mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2024-04-12 07:43 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2024-04-12 07:43 pm
Entry tags:
Some recent horror movies!
After what felt like a complete dearth of horror movies for the last few months, we finally got back to going to movies on cheap ticket day. (For three weeks in a row, even!) I know there were some horror movies that came out in the last few months, but either they were ones that didn't interest us, or weren't playing on the weeks we were interested. Didn't realize that we'd gone almost five months without going to see a movie!
Possible minor spoilers in my thoughts, but no major ones. I tried to keep it about to what you'd get from a trailer.
Two weeks ago we went to see Imaginary, which was... pretty decent.
Our main character, Jessica, moves back into her childhood home after her semi-estranged father is moved into long-term care. She hopes this fresh start will provide a chance to bond with her new step-children, younger Alice, and standoffish teenager Taylor. She also hopes to conquer her unexplained nightmares and to reinvigorate her slumping art career as a children's book author/illustrator.
Alice finds an old toy in the basement, and begins to bond with it as an imaginary friend, until that "friendship" begins to take a much darker turn. Ultimately, Jessica recalls that she too had an imaginary friend in the house as a child, though she'd repressed those memories. It seems that this "imaginary friend" was an entity that felt abandoned by Jessica, and has now returned for her step-daughter.
The good:
- The character and actress for Alice (Pyper Braun) was one of the best horror movie kids I've seen in a long time. The writing and her acting both really captured how funny and weird little kids can be, and the ways it can come across as creepy, but in a way that felt really natural. They also did a great job of making her seem like a believable child, rather than a perpetual toddler or an adult in a kid's body.
- There were some pretty fun practical effects, and a few good creepy bits.
- Basically everything about the film was solid. The acting, the cinematography, the effects, etc.
The meh:
- It didn't do a lot that was NEW.
- It felt like a script that started off as a pitch for the Insidious franchise and then was reworked into something else. (Instead of "The Further", the surreal astral plane that the ghosts/demons/entities bring living souls to in Insidious, this one has "The Never Ever", a surreal alternate dimension formed by entities that act as "imaginary friends" where they sometimes bring the children they've attached to.)
- And on the originality scale: Oh, you have a protagonist who wants to Move To A New House to Get A Fresh Start For The Family and in order to Save A Slumping Creative Career and then Something Bad And Supernatural Happens, Related To The Protagonist's Personal History? No way! I would never have considered that plotline!
- The main character's new husband felt somewhat extraneous; he left halfway through to go on tour with his band and never came back. (Story wise, this was a chance to force Jessica to interact with the step-children without him as a buffer, but still felt a bit like... welp, bye forever, rando.)
- The older step-daughter, Taylor, at times trended a bit too far over the "fucking insufferable" line. I get that "bratty teenager who hates her new stepmom" is a pretty stock trope, but sometimes it just felt silly.
Overall, it was fun, and even if it didn't do anything brand new, it at least used those tropes well and in competent ways!
Last week, we went and saw Late Night With the Devil, which I really enjoyed!
Set in the 70s, a late-night talk show host, Jack Delroy, holds a Halloween show hoping to make good ratings for sweeps week. This is portrayed as one more attempt in a career-long effort to claw his way to the top of the ratings heap, despite never quite making it.
He has several "spooky" segments planned, including a psychic medium; an abrasive stage-magician-turned-debunker; and a child rescued from a cult who is allegedly possessed by a demon, plus the paranormal researcher who serves as her guardian, who can "call forth" the demonic presence. Things go... poorly.
The good:
- This was a really fun pseudo-found-footage film, and it captured the 70s vibes and aesthetic very well! (I say pseudo-found-footage because for the purposes of the frame story it does purport to be the "real" footage of the episode plus some behind the scenes supplementary material, but said footage is also deliberately professional. This isn't shaky-cam Blair Witch found footage.) The 70s aesthetic of the show's set, the live band, the costuming, etc. was all fantastic. The show theme/intro was something I would have 100% bought as a real talk show intro.
- So glad to see David Dastmalchian as a lead! He's always one of my favorite "hey look, it's that guy!" actors, and he did a great job in the role. There's a scene where he's interviewing his terminally-ill wife, and his face does a huge emotional journey (which later context expands on, too.) He's got good range, from those quieter emotional bits, to playing up late show joking, to always having an undercurrent of self-interest about how his show is doing.
- I feel like it struck a good balance between explaining what was going on (there's a cult! there's a different cult! some people do shady shit for fame! Shit Got Real!) and not overexplaining or feeling hand-holdy. (I can imagine a worse version that tried to include an exact flashback or footage of Exactly What Happened, instead of hinting and implying.)
- There's a good moment where the demon first confronts Jack directly and it worked for me! Another thing that worked for me was the fridge realization concerning "Night Owls" as the show title... AH.
The meh:
- I try pretty hard to give things like found footage a buy-in, and this one was framed really well. (Unlike something that strains my initial suspension of disbelief, where I can't fathom why someone would possibly be filming what we're seeing.) However, there was one point in the film where the conceit weakened for me:
There's a part where there's an explanation of mass hypnosis being why the audience ("including probably at least some of your audience at home") perceived something supernatural happening, which was later revealed to be a hypnotic suggestion. This is revealed by playing back the recorded footage to show that nothing supernatural occurred. But if we're already supposedly watching the footage being played back...
The scene is still good, and I do realize the explanation is that the first time "we" were also watching the footage of the hypnotic induction, and therefore "we" also fell victim to it, but that bit of sort of meta acknowledgement of having recorded footage did pull me out of it and made me overly aware of the fact I was watching a movie.
The bad:
- Those fucking AI "we'll be right back" screen ident things. There was wank about it, and despite my desire to never support the use of AI in commercial products, I still decided to see the film. I want so badly to encourage horror that isn't just more franchise entries/spinoffs/prequels/sequels, and particularly things that don't feel like everything else that's been coming out. (I'm afraid that refusing to see the film would come across more as "ew, not interested in stand-alone horror starring relative unknowns" rather than "ew, AI trash.")
But they really were bad looking, and it felt particularly crappy in a movie that had otherwise committed so hard to an authentic-feeling aesthetic. To put so much effort into a set and a show intro and a logo and a live band and costuming and styling that seemed so suited to the purported time period... then having shitty-looking AI images thrown up on screen just felt even lazier and cheaper. You clearly had a strong artistic vision for the rest of the film, why would you throw it out the window for something so minimal?
Yeah, it's a couple seconds at a time out of an otherwise really enjoyable film, but otherwise the aesthetic was one of the strongest points for me, and it sucked to have that soured.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, and it's one I honestly already wouldn't mind seeing again.
Then this week we went to see The First Omen, which was... surprisingly good?
So, I did say above that I wanted to support non-franchise entries, and then the very next week I go to see a franchise horror film. Ah well.
This one is a prequel, leading up to the original The Omen.
In 1971, novitiate Margaret travels from America to Rome, where she will be working at an all-girls orphanage run by a group of nuns, as she prepares to take her vows. The Catholic Church is embroiled in left-wing protests within Rome, battling growing secularization, and lamenting how few young novitiates there are coming to take the veil.
Margaret begins to bond with a young ward of the orphanage named Carlita. Carlita is often locked away from the other children, supposedly due to her unpredictable and violent behavior, which she confides to Margaret is partially due to her seeing strange things that she believes to be real. Margaret feels a lot of sympathy toward the girl, having been similarly singled-out for her "overactive imagination" as a child.
Soon, Margaret is given a warning by Father Brennan (hey, this character is in the original film, though it retcons him a wee bit): he believes Carlita is the intended mother of the Antichrist, and that strange and evil things will begin to happen around her.
...And then strange and evil things begin to happen!
The good:
- They really lean into the idea of "hey, the people in power are going to do everything they can to keep it, and they will stop at nothing when they feel their control is slipping." That's a theme I can get behind, ha. It's a believable-to-me explanation of why and how this (meaning the birth of the Antichrist) is being brought about, more so than the fairly vague implications about a massive secret organization of Satanists of the original.
- That pregnancy horror is very horror. I DO have pretty major tokophobia, and it made me squirm. (This could also be a negative if that's a type of horror you just can't deal with.) Just in general, there are a lot of good practical effects, some of which really are viscerally horrifying.
- There's a sort-of twist, and I thought it was handled really well. It was one of those things where the "foreshadowing" elements *also* serve additional story purposes, which is something I admire and enjoy. Story aspects serving multiple purposes is great! Whether you ultimately see the twist coming or not, I think it still works.
- The feeling that something is wrong at the orphanage, or that some of the nuns (and others) are not to be trusted comes on very subtly, which was also something I appreciated. For the most part, everything truly seems fine, the characters seem to be very caring, the children under their care are happy... That makes for a nice change compared to movies where the "something wrong" is so immediately obvious that it's frustrating to watch the characters remain oblivious.
- The artistic direction is very good. There are a lot of sort of weird dreamy sequences (which I know may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I like them!). There's one in particular that I liked: it wasn't super surreal, but was a character over-focusing on something innocuous, but just subtly off, that later serves as a clue for her, and I appreciated it connecting.
The meh:
- I mean... as it says on the tin, this is a prequel to The Omen, which means the ending is something of a foregone conclusion. I did see one review complaining of that, how the director made a movie that could have been a lot better if it wasn't trapped as a franchise prequel. I agree to an extent, because there really was only one way for this movie to end. But... it's also a good prequel, and I appreciate that! It still did interesting things within those constraints, and imo was one of the stronger entries in said franchise.
I have not seen Immaculate, though it has some evident similarities to this one. (Young nun goes to a peaceful convent in Italy, discovers that Bad Things Are Happening.) Catholic horror isn't really my THING, so not sure if I'll see that one anytime soon unless it comes up on a streaming service I already have.
I think I really did like this one more than I've liked any of the other Omen movies.
Possible minor spoilers in my thoughts, but no major ones. I tried to keep it about to what you'd get from a trailer.
Two weeks ago we went to see Imaginary, which was... pretty decent.
Our main character, Jessica, moves back into her childhood home after her semi-estranged father is moved into long-term care. She hopes this fresh start will provide a chance to bond with her new step-children, younger Alice, and standoffish teenager Taylor. She also hopes to conquer her unexplained nightmares and to reinvigorate her slumping art career as a children's book author/illustrator.
Alice finds an old toy in the basement, and begins to bond with it as an imaginary friend, until that "friendship" begins to take a much darker turn. Ultimately, Jessica recalls that she too had an imaginary friend in the house as a child, though she'd repressed those memories. It seems that this "imaginary friend" was an entity that felt abandoned by Jessica, and has now returned for her step-daughter.
The good:
- The character and actress for Alice (Pyper Braun) was one of the best horror movie kids I've seen in a long time. The writing and her acting both really captured how funny and weird little kids can be, and the ways it can come across as creepy, but in a way that felt really natural. They also did a great job of making her seem like a believable child, rather than a perpetual toddler or an adult in a kid's body.
- There were some pretty fun practical effects, and a few good creepy bits.
- Basically everything about the film was solid. The acting, the cinematography, the effects, etc.
The meh:
- It didn't do a lot that was NEW.
- It felt like a script that started off as a pitch for the Insidious franchise and then was reworked into something else. (Instead of "The Further", the surreal astral plane that the ghosts/demons/entities bring living souls to in Insidious, this one has "The Never Ever", a surreal alternate dimension formed by entities that act as "imaginary friends" where they sometimes bring the children they've attached to.)
- And on the originality scale: Oh, you have a protagonist who wants to Move To A New House to Get A Fresh Start For The Family and in order to Save A Slumping Creative Career and then Something Bad And Supernatural Happens, Related To The Protagonist's Personal History? No way! I would never have considered that plotline!
- The main character's new husband felt somewhat extraneous; he left halfway through to go on tour with his band and never came back. (Story wise, this was a chance to force Jessica to interact with the step-children without him as a buffer, but still felt a bit like... welp, bye forever, rando.)
- The older step-daughter, Taylor, at times trended a bit too far over the "fucking insufferable" line. I get that "bratty teenager who hates her new stepmom" is a pretty stock trope, but sometimes it just felt silly.
Overall, it was fun, and even if it didn't do anything brand new, it at least used those tropes well and in competent ways!
Last week, we went and saw Late Night With the Devil, which I really enjoyed!
Set in the 70s, a late-night talk show host, Jack Delroy, holds a Halloween show hoping to make good ratings for sweeps week. This is portrayed as one more attempt in a career-long effort to claw his way to the top of the ratings heap, despite never quite making it.
He has several "spooky" segments planned, including a psychic medium; an abrasive stage-magician-turned-debunker; and a child rescued from a cult who is allegedly possessed by a demon, plus the paranormal researcher who serves as her guardian, who can "call forth" the demonic presence. Things go... poorly.
The good:
- This was a really fun pseudo-found-footage film, and it captured the 70s vibes and aesthetic very well! (I say pseudo-found-footage because for the purposes of the frame story it does purport to be the "real" footage of the episode plus some behind the scenes supplementary material, but said footage is also deliberately professional. This isn't shaky-cam Blair Witch found footage.) The 70s aesthetic of the show's set, the live band, the costuming, etc. was all fantastic. The show theme/intro was something I would have 100% bought as a real talk show intro.
- So glad to see David Dastmalchian as a lead! He's always one of my favorite "hey look, it's that guy!" actors, and he did a great job in the role. There's a scene where he's interviewing his terminally-ill wife, and his face does a huge emotional journey (which later context expands on, too.) He's got good range, from those quieter emotional bits, to playing up late show joking, to always having an undercurrent of self-interest about how his show is doing.
- I feel like it struck a good balance between explaining what was going on (there's a cult! there's a different cult! some people do shady shit for fame! Shit Got Real!) and not overexplaining or feeling hand-holdy. (I can imagine a worse version that tried to include an exact flashback or footage of Exactly What Happened, instead of hinting and implying.)
- There's a good moment where the demon first confronts Jack directly and it worked for me! Another thing that worked for me was the fridge realization concerning "Night Owls" as the show title... AH.
The meh:
- I try pretty hard to give things like found footage a buy-in, and this one was framed really well. (Unlike something that strains my initial suspension of disbelief, where I can't fathom why someone would possibly be filming what we're seeing.) However, there was one point in the film where the conceit weakened for me:
There's a part where there's an explanation of mass hypnosis being why the audience ("including probably at least some of your audience at home") perceived something supernatural happening, which was later revealed to be a hypnotic suggestion. This is revealed by playing back the recorded footage to show that nothing supernatural occurred. But if we're already supposedly watching the footage being played back...
The scene is still good, and I do realize the explanation is that the first time "we" were also watching the footage of the hypnotic induction, and therefore "we" also fell victim to it, but that bit of sort of meta acknowledgement of having recorded footage did pull me out of it and made me overly aware of the fact I was watching a movie.
The bad:
- Those fucking AI "we'll be right back" screen ident things. There was wank about it, and despite my desire to never support the use of AI in commercial products, I still decided to see the film. I want so badly to encourage horror that isn't just more franchise entries/spinoffs/prequels/sequels, and particularly things that don't feel like everything else that's been coming out. (I'm afraid that refusing to see the film would come across more as "ew, not interested in stand-alone horror starring relative unknowns" rather than "ew, AI trash.")
But they really were bad looking, and it felt particularly crappy in a movie that had otherwise committed so hard to an authentic-feeling aesthetic. To put so much effort into a set and a show intro and a logo and a live band and costuming and styling that seemed so suited to the purported time period... then having shitty-looking AI images thrown up on screen just felt even lazier and cheaper. You clearly had a strong artistic vision for the rest of the film, why would you throw it out the window for something so minimal?
Yeah, it's a couple seconds at a time out of an otherwise really enjoyable film, but otherwise the aesthetic was one of the strongest points for me, and it sucked to have that soured.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, and it's one I honestly already wouldn't mind seeing again.
Then this week we went to see The First Omen, which was... surprisingly good?
So, I did say above that I wanted to support non-franchise entries, and then the very next week I go to see a franchise horror film. Ah well.
This one is a prequel, leading up to the original The Omen.
In 1971, novitiate Margaret travels from America to Rome, where she will be working at an all-girls orphanage run by a group of nuns, as she prepares to take her vows. The Catholic Church is embroiled in left-wing protests within Rome, battling growing secularization, and lamenting how few young novitiates there are coming to take the veil.
Margaret begins to bond with a young ward of the orphanage named Carlita. Carlita is often locked away from the other children, supposedly due to her unpredictable and violent behavior, which she confides to Margaret is partially due to her seeing strange things that she believes to be real. Margaret feels a lot of sympathy toward the girl, having been similarly singled-out for her "overactive imagination" as a child.
Soon, Margaret is given a warning by Father Brennan (hey, this character is in the original film, though it retcons him a wee bit): he believes Carlita is the intended mother of the Antichrist, and that strange and evil things will begin to happen around her.
...And then strange and evil things begin to happen!
The good:
- They really lean into the idea of "hey, the people in power are going to do everything they can to keep it, and they will stop at nothing when they feel their control is slipping." That's a theme I can get behind, ha. It's a believable-to-me explanation of why and how this (meaning the birth of the Antichrist) is being brought about, more so than the fairly vague implications about a massive secret organization of Satanists of the original.
- That pregnancy horror is very horror. I DO have pretty major tokophobia, and it made me squirm. (This could also be a negative if that's a type of horror you just can't deal with.) Just in general, there are a lot of good practical effects, some of which really are viscerally horrifying.
- There's a sort-of twist, and I thought it was handled really well. It was one of those things where the "foreshadowing" elements *also* serve additional story purposes, which is something I admire and enjoy. Story aspects serving multiple purposes is great! Whether you ultimately see the twist coming or not, I think it still works.
- The feeling that something is wrong at the orphanage, or that some of the nuns (and others) are not to be trusted comes on very subtly, which was also something I appreciated. For the most part, everything truly seems fine, the characters seem to be very caring, the children under their care are happy... That makes for a nice change compared to movies where the "something wrong" is so immediately obvious that it's frustrating to watch the characters remain oblivious.
- The artistic direction is very good. There are a lot of sort of weird dreamy sequences (which I know may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I like them!). There's one in particular that I liked: it wasn't super surreal, but was a character over-focusing on something innocuous, but just subtly off, that later serves as a clue for her, and I appreciated it connecting.
The meh:
- I mean... as it says on the tin, this is a prequel to The Omen, which means the ending is something of a foregone conclusion. I did see one review complaining of that, how the director made a movie that could have been a lot better if it wasn't trapped as a franchise prequel. I agree to an extent, because there really was only one way for this movie to end. But... it's also a good prequel, and I appreciate that! It still did interesting things within those constraints, and imo was one of the stronger entries in said franchise.
I have not seen Immaculate, though it has some evident similarities to this one. (Young nun goes to a peaceful convent in Italy, discovers that Bad Things Are Happening.) Catholic horror isn't really my THING, so not sure if I'll see that one anytime soon unless it comes up on a streaming service I already have.
I think I really did like this one more than I've liked any of the other Omen movies.