Dir - Peter Cilella
Overall: GOOD
Most of what transpires in writer/director Peter Cilella's full-length debut Descendant is well done, even as it weaves through topsy-turvy nightmare hallucination tropes that have been frequented many times before in genre cinema. The film's strength primarily lays on the shoulders of its exceptional cast, especially its two leads in Ross Marquand and Sarah Bolger who play a level-headed and likeable young married couple that is expecting their first child. All of the common anxiety that comes with impending parenthood weighs on their relationship even before the psychological turmoil/otherworldly element is introduced, but these anxieties become unmanageable once the story kicks into proper adverse gear. Cilella's dialog is a mixed bag of naturalistic and noticeably scripted, but it along with the top-notch performances slam home the film's central theme of a man and woman dealing with cultural role expectations within a partnership, and how both feel dependent on each other despite their ever-mounting fears of responsibility. As usual, it all goes back to childhood, and there are many moments where Marquand is forced to deal with the understandably traumatic suicide of his father, only in a Jacob's Ladder type way where reality is constantly questioned and terrifying metaphors become tangible.
Dir - Danny Boyle
Overall: MEH
The original creative team of director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland return with 28 Years Later, the third installment in their rage virus zombie apocalypse property. Actually made twenty-three years after the initial film, (eh, close enough), the project lingered in development hell for nearly two decades, making its emergence now as something that fans may rejoice in but will make everyone else thankful that the early 2000s trend of seizure-inducing action scenes are, (at least on paper), behind us. On top of the obnoxious high-octane action choreography, there are also odd zooms, noticeable and terrible CGI, spastic cutaways, and stock footage, but at least Garland's script manages to allow for some sensitive moments where things slow down. This is when the film works best, particularly during a third act revelation that sees Jodie Comer and Alfie Williams' mother and son duo coming to terms with the concept that "everything must die" in a world that has long gone to hell with naked and now bulbous flesh-eaters overstaying their welcome. Like most zombie films though, it offers little of necessity anywhere else, and the franchise's penchant for awful endings is as steadfast as ever, setting up the next installment with some smirking, blonde, kung fu flipping warriors in retro jogging suits. They seem obnoxious already, so if that is where things are heading, hopefully they all die in the opening scene of the next movie and we can get back to whatever skull memorial Buddhist monk shit Ralph Fieness is up to.
Dir - Hugo Keijzer
Overall: MEH
What drives the narrative in Dutch filmmaker Hugo Keijzer's full-length debut The Occupant is a persistent and all-consuming ambition to beat the odds, specifically to cheat death. As a sci-fi bit of survival horror, Ella Balinska's determined protagonist struggles with more than the mysterious rock that she finds in Northern Georgia, more than the unforgiving Eastern Europe winter wilderness that her plane crashes into, and more than the also mysterious man whom she converses with on a two-way radio that claims to be stranded in the same brutal landscape that she is in. Balinska's most prominent adversary is acceptance over what she cannot change no matter how iron-clad her will is to change it. This comes in the form of a close sibling who is dying of cancer back home, and we are given a combination of flashbacks and hallucinations throughout Balinska's ordeal to slam home the fact that every move she makes, her every insistence to never give up is driven by her inability to live in a world without her most cherished love one. It is a strong theme to hinge an hour and forty-four minute movie on, but the otherworldly elements do not seem to belong there, coming off as insignificant compared to a relentless tension that is grounded in palpable tragedy. This leaves the film nowhere to go with is genre angle besides indulging in ambiguous waters, but if that was all stripped away and it had its feet exclusively rooted to the ground, then it would pack a more complete punch.
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