Glass (2019, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
What a bummer. Stick to low budget horror-comedies, M. Night.
2 / 5
Summer of 84 (2018, dir. François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell)
This movie was giving me so many
Book of Henry flashbacks it actually got distracting and probably impacted my overall enjoyment, haha. In fact I was kinda sour on the movie for the first half or so, but then it gradually began winning me back. I think the problem I have with this film is that the director knows all the 80s tropes and wanted to subvert many of them, but bit off more than it could chew... Hard to describe, but if the movie hadn't been so "Thing and/or trope you know from the 80's!!" at the start it might have hooked me a little bit sooner.
3 / 5
Captain Marvel (2019, dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck)
Pretty much a Phase 1 MCU movie in Phase 3 cosmic clothing. I wish the last act felt more empowering than it was, some emotional stuff wasn't really set up all that well IMO.
3 / 5
Last Shift (2014, dir. Anthony DiBlasi)
A braindead budgetless horror movie with inept twists, horrid acting, and a dearth of scares.
1 / 5
The Nun (2018, dir. Corin Hardy)
Utter schlock, but the location and cinematography was actually up my alley. And when the movie goes full schlock at the end (somewhere around the time the Super Nun Corps arrives to fight the demon with group prayer) it gets fairly entertaining. I don't know if it's better than the Annabelle movies but it does seem more memorable.
2 / 5
Dead & Buried (1981, dir. Gary Sherman)
This movie was just cool. It has a great setup for the horrors that unfold (don't look it up or read spoilers, since things only really become clear towards the end) and does something entirely fresh different with the "zombie" concept.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
And what a shocker of an ending! Gave this one an extra point just for that.
4 / 5
Timecrimes (alt. "Los Cronocrímenes," 2007, dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
I fell in love with this Spanish indie scifi/horror flick. It's stripped-down and focused, but not at the expense of a layered and evolving plot. It's well-explained with good dialogue, but not to the detriment of the audience's intelligence.
This film also does a really good job, better than most I've seen, of playing with some really dark concepts and forcing you to reexamine what you think of the main character.
Timecrimes is a great example of the type of horror movie I'm always on the hunt for: small-scale without being super obvious about it, solid acting, and a neat concept that doesn't just "stay" a neat concept. So many indie horrors I watch (and I've been trying to watch a lot lately) have a really cool idea and then just... don't do anything with it. This movie does stuff and managed to stay one step ahead of me most of the time, and that also deserves extra props.
Really solid camerawork too, almost hypnotic sometimes. My only complaints mostly stem from "first film" issues from writer-director Nacho Vigalondo (there's no escaping how cheap it feels sometimes, and not all the acting is stellar), but there's no question he's on my radar now and I'm looking forward to tackling the rest of his filmography soon.
4 / 5
Terrified (2017, dir. Demián Rugna)
Wonderful! Although this isn't *really* an anthology-horror, it kinda feels like one, and along with
Southbound it's given me hope in the genre after the
V/H/S series threw said hope off a cliff about ten years ago.
With this one, I can't really put my finger on anything specific I liked (other than the unique narrative structure in the first half or so), but it does everything well and it all works together to create a compelling, inventive and chilling horror tale.
4 / 5
Don't Leave Home (2018, dir. Michael Tully)
Plodding to the point of near-frustration, this one was more of a dark drama with a hint of supernatural and than out-and-out horror of any kind.
This one was just barely saved by some very effective directing, and a few stunning sequences in particular, along with a neat concept in general.
2 / 5
The Canal (2014, dir. Ivan Kavanagh)
I would describe this as a "Lynch-light" feature. It cribs a bit too much to stand on its own, but considering how little that particular audience is catered too, I was OK with it this time. (Usually, obvious and poorly-done Lynch knockoffs and homages rile me up like little else.)
But yeah, I think this one mostly works. Just don't compare it with the master and you should be good.
Disclaimer: Was
fairly high for this one, so that may have affected my enjoyment as well.
4 / 5
The Witch in the Window (2018, dir. Andy Mitton)
Wonderful little low-budget horror film about a reluctant father-son pair dealing with a ghost in the house they're attempting to fix and flip. For what it is, the acting is surprisingly top-notch, and the director Andy Mitton has a great grasp of horror framing and editing to achieve tension. Unfortunately, there's really no suspense -- after a noticeable point, the titular witch basically stops being a threat, and when she attempts to "get" someone (like those cliche scenes where the character slowly turns to look at a shadow or something behind them), it's literally an old woman running at the camera with her arms flailing out. There's nothing the movie could do to make me take it seriously after seeing that.
It's a shame, since the bones of the story are pretty strong (despite some wonky and obvious dialogue in places), and like I said the performances were all there.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
My final criticism is that while I understand the movie wanted to be "smart" and answer the eternal question of these movies "Why don't they just leave??", sending the son away (and then revealing he never came back) works against the themes of the movie. Actually, it seemed weird to me, since until that point we've mostly seen the movie through the son's eyes, and then they seemingly eject that protagonist 2/3's through the movie to make it about the dad.
The dad was probably intended as the main protagonist all along, but I dunno, it felt weird to me to have 70% of the movie be literally two people, and then they get scared and the dad goes "OK son kthxbye." And the ending is predictable from there.
3 / 5
The Beyond (1981, dir. Lucio Fulci)
Haven't delved much into Italian horror, but I'm liking what I'm seeing if this film is an indication. Lucio Fulci really shows a keen insight into what makes horror work, and what makes a film work, and although the marriage of his ideas to celluloid isn't quite as clean as I'd like... at least it still makes great horror!
Honestly, I will say this movie probably doesn't play well for a modern audience -- I was pretty enraptured *almost* the entire time, but some stretches can get a bit boring. However the absolutely excellent background score kept drawing me in again and again no matter what.
This also now has one of my favorite horror movie endings ever. A serene nightmare.
4 / 5
Downrange (2017, dir. Ryohei Kitamura)
A step-up (but just barely) from Ryohei Kitamura's execrable
The Midnight Meat Train (2008), this movie is probably decent with crowds but mostly a total failure as an actual horror film otherwise. This is classed as "action-horror" but there's no horror, and no real action either? So I don't really get it. The tension evaporates like a fart in the wind after a decent intro, and it's all downhill from there. The movie veers towards "so bad it's good" with some truly awful performances and dialog, but never quite commits to any specific tone -- a pet peeve of mine, and something I'm finding I don't like about Kitamura's directing in general.
I'm also not really one to complain about a lack of explanations (The Bore's... third most prominent Lynch fan checking in, hey-oh), but there also really should have been *something* given on the sniper. Like, even give him some kind of quirk. Maybe he chews gum! Something. Anything!
Also the gore CGI was Very Bad™.
2 / 5
