Science fiction often tells us that robots want to be human.  The twist in Companion is that Iris (Sophie Thatcher), the robot at the center of this story, believed she was human right until her owner threatened to shut her off.  In an instant, she not only learns that she’s not alive, but that her boyfriend is a total creep.  Considering how humans behave towards her throughout the movie, it makes perfect sense that she embraces her robot existence in the end.  It certainly beats the vastly inferior alternative.

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Instead of trying to find a new approach to the 127 year-old tale of Dracula, writer-director Robert Eggers has based his movie on director WF Murnau’s unauthorized adaptation from 1922, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  Murnau famously altered Stoker’s story in a failed attempt to circumvent copyright protections.  What he produced was a film that is both very  similar to Dracula and while diverging from it in very distinct ways.  In using Murnau’s film as his starting point, Eggers’ reimagining of the Dracula legend is the most compelling version of the vampire I’ve seen since Coppola’s Bran Stoker’s Dracula.

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Recently, someone posted a topic on Reddit titled “What is everybody’s opinion on “The Blair Witch Project”? Is it a modern-day horror classic? Is it overrated? Is it in between? How does it hold up today?”  While I did see the movie in a theater when it was first released, I can’t remember watching it since.  Given the twenty-five year time lapse, I didn’t trust that my memory of the movie would be accurate and I declined chiming in.  However, reading the comments did bring back memories of the considerable buzz the movie had in summer of 1999.

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This will sound odd, but if I were in charge of The Church of Latter Day Saints, I would promote the heck out of Heretic.  Why?  Because it’s a story that depicts Mormons as being a grade above the nerds of organized religion they’re typically made out to be.  After the thorough skewering the religion received at the hands of The Book of Mormon, any positive depiction of it should be welcomed by church elders with open arms.

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The Substance is a grim fairy tale, a horrific bedtime story with one goal in mind: to show men what it’s like to be a woman and live in fear of the day when they become undesirable.  For Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), she’s confident that she hasn’t reached her “best by” date yet and tapes her daily aerobics show as normal.  Unfortunately, her incredibly chauvinistic television executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid) decides that Elizabeth is too old and angrily tells a colleague that it’s time to replace her with someone younger.  Elizabeth accidentally overhears Harvey’s side of the conversation, and knows that they won’t be discussing new opportunities during their lunchtime meeting.  Sure enough, Harvey glibly fires Elizabeth while she sits transfixed by the sight of him devouring a bowl of shrimp.  When it comes to men like Harvey, women are the same as food: something to be consumed and tossed away.

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There’s something not quite right with the Daltons.  That’s painfully evident from the outset, when they choose to wallow in their own misery despite being in a beautiful part of Italy.  They don’t hide their misery, either, wearing it like an irritating jacket wherever they go.  Ben Dalton  (Scoot McNairy) is morose, while Louise Dalton (Mackenzie Davis) is edgy and controlling.  The two are so clenched around each other I imagined they squeak while walking.  Unsurprisingly, the two have unresolved issues between them that will play a consequential role in what transpires. 

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