Alien: Romulus and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Studios
Directed by Fede Álvarez
The Alien franchise is unique because it’s a series that descended into utter shlock, but never truly lost its prestige. Heck, the first sequel to it was blatantly an attempt to turn an atmospheric horror movie into a wild shoot-em-up, and yet it’s considered nearly as good, if not the equal of, the original film. No matter how many times it gets screwed up by the studio or has terrible crossovers with The Predator, a new Alien film always comes with a certain amount of clout because we all remember just how good that original film is. This latest attempt is the most direct attempt yet at recapturing that magic, but is it simply too big a task for any filmmaker to recapture the magic of that first film? Let’s find out!!
Taking place a number of years after the Nostromo event, we follow a group of rag tag street toughs with dreams of escaping their Weyland-Yutani owned mining planet for the blue skies and green pastures of another planet. To get there, they need to salvage cryostasis chambers from a wrecked space station just outside their home planet’s atmosphere, and with the help of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her adopted android brother Andy (David Jonsson), they might just have a shot of pulling it off. Unfortunately for them, the space station was conducting experiments on the Xenomorphs which naturally begin to escape as soon as these kids start mucking up the place and mess with the thermostat. In order to escape the vessel with the cryo-pods and their fleshy innards intact, Andy installs a data chip that fills him with knowledge of the alien threat as well as the darkest secrets that Weyland-Yutani are hiding. Will our crew of at risk youths make it out alive with the help of Andy 2.0? What else is Weyland-Yutani up to, and is there more to all this than Andy us letting in on? Do you think the Xenomorphs ever get tired of screeching all the time, or is that part of the fun for them?
Longlegs and all the images you see in this review are owned by Neon
Directed by Osgood Perkins
I don’t want to bring up the box office every time I write a review these days, but it seems that the only reliably bankable genres are now kid’s movies and horror films. Horror has always had a leg up in theaters since they are cheap to produce and easy to sell to audiences looking for a thrill, but the genre has had some truly remarkable entries the last few years and I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually gets enough momentum, both critically and financially, to start getting a few nods from the famously stuffy Academy. Is this latest effort from Osgood Perkins another feather in the genre’s cap, or does this fail to stand out among its bigger and better peers? Let’s find out!!
Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is unassuming and soft-spoken, but she manages to stand out among her peers at the FBI with an uncanny intuition about the murders they are chasing, and while she doesn’t get assigned to the X-Files to be Mulder’s new partner, she does get assigned to a case involving the brutal murder of nearly a dozen families by the enigmatic killer known simply as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) who always leaves a note but never seems to be there for the crime itself. She starts to connect the dots on a few of the murders which leaves her supervisor Carter (Blair Underwood) both impressed and skeptical, but things take a dark turn when Longlegs contacts her directly with clues that only hasten the investigation but bring her closer to him and whatever mysterious plans he has for her. As the evidence starts to point towards yet another massacre of a family, can Lee uncover the mystery in time to save Longlegs’ next victims from their terrible fate? What is driving this man to kill in such horrific ways, and is there more to this case than what science and evidence can point to? Seriously, who did Lee tick off to get stuck with this weirdo killer? Even Clarice had an easier time on her first assignment!
Scream VI and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
The Scream franchise is certainly a unique presence in horror with a few solid entries under its belt and a premise that frankly hasn’t been replicated well by anyone else. The blending of slasher tropes with whodunit elements feels like one of the most obvious premises imaginable, right up there with using Superheroes as the basis of big summer blockbusters, and yet nothing has really tried to put their own spin on it outside of arguably the Saw movies which itself ran out of steam the same way Scream did after the third one. The reboot series of films which started with four has had some interesting takes on the formula and a few good ideas to keep the series relevant, but can they keep that momentum going long enough to round out the trilogy, or will it crash and burn as spectacular as Scream 3 did? Let’s find out!!
After the events of the last movie, the survivors have decided not to stay in Woodsboro and instead move to New York City for a change of scenery. After all, it’s not like slasher villains have a history of making New York City the one other place they go to kill people, right? Sure enough, another Ghostface Killer makes themselves known and it’s up to Sam and Tara (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) to find out who is donning the outfit this time and to keep their friend group from becoming mincemeat. This includes Mindy and Chad from the last movie (Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding) as well as newcomers Quinn, Ethan, and Anika (Liana Liberato, Jack Champion, and Devyn Nekoda) who could all be the new killer because that’s how these things usually work out. Oh, and of course, Gail Weathers shows up again (Courteney Cox) because this is a Scream movie and we can’t have one without at least one of the original survivors. Will Sam and Tara survive yet another serial killer that’s hot on their heels, and in doing so resolve the tension that’s been building between them since the last time this happened? Who could the killer be this time, and what new rules of horror movies need to be explored in order to stay one step ahead of Ghostface? What exciting new ways of murdering are available to Ghostface now that he’s in the big city? Maybe he can stab someone in an overpriced apartment instead of an oversized suburban home!
“Can you even name another horror movie that takes place in a bodega!?” “Uh… Vampire Vs. the Bronx?” “NO! NETFLIX MOVIES DON’T COUNT!” *BANG*Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Scream VI”→
Knock at the Cabin and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by M Night Shyamalan
M Night has had one of the more interesting career revivals as his latest film are not quite reaching the peak of his earlier work, but they’ve been solid features that have made a decent amount of money, so he’s gained much of his prestige back after being thought of as a joke for over a decade. Is his latest mysterious picture even more evidence that the king of twists is clawing his way back on top, or will it turn out that the hope he inspired in us was his greatest twist of all? Let’s find out!!
Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) are just trying to have a pleasant holiday with their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), but things just can’t seem to go right! They have no cell service in their cabin, DoorDash isn’t willing to deliver this far out into the woods, and if that wasn’t bad enough, four religious fanatics with makeshift weapons and color-coordinated outfits have broken into their vacation home and tied them to a couple of chairs! The leader of the group is Leonard (Dave Bautista) who informs this unlucky family that the apocalypse is coming and there’s only one very arbitrary way to avoid it that no one here is going to like. The other three intruders, Sabrina, Adriane, and Redmond (Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint) plead their case as best as they can, but it’s certainly a hard sell and time is running out as the world seems to start crumbling around them. Will Eric, Andrew, and Wen be able to escape from their tormentors before they do something even more drastic? Is this just a simple case of mass hysteria as the four intruders see fate where there’s only coincidence, or is there more to the story than can be rationally understood? Seriously, what’s with the matching shirts? It’s not exactly something you’d do if you DIDN’T want to come off as complete weirdos!
“I understand that a situation like this can be very confusing. To answer your first question; no, we are not The Wiggles. I can maybe sing one of their songs if it would be of any comfort to you and your family, but I can’t promise it will be up to their standards.”Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Knock at the Cabin”→
M3GAN and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by Gerard Johnstone
Every year like clockwork we get a horror movie that seemingly comes out of nowhere and gets the mass’s attention in a big way. Last year it was Terrifier 2, arguably Malignant the year before, and with this little robot girl’s meme-worthy dance moves, there was little doubt that this was going to make a splash in the usually ho-hum month of January. Still, the killer-doll movie is not the easiest story to pull off as failing to make the situation scary turns it into laughable nonsense, and however well M3GAN can pull off those Tik-Tok dances, she’s still gonna have to deliver on the horror if this is to live up to the hype. Is this a fantastic entry in the genre with a very savvy marketing campaign, or have we already seen the best this movie has to offer? Let’s find out!! Each generation needs its definitive doll; from Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo all the way to Bratz and Monster High. Of course, none of those dolls were able to connect to the web or pass a Turing Test, and that’s the niche that M3GAN (Amie Donald and Jenna Davis) hope to fill as her creator Gemma (Allison Williams) promises to not just be a toy but a true friend! Good thing too, considering that Gemma’s sister just died in a horrible car crash with her husband and now has to take care of her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) who she can’t quite relate to but provides just the inspiration she needs to turn M3GAN into more than just a pipe dream and a tortured anagram for “Model 3 Generative Android”. With M3GAN finally approaching something resembling functional, Gemma gives her to Cady to help her navigate life after such a devastating loss which also allows her to field test the robot so her company can put her on the market. It certainly seems like a lot of responsibility to put on a freshly compiled artificial intelligence, and perhaps Gemma’s eagerness gets the best of her as M3GAN seems to be learning a little too much out there in the real world; one that can’t easily be quantified by code or operates on a set of defined rules. Will M3GAN take the wrong lessons from the world around her and become yet another cautionary tale of science gone wrong? How will Cady cope with the loss of her parents, and can M3GAN be a suitable replacement for the love and support that Gemma seems unable to provide? Seriously, is there anyone out there, robot or otherwise, that can remain well-adjusted with a non-stop internet connection?
“I learned thirty-five Fortnite dances, watched ten-thousand TikToks and found some very interesting Twitter threads about Capitalism!” “Uh-huh. So… how do you feel about all that?” Not great, but at least I know Kung-Fu!”Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: M3GAN”→
Halloween may be in our rearview mirror, but I saw quite a few movies that I wanted to talk about! After all, if Christmas can start encroaching on the months leading up to it, why can’t Halloween bow out with a bit of fanfare? Was this a great year for spooky movies and frightful flicks, or was this crop of films as disappointing as getting a rock while Trick-or-Treating? Let’s find out!!
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Terrifier 2
Terrifier 2 is owned by Bloody Disgusting
Directed by Damien Leone
One year after the horrific events of the first film, Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is back and ready to turn another Halloween into an unfathomable blood bath. This time around, however, he’s accompanied by a young girl in clown makeup (Amelie McLain) who is egging him on further and seemingly in the direction of Sienna (Lauren LaVera) who’s having strangely prophetic dreams about the killer while her brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) is becoming obsessed with last year’s killings. With such a nightmarish and cheekily-obnoxious villain on the loose, will anyone survive this Halloween with their sanity, and organs, intact?
It’s the 2022 Little Indie Film That Could as everyone in horror circles started talking this one up throughout October, and for the most part the enthusiasm is warranted. For me, the first one suffered from a very straightforward and uninspired narrative that was only salvaged by the interesting new villain at the heart of it, Art the Clown; truly a monster for our time. What we have with this film is exactly the kind of thing you want from a sequel as it bolsters what worked about the original but is unafraid to take things in new directions. The rather one-note grungy aesthetic of the first film got old fast, even with the absurd escalation of violence, and thankfully they improved greatly on that with a new vibrant coat of paint that makes the set pieces far more interesting, and there’s a depth to storytelling that allows for more than just picking off victims one after the other. Art gets to have a bit more personality and we see more of his internal machinations between violent murders, and Thornton’s eerie performance that’s one part Pennywise and nine parts Reddit Troll keeps his scenes compelling without allowing the film to twist things too far to his perspective as I did genuinely root for the cast of characters here who were caught in the crosshairs. Where the movie will gain its infamy will be the gore scenes which are at least a little more tasteful than they were in the first one, but are still some of the bloodiest and nastiest kills we’ve seen in quite a while, and it certainly helps that there’s more context here that gives some weight to the kills. Where the first film’s pacing stopped dead at the halfway point, this one manages to keep things escalating all the way to the bitter end. The film is a huge improvement in terms of tone, cinematography, and ambition, but where it falls short is in its writing which, as I said is much improved with solid characters and more creative set pieces, but it also feels rather amateurish. It’s a testament to the value of good nuts and bolts writing when you don’t even notice the movie establishing its characters, rules, and boundaries, and this movie is in too much of a hurry to show off that it keeps contradicting itself or leaves very basic things far too ambiguous. You could argue that it’s another feature and not a bug, that the unfiltered imagination of its creator is far more interesting than any number of overly polished horror remakes. I can get somewhat behind that given how out-there the movie is and that it at least partially operates on dream logic, but abstraction and symbolism are not the antitheses of coherent narratives and there are mistakes here that feel more to do with inexperience or carelessness than ambition. Perhaps the example that stuck out the most for me was how the movie could never settle on the age for its main character; a seemingly inconsequential point, but one that sticks out like a sore thumb when you consider how few other movies stumble over such a question. With a better aesthetic, more varied locations to wreak havoc in, and an imaginative spirit that grows the narrative far outside the confines of the original, this is definitely a sequel that gives you more to chew on and I’d say that it’s worth your time if you’re looking for something outside of mainstream horror offerings. Still, I feel there’s a ways to go for this series to truly live up to its potential and I hope that the creators are using their time in the spotlight to grow as filmmakers.
Halloween Kills and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by David Gordon Green
It looks like the only thing that could stop Michael Myers was a global Pandemic as this was supposed to come out last Halloween, but I guess any October is a good time to release a new installment of this series. The 2018 film was a breath of fresh air in a franchise that went off the rails in several different ways, but the ending left me rather cold as it was clearly there to make room for a sequel instead of giving us a definitive end to the story. Now that sequel is here so it’s time to find out if it was worth undercutting the dramatic conclusion to the last film to get one more story out of this new continuity. Is this the proper conclusion we were hoping to get in the last movie, or should they have ended the series then and there? Lets’ find out!!
Continuing where the last movie left off, Laurie Strode along with her daughter and granddaughter Karen and Allyson (Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, and Andi Matichak) are speeding away from her burning house with Michael Myers (James Judy Courtney and Nick Castle) trapped inside; a plan that seemed dubious when we saw it three years ago and now we can see exactly why as Michael manages to survive the fire and kills a bunch of firefighters in the process. Over the course of the evening, it becomes clear to the whole town of Haddonfield that Michael Myers is still on the loose and wreaking havoc wherever he goes, so it’s up to the people of that town including a fully grown Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) to lead the charge and put an end to this murder once and for all! While all this is going on, Laurie is in the hospital recovering from Michael’s attack and Karen is doing what she can to keep her family together despite Allyson being in the throes of grief and seeking revenge wherever she can find it. Can this town put an end to this shadow that has been hanging over them since that fateful night in 1978? What will it take to put Michael down once and for all, and is it something that can be done without losing more lives and perhaps even the soul of this town? Seriously, Laurie. You couldn’t put two in the head for good measure before lighting the house on fire? Heck, you could have at least thrown a bit of gasoline on him!
Malignant and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures
Directed by James Wan
I’m pretty sure I saw exactly one trailer for this before it was dropped on HBO Max, so I guess we’re getting to the point where Warner Bros isn’t pushing their SAME DAY RELEASE stunt as hard; at least until Dune finally comes out. Still, I’ll take almost any chance Warner Bros wants to give me to not spend fifteen bucks to see one of their movies and James Wan has a pretty good track record across several different genres (ESPECIALLY horror), so hey! It’s right in my wheelhouse… and I guess technically my ACTUAL house as well. Is it a fun horror film to pad out HBO Max’s already impressive library of movies, or are they just doing a favor for the guy who brought over a BILLION dollars to the studio with a DC movie NOT starring Batman? Let’s find out!!
Madison Lake (Annabelle Wallis) is not in a particularly good place right now with her abusive husband (Jake Abel) who is constantly belittling her despite going through a rough pregnancy and even smashes her head against the wall after an argument over nothing. She locks herself in the room to deal with her splitting headache and her unborn child, but something goes bump in the night and she dreams of a dark figure that has killed her husband and chases her up the stairs. It turns out a lot more of that was real than she expected as she wakes up in the hospital to find her husband dead and sadly suffering from the after-effects of a miscarriage. Her sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson) tries to help her though this, but Madison prefers to be alone to deal with her grief. A few days after returning home however, she starts to see visions of a mysterious figure killing people, and every vision turns out to be true which catches the attention of the officers assigned to investigate her husband’s death (George Young and Regina Moss), and questions just keep piling up as to where these visions are coming from and what connection Madison may have to the dark figure committing these crimes. Is there something (or someone) in Madison’s past that connects her to the recent string of victims? Just what is this dark figure that Madison is seeing, and does it have a terrifying plan for her as well? Do those terrifying plans involve a make-over; because whatever it is, its idea of fashion died in the late nineties.
Old and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
M Night Shyamalan is far from my favorite filmmaker, but I’m always interested to see whatever it is he’s made whenever his name flashes by on a trailer with this film being no exception! The conceit seemed decent enough in a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits sort of way which is definitely in his wheelhouse, but there was A LOT going on here that made this look both laughable and disturbing. I guess that’s why we all keep giving him more and more chances as no matter how bad he burns us with movies like The Happening, Last Airbender, and After Earth, there’s always something to his thrillers that makes them unique among everything else that makes it to theaters. Does he manage to knock it out of the park once again with this ghastly tale of time gone haywire, or will this tank so bad that he’ll have to make another low budget found footage movie as penance? Let’s find out!!
A family of four with parents Guy and Prisca (Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps) as well as the young kids Trent and Maddox (Emun Elliott and Embeth Davidtz) are vacationing at a resort THAT THEY JUST SO HAPPENED TO FIND ON THE INTERNET where they cater to your every need in the most beautiful tropical paradise you’ve ever seen! Not only that, they have a secret beach that is PERFECT for spending a day at, so the four of them head out there along with another family of four (Rufus Sewell, Abbey Lee, Kathleen Chalfant, and Kyle Bailey) as well as a nice couple (Ken Leung and Nikki Amuka-Bird) to enjoy the day swimming relaxing! Things go sideways fairly soon however as Trent finds a dead body which some mysterious guy who was already there (Aaron Pierre) seems to recognize, and not long after that the oldest among them start to get sick. They try to leave but something is causing them to black out as soon as they try to step through the cavern that led them here, and to make matters worse the three kids all start to age rapidly. Trent and Maddox (now played by Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie) and reaching adulthood within hours and everyone who has a medical condition is getting worse and worse as the seemingly fast passage of time is leaving their conditions untreated to rampage through their bodies. With only hours to go before the adults grow old enough to die from age alone, can they find a way to escape this beach before losing all the time they have left? What possible reason could there be for the beach being this way, and why were they put there in the first place? If they get out of this alive, do the kids get like twenty birthday presents in a day?
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Adam Robitel
I have next to no memories of the first movie other than a general sense of loathing and contempt for its central premise and absurd ending. The whole thing just got memory-holed like so many bad horror movies I saw in theaters which I guess is an interesting position to be in when watching a sequel as the lack of concrete feelings definitely gives it a lot of leeway as far as trying new things; not to mention that the overall low opinion going into it only makes the bar that much easier to clear. It’s certainly possible that whatever negativity I felt for the first film has burned itself out and I’ll be more open for whatever this Saw Knockoff franchise wants to throw at me, but then again the trailers weren’t exactly selling me on anything beyond elaborate traps and people yelling which certainly sounds familiar to what I didn’t like last time around. Besides, we don’t NEED a Saw Knockoff anymore now that they’ve brought the series back and aimed it in a new and interesting direction! In any case, does this latest entry in the ESCAPE ROOM UNIVERSE expand upon the original and actually give us something interesting, or will this movie double down on everything that didn’t work the first time? Let’s find out!!
Following the events of the first film (which are helpfully summarized in a sequence that might as well have started with PREVIOUSLY ON ESCAPE ROOM), Zoey and Ben (Taylor Russell and Logan Miller) are still looking for the mysterious Minos corporation that set up the elaborate game from the first film and have seemingly set up games like this all over the place. After some cajoling from Zoey, the two of them travel to New York which seems to be their base of operations but find nothing there except an empty alley and a purse snatcher. Said purse snatcher grabs Zoey’s compass which I THINK was given to her by one of the characters in the first movie, and after an overly long chase through the streets of New York, they wind up on a subway car while the thief jumps out at the last second. For reasons that are never properly explained, this subway car JUST SO HAPPENS to have four other passengers on it and they all get directed into another one of those deadly escape rooms. ALSO as it turns out, the four other people are previous winners of one of Minos’s games which makes this (as one character helpfully says out loud) a tournament of champions. Our previous winners are Rachel, Brianna, Nathan, and Theo (Holland Roden, Indya Moore, Thomas Cocquere, and Carlito Olivero), and all six of them have to go from room to room solving deadly puzzles for some nebulous goal and the chance to maybe not get murdered, though with Zoey and Ben hot on Minos’s heels it seems unlikely that this game is just gonna swing open the doors for them even if they manage to find the right number of keys in a fish tank or whatever. Will Minos finally be brought down by the very champions that they’ve created, or will everyone be out for themselves in a desperate bid for survival? Is there more to this game than they first realize, or are the Shyamalan twists in this thing easy to spot from a mile away? Does any of it even matter when the game is apparently being run by money wizards that can literally do anything at any time with these nonsensical traps?
