Tag: Horror

Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: One year has passed since the supernatural nightmare at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Former security guard Mike has kept the truth from his 11-year-old sister, Abby, concerning the fate of her animatronic friends. When Abby sneaks out to reconnect with Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy, she sets into motion a terrifying series of events that reveal dark secrets about the true origin of Freddy’s.

I won’t lie, I could just repost my review of the first movie, SOOOO many of my issues with it are repeated here.

It’s a horror movie without gore, without suspense, and without scares. 

Yup, same here. It’s incredibly neutered. I’m not asking for full hardcore violence, but a little bit of blood and more disturbing sound design would have helped sell the violence.

Piper Rubio outshines all of them, though. She’s only 8 years old but never misses a beat, even when she has to express some relatively complex concepts. I haven’t seen a child perform this well since McKenna Grace in Gifted. Her relationship with her brother and her need for social acceptance are a core part of the narrative of FNAF. The moments where it dwells on that are the strongest parts of the film (that and the animatronic work, which is sublime).

The only part of this that is changed is that Piper Rubio is no longer 8. She’s still the strongest performer by a wide margin. Elizabeth Lail seems to be having an off-day; I know she can give a better performance than this. Also, that mention of McKenna Grace seemed to be weirdly prophetic, as she’s also in this. Not for long enough, though, I hope she has more screamtime (pun intentional) in Scream 7.

Like I said, when it’s not a horror movie, when it’s a family drama dealing with loss, that’s when it’s at its best.

Oh, that’s definitely the case here. The relationship between Mike and Abby is core to why this works. The two are so sweet together; so even when the film itself isn’t that entertaining, it’s just so damn nice to watch the interplay between the two.

The continuity lockout is much bigger for this than it was for the first one. If you’re not familiar with the original games, you’ll struggle to work out why certain things are met with dramatic music, or why some of the sentence structures feel clunky and designed to get certain phrases in. I have a slight knowledge of the games, so I recognised some of the references; but there were a few moments which I recognised as references, but didn’t get the references themselves (like when an American sitcom starts talking about NY politicians).

My biggest issue is the ending; it doesn’t really have one, not in the traditional sense anyway. Not in a “the story is complete and we’ve reached a dramatic conclusion” way. It ends with a character being possessed and about to hunt down everyone. That’s not an ending; that’s the third-act setback that leads to the ending. It feels like they cut an entire section out. I also wasn’t happy that seemingly essential plot points were in the middle of the credits. Not a fan of that, if something is important, it should be in the actual film, credits scenes are for fun stuff, not essential.

In summary, incredibly similar to the first one, but with newer mistakes.

Clown In A Cornfield (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Some kind of circus worker (can’t remember the specifics) kills teens in a rural setting of some sort.

Fun fact: this was the 100th new movie I’ve seen this year, beating my previous record by roughly 11. It kind of sucks that such a momentous occasion is being marked with a film so bland that even a local cheap chicken shop wouldn’t sell it. It says a lot that the most memorable thing from this film is that you can sing the title to the same tune as Goldfinger’s cover of Man In A Suitcase. Also, I kept spelling it Cornfrield for some reason. If this movie were a colour, it would be mud-brown.

For Clown In A Cornfield (CIAC, pronounced Sigh-ack) to work, it needs to do one of two things: either be ridiculous and weird, or be brutal beyond belief. This does neither. It’s rated 15 in the UK, and it feels like it’s towards the lower end of that rating. The kills, even the most violent ones, feel remarkably pain-free. None of them really sticks in my mind. The opening two in particular feel neutered. One is offscreen, and the other one breaks physics. The clown approaches the future victim while they’re lying on the floor, then does a sideways sweep (like a hockey player making a quick pass), it then cuts to the person being lifted up on the weapon high up above the clown’s head.

The actual script isn’t too impressive either. Seinfeld famously described itself as “a show about nothing”, CIAC takes it to the next step by having nothing happen. The background characters are so underwritten that they might as well be cameos, so when the film shows us that there are multiple killers (I don’t count as a spoiler as it occurs before the halfway point,) it’s not difficult to see how the unmasking is going to go. The iconography of Frendo is so underbaked that I’m pretty sure it gave me salmonella. It doesn’t feel like “this has haunted the town for years”, or even a recent urban legend. The main characters use the idea that Frendo is a killer as a joke in a YouTube video. Also, for most of the deaths, the clown is only seen by the person they kill; so why dress as a clown in the first place? It’s unfair to single out CIAC for that, as SOOOO many slashers make the same mistake, to the point where I was actually impressed when Heart Eyes provided a good reason for the characters’ “fame”.

I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it’s basically Hot Fuzz, only we’re expected to take it seriously. I think we are, anyway. By all logic, this should be comedic, and there are times where it feels like it’s trying to be one, but it’s like being headbutted by a teletubby; incredibly po-faced. It’s weird as Eli Craig also directed Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, which got the comedy/horror balance spot on. Here, it feels like it didn’t do enough to satisfy either genre.

On the upside, there are some musical choices. And there are some surprisingly subversive choices made with the main characters. It’s nowhere near as bad as I’ve made it sound. I doubt it will be in the bottom half of my movie rankings this year. There’s not much offensively awful about it, but there’s absolutely nothing worth highlighting. It’s mediocre, and in some ways, I find that more offensive than being bad.

Keeper (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Terrifying visions plague a free-spirited artist when she travels to a secluded cabin with the doctor she’s been dating for one year.

I went into this surprisingly blind for someone who has seen the trailer at least 11 times at the local cinema. It gave nothing away. So I expected it to be mysterious and creepy. Turns out it didn’t give anything away because there’s not that much to give away, at least not until the ending. It’s not a sequential escalation of events; it’s just stuff happens, then similar stuff happens, with no explanation.

Imagine you go to a restaurant expecting chocolate cake. It’s a 60-minute time limit, but for 50 minutes, all you have access to is bread. You’re confused, trying to figure out what is going on, wondering if you’re even going to get any cake. Then, just when you’ve given up hope, the cake arrives, and it is good; it somehow explains the bread. In that scenario, are you going to tell people “the cake was really good”, or are you going to talk about how you spent most of the time eating bread? That’s my experience with this movie (the bread is nonsensical weirdness, the cake is logic and storytelling, obviously). Most of the 99-minute runtime is spent with incomprehensible weirdness instead of scares. I have similar issues with it that I had with Osgood’s 2024 movie Longlegs; it looks pretty, the performances are good, but nothing happens, and then it continues to happen. It’s demonstrably dull. Part of that is the weirdness; it overplays the “something spooky, but it was possibly a dream” moments, so nothing lands. Every time you see something, you’re never sure if it’s real, so you assume it’s not, which means nothing has meaning.

The performances are great, that has to be said. By which I mean, of the three characters we spend the most time with, one is spectacular, and is luckily the one who is onscreen most of the time. On the downside, I have recently watched Broad City, so it did take a while to move past Tatiana Maslany’s resemblance to Ilana Glazer. If it wasn’t for Maslany, I’d have HATED this movie. Her performance is incredible, which is handy as most of the time she doesn’t really have anyone to bounce off.

Perkins has injected the film with an atmosphere that’s very low-key, incredibly naturalistic. Which makes it all the more disappointing when he keeps going back to hackneyed horror tropes when we see the creatures/visions. Those visions don’t seem to increase in levels; they stay consistent throughout, so they seem more repetitive than my complaints about them.

To be honest, this is a difficult review to write as it’s difficult to resist the urge not to just repeat a lot of the sentences from the Die My Love review, maybe mixed in with my Longlegs review too. There’s a filmmaking rule: Show, Don’t Tell. Essentially, if you want to tell the audience that a character is in pain, it’s best to do that by having them wince when they move, etc, rather than have them come in and say “I am in pain”. Films like Keeper take that advice too literally, showing us random things with no explanation. Short flashbacks and spooky shit do not count as foreshadowing; it’s just annoying.

In summary, I think it’s a style issue. I just don’t like Perkins’ style as a filmmaker. Except for The Monkey, I loved that. If this were a short, I’d have loved it. But because it spent sooooo long getting to the f*cking point, I was too bored to care by the time it got interesting.

Shelby Oaks (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mia is haunted by the disappearance of her sister Riley 12 years ago. She’s given up all hope, then a stranger hands her a videotape of Riley’s final moments.

I’ve seen this movie described as a mix of Blair Witch and Hereditary, which is remarkably accurate. It has the lore and world-building of Hereditary, and the reality-based found footage of Blair Witch. It’s been overused since then, so people forget just how exciting The Blair Witch Project was when it came out. What made that movie work was how real the footage itself felt; the people in it didn’t like actors, so it genuinely felt like we were watching something hidden. It also wasn’t overly edited and full of jump scares, which is a trap its weaker imitators have fallen into. In that regard, Shelby Oaks continues that tradition, with the found-footage sections being incredible to watch.

It’s when it steps away from the found-footage premise that it becomes less interesting. The moment it happens is brilliant, and feels like a genuinely “holy shit” moment, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the Ghostface deaths in the opening of Scream 6. It can’t keep that momentum up, though. Once that moment has gone, the film doesn’t come close to matching it. You’re still invested in the story and the mystery, but a little bit of that “wow” factor has gone; there’s not as much to separate it from every other horror movie. I think part of the annoyance with it is that the mystery is intriguing, but you never really feel like you’re getting close to solving it until the film tells you what’s happening; there are no clues for the audience to figure out. If you’re watching this with friends, there will be no discussion about your theories or guesses. It gives you a puzzle, then makes you watch someone else solve it, so after a while, your brain can’t help but wander. Without that “I want to solve the mystery”, you’re just left with a spooky story, albeit a very competent one.

It’s clear that Chris Stuckmann has a lot of talent as a director; he’s an expert at crafting scares out of seemingly nothing. He’s helped by a brilliant performance from Camille Sullivan. I was also fond of Sarah Durn’s performance as Riley, especially towards the end when we see her perform not as a video host, but as a traumatised victim. She looks haunted. Nobody else really lasts long enough to have an impact, but it is always nice to see Keith David. There’s also some great audiowork, which is an underrated part of crafting tension.

When it is tense, it’s on “edge-of-your-seat” levels. Shelby Oaks is the kind of film that nail-biting was invented for. I watched it in the cinema, which is a great way to watch a film like this; sitting in a dark room with lots of space around you, letting everything overwhelm you. The only way the experience could be better is if you had to listen to it on those massive over-ear headphones.

What surprised me about Shelby Oaks is just how nostalgic it made me feel. The videos genuinely feel like they’re from the early days of YouTube, where it was weird people making art as opposed to corporations making “content”. There’s a sort of innocence to the videos the Paranormal Paranoids make, which makes what happens to them all the more frightening.

I wish I could play this as a video game, or watch it as a series of YouTube shorts played off as real. As a feature film, it runs out of ideas in the final third (but the ending is pretty shocking), which really does a disservice to the art created beforehand. In summary, quite frustrating, but the work of people who clearly know what they’re doing. One day, Stuckmann could make the greatest horror movie of modern times, but he’s not quite there yet.

Time Travel Is Dangerous! (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Ruth and Megan run a vintage shop in Muswell Hill, using a time machine to source new old stock.

It’s nice reviewing films people know and are excited for, to add my voice to the conversation that millions of people around the world are having. But there’s also something to be said about reviewing something not quite as well-known. Films like Time Travel Is Dangerous (TTID, pronounced Tit-tied), which at the time of writing has only 25 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, that’s critic and audience total. It deserves more than that.

I’m not really surprised, though. This film is incredibly British and quite low-budget. It’s not low budget in a way that makes you wonder how they managed to miraculously produce something on that budget; it wears its budget on its sleeve, and that’s not meant as an insult. If anything, it adds to the charm. And TTID is very charming. The characters using a time machine to bring back stuff to sell in a vintage shop? Brilliant idea. And anybody who has worked retail will recognise someone trying to buy the shop vacuum, and then being annoyed that they can’t do it. It helps that the two charity shop workers (Ruth and Megan, played by two women called *checks notes* Ruth and Megan, well, how am I supposed to remember that?) are incredibly likeable. Apparently, they are the real-life owners of a vintage shop in Muswell Hill. That genuinely surprises me. Usually, you can spot non-actors in films like this, especially as the leads. I had no idea; I just assumed they were involved in production somehow.

There are some great jokes here. An inventor’s group having a motto that’s “insert motto here” in Latin? Love it. Yeah, the jokes aren’t the smartest, but they’re funny. It’s also surprisingly poignant at times, especially the sub-plot with Botty and Ralph. I didn’t expect to find a touching treatise on fame and friendship inside a film as silly as this, but I’m glad it’s there. The entire inventor’s group is full of fun characters and jokes, so for two-thirds of the film, it’s delightful.

But then we get the final third. This section takes place in the other universe (there is a proper name for it, but I’ve forgotten it). It feels WAY too disconnected from the rest. There’s an almost entirely new cast of characters, a different visual style, and different comedy. The rest of the film is like a documentary; this part isn’t. So it feels like it takes place in a different film, where the characters of this one have just invaded it. It seems like that’s where most of the budget went (I’m guessing). It’s a shame, as that’s clearly the most ambitious part, so it feels somewhat mean to knock them for it. But it is definitely the weakest part, and knocks it down quite a bit.

There are some people who will enjoy that part, and there are also likely to be people who hate my favourite part: when Ruth is turned into a teenager because of issues caused by the time machine. I like it, I found it funny, and I liked how it drove a division between the two leads. But it’s easy to see how some may see it as a stupid diversion. Like I’ve said before, film reviews are all opinion, and opinions are never objective.

This won’t be a film liked by most people. But those who like low-budget silliness will enjoy it.

Black Phone 2 (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Gwen and her brother Finn are haunted by bad dreams and PTSD, leading them to a Christian youth camp where they’re forced to face their fears, and their pasts.

As a stand-alone film, I have some issues with Black Phone 2, but it’s pretty good. As a sequel to The Black Phone, however? It’s a mess. I haven’t seen a sequel shift like this since Brahms: The Boy II, which was seemingly written by someone who only saw the trailer for the first movie, and was writing based on what they thought that movie was.

The original Black Phone was semi-realistic. The Grabber wasn’t a demon or person with special powers; he was just a serial killer who focused on children (possibly in a creepy way). Yes, the eponymous phone was mystical and supernatural, but the narrative itself was fairly grounded. The fears that the characters dealt with were realistic; a child has been taken and is desperate to survive. It’s no more supernatural than the tales World War 2 pilots would tell of a deceased officer seemingly leading them to safety when all hope seemed lost. Black Phone 2 would be like if those same pilots said that the clouds gained sentience and started breathing fire on the enemy, then winking at the survivors as if to say, “I got this”. I’m not sure where I expected a sequel to The Black Phone to go, but I didn’t expect it to basically turn into A Nightmare On Elm Street, but more ridiculous.

Two things are very clear from this movie: 1) Ethan Hawke is damn good at what he does. 2) Scott Derrickson LOVES creepy VHS-style vignettes. He uses that style to indicate what scenes take place in dreams; so it’s actually a really handy visual cue, I kind of love it. Yes, it makes no diegetic sense unless we believe these kids are dreaming in Super 8, but as a shorthand for “this is a dream”? I dig it.

I mentioned Ethan Hawke’s performance just now; his performance is less camp and theatrical than it was in the original, but much more menacing. Part of that is because he’s not actually in it that much; the biggest mistake a third movie can (or, I predict, will) make is having more of him. It is kind of helped by the other performances being only okay. It’s weird, I’ve seen every performer in this do well, so it’s not a talent issue, but there are moments where performances seem so hammy that the film should come with a label saying it’s non-kosher (alternative joke; so wooden I’m going to use them to mend my fence). None more so than Anna Lore in the opening scene. She redeems herself in later scenes, but her making the initial phone call feels off, performance-wise.

Loved the music; it’s suitably creepy and weird; reminds me of the work of Trent Reznor, and it perfectly suits the visuals Derrickson is going for. Although on the subject of music, everytime a character loudly exclaimed “Gwen!” my brain started singing this. I’m not holding that against the film, that would be stupid. I just wanted to make sure everyone who reads this is equally cursed, like when I tell people that the opening to Breakfast In America by Supertramp is very similar to Don’t Speak by No Doubt.

It is a weird sequel, but I do appreciate how realistic it is that the characters are haunted by the events of the first film. They’re both clearly suffering from PTSD. My first thought was, “a bit unrealistic, someone would have clearly given Finn therapy and counselling”, then I remembered this is set in 1982, and therapy was seen as unmanly (and to some stupid people, still is), so depressingly, his having to self-medicate his trauma with drugs is accurate.

Overall, a pretty solid experience, but one of the few sequels that is actually made worse by having watched the original. There are some stupid character moments (when trying to stop Gwen from being slowly dragged into an oven, nobody thinks to close the oven door), but also some smart ones. I appreciated how they tried to wake her up by throwing cold water in her face. Despite the moments of stupidity, it’s still a fun watch, albeit not one you’ll be dying (horror pun!) to do twice.

Good Boy (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: A haunted house story from the POV of a dog.

Sometimes it can be difficult to sell a film just by explaining the plot. How can you sell someone on Knives Out if you just sell it as “a murder mystery drama about a rich guy”? Then there’s Good Boy. “A horror movie told from the POV of a dog”. That’s all you need. Once you hear that, you don’t need to know the director, any of the performers, or even to see a trailer. That concept is simple enough and strong enough to draw you in. For that, this has to be commended. It doesn’t fail to live up to that premise either. If you like the concept, you will love this film.

Gimmick films can be tricky because they need to be worth watching even once the novelty of the gimmick wears off. “From a different perspective” is a fun gimmick to use, especially in horror, but it has been done a lot lately. We’ve had films from the perspective of a ghost (Presence), films from the perspective of the killer (In A Violent Nature), and films from the perspective of a group of fucking idiots (Truth Or Dare). From the POV of a dog is interesting, and I can’t think of any others like it. The closest I can think of comes from video games. It adds a unique twist to a somewhat tired genre; everything is more terrifying when it’s towering over you. What will be a downside to a lot of people is that, because the main character is a dog, there’s no vocal way to convey a lot of information. You REALLY have to pay attention to enjoy this film; there’s no way you will enjoy this if you’re not 100% in. Which is a rather long-winded way of saying that this is a terrible film to watch on the same day you get your flu jab as instead of paying attention to it, you’ll sit there trying to remember the final line in the Postman Pat theme song (“he puts all the letters in his van”, by the way). Don’t worry, I have seen it again, so this review isn’t coming from a place of tired haze.

If you pay attention and give this film what it deserves, you will be rewarded. It’s fascinating. I am slightly disappointed that it does firmly place its foot in the “this house is haunted” box; there is definitely a haunting here, no doubt about it. It may have been more interesting if it were ambiguous, where we realise that what we’re seeing isn’t a haunting, it’s just something the dog doesn’t understand. Maybe a scene where it looks like his owner is possessed, but with further context clues, it turns out he’s just drunk. A fearsome creature turns out to be an animal that the dog isn’t familiar with, that kind of thing. For a definite horror movie, this does its job well, though. It helps that we care about the characters, despite there only really being two of them (and one of them being a dog). The ending is heartbreaking (don’t worry, the dog doesn’t die), and it is the best way this story could end. The heart shown in that moment encapsulates why Good Boy stands out in a crowded genre; it’s genuinely sweet at times. It helps that they picked the right kind of horror movie. It’s not needlessly violent and disgusting, or full of jump scares. Instead, it’s an exercise in creeping dread. Instead of smashing you in the face with violence, it creates an atmosphere and uncertainty which lingers over the run-time.

On the subject of run-time, it’s only 72 minutes. I admire that, I much prefer that to a longer one. Mainly because longer films sometimes overstuff the narrative to try to justify their length. A shorter film says, “yup, we know the limits of this story”. It’s difficult to see how this could be longer and still maintain the elements that make it work.

In summary, this may not be your cup of tea, but it’s a film that I’m very glad was made, purely because of its originality. I wish there were more films like this, even though I don’t really feel I need to see it again. If I’m with someone who wants to watch it, I’ll watch it. But I can’t see myself going out of my way to see it again. That’s nothing against it, it’s a fine film, but it’s never quite great.

Him (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: An up-and-coming quarterback undergoes a rigorous training regimen at the home of his idol. Weird shit happens

There are some stories which need to be told, which capture the zeitgeist perfectly. In 2006, Christopher Nowinski authored Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis, which theorised (and demonstrated) how maybe having grown adults smash into each other at sprinting speed could cause damage to the brain. Yes, sports needed a book to be told that brains are important. With the exception of 2015’s Concussion, it hasn’t really made a dent in cinema, which is a shame as it’s an interesting story to look into; the lengths people have to go to so they can succeed; the physical damage that is not only expected, but demanded. Sports (particularly American Football) is ripe for a film about the sacrifices needed to succeed; it needs its own Whiplash (insert your own spinal injury joke). And there are moments where Him (and we can’t brush past how bad a title that is) showcases that, when it’s absolutely brutal and forces upon you the knowledge that these players are risking their health and lives every time they step onto the field. This is best demonstrated when Cam (played by Tyriq Withers) runs into someone, skull crushing against skull. The other person is left a quivering wreck on the floor, spasming uncontrollably as the team members ignore him, cheering Cam for his violence. In a film rife with horror imagery, I found that the most disturbing.

That’s my rather clumsy segue into what I didn’t like about Him: the horror aspects. It spends its entire runtime with one foot in the stirrup of sports drama, and the other in supernatural horror, and they’re spread apart as far as you can get. Every time Him looked like it was getting interesting, it was then ruined by silly supernatural bullshit. The horror aspects actually make it less scary. It turns it from something realistic and genuinely harrowing into something incredibly generic. Also, it’s underdeveloped. It’s revealed that great players get their greatness from a ritual blood transfusion. This is actually foreshadowed very well, so I won’t fault it for that; it doesn’t exactly come out of nowhere. But it doesn’t explain why. Why does (presumably) Satan care so much about American Football? If it’s the blood that causes greatness, couldn’t they put it in anybody instead of trying to convince someone who’s already great? Also, considering he was likely to sign for the Saviours anyway, they didn’t actually need to orchestrate him being injured. All they needed to do was say, “Want to sign for this time? Come to your heroes’ training camp for a few days”.

Also, it REALLY overplays the “spooky thing happens. Cut back to normal so it was possibly a hallucination” thing. It doesn’t leave you scared; it leaves you annoyed, like it’s intentionally trying to wrongfoot you constantly, then mocking you for being confused. This is especially noticeable towards the end, where a scene set in a club is shot and edited in a manner that’s almost incomprehensible. That could have been an iconic scene, showing his final descent into being corrupted. Instead, it’s just a messy blur that uses editing techniques to not show you anything that you actually want to see.

In summary, a complete car crash, if it weren’t a horror movie, would be a lot better. But then, I suppose it wouldn’t have a gimmick. I can see what they were going for, but neither the script nor the directing is good enough for it. I’m also somewhat put off by Marlon Wayans’ response to negative reviews, saying, “Some movies are ahead of the curve. Innovation is not always embraced”. This isn’t ahead of the curve, it’s Suspiria mixed with Whiplash, but if Suspiria was made by a first-year film student.

Together (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: Tim and Millie are a couple who are slowly drifting apart. They then find themselves having the complete opposite problem in this Romantic Horror (is that a thing?).

Together is 70 minutes of pure body horror, incredibly weird disgusting-ness set against a backdrop of romantic co-dependency. The trouble is, the film is 102 minutes long, and that over 30 minutes really brings it down.

There’s not a specific section that’s the problem. It’s not like The Watchers, where the final section significantly dragged it down. There are just moments throughout which don’t really feel necessary, where the premise is stretched thinner than someone who curses a witch whilst saying how they want to lose weight. I get the theme it’s going for, as will every audience member, as it bashes you over the head with it. There are also some incredibly misguided moments of comedy. I also didn’t buy some of their reactions as genuine. With a premise like this, you have to wonder “how will others react to this?” We’ll never know, as the only person they discuss it with has already had it happen to them. They do meet one of the characters mothers at the end, but at the very end, just before the film cuts to black, so we don’t see how she reacts to it. This is probably because if they discuss it with some people, it would make it too difficult to not have THAT overwhelm the story, but I’m not sure ignoring it makes it any better. It’s a relatively simple fix, have them on a week away in a remote cabin somewhere, with no people nearby for miles.

This is all pretty negative so far, I know. But when Together works, it REALLY works. The climactic fusing together (does it really count as a spoiler when its ALL OVER the marketing?) is absolutely vile, in a wonderful way. It reminds me of The Substance, but more painful. The use of “2 Become 1” on the soundtrack during that scene is incredibly unsubtle, but this film can’t have subtlety when it’s as gross as it is. The performances are pretty damn good, the real-life chemistry between the two leads shines off the screen, and really adds to the story being told. On the subject of performance; Dave Franco has never sounded less like his brother, and more like Aaron Paul.

Back to the body horror. That’s really the main reason to watch this, and it doesn’t disappoint. I like how it actually has a reason behind it. There’s a narrative reason for the merger to happen, it’s explained why and how it happened. It also has a thematic reason, ties into the central messages well. It’s not just stuff happening for the sake of it, the horror has a reason and a message. That has to be commended, and is the reason for me recommending this film, even if I didn’t think of it quite as highly as everyone elses seems to. Is it a very good film? Yes. Is it an all-time classic? Not quite. But it’s quite close, and that’s more than most films could manage.

Weapons (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When all but one child from the same classroom mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance

There’s a fine line between comedy and horror. Something that some see as comedic will be seen by others as utterly horrific: clowns, that scene from IT: Chapter 2 where black sludge was vomited over a kid, my face. I’m saying that now because there were moments during Weapons where I wasn’t entirely sure whether their comedic nature was intentional or not. I’m going to give writer and director Zach Cregger the benefit of the doubt and say it was. I think Creggar will one day create an all-time classic horror comedy. He has a history of comedy, and his horror movies have been very well-received, but he seems to be toning down the comedic elements, which means the moments which are there stand out more and seem out of place.

That’s all very negative, I know. I did like Weapons. I watched it in the worst possible way; in a cinema screen with only two other people in, both of whom talked a lot and laughed randomly. The fact that Weapons had that work against it, and still came out with me having a favourable opinion of it, says a lot. Is it going to end up being among my top films of the year? Probably not. To me, it was a solid 8/10. If it wasn’t for Sinners, it would be the best horror film of the year.

So why didn’t I like it? I’m not entirely sure. I just never fully bought into the premise. Aside from the meeting, it didn’t feel like a town that was in shock. I know, life goes on, etc. But there would be some change in behaviour; increased police presence, parents putting locks on the inside of their doors which their kids can’t open. A classroom of kids goes missing, and at no point does the question of “what if this happens again?” get raised. They’re angry towards Justine, but that’s only specific characters. Shop staff still serve her as usual, she doesn’t even change her routine and get her shopping done online. She drinks at a bar, and nobody accosts her. Compare this to the recent Halloween trilogy, which slid into shitness in the final one, but otherwise did a fantastic job of portraying a town haunted by events. Individually, people do seem paranoid and worried. But as a town? Not so much. It’s almost like they don’t care that much. Which would explain the ending, actually, when an old woman is being chased by a group of feral kids, breaking through windows, going through people’s houses, etc, and not a single adult reacts or tries to stop it.

Yes, I am aware I’m being overly picky. But that’s only because if it wasn’t for that, Weapons could be an all-time great. It’s tense, doesn’t shy away from gore when it needs to, but doesn’t depend on it. It has characters you empathise with, and a narrative that draws you in. The music is incredible, as are the performances. Julia Garner is fast becoming one of my favourite performers to see on screen in horror movies. She has a great “trembling face on the edge of tears but not quite crying” facial acting. It turns out Benedict Wong can be f*cking terrifying when he needs to be. He’s come a long way from 15 Storey’s High, which, if you’ve seen it, you’d have never guessed he’d become a star. The real star is Amy Madigan, who is brilliant.

In summary, very, very good. The more distance I have from it, the more its themes and ideals have stayed in my head, and I’ve come to appreciate them. But it could be so much better.