Category Archives: Horror

Bones and All

Bones and All                     4 stars

From director Luca Guadagnino comes a story of two young lovers on a road trip travelling across the country in the 1980’s in a search for purpose. Timothee Chalamet is Lee, reuniting with the Call Me by Your Name director, and Taylor Russell is a teenage girl, Maren in this teenage romance horror as a young pair learning to deal with the secret that they both share. I won’t reveal what that secret is but let’s just say that it involves a lot of blood and they are not vampires. Bones and All is actually based on a young adult novel by the same name where the heat between the two young travelers gradually intensifies as they drive from one rundown  Midwestern town to another. The story is actually reminiscent of Badlands or Natural Born Killers as they commit certain crimes against the unsuspecting victims. We must understand that this is not a matter of choice. It’s just that this is who they are. Maren is on this journey to try to find her birth mother accompanied by a cassette recording from her father and her own birth certificate that reveals her mother’s hometown. She encounters Lee by scent, revealing that they share something in common. Oh, and there is an old man she meets along the way (Mark Rylance of Bridge of Spies) who teaches her some things about their kind. (This has to be the creepiest role of Rylance’s career to date! He plays it perfectly.) He will show up at the most unexpected of times. The well paced movie alternates between slow cinematic scenes of the country and loving interaction to scenes of utter bloody horror. There are also a few single scene roles for some well known actors including Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloe Sevigny, David Gordon Green and Jessica Harper. Despite their acting skills the movie mainly belongs to Taylor Russell who is very believable as the young Maren. Besides 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino is also known for his films Suspiria (also a horror film), and I am Love. This one is probably best meant to be viewed by the strictly horror movie fans. I look forward to his next project, Challengers, starring Zendaya coming in 2023.

Scream VI

Scream VI            3 stars

The sixth installment of the popular Scream series that debuted back in 1996 descends on us in what is referred to as the sequel to the requel. I haven’t seen all of them but I think I know all the rules that have to be followed. There is a series of murders committed by a costumed figure called Ghostface using a large knife that are based on the movie franchise “Stab”. Characters return from previous movies that are apt to become victims of stabbings to come. The potential victims are also potential suspects. Each entry in the series must be more spectacular than the previous one. And there must be numerous nods to other horror classics like Halloween and Friday the 13th. (Also, the murdering tasks are typically shared by more than one Ghostface.) Many of these rules are explained to us thanks to a monologue from Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) where she outlines the whole series to us. The surviving characters from the previous outing in California have all migrated to New York City (minus Sidney Prescott, sorry Neve Campbell) where Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega of Wednesday) is now attending Blackmore University. Older sister Sam (Melissa Barrera of In The Heights), who previously dispatched the Ghostface from last year, followed her here to protect here and shares an apartment with several other young adults. Sam and Tara just happen to be the daughters of Billy Loomis who was the original Ghostface back in the nineties. It doesn’t take long before the bodies start falling with the appearance of Ghostface along with his menacing phone calls. Also appearing is the infamous Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox making her sixth appearance) who is now a news reporter trying to get a story. And Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere of Bring It On: All or Nothing and Amanda Knox) shows up again only this time she is an FBI agent sent here from Atlanta to investigate the murders. Local police detective Bailey (Dermot Mulroney of My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Family Stone) becomes involved in the case after his own daughter becomes one of the victims. Before the killer or killers are revealed there are plenty of tension filled moments featuring confrontations with the masked killer and harrowing escapes, plus plenty of blood from all the stab wounds. Amazingly, some of the victims manage to survive deep knife wounds to the abdomen that should be fatal, leaving them with possible openings to return. But after six entries in this franchise things have probably gotten a little repetitive so it may be time to put Ghostface to rest.

I Saw the TV Glow

I Saw the TV Glow            4 stars

One of the movies featured at Sundance made its way to the theaters so I took in one of the festival’s favorites by watching I Saw the TV Glow. This teen horror about fandom of a cult TV show is the second feature from writer/director Jane Schoenbrun and is unique with its style and presentation. (Her first movie was the horror film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.) It has the potential to be a cult classic and is meant to appeal to young audiences who see themselves as loners and misfits but find comradery in a mysterious TV show. In the movie we meet Owen (Ian Forman), a middle school student who lives with his parents and has no friends at school. One day while accompanying his mom (Danielle Deadwyler of Till and The Harder They Fall) to a voting booth, he spots Maddie (Brigette Lundy-Paine (Bill and Ted Face the Music)), an older girl, also a loner, reading an episode guide for her favorite TV show called The Pink Opaque. Owen has heard of the show before but could never watch it because it is on Saturday evenings after his bedtime. (The movie is set in the nineties before streaming and DVRs, so most TV shows are watched live.) The show is very campy with poor special effects but is popular with young audiences. It is about two teenage girls (actors Helena Howard and Lindsey Jordan) who meet at Sleepaway camp and become friends though they live far apart from one another. They have psychic powers enabling them to communicate with each other. Each episode they fight against the monster of the week that always appears in ridiculous looking costumes. (Think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except on a much lower budget.) The monsters are controlled by a mysterious being called Mr. Melancholy who looks like the moon and is out to destroy the girls. Owen and Maddie aren’t close, (She is gay, and Owen isn’t sure what he is.) but they bond over the show after Owen sneaks over to her house to watch it. Then Maddie provides Owen with VHS tapes of episodes so that he can watch it on his own. A couple of years later Owen is still watching the show but he is then played by Justice Smith (The American Society of Magical Negroes). (In a note of irony, the high school they attend is Void High School (VHS).) It is only then after Owen’s mother passes away, Maddie mysteriously disappears with her TV set on fire in her back yard and The Pink Opaque is cancelled after five seasons, that we get the sense there is more to the TV show than we realized. The teens find that their very lives are intertwined with the show, and they can’t separate their lives from fiction. The neon colors and disturbing images of I Saw the TV Glow are designed to give us a sense of escapism, to get away from reality and not think about the troubles of our lives. Goth style music and dark unkept rooms aid in the nightmarish feel of the whole experience. I Saw the TV Glow may be a new cult movie that today’s Gen Z will relate to for years to come. I would like to see what Schoenbrun will bring us next.

Talk to Me

Talk to Me                          4 stars

Talk to Me from Australian newcomers Danny and Michael Philippou answers the question of what would a group of suburban teenagers do if they found a cursed mummified hand. If you said they would take turns using it to conjure dead spirits at a party while filming it with their iPhones you would be correct. This film which debuted at Sundance is easily the most intriguing horror movie I have seen so far this year. Teenager Mia (Sophie Wilde) who has recently lost her mother goes with her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s little brother Riley (Joe Bird) to a party of friends where the main event is to take turns grasping said cursed hand while strapped into a chair and saying the words “Talk to Me”. At this point the person sees a decaying human body staring back at them. If they can keep their composure they then say the words “I Let You In”, at which point a dead human spirit enters their body causing them to utter some threatening phrases and perhaps thrash about in strange contortions. But care must be taken to make sure the period of possession does not exceed 90 seconds. Sounds like a load of fun, doesn’t it? Mia takes a special interest in the activity when she believes this is a mechanism for her to communicate with her dead mother who died under mysterious circumstances, but something goes wrong resulting in severe injuries to the very young Riley. Naturally things take a dark turn as the teenagers try to find out the story behind the detached hand and Mia pursues ways to contact her dead mother. But there is a question as to whether it is her mother or something more sinister. Are you hooked yet? The movie does an effective job of showing us Mia’s grief (thanks to Miss Wilde) and includes some real mind grabbing special effects. I can also promise you a satisfying ending if you stick it out. The movie premiered at Sundance earlier this year. I saw it in an empty theater and now think it would have been a real blast to have seen it at Sundance with a fun full-size crowd. Look for it in theaters.

A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice      4 stars

For the third time in six years the world’s most famous detective, Hercule Poirot, as portrayed by Kenneth Branagh is on the case to solve another mysterious death. With Branagh again directing, it is after World War II and the world is getting back to normal, with Poirot having become a recluse, quietly retired in Venice. But he can’t stay hidden for long when the renowned American mystery writer Ariadne Oliver (a more subdued yet comical Tina Fey) tracks him down to recruit his services regarding the death of a young woman, Alicia Drake on behalf of her mother, Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). The catch is that Poirot must attend a children’s Halloween Party on All Hallowed Eve in a large, dark decaying house to be followed by a séance where the dead Alicia is to be contacted. In that respect the movie is a departure from the two earlier outings, Murder on the Orient Express and A Death on the Nile. The exotic locations are exchanged for the confined setting of a creaky, mysterious mansion on a stormy, rainy night and there is a distinct focus on the supernatural with odd camera angles and sudden noises happening periodically. The séance is conducted by the famous medium, Mrs. Reynolds (Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh), attended by Poirot, Drake, and Oliver as well as Drake’s housekeeper Olga (Camille Cottin), the doctor who treated Alicia, Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan of Belfast), his 12-year-old son, Leopold (Jude Hill also of Belfast), Poirot’s bodyguard and Mrs. Reynold’s assistant. As you would expect with Hercule Poirot being present, the suspicious séance is followed with one of the participants experiencing a fall which proves fatal. Unable to reach the police, Poirot follows his usual protocol, locking everyone in the mansion, interviewing all the potential suspects one by one until the mystery can be solved. The case is based on one of Agatha Christie’s novels, Halloween Party, but it definitely has a supernatural slant to it with apparitions and strange noises contributing to the mystery. Mystery writer Oliver has another motive it is clear as she wants to find a way to increase her book sales and challenge the great detective’s skepticism of all things spiritual. The film is greatly enhanced by actors Michelle Yeoh, Tina Fey and Camille Cotton, but there is a real treasure in the young Jude Hill who is so excellent as the doctor’s precocious son. Branagh previously cast him in Belfast where he was again the son to Jamie Dornan. It will interesting to see what else awaits this young man. I found A Haunting in Venice to be the best of the three Poirot movies and want to assure viewers that the movie belongs in the world of mystery thrillers and is not a true horror movie. See it while it is still in theaters!

The Exorcist: Believer

The Exorcist: Believer                     2 stars

It’s nearly Halloween, but we don’t have a new Halloween movie to give us an evening of frights like we have in previous years. But David Gordon Green, the director of the new Halloween movies has provided us with The Exorcist: Believer, the sequel to the 1973 phenomenon, The Exorcist (directed by William Friedkin). Those of us who are old enough can remember all the buzz around the original, when Linda Blair’s Regan was possessed by a demon making her vomit pea green soup and spinning her head around. It was even considered to be a contender for the Best Picture Academy Award. The same cannot be said about Believer after fifty years have gone by. This time we have two little girls who have been possessed by demons after the two friends disappear into the woods, reappearing three days later and thirty miles away with no memory of the elapsed time. The two girls, Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) start behaving very strangely after their return, becoming violent and have horrible scars on their bodies. Angela’s very concerned father, Mr. Fielding (Academy Award nominated Leslie Odom, Jr.) seeks out Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn, returning to the role) the mother of the original Regan who wrote a book about her experiences with a demon possessed daughter years before. Fielding becomes a believer that there must be something to this exorcism business, and convinces Katherine’s parents, two very devout evangelicals, that they need to hold an exorcism in order to rescue their daughters from possession. A team of believers is assembled that includes an elderly nurse who had at one time joined a convent (portrayed by the amazing Ann Dowd who can’t be in too many movies), as well as some pastors and one catholic priest. Thus, we have the setup for the present movie where the incantations are recited with the appropriate angry response from the two demons. The trouble is that it all feels like something we have seen so many times before. We have the heavy use of makeup on the two girls, the demonic voices threatening those present, the violent consequences to those that get too close to them (especially to Chris MacNeil) and one spinning head with fatal results. There are several gotcha moments as expected and even though the opening scenes set in Haiti do a good job of setting up the story, it all felt too familiar and staged to be entertaining. I do feel some curiosity into going back and seeing the original after all this time.

Cat Person

Cat Person          3 stars

The movie Cat Person begins with a quote by Margaret Atwood: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” In one scene early in the movie 20-year-old college student, Margot (Emilia Jones of CODA and Fairyland) has a vision of a dog standing over the decapitated body of a fellow dormitory resident. These are early signs that things will not work out well for the movie’s characters. The movie is notable for being based on a New Yorker short story that created a sensation and for one of the most cringeworthy sex scenes ever to appear in cinema. Not having read the short story I can’t comment on it, and I won’t go into the history of the making of Cat Person. (But it did show at Sundance this year.) I can say the movie adaptation is a commentary on the perils of misinterpreted signals between men and women as well the dangers of basing a new relationship primarily on text messaging. The aforementioned sex scene takes place midway through the movie where it is clear that Margot is not into the first date awkward sex with Robert (Nicholas Braun of Succession), the 33-year-old man she met on her job at the local movie theater concession stand that shows revival films and monster movies. The scene is painful to watch as Margot has a conversation with her out of body self in a debate about whether to put a stop to it or just see it through out of pity to the insecure Robert. Prior to the scene we see how conflicted Margot is toward Robert as she alternately pictures Robert at a job, or in therapy sessions with a psychiatrist, but also as a serial killer who might try to murder her! We also see examples of women’s needs to please men such as a musical scene where Margot and her mom (Hope Davis) perform a dance routine to “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” for her stepdad. Fortunately for Margot she has a college roommate in Taylor (Geraldine Viswanathan) who provides the voice of reason telling her how she should handle her situation. Unfortunately I thought, is how the film eventually wanders into all out stalker movie mode in the stunning conclusion. I would have preferred that it stuck with the theme of differing expectations of men vs. women in a new relationship and stayed away from the more horror aspects. On the positive side, as we saw in the movie CODA (for which she received numerous awards), Emilia Jones looks like a major acting talent with a long future. Doctor Who fans can find her in a role on the show in Season seven. The film’s director, Susanna Fogel is also noted as having directed the 2019 hilarious female comedy, Booksmart. See Cat Person if you can tolerate the uncomfortable sex scene and some hateful text messaging.

Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps      3 ½ stars

It was Halloween night, October 31 so what better way to celebrate than to see an old-fashioned creature feature at a local theater nearly full of horror movie fans? I took in a viewing of director, John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, a horror movie set in a suburb in October, leading up to Halloween night. It is a revival of the feminist menstrual horror genre that got its start with Carrie back in 1976. Teenage sisters Brigette (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) are outcasts in their high school, but are close to each other and like to spend their time staging photos of teenage death scenes, a hobby that is useful when you want to cover up a murder. As the film opens, we learn that there is a vicious creature lurking outside that has been attacking and disemboweling the neighborhood dogs. Coincidently, 16-year-old Ginger is experiencing her first period, thus drawing the attention of the creature which claws her badly and bites her. Luckily, the creature, that seems to resemble a large dog is struck and killed by a van driven by Sam, a young greenhouse owner and local pothead. We then see how Ginger is slowly transformed into something foreign, as she starts to sprout hair, and grow claws and a short tail. Younger sister Brigitte is always there to keep Ginger’s secret from Mom and Dad and try to find a solution to the mess, even getting Sam’s help to formulate a cure using his knowledge of lycanthropic folklore and herbal cures. Unfortunately, things get out of control as Ginger must satisfy her appetite for human flesh at the expense of fellow classmates and unlucky school staff members! The film is quite bloody and violent as expected and a little weak on special effects as it was made back in 2000, making a measly $27,000 at the box office. But the writing is good enough to keep viewers in suspense as events spiral out of control but reminding us of the powerful connection between the two siblings. Ginger Snaps is a must for werewolf movie lovers everywhere and is best seen in the company of friends. If that isn’t enough for you, there was also Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning.