Tag: book-review

The Thursday Murder Club (2025) Review.

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Quick Synopsis: Four retirees spend their time solving cold case murders for fun, but their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn when they find themselves with a real “who has done this” on their hands

It’s possible I did The Thursday Murder Club (TTMC, pronounced Ta-too-muk) in the wrong order; I watched the film, read the book, then I wrote the review. In some ways, this did help, as most of the casting is pretty spot on and easy to imagine. However, the film makes some things difficult to unsee, one of which is the size of the building. In the book, it’s almost normal, yet in the film? It basically looks like Downton Abbey. This wouldn’t be a problem for most films. But for this? It does bring out the worst aspects; the middle-class tweeness of the whole thing. The feeling that it’s watched by people who spend half their conversations going “I miss the old days when people weren’t so black”.

It’s a shame, as that does a disservice to TTMC. Yes, I expect it to pale in comparison to Wake Up Dead Man when that comes out, but that’s not for a while, so TTMC has a few months of being the best murder mystery film of the year. It’s a pretty good mystery too, especially once you realise that they’ve completely gutted a sub-plot from the boo,k which means they’re either going to change the murderer or change their motivation, otherwise the motivation will be “he’s responsible for this awful thing that nobody has decided to mention for some reason”.

Like all good mysteries, the solution seems incredibly obvious once you’ve figured it out. The clues make sense, and it is possible to make an educated guess before the solution. In fact, I’d say it’s TOO easy. There aren’t enough suspects. The book has quite a few characters who you could easily imagine being the killer. The film has around two. I know stuff has to get cut when you adapt a book, but removing suspects from a murder mystery feels like shooting yourself in the face and leading a bloody corpse (I’ve just been informed the phrase is actually “shooting yourself in the foot”).

The deletion of some of the subplots also means a key scene in the book (and the film-makers obviously realise its importance when you see who they cast for this one scene) is rendered as nothing more than a diversion, albeit a quite entertaining one. That’s the film in a nutshell: not essential, but damn charming and entertaining. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a lovely drive through the country. Really, this is perfect for Netflix, and is probably the best film they’ve released this year.

Totally Killer (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Thirty-five years after the shocking murders of three teens, an infamous killer returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. When 17-year-old Jamie comes face-to-face with the masked maniac, she accidentally time-travels back to 1987 where she tries to stop the original murders, and come to terms with the idea that her mother was a complete bitch.

I went into this knowing only the title. I’m assuming I did read the concept at one point and thought it sounded interesting, but by the time I got around to watching it I had forgotten it. So I’m glad it set the tone early on, describing a murder in the 80’s. We see the murders through crime scene reconstructions (so figures and small models laid out in a model house) intercut with still shots of the actual bodies. This is a really simple way of doing a scene like that on a low budget and without coming off as cheap, so I was instantly sold that this would be creative and clever.

I then realised that this was essentially Back To The Future but as a slasher film, and I went all in. I love stuff like that. It’s been attempted before with Happy Death Day 2 U, which I absolutely loved. But I think I might prefer Totally Killer, HDD2U was good, but it didn’t play into the time travel aspect as much. This doesn’t just do a time travel slasher, it dissects the genre and approaches it from as many angles as possible. It would be really hard to do a sequel to this because it’s difficult to see what else they could do.

There’s a comment on the trailer for this that says something along the lines of “I miss the 80s, people were better back then”. Which makes me think they didn’t watch the movie. A lot of the people in this are dicks, but they’re entertaining dicks (like a penis telling jokes). Unlike something like Ferrari (spoilers for that review btw) where it’s hard to get emotionally involved since every character is a prick. In TK, the characters aren’t people you want to know in real life, but they’re funny and interesting. Plus, they’re teenagers in the 80s, so a small amount of assholeness is understandable because you know they’re not at their final form.

This is really damn funny. I went through many options for my “favourite line” in my end-of-the-year round-up. Funny dialogue comes thicker and faster than a Grimace Milkshake Ejaculation.
“When I think of serial killers I think at least 3 people”. “let’s give it up for Angie who wishes there were more people killed”
“if she did do blow jobs, maybe she’d still be alive” “Yeah, let’s not make that the lesson”
“the machines don’t kill us all. They just rip apart the fabric of our society via dance videos on TikTok”

These lines are all perfectly delivered too. I didn’t watch The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina; nothing against it, but I worked in a shopping centre when it came out so I had to see the poster for it hundreds of times a day. As such, I’m not that familiar with the work of Kiernan Shipka, but she nails it here. It helps that she’s given a good script.

It’s a script which is depressingly realistic in terms of how it approaches murder. The commercialisation of murder is too true to not sting a little bit. On the downside, the reveal of the killer doesn’t really work. It’s probably because it’s a character we haven’t seen that much of, so when they’re unmasked it feels more like “who?”. If the opening third had another 10 minutes it might have helped flesh him out.
In summary, this is on Amazon Prime, and that’s apt, as this is a prime cut of fresh horror.
Fuck that’s a terrible line, isn’t it? Ah well, go see this movie.