Dir - Lim Dae-woong
Overall: MEH
A South Korean remake of Alejandro Hidalgo's The House at the End of Time, House of the Disappeared, (Siganwiui Jib), sticks close to its predecessor without adding anything of significant interest, ergo making it a redundant if still adequate watch. The first work in supernatural horror from a top-billed Yunjin Kim, she looks more silly than convincing in an old lady wig for much of the proceedings, yet she also still turns in an impressive performance as a wrongly convicted mother who is under haunted house arrest after serving twenty-five years of a brutal prison sentence. Jang Jae-hyun adds some unnecessary backstory into the location of the title and a more pseudo-science/metaphysical angle that is less captivating than the ambiguous and otherworldly route taken in Hidalgo's original. Besides shutting up for the obligatory and annoying jump scare, Kim Woo-geun's swelling music plays uninterrupted, which further manipulates the viewer in what is already a harrowing story of grief and lost chances. Its heart-string pulling is appreciated, but the sterile presentation and plot adherence to its superior predecessor makes it too forgettable to recommend.
Dir - Sergio G. Sánchez
Overall: MEH
Though it boats a top-tier young cast and has Universal backing it up on the distribution end, writer/director Sergio G. Sánchez' Marrowbone, (El secreto de Marrowbone), ends up being an unintentionally doofy thriller with a moronic plot twist in its finale act. Shot almost entirely in a spacious country mansion in Asturias, Spain, it pits a family of traumatized outcasts against what is presumed to be supernatural forces, yet the few bump in the night moments that we witness are more aloof than nightmarish. This angle is regularly bypassed anyway for a thinly constructed love triangle, before the most hackneyed psychological rug pull, (plus another just as stupid one), is delivered in a flashback exposition dump, one that throws logic to the wind and takes the audience out of the proceedings during what should be a heart-racing finale. Such laughable revelations jive poorly with the already established, gritty tone, as well as some intense performances from all involved. George MacKay and genre regulars Mia Goth, Charlie Heaton, and Anya Taylor-Joy all deserve better material that what they are given here, which is a shame since Sánchez has a solid knack for pacing and style that would be better suited in something with more plausible footing.
Dir - Justin Barber
Overall: MEH
One of a small handful of horror films to utilize, (as its jumping off point), the now explained "Phoenix Lights" phenomenon that occurred over Arizona and Nevada on March 13, 1997, Phoenix Forgotten does not pack in any surprises, but it delivers a satisfying finale within its formulaic framework. Broken up into two sections, the first and much longer one is a mockumentary that Florence Hartigan decides to make in uncovering the mystery of what happened to her brother and his two UFO-hunting friends twenty years earlier. We get some backstory on our small crop of characters in the process, all of which is presented conventionally with talking head interviews, screen titles, music, and other standard ingredients that actual documentaries are inclined to have. We know from the onset what happened to the missing kids and we also know that we are eventually going to be shown the "lost" footage which will explain such a fate, but it is to director Justin Barber and screenwriter T.S. Nowlin's, (of the Maze Runner franchise fame), credit that this reveal still remains compelling when it finally arrives. It recalls too many other found footage movies to carve out its own unique niche amongst the saturated sub-genre, but fans of such movies still may enjoy where it ends up.
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