The Hunt (2020)- This movie got slapped with a wave of controversy for its political pitting of liberals vs conservatives in the United States. It was painted as a liberal revenge fantasy where it’s a much more clear takedown of our current political divisions and discourse.

Twelve strangers wake up in a field, are given weapons and suddenly start being shot at. Looking for answers and reasoning, the survivors of the first attack figure that they are all political conservatives and this is “Manorgate.” The rumor that’s been spreading over the internet is real: the liberal elite has created a human hunting program to kill their political and ideological enemies.

This movie takes no time in getting to the action and the point. Not a frame is wasted as it whips through its ideas in about 90 minutes. I like that this movie doesn’t preach, it gives you every hardcore left and right-wing stereotype unapologetically to show how stupid and goofy all of this is. It’s a work of satire that makes fun of everyone with absurdities and it doesn’t take itself seriously. Betty Gilpin as Crystal is the perfect anchor for everyone in the audience. She’s smart, funny, and much to the chagrin of Athena (great name), badass.

The biggest question of the movie is “how and why is this happening?!” gets a great answer at the end. This movie was way more fun than I thought it would be and really well put together. Pretty high on the gore scale and the fight choreography and fight direction are great! It’s insane in a Quentin Tarantino way.

Hansel & Gretel (2020)- Like most movies that have come out this year, Hansel & Gretel came and went without anyone really noticing it. I remember seeing the trailer for this some time ago and it struck me visually so I wanted to see it. Glad I did.

No surprise with the name, this movie is an adaptation of the fairytale. Here, Hansel & Gretel are basically thrown away by their mother and Gretel leads her little brother into the woods looking for work so they can survive. They soon cross paths with The Huntsman, who gives them directions through the woods to a town where they should find work and safety. He does tell them to stick to the path he gives them because if they stray at all, there are wolves all over the place who will attack them. Wolves aren’t the only danger living in the woods…

This cast is very small and they’re all great. Gretel is played by Sophia Lillis who has been getting a lot of big work with projects like the IT movies, the shows Sharp Objects and I Am Not Okay with This. She is fantastic as a big sister and watching her navigate the subtle seduction of the Witch is a harrowing experience. Alice Krige as the Witch is stellar as well. The combination of her performance and prosthetic make-up creates a memorable on-screen presence. Shout out to Jessica De Gouw who plays the young Witch, unfortunately, you don’t get to see much of her. When you do, she’s got some swagger!

The set design and direction really pop in this movie. The Witch’s house is simple, yet highly detailed and all atmosphere. The hidden part of the house that is revealed near the end of the second act is surreal but oddly believable (the dimensions are really weird. It’s a disturbing set even when nothing is happening in it). I don’t know big the budget was but they spent it in all the right places. The special effects sell what they need to and as a PG-13 movie, the scary bits run across a very fine line of creepy/gross and extremes. It would have been pretty easy to make this more explicit in visuals, you see just enough to make our imagination fill in the rest. The final scene with the Witch is completely awesome. Great take on this story, this movie turned out to be a spooky surprise!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark– Based on the collection of short horror stories for children (!) by Alvin Schwartz, SSTD is a really fun monster movie. Set in 1968, Stella and her friends (and the new guy) accidentally wake up a malevolent spirit on Halloween. The race is on to save their lives.

Executive Produced by my man Guillermo del Toro, there’s a lot to like in this movie. It’s rated PG-13 and pushes that rating to the edge. There’s no intense violence or gore, but the monsters in this movie do not take their jobs lightly.

The set up is the basic material for unleashing an evil spirit, but everything else around the movie is really well done. The acting gets better as the movie goes on, the direction, cinematography, and special effects are always beautiful. The monsters (there are 6) are all stand out page to screen adaptations (except for Jangley Man, he’s a hybrid of a few monsters). Creepy, imposing, gross, everything you could want in 95% practical movie monsters played by people under a ton of prosthetics. The soundtrack is on point too. I think this is a great gateway movie for people to work up to the more intense and “adult” horror movies. It’s like the Fear Street series of books for horror–you start with R.L Stine and go to Stephen King. You go from this movie to John Carpenter’s The Thing. I think I liked this more than IT Part 2.

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight– This is a Polish take on Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It does some things well and some things…alright. The set up to get the kids isolated in the woods is that they are all addicted to technology. They are all sent to this camp to “detox” and it doesn’t take long for the freak show hidden in the woods to swing by.

NSWT is a clear homage to a lot of 80s slasher movies. As such, it doesn’t do anything new or terribly interesting. There’s enough back story (given by a random dude who lives in the woods because that’s just what he does) to flesh out the villains and the cast is bumped off one by one through various pointy objects.

In terms of horror, the body count is pretty high. No innovative kills and the movie is edited mostly around showing any violence. If that’s due to ratings or budget, I don’t know. In elaborate deaths, such as someone getting cut in half, all you see is gore hitting the ground, or a death happens off-screen and a character turns around to suddenly see the aftermath. There are two or three explicit shots (one with a tongue) that are shown very fast that go for a hard R rating. With the lineage this movie is aiming for, I found it disappointing to see this edited like the MPAA of 1985 was back in full force. The prosthetic effects are well done though. The design done on the villains is extremely elaborate. The work on the bodies is a real stand out but the problem is that their faces are so bloated and scrunched (for some reason they are gigantic men, it can’t be fro what they are eating, I guess the implication is the infection or whatever it is), they have no articulation in them and it makes the characters look like a guy wearing a rubber mask. It takes away a lot of the intimidation when your murders look like inflated Cabbage Patch dolls.

Another disappointment is it’s not scary at all. Suspense is lacking too, which was surprising. The director tries but I think everything that happens is all too predictable. There is one standout scene in a cellar with the two main characters. Everything clicks there. The set up is great, the horror of it all works the best (some great practical effects work), the acting is terrific and it’s where a great hero turn happens.

I don’t want to sound so negative about this because I admire all of the hard work the filmmakers put into it. It’s clear they love the genre. I just think that it comes off as the side of 80s slasher movies they wanted to avoid: a copy cat movie that doesn’t stand on its own original ideas and is easy to forget.