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FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Mad God [2022]

2021/08/212022/03/30 Jared Mobarak

The Mad God of the film’s title is writer/director/animator Phil Tippett and the sheer audacity of him manufacturing an 80-minute opus of grotesquery sprung from a passage by Leviticus that would ultimately need thirty years to complete. His original footage went before cameras during the late 80s and early 90s—around the time he was working on Robocop 2—before he let the concept fade away once computer graphics (thanks to Jurassic Park, which he won an Oscar for) began taking over the special effects industry. It wasn’t until the 2010s that…

REVIEW: Candyman [1992]

2021/08/192021/08/20 Jared Mobarak

Sweets to the sweet. An urban legend ghost such as Candyman (Tony Todd) doesn’t care about anyone besides those willing to keep his memory alive. His purpose in death is to be remembered through blood—turning his heinous fate from the late nineteenth century into a curse that haunts others into being too scared to naively follow in his own footsteps where it comes to the belief that someone who looks like him can escape the prejudice that targets the color of his skin. So when Chicago grad students Helen Lyle…

TIFF21 REVIEW: A Banquet [2022]

2021/08/192021/10/19 Jared Mobarak

What if this is just me now? It’s a question we ask throughout the duration of our lives: What’s the point? Maybe you say those words in search of meaning where humanity as a species is concerned. Maybe it’s to find purpose as an individual when nothing seems to be going right. Jason (Richard Keep) wonders what the point of surviving is when his fate has already been sealed. His wife Holly (Sienna Guillory) is being forced into the role of caretaker while also wading through the reality that she’s…

REVIEW: Maniac [1981]

2021/08/162021/08/16 Jared Mobarak

You’re so pretty. We’ve already seen Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) kill five people by the time Anna D’Antoni’s (Caroline Munro) viewfinder catches him in Central Park. Her photographer is simply taking shots at random to the point where she eventually walks off after another subject, leaving her bag unattended under a tree. Frank meanders over, pretends to tie his shoe, and takes a glimpse at the address tag to pay her a visit later. It makes sense. He’s the serial killer every front page is talking about. He can’t have…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: When I Consume You [2022]

2021/08/162022/06/06 Jared Mobarak

I’m taking a lot of deep breaths. Daphne (Libby Ewing) and Wilson Shaw (Evan Dumouchel) didn’t really have anyone growing up besides themselves and the same could be said now too. They cut out their parents years ago and did their best to dig out from under the trauma they endured, but it almost came crashing down five years ago courtesy of the former’s long-lasting drug addiction. They got through it, though. Together. And they have hope again thanks to Daphne’s dream of adopting a child to love like they…

REVIEW: The Girl Who Got Away [2021]

2021/08/142021/08/20 Jared Mobarak

I’m all she thinks about. Christina Bowden (Lexi Johnson) is an Elementary school teacher with aspirations to adopt. The paperwork is filed, the young teen (Willow McCarthy‘s Lisa) targeted is on-board, and it seems the last remnants of Christina’s volatile past have been repurposed for good. Kidnapped and raised in a shack by her captor (Kaye Tuckerman‘s Elizabeth Caulfield), fate somehow allowed her the second chance her four “sisters” tragically never received. She wants to therefore be a lightning rod for change in the community by using that experience from…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Hotel Poseidon [2021]

2021/08/132021/08/15 Jared Mobarak

A way towards tomorrow. I’m not sure what I just saw. Was it surreal comedy in a setting that exudes sympathy puke aura? Was it a nightmarish horror sending us down a chaotic rabbit hole of insecurities, hopes, and inferiority? Perhaps a little of both? Either way, Stefan Lernous‘ Hotel Poseidon throws any semblance of a narrative out the window with an opening scene that does nothing but rotate around the lobby of this derelict establishment to supply an ingenious title-card explaining the film’s true star: its locale. The lights…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: The Righteous [2021]

2021/08/132022/05/03 Jared Mobarak

Be careful what you wish for. But be certain what you pray for. When Frederic Mason (Henry Czerny) is asked whether God or the Devil scares him more, his response is swift. No matter how much damage Satan may inflict, only God can supply salvation and take it away to leave you knowing what you lost. It’s the shame from acknowledging your pain is the result of your own actions rather than a fallen angel that hurts most. And Frederic won’t allow himself to risk it again. He did once…

REVIEW: Demonic [2021]

2021/08/112021/08/17 Jared Mobarak

It means it’s coming for ya. Carly (Carly Pope) hasn’t seen her mother (Nathalie Boltt‘s Angela) in two decades—if you don’t count the nightmares. Writer/director Neill Blomkamp brings us into his latest film Demonic through one such dream pitting daughter against mother inside an abandoned sanitarium with the latter calling out for the former’s help. Rather than conclude with a heartfelt reunion that’s yet to happen in the real world, Carly finds herself startled awake from the flames created by her mom tossing a lighter into the pool of gasoline…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: The Last Thing Mary Saw [2022]

2021/08/092022/01/12 Jared Mobarak

God creates enemies in order to perform His good. The line between God and Satan is almost non-existent when you really think about it considering they are two sides of the same coin. The former might be worse in the long run too since He not only created the latter, but also sits by while His followers use the Devil as their excuse to commit heinous crimes. God-fearing men and women have spent millennia declaring Satan’s influence as the reason they must cleanse the world of evil without ever having…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: What Josiah Saw [2022]

2021/08/072022/07/12 Jared Mobarak

Never seen a boy so lost. Josiah Graham (Robert Patrick) doesn’t believe in God. To look at him and witness his actions is enough to know this truth, but his words have never been afraid to ensure those sentiments prove undeniable anyway. So he smirks when his youngest son dares to say grace before their latest meal. He starts telling a fantastical story about a dancing leprechaun that he saw outside his window that morning. Tommy (Scott Haze) laughs—both because it’s a humorous anecdote told in humorous fashion and because…