Horror Movie Talk

Have you ever fallen in love with a car? Like really fallen in love with a car? Well take that lust and combine it with a horror movie, and you get Titane.

Synopsis

Titane is about a lot of things. I mean, what isn’t Titane about? It’s not quite a Tit, and it’s not quite an Ane, but maaaan…so to answer your question, I dunno.

Just kidding, it’s about the worlds most famous female auto show twerker/serial killer getting pregnant from fucking a car, and posing as a grieving father’s long lost son. So, you know, that old yarn.

Review of Titane

This movie is really something else. There are obvious comparisons to David Croenenberg since it has some great disturbing body horror, but at the same time, it’s not like anything I’ve seen before. 

There is very little hand holding, to the point where it’s never quite explained why the protagonist does the things she does. But it’s apparent that even the protagonist doesn’t know either.

It’s a dream-like film with evocative lighting, disturbing imagery, and lots of tits.

Despite The bizarre plot and sphinx-like protagonist, there is a deeply human core to this film. It examines the inscrutable nature of desire, compulsion, and loss.

I liked it a lot, and see why it got so much buzz last year. I wouldn’t say it’s a must see, but if you are in the mood for something really weird, check it out.

Score

8/10

We went and saw The Menu, and were plated with a heaping helping of comedy drenched in satire, smothered in secret sauce.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

One of the world’s most prestigious and private restaurants is located on an island where access is as limited as the invites.

A young couple of Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) are lucky enough to make the list along with a variety of other impressive clientele.

Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) is a serious man with serious talent, dedication, and staff – Maybe too serious.

What no one realizes is that tonight the menu is an extra special one and everyone gets more second helpings than they bargained for.

Review

The Menu is a strong dish that is best served without too much foreknowledge of what’s in store. It’s a moody thriller that is, at it’s core, a loving homage to dry comedies like A Mighty Wind and Best in Show.

It’s takes a deep look at inspiration in creation and skewers the consumers of art and food alike. It’s pretentious and funny and quite gruesome. 

It’s also a ton of fun. 

Watch The Menu

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In the first 20 minutes, I desperately wanted to dislike this movie. Eventually it won me over with its incredibly dry humor wrapped in macabre violence and disdain for humanity.

Every character is interesting and adds something to the story, and each bit of the story unfolds in a way that keeps you waiting for that next dish.

Most importantly, The Menu doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s perfectly portioned out and cooked to a nice sweet and nutty glaze.

Score

10/10

People are strange when you’re a stranger. This week we review The Strangers. Why? Because we were home.

Synopsis

A young couple comes home late after a friend’s wedding. Kristen, played by Liv Tyler, and James, played by Scott Speedman, appear distraught despite the obvious preparations for a romantic evening at home. We learn that their evening has been ruined by a failed proposal, and they awkwardly work their way through the fallout.

In the midst of their relationship turmoil in the middle of the night, they receive a strange visitor looking for “Tamara”. They turn the teen girl away, but she soon returns.

Eventually more Strangers in masks show up and torment the young couple with increasingly strange behavior.

Review of The Strangers

The Strangers is in a group of super nihilistic horror films that use lack of motive, message, and pretense to their advantage. The dread felt in this movie is strong, and is caused by the confusion and hopelessness of the protagonists’ situation.

The other feature of this story is that it is believable. The opening credits state that it is based on true events. Mainly that murderers exist and sometimes they target complete strangers for no reason.

The film reminds me of original Last House on The Left, and Funny Games, mostly because they will all completely ruin your night.

The film is well crafted and the suspense and tension is expertly increased over time. It’s a very simple and uncomplicated premise delivered in a tight hour and 30 minutes. The ending is a gut punch and will stick with you.

Score

8/10

We watched Dashcam on Hulu and got treated to the best 67 minutes of comedy laced terror wrapped in found footage goodness since Creep.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

Annie Hardy is the talented host of her own stream called Band Car. Band Car is the internet’s #1 live improvised music show broadcast from a moving vehicle. 

Annie raps to a beat while spouting what lots of Americans today would consider risque truths mixed with conspiracy theories. 

In an effort to escape the insanity of a divided America, Annie heads across the pond to visit her former band mate, Stretch.

Unfortunately, Annie and Stretch get into a fight because his girlfriend is a stuck up prude, and Annie takes Band Car on the road in Stretch’s stolen car.

Things start to get weird when Annie picks up a sick woman named Angela. 

Everyone get’s more mask mandates than they bargained for.

Review

Dashcam is the second found footage horror movie by Rob Savage, who in 2020 brought us Host.

Fortunately, this time Rob had the foresight to cast Annie Hardy to play the role of his main character, Annie Hardy.

Annie is probably the most entertaining actress I’ve ever seen. She is clever, talented, complicated, a little crazy, and totally hilarious. Dashcam is carried almost entirely by Annie and her improvised streamer banter and bullshit.

Watch Dashcam

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What Annie doesn’t shoulder, is the completely insane pacing and action of this movie. Every five minutes we find ourselves in someplace new fighting off an escalating array of horror and insanity.

As we delve deeper into the terror, we find ourselves asking, “How can it get more crazy than this?” A word to the wise, you should probably buckle up, because it gets crazier!

This year we’ve been blessed with tons of great horror movies, and Dashcam is one of the best. 

Score

9/10

You called. We answered again.

When you’re smiling the whole world smiles at you. Maybe not in this case, but most of the resto of the time.

Synopsis

Dr. Rose Cotter, a workaholic psychiatrist at a busy hospital, sees a troubled patient that complains of hallucinations of people with creepy smiles terrifying her every waking moment. Initially Dr. Cotter doesn’t believe the young woman, but when the same phenomenon begins happening to her, she must investigate the origins of the mysterious curse before it is too late.

Review of Smile (2022)

Smile is the first feature length film from writer/director Parker Finn and is a retelling and expansion of his short Laura hasn’t slept. I haven’t been this excited about a new director since Ari Aster.

I loved this movie.

It has depth, it’s well crafted, and it features excellent performances from its cast.

Lets start with the tone and theme of the movie. It’s an on the nose allegory for the long lasting emotional effects of trauma, which specifically uses trauma as a device in the plot. The fact that it is so on the nose and that I didn’t feel like it was ever ham handed in it’s delivery, makes it all the more impressive to me. The tone is dark and helpless, and only sinks deeper throughout.

The direction and editing was fantastic. It has some of the best jumpscares I have ever witnessed, and somehow they seemed innovative instead of hacky. I jumped and yelled out several times in the theater. In so doing, it reaches the elusive praise of being “scary” by which some viewers judge horror movies. 

The sound design and music should almost get top billing on the poster. I’ve never been so disorientated and terrorized by ringing phones. The music is deeply unsettling and is composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, who did the music for White Lotus on HBOMax

Sosie Bacon, relative of the famous Travis Bacon, plays Rose, and her devolution into madness was convincing and heart wrenching.

The characters felt fleshed out, and the relationships felt real. There was one scene between Rose and her fiance played by The Boys’ Jessie T. Usher, that felt false to me, but eventually his character and that relationship was framed in a way that even made that one moment make sense.

It’s a movie that can be easily compared to It Follows and Th e Babadook, but it doesn’t ever feel derivative.

I didn’t think I’d find another horror movie this year that I’d love as much as Barbarian, but here we are, just weeks later.

I can’t stress this enough. I am a jaded, pretentious movie reviewer (see my comments on Terrifier 2’s review for proof). I no longer watch horror movies out of love or desire. I watch them out of obligation. This movie and Barbarian opened my cold heart and gave me childlike joy and terror, much like the critic at the end of Ratatouie. My faith in filmmaking is restored when I see new creative writer/directors that can still shock and delight me in the movie theater.

Thank you Parker Finn

Score

10/10

Smile (2022)

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We watched Terrifier 2 and were treated to a homage to 80’s slashers with a runtime of a Lord of the Rings movie.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

A year after his original massacre, Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) returns to terrify Miles County. This time instead of killing random people, he seems to have an agenda and a renewed sense of humor.

Art targets the friends and family of Sienna (Lauren LaVera). He is twisted, hateful, and worst of all – inappropriately humorous.

As he mutilates kids and adults alike, he kind of helps to bring Sienna’s family together, which is as weird as it sounds. 

Review

This is the third Art the Clown effort by writer/director Damien Leone, who was obviously beaten by his father as a child.

I think that it’s fair to say that Art the Clown has earned a place among the likes of Michael Myers, Jason, and Freddy, although his brand of slasher is a much more horrifically violent one, with a kind of through the looking glass feel to the whole thing. 

Terrifier 2 is the longest slasher I’ve ever seen. It’s fucking long. It’s longer than The Return of the Jedi by 20 minutes!!

Lots could have been left on the editing room floor. This movie has so much extra dialog and mood scenes that I question whether or not they were just going for some kind of record.

Watch Terrifier 2

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Does the runtime make it bad? No, it just makes it less good.

Terrifier’s brand seems to be astonishingly fucked up gore set to slapstick and deadpan comedy. Some of the kill concepts in this are truly gruesome and will never leave your mind. 

Is this movie good? I don’t know, it’s not my favorite thing to see horrendous gore, but I have to say, if I am going to see horrendous gore, I would choose to see it with Art the Clown. He a pretty funny guy.

This is not a real movie to me, this is some sort of attempt at a world record. It’s a pretty interesting thing to see. It pays homage to slashers of olde while cramming sex and blood down your gullet in a way that truly sickens me and makes me want to ask, “what is wrong with kids these days?” But that’s the whole point.

If that sounds like a good time to you, you probably didn’t need to listen to my review.

Score

6/10

You called. We came twice.

If you’re ready for a howlin’ good time, look no further than Dog Soldiers. The setup of a group of soldiers provides an ideal level of character development and werewolf fodder in this 2002 monster movie.

Synopsis

In the highlands of Scotland, a group of soldiers are deployed in a training mission. Before long they stumble across the scene of another squad that has been ripped apart by an unseen monster. The lone survivor, Davos Seaworth, is close lipped about what they were attacked by and why they were there, since they were using live rounds and not a part of the training mission. Soon howling and fast moving creatures start picking them off until they run into a zoologist named Megan, who knows exactly what is hunting them, werewolves.

Review of Dog Soldiers

This is honestly the first time I’ve even heard of Dog Soldiers. And it doesn’t seem surprising given that it never had a wide release outside of the Sci Fi channel.

This is a very simple movie with a relatively low budget. However, it squeezes every cent out of the budget and delivers a fun and entertaining monster movie.

They opted to go completely practical with the effects, which limits a lot of what they can do with the werewolves, but it was the right choice given where CG was at the time. 

There are some shots early on of the werewolves that are pretty laughable, in that they look like peachfuzz from Creep, but for the most part they limit the appearance of the werewolves in ways that hide how goofy they look full on.

Regardless of the special effects, the plot, characters, and dialogue in the movie are what make it worth watching in my opinion. The relationships seem real, the dialogue is fun, and the actors really pull off great performances.

This is a passion project of writer/director Neil Marshall, who is obviously having fun, and puts in a lot of references and call backs to his favorite movies throughout.

While it might not be a “great” movie, the fun is infectious and its a compelling setup with some satisfying twists at the end.

Score

7/10 

Dog Soldiers

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We watched Critters (1986) and were taken on a nostalgia trip the likes of which only an  80’s horror movie can deliver.

@dgoebel00 on Instagram provided this amazing artwork. Follow him and check out his website.

Synopsis

Critters is a fun and simple story about a slew of terrifying little Krites and their escape from prison asteroid sector 17, the bounty hunters hired to track them down, and a small town in Kansas who has to endure their reign of terror. After summarizing it, it seems a little less simple, but somehow it works.

As the Krites crash-land on earth, the town comes under attack. As the bounty hunters arrive, things are thrown into an even more impressive disarray by the single minded and determined bounty hunter crew.

Will the critters take over earth, or will the bounty hunters and earthlings learn how to team up to defeat these tiny terrors?

Review

Critters is a super-fun and easy-going 80’s creature feature with a ton going for it. It knows exactly what it is, which is a Star Wars, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Gremlins, Ghoulies, homage slash tribute slash ripoff.

Watching Critters now, I feel like I can hear the producers saying, “People want new stuff that references old stuff in a way that makes them remember the old stuff, but this new stuff has to be it’s own fun thing.” That’s exactly what Critters is, and without shame or even too much in the way of fourth-wall-breaking winks.

Watch Critters

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It’s not going to blow you away or even make you feel scared. But it’s not really supposed to make you scared. It’s supposed to be a somewhat risque and fun film for you to sit down with your youngsters on a Friday night and munch on some popcorn over.

This is a PG-13 film and in the eyes of a 10 year old, it earns it. It’s got some decent violence and lots of frightening explosions. 

The Critters themselves are some of the most unique and well-thought-out horror movie monsters that I can think of. Here is a list of some of the more notable traits among Krites:

• Highly mobile when rolling in a ball
• Built in long-range with poison Krite quills
• Always hungry and can eat anything
• Can grow to massive proportions
• Can reproduce limitlessly

It’s hard to hate this movie because it has so much going for it in the way of nostalgia. It uses tons of practical effects and puppetry and has a tangent storyline involving bounty hunters that is fun in a way that I can’t quite describe.

Score

7/10

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