IT Chapter One & TwoI was a big fan of the first one, and I enjoyed Chapter Two as well. One of my least favorite parts about the Chapter One was how after the fight, months passed, and then Bev gets taken and immediately they're all back together without any happening in between. I'm glad that they actually touched on that in the sequel by forcing everyone to relive a moment from that time in order to perform the Ritual of Chüd. I thought the casting was great in Chapter Two, I like that it stayed focused on the characters instead of thinking they they needed to ramp it up into something more action-packed. It did feel like at times it was just covering the same ground as the first part, and a couple of reused gags didn't help (although I'll admit I did still like the Scary/Not Scary/Very Scary" doors
), but overall solid movie.
Chapter One: ****
Chapter Two: ***1/2
PureA direct-to-Hulu feminist horror movie about a group of horny teens that are forced by their fathers to attend one of those creepy father/daughter purity balls at a remote forest retreat. One of the more rebellious girls has fun every year attempting to perform a ritual to summon Lilith, but thanks to the new girl, this time it actually works, and summons Lilith from the depths of Hell to help them smash the patriarchy. Honestly, it's not a bad idea for a movie, but nothing happens in this damn movie. I just watched 5 hours of some people trying to kill this fucking clown, so I can appreciate a movie that takes it time, but give me something to work with here. It's just 80 minutes of dudes being shitty af to women (which, okay, checks out) before getting their comeuppance.
Despite the estrogen injection, this movie reminds me a lot of another movie called Evilspeak. In Evilspeak, Clint Howard uses an Apple IIe to summon Satan to help him get revenge on the shitty people at his military academy. Evilspeak wasn't a very good movie either, but it did have a pretty sweet scene at the end where Clint Howard starts flying around and kills the headmaster with a flaming sword. Basically what I'm trying to say is that if Pure ended with someone getting decapitated by a flaming sword, I would have liked it more, but it didn't. Boo.
*1/2