Hunt for the Wilderpeople opens with a young man named Ricky being delivered to a foster home. It’s an uncomfortable situation, to say the least, but his foster mom Bella is a bright light in a very dark time. She lives in a rural part of New Zealand so Ricky has a lot to adjust to. She does everything she can to help Ricky. Hec, a surly old bushman that Bella has known forever is soon introduced and over the course of a journey that encompasses tragedy, misunderstanding, anger, forgiveness, and love, the Wilderpeople comes to life.

I can’t overstate how much I like this movie. Released in 2016, Wilderpeople is another notch on writer/director/producer/all-around-good-guy Taika Waititi’s belt. The man is a brilliant storyteller who excels at buddy movies. This movie is based on the book “Wild Pork and Watercress” by Barry Crump, so I can’t give all the credit to Waititi for coming up with the story but I can’t think of anyone who currently paints meaningful pictures with heart and humor better than he does.

Most of the movie is with Ricky (Julian Dennison) and Hec (Sam Neill) running through the bush of New Zealand so if they had no chemistry, the movie never would have worked. Most people will know Dennison from his foul-mouthed part in Deadpool 2. I can’t remember the last time I’ve watched Neill in a movie but this is a fantastic reminder of how great an actor he is. Together, they challenge each other to be better people without realizing it.

With the perfect mix of drama, comedy, and action, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the movie to watch for any mood you’re in. As a matter of fact you should go watch it right now.

The King of Staten Island is the semi-biographical life story of comedian Pete Davidson. He plays the title role of Scott, a man now in his early twenties whose life was turned upside down after his firefighter father is killed in the line of duty. Scott pretty much stopped growing up at the age of ten and his act of smoking weed all day and claim to want to be a tattoo artist has gotten stale to the rest of his family.

So, Scott is stuck and he’s got a huge chip on his shoulder. When his sister goes off to college, it threatens his status quo–she’s moving into the future and he isn’t. That leaves him at home with his mother and when he does something stupid, she’s had enough and kicks him out of the house. He goes to his on and off again girlfriend (who has her own ambitions) and she’s had enough of him too. This brings Scott to mix with people and a profession he never thought he would.

I like coming of age stories like this and the cast is really good with Marisa Tomei, Bill Burr, and Steve Buscemi. Directed by Judd Apatow there are a bunch of cameos of his friend circle of stand-up comics and actors. It’s a grounded movie that has a lot of heart, which I’m always a fan of. There’s a level of sincerity from Pete Davidson that comes through, especially when he goes on a rant or argues with someone because what’s coming out is what he experienced as a kid and has followed him for his whole life.

While the movie runs a little wrong (Judd Apatow), it’s paced well and the story told is a complete one. I’d say this is more drama than comedy and I think you can dig it even if you don’t like Pete Davidson.

The Witches (2020)- I’ve never read the Roald Dahl and I saw the 1990 adaptation ages ago and can’t remember much of it. The witch designs (super gnarly) are the only images I recognize. That said, The Witches is the story of a young boy and his grandmother duke it out with a coven of witches who are having a convention at a hotel to organize their plan to turn every child into a mouse.

Things you learn: witches hate children more than anything. kids smell like poop to witches, witches have 3 fingers, no toes, and are bald, and Robert Zemeckis turns to CG for everything.

This movie is obviously for children so it’s horror light. There’s a lot of cute stuff, the main boy (who is never given a name) is especially good. He works well with the terrific Octavia Spencer, their family bond is a believable one. The scary images for young kids all come from Anne Hathaway as the Head Witch. She chews up the scenery with glee and when she goes full witch. She’s often front and center of the frame, aggressively talking to the camera with her voice digitally altered for an extra sinister layer. All of her augements are CG special effects, with pointy teeth, a gigantic mouth, and stretchy limbs. That will most likely freak out young children. The rest, nothing there (unless you have a phobia of rats/mice).

The story is very simple. Once it gets to the hotel I think the movie loses some of its interest and a lot is left unexplored. My big gripe is that it’s the Anne Hathaway show. Sure, she’s the boss as the head witch, but the thirty or so other witches that are in the movie, don’t do anything. Dialog for any of the other witches is nearly non-existant. There is a great scene in a grocery store in the first act that looks like it’s going to set up that witch as an important part but she’s relegated to the background after that. You never get to see any personality from any other witch…they don’t do anything.

There is wall to wall CG in this movie. I wouldn’t expect animatronic talking mice for the hero characters in this day and age but more than half the movie takes on a digital sheen. The animation is always fantastic on these SFX but the lighting constantly looks wrong so it sticks out. There’s one part where the hero mice run down the hallway and the camera follows right behind them…turning everything into obvious CG. I think it would have been better to just move the camera around a real set and put the digital artists onto making three CG characters traversing this obstacle course look fantastic. I don’t think there’s anything to gain visually with flying around an obvious CG set that feels disconnected from everything before it.

Obviously this isn’t aimed at me so I’m digging deeper into it than anyone really needs to. It’s a simple morality take and it’s all rather dull, which is the biggest sin. I get a room full of witches and nothing to really show for it.

The Lighthouse– A powerhouse of acting with stars William Defoe and Robert Pattinson combined with visionary direction and cinema production techniques. I can’t think of a movie that is like this one.

The idea is simple but the execution is complex. Set in New England sometime around 1890, Ephrim (Pattinson) gets dropped off to work as Tom’s (Dafoe) new lighthouse assistant for a month. Tom is a veteran at his job throws his seniority around at every turn. He makes Ephraim do all of the never-ending physical labor. It’s very hard work, the weather is terrible, they are isolated from every human being on the planet, Tom is a jerk. All of this builds the madness in both men.

This movie isn’t really a horror movie, but it is disturbing. Shot in black and white, with a narrow aspect ratio (the film is almost a square), this movie looks like it could have come out in the 1950s. I think the best way to describe it is if Orson Welles made an adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe story. It didn’t take long for me to wonder what was real and what wasn’t. You’re with Ephraim most of the time and everything he goes through is miserable so it’s easy to relate and sympathize with him. The same awful monotonous physical labor in an environment that looks like you can never be simultaneously warm and dry. Tom can be an insufferable man who rambles and condescends like he gets paid to do it. It’s impossible to tell how much time is passing and Ephrim witnesses Tom doing weird things at the top of the lighthouse. That damn seagull! The constant foghorn! The crappy food! Surreal and Lovecraftian things start happening to Ephraim. And why the hell won’t Tom let him up the final staircase to where the lightbulb is?

So yeah, this get weird and that makes you question everything. Why is Ephraim here? Is Tom right, is he running from something? What happened to Tom’s last assistant? Is Tom crazy? Is Ephraim going crazy because of Tom? Is anything Tom saying true? It’s almost like a race to see who cracks first.

The Lighthouse lives and dies on its actors. No matter how striking it looks (you have to see it, it’s hard to describe), if the actors aren’t good enough, none of it would be believable and the movie wouldn’t work. Dafoe and Pattinson commit 100% to their roles and it’s remarkable to watch. Their relationship constantly morphs and mutates. Mixed with the misery, there’s actually a lot of humor around it. Ephraim’s hardships stack up like a Three Stooges episode. He lugs a gigantic oil canister to the top of the lighthouse only for Tom to be up there waiting with a handheld oil can. ‘Why did you do that? Just use this, it’s way easier. Now take that backbreaking thing back down, dummy.’ He goes to empty the chamber pots and the mess flies back into his face. He s screams and the film cuts right away to him doing another chore. Pattinson makes this madness feel so real. He honestly wants to be a good and hard worker, respecting Tom’s authority and expertise. But a man has his limits! You can see his mind and spirit crack just by looking at his eyes from scene to scene.

Once time has slipped away and the storms get more frequent (or does it just never go away because of that damn seagull?) the two men drink like there is no tomorrow. It’s the way they bond and really the only other thing they can do for fun. This leads to dancing euphoria and fights, with one going so hilariously far that Tom gets deeply offended at Ephriam for saying he doesn’t like his cooking. ‘What about my lobster? I know you liked the lobster, don’t lie!’

Running an hour and 45 minutes long, I feel like that’s a little too much. Things do get repetitive and it feels like the main points are made soon enough to get to the “how the hell is this going to shake out” ending a little sooner. 6-8 minutes shorter, maybe? I think that’s my only complaint. This is a movie to study with repeat viewings. There are some brilliant shots in this movie and the whole production deserves a deep dive documentary to explain how it was made. There is seriously no other movie out there that looks and operates in multiple genres like The Lighthouse does. It’s not for everyone but this could flip on a few light switches in your head.

Tremors: Shrieker Island– This is the seventh movie in the series and I’ll admit they are guilty pleasures for me. The first is a classic, one of my favorite horror movies. The direct to video sequels range from good to…okay that exists. Each movie tries to bring a new element to the Graboid threat and a change of location for the monsters to rampage around is the easiest change to try and make a sequel stand out.

It’s off to the tropics for Shrieker Island where a wealthy man has bred and genetically modified Graboids for wealthy people to hunt. He puts them on an isolated island, positive he’s got everything under control. When you give a super predator even greater and unknown abilities, you can see where the conflict comes. A scientific team that is doing research on a nearby island notices the problem first and they call in series staple Burt Gummer to help stop the growing catastrophe.

I like the concept for Shrieker Island and it checks all the boxes for a movie like this. It’s not too serious, it’s got a catalog of fun characters and extras who are there to be eaten. This is director Don Michael Paul’s third Tremors movie so he knows the territory well (he’s also co-writer). There are some really nice set pieces and action shots throughout.

Obviously direct to video means a low budget. So that means you can’t do everything you want. When you do see a Graboid or a Shrieker, they look good. The new designs make sense and they look cool and menacing. The animation is generally great and depending on the lighting, the CG looks convincing. They are all CG though, which is very disappointing. And all sorts of stuff is done to cut corners to save on monster budget in favor of explosions. You never see someone get eaten. The first few movies do a way better job of this. Shriekers just tackle people from off-camera and out of frame. Graboids jump out of the ground in slow motion (there are Zach Snyder levels of slo-mo in this, really overdone) and you never see a Graboid pop it’s head out of the ground and send it’s tentacles out to grab someone. That’s the coolest part of these monsters and here, it’s some CG coming out of the water (at least it’s one of the better effects in the movie). The tunneling effect is all wrong too. It’s massive explosions of dirt that never look appropriate. I know they are supposed to be much bigger creatures but it doesn’t make sense.

Two massive faux pas: A dead Graboid is found because it has given birth. This act was introduced way back in Tremors 2: Aftershocks. They built a massive section of the worm to show how “something came out of it!” It looks gross, scary, and cool! I’m pretty sure the Graboid carcass in this movie is a pile of dirt with three sections dug out with a shovel and spray painted orange and yellow. It looks awful. If you didn’t see any of the previous movies, you’d never know what that was supposed to be. It looks so bad I couldn’t believe the characters explaining it to the audience that they knew what it was. Second, a Graboid attacks a bunker (the first Tremors!) and you never see it break through the wall! A massive explosion goes off (seriously, they must have spent a fortune on the explosions) and everyone goes, cool it’s dead. Are you sure it was even in there to get blown up? There’s no payoff. The guts of the Graboids are all wrong too! It’s well established that it’s massive chunks of orange, slimy chicken cutlet like flesh and sticky stuff, not pureed watermelon!

The devil is in the details people! Despite the annoyances, Jon Heder is in this and I will always love Michael Gross as Burt Gummer. This movie also ends with a massive change for fans so it’s a consequential movie in the series.

Apostle– Director Gareth Evans is best known for his action movies. He also directed one of the segments in V/H/S 2 so that set him up well for this horror movie about a cult. To be fair he’s never shied away from blood so he didn’t need a warm-up for where this movie goes.

After Steven’s sister is kidnapped, he tracks her down to an island where an isolated cult calls home. He poses as a potential new member of their religion, which lets him stay on the island so he can find her. The community isn’t doing well. There is a serious food shortage because the ground has gone fallow and the livestock isn’t breeding. When they do, the babies are extremely sick. The leadership of the cult also believes that Steven’s sister is a spy from the mainland and that she came with an accomplice. Once hearing what they think of his sister, Steven knows they are extra nuts, she didn’t come here on her own so where did this story come from? This puts pressure on his rescue mission, they are already suspicious and on the lookout for someone acting odd so he needs to be extra careful. With the leadership of the cult on edge, Steven unearths secrets and the community starts to unravel.

This is a wild movie! Set in Whales in 1905, the scenery and motifs are all well done and believable. The community is convincingly real as the rules and hierarchy are quickly established and you get a good sense of the layout of the land with Steven’s exploration. The strongest element of the movie is Steven being an infiltrator. This immediately gives tension to the movie that never lets up. We quickly see that the rule of law in the community is brutal and swift. Judgment comes from two men of authority who are in a power struggle…forget being an outsider, no one is safe here.

The cast is great with Michael Sheen, Lucy Boynton, Dan Stevens, and Mark Lewis Jones doing most of the heavy lifting. Writing is well done too, it’s convincing early 20th century dialog. There are flare ups of cliches and a couple goofy lines but nothing that I found terribly distracting. I didn’t see the supernatural aspect coming and I think that’s the weakest part of the movie. Not too much is explained and that leads into a odd ending that doesn’t work as well as I’d like.

The whole production is outstanding, with all of the money clearly on the screen. No corners were cut here. Evans is a fantastic director, he knows how to set a scene, use all of a stage, and few know how to handle action better than he does. The practical make-up effects are terrific. Once the mayhem starts, things do not de-escalate. This movie is not for the squeamish.

I’ve had Apostle on my Netflix queue since it came out in 2018. It took me too long to get to it, but better late than never. It’s one of the better movies Netflix has picked up, especially in this genre.

His House– This movie popped up on Netflix in time for the Halloween season out of nowhere and immediately caught traction with audiences. A brilliant concept with fantastic execution, His House is one of my favorites of the year.

Bol and Rial are a refugee couple from South Sudan. They’ve made it to England and after a few months in a halfway house, the government allows them to stay. The two are moved into a run-down home and are given strict rules. Basically, “We’re watching you…behave or you are gone.” Bol and Rial are traumatized not just from the violence they were forced to flee from. Their daughter didn’t survive the journey with them.

Using a haunted house as an allegory for survivor’s guilt, His House is a deep dive into a character study. As Bol and Rial struggle to fit in, they process their trauma differently. Rial is in denial about their daughter and feels trapped and isolated in this foreign place. Bol wants to do everything he can to move on. He’s mourned enough and wants to put the trauma in the past. If they can start a new life in England, what they went through won’t be a pointless tragedy. His guilt turns on him though, making tormenting (and tormented) ghosts appear in their new home.

I’ll leave the description at that, spoiling anything more will take a lot of the power away. His House is a smart and contemporary take on haunted houses. It explores what goes on in society, both private and public. There are forces inside and out of your home and when you don’t feel safe in your own home, are you ever safe? For Bol and Rial, wherever they go, they aren’t wanted. That is scary.

The movie has very few locations which keeps the focus tight and the pace moving. All the money was put into the haunting scenes which are all awesome. Taught, disturbing, and spooky as you can get. The SFX are really well done, this entire movie is really impressive (the editing is a standout). I recognize two of the actors, Matt Smith (a bit part) and Rial is played by Wunmi Mosaku who I just watched as Ruby in Lovecraft Country on HBO. Wunmi is fantastic as is Sope Dirisu as Bol.

His House is director Remi Weekes’ first big project (he wrote it too) and if this any indication, he has a hell of a career in front of him. I’ll be on the lookout for what he does next.

And thus ends Halloween 2020!

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.