Best Opening
Dangerous Animals
Two tourists go on a boat so they can swim with sharks. They’re then killed, with a knife. Wonderful way to subvert expectations. Up until the murder, it feels like a romantic comedy. It’s so sudden, blink and you’ll miss it.
Opus
Sets up how important the musician is. I like it. It didn’t just TELL us he’s a big deal, it showed us; his music, his talk show performances, his fans. It all feels real.
The Last Showgirl
The character performs an audition. Very nervous, and obviously lying about her age. Anderson is best known for essentially being Ms. Fanservice in the 90’s. So to see her so emotionally naked and visually honest in the opening scene? Shows you what it’s going to be.
The Woman In The Yard
Ramona watches a video of her deceased husband. It’s weird she filmed that moment, but it’s very sweet, and sets up SOOO much very quickly. Sets up what their relationship was like, sets up that they’re having problems fixing problems in the home, even the way she’s watching it sets up that he’s dead. Genius.
Winner
Final Destination: Bloodlines
The disasters have always been a highlight of these movies, and Bloodline is no exception. Some truly all-time great kills, with the funniest death of a child you’ll see. The childs death made you realise that nobody was safe in these movies; death will come for anybody, regardless of age. Subverts expectations slightly, with it being a vision from a descendant rather than the actual person. It’s been years since a Final Destination movie, and scenes like this make you curse that time.
Worst Opening
A Minecraft Movie
Steve wants to mine but can’t as is a child, he comes back as an adult. Overly long, plus I feel it would have made more sense if he first arrived in the other dimension as a child, would have explained how he became so good at building.
Black Phone 2
A young girl makes a phone call. Doesn’t really look like the rest of the film. Does come back later and tie into the narrative, which is a plus. But isn’t something that will hook people in. Plus, the central performance isn’t great.
Fantastic Four: First Steps
Sue and Reed at home being domestic. I have very specific issues with this opening, the big one being that it’s kind of mundane and dull, especially when there’s a REALLY good introductory scene afterwards of a talk show host explaining the characters background. That would have been a much better opener.
Lilo And Stitch
Stitch is being investigated. Not how I would have opened it. Mainly because it seems weird to open a live-action adaptation of an animated movie with a scene that’s mostly CGI. Feels like you’d want to showcase the filming locations.
Renner
I know it’s a common joke to make that the vanity cards that open up films are so long they seem like an actual movie, but the opening credits for this legit seem like a vanity card.
Winner
The Accountant 2
A character dies, and it’s one of the blandest deaths you’ll ever see. It feels like it belongs in a lesser movie.
Best Moment
A Real Pain – Pictures At A Statue
The group posing for pictures with a statue. It shows everything that works. The character interactions, the warmth, and the sadness. You can show that scene and instantly know the characters.
Companion – Lying To The Police
Her encounter with the cop. She can’t lie, but she can change her language to non-English so the cop can’t understand her. Genius.
Eternity – Enter The Archives
The first trip into the archives is very sweet. This is one of best demonstrations of love.
Final Destination: Bloodline – Tony Todds Goodbye
This broke me. The subtext is obvious, but so beautiful. Any other year, this would have won.
I Swear – Fucks In A Car
Not fornication, just swearing. Lots of swearing. You wouldn’t think two people swearing would be so sweet, yet it is.
September 5th – Whoops, We Were Wrong
I wasn’t that familiar with the events of the movie. So I was genuinely blindsided by the reveal that their sources were wrong, the hostages haven’t been saved, they’ve been killed. This will catch people out, and it will horrify you, as it should.
The Ugly Stepsister – Makeover
Weird choice, as I didn’t even have this as best moment in the end-of-year roundups for some reason. Probably because I wrote that section just after seeing the movie, whereas this is new, so I’ve had time. With time, a certain moment has stood out; when Elvira is forced to go through a makeover. Not a “haircut and makeup” makeover, full on mutilation. There’s one moment in particular that stands out: chisel to the nose. It’s simple, not overly bloody, but it makes me wince whenever I think about it.
Urchin – Karaoke Bar
Three people singing an Atomic Kitten song should be skippable. But it’s incredibly sweet, and the way the three characters do it tells you so much about who they are. It’s the only part of the movie that has genuine emotion.
Winner
Sinners – Music Montage
Sammie plays in the bar, and we see it conjuring spirits of the past and future. It’s a good thing nobody was close to me at the cinema, otherwise they would have heard me say, “That? That’s fucking cinema”.
Worst Moment
Fear Street: Prom Queen – Dance Off
It feels so out-of-character for the people involved. It baffles me that this was left in there.
Good Fortune – Arj Gets Fired
He deserved to get fired. He stole from his employer. He has no justification for being annoyed. Which makes him kind of unsympathetic, and hurts the message of the movie.
Heart Eyes – Killer Reveal
Films like this have to nail the killer reveal. Part of my dislike for the sixth Scream movie is down to how much I hated that reveal. It’s similar here. It feels lazy. I get what they were going for; but the rest of the film is too genuine to do something so subversive this late in the game.
Kinda Pregnant – Threesome/proposal confusion
It feels incredibly fake. It would be like if you invited someone to your house on their birthday and all their friends were there, along with a birthday cake and a sign saying “Happy birthday”, but it wasn’t for their birthday, and you get annoyed at them for daring to think you were planning a birthday for them.
M3gan 2.0 – Villain Reveal
I called it within seconds of the character being introduced. I guessed not only that they would be the villain, but also their motivations.
Renner – Attack The Thieves
Purely because the way its shot (quick flashes whilst he’s asking what to do) makes it come off as a fantasy sequence rather than reality. The visually unclear storytelling happens a few times, but its most clear then.
The Bad Guys 2 – Wrestling Match
It’s weird how this film can open with a heist/chase that makes such great use of space and logistics, and then forgets that they’ve shown us how big the wrestling ring is, and you can’t run for more than a second without hitting the ropes.
Thunderbolts – Kid “Death”
Mainly because it reveals that the people shadowed away to oblivion weren’t actually dead, there’s no way Disney/Marvel would kill a young child in that manner.
Winner
Until Dawn – Explosions In The Bathroom
Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, it was bloody, and it was entertaining. But it also demonstrated how luck-based the whole premise was. For a game based around “your decisions have consequences”, it’s annoying how the choices have no impact. “Don’t drink water or you’ll explode” is not a lesson. If the characters’ choices don’t matter, why should I give a shit?
Best Closing
Bring Her Back
Laura carries Cathy’s corpse into the pool and cradles it as the police arrive. The best way it could have ended. I did fear it was going to end with her winning.
Fear Street: Prom Queen
Someone gets bludgeoned with a trophy. Nicely thematic way to end their life, and I liked that they didn’t die immediately. They collapse, there’s not that much blood, but you can tell by the way they’re speaking that their brain is fucked.
Friendship
A hostage wig disaster. Nope, not giving you more information or context.
Novocaine
He visits Sherry in prison. Delightful surprise that there are consequences to actions. Always nice to see that in a movie like this.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
Stonehenge related disaster. And there’s some great stuff in the credits. It comes very quickly yet doesn’t feel unsatisfying. It helps that the jokes are very funny, plus the way the “disaster” happens makes sense and suits the narrative.
The Roses
The two reconcile. Awwwww. Then almost certainly die in a house explosion that we don’t see.
Wolf Man
He’s in pain and gets shot. Best way it could have ended, had actual emotion.
Winner
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Jud has reopened the church, the jewel being the hidden centrepiece. This franchise has a habit of NAILING the endings, and that continues here. It’s closer to the ending of the first film than the sequel, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s immensely satisfying.
Worst Closing
A Minecraft Movie
The ending song is not as good as the film thinks it is.
Avatar: Fire And Ash
The ending implies that Spider will play a bigger part in the next one. He sucks, so that does not bode well.
Final Destination: Bloodlines
Most of these movies end the same way: with the “survivors” about to die. As such, it’s getting a little hard to care about anybody in the franchise.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
One of the killers is still alive. This is revealed in casual dialogue. Far too casual. “wearing jeans to your wedding” casual. Tone-deaf. That’s without even going into the killer reveal, which is one of the weakest I’ve ever seen.
Opus
“haha you caught me but that was my plan all along”. I don’t know why, but for some reason this didn’t vibe with me. It just didn’t work or land the way it was intended.
Superman/Relay
Both of these suffer from the same unrealistic ending: rich people are punished for their misdeeds. That’s like if Casablanca ended with the characters becoming robots and assassinating Hitler.
The Monkey
A bus of cheerleaders die. Funny, but needless and a bit TOO stupid.
Until Dawn
A car pulls up to a snowy cabin. A clear reference to the game, I assume. It’s shot in such a way that it’s obvious it’s SOMETHING, so I can only assume it’s that. Incredibly unsubtle.
Winner
The Woman In The Yard
It cannot be overstated how much the final third absolutely torpedoes any goodwill the rest of the film provides. A visual and narrative mess which confuses deliberate confusion for scares, rapid cuts instead of tension, and a final shot “reveal” that doesn’t actually reveal anything going by online discourse which gives it two different meanings. It feels like the writer isn’t sure he’s going to get another shot at writing a horror film so crammed as many horror tropes and conventions as he could, regardless of whether it worked for the story he was trying to tell.
Troubled Productions 