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I’m on the fence about this French horror film. I like the general ideas presented throughout the movie; the actors are very good and the look and feel of the production are high. The way characters interact frequently threw me off though.

Justine shows up on her first day at veterinarian school where her older sister Alexia also attends. She’s a quiet girl, a vegetarian looking to fit into this new environment. When she is pressured to eat meat, she ends up developing a taste for human flesh. Yeah, her freshman year is an intense one.

The first odd thing to me is how buck wild veterinarian school is in France. It’s like a college campus in Florida, with kids partying hard every chance they get and the hazing, which looks like it started generations before based on the chants and songs, is something to behold. It’s like the university’s social life revolves around Greek life without having sororities or fraternities to pledge to. This is all on me as this is just something that doesn’t match my narrow conception of what this kind of school is like. No idea how accurate it is.

The one thing that really made me question things is how Justine and Alexia interact once things start getting wild. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on with Justine even if you don’t know the synopsis of the movie. Alexia gets involved as things escalate but there’s this odd acceptance from Justine that doesn’t make sense to me. There are a few obvious questions she should be asking (You’re oddly ok with this, why? How do you know about this? Why did you do that? Whoa, why are you doing that?) and it’s never asked. Instead of talking, there are just, odd looks and…running away? It really takes me out of it. I kept thinking of all this stuff that should be happening to ground people’s natural reactions instead of things just pushing forward until the end.

That said, I really like the ending. It makes the subtle background info from the start of the movie come full circle into a new light. That’s always fun to see and is good storytelling. There’s some real skin-crawling stuff in here too. The makeup for Justine’s rash is incredibly real and watching her scratch like a maniac makes it impossible not to have your own visceral reaction to it. Violence and gore are pretty minimal, but there is some gruesome stuff shown and it looks very realistic. This will make a lot of people feel very uncomfortable. So despite my misgivings about how the story is told, overall it is a successful horror movie.

Hellhole

This neat little religious horror movie is from Poland. I’ve seen one movie from writer and director Bartosz M. Kowalski a few years ago (also on Netflix) called Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight. That’s a good homage to Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hellhole feels like a more mature and advanced effort from Mr. Kowalski. He’s growing in his craft and I think he’ll be able to make even greater films in the future.

In this macabre tale that takes place in 1987, we follow undercover police agent Marek into a monastery. There have been a lot of disappearances around the area and the rumors and evidence point to the monastery being the hub of it. Apparently, they handle a lot of exorcisms. Anything more than one exorcism once in a while is a lot if you ask me and these guys have blown way past that number only for the women to all die in their soul-saving efforts.

This movie does a really good job of setting up and exploring the mystery. Everything feels off right away and Marek is a great vessel for the audience to go through this nightmare with. He’s easy to like and root for. The atmosphere is fantastic, the oppressive fog of the area practically becomes a character. I like the pace of the movie, there’s a good amount of suspense and psychological horror. This doesn’t rely on violence or gore at all for its scares. In what seems like a big trend for me this Halloween, the ending really won me over. Some of the best direction and visuals are from the last five minutes. Leaves a lasting impression!

The Midnight Club

This is the fourth show from Mike Flanagan for Netflix. I’ve liked them all so far aside from Bly Manor which I got distracted from watching after the first episode and never went back to (it didn’t grab me right away as Hill House did). Midnight Club is based on the book by Christopher Pike and is aimed more at young adults.

The show takes place at a juvenile hospice called Brightcliff. The eight kids all have terminal illnesses and voluntarily decide to go to this facility. They get a lot of leeway in what they get to do and it’s a comfortable place where they are well cared for. Their favorite thing to do is what they call The Midnight Club, where they gather in the library at midnight and tell each other scary stories. They also have a pact; when they die they will try to send a sign from the other side. This show is mostly about facing our mortality, and as these are teenagers, they are forced to deal with this much sooner than anyone should.

While this series is rather slow–Flanagan is never in a rush–I liked it a lot by the end. With a large cast there is a lot going on, hence 10 nearly one-hour-long episodes. The cast is excellent. Diverse and interesting, everyone has unique backgrounds and that is reflected in the stories they tell (the stories are taken from other Pike books). While death and children is already a heavy topic, it wouldn’t be a Flanagan show without the supernatural and cults involved.

I was surprised by how attached I got to a few of the characters, which is what propelled me through the show. It can drag on in places but I think the payoff is worth it. The main cast all get their time so no one is two-dimensional and forgotten about. The supernatural and cult plots propel the mystery of the show while to stories offer up the majority of the scares. There’s a lot of world-building done in this series and a lot isn’t answered at the end. There’s plenty to keep this going, which I hope they get to do. There’s nothing major in the violence and gore department, it’s mostly bump-in-the-dark and spooky threats like monsters and ghosts that bring the disturbing images. This is a very mature show though, the themes are heavy and the topics of fear, regret, hope, faith, and death are well discussed. The teenagers aren’t coddled, they’re respected as intelligent young adults. I really like the tone and messages of this show, it’s really well made.

The Curse of Bridge Hollow

This one is for the kids. Think Hocus Pocus but with fewer witches.

Halloween is a big deal in the town of Bridge Hollow. Everyone is gearing up for the big fair except for Sydney Gordon is mostly concerned about abruptly leaving everything and everyone behind in Brooklyn for this suburb in the woods. Her dad Howard took a new teaching job midsemester at the high school and it’s going to be an adjustment for everyone. Her life gets even more disrupted when she accidentally lets an ancient spirit out of captivity. This specter is on a mission to take over the living realm by bringing all the Halloween decorations to life to use as an army.

This is one of the better family movies I’ve seen in a while! It’s cute and goofy with just a little bit of scary moments (think giant spiders and clowns with big teeth) to keep everyone on their toes. I was really impressed by the VFX, they got a good budget to bring this script to life. The kids are fun, there’s a lot of running around to save the day and the funniest part is that we’ve reached the point where Marlan Waynes can be typecast as the awkward but loveable father.

The Wretched

Ben’s life is a bit of a mess. At 17 years old, his parents are getting divorced. He’s been acting out (there’s a story behind that broken arm) in frustration and good old-fashioned rebellion. His parents have separated and now Ben and his little brother go to live with their dad for the summer. His dad works at the marina and gets him a job there so he’s not going on vacation here. Things start out okay. He makes friends with his co-worker Mallory but he’s got to deal with some hazing from the local kids.

A couple and their two young kids move into the rental next to Ben’s place and they seem cool until Ben notices some odd things around their house. He investigates but doesn’t find anything but he can’t shake the feeling that something is lurking around them. The mother next door then starts acting really sketchy and Ben is put on high alert. Before long, the threat comes out of the shadows, and Ben is left to defend everyone from being taken.

This movie uses the most effective horror movie techniques to great effect. Keep your monster mysterious for as long as you can, giving only glimpses of it. Ratchet up the tension by making the threat slowly move closer to the protagonist in more and more disturbing ways. Isolate the protagonist; when no one believes you, it makes you an easier target. This makes survival feel even more difficult because the idea of help coming to save you goes out the window.

All of this with excellent cinematography and direction make The Wretched a lot of fun, I liked it a lot. There are a lot of nods to classic thriller and horror films that are done really well. The atmosphere is really great, the pacing is basically perfect and the ending is satisfying. Another horror movie with great VFX work that makes the monster look and feel real. There’s not much violence but scenes of body horror are used to get your hair standing on edge. I think it’s kept pretty tasteful. I highly recommend this one.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism

The title pretty much tells you everything you need to know going into the movie. It takes place in the late 80s and is about best friends Abby and Gretchen. It’s filmed basically the same as an 80s horror movie and I think it succeeds in all the important departments.

You have your cliched group of teens, a fun night that goes wrong, and a developing evil presence that pushes the heroine to her limits. This is a really tight script come to life off the page. The entire cast is great, it’s got plenty of creepy moments with great tension build-up and a couple of gross moments for the wow department.

Elise Fisher who plays Abby carries the entire film. Great casting choice because if that character doesn’t work, the movie doesn’t. The friends have believable relationships and there’s a great mixture of good and bad moments between them. Even before the evil shows up, there are problems between them and Abby is the glue that works to keep them together through thick and thin. I laughed quite a few times and when the horror kicks in, those scenes are all really well done.

I think this is a good starter movie to get someone into horror. It’s tame in terms of violence and gore with enough intensity to get your blood pumping. The characters are great hooks to draw you in and keep you engaged long enough to want to see how it ends. I checked this out on a whim and I’m glad I did.

FireStarter (2022)

Everything about this movie is fine. Just fine. And that’s the problem. There’s nothing in this movie that stands out. When the credits rolled, I started to forget what I just watched.

FireStarter is an adaptation of the Stephen King novel. A couple of things were changed to make it different from the book and the 1984 film adaptation to modernize it a bit and to give the actors more room to do their own thing.

As college students, Alex and Vicky enroll in a study involving a hallucinogenic drug. It ends up giving them telekinesis powers. They get married and have a girl named Charlene (Charlie) who inherits these powers and develops her own, pyrokinesis. The couple hides from the organization that did the studies, knowing that they are going to want to take and study Charlie. When Charlie loses control of her powers at school, it notifies the bad guys and the family has to run.

While the book is 40 or so years old there’s nothing in here that feels new or interesting. Everything is rather predictable and if it isn’t predictable, it’s boring. Zac Efron is the big name in this movie and as Alex, he does an admirable job as husband/protector. The whole cast is good in fact, even if their character is rather cliched.

The big plot point of the movie is the effort to keep Charlie secret. They have to stay off the grid so they have no digital devices which make Charlie stand out from her peers. This adds to her stress which more or less leads to her getting discovered. Alex and Vicky are at odds on how much they should tell Charlie, with Vicky wanting to teach her daughter how to control her powers while Alex wants her to suppress and hide them. The odd thing is that it looks like there’s nothing to really teach Charlie. While the origins of her pyrokinesis eventually come out, she figures out how to use them pretty much on her own. She can suddenly change the type of attack (explosion, fireball, direct spontaneous combustion) and target pretty easily. They did teach her some basic things as we see her try to hold back at the start but there’s nothing to her becoming what is essentially an X-Men.

The VFX look good, the direction is fine and the movie moves at a good clip. There’s just nothing engaging about it. It’s like a polite insult. There’s an attempt at getting emotion and points across but in the end, it doesn’t matter and is easy to ignore.

Love and Monsters

I wouldn’t call this a horror movie, but it does have a lot of gigantic monsters in it. So, a monster movie. I’d label it as a fun adventure movie with a lot of charm and character.

Seven years after mankind blasted an asteroid to keep it from hitting Earth and the resulting toxins rained down and mutated all the insects, we find Joel in his underground community. The insects are so dangerous that the few people who survived were forced to go underground and survive in small groups. Joel is the odd man out in his bunker with no significant other. His contributions are fixing HAM radios and cooking what meager food they can scavenge and grow. He freezes up when he gets scared so he’s always told to stay behind when a threat comes for them. After a gigantic bug breaks into the bunker, Joel reassesses his life and decides that making the 85 mile trek to his ex-girlfriend’s community is his only chance at finding a meaningful life. Just surviving isn’t enough. He and Aimee were separated on the day of the end of the world, but he was fortunate enough to find her using the radio he had fixed.

No one thinks he’ll make it.

Joel’s journey is one of discovery, where he finds out more about himself than he ever thought possible. He goes through a lot, threatened by bugs and people. He also meets good people and one awesome dog who teach him what it takes to survive on the surface.

While the concept is far from original, it’s a really well-made movie with a lot of great characters and story beats. The conflicts he gets into are exciting and Joel is a funny character which makes following him around interesting. His story arc is believable and complete, helped by some fantastic VFX that makes this Bug Earth come to life. A surprise movie experience for me.

Antlers

I liked Antlers a lot. I was in the mood for a monster movie and this fit the bill. There are two stars on the bill, Keri Russell who I’ve loved forever, and Jesse Plemons who first made waves on Breaking Bad. They play siblings, Julia, a middle school teacher, and Paul the local Sheriff. As the movie unfolds you find out they had a traumatic childhood and those issues come back when Julia becomes concerned about one of her students, Lucas. First, his behavior is compromised. Julia recognizes a kid who doesn’t go home to a safe environment. Then, the big tell that he’s dealing with something secret is in his disturbing drawings.

Lucas’ father has gotten in trouble. He goes with his dad to do some kind of business with friends, and his dad tells him to stay out of the building, he’s not going to be long. But it turns out he and his friends found something that was meant to be buried forever and he becomes sick. Lucas, who can barely take care of himself because he’s so young, has to manage his father and younger brother on his own. His father is far beyond what medicine can help with.

The Oregon setting is the perfect location for this story as the environment becomes part of the story. The movie looks very good with quality directing. I really liked the weaving of Julia and Paul’s past with the main plot as it felt natural and made Julia a more fleshed-out character. The escalation of dread and horror is spaced out well so when things go really nuts, it feels right. Creepy in all the best ways, I think Antlers is one of the best horror movies I’ve seen recently.

Hellraiser (2022)

This is what a reboot should do. This is a total resurrection for this franchise where only 1 of the 9 sequels is really worth watching. This script goes back to what made the first so wild and intriguing. Put an oblivious character into the path of a sneaky character with the Lemarchand box, and watch what happens.

Riley is a young woman who is crashing with her brother because she’s fallen on hard times. Her addiction(s) have more or less taken over her life. She’s struggling to keep things together and when her boyfriend Trevor offers her a cut for stealing from some unidentified rich people, she takes it because she’s desperate. It looks simple enough as the business has been abandoned and the safe is easy pickings. What’s in the safe isn’t safe though (surprise, it’s a horror movie!). It’s Lemarchand’s puzzle box. The device that invites Pinhead and pals to come take you to hell. Once that first bit of blood activates the box, it’s a slide into insanity.

I think this reboot works the best on the first watch if you know nothing about Hellraiser. Once the puzzle box shows up, you basically know all the rules even though this adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story changes things up. Riley makes a ton of mistakes and it’s easy to think of her as stupid for most of the movie. Because you know what’s going on it gives you advantages she could never have. There’s no reason for her to think that the puzzle box she has is the problem. She’s high when things start getting weird so she doesn’t believe what bits and pieces she remembers seeing. The natural answer to her is, “I’m hallucinating”. And when the first person gets taken, she doesn’t see it happen, they just vanish. Seeing it would have been a bigger tip-off to put things together faster.

But once she does start putting things together, the annoyance with her wanes as she begins to smarten up and works to fix things. There are still some dumb oversights for horror trope reasons (like no one seeing a character taking the box when everyone there would have seen it) but I stayed engaged and was alright about going along with it. Corners are cut when a journal is found that explains everything but I think it works because of the how and why that information was found. And the lore that comes out is cool. Everything that Voight finds out and what he does is satisfying and builds on the original Hellraiser. The arc of mankind’s weakness for temptation and the never-ending yearning for more. Power and greed are dangerous and the evil that exists to exploit and feed off of those aspects is scary. Plus, being manipulated is something everyone is wary of and is a major betrayal. This movie traffics in a lot of sinister emotions that put us on edge.

Speaking of scary, the Cenobites are next level and carry the torch of icon horror figures. Including the Hellpriest, we see six of them. And they all stand out. They are disturbing not in just the way they look but also because they love what they get to do. This movie is drop-dead gorgeous. The visuals are stunning as are the SFX. Tremendous practical effects mixed with CG to blast us off into hellish dimensions. I love the redesigned Pinhead. The classic Doug Bradley version is little more than a guy wearing leather with pins stuck in his face. This Hellpriest played by Jamie Clayton is all carved up and menacing with a wild augmented voice, but is somehow beautiful and graceful. Now that I think about it, I don’t recall ever seeing her walk, so there’s no movement that could be called graceful. She does caress a character’s face but she doesn’t have fingernails so even that is disturbing. Simply standing and observing is terrifying. And the stuff she says you don’t want to hear anyone say. The first full abduction scene legit freaked me out. Phenomenal direction. I haven’t felt that uncomfortable and hoped that this shit better be 100% fantasy since Hostel. As gruesome as this movie gets, there are still aspects of sensuality and erotism that come through. The BDSM motifs aren’t hidden of course. Major credit to the art and design departments of this show. This stuff would make H.R. Giger proud.

I had no idea this was being made until just before the trailer came out a month ago. And like everyone else I’m sure, I thought this would be another one to skip. The trailer was great and the finished product rocks. There is huge potential for a sequel; I hope this team sticks together and makes another one that is even better.