Tag: Horror Review

The Substance (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Elisabeth Sparkle is an ageing actress who has just lost her job as the host of an aerobics TV show. Desperate to regain her “sparkle” she takes a serum which causes a younger version of herself to “hatch”, with one rule; she must switch between the two versions every week, without fail.

I am so glad this was directed by Coralie Fargeat. As anybody who watched 2017’s Revenge can attest, she’s talented as hell. She is the perfect director for something like this, injecting standard scenes with an air of creepiness. She also makes some incredibly brave decisions, mainly to do with holding a shot MUCH longer than most directors would, uncomfortably long at times. She sets her standards in the opening shot, where we see a star on a Hollywood Walk of Fame get created, and then see it age and decay. Not only is it a beautiful sequence (plus weirdly fascinating), but it’s also thematically appropriate; seeing a star be damaged by the pressures put upon it alongside the natural damages caused by time passing, well it’s not exactly subtle, is it?

The other reason I’m glad Coralie directed this is because it needs to be directed by a woman. It’s a female story. Yes, the worries of ageing and not feeling as sexy as we once were are worries shared by everybody, but it hits women harder because they’re judged for it more harshly. Also, if this was directed by a man then some of the shots would be a bit creepy. I’m not saying they’re odd shot choices, but when a film is telling you about the pressures of enforcing societal expectations of constant youth and beauty on women so that they see being old as a character flaw, but then the next shot is full of VERY close-up of a young woman buttcheeks in exercise clothes, well it can feel like mixed messages.

The young woman with the zoomed-in buttcheeks? Margaret Qualley, who plays a “more perfect” version of Demi Moore’s character. Annoyingly, there is no point in which they seem like the same person. There are no shared quirks or physical tics. They seem like completely separate people, which I know is sort of the point, but I would like to buy into the concept that there is some shared nature between the two of them considering the mind they share is the same.

The moment when they split is truly disturbing. It’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen all year, and I’ve watched a lot. Coralie is great at body horror, and it’s those moments which drive the freakishness of the narrative, especially in the final third which is just batshit insane. Normally I say “batshit insane” and it’s a compliment, here it’s not. I liked it, but for some reason, it didn’t hit me. Possibly because it took FAR too long to get to the obvious moments. At one point, it repeats a dream sequence/hallucination from a few minutes earlier, and with no new context or reason for it to exist again.

This may seem like a negative review, and that’s because there is quite a fair bit to dislike about The Substance. It’s unsubtle at times, it’s FAR too long, and it wastes sooo much potential. But there’s also SOOOO much to like and appreciate. It’s stylish, it’s darkly funny, and it needs to be unsubtle to get the message through. I did like it, but I wouldn’t say I “enjoyed” it, at times it was a struggle to continue paying attention. It’s an important one, it’s a spectacular one to see unfold in front of you, but it also needs about 10 minutes cut from it. It’s utterly horrific, but also completely fascinating.

In summary, it’s a dichotomy. Which I suppose also suits the themes.

The Crow (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: After the love of his that he’s known for a suuuuuuch a long time is murdered in front of him, Eric is given the power of face paint and healing to get his revenge.

I know how this is supposed to go. Reviews for this have been so negative there was concern it would somehow end up with a minus score on rotten tomatoes. The jokes would have been obvious, “This does to Skarsgards career what the original did to Brandon Lee”. About how it was a cynical cash grab, that forgot the “cash” part. Maybe comments about how this is the second review this year which would lead itself to jokes about Sting. Truth is, I won’t be making any of those jokes.

Not because this film is good, far from it, it’s definitely a steaming pile of crap that I wouldn’t recommend to anybody. And certainly not because I feel it deserves compliments for effort and you can tell the filmmakers are trying. The reason it’s hard to rustle up any anger and vitriol towards The Crow is because it’s so unbelievably bland. I haven’t encountered anything so devoid of taste since a Wetherspoons fry-up.

The original Crow movie is iconic, in the 30 years since it was released, the combination of a white face and black trenchcoat has inspired countless school shooters. It’s hard to imagine this version inspiring anything other than complete apathy.

It’s hard to think of anything about this that works. The romance, you know, the entire reason the character is so vengeful in the first place, doesn’t feel real. For some reason, The Crow thinks we need to see their whole relationship, including how it starts. We don’t NEED to see them meeting, in fact, that actually makes it worse because you then realise the “Love of his life” is someone he’s known for a few days. So his reasons for coming back from the dead seem less “I have lost EVERYTHING!” than they should. It’s not helped by the fact they don’t seem to have much chemistry. I don’t get how Skarsgards performance is so meh in this considering he’s basically made a living treading that line between corpse and hot. This is only the second feature film credit for FKA Twigs, and she’s better than that would suggest. Note “better” does not necessarily mean “good”.

The soundtrack is forgettable. I’m assuming that anyway, I can’t actually remember. This would have been the PERFECT time to play a shitload of dark pop. Get some stuff in there that’s both danceable and depressing; some Lana Del Ray, some Ashnikko, some Charli XCX, don’t play fucking Enya.

Nothing about this answers the question “Why was this made?”. Do we need a dark and gritty film which is a remake of a film that’s already dark and gritty? The only notable thing about this movie is that Danny Huston continues to be a solid choice for “threatening mob-like guy”. But even that’s ruined by the inconsistency in his character.

Even the fight scenes aren’t well done. We know Skarsgard can do fight scenes, but you wouldn’t know that if you have only seen this, because of how bland and weirdly neutered the fights are. I’ve never seen scenes so full of blood still manage to come off so sanitised and “safe”.

It’s not the worst film ever. It’s not a complete mess that fails at everything it attempts. What it is, is something much more offensive than that; dull. It doesn’t fail at what it tries because it never tries anything. There is zero effort, zero heart, and consequently, zero reason to watch this film.

Sting (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: An alien spider grows and kills, serving as a warning to humans: “Don’t stand so close to me”.

Sting is not a smart movie. It’s not brave, it’s not challenging, it’s not something that’s going to stay with you for years after you see it. It’s also not bad. Not everything needs to change the world, some things can just be entertaining, and this is definitely that. Yes, it’s the dumbest thing the name “Sting” has been attached to since Starrcade 1997/Track 12 from the Brimstone And Treacle soundtrack. You’ll be entertained once you get past the disappointment that this isn’t actually a horror movie based on a guy who once watched The Crow or the writer of Roxanne (the song, not the movie).

It’s not perfect, for one thing, Robyn Nevin is clearly not using her natural accent, and it’s noticeable. Noni Hazelhurst is pretty damn fun though, and has the name that’s the most fun to say. There are also moments where the writers skipped over things we should have seen. For example, the police are seemingly accusing Ethan (played by a pretty damn great Ryan Corr) of harming his neighbour. While they talk to him he receives a phone call saying “come here” from his neighbour (Danny Kim), and he just leaves. There are also issues with pacing, the opening in particular is far too long in comparison to the rest of the film.

It is mostly just a lot of fun. The way the opening is filmed may make you think it would be cheaply made, especially since the attack there didn’t show that much (for reasons that become clear later on, but in the moment, it does seem cheap), but when it needs to, it goes hard. There’s one death in particular which is BRUTAL and I love it.

Sting has an advantage (not in a Wargames way) over horror movies in that people already find spiders kind of creepy, probably because the way they walk doesn’t seem natural, and they look more like hydraulic robots. Sting makes the most of the creepy nature they naturally have. Yes, it does augment it with sci-fi stuff, but it never comes across as horror you laugh at. There are some funny moments, but they’re based around the characters rather than the situation.

I went in with low expectations, and it exceeded them. I don’t think I need to watch it again at any point, but I don’t regret seeing it, and I would definitely watch a sequel (which, judging by the ending, we’re getting). Yes, it’s shlock, but it’s so fun. Taking inspiration from Alien, but also from those terrible 80s slasher movies that people love. It may not be your favourite horror of the year (I think The First Omen is my favourite so far), but it won’t be the worst (Hello there Tarot, Night Swim, The Watchers etc).

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: New York city comes under attack from an invading force of noise-hating aliens.

Longtime readers (or those who click this link here) will know that as much as I loved the first Quiet Place, the second one (A Quiet Place Two: Shhhhhh-it Happens) didn’t do as much for me. My biggest issue with it was the use of music. The first one used silence perfectly, to the point where it affected audiences watching it; the screening I was in had the quietest audience I’ve ever been a part of. The second one? It had music to set the tone, which meant it just felt like any other horror movie, and the effect of silence wasn’t as big as it could have been. That same issue plagues A Quiet Place: Day One (AQP: DO, pronounced Aquop-do), I’d actually argue it’s worse in this. In the start, the time before the attack? There it makes sense. In fact, the use of noise in that section is brilliant. There’s SOOOO much background sound that when it does turn silent it is a huge difference. The use of music does ruin it though, and lessens the impact of one of the closing scenes. Spoilers; this film ends with a character committing suicide by music by unplugging their headphones from a radio, thereby broadcasting music everywhere, ensuring their death. If there was NO music before that, the impact of that would be HUGE. But because we’ve heard music throughout the film, it doesn’t hit quite as hard as it could. There’s also not as big a difference in audio level between “music on headphones” and “music unplugged” as there could be.

There’s also one pretty big flaw with AQP: DO. It doesn’t feel like a prequel We see what life was like before the attack, and we have a character who was in the second movie. But other than that, there’s not that much of a difference between this and the other two in terms of what it does. There’s nothing here that could only be done in a prequel. No questions are answered, and because the main character passes out we don’t see that much of the initial panic.

There was a perfect opportunity to use this to find out more about the initial response, but we don’t get that. How do we know they hunt by sound? No idea, the film doesn’t tell us. How did politicians respond? We don’t know. What was the initial media reaction? We don’t know. Yes, communications do get cut out, but there would still be a few minutes/hours of social media reactions. But the most important question that goes unanswered: exactly how much hentai of the invading aliens was drawn before the world collapsed?

Other than that, the film itself is good. The characters are likeable. Lupita Nyong’o’s character (Samira) is beautifully written. She’s a terminal cancer patient so her character shows us something so far unexplored in this franchise; those who NEED civilization to survive. Those with illnesses that require medication, and those with health issues that mean they’re dependent on others. In an apocalypse situation there will be people like that, people who know that if people don’t turn against them now, they will when resources start getting depleted. It is seen in a somewhat more optimistic light than in The End We Start From (spoilers for that review), with Samira having a more “fuck it, let’s do this” attitude.

When the film does remember its gimmick, it’s brilliant. There’s a scene of Samira and Eric (played by Joseph Quinn) at a jazz club. The silence lends it a weird sense of intimacy which would otherwise be lacking. It’s one of the few moments of hope in an otherwise quite bleak experience (bleak in a good way).

That scene is helped by the performances of Nyong’o and Quinn. They play off each other very well. That’s probably for the best as most of the film is spent just with the two. For a film set in New York City, it does feel incredibly isolated in terms of other characters. We occasionally spend time in the company of others, but not that much. Everybody has found themselves groups to hang out in very quickly. We all know that if this did happen they’d be separate factions etc, none of that in here. Everybody just stays silent and moves as a group (except for the leads).

It is a pleasant surprise to see effective organisation though. The military quite quickly figured out a plan to send one helicopter to make a lot of noise in the city, and thus distract the aliens to allow another helicopter to marshall survivors onto the boat. That kind of competence porn is always great to see.

In summary; this is a really good film, but it would have been SOOOO easy to make it great.

The Watched a.k.a The Watchers (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: A guilt-ridden American is trapped in an Irish forest when she is shepherded into a mysterious dwelling with three strangers, all being watched by strange creatures in the night.

I hadn’t planned on watching this, I only decided to see it because it started 10 minutes after another film I saw at the cinema ended. As I watched The Watched unfold I was slightly disappointed with many of the script choices. I didn’t want to be too harsh on it though, this was obviously a story told by a first-time Irish storyteller and as such I felt I needed to be more encouraging than dismissive. Then the end credits started (about 10-20 minutes after they should have) and I saw the words “directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan” and that need for encouraging and forgiving of mistakes disappeared like a shot of piss in a swimming pool. Yes, she is still a first-time director, but she’s a first-time director with access that no other first-timer would get. She’s in a position most people would kill for, and needs to justify it. This needed to be incredible to wash away any claims of nepotism.

It’s not incredible. Nothing in the script or the directing justifies the chance she has been given. It’s 102 minutes long, which is about 90 minutes longer than it deserves. At times it felt like most of that 90 minutes was spent on expositional dialogue. There’s no attempt to make these moments interesting visually. That’s a shame as there are parts which look pretty damn good, the moment where the creatures first stand up and stretch is haunting and wonderful. There are a lot of moments when it’s too dark to see anything, especially with the exterior shots.

My biggest issue is the script. It’s a mess. There are plot holes so big you could drive a truck through them. I also get the feeling that the Night Shyamalan family assume audiences are idiots and must be directly told every piece of information because just seeing it unfold in front of us isn’t enough. I haven’t been spoonfed so forcefully since I was in a high chair.

The third act is one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time. At one point I genuinely picked my bag up because the cinematic and narrative language was telling me “okay the film is ending in a few minutes”, there’s then another entire 10-20 minute section that kills the minimal momentum it had. I get why she went with the ending she did, it fleshes out one of the characters, and layers over a few of the smaller plot holes. But it could have been done a lot sooner. Spoilers btw.

Okay so three of the characters escape the forest, they fall asleep on a boat and drift away until they wake up near the main city. They then all split up and go about their day, one of whom (the main character, played by a Dakota Fanning who’s underacting to the extent it barely registers more than if she didn’t turn up at all) has made it clear she plans to go to the university and destroy the research into fairies/the watchers that another character (The Professor) has written. Now, one of the other survivors (played by the brilliant Olwen Fouere) turns out to be The Professor’s dead wife so is actually a Watcher who now plans to kill more humans in revenge for fairies being forced underground. So she was on a boat with two humans she’s spent a lot of time with, and didn’t think to quietly sink the boat and escape onto land? She’s spent enough time with both of them so that she can change to look like them, and thus gain access to more people. Plus it would stop Dakota’s character from finding out the truth about her.

There is sooooo much wasted potential. So The Watchers want to watch humans so they can best imitate them, and they watch them through a mirrored window, with numerous shots of the humans standing next to the mirrors and looking at their own reflections. You know what shot DOESN’T happen in this film? A split shot of someone in the building looking at their Watcher double with the two of them being similar but different (as was done a few times in Us). WHY would you not have that shot? Surely the only reason to make this film is so you can wow people with that shot? It reminds me of the end of Glass where the whole thing was building up to a fight scene that then didn’t happen just because the writer wanted to trick the audience and subvert expectations. Sometimes expectations are there for a reason, and you can only subvert expectations if you replace it with something good. You can’t just cut it and then be like “We didn’t do what you thought! Surprise”. Its why food places that offer surprise menus still offer plates of actual food as the surprises, as opposed to if a Shyamalan did it, in which case you’d be served a plate of burnt pornography with rat droppings sprinkled over it. Just give me f*cking food.

I should probably add that due to personal reasons, I don’t think I’m ready to watch a horror film where a young male called Daniel dies. But even without that personal bias, this is still shit. At most, that bias knocked it down a 0.1 mark. Which considering I don’t give marks out of 10, doesn’t really matter.

Lisa Frankenstein (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A misunderstood teenager and a reanimated Victorian corpse embark on a murderous journey together to find love, happiness, and a few missing body parts.

I was looking forward to this. I’m not gonna lie, that was mainly because of Kathryn Newton. I absolutely LOVED her in Freaky, and I thought she was one of the best things about Quantumania. I’m unsure as to whether I like Diablo Cody or not. I loved Juno and Jennifer’s Body, but even then in those I was aware of how overly written and stylized the dialogue was.

If you’re on the fence about Cody, this won’t push you towards being a supporter of her. The dialogue is still overly painful to listen to at times, and she feels like she’s holding back a bit. The violence feels incredibly sanitized, which makes me think the studio wanted to lower the rating at the last minute, or they’re planning to release an unrated version later. It’s not just the violence, the dialogue also suffers from a general sense of “edited for television”. And that’s before you listen to the words being said and realise how overly hipster and fake the characters sound. This would be easier to deal with if the characters were likeable. As you can guess by that previous sentence, they’re not. What made Juno work was how relatable and real the characters felt, even when the dialogue was a bit naff. You don’t get that here. There’s also a stunning lack of consistency in characterisation, Lisa in particular seems to change personalities more than me when I’m creating a Sim in that video game where Sims do things in their Sim house, speaking Simlish and living with other Sims (I think it’s called The House That Keeps Burning Down). There’s a way to make it so characters can kill people and still make them likeable. Lisa Frankenstein doesn’t bother with that. As such, there’s a feeling that somewhere there’s another 10 minutes of LF which helps bridge the gap and makes their actions feel more real. As it is, it’s essentially “You killed my stepmother? Well let’s bury her and I’ll sew her ear to your face”. Yes, the stepmother was a bitch, but it still seems like they missed a few steps in making her death feel deserved. Especially since the creature was hiding in a cupboard, and was established as not being able to hear that well, so do we know for certain that he actually heard what she said? Doug was a sex pest so his death would have been much more cathartic. Doug does die, but not for much longer into the film than he should. I feel he should have been explored more, not explained or justified, he’s a date rapist. But he only appears in like two scenes, flesh out that character as a supposed “nice guy” then his rapey tendencies (and taking advantage of a drugged woman IS rape, and it’s weird how that is a controversial statement) would come off as more shocking and would allow an instant death.

Now on the bright side; it looks fucking fantastic. Kathryn Newton’s wardrobe is like someone sitting on a thumbtack; it’s on point. Hard to believe this is Zelda Williams’ feature-length directorial debut. I see in her what everybody else sees in Tim Burton. There’s a beautiful gothic elegance to a lot of the scenes, especially the opening which reminded me a Lotte of the work of Reiniger (possibly the most dated reference I will ever make). That gothic style meshes well with the 80s setting, everything feels oversaturated to the point where it seems to drain all sense of fun out of the colours. It’s stunning, showing great potential for her as a director, but it is a shame she will never get a chance to mesh her visual style with her dad’s acting style.

And now I’m sad.

Oh, and the music is good too. So overall, I’m not angry at this film, I’m disappointed. It’s too difficult to truly like and enjoy this film. Visually it has an identity, but in terms of story etc it just comes off as a parody that’s taking itself far too seriously.

Tarot (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s essentially Final Destination if the set-up was tarot cards. If the writers aren’t going to put the effort in, I’m not either.

I do love a good horror movie. I need to say that because (spoilers) this review is going to be mostly negative. With some horror films, my issues have been difficult to explain, I just haven’t vibed with it. So I suppose I should at least thank Tarot for making my issues with it easy to explain: it’s shit.

On the plus side; the performances aren’t completely terrible, and I will commend the scriptwriter for showing a believable scene of grief and how it affects you. You know that these characters are haunted by the first death, and it hangs over everything that happens. There’s also a scene at a magic show that’s pretty damn interesting and chilling to watch unfold. Plus the flashbacks are pretty well made and provide an interesting story. That is all the nice things I can say about Tarot. The rest of this review will basically be me chopping this film down with my axe of criticism.

None of the characters show much of a personality, usually with this it’s because the characters are archetypes so the writers don’t have to put too much effort into writing the characters because the audience already knows who the characters are; this person wears their football jersey away from the field? They’re a jerkass jock with a heart of gold. The guy with glasses? He’s a nerd. The woman in the cheerleader outfit? She’s a cheerleader. Tarot avoided making the characters cliches but didn’t bother to give them anything else. Watch something like the first Scream movie, you can tell by the way those characters interact that they have been friends for a long time and are comfortable in each other’s presence. You don’t get that in this. There’s no sense that these characters have much of a history with each other. There’s no closeness, they might as well be strangers.

I should say, they are sometimes on the same page, but in a weird way. They play a game where they have to say who they think a certain subject applies to (first to get pregnant etc), over three rounds the group agree fully on every choice. There’s no “two people say this, three of them say this”, they’re all in total agreement. That’s weird, and feels very fake. The lack of believable friendships isn’t helped by how inconsistent the characters are. That’s partly why it’s so hard to figure out who they are, just when you think you’ve got their personality down they say something to contradict that because that’s what the plot requires and the scriptwriter has realised that character hasn’t said anything that page yet.

Nobody seems to have any convictions or realism. The main character points out that she shouldn’t use tarot cards which don’t belong to her, she’s later shown to take tarot and horoscopes very seriously. So how do her friends convince her to break that rule? Basically just by saying “come on” and she does it. There’s no inner turmoil or conflict, she just decides to do it.

Their actions when they realise the tarot cards are killing them aren’t much better. Mainly because they come to that realisation twice. So the second time it feels a bit like “Yeah, you already know that, why are you shocked?”.

It looks bad. Traditional film language regarding horror movies boils down to shadows and lighting, here it’s just dark with no sense of “why” other than “other horror movies do it”. It’s rare for the phrase “too bleak, stopped caring” to apply to visuals, but it does so here. The audio isn’t much better, with random volume jumps replacing actual tense audio. The music choices are baffling. No teen horror movie set in 2024 should have Things Can Only Get Better by Howard Jones on the soundtrack.

Just, nothing about this movie works. It’s uncertain as to whether to be serious or funny and isn’t good enough at either to be an effective horror comedy. All I can say this; Tarot should be VERY thankful that Madame Web and Nightswim were released this year.

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?

Abigail (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Quick Synopsis: A group of would-be criminals kidnaps a 12-year-old, and don’t even do that right. Losers.

I’ve spoken before about going into some films completely blind, having not even seen a trailer. I wish I had done that for this. The more you know about Abigail, the worse it is. A lot of the film is spent with the killer in shadow, making you think the killings are being done by a hitman working for Abigails’ mob boss father. But if you’ve seen the trailer, you know that Abigail is a vampire, so you know what’s happening. To be fair, the title and the poster do that too. It’s a film called Abigail, and the poster features that character in a bloodstained dress, so even if you don’t know she’s a vampire, you do know that she is responsible for the deaths. So the whole “what is happening? It’s a secret” aspect of the opening half is wasted. I know we didn’t see a lot of Jaws in the film of the same title, but we were aware it was a shark. We didn’t spend half the time watching that film and being told it was hippo.

Once the truth is revealed, it’s a much better film. It’s still good before that, but it definitely feels like it’s holding back on you a little bit. It’s shot like a horror movie before the characters know it’s a horror movie. So the vampiric reveal doesn’t come as a shock, it comes off as “Well that’s what happens next in a horror film”. Compare this to say, From Dusk Till Dawn, which comes off as a heist movie for the first half, which means the vampiric shift comes off as a genuine shock. Here, you KNOW it’s a horror movie, so you’re expecting something similar to what happens. They could have played it off like a heist movie and it would have improved it. I’ll admit, that would have drawn comparisons to the aforementioned FDTD. But heist movies are cinematically different now than they were in the 90’s, they’re now more focused on straight lines, split-screen shots etc. So whilst it would have been similar in terms of genre shift, the styles themselves would be different, which would have lessened comparisons.

I’m overexaggerating slightly, I’ll admit. The sections before them are still pretty entertaining. That’s mainly due to the cast though. I’m a huge fan of both Kathryn Newton and Melissa Barrera, and they’re both given a lot to work with even before shit gets bloody. The characters feel real, which helps sell the believability of this universe. The core group all mesh together well, to the point where their interactions don’t feel like the script is just fleshing out doomed characters. Kevin Durand does look distractingly like an even dumber Elon Musk though.

The real highlight is Alisha Weir as the titular vampire. She is believably an ancient being, there’s no “yeah but that’s clearly just a child speaking, not a 200-year-old person who looks like one”. Her physicality helps too. Her movements (or her stunt doubles movements, I dunno) have a brutal elegance to them, so even when she’s killing someone there’s still an air of beauty and art to it. The ballerina aspect to her character allows some very unique action scenes, of her walking down a bannister with her feet in the ballerina tippy toe pose (I do know the name, it’s called En Pointe, but I’m using that in a pun later). There’s a scene where she dances with someone’s corpse that is very weird and artful, but it did make me sad as it reminded me of Bray Wyatt. The music selection is pretty en pointe (ballet pun! I told you that would come back), mostly consisting of classical music which you’d normally find in ballet performances, operas, and an advert for a Ferrari Pene Piccolo complete with steering wheel, tyres, and can go from 0-80 in 5 seconds which you’ll never manage because you’re only using it to take your kids to school 5 minutes down the road.

In summary; it is just a mindless horror film. But it’s one of the better ones. With humour, some great kills, one truly disturbing moment, and just enough heart to elevate it.