Horror Movie Talk

Synopsis

When Kurt Russell’s son is forced into retirement from the MLB, he and his family move to a new house with a pool. The pool ends up being a death trap for his family and the neighborhood. But not in the normal way, this pool is extra scary because… that’s right there’s no gate! But actually it gets worse, the pool is also haunted or something.

Review of Night Swim

Night Swim is produced by Jason Blumhouse, and like most of his horror movies, this one stays in the shallow end of the pool. The main features of Night Swim are recycled tropes from much better horror movies. You’ll recognise borderline theft of the IT sewer scene, and the father descending into madness ala The Shining and Amityville Horror.

It is an interesting concept to set a horror movie around a haunted pool. It taps into some latent fears about pools and deep water in general, but this movie definitely doesn’t crack the code and come up with a convincing premise. The ideas all seem half baked and made up as they went along. Is it a ghost? Are there many ghosts haunting the pool? Is the water an entity in itself? Is it a monkey’s paw? Sure yeah, whatever.

So really the main thing that the film suffers from is a lack of commitment. There are many interesting ways you could go with it. Personally, I would have made the pool be haunted by the ghost of Marco Polo, and gone full horror comedy.

The dialogue is also pretty on the nose at times, and feels like a paint by numbers script.

There aren’t really any standout performances, but Kerry Condon as the mother is probably the most compelling and believable out of the cast.

It’s not a terrible movie, but is very predictable and as MAx and Sydney would call it, “mid”.

Score

5/10

It’s a new year and a new set of hosts! Listen up as Bryce announces the new permanent cohost(s?) of Horror Movie Talk, then we get right into reviewing When Evil Lurks.

Synopsis

When Evil Lurks is directed by Demian Rugna who also directed a film you may recall Terrified or Atterados. In this film, two brothers living on a farm find a man infected with a demonic disease. In order to save the town and themselves they do what they can to get rid of the man, but things quickly get out of hand. Our main character Pedro played by Ezequiel Rodrígue is rough, stern and a natural-born leader to his brother Jimi played by  Demián Salomón who kind of just does whatever his brother says. The film gives a nuanced take on possession and while I think Terrified was scarier, this has a better story. 

Review of When Evil Lurks

When Evil Lurks is heavy and doesn’t pull any punches. The violence is brutal and shocking and the makeup on the possessed people makes them look truly disgusting. The characters seem like real people and often dont make the greatest decisions, but are just doing the best they know how to do. The movie feels fresh and puts its own spin on demonic possession, but to say that this movie should be lumped into the same category as a movie like the exorcist believer is laughable. Though it uses the words demonic possession, it really ends up being something very unique. It feels like we as the viewers get to peer into the minds and culture of a deeply superstitious town in argentina which is an impressive thing to do. One of the best parts about this movie to me is that it introduces so much lore that people from this town all seem to just kind of know and understand as the truth, yet I never felt like I was struggling to catch up or understand where they were coming from. It is unsettling, and every scene feels like something new. 

Score

9/10

Merry Christmas and a Happy Saw Year!

Synopsis

Let me go into a little synopsis of saw x for you. In saw x we see the return of john kramer and he is searching for a cure to his terminal brain cancer. As he goes through the grieving process of his own mortality, he runs into a friend that may hold the key to a cure. An experimental surgery that is groundbreaking and exactly what john needs.  We get to follow John through his Journey to health but he finds out it’s not all what it appears, with hope fading John is ready to play a game with All new Traps but the same gore that we have come to expect out of the Franchise. 

Review 

Overall I did enjoy this movie, it had me squirming  in my seat and kept me engaged for most of the film. Do I think this is a groundbreaking masterpiece? no , in my opinion it is the best saw movie since the first one. It’s what you would expect from a saw movie, traps and blood. I’m happy that we get to follow john and see another side of him and get more character development. There is definitely  parts of the movie that don’t make sense for me but you pretty much know what you are going in for.

Will robo-santa win you over? Only if you believe.

Synopsis

CBC pits off-brand lead character Tori (Riley Dandy) against a malfunctioning, homicidal robot-Santa manufactured by Uncle Sam. Tori runs a shop next door to a toy store with one of the killer Kriss Kringles and … mayhem ensues. 

Review of Christmas Bloody Christmas

Review: This flick takes the concept of intelligent tech (a concept popularized by 80s slashics like Maximum Overdrive, Deadly Friend, Chopping Mall, RoboCop, and Terminator) and Frankensteins it onto another favorite 80s concept: the killer Santa. Of course, the gold standard for killer Santas was set by Charles Sellier’s ‘Silent Night Deadly Night’ in 1984, but that doesn’t stop modern directors from trying to put their own special spin on the ax-wielding punisher of naughty boys and girls. Last year alone, we got three new entries in the category: Violent Night, The Mean One, and Joe Begos’s Xmas Bloody Xmas. I can easily say that Begos’s option is my favorite. Not because it’s a perfect film. The top half is talk-heavy. The lead character is somewhat annoying. And with Begos aiming for a Rob Zombie aesthetic – lots of neon light and oversaturated primary colors – much of the action is muddy and hard to discern, which is a bummer since some of the gore looks really good. Heads get stomped and split down the middle; eyes get poked with the ass-end of Santa’s ax, multiple cops gets shotgunned in the facial. This grindhouse gruesomeness isn’t helped by the cinematography, but I still appreciate that Begos shot the movie in 16mm and included plenty of gore for his core audience. There’s also lots of references to iconic horror properties; and, I like the cast. Riley Dandy delivers an effective final girl with Tori – the smart-mouthed and strong-minded record store owner caught in the middle of robo-SantApocalypse with a bunch of dimwitted men who refuse to listen to her advice. The exception is Robbie (played by Sam Delich), her equally saucy and opinionated employee whose Xmas wish (tho unstated) is to get into Tori’s pants. He gets his wish, and lasts longer than any of the other dudes because he actually listens to Tor. And that’s largely what this flick is about. But also, it’s a mindless blood-and-guts movie about a killer Santa that slices and dices without rhyme or reason. If taken with a big heaping boulder of salt, it can be plenty of fun. 

Score

6/10

This fun exorcism romp is more fun than riding a Vespa across Europe. Listen to Bryce and Sydney break it down.

Synopsis

The Pope’s Exorcist is a 2023 film that follows Father Gabriele Amorth, the real life Chief Exorcist of the Vatican from 1986-2016, as he goes around to possibly possessed adults and children and cures them of their affliction, through unconventional and sometimes frowned upon means. The movie follows Amorth, played by the award winning actor Russell Crowe, as he tries to get rid of a very powerful demon that has attached itself to a little American boy named Henry, who has just moved into an inherited Spanish castle with his mother and sister. This movie is based on true events and documents from the Vatican, as well as being based on two books Father Amorth wrote before his death in 2016. There are some true elements to the story but a lot of it has been fictionalized to make this slightly scary, sometimes funny exorcism movie. 

Review of The Pope’s Exorcist

In reviewing this movie, we have to take into account how many movies try to be The Exorcist, and ultimately fall flat because no one could ever top the 1973 horror classic. This movie definitely takes cues from its predecessor, with the possessed boy shouting obscenities at his mother and the priests, body contortion, some suspenseful and mysterious scenes, and an origin story for the demon that honestly was refreshing to all the other long played out demon stories.

This movie got better the longer it ran, but it is in no way a slow paced movie. Every minute has you wanting to keep watching. It starts off a bit basic for long time horror movie lovers like me, but it got more interesting as it progressed. And with a 100 minute run time, it is the perfect length for a movie night.

 The script is very basic and mimics many other exorcism movies, and at times the characters would probably be better off not speaking than saying their bare bones lines to get the plot moving. But whoever wrote this movie was obviously highlighting Russell Crowe. They gave him the best lines, the most backstory, in a way he was the most, if not only, interesting character in the entire film. He solves everyone’s problems, he makes the characters and the audience laugh, we can sympathize with him while also being very interested in what his next move should be. As a viewer, it seems as though he had the time of his life filming this movie, and that is what makes it watchable in my opinion. There were good gorey scenes, some of the lines from the possessed boy were so outrageous that it made me step back and say okay maybe this movie has more going for it than I had originally thought. Ultimately, it is very entertaining, but it would have been nothing without Russell Crowe.

Score

8/10

Do you believe that this sequel is good? It’s going to take some strong faith on your part.

Synopsis

The Exorcist: Believer is a direct sequel to the original 1973 The Exorcist. In this film, we get not one, but two, that’s right two possessions for the price of one. When two teenage girls go out into the woods to perform a séance, they disappear and reappear days later acting… strange. Their parents struggle to find out why the reason th… It’s possession, they are possessed. The father of one of the girls played by Leslie Odom Jr. must recruit an Oceans 11 type ragtag group of exorcists and Chris MacNeil reprised by Ellen Burstyn, who I can only assume had an important boat she wanted to buy.

Review of Exorcist: Believer

NBCUniversal shelled out 400 million on the rights to The Exorcist IP and entrusted David Gordon Green to work his soft reboot magic that he showed with the Halloween franchise. They’ve committed to producing two more of these exorcist films, and after watching this one… I’m not  a believer.

Much like most of the previous sequel and prequels in the franchise, this film fails to recapture the humanity, darkness, and complexity of the original. You could point to the fact that they keep giving these movies to mediocre or hack directors, but even John Boorman fucked up The Exorcist 2, and he directed Deliverance.

Also, since The Exorcist was released, it seems like there is rarely a year that goes by that there isn’t an exorcism themed horror movie in theaters. It’s a tired horror trope at this point.

As a result, The Exorcist: Believer comes off as another generic possession movie going through the motions while skipping all the “boring” parts like relationships, character development, or mystery.

A lot of eyes have rolled over some of the messaging in this movie about being woke. Ellen Burstyn’s line about not being part of the damn patriarchy and being excluded from the original exorcism comes off as heavy handed and completely detached from the story of the original film. I think Chris MacNeil’s character is the greatest casualty of this film.

However, I think the root problem is that in trying to make Exorcism more inclusive and exploring the universality of evil, it comes off as wishy washy and noncommittal.

Score

3/10

Hey remember David Day? He came back to listen to and respond to your voicemails with Bryce.

Who possessed these filmmakers to make one of the worst sequels of all time? The Exorcist 2 is a befuddling mess that bears no resemblance to the original.

Synopsis

In this sequel to the Exorcist, Father Lamont, played by Richard Burton, is assigned to investigate the last exorcism of Father Merrin to clear his name of any doubt of faith. Father Lamont finds Regan spending her time in therapy in a psychiatric institute that appears to be the backrooms of Westworld. Her doctor, Gene Tuskin, played by Louise Fletcher is testing out a new device that synchronizes hypnotic states… or something. In the course of her experiments and Father Lamont’s investigation, we find out that Regan isn’t Exorcized, but just mostly exorcized.

In the end, we get more pazuzu than we bargained for…

Review of The Exorcist II: The Heretic

The Exorcist still stands as one of the best movies of all time, and still is my favorite horror movie. So I have always been intrigued by The Exorcist 2, and the fact that it’s so bad, that almost no one ever talks about it. Exorcist 2 is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, and probably the worst sequel ever made.

How does this happen?

If you look at the cast, there are some real heavy hitters.

The film’s cast includes one Oscar winner (Louise Fletcher) and five Oscar nominees (Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Richard Burton, Ned Beatty, and James Earl Jones).

It’s directed by Sir John Boorman, the director of Deliverance.

In short, a bunch of people that should have known better than to absolutely abandon everything that made the original good.

Instead of grounding the story in reality and the characters’ humanity to further analyze the nature of good, evil, and faith; we are treated to some kind of scifi supernatural fever dream. The film feels like it was written on the fly, and that’s not far from the truth. After it’s disastrous opening, it was pulled twice from theaters to be recut, and even after all that, this film is utterly befuddling.

There are some scenes, especially involving the hypnotism device, that are so hilariously inept that it feels like they were written as jokes.

If you dig deep enough, you can find some interesting ideas about good attracting evil, and the dangers of getting too close to evil, but they are completely overwhelmed by the bizarre choices in the story.

It is a very bad movie, but the case can be made that it’s so bad that it’s good. This is definitely an oddity, and could be a good time with friends if you want something to riff on while watching.

Score

3/10

Why make the feature length version of a beloved fake trailer when you can make a watered down Blumhouse-style remake?

Synopsis

Plymouth, Mass the indigenous home of the pilgrims is beset by a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer. Wearing the mask of Plymouth’s founder and dressed as a pilgrim, the killer seems to be exacting revenge on those involved in a deadly Black Friday riot a year earlier. Between the holiday themed kills a cast of teens led by JEssica (Nell Verlaque), as well as the sexiest sheriff alive played by patrick dempsey try to unmask the killer and save the town.

Review of Thanksgiving

This film is based off of a fake trailer that Eli Roth created for Grindhouse to play in between the double feature Planet Terror (2007) and Death Proof (2007). The trailer was an homage to 80s hard R slashers such as Pieces and My Bloody Valentine.

The film, instead of being a gritty and stylish homage, Thanksgiving feels like a lazy Blumhouse remake of a much more iconic movie. 

There are some great kills, half of which are shown in the trailer, but they are wrapped with a bland sanitized script full of too many uninteresting characters. 

Eli Roth really seems to be phoning it in on the directing. The film comes off as lazy, since there is very little style and the editing is constantly undercutting the impact of some scenes by dwelling a second too long, or not giving you crucial information.

Overall it comes off as an unseasoned and undercooked turkey of a movie.

Score

4/10

In this follow up to Freaky, writer Michael White takes on the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life in this disappointing horror sendup.

Synopsis

In the sleepy town of Angel Falls, Winnie Caruthers kills a rampaging masked killer and saves the town from further massacre. After a year, she has never fully recovered from the trauma of the killer killing best friend, and everyone around her inexplicably is a huge dick to her about it. In a moment of despair she wishes that she never existed, and a magical aurora borealis grants her wish and she gets inserted into an alternate reality where she never killed the masked murderer, and he has continued his rampage.

Review of It’s a Wonderful Knife

Coming off of the success of Freaky, a horror sendup of the Freaky Friday premise writer Michael White attempts for a repeat by creating this horror parody of It’s a Wonderful Life. The problem is on the surface the premise doesn’t make any sense. “Oh how I wish I’d never existed so I didn’t have to kill that serial killer” just doesn’t come off as a logical desire. 

However the most egregious sin of the movie is it’s entirely inconsistent tone. Is this supposed to be an over the top satire? Is it supposed to be a heartwarming morality play with an edge? Is it supposed to be a visceral gory horror film with sardonic humor? It ends up being nothing other than a tonally confusing mess. It feels like the film went through 5 rewrites while shooting, one of which being done by an 8 year old.

One example of this inconsistency is exemplified in the character of Winnie’s father played by Joel McHale. I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be a sympathetic character, an inconsiderate asshole, or a psychopath. Some of this is due to the plot taking place between two different realities, but the problem is really that they never truly establish his character in the first place.

The film makes a lot of bizarre choices not only in the story, but in the production. The first couple of deaths used some of the least convincing digital blood that I have ever seen in a theatrical release.

By the end of the movie it goes completely off the rails and adds inexplicable supernatural powers to one of the villains.

Score

3/10