Last Night in Soho (Extended Take)
If you prefer my quick take, which is free of spoilers, please click here.
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Last Night in Soho (Quick Take)
Hot on the heels of his buzzy hit Baby Driver, Edgar Wright returns with Last Night in Soho, a movie that serves as both a Sixties tribute as well as a cautionary tale for those who view the past through rose colored glasses.
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Halloween Kills
Halloween Kills is the second entry in a trilogy of Halloween that takes the 1978 movie as their starting point and pretends that all previous sequels don’t exist. That bit of artistic amnesia is certainly warranted, as pretty much every sequel that followed the original movie only served to cheapen what is generally considered a horror classic. Halloween (2018), the first movie in the trilogy, was definitely guilty of raided the closest of the original. There’s a tense opening credit sequence featuring a pumpkin, John Carpenter’s iconic film score, copious throwback scenes and a convincing performance by Jamie Lee Curtis. Most importantly, that movie had an interesting story to tell. Specifically, what impact did Michael have on Laurie Strode’s life from that point on, and how did Laurie’s reaction to that trauma affect her family?
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Midnight Mass
Mike Flanagan, the creative force behind The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, returns with Midnight Mass, a new limited series on Netflix. Similar to his two previous series, Midnight Mass is a combination of earnest performances, thoughtful, introspective dialog and stealth horror elements. This time around, Flanagan has decided to de-emphasize the scary stuff, and the result is incredibly underwhelming, to the point where the series should have been titled Tedium.
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Malignant (long take)
Malignant is a combination of horror movie references, James Wan’s usual bag of tricks and other things that he likes thrown into a blender and pureed together. The resulting mixture is slick and very entertaining, but not as engrossing as Wan’s previous horror movies. The movie is a creepy funhouse, relying on paper-thin characters to drive the plot. The movie works, and horror movie nerds will find it’s fanboy signalling endlessly entertaining, but the movie lacks the emotional connection that elevated The Conjuring to more than your average horror movie. Recommended.
A detailed summary and analysis follow. Spoilers abound. You have been warned.
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Malignant (Quick Take)
Trying something new here. This is a short, two-paragraph review. A longer analysis will follow.
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Candyman (2021)
Candyman ignores the inferior sequels that preceded it and instead acts as a direct sequel to the 1992 movie of the same name. As in the original, Candyman features a hook-wielding ghost who is brought to life by saying his name five times in a mirror. Director Nia DaCosta and producer Jordan Peele have upgraded the Candyman legend deftly for modern times, contextualizing his gruesome origin story as the starting point of decades of systemic racism and violence. And instead of having the requisite white woman be the audience surrogate, two African American men take center stage. The first is a young artist (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) seeking inspiration from the notorious history of the now-gentrified Cabrini-Green projects. The second is a middle-aged man (Colman Domingo) who never left, still seething from an unjust killing he witnessed as a child. The end result is riveting, scary, insightful and moving. The (white) victims are written a bit thinly, but turnabout is fair play, as they say. Candyman is a horror movie by definition, but it has much more up its sleeve than shocks and gore. Mind that ending–it’s not the triumph it appears to be. Highly recommended.
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The Night House
The premise of The Night House, that suicide irreparably damages the lives of the survivors, is a compelling one for a horror movie. For Rebecca Hall’s Beth, her husband’s death understandably leaves her an emotional wreck, unable to control her anger at work and her despair at home. The night brings no solace, with Beth possibly being haunted by her husband’s ghost. After an engaging first act, the movie shifts our attention to the mystery of Beth’s husband’s death and the secrets he kept from her. Was he having an affair, or affairs? Why was he reading books about the occult? What do all those strange architecture diagrams mean? One twist gives way to another, and then another, until the movie lays on a heavy dose of the supernatural in a strained attempt at tying everything up. The final reveal is logical, but nagging questions remain unanswered. Hall delivers a compelling and convincing portrayal throughout, possibly a career highlight. David Bruckner’s naturalistic direction gives the movie a disarmingly creepy vibe, at least until the final confrontation. Recommended.
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Don’t Breathe 2
A blood-soaked horror movie that asks us to choose the lesser of two really evil characters. Unlike the original movie, suspense is built wile we wait for the next gory beat-down. Recommended, but proceed with caution. Continue reading Don’t Breathe 2
Old
Old has a great opening act: a group of vacationers are taken to an exclusive beach. Once there, they age rapidly and cannot find a way to leave. The movie is undone by talky dialog and weak acting by the leads. The middle act gets weighed down by sappy sentimentality when it should have ratcheted the tension and the horror of the situation. The mystery is revealed in the end, and while it is intriguing, is loose in its reasoning and cannot erase what came before. A disappointment after the one-two punch of Split and Glass. Not recommended.
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Detroit Cineaste 