The directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan is trying to fill her father’s footsteps in this twisty dark film. Dakota Fanning is Mina, a haunted American artist who lives in Ireland, away from her twin sister who tries to get in touch with her, but she ignores. One day her boss from the pet shop asks her to take a parrot to a remote area of Belfast and unbeknownst to Mina, it’s an area that’s notorious for people going missing. When her car stops in the middle of the forest, she has no choice but to try to find help.
In the forest, she meets another group of people who have been missing for several months but haven’t been able to leave the forest. At night, strange creatures haunt the forest and the group tells her they cannot be outside during that time. The bunker they call “The Coop” has a mirrored wall, where the strange creatures they refer to as “The Watchers” spend hours of the night gazing at them.
The movie has a mysterious atmosphere and the cinematography of the forest is very visually captivating. However, the movie loses its charm somewhere along the way when we’re spoonfed exactly what the creatures are and shots of them are shown. Somehow, the film worked best when “The Watchers” were mysterious beings we knew little about.
I can see why this film flopped at the theatres, but it’s okay to watch on streaming for its strong performances (Fanning is excellent) and original twist. It’s currently streaming on MAX.
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Seventeen-year-old Gretchen reluctantly leaves America to live with her father at a resort in the German Alps. Plagued by strange noises and bloody visions, she soon discovers a shocking secret that concerns her own family.
Bonus: Stars Hunter Schafer.
STRANGE DARLING
Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
Bonus: Stars Scream King Kyle Gallner. I will absolutely watch any horror movie that stars him.
TERRIFIER 3
Art the Clown unleashes a night of bloody chaos as the unsuspecting residents of Miles County peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve.
Bonus: I loooove slashers and love that horror finally has a new villain in Art the Clown.
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I have been looking forward to seeing this ever since I saw the first trailer for it. February was a weird month, in the sense that I didn’t make it out to the theatre to see it, but I still wanted to see it. I am surprised that it didn’t gross that much during its theatre run and I can’t exactly figure out why. The stars, Katheryn Newton and Cole Sprouse are very popular amongst the younger generation this was Zelda Williams directorial debut and should’ve sparked some interest, and it was a return to horror for screenwriter Diablo Cody.
The premise of the film is a mixture of 80’s teen films like Weird Science and Return of the Living Dead. Lisa (Kathryn Newton) has recently lost her mother and is dealing with a new stepmom and stepsister when the film opens. The only way she has to cope with the loss of her mother is by tending to the grave of a young man who passed away centuries ago. During a lightning storm, said young man (Cole Sprouse) comes back to life thinking that when Lisa says to him she’d want to join him, that she meant she fancied him, and not that she only wants to join him in death.
Thus, begins the hilarious pursuit of trying to conceal having a zombie-like creature in her room whilst also attempting to put him back together again. Newton’s and Sprouse’s chemistry was very tangible and their funny moments are funny. I think the thing that this film did wrong is that they had too much going on for such a short run time – it had body horror, grief horror, and slasher horror – it was almost like they didn’t know which trope to stick to. I also thought that there were few moments in which the characters connected and for being a teen horror, we barely saw Lisa at school. The pacing was a little off, and the party/drug scene lasted way too long.
But this film had a killer soundtrack and it was an overall fun horror movie. I just wish that they had leaned in more towards the comedy aspect since this wasn’t a movie that leaned into the scary elements.
Check it out if you like feminist horror and monster movies.
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If spending time with your family begins to feel like a drag, then suggest a movie to watch and have everyone settle down to a terrifying horror movie that takes place during Thanksgiving cause sometimes the holidays are just downright scary!
KRISTY (2014)
Violent thugs terrorize a young woman (Haley Bennett) who’s alone on a college campus for Thanksgiving weekend. Ashley Greene plays a chilling pierced villain. Think “Home Alone” but with a lot more violence and gore.
PILGRIM (2019)
A woman invites Pilgrim reenactors to her family’s Thanksgiving celebration in an effort to remind them of their privilege and help them bond with one another.
THANKSGIVING (2023)
For many years this was only a fake trailer shown in Quentin Tarantino’s and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 double feature, Grindhouse. Finally, sixteen years later we get an actual movie by Eli Roth inspired by that trailer. An axe-wielding maniac terrorizes residents of Plymouth, Mass., after a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy. Picking off victims one by one, the seemingly random revenge killings soon become part of a larger, sinister plan.
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When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits with an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill and high-stakes party game — until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.
A new take on possession that’s brutal, unexpected, and highly terrifying! I watched this movie twice within a 12-hrs span.
TOTALLY KILLER
Thirty-five years after the shocking murders of three teens, an infamous killer returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. When 17-year-old Jamie comes face-to-face with the masked maniac, she accidentally time-travels back to 1987. Forced to navigate the unfamiliar culture, Jamie teams up with her teenage mother to take down the psycho once and for all.
This is a mash-up between a slasher and Back to the Future. It’s fun and thrilling, and Kiernan Shipka is always a delight.
NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU
Brynn finds solace within the walls of the home where she grew up until she’s awakened one night by strange noises from unearthly intruders.
Usually, alien invasion films aren’t my cup of tea, but this one was thrilling from the very first scene until the very end. You never have a chance to catch your breath, and Kaitlyn Dever is a powerhouse in a movie that she carries on her own and with barely any dialogue at all.
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Usually, I dedicate this spot to movies or books I’ve viewed/read in the past and how my experience may have changed as an adult. However, this was my first time viewing the movie 54, but I do recall it being very popular (in magazines, apparently NOT at the box office as it cost $13 million but only made $16.8 million). For the time, it had all the hot young stars with Ryan Phillippe starring as Shane (and single-handedly carrying a movie on the power of his pecs), Neve Campbell, Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer, Mike Myers, Heather Matarazzo, and Mark Ruffalo. So that’s a pretty solid cast because these were all very recognizable faces and household names in 1998.
As someone who loves dancing and club culture – I don’t know why at the time I didn’t watch this film other than the fact that it came out during the same time Velvet Goldmine did and that film had a chokehold on me that is still going strong today. But I digress. Studio 54, for any of you (basically all of us) born after the 70s, will not know this, but it was a very popular club that many celebrities went to and was iconic for the whole disco dancing wave that overtook the world at the time. Now, you’d think that a film about club culture and dancing would be a fun experience, right? Well, this is where the film starts derailing into some strange no man’s land of “what is this movie actually about?” We follow Shane (Phillippe) who leaves Jersey one night to go party in NYC and he miraculously gets plucked from a crowd of clubgoers to enter the pearly gates of Studio 54 based solely on his good looks (and we can buy this cause of who is the leading star). This sets the motion for Shane to become a busboy at the club and become friends with a married couple played by Breckin Myer and Salma Hayek. I don’t know what I was expecting but I suppose I was expecting a whole lot of music, a lot of dancing (I know Phillippe is no John Travolta but shouldn’t the lead be expected to dance in a movie about club life? Was I wrong to expect this?). Also, this was the 70s and again (maybe Velvet Goldmine, a movie about the glam rock era of the 70s gave me unrealistic expectations along with Pamela Des Barres many memoir books of that time) but I was expecting way more drug consumption than was depicted and a whole lot of kinky sex.
Instead, what we got was tame sex, bland fictional characters, and the only major shock wave thing that happened was when a clubgoer OD’s whilst the IRS is searching for the owner. I was expecting a more magical experience of this era that so many seem to reminisce with nostalgia. I really wanted to feel the biggest FOMO of my life (as I do whenever I see concertgoers in Velvet Goldmine grab their feather boas and run across London). Instead, I was left with this weird feeling of dodging a bullet in a seedy club (maybe the real one was awesome but the way it was depicted in the film, it didn’t seem like anything special?).
Now it’s said that initially, the director had intended for Shane to be bisexual in the film however, the producer Harvey Weinstein was against it, so any undertones of bisexuality were removed from the film and many scenes were reshot. I did watch the missing scenes, and I feel like it could’ve been a more moving movie in regards to the viewer witnessing Shane’s journey, as well as representing bisexuals on film.
Maybe the original director’s idea for the film would’ve been a lot more fun and poignant had he not had to cut out a lot of scenes which then left the second half of the film feeling a bit disjointed from the beginning. It could’ve been an amazing film about club culture, disco music, and how it was a safe place for gays during a time when no other place was safe. Instead, what we got was a movie that mostly exploited the male lead’s body without really giving us viewers the emotional depth needed for us to care about him.
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Art the Clown is the best horror movie villain to come out in the past ten years. And for us gore-loving slashers fans, he fills in the void where such movies have been less and less to give space to muted quiet horrors. Art is back to bring more terror and carnage and although I don’t know much about the plot for movie three, I am truly anticipating to see it.
BEETLEJUICE 2
This sequel had been rumored for decades, and for the longest time, it seemed like it was just going to remain that, a rumor. But thankfully, Lydia Deetz is back (who isn’t excited to see Winona Ryder in her full goth regalia once again?) with our favorite dirty spirit Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). Jenna Ortega also stars as Lydia’s daughter, and Monica Bellucci is Beetlejuice’s wife. If all of this doesn’t make you excited about this film, I don’t know what will. Personally, I’m looking forward to this sequel and can’t wait to see it.
NIGHT SWIM
This film is based on the 2014 short film of the same name that was about a supernatural night stalker whilst someone is taking a night swim. It was a very effective and interesting short, and I can’t wait to see what a feature-length film will look like for this!
What are some films you’re anticipating for 2024?
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The Idol was supposed to be the show of the summer, but instead, it ended up being a murky mess. The show’s biggest sin wasn’t that it was gross or controversial – but rather that it was overwhelmingly boring. With Sam Levinson at the helm, I figured that it would’ve been interesting, after all, he created Euphoria which is a show I loved – so I decided to go into the show with no preconceived notions or expectations. After watching all the episodes I can say that this show
LONG SCENES
Don’t get me wrong, long scenes can be good when said long scenes are actually INTERESTING and not so boring that you’re looking at your clock wondering why the final episode mostly consisted of a glorified talent show that lasted 45 minutes. Many of the scenes in The Idol were simply too long. The only long scene that I liked and that actually showed characterization and needed to be long was in Episode 2 when Jocelyn is
TRYING TO BE BASIC INSTINCT
From the very first episode, they tried to act as though this series was a modern take on Basic Instinct. The problem is, that in order for a sexual thriller to work, there needs to be chemistry between the characters (sorry but no one would credibly believe that Jocelyn would ever hook up with Tedros in real life) and you need the thriller part and this series lacked both. In the last episode they really tried to lean in on the Basic Instinct part by having Jocelyn dress in a white dress and headscarf combo with sunglasses that looked like it had been swiped from Sharon Stone’s movie closet. But just because you can dress the characters to look like a certain character doesn’t mean you actually pulled off in making the series be sexy or thrilling.
TERRIBLE DIALOGUE
I don’t know about you, but much of the dialogue for this series was seriously subpar. I kept getting pulled out of the series every time people spoke in ways that seemed so cringe. Basically, anything Tedros uttered was eyeroll-worthy or simply made me want to mute the TV. Bad writing overall, and I wish I could overlook bad writing but ever since I’ve been focusing on screenwriting and paying attention to dialogue even more so in series or movies, this is something I simply cannot overlook.
Other issues with the series:
Why wasn’t it set in 2003, when a pop star like Jocelyn would’ve made more sense? Especially her music? We live in a world where Taylor Swift is a megastar, and it makes no sense that someone like Jocelyn would actually be a huge star in today’s current climate.
What’s up with the insta-love between Jocelyn and Tedros? Not to mention that they had her hate him for all of episode 5, to then pull a complete 180 in the last few minutes and call him the “love of her life” in front of her adoring fans. Again, makes no sense whatsoever.
Why wasn’t this series longer? I feel like we needed at least 8 episodes to fully flesh out all the characters and situations they had happen, instead, we got an extremely rushed ending that made ZERO sense.
They had an 85 million budget, and the whole show was shot in 4 locations (the Weeknd’s real house, So-Fi Stadium during the Weeknd’s real gig, Rodeo Drive Valentino shop, and music video lot).
And no, not hating this show because the internet has loved to hate it, but finding it to be extremely disappointing when Sam Levinson has been riding the Euphoria high and this was utterly BORING.
Have you watched the series? What did you think?
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A reunion between two estranged sisters gets cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
Now streaming on MAX.
CLOCK
A woman enrolls in a clinical trial to try and fix her seemingly broken biological clock after friends, family, and society pressures her to have children.
Now streaming on Hulu.
WATCHER
As a serial killer stalks the city, a young actress who just moved to town with her boyfriend notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street.
Now streaming on Shudder.
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“The family that slays together, stays together,” is the motto of the Child’s Play documentary. I watched this several weeks ago, however, wasn’t able to post about it earlier due to March being dedicated to the Women in Horror Month interviews I had planned. I’ve always been a huge fan of killer dolls, ever since I watched the 80’s horror Dolls. Then when I was younger, my mum’s friend had me watch Child’s Play for the very first time, and I became obsessed both with the character of Chucky and the trope of killer dolls.
What sets this documentary apart from other horror documentaries is that you soon start to notice that many of the crew members that began working on the franchise are still working on the franchise and series today. It’s almost as if Chucky has somehow created a big horror family out of Don Mancini’s creation. Even the actors, like Jennifer Tilly who claims to be retired from acting, will make an exception to be on the Chucky series.
The documentary doesn’t explore the new SyFy series, but it doesn’t go in-depth about each film from the franchise, and how Chucky has evolved over the years. It was really interesting to see how the first screenplay came to be and how it has grown as a franchise. If you’re a fan of Chucky, I suggest that you don’t miss this one out. You can currently watch Living with Chucky on Screambox or Blu-Ray.
*Thank you so much to Emma Griffiths & Cinedigm for an early screening of the movie.
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The Inkblotters 