt like guys I went to school with. Guys I would see at the bar.
I appreciated the real anger and frustration these characters are feeling. Especially Colin. He’s bitter, and maybe he has a right to be. He did exactly what he was supposed to do to succeed. He went to school and invested in his career, and yet now he’s out of work and struggling to support his family. I probably don’t need to tell you how that feels. Because of this, we can all kind of understand why he was tempted to rob a bank.
I also want to talk about the fact that this was, as I said, an often-explored story. That can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. This story is told over and over because it’s a good story. A relatable story. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What didn’t work
That being said, this version didn’t try to do much to break out of the mold.
Because we have seen this story so many times, most of us could tell the story themselves. I would have expected something new, or some twist. But, in the end, the story didn’t bring anything new to the discussion.
Maybe because of this, the ending left a lot to be desired. Trapped in the basement of the bank, everyone just sort of stares at everyone else, until the thieves give up. And that’s it. The ending wasn’t scary, shocking, or funny. It was just sad, on multiple levels.
Overall, this was an okay story. It was entertaining, if not surprising. I would compare this episode to homemade macaroni and cheese. Everyone’s got their own version, they’re all pretty good, and none of them are exciting.
There’s just one episode left in this season of American Horror Stories. Let’s hope they’ve saved the best for last.
(3.5 / 5)
Those religious icons really get around. This time it’s a journey to visit the Deep Ones. And Dracula’s Castle. Because everyone has to be a tourist now and then, and what’s the point if you don’t pick up a souvenir or two?
This was a gift for a friend for their sea life monster theme bathroom. It started as one of those old school wood plaques where the picture is waxed on. And the eyes were originally that creepy – all I did was add the tentacles. So don’t blame the overall weirdness on me, it wasn’t all my doing.
Oh, and apparently Mary wanted in on the action, so she’s gone to Dracula’s Castle for a bite. She even brought back her own religious icons souvenirs…
So this one isn’t as old, nor is it real wood. But it still totally goes with Mary’s journey. And it’s also a little blacklight reactive with the flowers.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
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