Dir - Alice Lowe
Overall: MEH
Tones clash rather wildly in Alice Lowe's directorial debut Prevenge, a film whose pun title itself gives away its premise. As a comedy, the movie is fine not only in being funny just on paper, but in a number of pretty amusing scenes, the best of which involves a visit to Game of Throne's Gemma Whelan's flat, (other GOT alumni and The Witch actress Kate Dickie also makes an appearance). The problem with Prevenge is a frequent one though. Lowe, (who also wrote and stars in the lead whilst real life pregnant during filming), dips her toes into serious drama involving her severely grieving title character, but this conflicts with the comedy quite a bit. It is another case of trying to be a dramatic character study while having as many laugh out loud, borderline slapstick moments as possible. All the while, it gets bloody and nasty a fair amount of the time, fully deserving of its horror genre tag. One cannot argue that the movie is not enjoyable though. It moves at a brisk pace and even though the combination of its elements are contradictory to a fault, they are pleasing enough on their own.
Dir - Julia Ducournau
Overall: GOOD
In the last two decades, France has been responsible for a large number of repugnant, bottom-barrel horror films in the form of the New French Extremity movement and on a surface level, Raw appears to fit into this deplorable sub-genre. Thankfully though, that is only how it appears as Raw very thankfully removes itself from something purely disturbing and torturous to watch for the ridiculous sake of it. Writer/director Julia Ducournau has certainly crafted something uncomfortable with plenty to flinch away from yes, but there are some intelligent themes being explored that can almost be looked upon as being profound. Vegetarianism, peer pressure, and sexual awakening are some of the things transmuted here and Ducournau wisely keeps most of the information somewhat vague and ultimately rather unimportant. This is because at its core, Raw is mostly an exploration of its subject matter far more than being just a straightforward narrative. The cast is particularly strong as well and many would probably agree that Garance Marillier, (a teenager at the time of shooting), is the most exceptional as Justine with Ella Rumpf trailing close behind as her just-as-wacky sister Alexia. If more films with gross-out visual elements went to the lengths that this one does to actually make their distressing nature meaningful, then the whole of French horror cinema could certainly benefit.
Dir - Greg McLean
Overall: MEH
Ruined in part due to the trailer showing virtually every last detail that happens, The Belko Experiment does not really offer much in the way of suspense once you know what it is about. Written by James Gunn early on in his career but shelved for a number of years, Wolf Creek and Rogue director Greg McLean ultimately took it on and the result is pretty straight-forward and textbook. Gunn's script sprinkles humor pretty leisurely around, (naturally), but the balance between disturbing subject matter and what the audience is meant to chuckle at to ease the tension is kind of hit or miss, depending. Performance-wise, everyone is pretty on point and everything is probably dealt with as reasonably as possible given the character's hopelessly dire circumstances. That said, all of the characters are underwritten, some jarringly so. A movie as tense as this is really building up to a satisfying climax though and that is definitely not what we get. Not to spoil it further, but the final line in the movie is more embarrassing than cool and the point of everything is left frustratingly barren. It is a formulaic conclusion and rather one-note for the near hour and a half proceeding it.
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