Love Me Like You Do [2025]

The evening started with a vertical drama adaption of Jane Eyre but after ten episodes we were asked to pay and we ended up finding an alternative in this film named very pointedly after that Ellie Goulding song from the 50 Shades of Grey movie. This movie had exactly one thing in common with that film, the lead actor looks a little like a discount Jamie Dornan with even less charisma than he had in that film and with a catalog of creepy sex looks. The leads had zero chemistry, which really made for a lot of the joy in this film.

The plot of this movie is pretty much a smoothie of vertical drama tropes: woman finds her dirtbag husband cheating, hooks up with a guy she thinks is an escort but it actually her stepbrother, they're both rich and kind of in competition for some big company, she gets bullied by mean girls, her ex-fiancee comes into the pictures creating a love triangle where she seemingly has no interest in either of them, she ends up with the first guy. Standard. The only thing that set this movie apart (derogatory) is that the leads hook up in the very beginning because she was roofied by some guy at a bar and he has sex with her anyway. That's a pivotal villain movie right there, and yet he's the romantic lead. Thankfully, he never acts in any redeeming way whatsoever and, as I said, they have no chemistry. In the final act when she says goodbye to her ex-fiancee, there is more romantic tension in their hug than in any moment between her and her rapist stepbrother.  

This movie really dragged plot-wise but there was enough bad acting, cringe lines, and inappropriate music choices to make it fun enough.

Spoon Rating: 6 

We're Your Parents [2025]

In our exploration of vertical media, we decided to try a completely different genre: horror. This film is very short at only about a half hour but it took us nearly an hour just to find the version of this film showing all the parts in the correct order. It was ultimately kind of a waste of time because while we got a few laughs, it really wasn't worth the effort.

A girl returns home for Thanksgiving with her parents who are acting weird. They give her cranberry sauce that seems to drug her and when she wakes up they are still acting weird. She pieces together that there is something going on in the basement, and the reveal is that her real parents are tied up there with their eyes sewn shut and the stand-ins are evil clones who wanted to use her DNA to make a new baby. That is the level of explanation we get. It's kind of Coraline but lazier. The girl's dads die and she defeats the evil mom. The end.

We probably would have been better off with A Boyfriend For The Homophobic Alpha or Cry Your Eyes Out On My Tomb or something.

Spoon Rating: 4 

You Belong With Me [2024]

We've watched a lot of vertical dramas but this one was a triumph for a really unique reason: it had a genuinely likeable main character. This probably shouldn't be a triumph, but in general vertical dramas really rely on creating female main characters who are meant to be one-dimensional figures of pathos. They are so comically mistreated that you are supposed to feel bad for them, but they are so willing to just lay down and let life happen to them that you get quickly annoyed. This main character certainly has bad things happen to her, but she doesn't just lay down. She snaps back, she gets revenge, and she is confident in her ability to run her own life. The actress who plays her actually played her like a person. While it made the movie less bad, it made it far more enjoyable. 

The plot of the film is pretty conventional for a vertical drama all things considered. Kristine Wilson, the main character, decides to sleep with her fiancée Eric Lockwood's uncle who's the same age as him, Henry Lockwood. This is revenge for Eric sleeping with her adopted sister Giana. The even more complicated part is that Eric is her boss and Henry is his boss. Kristine doesn't try to hide what she's doing and asks Eric to please just break off the engagement for both their sakes but he refuses, using her family needing his as the reason. She decides to tell Henry about all the embezzling Eric has done and gets his job. Kristine and Henry continue to see each other casually, but they are functionally together even if they don't fully declare it until the end. The only real complications are Henry's fiancee, Nicole, who isn't really into this engagement anyway and takes the break up completely fine, and Henry's father who has seemingly arranged all these marriages and wants them to go according to plan. There's another plot going on about the search for the rich Roberts family's long lost sister and after some DNA tests it is revealed that Giana, not Kristine, is the actual Wilson sister. Kristine has a bit of an identity crisis, but she accepts that she can only really rely on herself. The Lockwood patriarch doesn't like Kristine at this point and wants her gone so she throws a Hail Mary and claims to be the long lost Roberts sister. She met the Roberts brother at an auction and he's totally cool to help her out, but they are both surprised to find that she actually is his sister. In the end, Kristine and Henry get engaged.

As I mentioned, Kristine is actually a really well-developed and likable character played by an actress who really is doing a good job. This is contrasted heavily with the unavoidable vertical drama bad movie qualities: the silly cookie cutter plot, the melodramatic acting from other people, and the low production quality. One thing that makes this movie really stick out is actually the bad music and sound effects, which often add comedy to scenes that are really not meant to be funny, including a sexual assault scene. 

Spoon Rating: 6*

*This one was kind of hard to rate because it definitely has the trappings of a bad movie, but because of the strength of the main character, it's also enjoyable in a non-bad movie way and we got some laughs that we actually intended by the film. Therefore the Spoon Rating isn't super high, but it is a high recommend, especially if you've seen other vertical dramas.

Doting Snake Lord [2026]

So let's get this out of the way: he's kind of doting but he is neither a snake nor a lord. But honestly? The lack of consistency is really par for the course with this AI vertical drama.

We get immediately dropped into the action as two dragons who look like people with wings and tails are giving birth. They are sisters, I guess, from different dragon levels, Elena being a gold dragon (the top tier) and Veronica being a green dragon. The question is who will give birth to a golden egg, thus earning the title of mother of dragons and presumably providing an heir or something. Both give birth to golden eggs but then somehow Veronica switches them and terns Elena's black. She's evil and also got pregnant by sleeping with Elena's husband, Grayson. She then kicks Elena into a pit that causes her to go back to three days earlier so she can redo her fate. This is all revealed in the first five minutes and the plot really slows from there. Elena denies a marriage to Grayson and instead decides to go have sex 1500 times for three days straight with a lowly black dragon who no one cares about. When birthing day comes on that third day, Veronica gives birth to a gold egg and Elena gives birth to nine black eggs and gets made fun of and called a slut. For the next 50 minutes the same thing happens over and over again. Questions are asked about what will come out of the eggs. People say the eggs are hatching, but they still don't. The black dragon says he's actually a primordial dragon or a dragon god and Grayson doesn't believe him even as he proves it again and again. The black dragon is called small, lowly, or trash and Elena is called a slut. Veronica says that if Elena doesn't give birth to a gold dragon, she wins and Elena gets to be fed to her spawn. Black dragon says, "Don't touch my children!" Repeat and repeat. Finally, after the least fun edging ever, the babies are born and Veronica's is a wyvern, even lower than a dragon because she's secretly a wyvern herself and the black eggs produce a bunch of basic amphibians and reptiles that then morph into Spyro clones who are basically everyone's gods now. Elena and black dragon go off to bang more and make more gods or something.

This film falls into that weird category of definitely worth watching, but it would be agonizing to watch a second time just because of how repetitive it is. The AI used on it is definitely worse than last week so there is a lot of fun to be had as the side characters change looks completely three times, the voice of the annoying bird sidekick shifts from male to female, and sometimes lines just make no sense. "Wyvern" is pronounced differently every single time. You could also drink every time they say "dragon" and then you only have to watch the first ten minutes before you are completely comatose. When you wake up, someone can just tell you the end and you missed all the nonsense.

Spoon Rating: 7 

After The Sacrifice Her Family Regrets [2026]

So Sarah has messed up her Facebook recommends again in the name of discovering yet another level to the vertical drama rabbit hole: AI vertical dramas. She already has a lengthy list (including some sort of Hades/Persephone retelling that I'm fully ready to be annoyed at), but since movie night was unexpected today and I just got back from a nearly six week trip, we decided to try something familiar. Very familiar in fact. 

After The Sacrifice Her Family Regrets is beat for beat the plot of our first vertical drama 30 Years Frozen, 3 Brothers Regret. So aside from AI, what makes it different? They're elves. That's it. Instead of being frozen for science for 30 years, our martyred main character sacrifices herself to be tortured by demons for 300 years to save her kingdom. She has a pet dragon instead of a dog. She gets locked in a dungeon instead of a basement. There's still a blind brother who she gives her eyes to, there's still the evil "sister" who caused the brothers to turn on the main character, there's still the moment after she wakes up when she doesn't remember them. It's the same exact film to the point of a lawsuit, if that would even be allowed here.

The debate we ended up having about this film was whether it was more enjoyable if you have seen the original film it ripped off or if it would be better to go into it cold. It's hard for us to ever know, but we did come to one conclusion: it's probably better to watch it with real actors. Ethical issues aside, the scenery-chewing is just so much more entertaining when it's real people. Sure, one of the elf brothers looks exactly like Legolas, but his emoting can be wild and he's still just a digital creation. It's more special to watch a real human try to act in these films.

Spoon Rating: 6 

Charmed To Meet You [2026] & Charmed To Meet You Too [2026]

Originally we watched these on June 22nd.

In the same vein as that Lifetime drama-esque film produced by KFC, we have two short vertical dramas produced by Crocs. They're both rom-coms with the first one about a girl putting jibbits on some guy's crocs as a way of flirting and the second one following her meeting someone else after the first guy accidentally washed off her number and couldn't find her. Don't worry. He also wears crocs. Both films were kind of dumb in the Hallmark movie kind of way but even more so because flirting with jibbits is a wildly expensive choice.

Spoon Rating: 4 

My Five Aunts Have Superpowers [2026]

This Chinese vertical drama is extremely poorly named. There are five aunts (in spite of the poster only showing four) and there are superpowers, but the aunts are not the ones with them. Also somewhat amusingly, the version of this film we watched sometimes had the segments out of order and we ended up watching the very beginning at the end and it did clear up some confusion so I will explain it as it is supposed to be watched.

A guy gets an invite from one of his mom's distant cousins to move in. There's a misunderstanding that he's an intruder when he goes into the house and he gets beat up by his hot aunts. Things are resolved and in his new bedroom he finds a pair of broken glasses that activate a supercomputer that will give him superpowers every time he saves one of his aunts. Thankfully for his stats maxing, his aunts get into issues a lot. The film is mostly a series of vignettes of him using his powers to solve his aunt's issues and getting more powers: saving Doctor Aunt from a gangster who blames him for his impotence after a car accident, saving Business Aunt by finding a water stream, saving Steamer Aunt by winning a pool game, saving Teacher Aunt and Business Aunt from rape during a business meeting, sorta-not-really saving Business Aunt yet again by winning a poker match and getting a lucrative deal for her company that she just hired him at, verifying the value of a present for grandma with Business Aunt, and finally saving Biker Aunt from rape. Every man is a rapist. Every aunt has sexual tension with the main guy. After saving Biker Aunt she reveals that all the aunts are adopted so they can be together. Considering how much time he spent with Business Aunt, it wasn't clear that Biker Aunt would be the endgame but whatever, we're reaching the two hour mark. They reveal their relationship at grandma's birthday, and she is reasonably weirded out.

This was our first step into Chinese drama and honestly? The English ones were way better. This one did have a little bit of extra fun added with the bad, possibly AI, dubbing, but there were so many segments that dragged, and the episodic story was pretty unsatisfying. As a bad bonus, this film had a disgusting male-rapist-gets-raped-by-"ugly"-woman joke that I haven't seen in a film in well over a decade. Get it together, China.

Spoon Rating: 4

Falling For My Ex's Mafia Dad [2026]

We'll stop the vertical dramas when they stop delivering and honestly, there's no slowing down this crazy train.

The literal second line of the film was something about the main character, Fay,  being a virgin so you know exactly where this one stands. A psych grad student catches her boyfriend making out with a male waiter and dumps him, only to interview his mafia boss father in prison later that day. The boss, named Kent, gets out and then basically forces an engagement between Fay and his son (who he doesn't know is gay) in spite of the fact that he very obviously wants to screw her. This engagement is forced because he discovers she is the biological daughter of some other boss and this alliance will be good for him. This throws her into the mafia world, but most specifically, the world of her and Kent dancing around each other forever. He even whips her as part of an "interrogation" and they're both into it. Finally the son gets caught with his secret boyfriend, he is not good at hiding, and there's a valid reason for the engagement to be called off even though the son still wants it on because he won't inherit the fortune without producing an heir. In turn, Kent offers Fay a mistress contract for 5 million and she agonizes over it. We all were confused how this was not just the best of all worlds - sex with the guy she wants to sex and a bunch of money - but that was where the virgin thing comes in again. Thankfully, Fay's stripper sister is on our side and Fay gives in and we get some softcore and very light BDSM. Some convoluted mafia stuff happens and the film ends with Fay resolving to leave after Kent ripped up their contract but she crumples to the floor saying, "I love him" and we get a To Be Continued. Why does she love him? Honestly who knows? He has proven himself to be a terrible person, which was all the more reason to us why she should just have transactional sex with him.

This film was hilarious. So many lines were insane. The actors were all the same general age but they put grey in the lead guy's hair to unsuccessfully make him look older. Note: I thought he was from 30 Years Frozen, 3 Brothers Regret but apparently he was from Pregnant By My Tough Daddy CEO so I was right that we've seen him before but I had the wrong film. Everyone's got issues that could probably be solved very simply but they don't so the plot just circles a drain for a while until it decides to end. 

Will we watch the sequel? Absolutely, but I don't think it could top this. 

Spoon Rating: 8 

The Secret Cinema [1968], Mercury Men Attack on Earth [2026], The House In The Middle [1954], Why Study Home Economics? [1955], and The Haunted Lamp

 This night was a series of shorts so let's go through them quickly!

The Secret Cinema is a short film that is basically proto-Truman Show. A woman named Jane finds out that she life is being made into a multi-part movie series and that she's being manipulated by her boyfriend, boss, coworker, and therapist to make the show more interesting. She ends up in an asylum with the implication that the therapist is going to turn the camera on the coworker next.

The acting was camp but didn't exactly feel like it was always supposed to be.

Spoon Rating: 3

The highlight of the night was Mercury Men Attack on Earth a film that was more than half AI and completely the vision of a man who looks and acts like Tommy Wiseau but with the eye for direction and effects of Neil Breen. Truly a valuable discovery for us. The film is just: aliens try to take over Earth and this one dude in India saves the world. Also, it's overly racist, poorly dubbed and written, and again, mostly AI. Nonstop what. A must watch.

Spoon Rating: 9
 

This 1950s propaganda film insists that if you keep your house clean, well painted, and attractive, it will literally save your property if it is attacked by nuclear weapons. I guess those tests in the Arizona desert don't lie. I mean, you'll be toast but at least your house will still be standing on its completely uninhabitable land, right? 

Spoon Rating: 5
 

While on the topic of 1950s conservatism, let us ask why we should study home economics? While this movie does try ever so slightly to not push gender roles and a prescribed future, the answer really does boil down to "you will be married with kids one day so you should learn this stuff and your mom only has so much time to teach you." The unfortunate thing is, the majority of the lessons described in the video actually would be valuable for both men and women to learn just to exist as responsible humans one day and it seems like most parents don't bother to or don't know how to teach them.

Spoon Rating: 2

The final, very short film which I don't have a photo for was just a quick and intentionally silly horror film that looked like a student film. No shade to the makers. It was neither bad nor good.

Revenge Of The Wedding Planner [2025]

Sometimes it's nice to see the maligned protagonist spend most of the movie not crying and being mistreated but getting some damn revenge. This one has quite a lot going on in just an hour so hang with me here.

Our main character Grace is a famous wedding planner and is about to attend the wedding of her mother and future stepfather, an event planning company CEO who is going to name his successor soon. Meanwhile, Grace's soon-to-be stepsister Sophia is screwing her fiance. On the discovery of this cheating, stepdad declares that he is naming Grace his successor, Grace and fiance break up (obviously), and Sophia decides to deal with all of this by poisoning the entire wedding and blaming Grace who made the cake. Grace goes to jail for a few months before meeting with Brody, her father's lawyer, who tells her they have cleared her name and she asks him to help her fake her death. A year later she goes to an engagement shoot for her evil stepsister and just straight up reveals her identity. What was the plan here?! I guess thankfully Sophia doesn't believe her because she is no longer wearing the ugly blonde wig she had in the beginning. In a low rent Monte Cristo move, Grace also poses as the hottest new wedding planner, with the help of a new wig, and Sophia begs her (literally) to plan her wedding to Grace's ex. Begging is a weird motif throughout because everyone is a domme I guess. From there every time Sophia goes to a wedding thing, Grace is there to torture her from spraying engagement party guests with pig blood to getting a chef to put worms in her food at a tasting to buying the dress set aside for her before she can have it. Meanwhile Grace and Brody get closer and Sophia decides to also try to seduce Brody to try to get her father's money by sexually assaulting him. It's super ineffective, but Grace does film it for blackmail later. Sophia also tries poisoning Brody and Grace but thankfully they only have a few sips. The film culminates with Sophia's wedding, which her wedding planner (Grace in a blue wig) has styled like a funeral. She even sent the blackmail video and a pig's head to Sophia's groom so he would reject her and wrote "murderer" down the back of her dress. Sophia finally realizes that Grace is Grace and also that the wedding planner is Grace because she puts the terrible blonde wig back on. Sophia is arrested and Brody proposes to Grace implying that she will have to plan their wedding.

While I have definitely made the plot easier to follow with my explanation, you need to understand just how many scenes there are of Grace straight up saying who she is and Sophia not believing it. In fact, many pieces of information are revealed over and over with characters always acting like this is new information. There's also a "hilarious" boner scene with the fiance, slow-mo glasses removal or putting on, and just camp craziness. This is the best we've seen in a minute.

Spoon Rating: 8 

Fruit Love Island [2026]

Note that the character in the poster does not appear in the series. 

This AI slop vertical drama is basically Love Island (as far as we can tell having never watched the series) but all the characters are anthropomorphic fruit. Amusingly, some of them are more fruit-like than others. It has all the trademarks of AI slop: shifting character design and accents, floating things, exaggerated expressions, and other nonsense. It also has the nonsense of Love Island including conversations about nothing, dumb challenges, and a direct recreation of the "I'm a mommy" scene from a recent season. It does seem to have a lot more fist-fighting though but how would any of us know?

This series is worth watching but probably not the whole way through. There's a point where it gets repetitive so the best advice would be to watch for as long as you are having fun. The most disappointing thing really is the lack of fruit puns. We did however get some line about the strawberry girl making strawberry milk, which is a yikes, and the banana guy talking about how he's got the banana. Subtle. Either way, it's only juicy for so long before it dries up in the island sun.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Marked By The Demon Alpha [2025]

I can't even find the year for this movie so I guessed. It doesn't even have an IMDb page. But regardless, we watched it and were very disappointed that it wasn't about demons at all. It was barely about wolves. 

Serena gets artificially inseminated by accident with the sperm of the Alpha, Bart. Yes, Bart. And no, we are never given an explanation of what being Alpha means or what he controls. Her bully, Selena, is mad because she wanted to steal that sperm. Bart comes to Serena to offer her a marriage contract and money to have the baby, saving her from her raping stepbrother and abusive stepmom. The film then mostly involves Serena getting further picked on my Selena and her mom Linda, who discovers that the girls are half sisters from when her husband cheated on her. There's a barely touched B plot where Bart is jealous of his right hand man because of some coincidental moments between him and Serena. Selena also attempts to rape Bart twice. And yet, nothing is done about the villains. Bart and Serena's relationship barely goes anywhere and truly Bart is the least heterosexual seeming of all the leading man we've seen. They don't even consummate the marriage at any point, but I guess they don't have to when she's already pregnant. With most of the movie over, Serena's mom, Emma, comes in for no real reason and we get a deus ex machina of an ending where Emma uses the Queen (there's a queen in this world) to get Selena and Linda arrested or executed or something. Serena gives birth. Happy family ending.

This movie was far longer than it needed to be at only an hour and a half, probably because it was plotted like it was bring written in installments with no planning, even more than other vertical dramas we've seen. There were a few laugh out loud moments though, some ugly costumes for our lead, some barely understandable Eastern European accents, and the stunning lack of chemistry. Overall, not bad.

Spoon Rating: 6 

Note: I can't verify the accuracy but I just read this blog post about vertical dramas that could explain a bit about what's going on here. I really want a deep dive YouTube video or something on the topic. 

Morbius [2022]

Funny to think there was a time when Marvel movies and Jared Leto independently were not total embarrassments, but alas the 2020s are a special decade. Now they have teamed up for the ultimate cringe and it was honestly pretty funny but even more importantly it gave us a lot of materials to be hilarious.

Morbius follows a biochemist with a rare blood disease who starts the film collecting bats in Costa Rica by tempting them with a giant open gash on his hand. Not everyone with a doctorate is intelligent, you know. In a flashback we see Michael Morbius in a hospital in Greece (no town name, just Greece) and he makes friends with a kid with the same disease named Lucian who he renames Milo and then everyone just calls him that for the rest of the film with no explanation why he chose to stick with this fake name all throughout adulthood. As adults Milucian is a rich guy who funds Morbius' research through which he has created synthetic blood but has not cured their disease. Morbius decides to experiment with the bats and stupidly injects himself with his serum while on a boat, leading to him getting jacked and bat-faced and killing a bunch of people because he's hangry. He also flies around sans wings and leaks some kind of pigmented gas. I have no explanation. With this bat form unlocked he is able to walk and finally doesn't feel sick, but he needs to ingest blood every couple hours or he starts to deteriorate. Milo finds out and wants a hit of that sweet serum, but Morbius says no because this is no way to live. This is actually insane. Before the serum, he needed transfusions three times a day to stay ill and now he needs to drink blood four times a day to be healthy and strong. The downsides don't exist unless you starve yourself and get batty. Milo, in true rich kid fashion, takes the serum anyway and it makes him evil, I guess revealing he was a jerk all along since the serum didn't change Morbius' personality as long as he stays well fed. They fight for the entire second act. Then we get some post credit scenes that only make sense if the Marvel franchise is your personality. Weirdly, there are no 30 Seconds To Mars songs. And at no point did Jared Leto say, "It's morbing time." Truly the biggest letdown of 2022.

As I said, we created a lot of our own fun, but there was much laughter to be had from the evil bat faces, the plot logic, a scene of Morbius writing blood on a window in blood, and a scene where a flickering light was fixed by just flipping a switch. Can't believe this was a flop. 

Spoon Rating: 5 

Mafia Boss Owns My Body [2025]

We have been planning on watching this one for a while because how could we resist that title.

The plot is pretty meh for the first 45 minutes or so but then it delivers like Dominos. Our blandly pretty, perfect heroine needs money for her mom's surgery and she's a law school dropout whose dad is in jail for drugs. She gets a business card for a mafia boss who offers to help her pay for the surgery if she becomes his slave, both sex and spy. He asks her to become an assistant to the DA, some guy she was in law school with. He is nicer to her than the guy who rapes her and makes her do morally questionable things so she falls for him. Then out of nowhere he becomes an insane person in Dahmer glasses and starts chewing every piece of scenery around. Mafia boss saves her from him and, oh ignore the assault and the murdering people because she's actually a really nice guy who's anti drug and the random guy he killed in the beginning was actually responsible for framing her father. Girl, the correct answer was run away.

In the end, this movie is worth it. The drama really kicks into high gear and makes up for the repetitive beginning and clearly low budget. Also, everyone looks barely old enough to drink alcohol so the thought that they are mafia leaders and lawyers is hilarious.

Spoon Rating: 6 

The Fae King Is My Shadow Daddy [2026]

This is one we've been wanting to watch for a while because of its amazing title, and it was worth the wait. The plot is actually really simple, even in this vertical drama world of simple ideas. Eilana is a human going to be married off to fae Duke Matthias to create a peace treaty. He rejects her at the alter, asking for bloodshed, and the High King Caspian steps in to marry her instead and prevent a war. They need to bang to create an heir but keep getting interrupted because of dubious consent, intoxication, a stab wound, etc. Matthias and another royal named Zoya want to bring them down and in spite of numerous attempts, neither the King nor Eilana bothers to punish them in any way that will make them stop. At one point the King saves Eilana from a bog hag and they realize they are mates and Eilana also gets light power (to his shadow power, GET IT) by channeling his dead mom who approves of them from beyond the grave. Despite Mathias and Zoya's efforts, Caspian and Eilana boink at just the right time to make a baby and then they evade their sabotage again to have it and then again evade them to save their son from peril. Using a language loophole, which fae love, Eilana, in spite of turning a fae post pregnancy, kills them because only a born fae can't kill another fae. Happy ending.

This film was fascinating because it seemed to have a higher budget than previous vertical dramas. The sets, costumes, and effects weren't amazing or anything but they were well above some of the other movies we've seen. The other unique thing is that every actor had an accent, likely Eastern European. Here's the theory: they had more money for production because they got away with paying the actors less. They could have increased the wig budget though.

Spoon Rating: 7 

The Blind Beauty [2021]

Dipping back in the Nigeria well, and this time we have a repeat actor. The cousin from Selfless Love and her amazing facial expressions is back as another villain although a more subtle one as everyone in this movie kinda sucks.

The plot is centered around Beauty who's blind. I know, shocker. She lives a horrible life with her Nana, evil stepmother, and evil stepbrother. After a series of money theft and a smackdown between Nana and stepmother, we get to our main plot. There's a slightly better off couple in this village who really want a baby but can't get pregnant. There are witch allegations on the wife but also on seemingly every woman in this village. Thankfully for the couple, Beauty is pregnant so they decide to take her in and care for her with the ultimate goal of stealing her baby. There's some minor conflict here with the stepmother demanding money from them and moving in (although notably, we never see the inside of of any house and they only sit outside). After she has twins and admits that she was raped, she is kidnapped by way of the machinations of the wife who wants her killed so they can more easily take her babies. She escapes and then there's a hit put out on her rapist who is killed by two guys who are then captured by more guys. The movie then just kind of ends. They haul away the murderers and the credits roll. No real conclusion.

In spite of the serious tone you get from recounting the events, the movie is not serious. The beginning was pretty dry, but it does pick up once we hit the main plot.

Spoon Rating: 5

Turn Left To Mr. Right [2025]

This was not the film we meant to watch, but this isn't the first time we've watched the wrong vertical drama. There isn't the best quality control when it comes to labeling these films . . . or anything else really. So instead of The Fae King is my Shadow Daddy, Jill's pick as a guest and a film we will definitely watch at some point, we got this. Now, I'm not saying any of these films are well written, but the writing on this one was especially poor and the budget felt even lower than in the other films we've watched judging by the repeating wardrobe and minimal sets. It also had a moment that nearly killed Adam, so that's something.

The film follows Bella, a law student and OnlyFans model who doesn't do nudes and is bullied by her classmates like all the girls in these films. She has a crush on Fred, a classmate with rich murderer smile, but has accidentally made Nate, another classmate who can actually pull off 90s hair curtains, think she's into him. They end up in a relationship that she wants to get out of, but he has been into her for a long time. She has a modeling partner named Shadow who is actually Nate in a mask, and thankfully she's an idiot and can't figure this out. The film goes on like this for a while with Bella trying to find a way but of the relationship, getting bullied by classmates and Nate's mom, and Nate being seemingly not confused about them dating for a month and never even kissing. At this point the film can maybe make sense if you imagine that they are all really religious, which is why they're so innocent even though they are law students (who wear school uniforms and are treated like middle schoolers by their one professor). Eventually Bella realizes she has feelings for Nate and this should mean the story is over but there was a super minor B-plot here. Some guy has been abusing girls and unrelatedly Bella was afraid Nate was killing people who he doesn't trust with no evidence? It's not a well developed subplot. Obviously Nate wasn't hurting anyone and somehow Bella represents herself at a trial sending the evil guy to jail who was in cahoots with the professor. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that Nate reveals himself to be Shadow by taking off his mask in front of Bella and she responds with, "Where did Shadow go?" and we all cracked up but no one more than Adam who nearly died of laughter. The movie got a full spoon for that alone.

While this movie was definitely weaker than others, it was still well worth a watch. Still would have preferred The Fae King is my Shadow Daddy or The Mafia Owns My Body though.

Spoon Rating: 7 

Magic Ex: Fangs And Claws Both Besotted With Me [2025]

I know I say that ever vertical drama is insane, but this one is particularly wild. While the other ones had crazy but consistent plots, this one's plot seems to veer back and forth without a strong central narrative. The acting gulf in this one is so wide too, and the costumes are this disparate mesh off "gothic" and "fairy" looks inspired by every time period from medieval to Victorian that could be purchased at a party supply store or Charlotte Russe in 2005. Let me attempt to explain what happens.

The film starts with Leia, the human main character, deciding on suicide by drowning after her mother-in-law says she will have to divorce her Alpha werewolf husband because she's a dirty human and he needs to make a productive werewolf alliance marriage. While in the water she gets blessed by a red light and is rescued by some servants who see she is now wearing a red gem ring (we find out way later she was blessed by a witch). With god-like powers, she goes home to ruin the engagement party of Sean, her ex she's not actually divorced from because werewolves can't actually get divorced from their mate, and Cecelia, the high-ranking werewolf he's set to marry. She does this by dropping a teacup. In the morning, she dramatically drops plates of food at breakfast rather than serve them. The scandal. Also, she has a facial scar that seems to be from Sean attacking her or something and it's gone now, but she doesn't want anyone to know so she wears a see-through mask. For no clear reason, she removes the mask later and it has a major Clark Kent effect because literally no one recognizes her even though she looks the same. She also decides she's going to divorce Sean which . . . is what everyone wants anyway? Either way, then she revives the King's son with her magic kiss so he now wants her. But also, her ex still wants her too and they have a moment of accident shower spray that results in a porno shot. Then she saves an urchin girl from being bullied and adopts her. Try to keep up. Leia's bio son, Elio (he's supposed to be 7 but he's like 13), is jealous of the adopted girl, Zoe, and conspires with Cecelia, a grown-ass woman, to hurt her. Zoe lied about her parentage in order to hook up Leia with the vampire king. Leia bumps him into a pool and now he wants her too. Also, Sean didn't actually want a divorce; he was being forced into the marriage and never though to just tell his wife that. Cecelia has her villain turn and conjures up a bunch of dark wizards we've never seen before to stage a coup on the king but Leia defeats them immediately with her magic ring. All three men still want her but she decides to just be single and use them as slave labor, which is actually based.

Putting aside the randomness of the plot, I want to talk about the stunning lack of supernatural stuff in these vertical dramas. You see, effects cost money and laying down unique lore is hard so we get werewolves who never actually turn into wolves with dubious rules about mates and hierarchies, vampires who can go in the sunlight and wear fake teeth that are actually worse than fake teeth I got at Spirit Halloween in 2008, and wizards who wear Alibaba bulk masks with their thin polyester capes and don't do magic. It's terrible. I love it. The whole of the effects in this movie are some red lines to show Leia's power, one almost interesting moment when a servant girl's arm turns into a werewolf fist, and a poof effect on the defeated wizards. Is the supernatural element literally just to dress them in corsets and brocade vests that no self respecting goth would wear? Do these werewolves have the life expectancy of vampires to justify their modernized old-fashioned attire and castles, which are usually just Bran Castle in Romania from different angles? I guess we can only have so many billionaire and mafia romances.

Spoon Rating: 8 

A Groom For Christmas [2024]

Nollywood or Christmas? Why pick? This movie is really just a Hallmark movie in Nigeria so it has all the conventions and silliness you would expect from that.

The plot centers around Lotanna, a lawyer who's secretly in love with Adaeze, his best friend and a mechanic who picks the worst men. The film starts with Lotanna skipping out on game night with his silly friend who's always eating in his office to comfort Adaeze after a breakup with beer and dish washing. Before Christmas, Lotanna goes away on a three week trip and in the meantime Adaeze meets his cousin, Nebolisa, a surgeon who has been living in Paris the last 14 years but has come home to meet a nice Nigerian girl. They hit it off way too quickly and by the time Lotanna comes back, Nebolisa is proposing on Christmas with plans for a wedding on New Year's Day. This is insane behavior, and even if Lotanna wasn't speaking from a place of secret love, he is perfectly in the right to question his friend and cousin's choices. As the minutes were ticking down, we were really looking for the gap to allow this wedding to stop. In movies like this you usually have the fiance turning into a jerk, but Nebolisa is a good dude the whole time. We wondered if there might be a class difference element coming in, but Lotanna's mom/Nebolisa's aunt is super supportive the whole time. We even wondered if classism might be why Lotanna didn't admit his feelings since his mom is trying to set him up with a law student (seemingly his mom is a professor), but this isn't mentioned either. Basically Lotanna never admitted his feelings out of sheer fear of rejection. Honestly, it does make sense in a while since they have been friends for ten years and that admission could ruin a beautiful friendship, but if you are having a breakdown at the thought of her finding someone else, you maybe were always going to lose. Either way, at the wedding Lotanna shows up to support his friend and Nebolisa says he can't marry Adaeze because he knows he's not the one. Lotanna and Adaeze end up together and thankfully don't get married immediately on the spot. Everyone is happy expect Nebolisa, I guess, but he'll be fine probably.

As I mentioned earlier, this film has a lot of Hallmark level silliness and contrivances but with the wonderful Nollywood addition of incongruous music. Overall, a fun, barely Christmas vibe, outside of some terrible caroling. 

Spoon Rating: 6 

One Of Us Likes You [2025] & Fated To Miss: The Luna In his Dreams [2024]

As our picks get more obscure, my ability to find good images for them starts to wane. Our first short film of the night was "One Of Us Like You." After an awkward meeting between a girl who curiously can't find her house and a guy who seemingly has multiple personalities, a date ensues. Her entire backstory is a little off, and he is constantly switching between Eli (the normal, nerdy guy who likes her), a morning routine filming pick up artist, a stereotypical anxiety-ridden glasses wearer, and eventually fourth personality based described as jerkass. She's completely cool with his DID, but then reveals that she was his online friend who disappeared one day. Apparently he finds this too weird and kicks her out. Months later he has a new girlfriend who is annoying and he has gone back to making friends online, seemingly talking to the girl he rejected for stalking him.

This film had a couple funny moments but wasn't really bad enough. Just odd.

Spoon Rating: 3

Our second film, however, was an absolute banger of a vertical drama. Titled on YouTube as "Forced Love: True Love Is Around" but actually called Fated to Miss: The Luna In His Dreams, this is a werewolf romance where no one ever turns into a wolf. Two young werewolves named Snow and Silver make a blood pact to be together when they find each other again as they run away from a hunter. Years later, Daniel Bloodthrone, Alpha of his clan, is engaged to marry Amelia Hurricano, who is adopted and her dad hates her and wants to marry her off. Neither of them want this because they are looking for their true loves, Snow and Silver respectively. How long can a misunderstanding trope go on for you ask? Oh, so much longer than is reasonable. 

Right before the wedding, Amelia is tortured by a girl named Lilith who wants Daniel, and Lilith gets her blood oath ring in the process. Both Lilith and Daniel's beta, Leon, are in love with Daniel and want to break up the marriage. Over time, Daniel and Amelia organically fall in love, deciding to forget about their true loves and blood oaths and just bang. For a second, everything is perfect as they realize they were Snow and Silver all along, until Lilith shows up spouting memories that Snow had and wearing Snow's blood oath ring. Daniel, being the stupidest man on the planet, is now confused about whether Amelia or Lilith is actually Snow. Amelia is very rightfully pissed. She has an altercation with Lilith that ends with Lilith stabbing her in the collarbone and killing Elizabeth, Amelia's maid and friend, which rightfully drives Amelia to rage. This is broken up by Leon confessing his feelings for Daniel, who is again confused, and then Leon himself because he knows he can never be with Daniel. 

Later, Amelia and Daniel bump into each other at Elizabeth's grave and Daniel begs Amelia to take him back. And for once in one of these vertical dramas, we get acting that feels real as Amelia dumps him, says she can't trust him, and tells him to grow up. Daniel responds by stabbing himself, a very mature counterpoint. Amelia basically says, "Here's a tissue to stop the bleeding, and I'll go get a doctor, but I'm out." She leaves him and nine months later gives birth to a girl. A true happy ending. 

This was excellent. It had all the hallmarks of a vertical drama - the weird acting, the melodrama, the poor editing - but it has the added benefits of dumb werewolf lore and a main character who turned out to actually be a genuinely reasonable person who won't put up with a stupid man's shit. What a win.

Spoon Rating: 8