Horror Movie Talk

Synopsis

Evy is a popular scary story podcaster recording a new episode from the home of her mother who is lying in hospice upstairs. As she takes care of her dying mother, Evy and her cohost listen to disturbing recordings sent in from an anonymous email. The more they listen to the recordings, the more Evy notices strange happenings in the house.

Review

I wanted to like this movie, but by the mid mark, I was just so bored. This is bad news for the movie, because it seems like it was tailor made for me. Having semi recently cared for a parent in hospice and being the host of a semi successful podcast with an annoying cohost, I was hooked immediately by the premise. I’ll even give credit where credit is due. The movie really does a great job of utilizing the theater of the mind of an audio format. However, it doesn’t pair the audio with anything particularly interesting to look at. I found myself thinking that truly this would have been better in an audio format as the camera Skinamarinked around aimlessly. If there was something interesting to see other than lighting changes for the first half of the movie, they were too subtle for my eyes. And by the time shadowy figures start appearing in the periphery, I was starting to doze off from the repetitive nature of the plot.

I wanted to care more about the protagonist, but we aren’t given enough information about her motivations or history to really care about her. There were so many ripe emotionally fertile situations within the plot of the movie, parent dying, unexpected news, strained relationships, etc. However, when it comes down to it she seems like a cipher for the audience. Just a blank slate.

I guess that might be what the filmmakers were going for, since the semi-stated thesis of the movie was the phenomenon of audio pareidolia, where the brain fills in random noise with recognizable patterns, such as speech. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s enough here to maintain the interest of the audience to have them try to fill in the blank spaces of the film with meaning by themselves.

Score

4/10

Synopsis

You’ve heard the story of Frankenstein’s monster many times. Once just a few months ago in fact. But that is only half the story. Something has long been missing. What we really need is a femininominon. The Bride is about a woman named Ida who is (I think) possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelly. After causing a scene she is pushed down a flight of stairs to her death. Meanwhile our boy Frankenstein’s monster, or as the kids call him, frank, meets with a therapist to talk about his loneliness. Just kidding he goes to a mad scientist and begs for a sexy wife. You can see where this is going. Now resurrected and missing her memory, Ida must make fundamental decisions about her life. Who is she? What is she? Was she really just created to be someone’s wife? And does she even want this life? For all this and more, watch the movie yourself or stick around for the spoilers section. 

Review of The Bride!

It wasn’t too long ago that we were recording an episode about a different take on Frankenstein, and going into the movie I was feeling a little burnt out by the story. I love Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (and by that I mean the book, not the movie that is literally titled Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein). But I am often left wanting when it comes to these movie adaptations. Luckily The Bride is a fairly unique take on the creature and the creates as they struggle in this world together. The movie has a strong emphasis on women’s rights. Based in 1938 we are shown lots of gender inequality in the workplace, as well as some pretty nasty misogyny and sexual harassment and assault of women. All problems that are still very relevant today. I enjoyed watching the Bride attempt to become her own person, while constantly being pulled in different directions from those around her, including the very wacky version of Mary Shelley that lives in her head. 

Score 6/10

Synopsis

Sidney Prescott is now a mother of a teen girl her age during the first film learns that another Ghostface copycat is afoot. When she gets her first call from the killer it’s revealed that it might be an old friend, or perhaps a deepfake. It doesn’t matter, we still get the nostalgia. Then pretty much everything that you expect happens: teens get killed, everyone is suspect, and the killer is finally revealed. You’ve seen one of these before, right?

Review of Scream 7

As with all the Scream movies, this is a competent slasher. It remains visceral and mean, but this one lacks the fun and meta horror movie commentary that the originals had. 

Sidney Prescott as a mother is a compelling character, even if it feels like a bit of a retread of Halloween 2018. Unlike Halloween, Sidney seems like a real person that is trying to move on and raise her daughter. 

The first reveal of the killer is surprising enough and is explained through a semi convincing retconn, but comes too early for it to be trusted completely. So there remains enough doubt as to the killer and especially their accomplice to maintain the whodunnit aspect.

Kevin Williamson, the original writer of Scream and countless other early 2000s classics, directs this episode. His only other directing credit is “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” a forgettable dark comedy thriller in 1999. He does fine here, although most directors could do one of these movies on autopilot. There isn’t much added flair, he just gives you what you want: tension and jumpscares.

Overall, it’s alright, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a good time, but I can’t say that the movie makes a case for more Scream movies.

Score

5/10

Synopsis

In a world full of evil and depravity, hope springs eternal. Against all odds, love is on patrol. That’s right, Psycho Killer is a story about the beautiful love between two hardened cops. But that love is suddenly foiled when Husband Cop gets shot and killed by an infamous serial killer on a satanic rampage. Dead set on capturing Husband Cop’s murderer, Wife Cop (or Widow Cop if you prefer) does various detective work to bring down the psycho killer. But his plans may be bigger than a murder spree. Gates to hell, nuclear devastation, and orgy crashing are just a few things on his to-do list. 

Review of Psycho Killer

Psycho Killer had all the makings of a decent movie. Who doesn’t love a good detective movie about an evil psycho path and Johnny Law’s yearning for justice? But the problem with Psycho Killer is that it fails to go beyond this premise even a little bit. The detective work is boring. There are no big reveals, or any real hurdles to overcome accept for maybe some jurisdiction issues. The killer is a by-the-books satanist trope who kills people in unremarkable ways and smears some blood around. There is an attempt at humor in the midsection with the addition of a more worldly group of satanists, but even that plot point does little for the story. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that the evil plan of the serial killer is at least sort of novel, and I was interested to see how it played out. But I was unable to find myself connected to the story’s protagonist. Unfortunately, the most boring part of the movie is when the wife cop has to actually look for the guy. I wanted to like this, but I just didn’t.

Score 3/10

Synopsis

Iron Lung is about Markiplier in a submarine. That’s the one thing that I can confidently say. there are a lot of other details, but none of them seem as salient. Sure all of the galaxy’s, universe’s(?) suns have gone out, and there are factions of the remaining humans fighting for resources but that is really window dressing on Markiplier being in a submarine. Also, he’s exploring an ocean of blood on some moon.

Now you may ask me Bryce, how could they possibly functions as a society without a sun? How are they making new oxygen? Doesn’t blood congeal or separate or something? how did they fine this moon without light? shut up nerd, Markilpier’s in a sub, now sit back and be scared.

Review or Iron Lung

before i go further, let me answer the main question first, yes this is better than Shelby Oaks. I will say that it’s not as bad as I expected, but i wasn’t blow. away either. The movie is basically all shot in one room, so that limitation let all the energy go into the story and the performance. It dod hold my attention for the most part, but it didn’t deserve a two hour runtime. They could have edited out 40 mins and lose almost nothing.

Markipliers performance was better than expected, but definitely leaned heavily into the melodramatic verging on overacting.

The production design was well done except for the fact that it faithfully replicated the cartoonish UI of the video game, which I felt was a lazy choice.

As far as delivering on suspense it did well. the movie was atmospheric and moody throughout. The ending goes full cosmic horror and feels like a good payoff.

Score

4/10