Horror Movie Talk

• Clown in a Cornfield Review

  Synopsis A teenage girl named Quinn and her father relocate to Kettle Springs, Missouri for a fresh start after Quinn’s mom dies. Quinn quickly falls in with the ‘wrong crowd’ as a potential serial killer clown targets her and her new friends. Review At first I liked this movie. I was in for the goofy ride, I wanted to play into the corniness (pun intended) and enjoy it, but it very quickly became redundant, vapid, and unfunny. The kills are okay, the premise is whatever, but the jokes miss the mark almost every single time. The acting is good and all of the teenagers are very convincing as gen alpha, but the script severely lacks. I wanted this to be a lot more fun than it actually was. It’s not to say that I didn’t particularly enjoy it, I just got bored at one point and I couldn’t shake the boredom for the rest of the runtime. There is a joke that one of the characters makes about being “stuck in a stupid 80s slasher” and that was just plain offensive, because every 80s slasher I’ve seen is better than this one. It’s not the worst movie ever made, but it’s really nothing special. Shoutout to Kevin Durand though, love to see him pop up in a horror movie. To sum my feelings about this film up in a sentence, this felt like Scooby Doo if it was bad and also rated R. Score 4/10

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  1:17:02
• 28 Years Later Review

  Synopsis 28 Years Later picks up exactly where you think it will: 28 years after the initial rage virus outbreak in the U.K. All these years later, the movie focuses on a small Scottish island off the coast of the quarantined mainland, where the only way to and from is a small causeway that disappears in high tide. This story follows Spike, a twelve year old boy who takes his rite of passage by venturing to the mainland for the first time with his father, to see the virus’s impact for himself, and hopefully kill a few zombies. Review Everything about this film was wholly unexpected for me. Danny Boyle takes us on a journey like no other. Having a child as the main character/focus in a horror movie is not a new plot device, but in this film you really feel for Spike, you see everything in his perspective, you feel his fear, his guilt, his confusion. Everything that Spike is going through feels immensely personal to the viewer, and this is due to incredibly effective storytelling in Alex Garland’s fantastic script and Boyle’s dynamic storytelling.  28 Days Later was such an innovative and harrowing zombie movie, something unlike viewers in 2002 were used to seeing. Boyle shot it on low quality camcorders for the most part and relied heavily on the script, practical effects, and just damn good acting. This film isn’t much different. Although film as a medium has progressed in the last 23 years, 28 Years Later feels so new, so fresh, so unexpectedly radical. The cinematography had me speechless, breathless, on the edge of my seat throughout the entire runtime. It is a masterclass. This film made me feel things that a typical zombie movie does not make me particularly feel. Having the foundation of a good but almost played out antagonist, zombies, and building a house upon that with an exceedingly emotional and moving script, topped with out of this world acting by Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor Johnson, and newcomer Alfie Williams, makes this a perfect film. I’m already planning on going to see it again in theaters. Score 10/10

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  1:18:24
• The Ugly Stepsister Review

  This week we review the dark and twisted retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale in The Ugly Stepsister. Synopsis As the name suggests, The Ugly Stepsister is a retelling of the Cinderella story from the ugly stepsister’s perspective. In this gritty realistic telling, it starts out with the marriage of Cinderella’s father and the revelation that both sides of the marriage are expecting great wealth from each other, but are actually poor. The step mother’s daughter Elvira dreams of marrying the Prince and is given a chance by being invited to his Ball. Her mother, knowing that a advantageous marriage is their only way out of poverty, plans on using her last money and her cunning to transform Elvira into a beauty. What follows is a series of visceral 19th century plastic surgeries, self inflicted illness, and a series of insults that turn Elvira into a pitiable and sympathetic protagonist. Review of The Ugly Stepsister The Ugly Stepsister is clever and a more complex retelling of the fairy tale that we all know and love. It’s a more realistic exploration of the power dynamics of money, privilege, and beauty. It tells two sides of the same fairytale, the original is really about overcoming poverty and class through natural beauty and magical helpers, this telling is about how despite class and access to money, you still need to overcome beauty standards. None of the characters are particularly “good”, including Cinderella. Each has their own motivations, and Elvira is essentially a pawn in her mother’s game.  Max is going to argue that this isn’t a horror movie, but it undeniably is. This movie at its core is a body horror movie. It explores the brutal reshaping of Elvira’s body through mechanical and organic means. She will stop at nothing and sacrifice everything for her goal. I thought it was really well done. It was clever, brutal, and at times even funny. It’s very similar in themes, but much more subtle than The Substance.  Score 9/10

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  1:07:48
• Bring Her Back Review

  Synopsis Bring Her Back follows siblings Andy and Piper as they go into foster care after their father suddenly passes away. They are placed with a woman named Laura, who already has another foster child that seems a little bit off, somehow. As the kids try to stick together to mourn their father, Laura is trying to deal with her own grief in a shocking and disturbing way. Review This movie makes you feel really bad, like really really bad. I think some movies are exceptional at making you feel bad with no reprieve, i.e. Angst (1986), High Tension (2003), Funny Games (1997). But in order to properly achieve a good feel-bad movie, there needs to be some TLC put into the filmmaking and/or the viewer needs to care about the characters, whether they are good or bad people. In this film, I didn’t see much love of the craft put into the style of editing or shooting, and although I hated seeing the kids get hurt in this movie, I didn’t care that much for the characters. Maybe that’s due to minimal backstory, or maybe the script was not connecting for me. That’s not to say this isn’t a good film, per-say, because it is a horror movie unlike I’ve seen in awhile, it makes you feel really bad and it is pretty original while also utilizing tried and true horror tropes. I wanted to cry at the end of this movie. There were a lot of times where I audibly said what the fuck. It’s insane, vile, sad, and creepy but I just can’t say it’s amazing. It’s more shocking than anything, it wants to shock, and shock it did. I kind of want to rate this higher but I was just so baffled by all of it, and by the time something happens I really didn’t want to watch it anymore. I think this may be an evil film. Score 7/10

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  1:59:09
• I Saw the Devil Review

  Today’s episode, voted by our patrons is I Saw the Devil, the Korean revenge thriller/horror film. Synopsis I saw the Devil is a 2010 Korean thriller about Soo-hyeon (Lee Byung-hun), a grieving husband seeking revenge against his wife’s killer (Choi Min-sik). Unlike most revenge films, this one is not about him finding the killer to bring them to justice, it’s about tormenting and psychologically breaking a monstrous serial killer. It helps that the husband is basically Korean James Bond and has accrued plenty of PTO. Review of I Saw the Devil This is legit one of the best thrillers I have ever seen. It’s well written, and it doesn’t waste a minute of it’s 2:24 runtime. It makes me miss the serial killer thrillers of the late nineties and 2000s. As with any thriller, people may argue whether or not it is a horror movie. I ignore these people, because they have too much time on their hands. and this is on letterboxes top 250 horror movies, so that’s something. I will say if you are looking for disturbing and gory imagery, this film has it. I Saw the devil doesn’t shy away from giving us the killer Jang Kyung-chul’s perspective, which can be disturbingly voyeuristic and horrifying in its simplicity. The brutal confrontation scenes with the protagonist being a proto John Wick balances out the film with a sense of catharsis and perverse satisfaction of the killer getting his comeuppance. However, they come at a price. The film asks the viewer “can a man use evil against evil and come out unscathed?” . This is one of those movies that’s so perfect in its concept and construction that it makes me wonder how it hasn’t been done before. It’s deceptively simple, but is actually an impressive balancing act of being disturbing, thrilling, funny, and ultimately satisfying. Score 10/10

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