Dir - Tim Story
Overall: GOOD
While the world needs another slasher parody as much as it needs another pandemic, the full-length adaptation of 3Peat's short film The Blackening gets by with its relentless stereotype skewing, kinetic pace, and consistently ridiculous tone. Director Tim Story's filmography can politely be described as "uneven", but he proves to be ideally suited in bringing Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins meta-heavy script to life; a script that takes the piss out of its chosen genre while laying into the African American-ness of every character on the screen. Said characters are portrayed by a front-to-back hilarious cast, all of whom prove to be on equally clever footing while busting each other's balls and simultaneously having hackneyed heart-to-hearts with each other as deranged killers seem to be racially inclined to take them out with a crossbow. Sticking a crop of goofy friends in a cabin in the woods where the minuscule amount of other people around are white and ergo suspicious, it provides a perfect set up that is deliberately formulaic so that the quips about how stupid of a movie everyone is in can fly at a mile a minute. Difficult to keep up with at times and one may argue that the "twist" is anything but, yet any cynical finger-waving must take a backseat to how genuinely funny the entire presentation is.
Dir - Takashi Shimizu
Overall: MEH
Filmmaker Takashi Shimizu's final entry in his "Village Trilogy" is more of the same, meaning that it indulges with another bloated running time and just keeps on going and going without any priority to trim the fat. Ox-Head Village, (Ushikubi Village), drops in some YouTubers conducting a live stream in a creepy place while exploring an urban legend, (as was the case in the previous two entries Howling Village and Suicide Forest Village), before the mystery gets underway which this time concerns a vague ritual where one unlucky half of a set of twins is thrown into a hole with a cow mask on because reasons. Since the movie is so sluggishly paced and over-long, (as well as loaded with stock J-horror scare tactics), Shimizu and co-screenwriter Daisuke Hosaka's story never musters up enough intrigue to overcome its shortcomings, which can be argued to be both indulgent and lazy. Thankfully, the film looks great and though the characters are as uninteresting as they are in any of Shimizu's previous installments in this unrelated series, the performances are acceptable and there are no awkard tonal issues or accidental comedic moments besides some unconvincing CGI during one of those good ole "cut in half by an elevator" gags.
Dir - Jonas Trukanas
Overall: MEH
A promising yet problematic full-length debut from Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Trukanas, Pensive, (We Might Hurt Each Other), takes an unorthodox approach for what it turns out to be, yet what it turns out to be is yet another entry in a loathsome sub-genre that is littered with questionable choices here. Broken up into two halves, the first of them establishes a handful of recently graduated high school kids who celebrate with one last hurrah at an isolated cabin, only with ominous and primitively carved wooden statues scattered around the place. Trukanas and co-screenwriter Titas Laucius patiently let the viewer guess where it is all going, yet we know it will not arrive anywhere good for the lot of characters on screen. There are convincing dynamics between everyone though and once things go awry, the agenda abruptly switches and stays on a course that is oddly undermined by tonal issues that may or may not be intentionally goofy. The fact that Sarunas Rapolas Meliesius' protagonist has an aloof personality at best is directly addressed and his unsympathetic behavior offers a singular tweak and challenge for us to get behind, if we are even meant to. It is interesting that the film tries to find a new angle within its cliches, but it sadly stumbles in such a task.
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