By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week week was one for horror, although does it surprise you the new Deadpool is bloodier than the lot of ’em?
389. Deadpool & Wolverine
This Deadpool announces its intentions when he unearths Logan’s skeleton and proceeds to bloodily murder a bunch of foes with it in the film’s opening minutes. Yes, there is no sacred cow to Deadpool, from the desiccated corpse of Fox’s Marvel properties to the Disney mothership herself, and yes, it is very fun. In the end it’s an oddly emotional tribute to those old non-proprietary Marvel movies, as well as the badassery of slo-mo action sequences set to Madonna music. Two Beers.
390. Starve Acre
This British folk horror sees Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark play a couple in mourning who find fear and a form of solace in some occult rituals that permeate the rural English countryside of his childhood home they now reside in. This is a slow-burner, but when it starts moving it really goes some freaky places, with Smith and Clark both delivering different yet equally chilling performances. Two Beers.
391. The Boogeyman
I finally got around to this PG-13 studio horror, having heard good things, but not expecting anything all that mind-blowing. Well, this movie slaps. The implications of violence here shock in ways far bloodier R-rated films only wish they could, and the family relationships underpinning it really make you buy into their survival, amping the stakes. If only they’d made the shitty teen girls a tad less cartoonish, but that’s a small thing in an overall very successful horror flick. Two Beers.
392. Immaculate
Sydney Sweeney got her very own ‘novitiate finds out she’s mysteriously pregnant and yep, that’s probably the Devil’s spawn’ studio horror film here, and while it’s no The First Omen, it’s got its own grippingly macabre imagery and Sweeney is indubitably a star. I don’t know if we need another of these for awhile, but Sweeney’s welcome back to dabble in horror anytime. Three Beers.
393. No One Will Save You
This hook of this horror film is that its star, the always worth watching Kaitlyn Dever, delivers essentially a silent performance. If she says a word, it’s only one or two, which is pretty understandable because she’s alone and trying to survive an alien invasion via subterfuge. Still, I would have dropped a few more f-bombs. Anyway, it’s not altogether successful in the plot department, but it’s a ride and Dever’s worth the watch on her own. Three Beers.
394. Story Ave
Luis Guzman and the on the cusp of a breakout Asante Blackk star as a bus driver who offers the nervous kid who tries to stick him up a place to stay. Really it’s Blackk’s story, and he delivers a star-making performance full of doubt and guilt but also rising confidence and an artist’s perspective on the world. Melvin Gregg also shows some serious range as the opposite potential substitute father figure- an intelligent and talented but utterly embittered graffiti artist an street gang ‘prophet’. Two Beers.
395. Justified: City Primeval
It’s always good to see Raylan Givens again, even if it is in the big city of Detroit this time around, where he finds himself embroiled in the crime spree of another charismatic criminal, this time a sociopath played by Boyd Holbrook who’s got some undeniable verve but an unpredictable violent streak when challenged. I’ll let loose the blasphemy that Justified was never the strongest in the plot department and neither is this, but once again it’s the characters who make it worth your while. Three Beers.
396. In a Violent Nature
This horror has been drawing great notices ever since playing Sundance, even getting some ‘Tobe Hooper meets Terence Malick’-type quotes. While director Chris Nash and DP Pierce Derks’ lensing of pristine Canadian wilderness is awfully pretty, the Malick part is a bit of a stretch. However, the Hooper part I can see, as we follow, camera over-the-shoulder, a Jason-like big undead slasher as he makes quick work of a bunch of young people in the woods with some of the most spectacularly gory methods I’ve seen in some time. It’s an odd but undeniably effective mix- apparently we’re getting another one. Two Beers.
397. The Devil’s Bath
Welcome to the feel-bad movie of the year. Goodnight Mommy‘s Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala tell the based on true historical research story of German women “in the devil’s bath”- deeply, ultimately suicidally depressed. How do you escape your hopeless life without committing suicide, the one unforgiveable offense? Murder someone- children are easiest- and then seek absolution before you are executed, of course. As much an ethnographical film of Medieval Germany as a horror film, it’s still really fucking effective as such as well. Goddamn this one packs a punch. A Toast.
398. Under the Banner of Heaven
While it doesn’t reach the heights of Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book on which it is based, this story of a Mormon detective (Andrew Garfield) investigating the brutal murder of a young woman and her baby daughter walks a similar path. As he learns more about the type of men who would do such a thing and why, he in tandem learns (or faces) truths about the roots of his religion as well. Despite its best intentions, it still feels like an outsider’s perspective (for Mormons and their Paiute heritage partners), but the acting and direction are superb. Two Beers.
399. Humane
There’s another Cronenberg in the family horror business now in Caitlin, and while her interests may not skew as body- and soul-twistingly gory as her father and brother, she’s got plenty of skills on her own. This horror imagines a Climate Change-ravaged world in which we are given no choice but to reduce our population, voluntarily in Canada. A rich scion and his wife volunteer, but after things go sideways a sadistic body collector insists that they must produce the bodies promised, however they feel like doing that. This is a bad people behaving very badly Succession-esque family throwdown, but with actual violence. More conventional than you’d expect when you hear ‘Cronenberg’, but I very much enjoyed it. Two Beers.
400. Our Father, The Devil
This French film needs no supernatural elements to jog its sense of terror. All of the horror is in Marie’s (Babetida Sadjo) conflict-torn past, and it all comes flooding back when a charismatic African Catholic priest with a familiar voice visits the retirement home she cooks for. This kicks off a series of events that give the opportunity for revenge or forgiveness- of him, but more importantly of herself. It’s a damn toss-up where she’ll land, though, or even where she truly wants to. Two Beers.
401. Stopmotion
This creepy little Shudder curiosity stars the always welcome Aisling Franciosi as the daughter of a famed, dying, and rather hard-ass legend in stop-motion animation. She helps her ailing mother finish her final disturbing-looking film, until the hateful old hen ends up in the hospital and she’s free to start making her even more disturbing stop-motion film. She goes zero to crazytown a bit fast for my taste, but there are some lovely nightmarish images here that are likely to leave a mark. Three Beers.
402. Tiger Stripes
Don’t be a bully, or the girl who just got her period might murder you all. Has nobody learned from Carrie? This Malaysian horror from Amanda Nell Eu is fearlessly frank about the unique body horror every young girl undergoes at puberty, as well as how utterly cruel teen girls can be to each other. Unsurprisingly pretty censored when show in its home country, you’ve gotta give props to the chutzpah, even if the special effect ambitions can outstrip this budget’s ability to realize them on occasion (the rest of the camerawork is excellent, however). Three Beers.
