Tag: horror

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Knock at the Cabin

Knock at the Cabin

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One fine day, a young girl named Wen collects grasshoppers in a sun-dappled forest near a cabin in the woods.  She’s soon joined by Leonard (David Bautista), a hulk of a man with arms covered in tattoos.  Despite his threatening appearance, Leonard is a gentle giant who helps Wen with her task.  To her credit, Wen remains calm as Leonard’s enormous hands gently envelops a grasshopper.  When he casually states that he and his friends will soon meet Wen’s parents, she notices several people emerging from the trees holding scary weapons.  This finally triggers Wen’s “stranger danger” reflex and she runs to the cabin to alert her parents.

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Wednesday (Netflix, 2022)

Wednesday (2022, Netflix)

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Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is no average teenage girl.  With her pallid complexion, black attire, matching pigtails and a personality overflowing with misanthropy, she’s every parent’s nightmare, except for Morticia and Gomez.  They love their little viper, storm cloud, etc. and would do anything for her, including keeping her out of trouble when she exacts revenge on her brother Pugsley’s high school tormentors.  When Morticia confronts her with the possibility of having attempted murder on her record, Wednesday replies, “Terrible.  Everyone would know I failed to get the job done.”  If you love droll humor, Wednesday (character and series) has plenty more where that’s coming.

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The Menu

The Menu

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In the day’s twilight, a group of obnoxious super-rich types take a boat to a remote island for dinner.  This isn’t just any dinner, though.  It’s a $1,750 per head dining experience by Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes).  Among the guests are Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), a couple that doesn’t quite fit.  After they arrive, they are welcomed by hostess Elsa (Hong Chau), whose every smile and glance forebodes something devious is afoot.  Then, when everyone is seated, Chef Slowik appears.  With a firm clap and a voice tinged with growing condescension, he announces a progression of courses that bring delight and unease.  Unlike the rest of the clueless patrons, Margot can tell something isn’t right.  Each course, while immaculately prepared, brings recriminations from the Chef.  Then, shockingly and unexpectedly, things turn violent.  What does Chef Slowik have planned for everyone?  Will they survive until the meal’s final course?

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Halloween Ends

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In Halloween Kills (the previous entry in this series), Michael Myers escaped certain death when some unwitting firefighters rescued him from Laurie Strode’s burning home.  He then proceeded to lay waste to the entire firefighter squad without breaking a sweat.  While Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Deputy Frank (Will Patton) recovered from their injuries at the hospital, Michael made mincemeat out of a self-styled vigilante mob led by survivors of the original.  Last but not least, Michael shockingly killed Laurie’s daughter Karen (Judy Greer).  Ends picks up the story one year later.  Michael has not been seen since the prior year, and the town has shifted back towards normalcy.  (Sorry Haddonfield, IL, your town will never be “normal”.)

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Barbarian

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Barbarian is a welcome new member of a group of horror movies that makes you think while it scares you.  This subset of the genre includes movies like Freaky, Get Out and It Follows and doesn’t have an official designation that I’m aware of. I collectively refer to them as “brainy horror”, which is lame, I know.  (Impale me on a spike if you must.)  Like those movies, Barbarian is first and foremost a top-notch horror movie, filled with scares and enough disturbing images to fuel nightmares.  It’s also incredibly devious in how it uses your familiarity with the genre to subvert your expectations at every turn.  Most importantly, it earns its place alongside the other noteworthy brainy horror movies by being a very entertaining film from beginning to end.

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The Invitation

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How to make a movie about Dracula feel new, or at least new-ish?  The Invitation addresses this by telling a very familiar story about a very familiar character through the eyes of Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), an African American toiling away in the States as a waitress.  Her job sucks and with her mother’s recent death, misses having connection to a family.  The answer to her ennui arrives when she completes a DNA test and discovers she’s actually a long-lost relative to the white-as-can-be Alexander family in England.  Her best friend Grace (Courtney Taylor) cautions her not to go, but nobody ever listens to their best friend’s advice in these movies.

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Nope

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The flying saucer movie has been a staple for over seventy years.  The first movie to feature a UFO, appropriately titled The Flying Saucer, came out in 1950.  Since then, the genre has primarily been about a flying saucer, or flying saucers, showing up on Earth causing problems for hapless humans.  There have been some great ones over the years, including The Day The Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET.  However, this category of science fiction mostly exists to provide cheap thrills.  Oh no, a big-headed alien has just abducted our helpless heroine!  Send in the Army and all of its tanks, jets and men with machine guns!

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