Tag Archives: bad movies

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic

F CinemaScore Double Features: mother! (2017) and Moonchild (1972)

This is a new series centering on films which have received “F” scores from CinemaScore. CinemaScore polls theater-goers during a film’s opening weekend, gauging the average consumer’s thoughts on new releases. An F CinemaScore is potentially a PR nightmare for a film, as it indicates that, on the main, the people most excited to see a film on its opening weekend hated it.

We’ve covered F CinemaScore films on this site before, including Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly (which I think is fairly great) and the subject of this article, mother! With this series, we pair an ill-fated F CinemaScore movie with a second, thematically similar film and make a double feature out of it. Today’s double feature pairs Darren Aronofsky’s mother! with Alan Gadney’s New Age, surreal spiritual journey film Moonchild.

This is Part 1 of an ongoing series. However, future installments will be published on a new Substack newsletter called Bleeding Eye Cinema. Part 2 of the CinemaScore Double Feature series is already live at that site. On Bleeding Eye Cinema, we take a look at weird, WTF, underseen, cult, psychotronic, B- and Z-grade, and all other manner of headache-inducing movies. Come join us and let the CRT electron beams melt the jelly off your eyeballs!

Moonchild (Alan Gadney, 1972)

Moonchild begins with a quote from clairvoyant Edgar Cayce, an influential figure in what would come to be known as the New Age movement: “You may not even have to come back at all if you become perfectly developed in this life…”

One of Cayce’s trance-induced contributions to culture were his proclamations to the existence of fictional locations like Atlantis. Cayce may be the most fitting place to enter into Continue reading F CinemaScore Double Features: mother! (2017) and Moonchild (1972) →

Psychotronic

Introducing: Bleeding Eye Cinema on Substack

Happy New Year, dear reader! 2025 is a special year at CineFiles Reviews, as the arbitrary markings of time that we have chosen to organize our lives around dictate that it is this site’s 10th anniversary.

To celebrate, I have ventured to begin a new outlet for film criticism: Bleeding Eye Cinema. There is a category of odd media that I would like to cover but which does not necessarily fit nicely within this site’s coverage of mainly new releases. I have dabbled in it here before, with a short series on psychotronic movies and occasional one-off analysis pieces about wacky misfires like Foodfight!. By and large, though, the style of writing here generally hews closer to the stuffy, boring film criticism voice, where I snidely look down my nose at contemporary cinema and pretend to have what they call “expertise” on the subject.

This is all to say that the writing style at Bleeding Eye Cinema is slightly different, and I think it is best to Continue reading Introducing: Bleeding Eye Cinema on Substack →

Box Office Most Wanted

Box Office Most Wanted Ep. 1: #2 – Delgo

 Box Office Most Wanted is a series dedicated to discussing some of the lowest grossing films of all time. The list of films can be found, and are ranked according to, the Box Office Mojo list of the “Worst Openings – Very Wide,” which is to say the lowest grossing opening weekends from films released in 2,000+ theaters domestically (U.S. and Canada).

Delgo

  • Release Date – Dec. 12, 2008
  • Production Budget – $40 million
  • Size of Release – 2,160 theaters
  • Opening Weekend Box Office – $511,920
  • Total Box Office – $694,782
  • 2nd lowest box office opening in a wide release ever

 

delgo-box-office-most-wanted-financial-flops

In a peaceful village, a frog…lizard…man…creature plays catch with a child named Delgo. They enjoy their day with laughter and joy. Until Continue reading Box Office Most Wanted Ep. 1: #2 – Delgo →