Tag: Film

AfrAId (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A family takes an experimental AI into their house. Everything works out fine. Psych! Stuff starts to suck.

AfrAId was directed by Chris Weitz, who also directed About A Boy, The Twilight Zone: New Moon, and The Golden Compass, which is a weird film history if you think about it. Not really relevant at all, I just wanted to mention it.

I went into this with lower expectations than I would if Gillingham were playing Barcelona (football joke, I NEVER make them), I knew it had bad reviews and box office, and bad horror movies are usually The Crow-est of the low. So I knew this would be terrible. But then something went wrong; it’s not terrible. It’s not good, but it’s not terrible. It is never bad enough to be awful, but also it’s never quite good enough to stand out. It doesn’t help that it’s quite derivative, it’s not saying that much which hasn’t been said before (primarily by equally stupidly titled M3gan). It can’t compare to that, and not just because the AI in this isn’t as memorable, or as well-written. Occasionally it only does things BECAUSE it’s a horror movie, there’s no “non-creepy” justification for many of the AI’s choices.

On the plus side, it does seem like it has something to say, which I always like to see in a horror movie. The proliferation of AI is a concerning development and one that’s too big for films to ignore. This film also says a lot about how families interact with themselves and with technology, especially concerning how that affects parenting. It doesn’t always work, though. There are some parts where the AI nature of it just

The revenge porn bit, in particular, didn’t sit right with me. I don’t care that it ruined that kid’s life, he knowingly made and shared porn of his girlfriend. I don’t give a shit that he won’t go to college or that he’s being tried as an adult. To be perfectly honest I hope he gets hit by a fucking car. Now it gets fun. No word of a lie, I legit wrote that line, and then that character died in a car crash. So that’s nice.

On the upside; the performances are good. John Cho is underrated (as anybody who has watched Searching will know), and I’m still waiting for the world to pay attention to just how utterly fantastic Katherine Waterston is. Both of them feel slightly beyond this movie, almost like this was a film made years ago and only just released now to make use of their fame. There’s also no issue with direction; it looks good, has decent audio cues etc.

The main issues are pretty much entirely down to the script. The pacing is like a drunk driver; all over the place, causing great damage, and indefensible. The ending is a huge letdown. It goes too “real”, with the AI making incursions into reality which are a bit too far-fetched and would be easily solved by humans. The closing scenes are also far too predictable, to the point where it feels like a parody.

In summary; not as bad as I expected, but not as good as I wanted. AfrAId is like people who discuss politics on Twitter, too concerned with saying stuff “now” than trying to figure out how to say it.

Never Let Go (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: In response to a worldwide evil, a mother (Halle Berry), protects her children via tethering them to the house with a rope, thus ensuring no evil can come to them. As the years go on, she struggles to keep them content with their new lifestyle.

I have a mixed history with Alexandre Aja (the director of Never Let Go, or NLG, pronounced Nelgg), I enjoyed Horns, but I found Crawl a bit poor, so I was unsure what to expect. Halle Berry is in it, which bodes well as she does seem to be more careful about what scripts she chooses lately (probably because of Catwoman), and even if a film is bad, Berry is always good. I wasn’t aware of the two child actors in this, but they are pretty damn good in this. It’s not “good for child actors”, just flat-out good. So that’s definitely a plus. Aja’s directing is pretty decent too with some brilliantly creepy set-pieces and creative visuals. There are moments where it is a bit too dark to see, but that’s to be expected in a film set in a cabin that lacks as many lights as this does. It’s also a genuinely interesting story, and provides a real sense of survivalism, particularly with how difficult it is even for those experienced in it. Doesn’t matter how good you are at hunting if the animals have all gone somewhere else (unless you’re a nomadic tribe obviously). And it doesn’t matter how good you are at farming if it’s too cold and flooded for the crops to work. It’s not “organic salads made entirely from hand-grown fruits”, sometimes it’s “eating fried bark”. You’re only ever one winter away from starvation, and that will lead to you making difficult decisions like wondering if you should kill your dog. So much of NLG is utterly fantastic. The film itself? Far from it.

Whenever you watch a film, you don’t watch it in a vacuum (or any other household appliance), it can set up expectations and then subvert them, and other times it makes them seem predictable. So movies now need to be written with that in mind. Never Let Go attempts to play with expectations, but in its attempts to do so, it traps itself like a fly in a spider’s web and is just as ugly. It knows that your first thought while watching this will be “Okay so is the twist going to be that she’s actually just making it up?”, which would work. Instead of subtly laying in clues, it has characters outright state that they believe that to be the case. It sets up that “twist” far too obviously, to the point where you begin to wonder if it’s actually a double twist and it turns out she was telling the truth all along. But that’s not a twist, that’s just a straight story. The way that NLG tries to set up both endings means that whatever ending it picks, it will end up feeling predictable. It traps itself by attempting to be too clever.

I suppose that’s to be expected, I mean, it has to attempt SOMETHING, the story itself really doesn’t lend itself to a 100-minute feature. It only has three characters, and the very notion of the story means they can’t interact with anybody else, and two of them have known only this life forever. So with nothing to upset the status quo, and no new characters introduced, it’s difficult to be hooked. I’ve seen worse films, but I’ve yet to see a semi-decent movie be as derailed by a poor script as much as this one was. I suppose at least they’re trying.

The Garfield Movie (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Garfield gets roped into a scheme alongside his dad to steal milk.

Well after insulting it in my review of Jackpot, I had to actually watch it, didn’t I? If only so my despair at that being rated lower than this would be accurate. There was always a chance that I would be wrong and that this would actually be really good. I mean, look at the cast. Hannah Waddington, Nicholas Hoult, Brett Goldstein, Ving Rhames, and Samuel L Jackson, that is a weirdly strong cast for a non-ensemble piece.

Like all good films, The Garfield Movie (TGM, pronounced Tigg-um) leaves you asking questions, especially with the final action scene. It’s just a shame that those questions are ones like “How fucking long is that bridge? This scene should have ended minutes ago, this movie fucking sucks”.

In 2010 there was a woman named Mary Bale who was filmed walking past a delightfully cute kitty-cat named Lola. She stroked Lola, who was clearly approachable and friendly. Lola’s tail was raised in happiness and delight. Mary then picked Lola up and threw her in a fucking wheelie bin like a bitch. That video was posted online and she became infamous. I have seen that video (I had to, it was EVERYWHERE at the time), so I can confirm that that footage is now the SECOND most painful video I’ve seen involving a cat. You know, because this movie is also about a cat, and is fucking terrible (in case I was being too subtle).

I should have known this would be terrible from the very start. It starts with Garfield ordering food on an app. So the first shot is of a phone screen. There is no effort to make it seem like real food is being ordered on a real app. It moves from the item he wants to the next item he wants, there is no scrolling and picking an item, it just magically goes from one thing he wants to the next thing. I know it’s a small thing to be annoyed about, but it does annoy me because it makes it seem low effort. Also, he’s not ordering a lasagne, he’s ordering a pizza (with sides, which he knocks off the table in the bag without eating them).

This just doesn’t feel like a Garfield movie. There’s nothing specific to the character. In fact, there are very free moments specific to him being a cat. For example, when his dad is tied up with rope, Garfield tries to untie him; he has claws. It’s not a Garfield movie, it’s a movie that has Garfield in it. He’s not a character with his usual characterisation and foibles. He’s not sarcastic or dour, he’s just a normal animated movie lead. I haven’t seen a film misjudge its own main character this much since the Artemis Fowl casting call. It’s not a Garfield movie, it’s more like it’s a standard kids film, that stars Garfield. He’s not a character, he’s an actor playing a character that doesn’t suit him. The tone is completely wrong too, it’s too fast.

So I’ve established it fails as a Garfield movie. It’s not even a good animated movie. It fails at being a movie, and the animation is terrible. It reminds me of the South Park game on the N64, only with less piss-soaked snowballs. The human characters look okay, but the animals themselves look terrible. There’s no sense of realness to it. The animals don’t feel fluffy or cosy, they look like balloons. This is going to be a weird criticism of an animated film, but it’s too much of a cartoon in terms of the physics. There’s a scene where Garfield bounces from one tree to the other without losing any momentum. I know, standard modern animation. But still, it’s completely out of place in a series such as Garfield which has always maintained a somewhat realistic style.

I’ve seen worse films this year, but I can’t think of a movie which has completely failed its own lead character as much as this one did. On the plus side, I don’t have to see it again.

My Spy: The Eternal City (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: JJ (A “very noticeable for a spy” Batista) reunites with Sophie (Chloe Coleman), accompanying her on her school trip where they find themselves at the centre of a terrorist plot.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a normal reviewer; I don’t put definitive star ratings at the end of reviews for one thing. I will always admit that personal bias counts for a lot, sometimes negatively (I am predisposed to dislike anything with certain actors in), sometimes positively. My review of Hereditary was (I assume) the only review of that movie to include the phrase “cocking shit fuck” (unlike reviews of Morbius, which were fucking littered with that phrase, especially the one in the Holy Jesus Mary Church Weekly newsletter). On the plus side, that does mean there are lower expectations of me to maintain professional standards. As such, the following sentence won’t harm my reputation among readers as much as if it was said by someone like Peter Bradshaw (who only uses professional review lines, like in Twisters where he said “Certainly, the twister here is an obvious symbol for orgasm”). Here goes, the sentence which would doom me if I was a professional:

I stopped paying attention before this movie ended.

I watched this at home, but there weren’t any active distractions (local building work etc). I just…I just found myself watching but taking nothing in. When I speak of Come True, I often find myself talking about how despite watching it on a small screen, in my memory, it’s on a big one. With this? I will remember I watched it on my TV, not the cinema. It never felt big enough to be worthy of anything except “straight to streaming”. That’s a shame as I enjoyed the first one, and My Spy: The Eternal City (or MS: TEC, pronounced Ms. Tech) actually soured my memory of it. It assumes I can remember much more from the first one than I can. Characters turn up and the film is like “OMG it’s you guys”, whereas the audience’s reaction is “Who the fuck are these guys?”. I don’t want films overrun with flashbacks, but a few of them might have been helpful. It would be easy to do too; just frame it as Sophie giving a presentation in class or something. It would definitely be better than the current opening; a dream sequence. Never open an action movie with a dream sequence, it sets up action setpieces that can’t be recreated in reality.

Other scenes are similarly misjudged. The biggest misstep is when JJ is being tortured and threatened with death. I don’t know if it’s the way it’s shot, the way it’s written, or even just where it is in the script, but it’s devoid of any tension. I doubt a single person who watches this believed for a second that that scene would be where the character dies, even the stupid people watching it would realise that was never going to happen.

Another issue is how it wastes the location’ Venice is cinematic, but you would not know that from watching this. It could take place in any European city and it wouldn’t require that many changes. It’s a shame as I really enjoyed the first movie, and this feels like a massive step down.

MS. TECH isn’t all negative though. The cast has good chemistry, and Anna Farris is clearly having a lot of fun. There are some genuinely funny moments, especially when someone is getting stone dicks thrown at their face. Taeho K doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page but shows fantastic promise in the small moments he’s given.

Finally, and much more importantly; it’s great to hear an Ashnikko song in a film. Love that shit.

The End We Start From (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: After floods decimate the UK, a new mother does her best to find a safe space for her and her child.

I watched this in the middle of summer, and you’d think a film about torrential rainfall wouldn’t make sense to be watched in the summer. Ordinarily, you’d be right, but you’ve forgotten one thing; I live in England. I’ve spoken before about how the external atmosphere can affect the film-watching experience (I am wondering if part of my disdain for how Oculus ended was because the cinema turned the lights on early), but watching this in a weirdly wet summer definitely changed it, was like having surround sound.

The End We Start From (TEWSF, pronounced Two-soff) sets its genius relatively early on, having the scenes of her giving birth be intercut with scenes of her house being flooded. This is both smart and an obvious thing to do, but obvious like “having cheese on pizza instead of boiled foot dust” is obvious, in that if you did otherwise it would be weird. I do have some issues with the opening section though. It has her husband (referred to as R, and played brilliantly by Joel Fry) be away. With that, you’d assume the story would be about the two of them trying to reach each other. But then he just appears at the hospital after she’s given birth, so his not being in the opening didn’t affect the plot. It’s peculiar when you consider they get separated again. So their on-screen chemistry feels very stop-start. Ordinarily, I’d say “Keep them separated until the end so when the two meet again it feels special”, but that would be a stupid thing to do as it would rob TEWSF of a key scene; the one where R’s parents die. We know one dies but aren’t told anything about how or why until a few scenes later, and when you find out, damn it’s brutal, so, damn, brutal. It all feels real too. COVID taught us a lot (For example; that you should wash your hands after peeing, and that you shouldn’t sneeze directly on people. Both of which are things that apparently needed teaching), but the most sobering thought (so sobering it drives me to drink) was that people are dicks. They need to go to Ladbrokes even if it does kill the person behind the counter who’s forced to work even whilst sick.

I kind of wish we saw more of the world the film takes place in, most of what we see is just the universe surrounding the main character (Jodie Comer, credited as Woman). Much like AQP: DP, it all happens so quickly and the character isn’t at the centre of it. We do see a few other people, but only sporadically. It’s essentially a road movie where we only see the pit stops. As such, we feel like we’re in a weird purgatory where the character spends a lot of time in various places but none long enough to let the audience feel grounded and like we’re getting to know anybody. So much happens, but because they all feel like they have no impact, weirdly it seems like nothing happens.

That’s a shame as I would like to see more of some of the characters; partly as an excuse to see more Gina McKee and Katherine Waterston, especially Waterston who is always incredible. Of course, Comer is great, but that’s to be expected. I was surprised by how good Joey Fry is, I’ve only seen him in comedies, or acting alongside other sitcom actors. He more than holds his own in this. He’s surprisingly key to how this works. Considering it’s about a mother and a newborn child, you’d think it would contain a lot about modern femininity, and it does. But it also tackles masculinity, the feeling that if you’re not a provider then you are failing as a man.

It’s not just the people on screen, there’s a lot of talent behind the camera too. The music is mostly fitting, there is one part where it feels slightly too jaunty for what just happened, but otherwise, it’s dour and depressing. The visuals are sublime too, there are no gorgeous shots in it, but it’s not a movie for beauty, it’s about ugliness. Mahalia Belo has done a fantastic job of directing TEWSF. Even just the little moments are done as well as they could be. There’s a two-second shot of the television networks shutting down, that two seconds is creepier than most horror movies. Watching TEWSF is like wading through a murky puddle, but doing so in the middle of summer so that even when you are nearly stuck, you can still feel the warmth and have a small glimmer of hope of what’s coming.

In summary, it has flaws, but it’s incredibly powerful and definitely worth your time. Although I do question the logic of the main character crying so much during a flood; that’s just making it worse.

IF (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A young girl discovers she can see everybody’s imaginary friends.

John Krasinski has had a weird film career, especially as a director. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men was a comedy-drama based on a series of short stories by David Foster Wallace. The Hollars was standard film student drama fare. Then came A Quiet Place. If you thought that was a weird transition, nothing will prepare you for this.

It kind of makes sense though. There are many similarities in visual/narrative storytelling between horror and kids’ fantasy. Both of them depend heavily on effective world-building, creating something unbelievable but making it believable, and both depend on a “WOW!” shot, where the audience is made aware of the scale of what’s happening. He does a good job though; there are not that many moments where the visuals feel cheap or distracting in a way that takes you out of what you’re watching. On the other hand, there are not that many visuals that will stick with you. There’s nothing that makes you think “f*ck damn that is cinema”. I can’t imagine a child watching this and having a scene stick with them that they’ll remember forever.

The story will though. It’s incredibly sweet. Yes, people who have seen a lot of films and are familiar with story structure etc will guess the ending relatively early on, mainly because it’s the only way that plot holes aren’t created. But if you’re one of those fortunate people who can just sit and watch something without overanalyzing everything, you’re in for a treat. It has a sense of genuine heart and warmth to it. It does look like it’s heading in one direction, and I’m pleased it went in another way. The new way ended up being able to display much more heart. Spoilers, I watched this the same day as I saw Inside Out 2: Inside Harder. I didn’t expect THIS to be the film that slightly broke me. The moments where we see some of the characters “reunite” with their childhood IFs are genuinely delightful and emotionally powerful. They’re helped by the performances, Reynolds does exactly what you expect (For better and worse), the vocal performances are all good but most are too brief to matter that much (the fact that Brad Pitt is credited as an invisible and silent character is hilarious though), Cailey Fleming is incredible considering her young age, especially considering she’s playing a character at that awkward age where they want to be seen as an adult, but they are still kids. Alan Kim is fun whenever he’s on-screen, and Fiona Shaw provides a touch of “theatre, darling” prestige.

The biggest criticism is that it feels kind of dated. There is a distinct lack of technology and mobile phones present. If this was firmly set in the 90s, that criticism would disappear so it is kind of weird that they didn’t just do that. It also takes FAR too long to get to the point. I know it has quite a bit to set up, but it spends forever getting to the main premise that you’ve paid to see.

Those are minor criticisms though. Overall I enjoyed it. It’s not going to change your worldview forever, but there is a chance it might remind you about the joys of innocence and inner strength. It handles topics such as bereavement (and fear of it in regards to others) and childhood anxiety with sensitivity and class. It very rarely puts a step wrong, but it also rarely puts one forward in amazement. It’s a difficult film to really LOVE, but it’s an incredibly easy film to like.

Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A story about isolation, boredom, and lacking purpose. No it’s not my biography and it’s rude of you to say that.

A few years ago I travelled to New York at the end of winter. In preparation, I purchased some winter clothing. Among them was a new pair of boots. Not just warm and sturdy, but they also came with a neat little extra; spikes on the soles that you could flip down in harsh icey conditions. I still have those boots (we don’t really have “winter” here, we just have rain) and I consider the flippable cleats a genius design. It’s so simple too, you see them and think “why don’t more companies do this?”. That’s how I felt about the opening credits of Sometimes I Think About Dying (Otherwise known as SITAD, pronounced sit-add). The fact that they use a different font is embarrassingly mindblowing. It takes the same amount of effort as doing them the same way as everyone else, but it does SO much in establishing style. I’ve mostly seen it in horror movies to be like “Oh look, we’re spooky”, or to establish the time period in which the film is set. Here it’s to establish a theme. It’s such a simple thing but it works beautifully and it means that no matter what happened for the rest of the runtime, I was going to take something positive from this.

Thankfully, even without that, I’d be able to be positive about SITAD, it’s delightful. But not in a “everything is fantastic and wonderful if you just believe” fake BS way that Hollywood provides. In a way, you can say it’s twee, kind of. But it’s a sense of twee with all the colour and joy drained away from it. Mostly it’s a film that says “I don’t understand people”. Those three previous sentences may seem disjointed (and some would say inherently contradictory) but that’s the wonder of SITAD. It’s depressive elegance, with some stark cinematography that’s beautiful in its simplicity. It’s shot not to sell a story, but to sell a character and a mood.

The script matches that, doing so much with so little. Normally characters establish themselves by saying things, SITAD establishes itself by having the main character not say anything while everybody else talks around her. In a lesser film, this would be met with scenes of her trying to say something but getting cut off whenever she tries to speak. Here, she doesn’t even attempt to say anything, she just stands in the background until she can safely leave without anybody noticing. She doesn’t have isolation thrust upon her, she actively prefers it. It’s great because when she speaks out loud, it actually means something. It’s at least 20 minutes before Fran (Daisy Ridley’s character) utters her first words. Side note, one of these days I’ll remember what Daisy Ridley looks like when I’m not looking at her, my brain keeps picturing Charlotte Ritchie. Daisy Ridley gets a lot of praise (and she should, she’s PHENOMENAL), but I feel that Marcia DeBonis needs praise too. Her speech near the end where she’s talking about her husband suffering health issues is heartbreaking and delivered perfectly. Crucially, it’s not delivered as “a performance”, with perfect diction and line delivery. She stumbles over her words, is slightly unclear on a few syllables, and pauses mid-sentence. In essence; she feels REAL.

That’s partly why I loved this film so much, nothing about it felt fake. It doesn’t feel like we’re there watching them, it’s better than that. Even though we see her from an audience’s perspective, it somehow feels like we ARE Fran. It’s helped by a powerful score (brought to you by Dabney Morris), and a powerful performance. But it is mostly anchored by how good the writing is.

It’s not perfect though. Fran is a little bit too cruel at times which can make her hard to root for. But when she does say something heartless such as “You’re exhausting, no wonder you can’t stay married”, the VERY next scene shows her obviously regretting it.

As you can probably tell. I LOVED this movie. It’s not up for my favourite of the year, but it is possibly the one I’ve connected with the most. Good films entertain, and great ones inspire. This will inspire you as a writer, as a director, as a musician, as a performer, fuck it, with the way this tackles themes of isolation and self-sabotage, this will inspire you as a person. A lot of people won’t like it, and even those who do like it might not like certain parts of it. For example, I saw some reviews say the party scene was cringe and went on too long. Personally, that was the highlight of the movie. It felt like the first time Fran felt accepted, she was letting the mask of insecurity slip, and the sheer joy she showcases is infectious. I’m not saying this is the best film of the year, but it is probably the one I would recommend most at the moment if you want to feel things and be touched (not in a Kevin Spacey way). One of the most genuine movies I’ve seen all year, and I’m a better person for having watched it.

Malum (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A rookie police officer takes the last shift at the decommissioned police station where her father worked and killed himself/others. Turns out the hauntings from her past are very literal.

Going to start this review off with something that may be important; Malum is a remake of the 2014 film Last Shift, also directed by Anthony DiBlasi. No I have not watched Last Shift, so I can’t talk about the differences and improvements between the two. I don’t know what DiBlasi changed, what he added, or if it was just a “I have better technology now” situation. I do occasionally put some research into my reviews (I think I put more research into my review for Antlers than the writers of the movie did), but watching an entire film is a bit much. I will say the title is better though. Last Shift is kind of bland and could be any genre, Malum (latin for evil), is definitely a horror movie title.

Now onto Malum itself. I feel I’d like this more if I watched it years ago. Horror movies are a lot like comedy movies, the first time you see something happen in a movie it can be shocking and brilliant, but if every film you watch starts doing that same thing, it can quickly become tiresome, so by the time you see the tenth movie pulling the same tricks, you feel a lot more negatively towards it than you did the first one. This doesn’t mean the tenth film is worse than the first one, but I will give it a negative review because I’m just tired of seeing certain things. Now this isn’t a fault of the movie, I watch a lot of films, so I am exposed to more repetition, reiterations and retellings than most people. With that in mind, Malum does a lot of shit I’m quite frankly just tired of seeing the same old shit in a lot of horror films. I am bored of hallucination horror. Mainly because it always feels like such a fucking cop-out. “oooo spooky stuff, but is it real? we don’t know, and neither will you”. Far too many films are pulling the same tricks, which would be okay if that wasn’t the only way they had scares. I have a limit on how many times I can see the “character witnesses something horrific, but then its not there, did they dream it?” trick pulled in a movie. Pull it off towards the end or at the start, but far too many films have that as the only trick in its arsenal. Specifically, I could do with a 5 year ban on any “Person kills what they think is an evil thing but turns out they were hallucinating and it was actually a relative/friend” scenes in horror movies.

As I said, if I watched this earlier I’d feel much more warmly towards it. There is a fair bit to like about it; the cult aspects are fascinatingly creepy, and the use of practical effects is to be welcomed. I kind of wanted more from the cult. There are two movies; one is about a demonic cult that sacrifices people and who are planning a night of carnage focused on the daughter of an officer who went after them. It’s a very human story, and the idea of her being trapped in a locked building as they try to hunt her is terrifying, especially since her colleagues refuse to help her because of what her dad did (great opening by the way, the scene where her dad shoots Not Jodie Foster is genuinely shocking). It’s simple, but it’s effective. But the other movie is paranormal, where the cult’s tricks work, and they have demonic powers which cause her to hallucinate/control her. And that’s not as effective, as once you see it happen once, you assume that’s the case with every scare. So even at the end where she’s gravely injured after having killed someone, there’s a part of you that assumes it’s just going to cut back and she’s going to be sitting at her desk absolutely fine. The first movie? That’s one I want to see, it’s creative, and incredibly creepy. The second? Seen it. If you cut out the demonic stuff it wouldn’t be as technically impressive, but I think it could end up being an improvement from a narrative standpoint.

It also might have worked better if we went straight from the snuff movies to the police station. If the audience never sees the outside world it would make her world seem smaller and claustrophobic. It’s similar to the Colin Firth “I’m on a boat motherfucker don’t you ever forget” movie from a few years ago. The acting is mostly okay, Jessica Sula has a lot to carry and does it as best as you can hope. Some of the snuff movie sections are great visually, but the vocal performances feel fake.

Overall, I couldn’t help but feel I was watching cutscenes for a horror video game rather than a feature-length, erm, feature. It’s definitely ambitious, but I can’t help but feel it may have worked more if it aimed for something a bit simpler. Although considering how fake some of the dialogue sounds, I can see why they’d feel the need to wow with effects and visuals. The music is pretty damn good though. Like I said, there is a lot to like about Malum. But it’s standing in the shadows of stuff I’ve seen before, mostly Hereditary. Yes, I know the original of this was released 4 years before Hereditary, but this remake was made afterwards, so it might have been advisable to try and avoid comparisons and, I dunno, not make this movie? Or change the hallucination stuff and just focus on the cult-killing people.

Night Swim (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A haunted swimming pool exists.

I started talking to someone online recently and she mentioned that she doesn’t watch movies. I remember thinking how weird that is, to spend your evenings or days NOT watching something. After watching this, I’m slightly jealous of her for being lucky enough to avoid this. After a series of reviews which basically amounted to “this film was weird, I loved it”. It’s nice to have a film where the review will boil down to “this film was weird. I hated it”. To paraphrase the Benoit who solves murders instead of causing them, this isn’t so dumb it’s brilliant, it’s just dumb. Seriously, just look at that synopsis. They somehow stretched this out to 90 minutes.

I think the issue is that Night Swim takes its concept seriously, and with a concept like “a haunted swimming pool” I think it’s best to lean into the absurdity. I like it when films have emotion and realism, characters you can believe exist and all have backstories. But there’s a time and a place for that, and there’s a time for stupidity and ridiculousness. Guess which one this is? Here’s a hint, look at the synopsis again.

It’s competently made and performed, but just not effective. Probably because, again, it’s a haunted swimming pool. Some of the scares aren’t so much “evil pool trying to kill someone” as “person forgets basic safety rules”. The most obvious one is where the male lead leans over the pool and lands on the pool cover, almost being trapped underneath. That’s an actual danger with falling onto plastic pool covers, it’s as much a “ghost scare” as someone jumping down stairs and breaking their leg is a scare to do with a haunted stair.

It’s difficult to make an immovable object scary (except for Andre The Giant obviously, if you don’t think he’s scary, just ask Bad News Brown about the incident in Mexico). The simple answer to it is “just don’t go near the object”. To make up for that, there’s a possession thing going on which compels one of the characters to act a certain way. But that also opens up new issues. Spoilers, btw. The pool operates on a “we will give you health in return for a sacrifice”, and lines up the dad for a sacrifice. But then tries to make him kill a random child, and at one point has him chase his daughter around. The writers said they wanted to make people scared of swimming pools, but they failed. Because of the amount of time spent on the possession angle, it makes you more scared of violent men. And I’m sure countless women already have true stories they can tell which will do a better job of that.

It tries to set up the pool as evil early on by having a scene where a cat is scared of it. But that isn’t really an indication that the pool is evil as much as it is cats hate water, as anybody who has tried to bathe them can attest. By the logic of Night Swim, tiny plastic vials of flea treatment are all haunted because every time I approach one of my cats whilst wielding one, they get scared and either run away or pee on me. The cat disappears, gets referenced in a single sentence in the next scene, and then is never brought up again. It wasn’t brought up that much before then either. Also, if the cat is dead, does that not count as a sacrifice? The pool is shown as killing people in return for something, so why did it kill the cat? Just to be a dick? Things like “cat is scared of water” are set up as big deals. Meanwhile, when a character has a demonic force trying to pull them under they treat it as a “everything is okay, everything is cool when you’re part of a team” situation. Sure, they are a little wary, but that only extends to “watching out for the kids when they go swimming”, which THEY SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY!

As you can guess, I was not a fan of this. It took itself far too seriously, and yet not seriously enough to actually think about what it was doing. For example; the dad sacrifices himself at the end, after which the family fill in the pool. A few things: Why was that not done earlier by ANY of the previous families? Also, the husband dies, and then they perform a large landscaping job. Would that not raise questions with the police?

Boy Kills World (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: An unnamed deaf-mute ventures on a revenge plan against those who killed his family.

As is a sadly familiar story with smaller films lately, even ones I’ve seen at the cinema, I knew nothing about this as it received no trailers or promotional material in my local. You could easily not know it existed. That’s a shame as Boy Kills World (or BKW, pronounced Buck-ow) is one of the highlights of the year.

Saying this film is “weird” would be an understatement. “Batshit insane” is more appropriate. It’s essentially a live-action anime mixed with Naked Gun. It takes longer than you’d expect for that tone to come through though. Don’t get me wrong, you’re not waiting a long time for it to establish tone, but it does take longer than it probably should. Up until the opening credits it just feels like a standard movie. When it gets weird, it does get WEIRD, but it could place its flag earlier on.

It is weird, but in a way that makes sense within the universe created. The world it takes place in is weird, so when odd shit happens, it doesn’t feel out of place. There’s a general sense of “what the fuck?” over the whole thing. Thankfully it’s not offputting, mainly because it’s incredibly funny. Bill Skarsgard has great physical comedy skills; bringing to mind Buster Keaton, only with violence and bloodshed. He has a hell of a difficult job, not being able to vocally communicate with the other characters puts him at a huge disadvantage. He does have a slight advantage over similar roles by having a voiceover performed by H. Jon Benjamin. On the downside; it’s hard to not hear him as Archer or the main character from Bob’s Burgers whose name escapes me right now (Gene Parmasen?), so he never really feels like he is the character as much as he is just narrating as a separate person. He does provide some fantastic laughs though. A lot of the cast nail the comedy side; Brett Gelman and Andrew Koji are particular highlights, Koji surprisingly so.

The weirdness and comedic nature don’t mean it doesn’t excel from a technical viewpoint. The action scenes are intense and expertly crafted. The story is much better than it needs to be. It really feels like a genuinely dystopian city. It’s creepily believable. It’s not loudspeakers and constant “all hail us”. It’s statues, police presence, and state-sanctioned violence on dissenters. The scene where Boys family are executed is chilling, as is the fact that the regime has a lot of supporters. It also notable that there’s not really a “nice” side. It’s not a battle between good and evil, it’s a battle between two sides desperate to kill each other. Although one of the sides:

  • Started the conflict.
  • Has more advanced weaponry.
  • Has an army/police force that brutally crushes any form of resistance to them.
  • Indulges in mass surveillance of its people.
  • Has a media supporting them who are ready to go after anybody who opposes them.
  • Stifles free speech.
  • Massacres children indiscriminately

Yet that side is still portrayed as the “good” side. I wonder if there are any real-life parallels to that happening right now. I’m sure not.

Unsubtle political posturing from me aside, Boy Kills World isn’t the best film of the year (that honour still belongs to either Civil War or American Fiction), but I think it is the one I most want to watch again. It’s not perfect, the music choices could be more fun. There’s not really an iconic needle drop, which feels like a wasted opportunity. There’s also a late twist which isn’t as surprising as the film thinks it is.