Sharif Atkins – Kings movie reviews

‘Aftermath’ is a 2021 horror/drama starring Ashley Greene (Twilight), Shawn Ashmore (X-Men), and Sharif Atkins (The Open House). A young couple whose relationship is on the rocks, buys a nice home above their means trying to get a new start. Creepy, paranormal things start happening in the house which begins to put even more strain on their rocky realtionship.

Not a lot happens in this horror movie, it relies on creepiness factor more than jump scares. Then there’s a lot of fat in the film that could be cut out. Like for Instance the husband’s relationship with his study partner, it hints that he’s going to cheat since he doesn’t trust his wife for her cheating, but nothing ever comes of it. There’s really no point as why she is written in, it doesn’t add to the story. The acting overall is pretty cheesy, the one good thing about the movie is the twist ending. It’s a simple ending but it’s done well where you don’t see it coming. I give them that, you’re not going to be able to guess it. I just wished they focused more on the character involved in the ending, because he has no part in the movie till the end. So the ending isn’t as good as it could have been. Overall it’s a so so movie, there’s better but there’s also worse. I give it a 5.5/10.

‘The Open House’ is a 2018 Netflix original horror movie starring Dylan Minnette (13 Reasons Why), Piercey Dalton (Interrogation), Patricia Bethune (True Blood), and Sharif Atkins (ER).

A son and mother stay in a family member’s mountain home while trying to get back on their feet. The only stipulation is the family member is selling the house, so the mom and son must be out at certain times for the open house times.

So this has every aspect to not only be a good horror film, but an amazing one. Big secluded mountain house.. check, son and mom by themselves… check, and random strangers coming into the house while the mom and son are gone… check. It has the perfect set up, and then that’s it. It’s like the writers came up with a shell and then just gave up and left it empty. My wife referred to it as lazy writing, which I hate to call the writers lazy, so I’m just going to go with they didn’t know what to do with the plot. So let’s dive into it. It’s a very slow burn where nothing really happens till the last 20 minutes or so, which is okay a lot of movies do this. However I’ve never seen a movie where so much stuff was added that had nothing to do with helping the story. They kept focusing on the water heater, the basement, the kid’s mile time, and the neighbor with Alzheimer’s. None of these things ever come into play and have absolutely nothing to do in furthering the story. In Stephen King’s book “On Writing” he mentions that you never write anything into a story if it doesn’t have a purpose, otherwise it’s just wasted. These writers should have read his book. When we finally get to the end, it doesn’t explain anything. So this movie looks good, but that’s it, avoid it like a bad open house. I give it a 4/10.