@Ralizah Well, I just have a good friend who likes his horror films, and he often invites me along to see them at the cinema. I highly doubt I would have seen those French films if I had not met the French lady a couple of years ago, for better or worse!
Nope, I haven’t seen Martyrs, and I don’t particularly feel like watching it in all honesty...
As for It Comes At Night, it has not been released here in the UK yet, but I shall definitely go and see it.
You should go ahead and see Under the Shadow. It is a different sort of horror film. The less you know about it, the better. Thought about it for days afterwards.
As for The Raid, it is on par with Dredd in terms of relentless (and very violent) action. Actually, thinking about it, they are both set in a high rise building!
Just had a day of reflection in regards to Annabelle: Creation, and I think I am going to knock it down a peg to a 5/10 because I realised that there is a gaping plot hole that doesn’t make a jot of sense if you have seen both The Conjuring and the original Annabelle film. It kind of bothers me that I didn’t pick it up straight away.
@Peek-a-boo Yup. I thought Ghost in the Shell was alright, even though it wasn't as good as the anime, but I can't defend this ''adaptation''. There's a reason why the anime spans 40 or so episodes and you cannot squeeze that in under 2 hours. The acting was downright terrible too. I'm not sure what they were thinking with this adaptation, but it isn't good at all.
I'm of the opinion that some anime(/cartoons) work best as animations and shouldn't get the life action treatment. Imagine Full Metal Alchemist as a life action film. No thank you!
Well, I just have a good friend who likes his horror films, and he often invites me along to see them at the cinema. I highly doubt I would have seen those French films if I had not met the French lady a couple of years ago, for better or worse!
Sounds like the start of a novel.
"As for those, well, all I can say is that I highly doubt I would have been exposed to them at all had it not been for the French lady I met a couple of years ago."
As for It Comes At Night, it has not been released here in the UK yet, but I shall definitely go and see it.
Definitely do that. The plot is nothing special, but the way it tackles the material is inspired, I thought. It unfortunately got a pretty chilly reception in the States because of its slow pace and misleading marketing that led people to expect a monster movie or something.
You should go ahead and see Under the Shadow. It is a different sort of horror film. The less you know about it, the better. Thought about it for days afterwards.
All I know is that it is set in Iran and features djinn.
As for The Raid, it is on par with Dredd in terms of relentless (and very violent) action. Actually, thinking about it, they are both set in a high rise building!
Just had a day of reflection in regards to Annabelle: Creation, and I think I am going to knock it down a peg to a 5/10 because I realised that there is a gaping plot hole that doesn’t make a jot of sense if you have seen both The Conjuring and the original Annabelle film. It kind of bothers me that I didn’t pick it up straight away.
I mean, if it's even creepy at all, I'll be at least somewhat happy with it. A plot hole has to be pretty bad for it to affect my enjoyment of a horror movie (which, let's be honest, has never been a genre that is hugely dependent on intricate plotting )
@Ralizah I’m sure you are joking (or at least I hope so) however, when I mentioned Dredd, I meant this one:
A shame we’ll never get a deserved sequel to see Karl Urban reprise his excellent role as Judge Dredd.
As for the plot hole in Annabelle: Creation, it is to do with the wildly inconsistent inconsistency of the age of when the doll comes to life, and it just simply doesn’t fit into the timeline of both the original Annabelle and The Conjuring, but that’s probably just me though. Again, upon reflection, I wasn’t overly enamoured with how the last ‘set piece’ relied on LOUD NOISES rather than what you see (or don’t see).
It’s still worth seeing if you like those kind of films, and is an admirably huge improvement over the original too.
Curious to read your impressions after you have eventually got around to watching Under the Shadow!
Annabelle: Creation - OK, David Sandberg is clearly one to keep an eye on. This was a shockingly effective horror movie, even if it doesn't have an original idea in it. Like the director's other film, Lights Out, it knows how to skillfully build up tension through a wonderful mix of skillful editing and good sound design. This seems to be one director who also understands the importance of silence in horror. It begins somewhat slowly, but builds and builds until the memorably chaotic climax, which brought the original Poltergeist to mind.
The film is weakest when it indulges in jump scares or clearly shows us the monster. There was one scene where the director skillfully builds up a sense of anticipation throughout the scene, only to ruin it with a terrible jump scare ("What do you want?" "YOUR SOUL!!!1" People who have seen it should remember that incredibly obvious bit). It's also worth mentioning, again, that there's not a single original idea in this movie. Its a mish-mash of horror cliches that somehow ends up being a surprisingly well-crafted supernatural thriller.
(Am I the only person who found it amusing that the girls still stayed in the house after they found the mutilated corpse of the dollmaker who let them take up residence in the house? Like, how much of a hint do you need to get out of dodge?)
Baywatch - I didn't want to watch it, but someone talked me into it. That person fell asleep, and, 20 minutes or so before the end of the film, I just kind of wandered away and went to bed. I almost never just stop watching a movie, especially if I'm near the end. I think that's all that needs to be said about this.
@Peek-a-boo Partially joking. I know about Dredd, but I've never seen it. Inexplicably, I've seen the 90s one with Rob Schneider probably ten times over the years... for some reason. It's a terrible movie, but it's also weirdly easy to get sucked into.
Demolition - Found this one almost randomly on the DVR after trying (and failing) to watch The Shaggy Dog, a Tim Allen comedy about a man who gets bitten by a... magical dog... and proceeds to start acting like a dog... which allows him to connect with his family, I guess? I don't know; I couldn't watch more than thirty minutes of it. Anyway, I decided to check this film out: what a catch! There are so few films that really try to explore the nuances of how different sorts of humans process grief or subjectively relate to their own lives. In this film, an emotionally (perhaps existentially) distant investment banker played by Jake Gyllenhaal loses his wife in a car accident, and proceeds to come unmoored from his own life as he struggles to comprehend his own numbness in the face of personal tragedy and confronts the clinical neatness and inauthenticity of his life head-on, making a connection with the customer service representative for a small vending machine supplier and her son in the process. The film's exploration of grief, ennui, loneliness, and meaninglessness is subtle but also devastatingly genuine. It's a quiet, weird, often funny character study with a wonderful script that eschews typical drama cliches at every turn. Really happy I watched this one.
@Ralizah Glad you enjoyed Annabelle: Creation, even if it doesn’t do anything new in the grand scheme of things.
I thought that the chair/stair lift scene was pretty original though! I don’t think I have seen that before...
I was like this in the cinema when the chair/stair lift when back up:
Once you see the devil, however, as well as the mutilated corpse of the doll maker, I thought things ended up being both absurb (hey girls, there may well be a couple of dead bodies in this house, especially the mother who has had her legs and torso removed then politely hung up onto the wall for good measure, but I am sure we will be fine!) and somewhat predictable in the end, which is a shame given the rather restrained build up in the first two thirds.
As well as Under the Shadow, you NEED to watch Dredd!
@Peek-a-boo This is one of the reasons physically disabled protagonists in horror movies can be so compelling (in terms of their role in the movie, I mean). Their feelings of powerlessness in the face of malice transfer over to the audience beautifully. Same feelings during the wheelchair scene when the girl is terrorized outside: powerlessness in the face of malice. It's frustrating but very engaging.
Have you seen Rear Window? Hitchcock plays on this as well: the climax, where the disabled protagonist realizes the killer knows where he is and what he has been doing and is coming to get him, is one of the most suspenseful sequences in film history.
Anyway, Annabelle: Creation is a good demonstration of how thoroughly good execution can save otherwise mediocre material. This is especially the case for something like a horror film, which is more reliant on craft than substance in general thanks to its focus on affecting the emotional equilibrium of the moviegoer.
OK, I'll add Dredd to the list. I never would have imagined it was actually a good movie!
Blame! (Netflix Original) - Sci-fi anime film set in a post apocalyptic "machines rule the world" setting. It's very visually appealing (though the human characters are a bit stiff throughout, being a CGI anime), though not much else. The plot is okay, but nothing new, and as it's a side story (from what I understand) the characters are either supposed to be throwaway, or you're expected to already know who they are. Maybe worth a once over for fans of sci-fi anime films, but I've seen better.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Baby Driver: They brought this back for a couple days in a local theater, so I finally had a chance to see it! Not a bad film (in fact, it was very well-edited and stylish!), but I am struggling to comprehend the enormously positive reaction it got. Very much a style over substance sort of movie, except I didn't feel like the style was overwhelming enough to fully win me over (compare to Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1, which is my all-time favorite example of how good filmmaking can make something almost transcendentally enjoyable out of otherwise schlocky material). The writing is serviceable, but that's it. Characters are largely stereotypes (although, as usual, Kevin Spacey is playing himself). What you're left with is a well-crafted but unremarkable tribute to the classical American crime drama.
Joy Ride 3: Roadkill: Yes, another one of these films. This one was even direct-to-video, a sure indicator of its level of quality! Anyway, I actually liked it a bit more than the second one, if only because it tones down the sadism a bit. This time Rusty Nail (who the film doesn't even bother draping in shadow anymore like in the first two films, he's just some nasty middle-aged serial killer in a truck that you get to see quite a lot of) is tormenting a group of kids who are driving to Canada to participate in a street race. They cut in front of Rusty Nail and damage his truck and... you know the drill. No fun, tension, or creativity here... just nastiness. Not quite as nasty as the second film, but he's still crushing skulls and whatnot. At least the deaths in this film are almost all truck-related. My favorite is when he puts a couple of meth-addicted teens who tried to mug him on the hood of his truck, chains their legs together and then to the axle on his truck, sits a bag of crystal on the windshield in front of them, and tells them to hang on for a mile or they'll get pulled under. Well, the girl swipes at the bad of meth when she gets close enough, loses her grip, and pulls both her and the guy under the truck, where they're literally ground into bloody chunks on the road. Such are the meager pleasures of this film.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
WARNING: Somewhat spoilery, but I have to talk about the plot somewhat to share my thoughts on it.
Phone Booth: A somewhat narcissistic publicist, Stu Shepard, played by Colin Farrell, gets pinned in a phone booth after a mysterious figure, voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, threatens to shoot him with a sniper rifle if he leaves the booth or doesn't follow his orders. This conflict is introduced almost immediately at the beginning of the film, meaning that, of the 90 minute runtime, almost all of it takes place in or around the immediate vicinity of the phone booth. The shooter is a vigilante figure who has been murdering the immoral and powerful, and he toys with Stu throughout the film in an attempt to break down his inflated self-image. This becomes complicated after the shooter kills a man attempting to drag Stu out of the booth, leading witnesses to think Stu is in fact the shooter, which adds an extra dynamic to the scene: a tense police presence around the phone booth as Captain Ramey, played by Forest Whitaker, attempts to reason him out of the booth.
The heart of the film, then, is this constant tension between the increasingly desperate Stu, who is trying to humor the shooter and keep the people around him alive, the shooter, who adopts a moralistic "Jigsaw"-esque persona but clearly seems more interested in playing mind games with everyone involved in the situation, and Captain Ramey, who is trying to keep the situation from spiraling out of control, and who goes from a troublesome outside influence to an eventual ally for Stu.
On a content level, this film fails, because, for however unpleasant and self-involved Stu might seem, he is clearly not on the same level of corruption and evil as the men that the shooter has targeted before, so it fails as any sort of morality play. Take it at face value, though, without looking for any deeper narrative justification for the events, and you're left with a tense and brilliantly paced film that relies almost entirely on captivating exchanges of dialogue between Shepard and the mentally unstable sniper. In this respect, it feels almost like a stage play, and it's with this extremely limited narrative scope that the film managed to grip me.
The filmmakers smartly decide to keep the sniper as mysterious as possible: all you know about him is what he betrays in his cruel and snarling dialogues (and boy, I never realized just how sexy Sutherland's voice could be, but it practically made me melt as I watched this!), and even then, almost everything he says about himself is false, as all he appears to care about is getting into and messing with Stu's head. We know he does actually have a rifle, as he kills a man and uses it one or two other times, but otherwise the film constantly relies on the threat of impending violence, and on Stu's frustration as he finds himself powerless to control the situation.
The film had an overall budget of 13 million, which is peanuts in comparison with the cost of most other modern thrillers, but the film makes it work, relying on a compelling script and convincing performances to keep the audience on the edge of its seat. It's not a masterpiece, but for what it is, I think it was pretty great.
@Karma-Moment I like Rear Window more than Psycho, too. It's Hitchcock at the height of his craft.
As groundbreaking as Psycho is, I think Halloween was a superior thriller, even if it did create one of the worst horror subgenres.
My favourite Hitchcock movie is Rope. Good as The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo are, I just feel Rope is peak Jimmy Stewart combined with escalating, icy tension and a marvellous concept. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly. Some superb innovation in the shoot as well, back in the days of reel film.
Seen three films recently. I’ll be keeping my thoughts short but sweet:
IT - 7
A really good coming-of-age film with a great ensemble of young actors whom (thankfully) don’t make you roll your eyes every five minutes. They all gel together superbly, and are the highlight of this film.
Pennywise the Dancing Clown is genuinely creepy, especially when you hear its childlike voice however, due to its more frequent appearances in the second half of the film, the fear It instills in the opening hour loses its effectiveness as the film comes to an end. The film is not particularly scary either, which is a shame.
What makes It appealing is a cast of young, relatively unknown actors who, unlike most horror flick stars, leave a feeling that we'll be seeing them again, similar to the likes of The Goonies, The Lost Boys and Stand By Me.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard - 4
Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood, especially after a long day at work, but this didn’t tickle my funny bone the way I expected - or had hoped for - after seeing the trailer for this film over the summer holidays.
Whilst the duo of Jackson and Reynolds looked like they were having fun together, I did not feel that same chemistry that you got with similar duos in the likes of 48 Hours, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Lethal Weapon and even the recent-ish The Nice Guys. To me, this film is the cinematic equivalent of a guilty burger drive-thru meal when dinner is too wearisome to contemplate.
Logan Lucky - 9
This certainly made up for the latter film!
Logan Lucky is an intelligent comedy presented through the lens of absolute stupidity, and is one of the most pure fun times I have had at the cinema this year. Daniel Craig, whilst not in this all the way through, steals the scene every time you see him, and he also looks like he is thoroughly relishing his role too. Such an enjoyable film, and the actual heist itself is just really good fun to watch it unfold.
Left the cinema with a big smile on my face, and my two friends enjoyed the film so much that they hope their respective partners go with them to see it all over again. Quite happily go and see this again.
@Peek-a-boo Thanks for posting. I just realized I hadn't shared my thoughts on some of the movies I'd seen recently.
IT: A better coming-of-age drama than a horror movie. Thanks to the way it focused solely on the children's timeline, and the way the adults in the town are basically useless at best when it comes to helping children deal with their problems, and, honestly, the funny banter between characters, this struck me more as a violent and supernaturally-tinged version of one of those 80's children's adventure movies like The Goonies.
I do feel like the change in focus to just the child timeline made the movie lose the epic scope that the original film and novel had and downplayed a lot of the relevant themes about overcoming childhood fears and the way problems from childhood can creep up in adult life. I think the ideal format for the new IT would have been another miniseries.
Bill Skarsgård was unexpectedly creepy as Pennywise, but the director likes to rely more on CGI and stupid stunts than allowing the actor to win with his performance. Too many lunging sort of jump scare moments for me.
Overall, I was happy with the film, but I think, tonally, it doesn't really work as a horror film. And I think that's going to become apparent when the second movie comes out and it FEELS very different. For what it is, though, I thought it was reasonably decent.
Flatliners: The original, not the remake. This is a perfect example of a film where the writers come up with an interesting premise but don't know how to develop it in interesting directions. Old guilts coming back to haunt people (literally!) after they've died? It... just didn't work for me. It's not coherent. On the other hand, I'll admit, I giggled like an idiot every time the little kid came around and Kiefer Sutherland started locking doors and trembling in terror. The first time he encountered the kid, it was a bit startling, but the fact that he turns into a sort of movie monster that stalks the main character everywhere was unexpectedly hilarious!
American Assassin: Anti-terrorist revenge porn. That's all I was expecting, and that's all I got, so I was OK with it. There's something satisfying on a primal level about seeing the victim of a terrorist attack embrace his anger and hatred and use it to hunt down the savages who ruined his life. It also made for a pretty decent action movie. Nice fight scenes: no erratic Bourne-esque nonsense here. The story is fairly predictable, and you've probably seen it a million times.
Acting was mostly pretty good. Michael Keaton is the standout here as the hardened ex-Navy Seal instructor who turns Dylan O'Brien's Mitch Rapp into a killing machine.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
@Ralizah That’s a perfect description for IT; ‘a better coming-of-age drama than a horror movie’.
I too thought that the CGI was a bit iffy in places and was quite easy to spot, unfortunately. The lady in the painting was especially noticeable, and even the balloons were computer animated for goodness sake!
What has happened to using effective practical effects?
As for Flatliners, I love it!
It doesn’t really come together in a particularly logical manner, and the way you lose track of whether hours, days or weeks has gone by is especially glaring however, I cannot help but love what the film is going for, and seeing all those famous names together in an early film of their careers is somewhat nice to see.
Kevin Bacon did a one-two whammy of Flatliners and Tremors in the very same year, and I love them both!
I am going to see a film called American Made with Tom Cruise next week, and for a moment there, I was a little bit confused with the films similar-ish title and thought it was the third and last film you wrote up about...
I have still got Borg vs McEnroe, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Mother! and Wind River to go and see before Thor Ragnarok comes out at the end of October, which I am really, really looking forward to!
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