REVIEW: Last Night in Soho [2021]

What’s the most? Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) sees dead people. Or, maybe, she’s crazy. No. She definitely sees dead people. Director Edgar Wright and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns aren’t interested in making Last Night in Soho a commentary on mental illness when they can merely use mental illness as a plot device (Eloise’s mother committed suicide a decade previously after her own journey to London proved too much to bear). That sounds snarkier than it is. Yes, they could have handled the topic better, but I say it simply because it’s true.…

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REVIEW: Lair [2021]

What did we do? Ben Dollarhyde (Oded Fehr) just murdered his wife and son. There’s no refuting it. He admits that his body committed the crime. His mind, however, did not. And while he knows saying that sounds crazy, he cannot stop himself from believing it and subsequently telling a colleague (Corey Johnson‘s Steven Caramore) who might agree. Except Caramore has never been a believer in the supernatural despite the fact he, Dollarhyde, and Ola (Kashif O’Connor) have worked in the paranormal sphere for years. Rather than make a career…

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REVIEW: The Beta Test [2021]

It must be absolutely exhausting pretending to be you. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface of Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe‘s The Beta Test. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s all there right on the surface in an “inside baseball” kind of way, but audiences who aren’t versed in Hollywood or the film industry beyond headline tabloid fodder may find themselves wondering what’s going on since the insight and comedy arrives at very high speeds with zero interest in pumping the brakes. For anyone who’s seen Cummings’ debut…

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REVIEW: Titane [2021]

You think I can’t recognize my own son? It always fascinates me when you hear stories about audacious new films being “unlike anything you’ve ever seen” and “wild enough to cause audience members to faint in their seats” since the ones carrying those labels are often quite tame by comparison. That’s not to say Julia Ducournau‘s latest Titane isn’t without its tensely disturbing moments. Watching Agathe Rousselle slam her face down onto a bathroom sink to break her nose isn’t going to be for the faint of heart, but I…

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REVIEW: Malignant [2021]

It’s time we cut out the cancer. I don’t know about you, but the prologue to James Wan‘s Malignant is so tonally over-the-top that I expected the title screen to fade away and reveal it was a soap opera on the television inside Madison Mitchell’s (Annabelle Wallis) home. Reality, however, provides something different: an earnest decision to stay true to that soapy filter of comically extreme emotions with blatantly obvious reveals punctuated by overwrought music cues. Give Wan and screenwriter Akela Cooper credit for sticking to those guns because the…

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REVIEW: Broadcast Signal Intrusion [2021]

I fixed them all. It’s been almost three years since James’ (Harry Shum Jr.) wife disappeared and he’s yet to wrap his head around the void left behind. He works a video archivist job for a local Chicago television channel, transferring old tapes to DVD while generally falling asleep in the process, and fixes cameras on the side for less money than he probably should be asking. His only real human contact (he and his boss communicate via post-it notes at the recording dock) comes from the support group for…

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REVIEW: Halloween Kills [2021]

None of us are innocent. Ah, the dreaded middle chapter of a trilogy. Can I call Halloween Kills that? Yes. I’m going to regardless of it technically being the third of four since the first is more a prequel to its triptych than a legitimate opening to a quartet. This is especially true considering David Gordon Green‘s latest installment in the franchise cannot exist on its own whereas John Carpenter‘s original Halloween can. It even proves how its predecessor, 2018’s Halloween, can’t stand alone either. This last truth might be…

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REVIEW: Halloween [2018]

Say goodbye to Michael and get over it. If it worked for Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, why shouldn’t it work for Halloween in 2018? Give the original film’s victim of an unexplainable evil the time to prepare to take it down on her own since nobody else is willing to believe her. And since Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) predator didn’t die (1978’s Halloween cliffhanger is dismissed with a couple lines of dialogue pretty much saying Michael Myers was caught and subdued shortly after), she doesn’t have to…

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REVIEW: Halloween [1978]

This isn’t a man. I wish I could go back in time and watch Halloween upon its release because I can’t help being underwhelmed by it. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. On the contrary. John Carpenter‘s horror opus is a very effective thriller that earns its place as an inspirational slasher icon. Its score is unparalleled (and honestly a huge part of the film’s appeal whether fans are cognizant of its impact or not); its use of a lumbering, emotionless boogeyman inspired; and its portrayal of teens grounded despite sex-crazed…

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REVIEW: Arrebato [Rapture] [1979]

Suspended in pure pause. It’s not until heroin is mentioned that Ana Turner (Cecilia Roth) stops and reconsiders the offer to partake by boyfriend José Sirgado (Eusebio Poncela). She’s game for acid and coke, but that stuff causes addiction. It ruins lives. “Not if you don’t take too much,” he says—a line he recently heard from an acquaintance named Pedro (Will More). This guy is a basket case recluse who can barely muster two words while looking creepy in the corner of the room, staring daggers through the back of…

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REVIEW: The Addams Family 2 [2021]

Up and Addams. When Grandma Addams (Bette Midler) says, “Time to make some money” upon waving goodbye to the family as they embark on a cross-country bonding vacation (despite the song lyric proclaiming they are “going global,” that doesn’t happen until the end credits), I laughed because it seemed like a thinly veiled joke on sequels to already rebooted IP generally being made to do exactly that. What I didn’t expect, however, was for there to be an actual advertisement about halfway through courtesy of a Progressive billboard. It’s not…

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