2025 Horror Part Thirteen

MOTHER OF FLIES

Dir - John Adams/Zelda Adams/Toby Poser

Overall: MEH

 

The latest from the delightful mother/daughter/father horror team of Toby Poser and Zelda and John Adams, Mother of Flies stays in their lane for better or worse.  As usual, the Adams Family, (as they humorously dub themselves), craft some grimy and striking visuals, their own gloomy goth songs are solid, and the story where Zelda's young protagonist seeks out a woodland witch to cure her of a terminal tumor indulges in plenty of earthy folk horror motifs, the kind that they frequent at least to some extent in each of their movies.  It also raises some interesting questions about the purpose of faith and the belief in the unbelievable when nothing else seems to be doing the trick.  While Zelda and John effortlessly channel their own father/daughter chemistry, (even if John's performance is curiously weak), Poser comes off like an eccentric caricature.  Her dialog is exclusively made up of Wiccan adlibs; long-winded poppycock that is vapid, overwritten, simple-minded, and pretentious, and she unfortunately gets a whole lot to say, her rhyming platitudes providing narration that is meaningless at best, maddening at worst.  Such kooky mannerisms and some arbitrarily strange and grotesque sequences forgive the ridiculous prattling on, but the premise itself rests on shaky ground.  Why a father would casually indulge his daughter partaking in such increasingly concerning shenanigans is a tough pill for the audience to swallow, and even though their script addresses these issues, it still undermines the film's nasty, unforgiving, and more impressive aspects.

 

BUGONIA

Dir - Yorgos Lanthimos

Overall: MEH

 

Renowned Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos collaborates with screenwriter Will Tracy while taking on his first remake, Bugonia serving as an updated adaptation of Jang Joon-hwan's 2003 oddball sci-fi black comedy Save the Green Planet!.  Those genre labels apply here as well, filtered of course through Lanthimos' auteuristic eccentricities, reuniting him once again with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and even Alicia Silverstone to a lesser extent, (the latter given a minor part as a quirky mother, something she likewise had in The Killing of a Sacred Deer).  Stone is outstanding as always, playing a corporate matriarch who comes off as perpetually manipulative and full of shit as she finds herself held within the clutches of Plemons' cartoonishly filthy peon employee and beekeeper who has a conspiratorial agenda for the books.  What works is the intense back and forth between these two parties, (with first time autistic actor Aidan Delbis caught in the mix to provide some deliberate concern from the audience), as well as the suspense-laden dangling fruit as to the legitimacy of Plemons' allegations.  Unfortunately, Tracy's script falls apart as it goes along, introducing plot gaps and inconsistent behavior amongst its characters, as well as arriving at a conclusion that is less annoying nihilistic than the work of Lars von Trier by comparison, yet still comes dangerously close.  Lanthimos is such a singular voice and so expert as his craft though that even if this is technically a miss-step, it is just barely one.

 

VADAKKAN

Dir - Sajeed A.

Overall: MEH

 

A mess of schlock, forced found footage, animated exposition, dogshit CGI, demonic possession, and folk horror, Vadakkan is the first full-length from Indian filmmaker Sajeed A., whose career up until this point was primarily in television and documentaries.  Authored by another fellow who only uses an initial for his last name, (screenwriter Unni R.), there are some interesting ideas here that deserve a less ambitious and in turn less faulty execution.  Kishore portrays a stoic paranormal investigator YouTube personality with a vaguely troubled past who looks into another YouTube personality that had a type of Big Brother haunted house program go horribly awry on a cut-off piece of land that is home to much malevolent supernatural tomfoolery.  The idea to have the second act be nothing more than Kishore watching episodes of the doomed program is a terrible one, namely because the blatantly otherworldly footage is all edited together with scary music, multiple cameras, and even ends with a long shot that is done in the conventional style as the rest of the film and ergo could not have at all been captured the way that it was.  This faux pas is enough to sink the entire production, but the third act brings Kishore, his assistant, and his former love interest to the cursed island themselves for a lengthy climax that is sloppily handled, not at all frightening, and hackneyed.  Everything is played straight and the main performers take their assignment seriously, but there are too many mistakes to forgive.

2025 Horror Part Twelve

A USEFUL GHOST

Dir - Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke

Overall: GOOD

 

One is likely to compare the singular work of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul to the debut from fellow Thailand-operating Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, (What a name!).  A Useful Ghost, (Phi Chaidai Kh), takes a similarly quirky approach to its supernatural subject matter where characters nonchalantly react and coexist with otherworldly entities, in this case spirits who decide to posses domestic appliances.  It is a hilarious gag that gets plenty of stone-faced laughs early on, only becoming more thoughtful and intricate as it goes along.  Boonbunchachoke winds up exploring everything from matriarchal manipulation, to conservatism, to homosexual relationships, to the 2010 Bangkock protestor slayings, to beyond the grave revenge.  At the core of all this wild thematic melding is the overarching concept that tragedies and the loved ones taken by them need be remembered or else further injustice and oppression will continue to thrive.  Wisely, Boonbunchachoke does not overburden the audience with these ideas, instead letting them find their course naturally over two hours, with touching, funny, and downright bizarre moments making this one of the most unique genre movies of its kind.

 

KEEPER

Dir - Osgood Perkins

Overall: MEH

 

Filmmaker Osgood Perkins delivers another in a mostly continuous stream of stylistically engaging yet faulty horror excursions, sticking with his exclusive genre of choice and working his auteur magic, warts and all.  Keeper is Perkins' second time using a script that is not his own, choosing one from Nick Lepard to shoot quickly during downtime on the same year's The Monkey which went on hiatus due to the Writers Guild of American and SAG-AFTRA strike.  Filmed on the cheap in Canada with a minuscule stable of accomplished local actors, the movie is a refreshing slow boil that makes atmospheric stillness and some well-placed WTF strangeness the primary focus.  At this point in his behind the lens career, Perkins has a exemplary knack for such things, and it is a joy to watch how he subverts a few genre pratfalls and kicks up the intimate creepiness in the process.  Unfortunately, Lepard's script indulges in loose ends that fail the icebox test and does what almost every horror screenplay does, which is to dilly-dally around a story that should have logically been wrapped up an hour earlier, spending half of its third act deflating itself with muddled exposition, spooky monsters crawling around like spiders for no reason, and a narrative turnaround that seems to play it fast and messy with its own supernatural rules.  As is usually the case where Perkins is concerned, there is a better film lurking in here than what it delivered, but what is delivered still has plenty to recommend about it.

 

EYE FOR AN EYE

Dir - Colin Tilley

Overall: MEH

 

Prolific music video director Colin Tilley takes his first crack at a feature with the unremarkable and occasionally embarrassing Eye for an Eye, a type of country-fried A Nightmare on Elm Street that is brimful of schlock.  We have prerequisite jump scares, characters monologuing exposition while dramatically looking off in the distance, unintentionally funny set pieces, cartoonish bully behavior that is necessary for plot purposes, awful CGI, stock/loud monster sound effects, and a sloppy third act that bulldozes through rapid-fire nightmare sequences, delivering an abrupt and weak ending in the process.  As far as the performances go, Golda Rosheuvel comes off the worst due to the cringe-worthy dialog that she is given, laying on the southern drawl thick as her uneven character both laments and warns against the dangers of a local boogeyman that she has once released while also nonchalantly giving a young child the tools to unleash said boogeyman himself.  The script by Elisa Victoria and Michael Tully feels like it is missing several pieces, particularly where the pro and antagonists are concerned.  This actually may have been more satisfying if it was fleshed-out as a miniseries instead of a lone full-length, something that would have also provided a chance to deepen the mythology of its supernatural baddie.  Tilley has a showy eye for visuals, but much of what is here is either arbitrary or hackneyed at best.

2025 Horror Part Eleven

MAN FINDS TAPE
Dir - Paul Gandersman/Peter S. Hall
Overall: MEH

 

It is unfortunate that so many filmmakers go the found footage route due to rising costs and diminishing, (if even existent), box office returns, the full-length debut Man Finds Tape from the writer/director team of Paul Gandersman and Peter S. Hall being one of the most poorly-suited to the mockumentary framework to come out in recent times.  This is a bold statement since a solid case can be made that nearly every found footage movie would benefit from a more conventional and ergo more expensive approach, but it is doubly a shame here since Gandersman and Hall's narrative comes equipped with some refreshing tweaks and hooks.  Some of the "tapes" that our central figure portrayed by William Magnuson discovers are bizarre enough to make any viewer sit up straight, and it all leads in a direction that would be difficult if impossible to guess.  What does not work, (and this cannot be stated enough times with these films), is that the finished documentary-within-a-movie trajectory is both distracting and dilutes the necessary verisimilitude for any harrowing and/or otherworldly scenario to connect.  Footage from an untold amount of cameras is cobbled together over a significant period of time, and scary music, subtitles to hear the muffled parts, text messages, 911 transcripts, sound effect enhancement, talking head interviews, and a non-linear presentation come off as unintentionally comical despite the humorless tone and undeniable supernatural events captured on film.  It makes things needlessly clunky and infinitely less believable than if the finances were procured to simply do this as a "real" movie instead of one that awkwardly shoehorns itself into an oversaturated sub-genre that rarely if ever warrants being in that sub-genre.

 

INFLUENCERS

Dir - Kurtis David Harder

Overall: MEH

 

A direct sequel to 2022's Influencer, the apply titled Influencers is a disappointing follow up to its clever if only partially successful predecessor.  Director Kurtis David Harder pens the screenplay himself this time, joined once again by Cassandra Naud as the full-blown sociopath antagonist, as well as her final girl Emily Tennant who is desperate and determined to convince the world of the events of the first movie.  The structure is jumbled up, opening with a nasty throat slitting, then jumping to Naud presumably living happily ever after having been left stranded on an island last we saw her, the dropping the opening titles arriving only once the second act begins and we catch up with Tennant playing catch up with her identity-stealing murderer.  Harder keeps things easy to follow even as more timeline zig-zags happen from there, as well as plot holes collapsing upon themselves which become frustrating as things spiral into a ridiculous and schlocky finale that seems tonally divorced from what came before.  It is this lack of focus that ultimately sinks the ship.  The first film was able to make a chilling case for social media obsession via an exaggerated and comparatively less implausible scenario than what happens here, this time side-stepping pivotal information and character building in order to delight in reckless violence, manipulation, and one-upmanship.

 

ALPHA

Dir - Julia Ducournau

Overall: MEH

 

The third work from French filmmaker Julia Ducournau is both her weakest and easily most bleak, wearing its symbolism on its sleeve yet overstaying its welcome with a relentlessly dour and increasingly incoherent structure.  Arriving five years after the onset of COVID, Alpha's viral outbreak premise inescapably recalls recent times and the current aftermath of those times on a surface level, (as well as the AIDS epidemic of yesteryear), but Ducournau's script is not interested in delving into societal discontent and division as she instead remains focused on those who are trying to save, (read into "control"), those whose behavior cannot be tamed.  Well, that is one interpretation that is as good as any since one has to be generous in deciphering what Ducournau's broad intentions are here.  Golshifteh Farahani's overwrought mother who is also a nurse is simultaneously dealing with a world gone to shit where a disease turns people into crumbling marble, her thirteen-year-old daughter is rebelling and being ostracized at school, and her infected junkie brother has a death wish that she keeps interfering with.  There are other elements at play which may or may not be important, plus the story is told in a distracting manner that jumps between timelines, making it difficult not only to tell what is currently transpiring or what the point is in going back and forth in the first place.  Things get more muddled and exhausting as it goes along, with zero room for humor.  We get the picture after the first scene, and merely wallow in this word's misery from there.

2025 Horror Part Ten

COYOTES
Dir - Colin Minihan
Overall: MEH

 

Loud, stupid, obnoxious, and predictable, the self-explanatory horror comedy Coyotes is the latest from director Colin Minihan.  Written by the team of Nick Simon and Daniel Meersand, (along with Tad Daggerhart), this is bog standard nature horror/home invasion stuff with constant psyche-outs and computer generated canines that come out of the woodwork all aggressive like after a massive LA storm and power outage.  Things write themselves from there, with some stylistic touches like comic book freeze frames to introduce every character's name and flashy camera moves livening up a plot that is as hackneyed as they come.  Like most contemporary horror comedies, it also mangles its tone, with humans and pets getting brutally murdered, and characters uncontrollably sobbing over the harrowing ordeal that they are facing, all while quirky mannerisms are played for nyucks nyucks and people get annoyed with each other.  The comedy falls flat in almost every instance, plus the internal plight that real life couple Justin Long and Kate Bosworth face with their stereotypically smart-assed and moody daughter Mila Harris is never convincing, such dramatic moments feeling unearned.  On the plus side, Long is thankfully not playing his usual snarky douchebag, reminding people that he can do emotional, (if narratively forced), lifting when called for.

 

FRANKENSTEIN
Dir - Guillermo del Toro
Overall: MEH

 

It is a shame that Guillermo del Toro did not get to make his life-long passion project until this far into his career, as the resulting Frankenstein comes off like it cost a zillion dollars and is the work of a man who has earned the status to make such a spectacle on such a grand scale.  Similar to Robert Egger's Nosferatu redux from the previous year, it is inherently boisterous and schlocky.  The Mexican filmmaker extraordinaire has long championed genre fiction and has optimized the type of romantic artist that sympathizes with "the monster", going on record as staring that James Whale's seminal 1931 Frankenstein is his favorite film due to his inert attraction to its central creature and the tragic elements of Mary Shelley's source material.  Yet through decades of rightfully lauded movie-making, del Toro has also positioned himself as someone who seemingly has no interest in doing anything tender, anything subdued, anything nuanced.  Instead and like Victor Frankenstein's creation itself, every frame of this film looks artificial.  The tone is so bombastic that it makes Kenneth Braughah's over-the-top version from thirty years ago seem like Stranger Than Paradise, but accepting such a rambunctious and sweeping aesthetic is necessary or else the viewer will set themself up for unrelenting annoyance throughout a whopping run time that nearly reaches three hours.  Does the script tweak enough and justify its existence after over a century of other sporadic Frankenstein adaptations?  Is del Toro skilled enough at his craft to make such abundance compelling?  Do we really need a Creature that growls like a werewolf and can push a massive sailing vessel that is trapped in Arctic ice?  Guillermo del Toro seems to be enjoying himself asking those questions while spending gallons of money in the process, so maybe that is enough.

 

DREAM EATER

Dir - Jay Drakulic/Mallory Drumm/Alex Lee Williams

Overall: WOOF

 

An exceptionally bad Canadian found footage movie from the filmmaking team of Jay Drakulic, Mallory Drumm, and Alex Lee Williams, (the latter two appearing as the leads), Dream Eater makes a consistent amount of mistakes, almost every one that it possible can as if it is doing so on purpose.  The problems are of a "Where to begin?" nature.  A laughable excuse for our characters to film everything, unnatural dialog, an unlikable protagonist couple who have no chemistry with each other, scary music and artificial sound cues everywhere, scenic establishing shots, (?!?), an insultingly hackneyed plot, logical gaps galore, a monotonous structure that makes the movie feel ten times longer than it is, one stylistic or narrative horror cliche after the other, (too many to mention), Drakulic providing abysmal narration during an Unsolved Mystery segment that seems as if he is trying to parody said program, and quasi-terrible performances from everyone on screen.  In other words, it spectacularly fails at what it sets out to achieve.  The fact that what it sets out to achieve is just being another low budget piece of lazy found footage nonsense to toss into the heaping pile of such films begs the question of why anyone should care, let alone grant it a viewing in the first place.  It is one of countless examples of people exploring a sub genre without any clue as to what, (rarely in this case), makes that genre work.  Instead, Drakulic, Drumm, and Williams just throw everything that they have seen done in other horror movies, (found footage or otherwise), and see if they can make something stick.  Sadly and annoyingly, nothing does.

2025 Horror Part Nine

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD

Dir - Eli Craig

Overall: MEH

 

In typical modern day slasher movie fashion, Clown in a Cornfield goes out of its way to subvert enough tripe plot points and familiar beats to justify its existence, while at the same time adhering to most of those familiar beats to irk viewers that have long grown tired of this always problematic and always oversaturated sub-genre.  Getting perpetual goofball Eli Craig behind the lens for this adaptation of Adam Cesare's 2020 young adult novel of the same name is to the film's benefit since these movies never need to take themselves seriously, even if parodies of them are as common and formulaic as the straight-faced ones.  Still, it never works to have characters suffering through grounded emotional trauma and having their buddies brutally murdered in front of them while the quips keep flying out of their mouths, but this issue has plagued horror comedies for eons now, to the point where such tonal imbalances are inherent.  As always, slasher fans will enjoy the kills and the silliness, and there is plenty of both here where the good characters are likeable and the bad characters are obnoxious.  The plot serves as an even more idiotic variation, (which is saying something), of 2023's Thanksgiving from that other Eli director Eli Roth, but this one plays it too safe to matter.  It is competent, occasionally insulting, mildly amusing, and ultimately just another slasher comedy that the universe hardly needs.  Plus, can we finally agree that clowns are the laziest "scary" things to put in movies?  OK, maybe clowns AND creepy dolls.

 

GOOD BOY

Dir - Ben Leonberg

Overall: MEH

 

Considering the fact that canines have long been associated with having extrasensory perception, it is a marvel that it has taken so long for a supernatural horror film to come along that is exclusively from a dog's point of view.  Good Boy is the full-length indie debut from filmmaker Ben Leonberg who utilizes his own Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Indy in the lead, a gimmick that mostly works because Indy is an endlessly charismatic and expressive pooch that will make any dog lover jump for joy over his delightful performance.  While the concept is exciting and enough good things cannot be said about its four-legged protagonist, it unfortunately does not warrant even the brisk seventy-three minute running time which begins to overstay its welcome after endless teases towards bumps in the night that stay ambiguous.  This would be fine if Leonberg's scare tactics were less conventionally handled.  He relies on manipulative spooky music, stock nightmare sequences, a tar-covered monster that comes and goes at arbitrary times, some jump scares, and a messy ending that fails to deliver on the minimal amount of story that was presented in the first place.  Plenty still works here as the presentation is refreshing enough to at least create the allusion that such tripe genre elements are more interesting than they are, but if one is to be fair, the film can only be applauded for its ingenious concept and not for the bulk of its execution.

 

STIGMATIZED PROPERTIES 2

Dir - Hideo Nakata

Overall: MEH

 

Director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter/comedian/paranormal expert Tanishi Matsubara follow up their 2020 supernatural real estate collaboration Stigmatized Properties with the apply-titled Stigmatized Properties 2, (Jiko Bukken: Zoku Kowai Madori, Stigmatized Properties: Possession).  It is a typically over ambitions sequel, with a near two-hour running time that goes through not just one, but four different haunted abodes.  This gives it an anthology feel even though we follow Japanese idol Shota Watanabe throughout, portraying a likeable and naive factory worker with aspirations of being a television personality who takes the gig as the new "Stigmatized Properties Guy".  There is little pronounced humor, plus Nakata's scare tactics rely on the now stock J-horror tropes that he helped popularize of long-haired, pale-faced ghosts lingering in the back of shots and occasionally making wide-mouthed scary faces at the camera.  Oddly, these would-be spooky moments are also few and far between, which is disappointing for anyone coming in with meager popcorn-munching expectations since it basically jumps from a different ghost scenario to the next while spending most of its time lingering on Watanabe's unassuming puppy dog nature.  The final act is the most touching and explores the tragic backstory of Watanabe's eventual love interest Miku Hatta, a character who matches our lead's docile sweetness.  It is a shame that nothing funny or creepy happens, (and that Matsubara's script drops some of the most predictable "twists" in recent times), rendering this as over-long and forgettable at best.

2025 Horror Part Eight

V/H/S/HALLOWEEN

Dir - Bryan M. Ferguson/Casper Kelly/Micheline Pitt-Norman/R.H. Norman/Alex Ross Perry/Paco Plaza/Anna Zlokovic

Overall: MEH

 

Another borderline terrible and now annual V/H/S installment drops around its appropriate holiday, V/H/S/Halloween delivering six segments that are linked by trick or treating, missing trick or treaters, more trick or treating, Halloween parties, more trick or treating again, haunted houses (plural), even more trick or treating, and a diet soft drink for some reason.  At this point, the only way to enjoy these films is to have a lobotomy beforehand, since they are shamelessly stupid and aggressively pummel the viewer with the type of horror movie schlock that makes people hate horror movies.  In other words, if you are annoyed by the same lazy tropes being made fun of for the billionth time, steer clear.  There are both expected, (Paco Plaza), and unexpected contributors, (Alex Ross Perry), joining the mayhem, but each vignette adheres to a bloody and tongue in cheek trajectory that never bothers to utilize the found footage gimmick in any plausible fashion.  None of this is new to the series though which has always been inconsistent at best, so at least one can say that the harebrained tone stays on track here.  Besides Casper Kelly's "Fun Size" which is the most egregiously insulting, the rest of the bits are just egregious.  Which in the case of this franchise is actually an improvement.

 

NIGHT OF THE REAPER

Dir - Brandon Christensen

Overall: MEH

 

In the tradition of needlessly convoluted 80s throwback slasher movies that abuse jump scares and feature one smart-ass "twist" after the other until they collapse upon each other, writer/director Brandon Christensen's latest Night of the Reaper is as mediocre as the lot of them.  It is dumb, but it thinks that it is smart, which is part of the fun for those who want to scratch the itch that such genre-adherence provides.  Set in the 1980s because having cell phones in any of the scenarios presented would have easily solved things, (also, nostalgia yo), it opens with a by-the-books babysitter murder where the masked killer possess superhuman agility, foresight, and is seventeen steps ahead of their prey, cutting to a later time where two different story lines eventually collide, both of which are directly linked to said opening kill scene.  The actors are given no choice but to play the material straight, and it is to the movie's advantage that there are no obnoxious caricatures here whose bloody demise we root for.  At the same time, the goofy plot gasps and multitudes of moments that do not pass the ice box test jive poorly with the emotional roller-coaster that our two leads go through.  The details and beats are all familiar to a fault, but the best thing that can be said about the whole affair is that it could have been much worse.

 

THE HOUSEHOLD

Dir - Luke Shaw

Overall: WOOF

 

An overly ambitious full-length debut, The Household from Austrailain filmmaker Luke Shaw is loaded with problems that undermine its acceptable yet barely explored premise of a clandestine cult, (Is there any other kind?), that has been able to kidnap, amputate, and sacrifice victims on the downlow for decades.  The first issue is the two-hour length which is padded with minutes upon minutes of Shaw and his girlfriend filming EVERYTHING even remotely pertaining to their latest documentary venture.  This puts it in the realm of vanity project, not just because the making of their true crime project is nowhere near as interesting as the subject which they are investigating, but also because they are poor actors who never once properly convey the type of panic that their characters should be in as their inquiries deepen.  As far as "stupid people acting stupid in horror movies" tropes go, this one is brimful of them, Shaw in particular portraying a moron who dismisses every disturbing encroachment on his personal life so that he can keep plowing forward with his little movie that could.  His dipshit protagonist also seems to possess supernatural foresight as well as multitudes of cameras since so many angles are covered every time that there is a scene change.  He even manages to cut between professionally shot talking head footage and dodgy handheld footage OF THAT footage for no reason whatsoever, all while near-persistent scary music manipulates the proceedings and detrimentally signifies any would-be frightening image on the horizon.

2025 Horror Part Seven

THE UGLY STEPSISTER
Dir - Emilie Blichfeldt
Overall: GOOD

 

A fairy tale reimagining with plenty of gore and set pieces that are not for the squeamish, Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt's full-length debut The Ugly Stepsister, (Den Stygge Stesøsteren), takes a brutal and purposely absurd look at how destitute wields monsters.  What better way to examine such a concept than to turn the "Cinderella" fable on its ass, switching the focus from the title character's struggle to that of one of her evil stepmother's daughter's.  Lea Myren goes through the ringer in such a role, starting out as the "ugly stepsister" to Thea Sofie Loch Næss' eventual princess, going through an outrageous ordeal that is not limited to barbaric cosmetic surgery, humiliating etiquette classes, and tapeworm swallowing.  By the time that the royal ball is taking place and the Prince is preordained to choose his bride, Myren has undergone a full transformation, not just from a humble and only slightly homely girl with few options to a conventionally stunning debutante, but also to a ruthless byproduct of traumatizing conditioning.  It is a film where even the winners are shown to have some unflattering muck on their resume, (plus the ick factor may be too much for most viewers to stomach), but it has a demented tone and admirable determination to slam home its beauty-obsessed themes.

 

WEAPONS
Dir - Zach Cregger
Overall: GOOD

 

For his follow up to the insulting and ridiculous Barbarian, (one of the worst genre films of 2022), writer/director Zach Cregger thankfully sharpens his focus, crafting something with plenty of absurdity and ambition yet inventive enough to make its desperate attributes work.  Weapons begins as a fairy tale, with a child narrating the premise before we kick into a slow structure that examines one character at a time.  This gives the audience an explanation for each WTF moment that transpires, resetting things so that every layer complements the last one until we get to a fittingly ramped-up conclusion that pushes the tonal tight-wire act as far as it can go.  The film is equal parts unsettling and humorous in this regard, miraculously so at the exact same time more often than not.  While this could be seen a Cregger exhibiting reckless enthusiasm where preposterous things are happening in unassuming suburbia, he is so consistent with this mood melding that one has no choice but to accept it on its own terms.  Performance wise, the heavy hitter cast do commendable work, even when things get jacked up to eleven and they have to participate in ludicrous behavior that, (once again), is as off-putting as it is funny.  Some of Cregger's scare tactics are cheap and idiotic, themes are only present if one stretches for them, and there are a few loose ends scattered about, but its melding of grounded characters, cinematic gimmickry, and strangeness is unique enough to champion.

 

DRACULA: A LOVE TALE

Dir - Luc Besson

Overall: GREAT

 

So many, (too many), Dracula adaptations have come down the pike since the dawn of cinema, but if we are going to have to sit through yet another one, at least it is given substantial tweaks by a filmmaker who admittingly does not like horror films and does not like Dracula.  Enter Lur Besson's Dracula: A Love Tale, easily the most inventive, over the top, divergent, and hilarious reinterpretation of Bram Stoker's well traveled novel in recent memory.  Besson was not inspired by the text so much as he was simply by the desire to work with the perpetually unsettling leading man Caleb Landry Jones again after their 2023 collaboration Dogman.  How they stumbled upon Dracula of all things is anyone's guess, but perhaps it is the quasi-indifference to the source material that wields such wonderful results.  The movie acts as a parody and homage to so many versions that have come before it, (Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster being the most immediate), with Danny Elfman's typically bombastic score recalling just as many recognizable motifs.  Yet innumerable plot tweaks and details like a dance montage through various countries, a perfume that renders women irresistible to the arch blood-sucker's charm, and terrible CGI gargoyles with martial arts skills just scratch the surface of the ridiculous direction that Besson goes for here.  The production design is every bit as grandiose and the pacing every bit as frantic as Coppola's version, but the epic structure is refreshingly ambitious, bouncing between cartoony horror, to absurd melodrama, to tongue in cheek glee.  Jones may not make an ideal Vlad Țepeș on paper, but he is fantastic here, chewing the scenery with a sly bravado that oozes charisma in every one of his frames.  Christoph Waltz meets him just as well on such turf as the Van Helsing stand-in, and overall this represents the only acceptable avenue to go down when bringing something to the screen for the millionth time.