2025 Horror Part Three

PROJECT MKHEXE

Dir - Gerald Robert Waddell

Overall: WOOF

 

The biggest problem with horror mockumentaries is the ever-present and two-fold question that it raises, namely "Who compiled all of this troubling and otherworldly footage together in such a cinematically inclined fashion, and also, why?".  The ambitious full-length debut Project MKHEXE from Gerald Robert Waddell runs wild with this conundrum, and it does so for nearly two hours, which should be an illegal length for any found footage movie.  Characters getting psychologically engulfed by conspiracy theories is a premise that has been explored ad nauseam, but each familiar detail here is played-out with aggressive melodrama that cheapens the entire presentation.  When a young man's death is ruled a suicide, his brother decides to make a documentary about it, which allows for him to do ridiculous things like shove a camera in his grieving parent's faces while they sit down talking heads style to be interviewed, pushing them with accusations while he flies off at the handle about reasonable things like his parents having the audacity to send his now-diseased brother to a therapist at one point.  What is this, the 1950s?  He also interviews himself and a handful of his brother's friends before plausibility is officially jettisoned in the last act, which raises more verisimilitude-obliterating questions like "How did they get this footage and why was it filmed in the first place?".  Jump scares, volume swells, rapid-fire editing, a monotonous structure that makes you feel all hundred and fifty-three minutes, an unlikable dipshit protagonist, and a story that is never remotely frightening or interesting, it is unfortunately one grievous error after another.

 

ROSARIO

Dir - Felipe Vargas

Overall: WOOF

 

A prime example of what contemporary schlock horror looks like, Rosario is the full-length debut from director Felipe Vargas, and it is one that is overflowing with hackneyed style, plot points, and sentimentality.  Calling a movie out like this for how insultingly predictable and obnoxious it is may be viewed as cruel or at the very least insensitive, but it is difficult to get behind something that desperately takes itself so seriously while having a bombarding tone what will induce endless chuckles from the audience.  A continuous disconcerting musical score, continuous jump scares, continuous disgusting visuals, continuous disgusting sound effects, and continuous volume swells mix with an apartment setting that is so dilapidated and filthy that one has to accept the aesthetic choices on their own cartoonish merit as to not bail on the film ten minutes in.  While the look, sound, and tone is a jacked-up yuck-fest of embarrassing cliches, Alan Trezza's script comes off just as unfortunate since its subject matter deserves an actual respectable presentation.  In a time where immigration laws are as controversial as ever and discrimination towards those who are entering America for a better life is a major point of concern, having a genre movie try and balance these sincere themes while barrelling you with such loud, messy, and lazy goofiness is just unacceptable.

 

SINNERS
Dir - Ryan Coogler
Overall: GOOD

It is refreshing to see a filmmaker like Ryan Coogler swinging for the fences with a Jim Crow-era vampire film no less, but his latest Sinners is an overstuffed movie, bordering on a mess.  That said, it also has an earnestness that forgives the handful of glaring things that do not work about it.  The most glaring of these is the inclusion of vampires themselves.  Coogler takes an hour to get to the story's main location; a sawmill-turned-hootenanny that is purchased with stolen mob money from Michael B. Jordan's hard-assed, dual twin, ex-soldier protagonists.  Eventually, things go full From Dusk Till Dawn hold-off, but it seems more of an afterthought against a backdrop of permeating racism that seems inescapable in 1930s deep South.  Gradually meeting our crop of disenfranchised characters during a single day and night where at least the illusion of bliss and freedom is achieved away from the ever-imposing hammer of oppression is where the film shines.  Even when the blood-suckers show up though and Coogler has no choice but to uphold some of the schockier attributes of well-worn vampire tropes, he still offers up a significant tweak that ties into a world where joining a ravenous brethren of the undead almost sounds like a convincing trade-off as opposed to continuing to play in the brutal, discriminatory sandbox of the real world.  A surreal musical number for the books, impressive and long tracking shots, and stand-out performances from everyone on board, (save blues legend Buddy Guy, who sadly exhibits the acting chops of a man who has never been asked to deliver dialog in any of his eighty-eight years on this planet), all further give this a respectability that it deserves, even if it is bursting at the seems with ideas that would be better left explored without fighting for screen time with each other.

2024 Horror Part Twenty-Two

THE MOOR
Dir - Chris Cronin
Overall: MEH

 

Imperfect and problematically overlong, The Moor simultaneously boasts some refreshing moments while getting stuck in the muck, (or stuck in the peat as it were).  The first full-length from director Chris Cronin, it opens with a long take that serves as a flashback inciting incident and an unsettling one at that, then skipping ahead twenty years where the somber tone is locked into for the next two hours.  As the title would suggest, much of the narrative revolves around vast miles of moorland where a serial killer allegedly buried his victims, one of those victim's fathers gathering a small team to go and investigate all these years later.  There are supernatural elements gingerly introduced along the way before they become more prominent, and most of these moments are done in lingering, eerie stillness, never becoming terrifying yet certainly being intriguing enough.  Cronin occasionally taps into the tripe mannerisms, (jump scares are indulged in as much as they are avoided, plus we get one of those scenes where a psychic woman gets taken over by malevolent forces and contorts her body backwards while making wide-eyed/wide-mouthed screechy noises), and he switches to both POV and documentary footage which creates a jarring effect.  The performers all match the film's overall brooding agenda of grief and desperation, but it  falls short of properly utilizing its inherently creepy setting, indulging itself with ambition.

 

YOUR MONSTER

Dir - Caroline Lindy

Overall: MEH

 

Written and directed by actor-turned filmmaker Caroline Lindy, Your Monster is a conglomerate of backstage theater shenanigans, broadly painted douchebag narcissistic exes, and a Beauty and the Beast budding romance.  It is inventive as a breakup movie, fusing its desperate ingredients together with some refreshing dialog and a command performance from Melissa Barrera, but some of those ingredients seem like they need to simmer longer.  Allegedly, Lindy conceived of the project as a fantastical reworking of an actual breakup that she went through, one that bares similarities to that of Barrera's protagonist who gets dumped mid-cancer treatment by her playwright boyfriend Edmund Donovan whom she is still head-over-heels about and devastated for losing.  This is after she helped him write his latest work whose lead character is named after, based on, and was promised to her.  In other words, Donovan is a one-note asshole, too much of an asshole to get on board with in the context of the plot which needs him to keep one-upping his fuckhead behavior in order for Barrera to embrace her rage and fire back.  Some of these moments are delightful, as are many of the scenes between her and Tommy Dewey's Neanderthal-esque monster who have the most plausible report with each other, even if their relationship blossoms from traumatic and violate to romantic and nurturing in a fast enough manner to move things along.  Still, the ending fails to land and it navigates a tricky tonal balance admirably if not precisely.

 

SHELBY OAKS
Dir - Chris Stuckermann
Overall: MEH
 
The derivative full-length debut Shelby Oaks from Youtuber Chris Stuckermann is not a good film, which is not surprising considering that many would-be filmmakers would also drop the ball after launching the most successful Kickstarter campaign for such a project, getting the green light to make an honest to goodness "real" movie in a genre that many people tap into for their first go-round behind the lens.  Patronizing aside, Stuckermann's efforts here are professional looking and he takes a commendable swing at fusing found footage with conventional movie-making, be it of a detrimentally hackneyed variety.  There lies the problem in that every plot point, every stylistic nuance, every jump scare, and every freaky detail lacks inventiveness.  Worse yet, they collapse upon themselves in a melodramatic and confused mess that throws a hodgepodge of familiarity at the screen in hoping that something will stick in an ambiguously disturbing sense.  Obviously it does not work that way, and maybe some viewers can scold Stuckermann for knowing better considering his film critic profession, but pointing out the pluses and minuses in things and then making a thing yourself are two different expressive muscles to develop.  The film is an odd duck to be sure.  Plot holes are glaring, leading to performances and beats that fail to line up properly and come off as unconvincing at best, unintentionally funny at worst.  So with a faulty structure, basic storytelling language clumsily executed, and nothing new brought to the horror table, it merely has the aesthetic and ambition of something better than it is.

2024 Horror Part Twenty-One

GAZER

Dir - Ryan J. Sloan

Overall: GOOD

 

This singular psychological thriller was shot over two years and comes from the mind of filmmaker Ryan J. Sloan and co-screenwriter/lead actor Ariella Mastroianni, lingering in uncomfortable intimacy as it follows a troubled woman who finds herself in the middle of an even more troubling ordeal.  As the main protagonist, Mastroianni suffers from dyschronometria; a rare degenerative condition that makes it increasingly difficult for her to keep track of time, often zoning out for hours as her finances are in dire straits, her relationship with her daughter is non-existent, her stepmother who takes care of said daughter deliberately keeps her at a distance, and she is plagued by a combination of surreal and vague waking dreams from the night of her husband's suicide.  Naturally, this makes her ill-equipped to deal with an unfolding mystery surrounding a woman who proves to not be who she seems that offers her a job which she cannot refuse.  Sloan directly references David Cronenberg's Videodrome in one of Mastroianni's more bizarre nightmare revisits, cinematographer Matheus Bastos shoots everything in 16mm with a handheld camera, and the music by Steve Matthew Carter evokes a kind of urban eeriness that fits the bleak and often times antiquated New Jersey setting.  It may frustrated those who are lacking patience or are too uncomfortable with Mastroianni's damaged POV to exclusively sit with it for nearly two hours, but it thankfully rewards those who can hop onboard its stark and uncompromising agenda.

 

SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS

Dir - Stephen Quay/Timothy Quay

Overall: MEH

 

An adaptation of Bruno Schultz' 1937 novel of the same name, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass is the latest from the stop-motion sibling animation duo of Stephen and Timothy Quay.  Even more impenetrable than Wojciech Jerzy Has' 1973 version The Hourglass Sanatorium, the seventy-six minute films feels nine hours longer, which is fitting for a story that takes place in a dream dimension where time floats in and out in mysterious waves, melding the past, present, and future through a haze of one's own psyche.  Unfortunately, it also makes for a maddening watch, not just because the pacing is labored, but also because the source material itself is so challenging and deliberately arcane.  The Brothers Quay have no interest in unlocking its secrets, instead traveling inward even further with a combination of their patented disturbed and striking stop-motion and live action, little dialog, and murky cinematography that looks like a representation of someone's half remembered nightmare filtered through Vaseline on the lens.  This is a shame since all of the stylistic trappings are purposefully in place and many of them are spellbinding, but just as many are impossible to decipher, and this is only taking into account the athletic and not the non-narrative that offers up a slow, slow, SLOW cacophony of nebulous strangeness to endure.

 

LISA FRANKENSTEIN

Dir - Zelda Williams

Overall: MEH

 

The directorial debut from actor Zelda Williams and the latest from screenwriter Diablo Cody, Lisa Frankenstein is a charming-on-paper genre mash-up that needs to be both funny and clever to work, yet sadly is neither.  What the movie does have going for it is a sharp aesthetic with vibrant colors, some neutered Tim Burton eccentricities, and a lovable performance from Kathryn Newton, even if her character, (and everyone else's), is underwritten at best.  Cody's script has a lot on its plate.  It tries to balance traumatic loss with zombie, romance, high school, and coming of age motifs, but the Heathers-style black humor does not come together, and Newton's makeover from awkward and emotionally ravished square to arrogant and reckless goth babe comes without any proper build up or logical footing.  Cole Sprouce does his best Johnny Depp-as-Edward-Scissorhands impression as Newton's freshly revitalized corpse/slave/love interest, but he mostly just looks like a sad and constipated puppy as Newton's villainous transformation makes her less and less likeable.  The tone is deliberately goofy of course, but its implausibility would not be so much of a problem if it was not so slapdash, or if more of the jokes landed, or if every plot point did not feel rushed.  Williams and Cody's hearts are in the right place and their work bypasses some obnoxious tropes that it otherwise could have indulged in, but it still ends up being a clumsy mess.

2024 Horror Part Twenty

SHELL

Dir - Max Minghella

Overall: GOOD

 

Another dark comedy body horror movie fueled by female beauty standards which immediately recalls the same year's The Substance, Shell is the lesser known and less successful of the two, but it still has its fair share of commendable attributes despite the fact that it simultaneously beats a dead horse.  Cynical viewers may take issue with the fact that it was both written and directed by men, (Jack Stanley and Max Minghella, respectively), whereas The Substance was the sole vision of Coralie Fargeat, giving that film a point of view that was specifically relatable to its author.  On this note, the identical themes, (and several identical plot points), found here are more surface level and obvious, but one of the things that Minghella and Stanley's film has going for it is a steady B-movie sense of humor that only takes itself as seriously as it has to.  It of course also helps to have the always wonderful Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson on board as the two women on polar opposite ends of the power spectrum who are both justifying their desire to stay beautiful, confident, and relevant in a superficial and dismissive landscape.  The last act twist is ridiculous and will permanently convince viewers that they have been watching an unmitigated farce the entire time, but such tongue-in-cheek silliness is necessary, (and refreshing), to strip it of being highfalutin.

 

HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 3: FIREWATCH

Dir - Dutch Merich

Overall: WOOF

 

The third and by leaps and bounds worst entry in Dutch Merich's meandering found footage franchise, Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch is bad enough to pull the plug on this entire pointless endeavor.  Whereas the first film from 2021 set up an intriguing missing person premise that it promised to deliver something on, the 2023 follow-up ignored all of that and told an unrelated story in an even more teasing manner.  Things circle back around to the initial Gary Hinge case here where yet another loner decides to follow in the missing blogger's footsteps to see what happened, but what we get is an insultingly cheap and, (even worse), insultingly inconsequential waste of another ninety minutes.  There are only so many times that viewer's can be duped into thinking that they are finally going to get somewhere with a needlessly drawn-out narrative that has a simple enough starting point, and this third installment abuses any kind of trust that Merich may have procured along the way.  The talking head segments dish out virtually no new or interesting information, yet they are done in a hyperbolic and painstaking manner that grows only more irksome each time that we cut back to our hapless protagonist who only manages to capture about three or four vague sound effects and a micro-millisecond of a "Wait, maybe that was something?" image amongst aimless amounts of footage.  The final set piece flashes a "viewer discretion is advised" warning, only to proceed with ten straight minutes of absolutely nothing before the credits quickly hit afterwards.  Believe it or not, this is the most "exciting" moment in the entire movie.

 

SOLVENT
Dir - Johannes Grenzfurthner
Overall: WOOF

 

One of the most aggressively asinine horror movies to emerge in some time, Austrian filmmaker Johannes Grenzfurthner's Solvent is his third in a self-proclaimed and nearly as insufferable trilogy which also includes 2021's Masking Threshold and 2022's Razzennest.  Grenzfurthner has unmistakable ambition, that much can be said about him as each of these films go for a type of rambling intimacy where obnoxious characters prattle on endlessly without us seeing their faces.  The POV gimmick is an interesting one on paper, where we can witness the psychological downfall of our protagonist, in this case a contractor who returns to the scene of a tragedy suffered by his crew.  There is plenty of backstory present involving a former SS officer who goes missing and seems to have manifested himself through a pipe in a wine cellar, (or something), but as is the case with Grenzfurthner's other work, it is the presentation that becomes impossible to endure.  This is no doubt by design, at least to a point since he favors extreme, hyper detailed closeups of nauseating images, usually rapid-cut together in an increasingly disjointed manner as to mirror the mental spiral of the person off screen who never, ever shuts the hell up.  To add to the frustration, the performances here are outrageously poor, maybe a step or two down from an English dub over a Japanese video game where all of the terrible dialog is lost in translation and the actors crank it up to eleven as jarringly as possible, perhaps to compensate.  In any event, the film is unwatchable.

2024 Horror Part Nineteen

BROKEN BIRD
Dir - Joanne Mitchell
Overall: MEH

 

Films that have an eccentric and unlikable protagonist at the center of them can often be an uncomfortable watch, and the full-length debut Broken Bird from co-writer/director Joanne Mitchell leans into such a thing, regrettably to the movie's own detriment.  Rebecca Calder is a damaged woman from the moment that we meet her, someone who fails to connect with others in any healthy manner, which stems from an extreme childhood trauma that pushes her into her own delusions.  That is where she primarily hangs out, picturing herself killing it at poetry readings, having a fairy tale romance with a random museum employee that was nice to her, talking to the dead, and ultimately resorting to kidnapping in order to procure loved ones.  Meanwhile, Sacharissa Claxton is an emotionally ravished police detective whose marriage imploded and whose son has gone missing, and it is only in the film's closing moments that the two women's arcs join forces.  Mitchell unfolds her tail with frequent flashbacks and fantasy sequences that deliberately confuse the viewer and paint a disturbing portrait of Calder's psyche, none of which makes us sympathetic to her increasingly unwholesome behavior.  In this sense, the movie is just ninety-nine minutes of a disturbed person's exploits, a disturbed person that we are unable to connect with.

 

RUMOURS

Dir - Guy Madin/Even Johnson/Galen Johnson

Overall: GOOD

 

The latest collaboration Rumours between Canadian filmmaker, (and here absurdist), Guy Maddin and co-screenwriter and even co-directors this time Evan and Galen Johnson is an impossible movie to lock in to, no doubt by design.  As usual, one must take the work that Madin produces on its own terms, enjoying the head-scratching as much as the idiosyncratic chances that he takes.  Though this one has a contemporary look and feel and does not hearken to a bygone era of movie-making as did his early movies, Madin is still presenting something that toys with/amuses audiences without explaining the specifics.  The narrative details are quirky and in effect distracting, plus the pro cast play everything with so much sincerity that it only enhances the confusion.  Yet if one can simply laugh at the vague apocalyptic scenario, (if indeed that is what is going on), as well as the tacky genre elements that need not be spoiled, this is essentially a satire of modern political leaders who are nothing more than doofuses with their own eccentricities to fall back on when the world stops working correctly.  A top-billed Cate Blanchett is of course wonderful as the Chancellor of Germany, (as is everyone else on screen), but Roy Dupuis actually takes the lead as the Prime Minister of Canada, be it one who is prone to adolescent outbursts.  If anything else, casting Charles Dance as the President of the United States with no explanation as to his overwhelming Britishness represents just one of the many "sure why not" gags that the film has to offer.

 

THE WAILING

Dir - Pedro Martín-Calero

Overall: GOOD

 

Essentially a technological J-horror movie except Spanish, The Wailing, (El llanto), is also the full-length debut from filmmaker Pedro Martín-Calero and one that makes inventive use out of its numerous freaky set pieces.  In fact the film is a Spanish/Argentine/French co-production spoken in as many languages, following one woman at a time as they are perused by an invisible presence, well at least invisible unless there is a camera around.  Why this is the case is never explained, nor are any details about the malevolent entity itself, which gives Martín-Calero and his co-writer Isabel Peña free reign to follow an arbitrary form of supernatural logic.  While this can often be seen as lazy when it is presented in a hackneyed context, thankfully that is not the case here since the movie bypasses many of the hangups that contemporary horror cinema succumbs to.  There are no jump scares, no screechy noises accompanying the multitude of otherworldly images, and many of the scenes play out to an intimate silence that forces both the viewer and the characters to merely sit in whatever unexplained phenomenon is happening to them.  The lack of answers only enhances the unease, where everyone that we meet is being watched, toyed with, and doomed.  Few concepts are more terrifying on paper, and Martín-Calero's determination to maintain a still and forbidding atmosphere throughout is refreshing to say the least.

2024 Horror Part Eighteen

THE A-FRAME

Dir - Calvin Lee Reeder

Overall: MEH

 

The latest from filmmaker Calvin Lee Reeder is a mess of an updated version of David Cronenberg's The Fly, but this is not so much due to any derivative elements as it is to an increasingly implausible screenplay.  In genre fiction, we are asked to take certain unbelievable elements on their own terms, and The A-Frame's concept of an inter-dimensional transportation device that has the side effect of curing cancer, (since the cancer, for whatever reason, cannot travel along with the host), is an acceptable jumping off point.  What is not acceptable is how the charters in this universe behave concerning its existence and execution.  Johnny Whitworth's scruffy and smirking mad scientist stand-in is the type of openly shady ubber genius hacker bro that only exists in wacky screenplays, and the plot would go nowhere if everyone that he meets does not immediately report and/or permanently stay away from him.  This does not even take into account the fact that he has world-changing technology at his disposal at two locations that he presumably has to pay rent on, all of which probably costs close to a billion dollars.  So maybe Whitworth is an ubber genius day trader too?  The movie is tonally imprecise as well, going as far as to feature an aspiring stand-up comedian, (who is at least played by Nik Dodani, an actual comedian), and its fusing of goofy nyuck nyucks, terminal cancer patients coping with the shit hand that they have been dealt, a soulless physicist who easily dupes people and needs a shave, vague pseudo-science, characters changing personalities at a moment's notice, and gooey practical effects just makes for too ludicrous of a pill to swallow.

 

SOMNIUM

Dir - Rachael Cain

Overall: MEH

 

Though shy of remarkable, writer/director Rachael Cain's Somnium is a promising full-length debut, one of many films that examines the exhaustive hardships that young Hollywood hopefuls face when trying to make their dreams a reality.  It is an age old tale, and Cain's script relies on too many cliches to say anything unique about its subject matter, but it is at least less cynical than most movies that feature someone trying to break into the movies and facing insurmountable odds along the way.  Chloë Levine is the textbook conduit for such a story, literally a small town girl with big if generic aspirations who is forced to face her fears in getting any kind of leg up in the game.  How she faces such fears is the interesting part, (it all involves some plausible sci-fi tech that causes psychological whirlwind effects on those exposed to it), and thankfully Levine turns in a top-notch performance that elevates a slew of less inspired ideas.  There are predictable plot beats every step of the way, a naked, creaky, bald, and generic creature shows up, plus it has a finale that is too simple minded to be profound.  Yet even if Cain was going for something more bold than she was able to pull-off, the movie's elementary nature is refreshing in its own right, and like Levine's ambitious protagonist, there is "something there" that may lead to bigger and better things.

 

STRANGE HARVEST
Dir - Stuart Ortiz
Overall: MEH

 

Stemming from half of the Vicious Brothers team, (Stuart Ortiz working solo here), Strange Harvest is one of the better true crime mockumentaries to emerge in recent times, but the particular sub-genre hardly wields effective results on the regular.  While it is nifty to see a work of fiction adhere strategically to a non fiction format, trying to capture as many nuances as possible and hitting all of the prerequisite beats to sustain verisimilitude as if one is watching an actual documentary, (in this case on an allusive, occult-inspired serial killer called Mr. Shiny), it also opens itself up to scrutiny.  Most people whose curiosity would be peaked by this are likely the same people who have seen countless true crime programs on Netflix or have dabbled in any of the hundreds of podcasts out there that tackle such material.  So it is easy to nitpick anything that seems off when a screenwriter and professional actors go through the motions, and there are various moments throughout here that seem off.  Most of the talking heads, (particularly Peter Zizzo as the case's main detective), indulge in hyperbolic platitudes, as if they are narrating the film instead of just being interviewed for it.  That and incessant scary music, horror movie editing, and makeup, special effects, and gore sequences that come off as silly instead of convincing all help to sink the ship.  On the plus side though, just as many of the performances and faux news footage pieces are nailed, plus if one can scratch their true crime itch while knowing that it is all fictitious, (if still eerily plausible in parts), then the story itself has enough unsettling juice to keep them invested.

2024 Horror Part Seventeen

THE SHROUDS
Dir - David Cronenberg
Overall: GOOD
 
While stilted in parts and not incumbent to conventional horror tactics, (even of the "body" variety that David Cronenberg became a household name in pioneering), his latest The Shrouds still fits snugly in his filmography and channels the themes that he endlessly frequents.  Arguably Cronenbergs's most personal project as it was inspired by the long-suffering cancer and ultimate demise of his wife of over four decades, the filmmaker explores questionable grief tactics along with how obsession integrates itself into our lives though various means.  Set in modern day yet given a slightly futuristic slant where technology is maybe only a year or so ahead of us, Vincent Cassel plays Cronenberg's stand-in who has designed a means of monitoring loved one's decomposing bodies once buried, offering up such services to wealthy costumers and foreign investors.  When his enterprise is vandalized, it leads to a series of ever-morphing conspiracy theories, as well as Cassel eventually facing his romanticism and, (especially sexual), attachment to his late spouse, engaging with other characters who have their own quirks and coping mechanisms in place.  None of the subjects here are dealt with in a judgemental fashion.  Instead, they influence each other through endless conversation and interaction, until we arrive at a place where there are still more questions and a lingering aura of uncertainty.  Such is life though and such is grief.  Some of the performances seem wooden at times and there are eccentricities in place that could be seen as unintentionally comedic, but Cronenberg is such a master of his craft and the material here is so unmistakably linked to his own exploration that most likely, any of the movie's "faults" are anything but and are only there to enhance the whole.

 

THE SEVERED SUN
Dir - Dean Puckett
Overall: MEH
 
Filmmaker Dean Puckett's full-length expansion of his 2018 short The Sermon has some of Robert Eggers' The Witch and M. Knight Shyamalan's The Village mixed together on a noticeably smaller scale with sincere yet lackluster results.  The Severed Sun tackles the age old theme of zealous servitude backfiring on itself as we meet a mostly miserable crop of villagers who adhere to one leader's pious proclamations of righteousness which his own daughter Emma Appleton inadvertently recoils from.  Naturally, this sets Appleton and her lover apart from the diligent heard and into the arms of some all-black and mysterious woodland creature that looks like a kid's drawing of an all-black and mysterious woodland creature.  Villagers panic, point fingers, get seduced, and get desperate, and it all leads to turmoil which is preordained from the relentlessly dour mood, as well as nearly every character behaving as if the word "joy" is foreign to them.  Of course it is the heathen ex-members of the commune who exhibit the only signs of relishing in their newfound freedom, be it briefly before the first stones are cast and everything goes to hell.  The sound design is appropriately ominous, as is the musical score by the collective appropriately dubbed Unknown Horrors.  There is nothing refreshing here to the ole folk horror shtick though, merely an adequate and low-key production with swell performances and a sufficient monster lurking in the foliage.

 

SANA: LET ME HEAR

Dir - Takashi Shimizu

Overall: MEH

 

A sequel to the previous year's Sana, Sana: Let Me Hear, (Anoko wa Daare?), is a mostly redundant experience that slightly expands yet mostly retreads what we have already seen in the last installment.  One could make an easy joke that it also retreads what we have seen in countless other J-horror films that have come down the pike, (many of writer/director Takashi Shimizu's to be sure), but we are specifically witness to a barrage of exact scenes that where not only repeated in the first movie, but are shown even more frequently here.  Be prepared to stare at a staircase leading to a door and a woman falling to her doom from a school rooftop upwards of a couple hundred times.  Also, the cursed melody that sometimes hypnotizes people and sometimes does not is also bound to get stuck in your head, as it does the head of the characters.  Shimizu goes for an odd soft hazy filter through almost the entirety, perhaps intentionally to invoke some kind of ethereal ambiance that goes along with the cumbersome pace.  As was the case with its predecessor though, the film has a few of Shimizu's patented odd-ball set pieces, the best and oddest of which is a lengthy scene where a character tries to get the title ghost out of one of those drop the hook arcades.