Dir - Parker Finn
Overall: MEH
Writer/director Parker Finn returns to the Smileverse with Smile 2, a sequel that has enough conceptual juice to justify its existence, a knock-out lead performance by Naomi Scott, some inventive set pieces, and is an overall better movie than the one that came before it. That said, it also suffers from the same problems as the first Smile, namely too many jump scares, (all of which are obvious, as jump scares inherently are), willy-nilly adherence to its own supernatural rules, and a sloppy ending. The story once again follows a young woman who is increasingly plagued by hallucinatory episodes of people grinning at her, (amongst other things), that drive her to the point of full-blown madness, but the culprit this time is an already overwhelmed pop star, throwing in a differentiating layer to just more ambiguous demonic mayhem for ambiguous demonic mayhem's sake. By being such an prominent celebrity, Scott's protagonist has only the most desperate avenues to turn to when her world is turned upside down, and the burden of everyone demanding her attention and professionalism to launch a comeback is something that successfully ups the ante for a movie that otherwise sticks to its creepy trajectory. Finn seems to have written himself into a corner though since the topsy-turvy nature of the material has to escalate to such proportions that it becomes unavoidably messy, meaningless, and even silly. Still, Scott handles the assignment wonderfully and Finn shows successful restraint here and there, just not as much as would be agreeable.
Dir - Steven Kostanski
Overall: WOOF
For people who hate comedy, the latest abomination from throwback filmmaker Steven Kostanski may be your favorite movie ever made. Frankie Freako comes after such desperate-from-each-other outings as Psycho Goreman, The Void, and The Editor, and it fails right out of the bat with a "Huh?" premise that is the antithesis of funny. Things only get more and more off the rails from there, and when your jumping off point is so flimsy and head-scratching, an uphill trajectory is set. This is to say that the movie is relentlessly juvenile and in-your-face, trying to nail gag after gag that treat the audience as stupidity as it does its characters, scenario, and premise. Kostanski is going for Gremlins, (or more accurately, The Garbage Pale Kids Movie), high jinks where it is supposed to be amusing in and of itself that tiny puppets cause endless mayhem. Yet in order for this to work, everyone on screen has to behave as if they are mentally ill cartoon characters, as much if not more so than the cheap puppet monsters running around farting, cackling, and wanting to party. There is nothing worse than an endless series of not-at-all-funny scenes that have a purposely tacky yet bombastic tone to them, setting up nyuck nyucks as if they are clever in-jokes or are so outrageous that any audience will just bask in their, well, outrageousness. Instead, this is just an eighty-five minute, insufferably annoying trainwreck.
Dir - Alexandre Bustillo/Julien Maury
Overall: MEH
For their seventh full length The Soul Eater, (Le mangeur d'âmes), French director team Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury collaborate with outside screenwriters for the first time, (newcomers Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre, and Alexis Laipsker, respectfully), on a relentlessly dour and lifeless police procedural with equally subpar supernatural elements. We have bodies being discovered that are mysteriously mutilated, a traumatized kid that speaks cryptically of a boogeyman, and two detectives that arrive on the case who have the personalities of dead fish. What they uncover is plenty disturbing and ventures into the realm of the abduction and torture of minors, so it is no surprise that not one second of screen time is dedicated to anything within miles of humor. As is always the case with anything in the New French Extremity movement though, (which some of Bustillo and Maury's past works indulged in more than others, this one qualifying as far as subject matter goes), the question is begged as to who a movie like this is for. It is a miserable watch, performed by actors who seem like they would rather be anywhere else in the world than on screen under such conditions, and the puzzling thing is that this is fitting for the type of film that they are in. It presents a dark and unforgiving world where evil festers, horrible things happen, and no one is remotely happy. A few jump scares and creepy pagan masks hardly provide enough to either distinguish it from the herd or justify it as a worthwhile excursion.
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