Episodi
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Synopsis
While on vacation, or holiday as the British say, the American expat Dalton family meet another family of three headed by Paddy (James McAvoy). After they return to their flat in London, they receive a postcard from Paddy inviting them to spend a long weekend with their family at their farm in the Western countryside of Britain. Initially hesitant, since they barely know each other, the Daltons decide to go. As the weekend progresses, Paddy’s jovial irreverent demeanor reveals a more overbearing and nefarious personality underneath. By the time they find out how much danger they are in, it’s too late, and the Daltons fight to escape. If you think that that synopsis is too spoilery, you should see the trailer!
Review of Speak No Evil (2024)
As many of you know, this is a remake of a Danish film of the same name that only came out two years ago. I was the only one here that hasn’t seen it before my viewing, so my experience with it is different from Max and Sydney. I think it gives my review less of a bias.
I think this movie is really good. On it’s own it is a very compelling thriller that is well crafted and acted. James McAvoy really shines as Paddy, and perfectly strikes the tone of an overbearing line pusher with a barely contained rage underneath.
Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis playing ben and Louise act as the perfect foil to Paddy and each others characters.
I found the set up and character development throughout the film to be rich and interesting, and it made the awkward and disturbing situations more interesting because it felt very real.
The fans of the original will have a real beef with the ending, which is way more Hollywood and safe for a thriller, but for me it still works great.
Score
8/10 -
Synopsis
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice picks up thirty years after the events of the first film, with Delia Deetz being a famous artist, Lydia having her own ghost adventures type show, and her daughter Astrid being a goth angsty teen. The Deetz family has to deal with the sudden loss of the paternal figure in their lives while also grappling with their own individual battles. When Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega, gets stuck in the afterlife and Beetlejuice’s ex wife Delores, played by Monica Belluci, starts stalking him, Lydia makes another glorious deal with Beetlejuice to save her daughter and get Monica Belluci off Beetlejuice’s back. Chaos ensues.
Review
As I’ve said many times, I am not a big fan of sequels. I was not very excited to see this, since it is a sequel so many years after the first I figured it was another cash grab. That very well might be true, but I unexpectedly had a really fun time watching this. Michael Keaton soars as the titular character once again, and with this star studded cast, it is almost a perfect comedy. Catherine O’Hara remains one of the funniest women who has ever set foot on screen, and the welcome additions of Willem Dafoe and Justin Theroux also put in the work to get some laughs. A few complaints are that I think I liked the practical effects and primitive CGI in the first movie a lot better than I liked the new CGI stuff in this one. It looked corny and even though this movie isn’t geared towards kids, the sandworm looked like something out of a Nick Jr. tv show. Also, there were a lot of moving parts that could have been cut down to one A and one B plot. All in all it is a very fun, new take on the Beetlejuice universe, and I loved it.
Score
8/10 -
Episodi mancanti?
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Synopsis
Incantation is a classic tale of three ghost hunters who travel to a secluded village in order to learn more about their spooky traditions and gather footage for their Youtube channel. However their journey quickly goes from silly to incredibly horrifying. Years later, the curse of the mother Buddha deity still remains.
Review of Incantation
Incantation is one of my favorite horror movies in recent years. Its kind of a hidden gem with no theatrical release. A lot of people in the horror community talk about wanting to find a movie that is actually scary and I really do think that this is it. I don't want to hype it up too much for those of you who haven't seen it because I don't want you to have unrealistic expectations, but when I watched this movie for the first time I had to pause it and turn on the lights because I got too scared. It pulls the viewer into the story making you apart of the nightmare and for that this feels more like an experience than a movie. It wastes no time and gets scary within 5 minutes. If you haven't checked it out please do yourself a favor and watch Incantation.
Score: 10/10 -
Synopsis
On a live broadcast during Halloween on sweeps week in 1977, a failing late night talk show starring Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian) interviews a cult survivor supposedly possessed by a demon. The audience is amazed and horrified by the demonstration and Delroy soon finds himself out of his depth. But instead of heeding caution, he doubles down on the bit to save his show from cancellation to disastrous consequence.
Review of Late Night with the Devil
This movie has a great premise. What if you showed Regan from The Exorcist on a talkshow next to obvious fake psychics and debunkers that often appeared on late night. The talk show is a format that everyone is familiar with, and even the guests previous to the possessed little girl should all be recognizable stand ins for real life talk show guests such as Uri Gellar and James Randi.
The biggest setback is that the writing and acting a little too on-the-nose, and it ends up feeling a little cringe. In what could be a super compelling and real-feeling found footage film, the artificiality really pulls you out of the moment and you definitely feel like you are watching a movie. It’s like when you see a movie or show about a stand up comedian, and the actor isn’t able to be convincingly funny but is met with uproarious laughter from the fake audience. It’s a type of uncanny valley that is created when actors aren’t able to match the charisma and timing of a seasoned professional, in this case, talk show host.
They made the genius move to explain that this is a failing talk show, so Jack Delroy’s wooden presence and indiscernible personality actually sells the “why”.
That being said, this movie does have some good bones. The plot structure and utilization of the talk show format is great. It lends a new backdrop to the horror cliche of demonic possession.
The tension ramps up convincingly, and the inevitable trainwreck that is foreshadowed is satisfying.
I just wish they would have aimed for more realism in the writing and acting.
Score
6/10 -
Synopsis
Alien Romulus is about a young woman named Rain, and her Robot Brother Andy are stuck on a slave labor planet that never sees sunlight. On the day they finish their slave sentences and have technically earned their freedom, they are told that another 6 years have randomly been added. This is incredibly devastating for Rain, but not so much for Andy cause he is a robot and has zero emotion the whole movie. Anyways, Rain's friends convince her and Andy to join them in a dangerous plan to hijack an abandoned ship in their planet's orbit and use it to travel to a free planet. Upon entering space and eventually the abandoned ship, things start to become more and more eerie. Dead bodies are everywhere, gravity randomly turns off and back on, and the ship is in ruins. The deeper into the ship the group travels, the more Alien they experience, and everyone gets just a bit more Romulus than they were hoping for.
Review of Alien Romulus
Alien Romulus is a really good-looking sci-fi with great visuals and a tense atmosphere. The vibes on the ship feel creepy, and there are enough interesting moments to keep me entertained for the most part. My trouble with this movie is that we dont really care about any of the characters except for Rain and Andy, and there are like 5 other characters. The movie drops little hints about these people's lives like “Oh this person is pregnant” or “This person's mom was killed by a robot” but it never really explores these things and in the end, I just didn't care about any of these people. The movie also doesn't really add anything all that new to the franchise. The ending does have something new which I won't spoil, and I actually found pretty cool, but for the most part, the movie kept being like “hey! Remember face huggers!” or “hey! Remember the chest-bursting scene from the original! What if we did that again! Cool right?” and that was just starting to get a little boring. The movie is 2 hours long and while I was pretty engaged with it for the first half, the second half dragged a little for me. Its not a terrible movie, but I'm gonna give it a score of
Score 5/10 -
If I had a nickel for every horror movie starring a main cast member of Euphoria released this year, I’d have three nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened thrice. This episode we talk about Cuckoo a new limited release horror movie out now in theaters written and directed by Tilman Singer. Stay tuned whores
Synopsis
This movie is about an American girl dragged along to a resort in the Bavarian Alps. Something seems off about the way that random guests barf all the time, and how time loops back on itself for some reason. I mean, it could drive a person Cuckoo!
Review of Cuckoo
This one has a lot going on in it, and in the best of ways feels like an X-files episode. It’s hard to guess where it’s going. It was really twisty turny. I mean they usually do twisty turny, but this one is REALLY twisty turny.
Hunter Schafer plays the protagonist Gretchen, the moody teen overcoming a recent tragedy, and she does really well in this. Her performance is helped with some of the most convincing bruise and cut makeup as she is pretty beat up through the majority of the film
The scares are few, but the tension is high. Singer does a good job at maintaining the feeling of being trapped in various ways. First as being a teen dragged along with the family, then as a patient in a hospital, then as a prisoner almost of the resort.
Dan Stevens also is great as the smarmy resort owner bad guy.
It is engaging throughout, but starts to get a little sketchy towards the end where it feels like it has to wedge in all the necessary exposition. I’m still confused about why some stuff happened at the end and felt like there were still some loose ends with explaining the “Cuckoo”, but overall it felt satisfying.
Score
8/10 -
Synopsis
Trap is a movie that follows Cooper, a seemingly normal dad who takes his daughter, Riley, to her favorite artist’s concert. Once there, Cooper is told that the whole concert is a trap to catch a serial killer who is colloquially called The Butcher. Plot twist (but not a plot twist because it is given in the trailer) is that Cooper is the Butcher, and he needs to find a way to escape the heavily guarded arena without getting caught.
Review
I was very excited for this movie, I thought the trailer looked awesome and M Night has some good hits (The Visit, Signs, obviously The Sixth Sense). After about fifteen minutes of pure concert, I was completely checked out. This movie is boring, it is unfulfilling, the trailer gives away most of the interesting plot. Even though a serial killer trying not to get caught while surrounded by SWAT teams and the FBI is really high stakes, the movie doesn’t make that apparent whatsoever. The classic ending “twist” that M Night always does falls flat in this one, and at that point I was honestly just waiting for it to be over. Josh Hartnett is an impeccable actor, but with this crappy script he didn’t have much to work with, and most of the other actors are not up to his caliber. I didn’t care much for the characters and overall it was just boring. A complete drag. The only character that was redeemable was the vendor played by Jonathan Langdon, his performance solidified by the fun post credit scene. And when Josh Harnett took his shirt off, it gained a point back in my book. I can see this getting mixed reviews, like most of M Night’s films, and I am a part of the dislike club.
Score
3/10 -
Synopsis
Oddity is a morality tale about why you shouldn’t cross witchy women. When a blind woman’s sister is murdered in a remote country estate, she uses her arcane knowledge and abilities to uncover the true identity of her murderer.
Review of Oddity
I really liked this movie. It came under the radar and we almost didn’t review it, but I’m glad we did, because I think I actually did like this one better than Longlegs.
The film starts out basically with a prologue of what you see in the trailer, and acts as a really taut short film. A Woman answers the door to a creepy one eyed man that says that she’s not safe inside and needs to let him in. We are given just enough information to make this situation plausible and build dread.
That is a common thread through the film. We are given just enough information to constantly be uneasy and uncertain throughout the whole film. It really is structurally impressive, plot-wise.
There isn’t a ton of character development, but there is a constant stream of revelations and situations that keep the film engaging.
One criticism may be that there isn’t much of an emotional element in the film, the characters all seem very cold. However, each character has enough of a personality and backstory to make their interactions and decisions interesting.
There are several moments and lines that had me laughing out loud, including the ending. There were also some really effective jumpscares.
On the surface, this movie utilizes a lot of tropes that are crutches for a lot of supernatural horror movies. The spooky dark house. The strange sounds in the darkness. Stretches of tense silence leading up to jump scares. But for some reason, instead of rolling my eyes, I was truly engaged with this movie. I think it's because all of the reality-based elements seem plausible, and all the supernatural elements seem interesting or novel.
I think it’s a great movie, and honestly I don’t have any real criticisms or anything that bothered me with it.
Score
10/10
Interview with Amber Victoria from The Skeleton Key Odditorium
Bryce: Today, we welcome Amber Victoria, owner and operator of the Skeleton Key Auditorium Museum and Oddity Shop in Portland, Oregon. It's a retail shop that specializes in oddities, antiques, curiosities, Gothic art, gifts, crystals, tarot cards, dolls, metaphysical items, clothing, and souvenirs. The auditorium is a historical museum designed to provide intrigue and a better understanding of the human experience through exploring the strange, unusual, and gloomy characteristics of our history. It was recently voted as the runner-up for Portland's Best Museum, just underneath the multi-million dollar Portland Art Museum and OMSI. So, it's pretty high praise for a museum. Anyways, welcome, Amber Victoria!
Sydney: Welcome!
Amber: Hello. Yay, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Bryce: So, Amber, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got started? What's the story with you and the Skeleton Key?
Amber: Well, it kind of started almost 10 years ago. I've always loved old things and was more of a Ren fair kind of person. I was doing immersion events and collected a lot of odd things. Eventually, I started collecting too much stuff, so I began selling items at Curiosities Vintage Mall about nine years ago. It just evolved from there. People really liked my odd things, so I decided to open a brick-and-mortar shop in 2020. And here we are, still doing it.
Bryce: So, when did you open the brick-and-mortar shop?
Amber: I opened it in 2020 on Belmont. It was a small oddity shop, about 600 square feet. When the lease was up, we moved downtown, and I brought my partner along. We decided to open a museum because there was so much knowledge and so many items. People were always asking questions, and we wanted to educate and preserve these items in a fun, interactive space full of oddities.
Bryce: Awesome. -
Synopsis
Grave Encounters follows a Zak Baggins/Ghost Adventures type crew while they film their first season of the titular show, constantly in search of new scares and not afraid to create their own for movie magic. They go to stay at an abandoned mental hospital in Maryland, where they get locked inside for 8 hours in hopes of getting some good footage and getting the hell out of there. Not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary, they are in for more than they bargained for.
Review of Grave Encounters
This is a very fun movie. There’s plenty of things to laugh at throughout to relieve you from the unexpected jump scares of ghouls and goblins. It’s not as serious and dreadful as something like Paranormal Activity, but it’s not trying to be something like that. They don’t waste much time getting into the nitty gritty of how haunted the asylum really is. The pacing is good and the scares are effective even on a repeat watch. The main problem I have with this movie is that the end drags on for a bit too long, it could have been a little tighter in the beginning and in the end, but the meat in the middle works. All in all, it is a good scary movie, it’s a fun time, but as you watch it multiple times it gets less effective.
Score
7/10 -
Synopsis
In Longlegs, the FBI is on a manhunt for a mysterious killer named Longlegs, who somehow convinces whole families to kill each other and themselves. Agent Lee Harker is on the case and she is quickly shown to have psychic powers, or at least half psychic powers which may be useful to the FBI. The details of the murders and the clues left behind are creepy, and Agent Harker must first learn to piece together her past before she can finally piece together this case.
Review of Longlegs
Longlegs is a long-awaited horror movie that gained interest through vague and ominous marketing, as well as keeping the plot of the movie close to the chest. I had absolutely no idea what this movie was about going in, but I had high expectations simply because so many people were talking about this movie. The movie is very well shot and the atmosphere is creepy the entire time. It has a similar feel to movies like Silence of the Lambs and Seven but is maybe a little slower than both of those movies. Any time Nicholas Cage is on screen I am having a great time. His character feels interesting and is visually scary to look at with his makeup, and his voice gave me chills. My only complaints about this movie was that some of the dialogue felt super cheezy, especially when they are talking about the devil and worshiping satan. I think they could have maybe come up with something a tad more original. In my opinion, worshiping the devil doesn't really feel scary, it just feels a little bit cringe. The movie was also a little slow and probably could have benefited from a few more scary scenes in the middle of the movie, but other than that it was pretty fun
Score
8/10 -
Synopsis
Maxxxine follows the titular character as she attempts to leave the porno film industry and enter into mainstream Hollywood. She’s haunted by her past and is traumatized by the events of X that happened 6 years previously where she was the sole survivor of a homicidal elderly couple (spoilers). While struggling with the trauma and the difficulties of navigating Hollywood, several of her friends and acquaintances are murdered by a mysterious figure with black leather gloves. Will she achieve hollywood stardom? Will she be charged for murdering an elderly woman in Texas? Will she foil Dr Claw’s plan to use a missile silo to launch a missile to destroy Metro City? Watch Maxxxine or skip forward to our spoiler section to find out.
Review of Maxxine
Maxxine continues the exploitation genre throwback vibe of X and Pearl, but this one is much less stylized, and frankly, less horror focused. It’s more of a thriller/horror that is about as close as you come to an American Giallo.
Maxine is surrounded by colleagues and acquaintances, but the maximum extent of the character development for them is “gay”. They end up all being disposable fodder for the prototypical faceless Giallo villain.
Maxxxine, as we’ve seen in X is super capable and driven, and it ends up being one of the pitfalls of the movie. She is such a bad bitch that you never really believe she is in danger. Therefore, there isn’t much of an arc in her character or the plot. It ends up being a waiting game to learn whodunnit.
The cast is great, and includes Kevin Bacon doing an impression of Daniel Craig’s Cajun accent. Giancarlo Esposito plays a character that isn’t a rip off of Gus Fring, and there are other actors too.
This film is a tribute to 80s cinema, and as such Ti West limited technology to that of the time period. It doesn’t really seem noticeable in terms of quality of the visuals, but there are some very visceral practical effects that 80s horror fans will love.
It’s an enjoyable movie, and if you liked X and Pearl, this is a good capper, but for me it wasn’t as interesting as those films.
Score
7/10 -
Synopsis
1408 is a film that follows Mike Enslin, played by John Cusack, a corny horror novelist who specializes in writing about the scariest, spookiest places he’s ever been. Although he spends a lot of time in “haunted” places, he has never seen any paranormal activity and does not believe in ghosts. He then receives a cryptic postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in New York City that states, “Don’t stay in 1408.” Intrigued by this gesture and not at all deterred, he goes against the wishes of the postcard and of the staff of the hotel and books the room, hoping to finally get scared.
Review
This is the ultimate sleeper pick. This movie is not very well known or well talked about in horror movie communities, to my knowledge anyway, and after a second viewing I firmly believe this is one of the best horror movies. The viewer is never bored, stuff happens so quickly and so often in this film that it was extremely difficult to take notes on it because I almost always missed something. The pacing is something to look up to, it keeps you engaged from the moment you turn it on to the moment it ends. It is scary and certainly anxiety inducing. This is a great adaptation of a Stephen King and even if you don’t love Stephen King, you will love this movie if you are a horror fan. There are not many problems with this movie. Sometimes the directing style is a bit dated and the acting can be a little slapstick at times, but it doesn’t fully take away from how good it is. It is definitely not perfect, but it is entertaining and quite dreadful.
Score
8/10 -
Synopsis
The Exorcism is about Farther Gabriel Amorth played by Russel Crowe, who…wait no sorry that's the popes exorcist I keep getting confused. The exorcism is really about Anthony or Tony played by Russel Crowe who is a washed up actor who tries out for a leading role in an upcoming exorcism movie while attempting to overcome his serious drinking problem. With the loss of his wife, Tony sends his teenage daughter Lee to a catholic boarding school, but when she is kicked out for in her words “protesting” but in the words of the law “vandalism”, she returns home and the reunion is tense. When Tony lands the role as the exorcist in this new emotional drama in the format of a horror movie weird things start happening on and off set. Will Tony survive the making of this movie? Will his family survive his alcoholism? Will Russel Crowe be in another exorcism movie next year? Whose to say.
Review of The Exorcism
My review for the exorcism is that it is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. Its a catholic horror movie about a demon who needs to be exorcised. The scares aren't that interesting, and some of the jump scares are so loud and quickly cut that I literally didn't even know what happening. It was just startling and gave me zero information about what was actually going on in the film. Russel Crowes acting was actually pretty good in my opinion, but I think his voice is so deep and gravelly that it could be that I just enjoyed listening to him talk. The other star of the movie for me was the director played by Adam Goldberg who delivers both the funniest lines in the movie and the most emotionally brutal lines. The rest of the cast is kind of whatever to me. My favorite part of the movie was how it demonstrated the exploitation of trauma in the film industry which was pretty sad to watch. My least favorite parts were anything dealing with the demon cause I didn't even really get what was happening or why. Maybe this really was a drama cloaked as a horror movie after all.
Score 4/10 -
https://youtu.be/lju9lJVRlGM
Synopsis
The film follows the lives of two women as they navigate an uncharted territory of human experience, exploring themes of desire, taboo, and the limits of societal norms. The narrative delves into the depths of physical and emotional extremes.
It starts out in medias res with a young couple engaging in a love making session, after which, they enjoy a home cooked meal. However, the film quickly turns dark as they both develop food poisoning. Their bond remains strong and they struggle through sickness together powered by their love.
Review
Not since Skinamarink have I seen such a daring and controversial film push the boundaries of conventional filmmaking and audience tolerance.
Unlike Skinamarink, 2 Girls 1 Cup lives up to the hype, andI felt engaged throughout the duration of the film.
It’s not without it’s faults. I would have preferred more character development and I felt the pacing was too fast to digest on first viewing. The soundtrack at times felt like it was disconnected from the action on screen. I know a lot of films score against the tone of the film to great effect, such as in Tarantino films, but this one just felt out of place and overly maudlin.
What I liked about the film was it’s unflinching portrayal of two lovers struggling through hardship together. It’s a film that will stay with me for some time, and I imagine I’ll revisit again in the future.
Score
10/10 -
Who watches the watchers? We do! In this episode of Horror Movie Talk, we review the nepo baby Ishana Night Shyamalan’s new horror movie The Watchers. Should you watch it? Watch to find out.
Synopsis
The watchers is the first feature length film by writer/director Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of M Night Shyamalan. Her previous work includes being a writer/director on her father’s Servant series on Apple TV+.
In this film, Dakota Fanning plays Mina, an American expat in Ireland who is tasked with delivering a parrot. Along the way she gets lost in some weird woods from which there is no escape. There she finds a group of people that have also been stranded in the woods. They lead her into a solitary shelter in the middle of the forest and explain that they are to stand as display in a two way mirror for mysterious killer creatures that come out at night.
As the days pass, Mina attempts to learn more about the woods to find an escape.
Review of The Watchers
The film sits currently at 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I can say that that seems pretty harsh. It's not a terrible movie, but it’s not great either. As they say in the old country, The Shyamalan doesn’t fall far from the tree. This film suffers from some of the same on-the nose dialogue and an overreliance on exposition to tell the story.
The set up is ripe for possibilities. Could it be a human zoo run by aliens or interdimensional travelers? Could it be an elaborate hallucination? Could it be a time loop? In the end, the explanation is a little more close to home and fantastical that science fiction, which was actually a welcome surprise. However, I still feel there was a lot of lost opportunity around hallucination, and shape shifting, which are both present in the story.
The film was bought purportedly for 30 million, and hasn’t yet made back half of that in the box office. If you are wondering if it is worth it to see in the theaters, I think the litmus test is whether you thought it was worth it to see Old in the theaters.
Score
5/10 -
Synopsis
The Grudge 2004 is an Americanized version of the movie Ju-on, a Japanese franchise about a curse of resentment and anger. Both Ju-on and The Grudge are directed by Takashi Shimizu, and the Grudge is produced by (among others) Sam Raimi. The movie stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Karen, an American who moved to Japan with her boyfriend to study nursing. While attending to her first in-home patient, Emma, who is an elderly woman with dementia, she realizes that there might be something dark lurking in the home. After some creepy occurrences, Karen has no choice but to dig deeper into the house's history and the legends surrounding it.
Review
The Grudge has interesting ghost lore, which isn't too different from the way we view ghosts in America, but adds emphasis on reliving the violent past, which I think is fun and gives the viewer a bit more to latch onto as far as why the ghost exists. The ghost looks extremely creepy in most scenes, with a face that genuinely terrified me as a kid, even before I had seen the movie. Its mark on pop culture is undeniable. However, a part of me likes my memory of this movie more than the movie itself. Some of the scenes feel pretty copy and paste, especially the scenes about Karen trying to research the house and learn clues. Some of the scares came off as a bit goofy, which is fine, except that the tone of the movie is very heavy, so these silly-looking scares can feel a little out of place and unintentional. Still, the movie is good, in my opinion, and has a place within my mind that will never go away.
Score: 8/10 -
Synopsis
Perfect Blue follows the story of Mima, a pop star who turns her life around to become an aspiring actress. As she goes deeper into her role on a crime thriller tv show, she realizes that someone might be stalking her. The line between reality and acting becomes thinner and thinner as the anxiety of fame and her potential stalker rise.
Review
This movie is impeccable. Director Satoshi Kon forces the viewer to descend into Mima’s madness by blurring the line between real and fantasy throughout the course of the film with quick cuts, disorienting scenes, and an overall sense of unknowingness. Making an anime horror film be this good, this widely received and revered is no easy feat, but Kon makes it look like a cake walk. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and one of my favorite directors of all time. The sense of dread, doom, and anxiety get bigger and bigger until it all comes to a head at the end of the movie. It is emotional, thrilling, scary, and hard to follow, but that is what makes it perfect. Perfect blue. Get it. Haha
Score
10/10 -
Synopsis
Based on the 1976 novel by Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles tells the autobiographical story of a Vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac (played by Brad Pitt) being turned and taught by the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise). They are just very good vampire friends and totally not gay.
After becoming a vampire, Louis discovers he has great powers, and uses them to have the poutiest mouth and become as emo as possible.
He makes a lot of friends along the way, including Kirsten Dunst playing a pedo’s dream, as well as Zorro.
Review of Interview with the Vampire (1994)
This is probably my favorite vampire movie, so I’m biased, but I still think it holds up. It focuses on the coolest part of the vampire stories, the vampires, and gets rid of the pesky humans.
This is also probably one of my favorite roles of Tom Cruise. His playfulness and arrogance as Lestat carries the majority of the movie.
Kirsten Dunst also puts in one of the greatest performances of her career as a convincing forty year old in a child’s body.
Brad Pitt is the only one that upon rewatching becomes less interesting every reviewing. There’s really nothing for him to do other than pout and look pretty. But granted, he does that very well here.
What the film does best is maintain a vibe of sexy morbidness.
Seeing this in my youth, I was distracted by the boobs in this movie, and only now realize how extremely gay coded the film is.
Louis’s alternating between reveling in being a vampire and being shamed by it really represented what it must have felt like to be gay in the early 90s.
The director Neil Jordan had just come off of directing The Crying Game and was really at the peak of his powers. Looking at his IMDB page, it’s only been downhill from here.
Stan Winton’s special effects and makeup is perfectly understated and makes the vampires seem otherworldly and the killings properly visceral.
A lot of stars aligned with this film and I still think it stands the test of time. If you want to watch a bunch of sexy vampires almost kissing, this is the movie for you.
Score
10/10 -
Synopsis
A couple embarks on a journey across the country for their five year anniversary. After their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere Oregon, they have no choice but to stay in a cabin in the woods. When Ryan, played by Froy Gutierrez, runs back into town to grab something he forgot out of his car, Maya played by Madeline Petsch starts hearing and seeing strange things in the cabin, almost like someone else is in the house.
Review of The Strangers Chapter 1
I really hated this movie. Like, really hated. I didn’t really know what to expect, but taking what didn’t work from the original and even at some points taking direct lines and situations from the original and cramming it into the already too long 90 minute run time was atrocious. I don’t know if I was just tired, but I almost fell asleep at multiple points due to boredom. At the beginning of the movie, there is text on screen that says this movie will show us one of the most brutal crimes committed in America. I will tell you, I have seen worse things on Twitter in the past week. The writing is terrible, it plays like a crappy ripoff of a Wayans Brothers film, I seriously laughed at a lot of points that were not supposed to be funny out of pure hatred. The two main characters who are supposed to be in a five year loving relationship have zero chemistry. Every action they take in trying to survive is the dumbest route they could have chosen. I really really hated this movie. It was bad. It degrades the masterpiece that is the original, and I mean that. The original is an incredibly scary and moving horror film, and this one shits all over it. I walked out of the theater chuckling to myself.
Score
2/10 -
Synopsis
Arachnophobia is a movie about Ross, a doctor who moves with his family to a rural town to take over the practice of the town doctor. When a Venezuelan spider arrives in the town through extremely unlikely circumstances, Ross must unravel the mysterious deaths in the town as killer spiders ravish the community. The townsfolk are dropping like flies, and it seems like the only hope for this city is a ragtag team of spider experts/doctors/exterminators/interns. Will they overcome the eight-legged hoard? Or will they be consumed by the hellish nightmare that is the common house spider?
Review of Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia is directed by Frank Marshall from a screenplay written by Don Jakoby and Wesley Strick. Starring Jeff Daniels as Ross and John Goodman as the exterminator, this movie gives a goofy and fun story that scares me to no end. I couldn't get past a single scene without checking to see if there was a creepy crawly on my body. This movie is entertaining and enjoyable to watch, even for an arachnophobe like me. The story feels improbable, but not so far-fetched that the average spider hater won't feel incredibly uncomfortable in their own home for weeks after watching.
Score
8/10 - Mostra di più
