Dir - Corinna Faith
Overall: WOOF
As the first full-length from writer/director Corinna Faith, The Power is a bold, blatant stab at feminist empowerment that is absolutely destroyed by its own insulting, cliche pandering. In an era where more and more female filmmakers are emerging with intelligent, thought-provoking works, it is a complete shame that crucial themes such as child molestation and the silencing of women's voices in general get tossed up into a thoroughly miserable and obnoxious movie such as this. Faith chooses to consistently undermine her substantial intentions with an incalculable amount of jump scares to the point that this film can qualify as a torture device for people burnt out on them, (which should include every single movie-goer by now). The soundtrack is either blarringly loud or completely silent, with deafening, screechy punctuations happening about ten times more than when actual dialog shows up. Every character save two are shown to be deplorably awful people and the visual presentation is one of comedically overdone bleakness that is meant to be atmospherically creepy. Speaking of laughable, a twist ending literally erupts into more ear-piercing screaming and is just the final jab after a bombardment of over-the-top genre tropes. Faith clearly has something to say here, but unfortunately it is all impossible to hear underneath all the tired, tired noise.
Dir - David Charbonier/Justin Powell
Overall: MEH
Writer/director team David Charbonier and Justin Powell reunite with child actor Ezra Dewey for their considerably sub-par The Boy Behind the Door follow-up The Djinn. Set in 1989 for no other conceivable reason than to justify the throwback, synthwave soundtrack, the movie is hardly brimming with originality. Jump scares are as detrimentally predictable and over-used as in any modern horror film, the supernatural tomfoolery follows no rhyme or reason, and even oddly specific, minor cliches pile up annoyingly like a moody kid not wanting to eat, not knowing how to properly use an asthma inhaler, going for a knife that is just nearly out of reach, and hiding under beds to await yet another "Gotcha!" moment. In setting their story in a single location on a single night with basically Dewey carrying the entire movie on his lonesome, Charbonier and Powell are utilizing a less is more approach that unfortunately wields monotonous results. One particular flashback feels like it is used virtually every fifteen minutes and by the time it delivers as an emotional climax, we are then simply waiting for the inevitable twist to wrap everything up. Done in such a meandering, trope-adherent style, it is about as forgettable as they come.
Dir - S.K. Dale
Overall: MEH
The full-length debut Till Death from director S.K. Dale is a pretty tight and mostly engaging thriller for the most part. Ending its first act properly with a rather alarming curveball, Dale kicks things into high gear and even though he basically plays a one-note game throughout the bulk of the film, the pace is kept up at a considerable cruise. This stops it from becoming monotonous even as the plot seems to be going for a world record as far as close calls are concerned. The story has a unique combination of borderline silly yet still fun nuances, just enough in fact to elevate its rather straightforward production values and overall presentation. Despite the movie's polished and successful attributes, it is unfortunate that Megan Fox is unavoidably stiff in the lead. Whatever cosmetic work the actress has had done to her already picturesque face renders her consistently incapable of emoting and she comes off wooden almost exclusively for this reason. Lacking a more fittingly robust, main performance then, the movie does not quite pack the most effective wallop it otherwise would have. As an exercise in high taut tension though, Dale certainly proves that he has the chops for such a thing.
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