Author: Megan Vodrey

Outer Banks Season 4 (2024)

Netflix Originals

SPOILERS AHEAD.

I’m an Outer Banks fan against my will. Seriously. I avoided this shit like the PLAGUE for 3 years. I just knew it was another teen show I was bound to get addicted to and now look what happened. At the age of 27, teen shows and books are still my bread and butter. What can I say – who actually wants to grow up?

I’d like to say I was surprised at how much I liked the first season, but I can’t say that. It’s like it was tailor-made for me. It had stereotypes, it had a good soundtrack, badly written dialogue and teens played by adults pushing 30… what more could I ask for? Although I think the first season was genuinely good TV, if not completely insane, as a whole I’d put the show in the “so bad it’s good” category which is absolutely not a criticism – but I’m not going to talk about the show as a whole here. I’m going to talk about the raging dumpster fire that is Season 4.

It’s safe to say, the fun is over. Sure, this season had its moments of cringe and silliness. I’m not going to sit here and say there weren’t parts that had me howling with laughter at how bad they were, but it’s not a joke anymore, it’s SERIOUS. Am I problematic for loving JJ? Am I even more problematic for him being only my favourite over my other favourite, Rafe? That’s for me to think about. I loved JJ, and from the looks of the OBX Subreddit, everyone else did too. I lost interest in John B after the first season (and after I read a blind item about Chase Stokes getting his fake tan everywhere at the Met Gala – you can judge me, I’m a toxic culture vulture), Sarah is for sure adorable, I like Cleo and Pope and sometimes even Kiara! But alas, none possess the undeniable rizz of Rudy Pankow’s JJ.

There’s lots of salacious gossip going on right now about his character’s horrendous death scene in the Season 4 finale – a scene that had me doubled over in tears and gasping for air (yes, I am crazy). People are speculating that this death scene was a result of Rudy Pankow asking to be written off the show due to unspecified “beef” with Madison Bailey (Kiara). This stuff is neither here nor there for me. If it’s true, it’s sad, but it doesn’t really matter. That they killed him off was unbelievable, even worse was how they did it. If Pankow really did ask to be written off, there’s not a lot the writers could do I suppose – it was always going to be a disaster for this show – but perhaps a more thoughtful, less brutal write-off would have upset the fans a little less. I’m no stranger to crying at TV shows, in fact I’m a seasoned crier, but this really was a gut-punch. As many others have said, despite his assholery, JJ was the heart of the show. He had that vulnerable bad-boy quality that all the girls LOVE – without being an actual murderer (looking at you, Rafe).

The show just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not escapism anymore.. it feels a bit too real. The group have no money to speak of, they’re about to become homeless, Pope is a criminal, oh! and Sarah is pregnant. It kind of puts some of my own issues under the microscope. I am also poor and irresponsible. Can’t I just go to a place where my own adult problems aren’t reflected back at me?!? I just want to fantasise for a moment that I’m carefree and hunting for treasure.

I think Outer Banks should have stayed in its lane – it just doesn’t stand up with all this emotional heft. It used to be good old-fashioned fun, teen romance, teen drinking, teens who have a problem with authority, escape scenes, etc. The writing is too bad for most of it to be taken seriously and I really don’t mean that in a bad way – the show was an absolute hoot to watch. Never have I laughed so much at virtually everything that happened in Season 3. It was fun!!!! JJ’s death wasn’t fun, and didn’t make sense narratively. It goes against the whole message of the show, or so I thought. This show is about sticking it to the MAN, and you’re telling me that the character who arguably had it the hardest was killed by said MAN?!? It has alienated a lot of people, including me, but as I said, teen shows are my bread and butter… and who really wants to grow up?

You can watch Outer Banks on Netflix. Watch at your own risk, though. 4 seasons of fun and chaos just died with JJ.

Saltburn (2022)

Uncategorized

*There will be some spoilers.

Saltburn. What did I think of Saltburn?

Honestly, I still don’t know. I’ve only watched it all the way through once, but I think any more watches and my judgment may be clouded due to the insane amount of Saltburn content on Tik Tok.

Here’s the thing. I liked it, I liked it… but did I love it? I don’t think so. I’ll be frank, I’m not overly keen on Barry Keoghan. That’s not to say I don’t think he’s absolutely brilliant, but I just don’t like him. This is possibly due to my boyfriend showing me a deeply upsetting clip of his turn as the Joker in Robert Pattinson’s Batman. I do not like Batman, but I’m not going to go into the details of why. All jokes aside, Keoghan is fantastically creepy and went all out for Saltburn. The only other complaint I have about him (I apologise to all the Barry Keoghan girlies, I love you all) is that this man does not look like a uni student. He’s just too weathered and too adult, and that is absolutely not an insult. He looks his age, as he should!!

Anyway, back to the film, because I’m a complete idiot apparently, and despite the fact I had a feeling Keoghan’s Oliver was going to turn bad, I felt so sorry for him at the start of the film. I really felt for him. I felt for him so much that while watching the little montage of his friendship with Felix growing, the parties, “deep” chats, etc., I was in TEARS. I remember what it was like starting university, which was terrifyingly almost ten years ago for me. Everything feels so intense, scary, exhilarating, miserable. I remember the feeling of realising I’d been accepted, for the most part. What a f***ing feeling. I think that little montage might have been my favourite part of the film, therefore I was disappointed (but not surprised) at the sh*tshow that followed.

The first half of the film is extremely slow. Stuff is happening, of course, but not really happening. I feel like the main aim of the first half is to establish Oliver (complete bollocks, of course) as a shy and retiring working class bloke who is accepted into hot-rich-boy-with-an-eyebrow-piercing Felix’s fold. I didn’t really question that this was the truth before the car scene. I thought it was going to be an eat-the-rich thing. Anyway, in terms of plot, what follows was not really surprising to me. They cleverly showed Oliver sinking his teeth into these overly trusting, quirky rich people one by one. It’s nicely done, I liked it. The chaos that takes place at Saltburn was an understated kind of chaos, mostly very British and polite.

I was surprised by all the discourse about the bathtub scene – yeah, it’s gross but is it really that bad?! More offensive was possibly the grave scene, but I found this faintly amusing more than anything else. Everyone’s saying it, and they’re right, Barry Keoghan gave it his all and for this I must commend him. Shoutout to his strange hybrid accent also, which I did not notice once during the film until some friends of mine mentioned it during a rewatch of some clips. When I got to the last part, I kind of just accepted the murders because, again, I saw it coming. This dude is creepy. The Catton’s all die in *mysterious* circumstances and Oliver takes over the house. That’s it. It wasn’t underwhelming, but I wasn’t blown away. This dude was on his friend’s grave BUTT-NAKED, what did you expect?

Onto the actors. Firstly I would like to mention one of my favourite famous humans to walk the earth who is always insanely excited to be doing anything at all, Richard E. Grant. He was just perfect for this film, a complete oddball offset perfectly by Rosamund Pike who was the real star of the show for me. She had some excellent one-liners. I’ve never been a huge fan of Jacob Elordi but I feel more favourable towards him after Saltburn. In comparison to his other characters, Felix seemed quite sweet. Alison Oliver was good also but didn’t blow me away, and Archie Madekwe made Farleigh remarkably annoying to watch which I believe is the point.

For me one of the main draws of this film is how it looks. It’s gorgeous, sumptuous, effortlessly cool. I didn’t come away thinking how profound it all was, but I don’t know if that was the point. The word I’d use to describe Saltburn is fun. The soundtrack was excellent – Murder on the Dancefloor is an earworm from my childhood school discos – and the costumes were extremely Halloween costume-worthy. I don’t want to say the film is over-hyped, but I think a lot of the hype is over things that were included probably for shock value more than anything else. Would we all be talking about it so feverishly if Oliver hadn’t been drinking bathwater and gyrating naked on his mate’s place of rest? I liked that stuff, but I’m not sure how much is really going on beneath the surface. Overall, Saltburn was a bit of fun. Sexy people, good music, boujie mansion, pervy bathwater-drinking, and a few murders.

Maybe the point of the film was the naked dancing scene at the end, and if it was, sign me up. I could do a rewatch.

*if you have Amazon Prime, you can watch this for free. Barry Keoghan girlies, thank me later.

The Lion in the House

Documentaries

This is a difficult film to write about. I don’t feel like I’ll be able to do it justice, but I want to talk about it anyway. I’ve had some horrified reactions from family and friends when I’ve recommended this documentary. Everyone thinks I’m weird for willingly watching a film about paediatric cancer, but I don’t agree. I absolutely understand why a lot of people would want to avoid it; to be honest, it’s heartbreaking – but I think there’s a lot to learn from it. It’s in two parts and both parts are two hours long so it’s pretty hefty stuff, especially considering it’s subject matter. It’s emotionally exhausting to watch so I wouldn’t advise watching it all in one sitting, but there is so much to take away from this beautiful film.

We’re introduced to five kids living in Ohio, all suffering from cancer. There’s Tim, Justin, Alexandra, Jen and Alex. We get a close look at their lives, their families and their personalities and get to know each of them well enough that when something bad happens, it is utterly devastating. Although the film is centered around one of the most terrifying things that can happen to a family and there’s a lot of sorrow, there are light-hearted moments too and the film is incredibly matter-of-fact. They don’t try to hide anything; so much of it is uncomfortable, painful and difficult to watch and we see some truly harrowing moments, but this only highlights the courage of both the children and the parents. Obviously every single person in this documentary is unforgettable, but Alexandra’s mother is a real stand-out. She manages to deal with an unimaginable situation with humour and honesty and always does her best to advocate for her daughter. We hear from the children’s doctors and nurses too, and learn about the difficulties and rewards of working on a children’s cancer ward. A hard-hitting moment in the film is when, during a briefing, a doctor reads out an excerpt from Albert Camus’ The Plague in lieu of a talk on Leukemia which accurately describes the horror of watching children suffering and perhaps explains why some medical professionals devote themselves to the care of these patients.

This is a beautifully made, honest film. It’s stayed with me since the first day I watched it and I genuinely feel that it’s changed me as a person. One of the reasons myself and so many others watch documentaries is because they open our minds to lives completely different to our own and help us build empathy. This film does just that, and although it’s a hard watch it’s really important. It gave me an understanding and appreciation for how humans cope in some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable. These stories need to be heard, so I’m going to keep talking about it.

Watch The Lion in the House on Neftlix

You (season 3, 2021)

Netflix Originals

Please don’t read this if you haven’t finished it – I really don’t want to be responsible for giving you spoilers. They have been kept to a minimum but just to be safe. Also, please enjoy this frankly creepy photo of Penn Badgley that I had to use because Netflix don’t want to give me anything for free.

It’s 1.40am and I just finished season 3 of Netflix’s You. I’m feverishly writing this from my bed; feverish partly because of how f****** fantastic the finale was, and partly because someone in my house tested positive for Covid and I’m pretty sure it’s coming for me next. (Note: it did, in fact, come for me next – I’m holed up in my bed two days later losing my sanity rapidly). What better way to spend my evening? Especially since I can’t sleep due to excessive sneezing.

I teased this season out for as long as humanly possible, mainly in rebellion because it’s ridiculously addictive. To put it very simply, it was f***** insane, in the best possible way. I’m a huge fan of anything so bad it’s good, so You has always been one of my top choices for something truly outrageous that’s perfect to make fun of when I need to flex my improvisational comedy skills. The thing is, I can’t be absolutely sure, but has this show now become so good it’s good? It was very difficult to tell during this heady season of television. Towards the end I gave up on my not-bingeing rule and just powered through to the best finale episode I could ever have asked for. I mean really, it was *chef’s kiss* true perfection. I was very involved. 

I have a few niggles I would like to get out of the way first. The glaringly obvious one (to me at least) would be that Ellie – the adorable precocious teenager whose sister Love murdered in the last season – should never have been mentioned at all if they weren’t going to consistently include her throughout the season. There was a half-hearted attempt to show that Joe was still helping her by stealing library books at his new job to fix up and sell so he could send her cash. This would be fine but after like episode 3 there was literally no mention of this or Ellie again. I hate storylines that just go missing and it just seemed unnecessary to bring her up. Similarly, Forty. In the first half of the season, Forty was brought up constantly. Forty is Love and Joe’s son Henry’s middle name, so Love was calling him Forty and Love’s crazy mum was also calling him Forty and overall there was just a lot of Forty talk. Love and her mother were both clearly still obsessed with him and struggling with the loss, but all it took was for Love to have a drunken conversation with his ghost in the bath for her to be over it and announcing she needed to move on? Really? Y’all are just going to decide to “move on” and he will never be mentioned again? Not passing judgement on anyone’s healing but that doesn’t sound very healthy to me. To make these complaints a little more concise, I wish they had taken a little more time with both of these plot points. It looks a little like they were being careless just trying to make room for more moving parts – which this season has a healthy amount of. 

A final complaint before I get to the good stuff would be Marienne as a character. Tati Gabrielle who plays her is lovely in every way but I felt like they didn’t give her much to work with. I couldn’t really describe her personality because they didn’t give her much complexity and she deserves better. Despite its’ trashy exterior, I feel like this programme tries to give a good message and tackles issues of abuse pretty well when it comes to Joe’s experience, so why can’t we see more of Marienne’s story? Maybe I’m giving You too much credit but I don’t like to dismiss it as pure shite because I think they’re actually trying to tell some heartfelt stories. I say that, and then Joe murders like ten more people so maybe I’m completely off-base. There is a lot of killing this time around…. like, a lot.

In terms of what’s good about this abhorrent/amazing mess, I would like to first commend whoever did the soundtrack because it is dope. Now that I have done that, I will proceed to discuss the rest of it which is overwhelming. The flashback scenes of Joe’s childhood were somehow even more heartbreaking this season, and I genuinely cried a few times. No, I am not an insane Joe Goldberg stan who thinks he is hot and loves the way he stalks people and steals their underwear and murders their best friends, etc., but I appreciate a good backstory and a deep dive into a character’s psychology. The people who make You have created a true enigma in Joe and he’s even more complex this season as we see more of his past. I cannot bring myself to dislike him; I actually kind of love him and not in an OMG he is so cute kind of way. In the little world they have created, Mr Goldberg going around killing people and hiding their bodies just kind of makes sense. We’re not really sensitive to the horror of it – he’s so single-minded and we’re literally in his head so it makes it kind of hard to get any perspective, and it’s genius. I would argue he’s an absolutely perfect character and I cannot imagine anyone better than Penn Badgeley playing him. He’s just so likeable and so evil and it’s all really confusing. 

Love is just pure chaos personified and seeing the couples’ separate plots playing out parallel to each other was entertaining. I liked how the status of their relationship was constantly changing; it played into that whole idea we see a lot in TV and film now, that people aren’t either good or bad but often a bit of both. The swinging storyline was legitimately hilarious and Sherry and her husband were just the right amount of ridiculous and actually cute in an ironic sort of way. Love’s mother is also a hot mess of epic proportions and adds some spice to the proceedings, and I would like to shout out Dante and Lansing for being wholesome as f***. While I’m gushing, I will also say the drugging saga of Joe and Love was just insanely good. While some people might have been scoffing at how insane the whole thing was, I was reacting just how they wanted me to; squealing with excitement and shock and giving in to the mindf*** that is this programme. The end was utter madness and that’s all I can say – I’m still processing. 

I won’t say any more about it because part of the joy of this programme is that you really don’t need to think too hard; in fact it’s probably best if you don’t. Thanks for reading; I wolf you.

Go watch this amazing trash on Netflix.

Me Before You (2016)

Films

Wtf did you just do, Me Before You???? What are you actually doing?? This film is a hot mess. There is not one minute of it that’s not completely contrived, shallow and ridiculous. Saying that, I enjoyed it wholeheartedly. My sister put this on a few nights ago and I was immediately hooked. She wasn’t too happy with me by the end due to my incessant quipping, but it was just too silly to leave alone.

I’d first like to say that Emilia Clarke is, of course, adorable. I always enjoy her, and she was lovely in her role here as manic pixie dream girl Lou. Unfortunately, Emilia didn’t get a chance to show any range at all because this film is a fluffy, saccharine shit show. She gets angry well, but when it comes to tears she’s not very convincing, and when even the characters can’t bring themselves to genuine emotion at the admittedly sad-but-badly executed story line, there’s not much hope for the audience (with the exception of my sister who started crying before the saddest bit even happened). Back to Lou, I’m not sure she has much more going on than just being quirky, which is a shame because Emilia seems to be typecast nowadays as characters of varying levels of manic pixie. Can we give her something decent to work with, please?

Sam Claflin is also good here, but as a testament to how woke we have all become, my first comment upon seeing him was “why didn’t they cast a quadriplegic actor?” and the question still stands. We need more representation for people with disabilities!!! This is one of those things I struggle to unsee nowadays. Aside from this, Will is fine as a character and Claflin and Clarke are cute enough together. The main problem I had with the film was the lack of development of any of the relationships we are meant to care about. Will goes from despising Lou and her perky personality to being pretty f****** chummy with her after they watch a film together on a rainy day. Before we know it, she’s sitting on his knee while he spins around the dance floor in his wheelchair. I just didn’t believe it, so I couldn’t take it seriously. There’s no real basis to their bond – they’re just around each other a lot and for this reason we’re expected to believe they’re head over heels in love? Then, Lou’s supposedly close relationship with her family. They want to show us a super tight-knit, quirky family and again I just didn’t believe it, especially at the end when Lou made a decision she knew would upset them deeply and we never saw any of them again or found out what happened. It just made no sense at all and it was disappointing. So, she just sacked off her entire family for someone she’s known for a few months, not giving a shit about their feelings? Nah. Without spoiling anything, the ethics of what Will arguably did to Lou are also completely skated over. All I could think when he did his big reveal on their nice holiday was wow you’re kind of a dickhead??? Why let her get involved with you??? It just didn’t sit well with me. This is a very sensitive subject, and it wasn’t handled super well in my opinion.

A couple of quick notes – Lou’s outfits were adorable, but there was rather too much Ed Sheeran for my liking. Also, I know Patrick was kind of a dick but did anyone else feel sorry for him? Like what the f*** happened there??

There’s not much more to say about this film. It is highly entertaining and superbly cheesy and kind of cute in some parts. Usually I’m a sucker for a love story and it doesn’t take a lot to make me cry, but I was dry-eyed on this occasion. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be a girl watching a ridiculous film with somebody way more emotionally invested than I was, just a few minutes more.

*you can watch this on Netflix. I know this isn’t a rave review, but go and see it anyway. It’s a good way to piss away an evening.

Life is Strange (PC/Playstation/Xbox) (2015)

Video games

I’d be a fraud if I didn’t write about this game at some point. I feel the need to spread the word; it’s so amazing that I’ve thought about it every few days since I first played it about 4 years ago now. I wouldn’t call myself an avid gamer mainly because I don’t have my own console and my shit computer is so loaded up with every Sims 4 expansion ever made that it can’t handle having anything more than one extra game on it (goodbye Skyrim), BUT if the choice is video games or TV the majority of the time I’m going to pick games. This means my boyfriend has had to endure, amongst other things, the absolute belter that is L.A. Noire which I will probably have to talk about in about 6 installments because of it’s tedious length. Life is Strange, though, is utterly perfect in every way – and that is taking into consideration one of the only complaints you can really have about this stunning game which is that the mouths don’t always move in time to the voices. I honestly have never been bothered by this, but I’m writing this review now because they’re re-releasing the game with improved graphics and facial motion capture in Autumn this year.

I’ll talk about the gameplay first. It’s in third person and some might say it’s more like an interactive story. Granted, there are a lot of cut-scenes, but more often than not these are interactive in that you can make decisions for the heroine Max. It’s separated into 5 episodes which I like; as someone who gets very emotionally invested, playing the game without these little breaks would make it overwhelming to say the least because as the episodes go by, Life is Strange gets a lot darker and more intense. The catalyst of the story is that Max discovers she can rewind time and the time-rewind feature becomes vital to solving puzzles and problems within the game. As a “nosy” girl like Max, my favourite aspect of the game is that so many of the things and people in the environment are interactive, and you can build up a catalogue of information on other people and situations by talking to others and looking at items around the different sets. It’s a challenge to look at literally everything and talk to everyone so you can be as omniscient as possible. The choices you make during discussions and how you interact with objects (a plant in Max’s room for example) change the outcomes of many different aspects of the story – apart from the end. I believe this is a sticking point with a lot of players; no matter how you play the rest of the game, the ultimate decision you have to make is always going to be the same. For me, this isn’t a big deal but its definitely worth mentioning. The soundtrack is dope, the dialogue is funny and touching and the voice acting is very good. Critics have disputed this and some don’t like the writing but I will always advocate for this game

In terms of story, Life is Strange is *hella* good. It would be incredible just as a film or TV programme, but taking part in the action and influencing Max’s actions and personality makes it so much more personal. The story takes place in a little town called Arcadia Bay in Oregon and the majority of the action happens in and around Blackwell Academy where Max boards. I don’t want to give too much away about the story because I wouldn’t want to ruin it. If you go in blind, there are so many surprises, but essentially Max saves a girl (her childhood best friend) from being shot with her newly acquired time rewind power and foresees a storm that will destroy Arcadia Bay. There’s also a missing party girl and a budding romance with an adorable guy called Warren. It’s kind of like a teen movie but extra dark. There are a lot of moving cogs but they all fit together pretty perfectly by the end. The ending is kind of a mindf*** and home to a truly bizarre stealth sequence. It’s pretty terrific.

I would ruin this perfect game if I said any more about it. All I can say is, go and play it; it will change you. It’s very accessible nowadays – you can buy it in installments on iPhone (not sure about Android), PC, Playstation and Xbox. Oh, and if mouths not matching up to voices annoys you, maybe wait for the re-release – you fake fan.

Escape from Pretoria (2020)

Films

Hi, it’s me again. Obsessive Daniel Radcliffe fangirl. I didn’t plan for this to be a blog consisting exclusively of reviews of films with Daniel Radcliffe in them, but we move. Me and boyfriend watched this one on a whim and it was very fun. It’s on Amazon Prime and it’s pretty front and centre at the moment so it shouldn’t be hard to find. Definitely wouldn’t have watched this one alone- at 23 years old I am still inexplicably drawn to all things pink, sparkly, fluffy, prom, etc.

Escape from Pretoria is based on the true story of three political prisoners who escape from a prison in South Africa. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like; I can’t say I’ve ever watched a prison escape film or TV programme before. Although there were a few moments depicting racism in South Africa during the apartheid, the whole issue was largely ignored and there was a lot more focus on the practicalities of escaping from prison, so if you’re looking for something historical with a lot of contextual stuff, you’re looking in the wrong place. This is quite literally purely about the escape, and that’s not a complaint – it was dope. As exciting as the film was, something that bothered me a little was that it’s a little vague how Tim (Daniel Radcliffe) actually manages to execute the whole escape thing. There’s not much explanation of how the flying f*** he manages to make exact copies of about 7 different keys out of wood.

Apart from this though, the film is just really fun to watch. There’s some mad tense parts where Tim is testing out the keys and things keep going wrong which are pretty good set-ups for the final sequence. The tone of the film is not entirely clear; there are parts that I think are meant to be raucously funny that don’t really land because a lot of it is pretty serious. When they wanted me to laugh I unfortunately just didn’t see the funny side because I was too concerned that my beloved Daniel would get caught and I would have a reaction similar to my ugly crying during Jungle. Still, the attempt is there and is a nice little break from all the palm-sweating.

To conclude, you should go and watch it. You really don’t have anything to lose because its very fun and IMO Daniel’s South African accent really isn’t that bad, but who knows – maybe I’m just a huge fangirl.

PS. read about the story behind the film after you watch it; it is pretty interesting.

*watch on Amazon Prime.

Jungle (2017)

Films

Before I start any discussion on this film, I’d like to state that I will never be watching it again. Not because it was bad, but because I dehydrated myself from crying. I’m definitely open to input from others; am I just a sad and obsessive Daniel Radcliffe/Harry Potter fan? Was it not really that sad? Was my lengthy outburst just part of a lockdown meltdown? Very difficult to tell. It was my boyfriend’s idea to watch it and I don’t know if I can forgive him.

It’s a survival film based on a true story. Daniel plays the Israeli traveler Yossi Ghinsberg who is enthusiastically (recklessly) backpacking in Bolivia, hoping to travel into the Amazon rain forest. This idea proves to be very ill advised to say the least, especially because him and his two new backpacking friends meet a mysterious Austrian man who claims to have superior knowledge about the rain forest and announces he can take them in there to find gold (?) and that’s who they choose as their guide. This is where the action really starts. Some parts of the first half are like an upbeat travel movie and there are wholesome scenes of the foursome meeting and hanging out with some villagers which are pretty pleasant to watch. The thing is that obviously this can’t continue and before we know it the Austrian man, Karl, is shooting a monkey down from a tree for them to roast and eat. He passes Yossi an arm to chew on. Whilst this is all pretty disturbing, the sound effects in this part are OUTRAGEOUS and I managed to find the funny side of what would eventually be a film possibly more upsetting than Titanic.

Things start to go downhill quickly as it comes to light that the lads aren’t very well prepared for the trek. One of the backpackers, Marcus, seems to think loafers are an appropriate choice of footwear for hiking in the forest and as you can imagine this doesn’t really pan out well for him. His feet are absolutely destroyed before long and it starts to become clear that he’s not going to be able to walk the trip as planned. They build a raft to travel down the river, and the American backpacker, Kevin, gets too big for his boots and disobeys Karl’s orders thinking he knows better, putting them all in danger. This is when I started to feel very annoyed. Unsurprisingly, Kevin and Karl have a fall out and Karl announces that he’ll go no further with them; he’s going to do the three day walk back to La Paz. Kevin and Yossi are determined to carry on and it’s decided that there’s no way Marcus can do much more on his broken feet. Subsequently, a frankly ridiculous decision is made; Marcus and Karl will walk back to the village, and Kevin and Yossi will carry on down the river on the raft, having been warned profusely by Karl NOT TO GO INTO THE CANYON BECAUSE IT IS VERY DANGEROUS. (Note: I want to clarify here that whilst researching the true story, it came to light that the film interpretation may not have been completely accurate so I’m not judging any of the real people involved, just the fake ones.)

From here, things go from bad to f****** devastating. Quite obviously, they end up in the canyon and Yossi gets washed up on some rocks with no map or backpack. Saying much more about the plot of the film would ruin it, so I’ll talk about the other things instead. Some critics felt Daniel Radcliffe didn’t have a lot to work with and that he wasn’t able to do much with the material but I think my emotional reaction proves otherwise. If he wasn’t any good and I wasn’t invested in his character’s survival I don’t think I would have been quite as upset as I was. He manages to be utterly heartbreaking and vulnerable one minute and tenacious the next making him a perfect hero, but it can’t be ignored that the entire second half of the film is utter torture porn. So many bad things happen consecutively that as I was watching it I found myself wanting to beg the directors to give him a break. If you like incredibly tense survival films, have no personal connection to Daniel Radcliffe and you’re not upset by gross body stuff (the mangled feet aren’t the only thing to contend with; I’ll say one word – worms) you might like Jungle. The rain forest looks beautiful, the score is good and the ending is oddly uplifting. It’s definitely not all bad, but I don’t think my little heart can take seeing my childhood hero emaciated and hallucinating. Add lockdown into the mix, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

*On the off chance you want to put yourself through this, you can rent it on Amazon Prime for 99p, or buy it for £1.99 if you feel crunching through questionably-cooked monkey flesh has lots of rewatchability potential.

Dark Tourist (2018)

Documentaries

Did anyone else take it as a personal insult when Louis Theroux left Netflix? As an obsessive Louis Theroux fan and documentary-watcher, I actually felt hurt. I probably average one Louis Theroux a day at the moment, regardless of the fact I’ve watched every single one of them more times than I’d like to count. My weird anxiety safety behaviour aside, I felt stuck for stuff to watch. As my sister insightfully said during one of our phone calls, documentaries seem like a good pick at the moment considering a lot of us feel like we’re living in a dystopian novel. I agreed because it seemed like a good excuse for my relentless doc watching that started long before the pandemic – I’m not weird!! It’s normal!! I genuinely think there is truth to what she said. More than ever, I’d much rather whack a documentary on while I dither away doing my various pandemic activities; tidying my room, baking, cooking dinner, compulsively making soup, etc.

With Louis gone, I had to find something slightly more casual than your standard Netflix true crime documentary series to watch. I adore true crime, (who doesn’t), but sometimes I struggle to concentrate on what’s going on whilst I’m busy doing other stuff. I needed something exciting and weird, but something a little less serious. This is where my boyfriend comes in with Dark Tourist, a one-season series following New Zealander David Farrier as he goes to bizarre places all over the world that attract “dark tourists” – travelers who are attracted by death and tragedy. I’d heard of the docu-series but never got around to watching it – why watch something new when there’s like a hundred other documentaries that you already know you like????? Seems weird, but I went along with my boyfriend’s suggestion and we watched it… and I LOVED it. A big joke in the series is that David Farrier is a Louis Theroux wannabe, but I really didn’t see this. Yeah, he’s tall and dark haired and wears glasses, but I think he’s a good journalist in his own right and I found him fun to watch. There’s something really endearing about the way he just goes with the flow and lets himself be carried away, taking part in a voodoo ceremony, – where he gets covered in a dead bird’s blood and a tantalising gin-saliva mix – joining in with the Ma’nene funeral rite in Southeast Asia, and injuring himself on a mirror in his hotel room (a highlight). He’s soft-spoken and funny and actually quite ballsy, doing a couple of really questionable things which I won’t detail here.

Some critics said the series is pretty shallow. I agree that it’s not overly poignant but it’s escapism I’m looking for here, and when there are moments that are touching, they really pay off because you aren’t expecting them. There’s a particular moment when David swims in a radioactive lake to look out for. I think this series really works because Farrier isn’t too probing with his questions, and because he’s not, as an audience – apart from a few parts – we kind of just accept a lot of the things we’re seeing. It’s incredibly non-judgmental and that’s one of the reasons I like it. It’s not unlike Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends which I absolutely adore. Farrier meets a lot of characters, all of whom are eccentric, funny or interesting. Dark Tourist definitely satisfies the side of all of us that’s intrigued by the darker sides of life, as well as showing us different communities through a non-judgmental lens.

*you can watch this on Netflix.

Meg Vodrey