The first and last words spoken in IMMACULATE are the Hail Mary. That prayer takes on very different meanings in each context, and in between them we have a film that is uneven, but oddly fascinating. Taken on one level, it is a screed against the patriarchy, with a woman reduced to her womb. On… Read More »
HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS
If, in a parallel universe that I would very much like to visit, Chuck Jones hired Guy Maddin to create a Looney Tunes cartoon, the result might not be too different from Mike Cheslik’s HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS. This gleefully unhinged excursion into intrigue, romance, and the call of the wild transcends, and transgresses, many genres… Read More »
OUT OF DARKNESS
OUT OF DARKNESS is set 45,000 years ago, and uses a constructed language based on Basque, but it deals with some disturbingly contemporary and immediately recognizable issues. For a time and characters so remote from our experience, it is remarkable for how the story of a small band of hunter/gatherers resonates with all too identifiable… Read More »
NIGHT SWIM
What a stunningly dull excuse for a horror film. NIGHT SWIM, based on a short film of the same name, demonstrates that not every promising short can successfully be expanded into a feature-length opus by the original filmmakers. It’s so narratively lackadaisical that whatever premise held the promise of more-is-better is completely lost. What we… Read More »
THE NUN 2
THE NUN 2 is not a complete waste of time. It is a superbly shot film, and directed with a certain understated flair by Michael Chaves, who, along with Taissa Farmiga, gets about as much as can be extracted from an anemic script. The result is decidedly underwhelming, verging on dull despite all the ickiness.… Read More »
TALK TO ME
TALK TO ME is a supremely terrifying film mixing the horrors of the restless undead with the greater horror of emotionally absent parents. The directing debut of brothers Danny and Michael Philippou is a story of quiet despair that grows geometrically as it progresses for its teenage protagonists who learn too late that the spirit… Read More »
HAUNTED MANSION
This is the not the first time that Disney has tried to cinema-ize its Haunted Mansion attraction. That perennial favorite got the film treatment 20 years ago with Eddie Murphy heading an indifferent story and a sentimental subplot that I found to be more interesting than anything involving Mr. Murphy. Alas, this latest attempt fares… Read More »
SCREAM VI
The Scream franchise is not one that wants to be taken seriously as a straight horror film. From the first iconoclastic installment so many years ago, its aim, it’s very raison d’être, was to call out the conventions of slasher films and then serve up a gory slashfest to an audience primed to laugh at… Read More »
65
65 is that most satisfying of CGI films, the type that doesn’t wallow in what it can do visually, but rather uses the technology in furtherance of a moving film. It posits a visit to our planet 65 million years ago by humans who arrive at a momentous moment for our big blue marble. The… Read More »
KNOCK AT THE CABIN
Perhaps it’s having a child at the center of a film that provides M. Night Shyamalan with the added spark necessary to making a solid, thoroughly enjoyable film. I refer not just to THE SIXTH SENSE, which catapulted the director to rock star filmmaker status, but also to WIDE AWAKE, the film just before that… Read More »
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