Apocalypse Clown (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: After a mysterious technological blackout plunges Ireland into anarchy and chaos, a group of washed-up clowns travel the country for one last shot at their dreams.

Apocalypse Clown is ridiculous. But it’s aware of it. Comedy horrors can be difficult to get right because if they lean too far in the direction of comedy then the horror doesn’t work, and if they lean too hard into the horror then you risk the comedy coming off as inappropriate, with characters witnessing horrific and traumatising murders, and then making jokes about it like the deaths of people not named Henry Kissinger are funny. The director, George Kane, has previously directed episodes of Inside Number 9, so he has a track record of being able to balance the two genres effectively.

He’s helped by the characters taking the situation seriously, the threat feels VERY real throughout, so even when people are dying in ridiculous ways (Like when a character nearly died from being creampied repeatedly, I heard rumours that’s how David Cameron kills pigs), it still feels horrific enough to hit the right horror notes, like John Carpenter at a keyboard.

Now onto the (kind of) negative. If your exposure to British media is big-budget films, reality shows, or bleak murder shows, then the performances are fine. If, however, you’ve watched much comedy then you are left with feeling that too many of the performers seem to be doing tribute acts to other performers; David Earl is doing Joe Wilkinson, Fionn Foley is basically MC Grindah as a clown, Amy De Bhrun is very Sharon Horgan, Ivan Kaye is Roger Allam (he’d also make a good Desmond Tiny if they were to redo Cirque De Freak), so when you’re watching it, you are slightly distracted by thinking “who does that guy remind me of?”. That being said, Natalie Palamides is a f*cking delight. I mean, it’s weird for me to say that “being a tribute act to a better performer” is a bad thing but then also praise Palamides based on the fact she has a real Carol Kane energy. I think the difference is that cinema sees a lot of despondent clowns, but very manic excitable Carol Kane types. It helps that Palamides feels like the only performer who threw out the script and is just making shit up as she goes along. She’s the epitome of vulnerable chaos and I absolutely love her. It would be so easy for her to overegg her coulrophilia pudding (that sentence is clearly there just to make people google coulrophilia, and enjoy the strange targeted ads you’re going to get). Palamides plays it perfectly though, she never feels too much, like she’s trying too hard. She’s an incredible physical performer, turning a scene as simple as “eating ham” into something incredibly unsettling. Her tornado of chaos also means that when she acts scared, it sells the situation. If a depressed and nihilistic clown is worried, not a big deal, but if a psychopathic clown is scared, shit has got real.

In terms of visuals, it’s fine. There are a few moments where you feel a bigger budget might have improved it, but it mostly works. The opening scene showing the chaos is incredible for a film of this budget. The music could have been better, I can’t really remember any of it to be honest, which is a shame as this is apt for a scene of soundtrack dissonance, playing a bright and cheery song over scenes of brutality.

The script could be a bit more focused, there’s an entire subplot which could be removed and the only impact it would have is to slightly lessen the impact of the ending. On that topic; the ending reveal is SUPERB. I haven’t seen a reveal this satisfying and unexpected since Bodies Bodies Bodies. Before this, Killers Of A Flower Moon was locked on to win the award for best ending, now it has competition.

So in summary; it’s on Netflix so you really should watch it while you can. It’s not the greatest film in the world, but it’s a welcome distraction in a world full of war, famine, and Piers Morgan.

Napoleon (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: The (partial) life story of a French Emporer

Napoleon is a strange film, and one I’m not entirely sure needs to exist. For something like this to exist it needs to be either educational, overblown, or relevant. This fails on all three counts.

The educational: the accuracy of it has been called into question multiple times. This was going to be obvious from the first time you see the tagline: He came from nothing, he conquered everything. He didn’t come from nothing, and it’s weird to say he did. For starters, his dad was an aristocrat (not to be confused with an aristocat. who are pets who get to sleep on velvet mats, naturalment). It puts him present at the execution of Marie Antoinette when he was actually on a battlefield at the time. It also shows him firing at the Pyramids in Giza, which never happened. These are such needless lies too. But they call into question the accuracy of everything, did Napoleon mastermind a victory over the English at the siege of Toulon? Did his marriage fall apart because of fertility issues? Is there even a country called France? These are all things presented as true within the film, but so are proven falsehoods, so it’s hard to tell.

It has been accused of being anti-French, but what else would you expect from a Scott? You know, because the director is Ridley Scott, and Scotland is part of the UK, who have famously nearly always been at war with France? I know, the joke would have worked better if the film also involved Britt Eckland (if I spelt it Brit), Robert Englund (if I spelt it England), or Kerry VonFuckTheFrench (if I spelt it Kerri).

It’s not just the French who are annoyed at this movie; idiots are too. Accusing Ridley Scott of making a film that discriminates against white men by showing one of them as a bit of a dick and he had a wife who cheated on him. The wife part; yes, she did cheat on him, but he cheated on her. He ended the marriage just because she couldn’t get pregnant, and impregnated a teen. The wife ended up dying alone and in pain, what a bitch. And of course, it shows him as a bad person, he was a military leader responsible for the deaths of thousands. Something that’s not in the movie is the siege of Jaffa, where Napoleon allowed/encouraged his soldiers to spend two days massacring and raping the inhabitants of Jaffa (a city in now-Israel, not the chocolate and orange treat that’s a cake for tax purposes). Most European leaders in history were dicks, and most of them were white men, both of those things are facts. So if you want to watch a movie about European history, you’re going to have to put up with a white man being terrible. So we can either not make historical movies, we can make historical movies about non-Europeans, or we make Henry VIII a black woman. Maybe then the internet will stop complaining. In response to the historical inaccuracies, Ridley Scott has said that historical accuracy isn’t important. I’m hoping he continues this point of view when I release my new film “Ridley Scott once bummed a hedgehog”

The overblown: it’s all a bit dour. There’s not much on the excess of emperors. It’s a Ridley Scott film so there are some fantastic shots in it. I’m normally not a fan of animal deaths in movies, but I’m very glad his horse got shot with a cannon in this because it means I could make a joke about how his horse was Napoleon Blown-Apart.

I’m not going to though.

The horse death does give me an excuse to talk about the violence. It’s incredibly violent, in a good way. You can tell this from the opening scene when Antoinette is executed. Usually, when you see that on screen it’s a clean cut and the head is held up like a mannequin head. When her head is held up here it’s dripping blood and bits of skin, it’s horrific, but does a good job of reminding you that this is an actual human head that just a few seconds ago was full of life. Whilst the visuals are good, the audio is a bit meh. Not in terms of music and sound, but the accents. Nobody has a French accent. This would be okay if it was all taking place in France or if every character was clearly defined, and it’s fine for small scenes. But when there are scenes of characters from multiple countries it can be a bit confusing. This is best highlighted in battle scenes which just consists of people with English accents and nondescript outfits charging at each other, with no idea of who belongs to which side. I haven’t seen fight scenes this confusing since the last Transformers movie I watched where action scenes were just chunks of metal rolling around. (I think it was the second one).

This does have the potential to be a good movie, and there are times when it does live up to that potential. But it mostly doesn’t. The pacing is weird, skipping over important details way too quickly. His first exile and escape took place entirely in my quick pee break. But this is a moment where he was exiled and completely hopeless, yet he escaped by commandeering the people who were supposed to be guarding him. That’s a classic moment of historical farce, which with the right build-up and setup could have been incredible. There are multiple moments of that. It’s both too short to go into things with as much detail as it should, but also too long to hold your attention. I would say it’s wasted potential, but really, I expected nothing less. Every worry I had about this turned out to be correct. And really that’s the most disappointing thing, well, that and the fact that I still can’t stop singing the name to the tune of Linoleum by NoFX. The film also doesn’t contain a scene where goes around San Dimas eating ice cream and helping two kids with their history presentation. Bullshit. *storms out review*

Wait

*comes back in*

I forgot my chocolate, I’m still angry.

*storms back out*

Thanksgiving (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: A year on from a black friday tragedy (that the town doesn’t really feel haunted by), an axe-wielding killer is killing people, sometimes with an axe.

It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do genuinely love horror movies, they’re often on my list of favourite films. But they’re also my least favourite. Horror is all about personal taste. To some people, a certain film may be the best film they’ve ever seen, to some, they just won’t like it no matter how many positive reviews they see; it’s just not their type. It’s a lot like comedy in that sense (or porn, actually, now I think about it).

I know that some people love this film, and I can see why. It’s gory, has some very creative kills, and is unique. But it’s all just so miserable and pretty much every single character is a prick. You don’t really want to see anybody survive. All you want is for someone to appear and beat everybody on-screen to death with a shit-covered hammer. This is a common problem in horror movies; characters are so unlikeable that you cheer when horrible things happen to them. But they’re also characters who we have to spend all our time with, and that 90% of time spent being annoyed isn’t worth the small catharsis.

I try not to go into spoilers too much in my reviews but I feel I have to do so here to demonstrate a logical issue I have with it. It’s mentioned early on that nobody involved in the riot at the start was prosecuted and the police couldn’t do anything. The killer turns out to be the local cop. Now call me crazy but I don’t think it would be that difficult for a small-town cop to invent a reason to arrest or kill someone. Literally, all he’d need to do is say “They were speeding, they got aggressive so I had to shoot them”. Yeah, it wouldn’t make the deaths echo as much as they did, and it wouldn’t be as cinematic, but it would be a lot more effective, and he wouldn’t need to wait a year to do it. He could even pull people over and say he needs to check their car for drugs etc, then subtly cut their brakes. I know I’m expecting too much from something dumb, but if something is dumb it can at least have the decency to not be so utterly miserable throughout.

From a technical standpoint, it’s all fine. The performances are standard for a horror film, with Patrick Dempsey being the only obvious standout. It’s not helped by how generic a lot of the characters are, to the point where a climactic final scene involving finding dead bodies left me trying to figure out who those people were.

In summary, I get why people would be into this. But for me, it was a case of “too bleak, stopped caring”. The closing credits were pretty fun though.

Anatomy Of A Fall (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder

I didn’t really know much about Anatomy Of A Fall (Aoaf, pronounced Eye-aff) when I watched it, when I came out of it I assumed it was a short movie, around the 100-minute mark. It’s actually 150. That says a lot about how incredibly paced this is. It’s odd as really you can sum it up quite quickly; a woman is accused of killing her husband. That’s it, we get a quick set-up, the death, and then the court case. I genuinely have no idea what the 2 and a half hours came from, despite not much really happening, nothing felt like it took up a long period of time. It says a lot about the talent of Triet that this works as wonderfully as it does.

He’s helped by terrific performances from Sandra Hueller and Samuel Theis, who have a chemistry which makes you think they’re constantly one sentence away from either murder or marathon sex (that’s sex that goes on for an extended period of time, not sex with/using the chocolate bar now known as a Snickers).

The look and general tone reminded me of a Nordic noir, but that might have just been the snow and the lighting. It also reminded me that I know next to nothing about the French legal system but it seems interesting.

It’s not as gratuitous as a lot of similar films have been. It’s not about the shocking death, but about the shocking nature of the human condition. It’s more about relationships and fractured romance than it is a mystery. I don’t really remember being transfixed into the mystery of whether she killed him or not. Really the only part of my enjoyment of this film that depended on the truth was whether it would match with the ending. If she didn’t do it and was free then that’s fine, if she did it and ended up being found guilty that would also be fine. But if she did it and got away with it, or didn’t do it but was convicted anyway, then I would have soured on it. Thankfully, the ending does play it true and wraps it up nicely too.

I mentioned earlier that Aoaf reminded me of a Nordic noir series. But that’s not a good indication as to whether you’ll like this. Really, the closest I can think of is Gone Girl, and I mean that as a compliment. The central relationship is certainly more believable in this. It’s nowhere near as tense or as compelling. But that’s only because Gone Girl is superb. This is just very very good. I’ve only just touched on all the wonderful building blocks that go towards the creation of the house of Aoaf. The honest look at depression, the way it handles media intrusion on celebrities’ lives, the balance between art and realism when it comes to violence, and the incredibly well-made scientific analysis made on screen. I have never been as comfortable yet also entranced as I have here.

Return To Seoul (2022) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A 25-year-old French woman returns to South Korea, where she was born, for the very first time.

2023 has definitely been a year of pairings; films made separately but would make good double bills; Aftersun and Scrapper, Assassin Club and Film-maker Shits On Audience, and now, Past Lives and Return To Seoul (RTS; pronounced Real-Time Strategy). They both deal with Asian (specifically South Korean) born women who have lived most of their lives in another country (France with RTS, and USA for PL), and the personal cultural schism they go through, trying to work out their identity between the country that birthed them and the country that raised them. Whereas Past Lives focused more on romantic and personal loss, RTS focused more on family loss and not being in touch with your roots. There are some nice moments where the film explains the cultural differences between France and Korea. Highlights how while biologically she is Korean, culturally she is completely devoid of her birth nationality. The focus on family loss hits hardest in a scene where she tries to talk to her father but needs an interpreter. It’s absolutely heartbreaking and played perfectly by Ji-Min Park.

Park is fantastic in this, she really knocks it out of her surname. The difference between her at the start and her in the years afterwards is astounding, feels like a completely different person, and all of that is down to her performance.

I will say that this is kind of frustrating but in a sort of good way. We, the audience want answers and an explanation. But so does she. So thematically it makes sense, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a frustrating watch for the audience at times.

It’s good to listen to though, the music is really good. Reminds me of the hard-to-google band 27. In that way, it is better than Past Lives, but in almost every other way it doesn’t compare. Which is a shame. If this came out any other year it would be incredible, but it does suffer from being released so close to something superior. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth watching, and it is available online for those with a Mubi account, and if you’re a fan of cinema then you really should have one, so many of my favourite films have come from that. There are a few moments where I feel it had no focus and they were just making it up as they went along, and other moments where you feel they could have gone further (especially considering the chemistry between her and a hotel worker). In summary: if you’re a casual movie-goer you’re not going to like this, if you have ever used the phrase “Dutch angle” or “establishing shot”, then this is the film for you.

The Marvels (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s an MCU film.

What is it about female-led movies that annoy male movie fans so much? “But Brie Larson is unlikeable” say people who then bitch about how racists and sex offenders should still be in movies because “You need to separate the art from the artist”. People are talking about this as if it’s one of the worst comic book movies of all time. As someone who is currently watching the 2004 Catwoman movie, I can categorically say that’s not the case. At worst, The Marvels has a few wasted opportunities. In particular, it doesn’t seem like it makes the most of the body-swapping gimmick. They do it a few times, and it is integral to the plot, it does allow for some fun moments. But it doesn’t provide any “Wow, this incredible amazing action scene can ONLY be done in this movie” moments. I’m opposed to random hires on films, particularly when it comes to scripts, but if they had someone whose job it was to just think of those set-pieces then it would have improved it so much.

One thing this did get right is the chemistry between the three leads. I haven’t got around to Ms. Marvel yet, but the performance of Iman Vellani in this makes me think I should. Kamala Khan is so damn likeable in this, and she provides comic relief in an actual realistic way, as opposed to the standard Marvel way which is “We’re in the middle of a fight where we may die, time to quip” which usually feels overwritten and takes away from the seriousness of the action. Her comedic dialogue mostly focuses on being completely overwhelmed by what’s happening in front of her. I should point out that despite not having watched the Ms. Marvel series, I wasn’t lost while watching this. It does a pretty decent job of getting you up to speed with both her powers and her personality.

So it’s a shame that the villain is so underwhelming, especially since there’s so much potential. Zawe Ashton is a good performer, and none of the fault lies with her, but the character of Dar-Benn isn’t given enough screen time to really make an impact. What we see of her is pretty good though, she’s given believable motivations, a heartbreaking backstory, and has the potential to destroy the entire universe even after she dies by creating energy/resource-sapping jump points. But it feels like those jump points are the main villain and she’s just an afterthought.

Nia DaCosta is still relatively new as a director, but she steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park here, scoring a complete third sports reference. Visually there’s a lot going on, and a lot of it is CGI, but it all feels real. There are no obviously embarrassing CGI failures like the ones which haunted the last Captain Marvel movie. There are some places where the music choices could have been slightly better though. In particular, there’s a section set on a planet where everybody communicates by singing. It has some fun moments but it doesn’t quite lean into the weirdness as much as it could. It could have been a highlight of the film if it had the guts to go weird. Just as I said when I first saw the casting for She-Hulk; they should have just got Rachel Bloom in and told her to do what she wants. It may have been terrible, it may have been amazing, but it would have for sure been memorable.

There is a lot to like about this, and nowhere near as much to dislike as the internet would have you believe. It’s probably one of the most solid entries in the post-Endgame MCU, and I hope the takings eventually reflect that.

Dream Scenario (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Nicholas Cage suddenly appears in everybody’s dreams. Well, a character who in this film is played by him. Which isn’t anywhere near as interesting.

This shares two cast members of Mouthpiece, which is always a good sign as it gives me a chance to talk about how much I love that movie. It’s one of the most creative and brilliant movies I’ve ever seen. Dream Scenario? Not so much. It has a great concept: “What if a random man starts appearing in everybody’s dreams?”, but it doesn’t seem to know what to do with that concept. It raises some interesting questions but then has zero interest in answering them. It kind of feels like a lot of it is filler until they can think of a better scene. It also feels a bit unfocused. Is it attacking cancel culture? Memes? The capitalist desire to exploit wonder for adverts? It attempts to talk about all of them and ends up not discussing any of them.

The fact we don’t really find out why this is happening also means it’s kind of narratively unfulfilling. I have a feeling it’s something to do with the technology later shown which allows advertisers to enter dreams, but that implies an issue of consent which was never there in the start. It also would be an incredibly risky advertising strategy “Hey, we made a guy appear in people’s dreams and kill them, buy our product”. Nobody seems to make the connection between the two either, and if the capitalist aspect was taken from the narrative it wouldn’t cause that much difference. The only change would be you’d no longer have the ending of Cage appearing in his wife’s dream in a giant suit and saving her from being sacrificed, this shows that he………is willing to dream about her? I dunno. I feel it would have said more if she just happened to have that dream, showing that no matter what, her opinion of him hasn’t changed.

The lack of agency and control that Cage’s character shows also means the reaction to him is a bit weird. When he starts attacking people in their dreams EVERYBODY takes it seriously and blames him. I could understand a loud section of the internet doing so, but it feels like there’s not a single person who says “Wait, this is stupid” and defends him. I don’t object to the fact that if this happened in reality, people would blame him for it, but I find it hard to believe there wouldn’t be people just as passionately defending him. People will defend anything on the internet: the right to murder people just for being trans, sexually assaulting women if they wear skirts, microwaving tea. Cage is the only sane man in this movie (which is usually the complete opposite of what happens), with every single other character lacking any sense of realism. Remember that scene in Friends where Phoebe is annoyed at Ross because he did something rude but in the end, it turns out it only happened in her dream? That’s Dream Scenario. The big difference is that in Friends, when Phoebe realised it was a dream she forgave him and thought of herself as being silly. The idiot character in a sitcom populated by not-smart characters is STILL MORE LOGICAL than ANY other character in this movie. It does have some really sweet moments and some horrific ones. But that’s all they are; moments. There doesn’t feel to be the momentum required to carry it through. I will say this though; it does have the best fart joke I’ve seen in a while.

It’s annoying as I REALLY wanted to enjoy this, I love weird things (probably because I am a weird thing), and Nicholas Cage is entertaining as hell. It looks good and has some really good supporting performances. It’s just, how can I put this in a way that makes sense? The only way I can describe it is it’s like when you’re English and watching an American sitcom and you hear jokes about certain basketball players or shops, you sit there like “I’m sure I’d appreciate that if I got the reference”. That’s how it feels watching this, you’re left with the feeling that scenes, dialogue, and character motivations are all references to an obscure film you haven’t seen.

They Cloned Tyrone (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A series of eerie events thrust an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy.

I think my slight apathy to this is all on me. I didn’t watch the trailer or read much about it, I just saw the title and the synopsis and made my mind up about what kind of film this would be. I assumed it would be a silly wacky comedy. It’s definitely not that. I mean, it is funny at times, but it is also INCREDIBLY serious at other times. Let’s be honest, Netflix originals do not have the “must-see” status they used to have. Their output over the last few years has included The Gray Man, Red Notice, and a slew of Adam Sandler films, so not exactly. There have been a few impressive ones but they’re mainly adaptations or sequels; All Quiet On The Western Front, Glass Onion etc. So with a film like this, something a bit silly is to be expected. Because of this tonal misexpectation (not a word) it’s possible I didn’t fully buy in as much as I would have otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, it is a really good piece of filmmaking and storytelling. It’s difficult to say what genre this belongs to but if I had to categorise it I’d say it’s Sci-Fi Blaxploitation Mystery Satire Thriller. That’s very ambitious, especially for a first-time director like Juel Taylor. It’s a difficult balancing act and I’m not quite sure he manages it. There is a lot to like about it. It’s slick, it’s stylish, it’s sooooo damn smart. Much smarter than Netflix deserves. I’d like this a lot more if I watched it at the cinema, but watching it at home just felt kind of wrong.

Taylor is obviously one hell of a writer/director. There’s a scene where the characters are just sitting in a chicken restaurant (think more KFC than Nandos in terms of lighting) and everybody around them starts laughing. That’s all it is, people laughing. It’s somehow one of the most unsettling scenes of the year. It’s at its best when it is taking itself seriously; when it goes full batshit insane conspiracy. That’s when TCT is at its smartest and most entertaining. But then it lets itself down by just going a bit silly.

The performances are as good as you expect. By this point it’s expected that John Boyega and Jamie Foxx can give good performances, Teyonah Parris isn’t as well known but still gives a great performance, and plays such a different character than she does in the MCU which is where most people would probably know her from.

It looks great, a lot of love has obviously gone into creating this visual style, and that effort certainly pays off. There are a few moments where it’s a bit too dark to figure out what’s going on. But mostly it works visually. The soundtrack also really suits it.

In summary, it’s worth seeing, it’s an intriguing watch; albeit one that doesn’t quite live up to the potential it offers. On that note; the next review will be Dream Scenario.

Bottoms (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: PJ and Josie are two teenage girls who decide to start a fight club to meet women.

This film is super gay, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. More films should do this, not hide behind “oh they’re experimenting” or “they’re good friends”, just have teen characters who know their sexuality. It’s also good to see gay characters who aren’t walking cliches or are super confident and perfect, but are instead awkward and just as ridden by neurosis and feelings of inadequacy as heterosexual teen characters. Bottoms is a film that is painfully aware of teen movie tropes, and lampoons the hell out of them. The hero worship of student-athletes? Turned to 11 here, with star footballer (of the hand-egg variety, not the “predominantly uses a foot to kick a ball” variety) Jeff (played by Nicholas Galitzine) having a literal mural painted of him on the school walls. He’s also shown as not just a bit of an arse, but also borderline sociopathic, with the faculty members letting him get away with it because of his ball-handling skills. The “local school rivalries” plot you normally get in these films? Again, turned up to 11 by having the feud involve torture and ritualistic murder. To enjoy this you need to be able to go where the film takes you. You can’t sit there and be anal, picking holes in how unrealistic it is, you have to be able to just accept certain things as being true in the universe created by it.

If it was badly written, then this would fail. The script is incredibly well done, with jokes coming faster than you can catch them, whilst still finding room for genuine heart and emotion. The characters are likeable, and the performances are good enough that you almost forget the leads are played by people almost in their 30s. Rachel Sennott who plays PJ also had a hand in the script, so it would be easy to disparage her casting by saying “Oh, she’s only in it because she’s involved in production” but her performance completely justifies her casting. You can tell that she actually remembers being a teen, and the awkwardness and weirdness of that. It’s comparable to how Nicola Coughlan was a believable teen in Derry Girls despite being in her 30s, especially when compared to US teens in shows like Gossip Girl. The only part I didn’t like about Sennott was I was trying to remember where I knew her from, Bodies Bodies Bodies in case you were wondering. Ayo Edebiri (better known from The Bear) is also perfect in this. Her performance in The Bear requires her to be kind of pretentious and overconfident, she’s the complete opposite in this, but handles it perfectly. Almost as if she’s…..acting! *shock* My personal favourite performer is Ruby Cruz as Hazel, absolutely adored her, her body language and vocal performances were so damn good and I couldn’t help but come out of this film and assume that Cruz is like that in real life.

So in summary, I absolutely loved this. It was described as the horniest and most violent film of the year, that’s not quite the case but is among my personal favourites of 2023. It is pretty damn violent, and the final fight is cinematic genius. It’s also incredibly funny, with a fantastic laugh-per-minute ratio. I want to see more films like this; well-written comedies with heart and unabashed wackiness. Just next time, can you think of a better title? Every time I said “I’m going out tonight to watch Bottoms” I had to clarify I was watching a film, not staring at butts.

Slotherhouse (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) adopts a sloth as a mascot to win a school election against alpha mega bitch Brianna (Sydney Craven). So far, so Mean Girls. The sloth then starts killing everybody.

As I settled down to watch this, I had one thought in my mind “When will that dickhead outside stop revving his car?” he eventually stopped and not because his car mysteriously exploded, and I had another thought “I hope this isn’t too serious”. The concept for this, a killer sloth, is ridiculous, and there was a slight concern that it would take itself too seriously. If they don’t lean into the inherent silliness of the concept, then it’s doomed. Thankfully, the film seems aware that it’s kind of dumb, even lampooning its own title by having a character say it out loud and being met with an awkward silence.

Sometimes the stupidity works against it. Yes, it is a stupid premise, but there are moments where the characters are treating it as such. Airplane worked because the characters took it seriously, it doesn’t seem like they are in this. The death of Mayflower (a character, not the ship populated by colonists whose ancestors would then complain about immigration) in particular goes on way too long due to the characters not taking it seriously. They make jokes, insult the soon-to-be dying, and just generally seem like they’re having fun.

Another downside is that some of the side characters are seriously one-dimensional. This really hurts the death scenes that take place in the montage because you’re not entirely sure who these people are. There is also an issue of “how exactly is the sloth hiding all these bodies?” I’m more forgiving of certain things in films like this. I’ll allow certain cheap looks or plot mistakes purely because it’s not meant to be taken seriously, that being said, the montage massacre doesn’t really acknowledge the sheer amount of deaths. You get a few “where the fuck is [character]?” messages but there’s no fear or consequences. Nobody is panicking about the missing characters. This is particularly strange as one of the main plot points is a leadership vote going on, so you’d think if a character is obsessed with making sure they get all the votes possible, they’d notice if their friends suddenly went missing.

Now onto the upside; it’s very fun. You may be dumbfounded, but you won’t be bored. I mentioned how underwhelming some of the side characters are, but the ones we do get a decent look at are amazing. I do have to commend how characters are introduced: by their social media splash pages, so you INSTANTLY know everybody’s personalities. It’s unsubtle as hell, but it suits the film style so it doesn’t look out of place. It would help if we were given their real names instead of user names, so we know how to actually refer to these people. But I do appreciate how smart the splash page stuff is. It’s fun, it’s inventive, and it suits the social media age that we’re now living in.

I also appreciate how real the sloth looks. I can’t say for certain but it looks like it was mostly in camera effects, so puppetry/animatronics instead of post-production CGI. It looks kind of goofy, but it does work. The sloth attacks have some actual weight to them and feel real. There are moments where it’s kind of unsloth-like in its movements, but it mostly just looks right. I also appreciate how it is a new idea rather than just another f*cking sequel or reboot. It also closes the film in a way that is definitive so it doesn’t NEED a sequel, but keeps it open-ended enough that there COULD be one, maybe sloths in space? Doing things that astronauts do (but doing it real slowly because they’re sloths).

Another highlight; is the performances. It is a weirdly British cast for a concept that is SO American, but at no point do their accents fail. To the point where I was going to point out how Tiff Stevenson is far too English to be in such an American film, then looked into the cast and turns out pretty much all of the leads are English. The best performer is without a doubt Bianca Beckles-Rose, who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page at the time of writing. I can tell her performance is good because the character is essentially a stoner, and they can sometimes be the most annoying characters in horror movies because how they’re only used for stupidity. Beckles-Rose injects Zenny with enough realism that she feels like a fully fleshed-out character. This is the only thing I’ve seen her in but I would love to see her lead a rom-com or YA action franchise. I loved every single second she was on screen and I’m looking forward to see what she does next.

So in summary; watch this if you’ve got Paramount+, it’s worth a stream, and I think originality should always be rewarded. You might not think of it as the best film of the year, but if you get some friends around, get some drinks and some pizzas in, and watch it whilst being fully aware of how ridiculous it is, you’ll have a good time.