"Final Destination: Bloodlines" - Review

Haunted by nightmares of her grandmother Iris dying horribly, mathematician Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) returns home to clear her head, figure out what it means and try to contact the woman in question for answers. Unfortunately, a series of events shall soon befall the clan, as the mystery peels back like skin on a Cenobite's partner...

The "Final Destination" series has always been a rather silly one, at its best when it embraces the series of cartoonish stunts, improbably intricate deaths and Rube Goldberg machinations of messy mayhem. As a teenager/schoolkid you'd always hear the kids go "oh my God did you watch that movie on Channel 4 last night with the logs?! That was messed up!"
"No way! That bit with the lift!"
And it was always a race to what would be the goriest, stupidest death.
They weren't really for me, but this one manages to nail that series and is probably the best written of the bunch?
The best of the bunch previously was 2: because it had Jonathan Cherry and enjoyed the assignment (the barbed wire death remains one of the funniest) and whilst this movie seems to agree and owes a lot of debts to it (frequent passing of log trucks for the most part), it does its own thing and puts in a lot more effort than it needs to for this sort of assignment, clearly made by people who love the material. That goes a long way in my book. It begins with a very creative, fun little flashback of the entire dream set in the 60s, complete with a mini-story within about just how an obnoxious child is going to die, which perfectly sets the tone for things ahead.
The kills are creative, and peppered with wonderfully unpredictable red herrings (particular highlights are a tattoo parlour and a hospital...), whilst the usual line-up of doomed goons are not your typical horror movie dickbags. Sure, they're not given too much to do, but the family dynamic is pleasant enough, and the makers (directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, and writers Guy Busick from Radio Silence and Lori Evans Taylor who doesn't have a Wikipedia page) weave in a rather solid "reconnecting with one's family" arc for a much needed human touch and some more pitch black humour. A standout is Richard Harmon's "Eric", the eldest cousin who has rightfully been getting praise; but personally the final and only scene of the impeccable Tony Todd was my highlight: the poignancy of his death adding weight to a final farewell and send off, giving me chills in the cinema as I watched it. Farewell king.

"Dangerous Animals" - Review

Across the sunny shores of Australia, drifting vagabond/tourist Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is here to enjoy the waves and the surfs, without a care in the world nor a need for human company. But during her travels, she crosses paths with tour director Tucker (Jai Courtney), and finds out just how dangerous wildlife in Australia truly is...

From the director of "The Loved Ones", Sean Byrne, (a good movie, twisted and sadistic yet a darkly humorous spin on the "teen prom" movie, elightfully old school sleaze. I love it) has followed it up with something in the same vein, but with a twist! I never saw "The Devil's Candy", and I really should - Ethan Embry is great.
Much akin to the very enjoyable "Heretic", a lot of the hype has been marketed around the performance of the villain - here Jai Courtney, finally getting to act rather than being funnelled into thankless Hollywood roles (remember his turns as John McClane's son, Kyle Reese and the villain of "Honest Thief"? Scratch that, remember "Honest Thief"?) and relishing it (though I do like him as Captain Boomerang, one of the few upsides of "Suicide Squid"); rightfully so in this case. Tucker is portrayed with the perfect balance of menace and entertainment value: singing "Baby Shark" and joking around with his victims from one moment, then prone to savagery and horrific violence the next - comparisons (as lazy as they may be) will inevitably be made to Mick Taylor from "Wolf Creek", which are not entirely unfounded, but I find Tucker a fun and relentlessly effective villain here. Good on you, Jai Courtney!
For he is the villain here.
It is a "shark attack" movie, but the sharks are portrayed and shot in honestly a refreshingly ehtereal, awe-inspired light: they feed because there is blood and they find the prey to resemble that which they eat. The frequent wide angle lenses ("fish eyes" if you will, har-har...) show us just how vast the ocean is (fuck the ocean, terifying place) and let them swim with grace, dignity and silky smooth reverance. They are scary creatures, but nothing is more terrifying than mankind: Tucker is a predator with nothing but darkness behind the eyes, comparing himself to sharks but with none of their beauty. I LOVED the scenes where he cruises by in his truck (already shot like a shark in the ocean) and is enraptured by passing young women, who are shot in slow motion as if they are beautiful creatures beneath the waves, prey for him to devour...
His foil is Hassie Harrison's Zephyr, who's bloody excellent in this. Her introduction is my favourite character introduction in recent memory: buying a slushie from a shop, only to tip it outside and reveal the tub of ice cream she had stashed within to keep cool on her way back to her van, showing her guile and cunning and that she's broke and in an unknwon land. She begins as guarded and defensive, a lone wolf (a lone shark if you will...) and gets put through the bloody wringer in this: kudos to Harrison, for this is the first thing I've seen her in and she absolutely nails this. If you do a good horror movie role, you're pretty much set for life in my books (Maika Monroe, Kaya Scodelario, Jocelin Donahue, etc) so I'm very keen to see where Harrison goes here.
The movie is sadistic and incredibly engaging: the narrow escapes and tantalisingly close exits are agonising, in the best kind of way for this genre of movie, and it's fantastic edge-of-your-seat stuff from a guy who knows what he's doing, utterly sold with conviction by committed performers in Harrison and Courtney. It never feels exploitative (there are wonderful touches of humanity like names on a wall, videotapes, and an honestly kind of chilling banality in the evil of showing Tucker do his nighttime routine) or sleazy and leering, and is just a rock solid cat-and-mouse game, of a man with a woman on his hook, who may be more wiley than he thought...
It gets a thumbs up from me!
Haaaaaaaaaaaaa

"Clown in a Cornfield" - Review

The town of Kettle Springs has its secrets, like all towns, and theirs are connected to mascot and friendly lovable neighbourhood clown "Frendo". For recent arrival Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her father/Legal Eagle lookalike Dr Glenn Maybrook (Aaron Abrams), those secrets are going to come out in the open like syrup from a can, or Jacks-in-a-box...

This one comes from director Eli Craig, maker of the excellent "Tucker and Dale VS Evil", based on a book by Adam Cesare, and this kind of thing has been sorely missed. Once commonplace in the 2000s, this sort of niche "horror pisstake" made with love has a rather niche but dedicated audience. Unlike the bloody great "Tucker and Dale", the joke takes a while to settle: for the first 40 minutes or so it's a lame but rather well-made slasher movie very aware that it's lame, a sort of budget "Thanksgiving" (a good double bill to be fair) focusing on a bunch of dickish YouTube "prankster" kids Quinn (an excellently droll, extremely capable Katie Douglas in the first thing I've seen her in, good for her!) meets, and at first the joke is that none of the scares work on them because they are too jaded, which is in itself already pretty funny. But then the central joke about generational divides kicks in, and the red-herrings laid along the tracks are devoured in a conveyer belt of self-aware fun. Some of the jokes are swinging for the cheap seats (there's a good rotary phone gag), but the lowest hanging fruit is sometimes the most delicious: the final act is excellent fun, especially as the kills get better and Eli Craig brings some of that "Tucker and Dale" energy (a pitchfork kill in particular is good, one of the best and funniest since their review of "Rush" by Maneskin) to it all. Yet the movie is at its best when it is developing beyond the cliches and throwbacks of the genre: the characters are jaded to serial killer clowns, for example; and there is an absolutely fantastic reversal of that most crimson of fish in the character of "Rust" (Vincent Muller, also good in this), the hillbilly hunter. If you enjoy "Tucker and Dale VS Evil", "I Sell the Dead", "You're Next", or "Thanksgiving", you'll have fun with this.

"The Ritual" - Review

In 1928, troubled priest in mourning Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) is called into action: a young girl named Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowan) is seemingly possessed, and an exorcism must be performed by veteran priest Theophilius Reisinger (Al Pacino) and Father Steiger is to oversee and monitor.

I forgot I watched this until I went to do the review for "Clown in a Cornfield" and saw the ticket in my wallet. Trite, by the numbers, and incredibly dull.

"Thunderbolts*" - Review

Years after the death of her sister, Russian spy and trained assassin Yelena (Florence Pugh) is now working in wetworks for CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Juia Louis-Dreyfus) across the world, clearing her dirty laundry. Unsatisfied with her work, and longing for something to break her free of this anhedonia, she takes one last job for the troubled director (in hot water over her various operations) to eliminate a thief at one of her facilities. There, she bumps into anti-social misfit woman able to phase through objects Ava (Hannah John-Kamen); grouchy asshole and government backed, scandal-ridden Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell); old friend and fellow assassin "Taskmaster" (Olga Kurylenko) and a lost young man named Bob (Lewis Pullman). Forced to work together when it becomes clear they are being disposed of, the group go on the lam and seek revenge on Fontaine, drawing them into the orbit of washed up Russian supersoldier Alexei "Red Guardian" Shostakov (David Harbour), bionic "dying inside" Congressman and former assassin/supersoldier Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Fontaine's various schemes, a rather dangerous individual, and Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan, forever the best thing about any movie)...

Marvel, the juggernaut studio, have been having a bloody rough time as of late. Underperforming films, a lack of direction, and a death spiral of cannibalising other people's art with this "Multiverse" horseshit (soon to come to an ugly head with the hideous, creatively bankrupt and not-starring Dan Stevens as Dr Doom "Doomsday"), coupled with a recent uncoupling from their wife-beating major arc villain have come together in a brew so noxious that one forgets they were atop the world and are still being imitated and mimicked for their style of fun blockbuster universes.
"Thunderbolts*", against the odds, comes charging out of the gate to remind us why their moves appeal and are fun, and is among their best efforts in years. They've fucking needed it.
Playing to the strengths (a fun ragtag, hodge-podge group of misfits thrust together and forced to work together) and forgoing many of its weaknesses (an over reliance on quips, weak final acts, sloppy finales, and a lack of focus) to forge something which would fit right at home with their earlier and middle efforts. It's rather refreshing just having the movie be "here's a bunch of people, attempting to accomplish a task, and bonding along the way" rather than hopping between timelines and choking to death on bloated references and groundwork for a movie about Grimmo the Taxi Driver or whatever they have going on. On paper it's an ensemble piece, but in practice focuses on Yelena's arc (there's a neat little opening involving a guinea pig in a maze, and some very "West Side Story"-esque overhead shadow shots) and, later, Bob, both of which are excellent. The movie is a fun romp, with excellent details and character bits (I appreciated Walker punching out a character late in the film, very telling and humanizing...) and Harbour's Red Guardian threatens to steal the show as the embarassing dad figure keen on them being a team so he can relive his glory days; but even the underdeveloped characters such as Ava and John get enough to feel real and grounded and have fun with the team. Refreshingly the film takes genuine swings and reaches for themes and ideas, and the final third act is entirely about mental illness and trauma, and (somewhat excellently) has the message of "one cannot cure mental illness, or deny it and despise it, it is a part of one's identity, and you deal with it through love, acceptance and understanding from those who support you and appreciate you." It was good to see.
The more I thought on it the more I liked it, even when it does the usual "fight the big explodey man", it draws back, remembers it is about characters, and rolls with the themes and punches. I appreciated this film and had a good time with it.

"Sinners" - Review

The year is 1932, and during the height of both Prohibition and Jim Crow Laws, wayward twin brothers Smoke (Michael B Jordan) and Stack (Michael B Jordan) Moore return to their home city of Clarkdale, Mississippi, with a bounty of wealth and alcohol from their time with the Chicago Outfit. Intending on setting up their own Blues Bar, they meet up with old friends, including their brilliant Blues-prodigy cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) and Stack's passing ex-girlfriend (with a bone to pick with him) Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), and begin to assemble the dream team for running the joint: legendary Blues musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo, always fantastic); sharecropper and big bouncer Cornbread (Omar Miller); Smoke's superstitious wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku, who I'm happy to see coming a long way since "Moses Jones") for the position of chef; married shopkeepers Grace and Bo Chow (Li Jun Li and Yao) as their in house staff; and the brothers running the day to day affairs - things are coming up roses! But opening night coms around, and a strange guest will bring different worlds together...

Ryan Coogler has, quite rightly, performed some sort of twisted sorcery with the brokering/distribution deal for the film: managing to gain ownership of it after 25 years (a truly fucked up commentary on the state of the film industry as a whole, when one comes to think about it), as well as first cut at profits, in return for allowing Warner Brothers (the norovirus of companies) to distribute. This is fantastic news for the industry as well as Coogler, and a much-needed win for artists.
Also, the film is fucking great, which is a welcome relief and bonus.
Clocking in at just over 2 hours, Coogler's film tells a tale of black identity, grief, "passing" and the spiritual, transformative power and history of black music for the first half; and is such a fun, well observed character/period piece sumptuous with emotion and detail, that when the supernatural elements kick in during the second half and (without spoiling much) it turns into a cross between John Carpenter and a certain Lance Henriksen movie musical, it fels not only seamless but like getting two fun movies for the price of one. I could happily just watch these guys (excellently played by Jordan, though the entire cast are wonderful, and Caton is a hell of a find) simply run a bar; so when the blood starts flying and everything hits the fan, it's beyond cathartic and engaging. The big swings work (musical numbers like a barn-burning and rambunctuous rendition of "Rocky Road to Dublin", playing with time, and even a sweet cameo from a Blues legend at the end to cap it all off), because the characters and the themes do, it's an audcaious and perfectly crafted work. Sterling work from one of the better films allowed to work and have visions today.

"The Surfer" - Review

A man (Nicolas Fucking Cage) moves back to his childhood home in Australia, hoping to buy it and relive his surfing days on a picturesque beach with his son (Finn Little) and ride the waves. Unfortunately a possessive hyper-masculine local big shot named Scally (Julian McMahon) and his insular tribe of toxic lunatics aim to drive away any non-locals from the spot, and a war of wills and ever-spiralling madness escalate as macho meets morality and our surfer loses himself in the outback.

A 70s inspired psychological mind bender (right from the font of the bright yellow font of the opening credits) very much taking a few leaves from the blood and fluid spattered book of "Wake in Fright" as Nicolas Cage is put through the wringer and brought to his lowest depths. It's impeccably made, with sweltering scorching heat and wide angle fish eye lenses as reality distorts, and it morphs into a beast discussing masculinity and the feral, primal urges of onsters which society simply lets happen, and how it gives way to cult like behaviour. It's not for me (and indeed, "Wake in Fright" is the sort of movie I watch once and say "yup, not for me as great as it is!") but has a lot to love. If you're here for the Nic Cage madness/memes, it's relatively restrained in that regard (outside of him force-feeding a man a rat) and instead focuses on a damn good performance from him. The "Straw Dogs"-esque catharsis is never quite there, and it's never as bleak as something like that, but the film works tightly. It could lose the "missing identity, gaslighting into believing you're that other guy" plotline and could honestly have been tighter without it, but works with it regardless.