Pha-Q woke's Reviews
This is an anthology series supposedly based around true stories that take place in the suburbs. It's a bit hard to rate anthologies like this as every episode is completely different including actors and directors so I've decided to do a small review on each episode as there's only 6 anyway.
Ep #1-1 woke-1 overall-The acting is not very good. This has nothing to do with the actual real story this claims to be based on and might as well just be a completely made up story. The story is as cliché as it gets, the usual play with a Ouija board and bring back a ghost trope that's been done to death at this point. Pretty tame as horror goes and feels like anything you would see on late night network tv in the late 90's early 2000. The only woke would be the mixed race female lead with the white boyfriend.
Ep #2-0 woke-2 overall-The acting again is pretty bad. I'm starting to sense a theme. At least the story seems to stick closer to true events this time. Not really horror though it's a serial killer thriller and interesting enough but it does still have that late night network feel to it. Nothing woke though and a better watch than the first one particularly if you like true crime type of stuff.
Ep #3-0 woke-2-overall-As far as I've been able to find this is complete fiction and based on nothing factual though it claims otherwise. An odd decision given what the series is supposed to be. The acting for the most part is a step up this time with the exception of the narrator who unfortunately is talking most of the time. The problem though is the same as the other episodes. Everything is just so tame and sort of 'horror lite' like it belongs on network tv. Nothing woke though in this one as well.
Ep #4-0 woke-2 overall-Another 'based on a true story' claim that appears to be complete fabrication and based on an urban legend. The acting at least is decent in this one. It plays out like a typical slasher and it could of been a decent episode except it's all so silly. What's supposed to be creepy just comes across as gullible people getting pranked by someone in a mask. I mean nothing ever happens, someone in a bunny mask just stands around trying to be scary and then does nothing. There is no woke in this one.
Ep #5-5 woke-0 overall-This is at least based on an actual true story though it appears to be heavily altered. The acting is the worst yet. Attempts at horror and jump scares are pathetic and ineffectual. And then there is the woke factor. The premise is an all black family of five the husband being the only male move into a house that haunted by the ghosts of evil white settlers who took it from the good natives. The ghost possesses the black male father and turns him into
an alcoholic violent abuser while for some reason (I think we know why) the females family members are unaffected. Total garbage and the worst episode of the bunch.
Ep 6-0 woke-0 overall-Directed by Carpenter himself another actually based on a true story. Like the others the acting is pretty bad. The story is ridiculous. Basically a woman has a bad breakup with her ex than starts getting harassed by a 'stalker' sending videos, dick pics and threatening phone calls. Eventually breaking into her home surveillance system and her home, but never actually attacking her. The entire thing is so implausible and over the top you have to wonder how much was actually true. The resolution or lack thereof is unbelievable given the amount of evidence there claims to be.
The entire thing is pretty bad overall and can't really recommend watching any of them except maybe episode 2 if you really like true crime. Not overly woke as a whole outside of Episode 5. If you skip that one it's almost woke free.
Created: 05-01-2026
I wouldn't really call it woke. I was going to mention the obese female black police chief but I think it's trying to be a joke stereotype of the woke casting maybe? It's really hard to tell what the hell this movie is going for. It completely missed the point of the originals. First you simply can't replace Nielson, his style and delivery can't be replicated and it's obvious it doesn't work here. Then there's the humor, where the originals were parody's of existing movies and shows at the time showing exaggerated and comedic scenarios this one just seems random all over the place. The originals had the humor as absurd and exaggerated but yet still played it straight, here it's over the top stupid and all seems so forced and strained. There are some amusing moments but nothing laugh out loud like the originals. Several times the jokes could of been funny but they ruin it with poor delivery or bad setup that just comes off as stupid or cringe instead of funny. It's not terrible but the actual funny jokes are too few to make it worth it in my opinion. Best to just watch the originals and pretend this didn't happen.
Created: 04-30-2026
Small female lead with her hands tied fighting off, outsmarting and escaping from a large group of men and at one point catches a man leaping at her and throws him over her head like it's nothing. She's the usual feminist type, angry, aggressive, unlikable and invincible, able to overpower all men even with handcuffs on. This same small female is able to free herself by breaking the handcuffs apart by placing them over a spear and pulling like it was a weak rope. It's pretty clear early on what direction this was going in. The lead males voice acting is grating and the character is annoying. Actually all the characters are annoying, and the voice acting is not very good. The dialogue and jokes are corny as hell and not funny at all. The animation is ok but nothing special. I don't really know who this is meant for. It's way to cringe and stupid for adults yet a bit too dark for young kids. No surprise this was cancelled in one season. 1 episode was enough for me.
Created: 04-27-2026
The main characters consist of 3 white girls and 1 black male who is of course dating one of the white females. There's general DEI casting
everywhere. Despite being set in the U.S. it is clearly not an American movie with all the actors obviously European. The lone possibly American white male on the small plane is naturally an asshole. Another movie where every single character is as unlikable as they can make them. The acting, dialogue and dollar store FX are terrible. The editing and quick camera cuts and movements look like a student film school project. This actually reminds me of those super low budget movies they used to make for the SYFY channel in the early 2000's, but without any of the fun those had.
Created: 04-26-2026
Nothing woke in this one. The first half was pretty good despite some minor complaints but the second half really brings the entire thing
down a notch. Some great acting and performances all around. While I wouldn't call this horror but more thriller there is some very creepy
and unsettling scenes. The plot is a resident at a nursing home terrorizes other residents. One of the biggest plot issues is it's set in modern world yet there is not one single camera anywhere to be found and not one person has a cell phone or ever gets visitors from a family member. This guy manages to move about freely terrorizing residents and making tons of noise and there is never a single nurse or orderly ever anywhere. Loud disruptive scenes play out in the middle of the day in a common room and again nobody ever shows up to check. Several highly suspicious deaths that are clearly foul play and no investigation or questions are asked. It all becomes so impossible and ridiculous by the end that it ruins what could of been a nice little thriller that also takes a look at nursing homes, aging and onset dementia. Most of these problems could of been fixed by simply setting it in a different decade like the 70's or even the 80's. Still might be worth a 1 time watch as the acting is very good.
Created: 04-23-2026
I'm actually shocked this has a sequel. The first was a low budget disaster movie that bombed at the theater so 6 years later the triple the budget and try again. Really? For the positives the FX at least look pretty good in this one and the acting is decent. However the writing is so incompetently bad this has to have been an A.I script, nobody can write something this utterly stupid on purpose. Woke aspects are too much DEI casting choices and obvious pushing the women better than men b.s.
Spoilers for the first 40 minutes.....
So to start it's only been 5 years and they are already opening up the bunker for outside excursions. One of these missions is the father going out alone on a gathering mission. He was specifically selected because he's a structural engineer and can assist in rebuilding. Why would you be risking sending him out on something like that. He goes out in a full EVO suit then just casually
takes his gear off and exposes himself to the environment only to go back for a decontamination wash as soon as he's back inside. We then go back in the bunker to the group of decision makers and leaders. There are a lot of DEI casting choices on display in general throughout the bunker and the movie itself. The leadership council is made up of men and women however the men mostly just sit there silently while the females talk and make decisions with the lone white male to speak up is
clearly bad. One of the most vocal of the council is the wife. Why is she even on the council? She has no qualifications and is only there because she's the wife of the structural engineer. Realistically there would of been people in place probably military to lead the bunker and keep order not a bunch of randoms. They have enough supplies to last only a year (great planning) but have stretched it to 5 years and are almost out. Oddly enough nobody is malnourished, they are all clean and showering with clean clothes and electricity is being wasted in every scene. They then decide to risk sending a rescue group out to a distress
beacon to bring in yet more survivors to feed and house not knowing if they may have radiation poisoning or some other illnesses therefore endangering the entire bunker. The white male is bad for opposing this but is overruled by the 'good' idiot females. At this point there has been several instances of the movie trying to explain impossible environmental plotlines away by simply saying 'for reasons we don't understand'. Can you get any lazier. The idiot kid who by the way suddenly appears to no longer be diabetic as it's never mentioned or shown even though that was the major plot device from the first movie, has been sneaking out of the bunker to go outside. How the hell is that possible, in an underground bunker with one one giant blast door entrance? Is nobody watching it? Are there no alarms if it opens?
WTF? Anyway the escape the bunker after disaster and just conveniently find an entire fleet of lifeboats washed up on shore right in front of them. Undamaged, fully functioning, fueled and with a weeks worth of food and water on board. How nice. They wash up in Liverpool with what appears to be hundreds if not thousands of perfectly fine people inhabiting it, and a fully functioning military unit as well. This unit recognizes some badge they are supposed to have to allow passage. Wait, what badges and when the hell was that a thing?
They have fully functioning vehicles and no problem with fuel. Remember, we were told the surface of the earth was burning at 900 degrees with 1000ft tsunamis after the asteroid hit. At this point I am now feeling myself getting dumber every second this is on so I'm out at 40 minutes. Where the first movie required you to turn your brain off and just watch it, this requires you to get a lobotomy first.
Created: 04-23-2026
I know I've seen this before but couldn't remember it all so gave it a re-watch. It's a typical if cliché disaster movie with nothing really
original but it is entertaining enough. I would say probably a bit better made than average. The acting is pretty good and the FX are overall
pretty decent. The writing isn't great and relies on characters doing some stupid things to move the plot along. This is definitely a turn your
brain off and just watch the movie sort of film. I will say the ending is completely absurd with science and timelines thrown completely out the
window. However I have to disagree with the woke rating of the other review. There is some heavy DEI casting choices made throughout. A lot of the military seems to be female. The next door neighbors at the beginning are black/white mixed race. Then there is very obvious theme of white men bad and black and minorities good. Examples are the pharmacy scene has white males shooting and looting and the black male is nice and lets them go. The white family in the car is bad. The transport truck has the racist white bad male are good black male.
Nobody stops to pick up or check on the mom on the side of the highway except for the good Spanish family. Actually I'm pretty sure every character shown as bad is a white male and every minority shown is a good character. This is watchable particularly if you like disaster movies but there is absolutely a woke aspect to it.
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Created: 04-23-2026
Nothing woke in this Korean series. I like the idea here. A group of survivors needs to escape a building occupied by illegal organ harvesting organization after an earthquake partially collapses it. Every episode is done in a single take style with no cuts. The FX and sets look great and the acting is ok but again the writing and characters are just not good. There's little action with the majority of every episode consisting of characters arguing with each other and repeating the same lines over and over. Every episode drags and feels like it's twice as long as it should be. Character logic makes no sense and there is again nobody likable. For some reason they decided to have everybody constantly talking and nobody shuts up....ever. They are constantly spewing repetitive nonsense. It gets very annoying and I found myself wishing they would just shut up for 1 second. A shorter runtime like maybe a movie instead with a faster pace would of made this much better but as it stands it hard to recommend.
Created: 04-20-2026
1st episode follows a group of 4 kids, 2 male 2 female. The leader is a pink shaved undercut haired girlboss who is generally unlikable and the
usual feminist type. Always angry and violent with constant bitch face who is much better than all the males. I instantly hated the character and
this is going to be the hero of the show. The male characters are all idiots and the females are smart. The very first 'villain' is a blond haired
male. The male character can't pick a lock so the tiny teenage girl kicks it open, sure. Bar scene has a tiny cowardly male arguing and standing up
to a very large other male then immediately cowers and backs down from a scrawny black purple haired female. The voice acting and animation ore pretty good but the soundtrack and music choices are out of place, terrible and distracting. I could barely make it through the first episode. All you have to do is look at screenshots of the show and you will see DEI characters and female warriors mixed in with lesbian characters kissing. Hard pass on this trash. 1 star for the animation.
Created: 04-20-2026
This one was so close to being a really good French horror movie. The acting is good, the Lovecraftian story well done and the writing competent. Everything is very dark and claustrophobic with some tense atmospheric moments. There is also a pretty good amount of well done gore and blood FX. Unfortunately around the 1 hour mark when the creature shows up it loses it's way a bit. While the creatures designs is ok they appear to have used a puppet rather than an actor in a suit and it really just doesn't work. The creature barely moves and it's very stiff, slow and jerky in what little movement it does make. It's just not scary when the monster just stands there most of the time and doesn't do anything. As for woke, there is some diversity in the casting, however France did use a lot of immigrants and foreigners in mines at the time so the casting is probably about right. However the Arab immigrant character is the one pushed as the hero and is the mortally superior one and smarter than the rest. The French character Louis is blatantly racist which doesn't make a lot of sense given many of the miners were in fact immigrants at the time. It also goes against the miners statement at the beginning that they are referred to as 'black-faced' because in the mines they are all covered in coal dust and can't tell
the difference in ethnicity anyway. Cant' help but feel that was a little agenda push there. I think it's still worth a one time watch if you like Lovecraftian horror. Just be prepared the second half will be a bit of a letdown.
Created: 04-17-2026