Suspense/Thriller | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Among Us [2017]

2017/08/062017/08/07 Jared Mobarak

“It hurts to look at you” An effective horror keeps you unaware of the danger lurking in the shadows. The less you know about what’s coming the better because you don’t want to end up spending your time guessing how the problem will be solved when you should be experiencing its escalating terror. This means filmmakers won’t be able to rely on jump scares to wake audience members up, a staple in mainstream Hollywood genre fare wanting everything spelled out in lieu of atmospheric tension that builds its mythos as…

FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Most Beautiful Island [2017]

2017/08/052017/10/30 Jared Mobarak

“I’m so tired of the possibilities” It’s easy for Americans to look at a film like Eli Roth‘s Hostel and find themselves afraid of the situation presented as one they could fall prey to if the circumstances arose. We’ve been instilled with that anxiety for decades—the notion that our freedoms at home do not transfer over when traveling abroad. It’s up to you to learn your destination’s customs and to be vigilant about your safety so as not to be the next Michael P. Fay (caned during a 1994 trip…

FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Tiere [Animals] [2017]

2017/08/052017/08/05 Jared Mobarak

“Animals don’t kill themselves” Discovering that screenwriter Jörg Kalt committed suicide before bringing his script Tiere [Animals] to life adds a lot of context to how one deciphers Greg Zglinski‘s film. The director had read it the year before Kalt’s death, lauding it while on a Zurich Film Foundation committee in the hopes of helping secure its finances. Now a decade later, Zglinski’s adaptation graces cinema screens with a perplexing puzzle of emotion and time. We watch its stunningly non-linear plot move back and forth between characters real and imagined,…

REVIEW: Annabelle [2014]

2017/08/03 Jared Mobarak

“Crazy people do crazy things, ma’am” The story of Annabelle—a possessed Raggedy Ann doll from the 1970s—is a part of Lorraine and Ed Warren’s lore as experts in the occult. It along with the Amityville house are what the couple are most known for “combating” and thus easy fodder to provide audiences an entry point into understanding what these demonologists do. That’s why James Wan and company used them as prologues to his The Conjuring series, the former with Part 1 and the latter Part 2. Whereas Amityville already came…

REVIEW: Atomic Blonde [2017]

2017/07/252017/07/27 Jared Mobarak

“This is the game” It’s hard to believe that I was thinking the stylish, punishing action of John Wick was being dismantled upon as its stuntmen-turned-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch deciding to go solo two years ago. Stahelski would helm John Wick 2, the result proving a worthy follow-up both in aesthetic and mythology (with more coming). Rather than join him, Leitch shuffled over to Kurt Johnstad‘s adaptation of Antony Johnston and Sam Hart‘s graphic novel “The Coldest City”—a project he and Stahelski were supposed to migrate towards after…

FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Better Watch Out [2017]

2017/07/202017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“U LEAVE U DIE” It’s Christmas and songs of carolers are in the air of a quaint suburban neighborhood populated by houses big enough to list four bedrooms yet safe enough to not need alarms. Perfectly imperfect families live inside them like the pulls-no-punches Deandra (Virginia Madsen) and affably self-deprecating Robert (Patrick Warburton) showing how love can take and sometimes excel with a little argumentatively sarcastic friction. They may drink and swear, but they’d do anything for twelve-going-on-thirteen year old son Luke (Levi Miller)—and he knows it. A sensitive kid…

FANTASIA17 REVIEW: The Honor Farm [2017]

2017/07/192017/07/22 Jared Mobarak

“Make a choice” If Karen Skloss‘ feature narrative debut The Honor Farm possesses anything it’s an abundance of style. This is a gorgeously shot prom night turned mushroom trip romp of millennial excess caught in the throes of dream. We meet Lucy (Olivia Grace Applegate) walking through the woods in her dress—trees covered in toilet paper and forests of white light and ribbons manifesting a border between danger and safety. The evil (assumedly) arrives in the form of a person adorned by a stag’s head (the eyes blink); her salvation…

FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Replace [2017]

2017/07/162017/07/17 Jared Mobarak

“I thought this was just a painkiller” There’s a captivating science fiction horror concept at the back of director Norbert Keil and co-writer Richard Stanley‘s Replace with the question: how far would you be willing to go for your youth? Do you crave longevity? Vanity? Rebirth? What would you sacrifice for it? Memory? Sanity? Life itself as the past becomes a voluntary casualty of the future? This stuff is ripe for body horror grotesquery, philosophical query, and hubristic intent. And in some respects Keil and Stanley’s film touches upon each…

REVIEW: The Beguiled [1971]

2017/06/28 Jared Mobarak

“Old enough for kisses” If you’ve ever wondered what would happen inside a Confederate girls seminary (boarding school) unwittingly thrust into the position of harboring a wounded Union soldier during the Civil War, Don Siegel‘s The Beguiled seeks to provide some dark answers. Based on Thomas Cullinan‘s novel A Painted Devil and adapted by Albert Maltz and Irene Kamp (despite the use of pseudonyms after Claude Traverse‘s uncredited rewrite), the film focuses on Corporal John McBurney’s (Clint Eastwood) precarious situation. He’s the enemy—a man two students would let die for…

REVIEW: The Book of Henry [2017]

2017/06/202017/06/21 Jared Mobarak

“I want to see the sky” There’s a lot of backlash against director Colin Trevorrow for reasons he didn’t necessarily earn. Most of the vitriol stems from his being scooped up by the Hollywood studio machine after helming just one indie film. That debut was the Sundance award-winning Safety Not Guaranteed, a small-scale sci-fi written by Derek Connolly. Suddenly Trevorrow was vaulted to A-list status—again something he didn’t quite earn—to helm Jurassic World and to takeover Star Wars: Episode IX from another festival darling turned tent-pole director Josh Trank (whose…

REVIEW: 47 Meters Down [2017]

2017/06/132017/06/15 Jared Mobarak

“It’s like you’re going to the zoo only you’re in the cage” There’s this great moment towards the end of 47 Meters Down when a flare ignites to reveal a trio of sharks circling Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt). It’s a beautiful image in its horrific content: warm colors illuminating the cool dark blue hiding these fearsome creatures on the hunt. I mention it because it’s all I’m likely to remember come tomorrow of what’s an otherwise forgettable survival tale built on convenience without a shred of suspense,…