2012 Horror Part Seven

ANTIVIRAL
Dir - Brandon Cronenberg
Overall: GOOD

Sometimes the apple does not fall very far from the tree.  Brandon Cronenberg is, (you guessed it), the spawn of none other than David Cronenberg: The Godfather of Body Horror and Brandon's own filmmaking debut Antiviral clearly proves that father and son are artistically tickled by very similar interests.  It is indeed difficult not to compare this movie to those of Cronenberg Senior and also a bit unfair to do so as Brandon is following in such large, lingering footsteps.  Yet simply acknowledging that Antiviral is a similar beast to Videodrome, eXistenZ, Crash, or Dead Ringers to name a few is enough so moving on from that, you can look at the movie on its own turf.  Brandon Cronenberg certainly cultivates a persistent mood here.  In fact, one could argue that it may even be TOO consistent as we watch a mumbling Caleb Landry Jones, (who is already naturally creepy to behold), be violently sick for nearly two hours in a dystopian setting where celebrity worship has been perverted beyond anything sexual and into something even more bleak and unsettling.  The concept is strong and though the execution may be a bit too relentlessly cold for some, it is an impressive outing that shows more than enough promise for future works.

GRABBERS
Dir - Jon Wright
Overall: GOOD

Big, dumb monster movies usually have a hard time standing out enough amongst the herd.  Which is what makes Irish filmmaker Jon Wright's sophomore full-length Grabbers all the more impressive.  It has a small coastal town getting besieged by an alien menace and two main characters who are nothing alike that initially despise each other only to of course find true love in each other's arms.  Yet it is that rare occasion where the premise has a hilarious enough twist and then actually delivers on it to kind of make the stock bits not an issue.  If the movie did not continue to bust out funny, exciting monster battle gags after it introduced that the best defense against it was for everyone to get pissed since alcohol seems to be deadly to said blood sucking, giant octopus things, then all would be for naught.  Even before it gets laugh out loud funny in its third act though, the small crop of characters are made both incredibly likeable and interesting with Wright cruising things along the whole way through.  It has got to be one of the better movies to playfully toy with the "working class Irish folk sure love to drink" stereotype and pitting it against squishy tentacled sea creatures ends up being quite the hoot.

JOHN DIES AT THE END
Dir - Don Coscarelli
Overall: GOOD

Dropping a Masters of Horror episode in between, Don Coscarelli's otherwise follow-up to the solid Bubba Ho-Tep is the ludicrous adaptation of David Wong's webserial-turned-novel John Dies at the End.  An almost tireless headtrip, it is recommendable to give up on following the incessant, arbitrary weirdness from the get-go and simply give into it instead.  Striving on pure imagination, Wong's story is not about coherence or really anything at all besides just having fun with as many insane, hallucinatory, time and dimension-bending shenanigans as possible.  The fact that the narrative is told primarily in flashbacks and that the title makes as much sense as anything else happening, (meaning none), is all part of the charm, playing further with the audience every step of the way.  Even the Troma-level, laughably bad green screen and CGI seems to be there on purpose and fits right at home with a hot dog cell phone, a naked totalitarian society wearing animal masks, alien bugs, an amputee ghost hand, and Paul Giamatti thinking he is black.  It is yet another example that when Coscarelli is not making his appallingly terrible Phantasm movies, he does some pretty damn good work.

2013 Horror Part Seven

WITCHING & BITCHING
Dir - Álex de la Iglesia
Overall: GOOD

An over the top, tour de force for Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, (possibly his most over the top), Witching & Burning, (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi), piles on the ridiculous for a rather enjoyable end result.  The script by he and frequent collaborator Jorge Guerricaechevarría tosses even the most minimal amount of plausibility to the wind, but who needs believable characters or the laws of physics to be upheld when it is so much more fun to have them survive body-breaking damage or randomly fall in love with each other instead?  This is not even taking into account the wild witch mythology which climaxes with a hundred plus strong, break out in song and dance, human sacrificing, cannibalistic sabbat and a giant, naked ogre mama who stops around like King Kong.  Routinely hilarious, de la Iglesia has great delight in making all of his characters prattle on about how much of a pain in the ass the opposite sex is, a battle that fuels everything from a botched pawn shop heist to the aforementioned, unholy finale.  The film may be a bit too arbitrarily silly for some, but its goofy and gruesome indulgence is certainly intentional and expertly delivered.

A FIELD IN ENGLAND
Dir - Ben Wheatley
Overall: MEH

Overwrought with a disregard for coherence that borders on irritation, Ben Wheatley's A Field in England is a very pretentious and ultimately vacant experiment.  Scripted by Amy Jump, (who also edited the film with Wheatley), it bares many surface level hallmarks of black and white arthouse cinema including hallucinatory editing, slow motion shots that go on too long, people posing as paintings or something for no reason, and dialog that is barely comprehensible.  It does not help that the actor's accents are routinely too think for most people to probably discern, but the period-accurate words they are saying further baffles the experience, an experience that is surely meant to be baffling.  Wheatley seems to be ecstatic with the mystifying ideas that he is working with, hellbent on presenting them in as complex and surreal a fashion as possible.  Yet it lacks any emotional weight due to this presentation, making it a tiring chore to sit through.  It is just scene after scene of weird stuff and a perpetual, one-note feeling of confusion.  The film may look superb, but it also goes too far off the rails with nothing to say.

THE HOUSE AT THE END OF TIME
Dir - Alejandro Hidalgo
Overall: GOOD

The debut and to date only effort from writer/director Alejandro Hidalgo, (who also edited the movie), The House at the End of Time is an impressive offering, so much so that it has become the highest grossing horror film in Venezuelan history.  Admittingly, it is not without its faults as it regrettably succumbs to a large amount of incredibly obnoxious jump scares, each one derailing the engrossing story more than the last.  Besides this unfortunate, genre-pandering faux pas, the movie presents an ambitious narrative that fantastically delivers its twists in the most emotionally impactful way.  The performances could not be better from former Miss Venenzuala World Ruddy Rodriguez on down.  Hidalgo manages to both tie up every last loose end he introduces while at the same time letting his script work at its own challenging pace, bouncing between time frames effortlessly without any audience spoonfeeding.  It is actually all the more remarkable though in that the attempts at mounting, ghost movie terror are too derivative to be up to par yes, but it still ends up being a unique enough work to warrant recommendation.

2014 Horror Part Ten

DEAD SNOW: RED VS. DEAD
Dir - Tommy Wirkola
Overall: GOOD

The refreshing, (and most immediately noticeable), part about Tommy Wirkola's return to his Dead Snow franchise with the second installment Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead is that it goes full comedy.  There is no pussyfooting around with obnoxious jump scares or unnecessary "unequipped people holding off in a small building against the undead" cliches.  This one is all about being asinine and hilarious.  A number of laugh out loud moments are liberally utilized, such as not one but two CPR scenes, a woman getting abandoned in a wheel chair, mid-zombie pursuit, and a very preposterous sex scene.  The story understandably tries to one-up that of its predecessor since what is more ridiculous than having a bunch of Nazi zombies in the first place?  Having them fight a bunch of Russian zombies of course.  The same problems though are present as before, meaning a disregard for easily avoidable be they minor plot malfunctions and physics-defying details.  Characters walk around a frozen mountain landscape at night with no winter apparel on, the zombies are equipped with a tank but prefer to stare motionless at their prey for minutes on end without using it, they also surround and then attack two lone characters one at a time, and more dumb shit that is just in there since who cares, it is a stupid zombie movie.  Would it kill them, (pun intended), to put on a winter jacket for one scene though?

THE QUIET ONES
Dir - John Pogue
Overall: MEH

Following up the wildly unmemorable The Woman in Black remake, resurrected Hammer Film Productions' The Quiet Ones takes a semi-stab at the found footage sub-genre while still utilizing a throw-back approach to its look.  These can each be seen as two strikes against it right out of the gate, but surprisingly each element is used to ideal effect and actually make up the most interesting aspects about the movie overall.  It is pretty much everywhere else besides how grainy the 1974 setting looks and how plausible the idea of a cameraman capturing such supernatural occurrences on film is that the movie routinely fumbles.  First and certainly foremost, the jump scares are so absolutely rampant that the film seems to be intentionally trying to once and for all ruin said cliche.  How any audience member could be anything but completely annoyed by how often the soundtrack drops to pure silence if not a whisper, only to blow out your ear drums exactly where you know it will is anybody's guess.  The screenplay though which is credited to four people, (not a good sign), is sloppy and lame, once again featuring an old, stubborn asshole of a scientist this time losing his grant to take a bunch of young students with him to cure a possessed schizophrenic.  Also, seances, solving mysteries in a library, and who cares.

WOLFCOP
Dir - Lowell Dean
Overall: MEH

Another shameless, part-throwback horror comedy that goes the practical effects route and might as well be set in the 1980s, Canadian writer/director Lowell Dean's Wolfcop is meant to be loud, dumb, and bloody and that is exactly what it is.  The script is formidable and pits Satanic shapeshifters against werewolves, which is a nifty enough tweak to get behind.  As always, pretty much any make-up and prosthetic effects at this point look better than cartoony CGI or at the very least fit the B-movie approach here just fine.  Unfortunately though, the movie is not funny.  The dialog falls flat and is routinely even embarrassing, the over the top set pieces are more obnoxious than cute, and most of the performances are amateurish at best.  Dean is clearly trying his hardest to make a schlocky cult movie, but it kind of just goes through the motions of "fuck yeah/bad ass" scenes like pimping a cop car, ripping peoples faces off, starting a werewolf transformation with a dick pissing blood and going hairy, a sex scene that is supposed to be amusing since it crosses into bestiality sort of, and original songs on the soundtrack that reference exactly what the movie is about.  It is certainly harmless fun, but just lacking too much of the "fun" part despite its sincere intentions.

2015 Horror Part Eight

HIGH-RISE
Dir - Ben Wheatley
Overall: MEH

As far as bringing hopeless chaos to the screen, Ben Wheatley's adaptation of J. G. Ballard's 1975 novel High-Rise assuredly succeeds.  Comically and brutally portraying the increasing collapse of the British class structure represented by the residents in an ultra-modern and posh tower block, the movie opens with madness and only briefly lingers in a bit of normalcy before the focus is primarily right back to that madness.  While its themes may be crystal clear to those who have not even read the source material, the narrative itself is a bit impenetrable.  The entire ensemble cast adapts any level of hedonistic behavior, blurring the lines between all of them.  While this is no doubt intentional, it does make it difficult to follow everyone's motives and acceptance of the lunacy they envelop themselves in.  The film feels its length as well, growing monotonous as everything goes in circles with dystopia reigning.  An adequate representation of the book it certainly is, but as a viewing experience, it is more like a one-note foray into squalor and pandemonium that beats, (and eats), a dead horse a little too much.

THE BOY
Dir - Craig Macneill
Overall: MEH

Making your themes positively obvious and having your narrative crawl along are not each exclusively poor choices to utilize when it comes to movie making.  They both slightly get in the way of The Boy though, not the first or last film with such a generic title to be released not even within a year of each other.  This is the one with Rainn Wilson, hot dogs, and spaghetti.  The first solo feature from Craig William Macneill, (who collaborated with Alexei Kaleina on 2009's The Afterlight), The Boy is very much about child neglect and not really anything else.  It can also be said that the proper mood of monotony and boredom is conveyed.  The day to day toil of having nothing to do except clean the same unused motel rooms ad nauseum and collect road kill, young Jared Breeze's title character mutters to himself and gets immediately attached to the very few strangers that come passing through.  None of this ends up for the better of course and you can see where things are going almost from the instant the movie starts.  It is adequately made in some respects, but it  is also the kind of film where you can simply read the synopsis, save yourself a hundred and five minutes of actually watching it, and come away with basically the same experience.

THE LURE
Dir - Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Overall: GOOD

More of an interesting, stylized melding of genres and folklore than a powerful or even accessible story, Agnieszka Smoczyńska's feature-length debut The Lure, (Córki dancingu - Daughters of Dancing in Polish), is probably the only 1980s-set horror musical about mermaids that will ever be made.  The film could examine any number of things besides the obvious concept of how people are both fascinated and repulsed by emerging womanhood, but it could also just be a fun, often wildly inventive indulgence of song, dance, nudity, and gore.  Smoczyńska presents a large number of musical sequences, some shown as live performances in a nightclub where the context seems more down to earth, but most being burst into song sections where everyone on screen seems to compulsively be participating.  The passage of time is portrayed liberally and the mythology of the fishfolk is reduced to a few old wives tales, (most of which are proven to be true), being tossed around.  Even during its most somber moments, the emphasis is more on beauty than anything else, (both visually and in song), all of which just enhances The Lure's whimsical quality more and more.

2016 Horror Part Eight

I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER
Dir - Billy O'Brien
Overall: MEH

This adaptation of the Dan Wells novel of the same name, (which was the first in the John Wayne Cleaver series), suffers unfortunately from too extreme of a logical leap on the part of the audience.  Nearly all of the events that transpire in it are hinged upon the believably that a person would witness a wanted serial killer in action and then proceed to tell absolutely nobody about it, (least of all any authority figures, for months.  Granted it is established that said character is a diagnosed schizophrenic with an already existing fascination with murders, but he still seems horrified, concerned, and makes a number of attempts to stop him.  Sooooooo why exactly are you just quietly profiling him instead of turning him in?  Granted the serial killer in question is not "normal" in more ways than one, but it is still an aggravating nag that gets in the way.  The tone doe not really work either as more moments are awkward than darkly amusing as intended and most of it is played deadly serious.  Making the supernatural mythology of what is actually happening more of an afterthought than a primary focus does not really work since the main character we spend the entire movie with still comes off as underwritten in the end.  This just kind of leaves I Am Not a Serial Killer in a murky, conflicting state.

THE WAILING
Dir - Na Hong-jin
Overall: MEH

Quite a bold offering from South Korean writer/director Na Hong-jin, The Wailing, (Gokseong), gets a bit messy and not just from the amount of blood and filth that it routinely throws onto the screen.  Surpassing the two and a half hour mark, juggling tones somewhat clumsily at times, and very gradually shrouding its narrative in ambiguity, it leaves a lingering impression that is equal parts frustration and confusion as well as fascination over its construction.  The extensive running time is certainly felt with bothersome dialog involving practically every character not giving straight answers to any questions.  This brings a level of monotony to the proceedings where the plot stagnates instead of moving forward.  The fact that much of the earlier half is awkwardly comedic and even one scene near the end involving a battle with a zombie, (or something), comes off as slapsticky both make for a confusing clash against incredibly tense and heart-wrenching moments everywhere else.  It is not so much that the film is more problematic than successful, it is just that its issues are complex and make for an end product whose strangeness cannot be positively classified as intentional.

A CURE FOR WELLNESS
Dir - Gore Verbinski
Overall: MEH

Returning to horror after a decade and a half of several blockbusters, (including three in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), Gore Verbinski's A Cure for Wellness is an over-long smorgasbord of various films that reference everything from classic mad scientist romps, to Roger Corman's Gothic works of the 60s, to The Marathon Man, to some of the elaborate visual design on Guillermo del Toro, to good ole despicable torture porn.  Even as the script revs up and gets more and more ambitious as it goes on, it is still a lot to take at a hundred and forty-six minutes.  As you could guess, the set-up is more intriguing than the pay off; a lot more in fact.  By the time the third act starts, the monotony of stumbling around a clearly diabolical wellness retreat whose mostly elderly and filthy rich residents cannot/will not leave is ultimately revealed to have been pointlessly dragged out.  It certainly does not help that the twists are predictable virtually the whole way through.  Since there keeps being lots of minutes left whenever the film tries to sway you, any tension evaporates as we grow tired of waiting for it all to actually wrap up.  It is a very common structure with a very common, underwhelming outcome, all of which you could admit at least looks sleek and fancy along the way.

2017 Horror Part Seven

LIFE
Dir - Daniel Espinosa
Overall: MEH

Taking zero gambles and borrowing its twists from either other notable films or just offering them up in a way that is alarmingly easy to spot, Life would appear too simple and stock for its own good.  On this note, perhaps it is.  The minute, somewhat A-list cast are given just the bare minimum of individual characteristics and Ryan Reynolds pretty much plays Ryan Reynolds as he always does, providing the movie with its only occasional chuckles.  These would-be funny bits clash with the rest of the tone which is either dower or intense, at least once the second act kicks into gear sufficiently enough.  Despite its blanket presentation and surprisingly vanilla-flavored script, (by Deadpool creative team Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick no less), Swedish director Daniel Espinosa handles the material as good as can be expected.  The monster attacks are intense, the pacing sturdy, and he even indulges in an opening seven-minute take that both lays out the surroundings and helps psychologically convey the proper level of claustrophobia.  It is not that all of the pieces do not work together since they generally do, but more that nearly every aspect could use a little more oomph to transcend it above the well-worn cinematic vehicles that it is openly channeling.  The argument can be made that it gets the job done just like a moderately-priced, convenient car would though.  So by that token, Life is certainly not a waste.  At least depending on what your expectations may be.

KUSO
Dir - Steven Ellison
Overall: WOOF

Theoretically, it is a good thing that anybody anywhere can make a movie about anything they want.  In reality though, the unleashing of something like Kuso would probably best serve as the equivalent to a war crime.  The directorial debut from producer/rapper/DJ/musician Flying Lotus, (Steve Ellison who just goes under the name Steve here), attempts and succeeds at being the most disgusting movie ever made.  The sheer lengths that Ellison and his creative team, (which also includes David Firth and Zack Fox), go to in not letting a single minute go by without puss, feces, flatulence, seminal fluid and all levels of bodily repugnance bombard the screen brings the movie to A Serbian Film-level obnoxiousness.  It is a "victory" in that the entire purpose is nothing more than to one-up any gross-out cinema that has ever been made.  Yet the victory itself must be questioned since what is the goddamn point at being so sufficient making something so insufferable?  To stomach the entire thing is a feat in and of itself and it is entirely acceptable afterwards to despise both yourself and the people who made it for having made you suffer through such vomit-inducing bullshit.

HAGAZUSSA: A HEATHEN'S CURSE
Dir - Lukas Feigelfeld
Overall: MEH

Made as a graduation project for film school with the help of a crowdfunding campaign and therefor serving as the debut from Lukas Feigelfeld, Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse is a seriously lackadaisical snore that should by all accounts work far better.  On the one hand, it is imaginative in how Feigelfeld was able to research 15th century paganism, concocting something with a number of highly peculiar set pieces that are thoroughly unpleasant for the most part.  The droning, subdued music by the ambient group MMMD sets a very unnerving tone and when the cinematography is not too dark to penetrate, it is utterly gorgeous even when disgusting things are being portrayed.  Yet the film is impossibly slow, almost unwatchable even.  By only hinting at having a story as opposed to actually having one and lingering painstakingly on every shot, the movie loses you repeatedly along the way.  The moments of unsettling strangeness simply cannot make their proper impact when the pacing around them is so detrimentally sluggish.  It is a significant shame that the passive execution makes it too challenging for its own good since otherwise it possesses such ominous potential to be truly memorable.

2017 Horror Part Six

THE HERETICS
Dir - Chad Archibald
Overall: WOOF

Sometimes a movie comes along with no redeemable qualities.  It can certainly be as common in horror as it can anywhere else and The Heretics from Canadian genre filmmaker Chad Archibald does in fact staunchly adhere to having no redeemable qualities.  From the opening nightmare sequence to the final, pathetic psyche-out ending, it is a non-stop barrage of appalling cliches, appalling dialog, appalling acting, and a script that could have feasibly been written by a six year old who thought weirdos with robes and masks were scary, simply filling in the blanks with pick your horror movie trope in between that one-note premise.  The presentation of all of this lazy, uninspired nonsense never stops being annoying.  Hallucinations or something are all arbitrary, no one's behavior is remotely believable, the horror movie 101 musical score only pauses for boo scares, and you get the idea.  Despite how horribly lazy all of this sounds, it is really only a problem that the movie takes itself so seriously instead of just utilizing its ridiculously tired ingredients to either go full schlock or just make fun of itself along the way.  The Heretics does no such thing and just insultingly bores you instead.  Enough of this shit, please.

THELMA
Dir - Joachim Trier
Overall: MEH

Mindfully enigmatic and frequently beautiful, Thelma is the first effort from Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier that mildly dances with elements of horror.  It does not really come all that close though to qualify, which is great in that it is positively unnecessary to dwell in any cliches for the mere sake of doing so.  For a film that deals with repression and the trauma caused by detrimentally draconian parenting, Thelma seems rather straightforward on surface level.  The title character's mom and dad are strict Christians, spy on her school activities and social media account, freak out when she does not answer their persistent cell phone check ins, and the dad in particular seems to have a zero tolerance for even the most minute intellectual thought she might bring to the table.  How this all seems to effect her is manifested rather troublingly, but it also unfortunately leaves a few too many rather irrational questions dangling.  The supernatural elements seem lazily handled and properly understanding the parent's behavior gets kind of bypassed to instead almost exclusively focus on the film being an emotionally impactful experience.  It offers a lot to appreciate, but still falls short of being a complete success.

THE SHAPE OF WATER
Dir - Guillermo del Toro
Overall: GREAT

Back on top after the creative, hugely lackluster supernatural slump that was Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water is more Guillermo del Toro's romantic love letter to a specific horror film than a horror film itself.  Essentially re-writing The Creature from the Black Lagoon as a proper romance between two isolated characters, del Toro plays to his strengths in once again bringing a dark fairytale to vivid, often bloody and adult-oriented life while breathing in all of the emotional hues that his best work always offers.  Set during the Cold War and unflinchingly showing the dismissive treatment of the disenfranchised amongst other things, the backdrop is ideal for a rather classic story about how those in power can be bullying towards what they do not understand.  Meanwhile, those who are more unassuming and benevolent can truly blossom in the face of something so mystical.  Thankfully, another hallmark of del Toro's work which is the stylized, grandiose, visual flair he brings to the table is also on display.  Fitting the Gill-man admiration, the movie is seeped in numerous shades of green and even indulges itself in a lone, black and white musical segment that would seem distractingly out of place in a lesser filmmaker's hands.  Yet really, this is a rather singular work that is all del Toro's vision from frame one to frame last.  Thankfully so mind you.

2017 Neill Blomkamp Shorts

RAKKA
Overall: GOOD

The first release from South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp's Oats Studios is Rakka; a post-apocalyptic, alien takeover sci-fi vehicle randomly staring Sigourney Weaver.  Set up to make short films for potential expansion into feature length ones or a full series, Oats dropped its first batch in the summer of 2017.  This one seems notably akin to Bloomkamp's District 9 with the whole humans vs. aliens concept, even if this time the aliens are very clearly coming up on top and look like snakemen instead of bugmen.  More of a teaser or introduction for any growing number of spin-off ideas than any kind of well-rounded story, Rakka does not bring anything unique or wheel-changing to the table, but it is nevertheless well done with adequate CGI in pretty much every shot and a nice, gritty war-ravaged look.

FIREBASE
Overall: MEH

Structured almost identically to Oats Studios' first release Rakka, Firebase is another extended trailer where badass soldiers walk in slow motion and square off against an unknown, CGI-designed foe while the soundtrack swells and builds dramatically without a single break.  Naturally, the premise is slightly different of course; as opposed to hostile aliens formulating the earth with militant force, something that could be alien, interdimensional, or just balls out supernatural seemingly sprouts into existence here during the Vietnam War.  Then gritty, grimacing soldiers want to fuck it up because action movies are cool.  Once again, the film looks fantastic and Neil Blomkamp's style of fusing faux-documentary footage with convincing on-location shooting creates the right atmosphere, but the dialog, line-readings, and entire presentation really are too derivative of so much that we have seen before, including Blomkamp's own work which could perhaps afford to stretch out a bit farther from his obvious comfort zone.

ZYGOTE
Overall: GOOD

Technically the fifth installment in the first volume of Neil Blomkamp's Oats Studios projects, Zygote is the first one that is either not essentially a comedy sketch or styled as an extended trailer for an alien war film.  While it still certainly fits right at home with both Rakka and Firebase by having some sort of combat team, (or what is left of one), doing desperate battle with a monster/alien thing, it is more simple, linear, and stripped down with only two characters on screen essentially making a run for it.  In that regard, this is easily the most horror movie-esque out of this batch, not at all squandered by the fact that the monster is genuinely horrifying both to behold and listen to.  Wisely, Blomkamp keeps it comparatively more in the shadows, thus hiding its CGI nature even though it still moves too smoothly to appear completely convincing, as is common.  The actual plot is barely decipherable due to Jose Pablo Cantillo's mumbled enunciation, (Dakota Fanning says about three words and just looks scared), but for a heart-racing chase sequence which is practically all that it is designed as, job well done.

2018 Horror Part Three

APOSTLE
Dir - Gareth Evans
Overall: MEH

Primarily known for some renowned Indonesian action films, Garth Evans builds on his stellar "Safe Haven" segment in V/H/S/2 with Apostle by expanding the concept of a weird cult that does stuff.  The result though is a mess of incoherence with poor character development and some overacting on the side.  There is a slew of would-be interesting ideas here involving the mythology of Evans' bizarre, goddess-worshiping pilgrims or at least there would be if it was fleshed-out more.  A whole lot of incredibly gruesome trouble befalls a number of these people and it is unclear as to what exactly is motivating them.  Why are they blindly following who they are, then not blindly following who they are, why is their goddess held captive yet also seen wandering around, why are they still quoting the bible, why is one guy a cartoonishly over the top villain all of a sudden, wait now he is going to shoot someone, no wait now he is not, no wait now he is, no wait something or someone is going to save someone in the nick of time, and so on and so on.  Even the main protagonist gets pushed to the side for more under-explored subplots.  More questions are left floating than answers and it could be a simple, (or not so simple), case of Evans biting off more than he can chew.  With all of the chaotic plot points as well as somewhat trendy horror quirks on the soundtrack and pushing a little too close into torture porn territory at times, Apostle does not really get it together.

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
Dir - Lars von Trier
Overall: GOOD

At this point in his endlessly polarizing career, it is a safe assumption that Lars von Trier is gleefully fucking with people.  If one was a betting man, you could surmise that his latest nihilistic musing The House That Jack Built is a deliberate comedy, not least of all because it is revealed to be taking place in the same universe as Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy itself.  It is actually surprising that it took von Trier this long to make a movie about a full-blown serial killer as venting about how meaningless human life is through such a perfectly narcissistic main character of the like seems to be the kind of movie von Trier should have always been making.  Since the subject matter is so bleak and comically fitting for the director, he has fun annoying the audience with long passages of philosophizing as well as the typical, nasty acts of passionless violence.  It is as much a parody of von Trier films as anything else.  Since it is also comparatively less ridiculous than his last trilogy of miserableness and more in on its own joke than ever before, if you were to sample a von Trier movie in an attempt to understand the filmmaker's stubborn, obnoxious, and cold take on humanity, this would probably be the least uncomfortable offering.

OVERLORD
Dir - Julius Avery
Overall: MEH

This is something that does not even sound that interesting on paper or at least that "original".  Then again though, what is these days?  Overlord is an action-horror film set right before D-Day where the Nazis are the bad guys of course, there is a tough female character, a no bullshit hard-ass, a wise-cracker to provide comic relief, a cartoonishly simple villain, and a wimpish hero who serves as the film's emotional compass.  There is also obnoxiously loud, bangy, and moist sound design, some jumps and plot turns a blind person could see coming, awful cinematography that is pitch black more often than not, poor CGI, and jerky editing.  So in other words, everything one would expect from a well-budgeted, J.J. Abrams produced action movie.  As far as the good aspects go, Wyatt Russell does an amusing and accurate impression of his famous action hero dad, there are some OK practical effects, two impressive and well orchestrated single takes, and a Nazi gets tortured by 'Merica which is always nice.  To say this is formulaic would be a moot point since who gives a shit really plus, explosions!  It sure does tread awful safe waters though, but if you want something noisy and bloody that you can check your phone while watching and not miss a solitary, predictable beat, Overlord will adequately suffice.

2018 Horror Part Two

MANDY
Dir - Panos Casmatos
Overall: GOOD

The second effort from Italian-born/Greek/Canadian filmmaker Panos Cosmatos, (son of director Geore P. Cosmatos), Mandy is about as singular as they come, for better or worse.  It may be complete style over substance as the movie is so arcane that deciphering any profound meaning held within is probably a futile undertaking.  Yet Cosmatos sure as shit knows how to concoct a certifiable head trip that is downright spellbinding to look at.  Practically every shot of the film is a melding of cosmic fantasy and retro, backwoods grime and beauty, all of which is presented in the most cinematically spectacular, anamorphic fashion.  The soundtrack is likewise ceaselessly fascinating.  Even as characters are mumbling, whispering, or so purposely distorted to not even be uttering human words, it is a cacophony of visually and sonically unique elements through and through.  Utilizing the powers of Nicolas Cage for absolute, ideal effect, the now iconically gonzo actor gets to do what he is best suited for, screaming, breaking down, and doing some random ninja moves, one-liners, and drugs to heighten the Nicolas Cage-ness.  For bizarre, deliberately paced, and highly challenging art house fare that is also wickedly violent and possibly all-along vacant, Mandy assuredly fits the bill.

WILDLING
Dir - Fritz Böhm
Overall: MEH

The debut from German-born writer/director Fritz Böhm has some earnest performances and visually striking moments, but it is poorly put together in an alarming way.  Wildling is set up in a very fairytale manner with a premise that is not altogether interesting, but also not altogether bad.  Nearly every plot point though is downright absurd and the rushed editing hugely hinders any potential logic that could be had.  At its core, this is a familiar story where animalistic qualities are attributed to blossoming womanhood, but it does not survive on these themes nor suspend the viewer's disbelief when the characters are barely written and the plot holes are borderline incessant.  Most of this revolves around Brad Dourif's character who is a mess.  Being part of said wildling hunting squad, he decides to raise one in secret, then decides to shoot himself instead of the wildling that he has sworn to kill, then survives and gets another chance to kill said wildling, then yells at a guy who let her escape when he raised her into adolescence in the first place, then hunts said wildling some more, then instead of killing it AGAIN when he has yet ANOTHER chance, he tries to take its baby out to raise one AGAIN.  There is no deep dive given to the werewolf-esque mythos in the first place which in and of itself is fine, but the history of law enforcement and townspeople hunting them seems unnecessarily vague as does a number of other details.  Too many details really.

ANNIHILATION
Dir - Alex Garland
Overall: GOOD

More inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's first novel in his Southern Reach Trilogy than being a straight adaption of it, screenwriter/director Alex Garland's Annihilation is a bold and ambitious film that owes a lingering debt to many other landmark science fiction dramas that came before it.  Every movie that deals with making contact with an alien presence and how it shapes humanity can be directly traced back to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Annihilation is also strikingly similar to Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker as well as Lovecraftian themes of succumbing to madness.  The film also dips its toes into body horror and has some rather heart-racing, monstery moments as well, but it sidesteps any pandering genre conventions rather efficiently.  Judging by the entire cast being a bit aloof and calm about the fantastical scenario that they are presented with, the tone is very interestingly tranquil as if the biologically-morphing spell brought on by the otherworldly aura has seeped into everyone's psyche as well.  Despite some very cartoony CGI creatures here or there, it is visually complimentary to its own hypnotizing nature.  By dealing with loss, guilt, and inevitability, it offers up virtually no answers and leaves the viewer with an exhausted acceptance of the unknown, just as the characters seem to possess at film's end.