film reviews as long as the films
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THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is as much about what is unspoken as KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Where KILLERS deals with an unspoken murderous racist conspiracy, INNOCENCE explores the unspoken labyrinth of social rules, mores, and traditions in which Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) eventually becomes trapped.
30 October 2023
The film adaptation of Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chain Saws. Unsurprisingly this is much more subtle, clever, and effective than SCREAM (2022).
29 October 2023
Postmodernity and irony requires self-knowledge and it’s very easy for that sense of knowing to come off as smug. That’s the case when SCREAM ironically riffs on the idea of the legacy sequel, the requel, but does so without the core of sincerity that something like THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS or STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS has.
A haunted house story with the vibe of creepypasta, specifically the Backrooms. This has a lot of the DNA of THIS HOUSE HAS PEOPLE IN IT, SLEEP HAS HER HOUSE, and House of Leaves.
Who doesn’t love a movie built around a consistent rule scheme?: GREMLINS, THE PURGE, the Final Destinations. FINAL DESTINATION 5 made me wonder about a hypothetical Final Destination that exploits the internal logic of strictly ordered deaths such that, as long as the person in front of you in the death queue is kept alive, you could do whatever kind of dangerous stuff you wanted.
Despite being a B-movie horror with a terrible script mostly set in a single back garden, I was struck by how much the whole film is elevated by having a well-trained canine actor playing Thor (Primo).
The metaphorical linking of werewolves and menstruation seems so obvious and natural that it’s astonishing in retrospect that I’ve never seen it before, similar to the linking of vampirism and Catholicism in Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass.