“Believe me, you don’t want Hannibal Lecter inside of your head.” Though Dr. Chilton (Anthonly Heald) gave the warning to Clarice (Jodie Foster), it almost felt like a subtle warning to the viewer. The beauty of Jonathan Demme’s psychological-horror, The Silence of the Lambs, is that most of the scares in the movie come from the uncomfortable nature and presentation of the characters and their motivations. The film follows the FBI cadet, Clarice, as she attempts to get advice and help from Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), an incarcerated cannibal, to stop mass murderer, Buffalo Bill.
The movie plays on the viewers engagement and understanding of each of the characters and their respective motivations. During dialogue scenes, the camera usually fully focuses on whoever is talking with no distractions. This helps create the effect that the characters are talking to us and generates a deeper investment into the characters and the story.
Claire’s treatment also highlights the way our gazes constantly reinforce and generate certain expectations. Despite being intelligent and qualified, she is often treated as eye candy by almost every male she meets. This creates a voyeuristic juxtaposition which highlights and makes the horror more palpable. Because we relate to and understand the character more we feel her plight. But because we’re also outside viewers it becomes easier to watch the way society objectifies her. Simultaneously, a subject and an object- the identification made me feel unnerved by revealing my own biases while watching.
Scares here are less visceral and more subtle. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins steal the show here and their lengthy dialogues are tense and informative. Even though they spend most of their time just talking to each other, the delivery and pacing, made the scenes feel far more “impactful” than traditional dialogue. Since the human psyche here is the battlefield, it makes sense that the action comes through best in the intellectual probing battle,as both characters try to feel each other out. Horror here mainly comes from thoughts and suggestions. There are some disturbing images through the movie, but they’re used sparingly to preserve impact and to highlight the psychological terror.
Rating
TLDR:The Silence of the Lambs is a terrifying romp through the human psyche. It forces us to confront our own biases and asks us uncomfortable questions about the way we act in this world.
Final Rating: 10/10. If you enjoy psychological movies or like shows like Mindhunter or Criminal Minds, then you’ll end up loving this. This might be one of the most unnerving movies I’ve ever watched and I know I’ll come back to it eventually.
When I walked into the theater for this movie, I expected an average Bollywood action movie. Nothing special, nothing awful- just lots of action, decent songs, and a semi-coherent plot. Thankfully, I was in for a pleasant surprise. Thought Siddharth Anand’s action-thriller, War, doesn’t break the mold or innovate the action story-line we’re all so familiar with, it keeps things interesting enough and I was never bored with what was going on. The plot follows a military agent, Khalid (Tiger Shroff) , desperately trying to catch and understand his supposedly traitorous, former mentor, Kabir (Hrithik Roshan).
The acting between the two leads is stellar. They play naturally off each other. Though they initially start the film antagonistically, they eventually warm up to each other and it feels a lot like a “bromance.” The body and facial language really sell and underscore how important the two characters are to each other which made me actually care for their respective well-beings. Tiger Shroff in particular really shines and comes through in a lot of different situations. His character “arc” is really well demonstrated.
Fight choreography in this movie is amazing. The camera is constantly following the action, which makes every impact feel more dynamic. We constantly follow the fights as they move through the environment and set pieces are constantly involved. In particular, observational awareness is highlighted a lot in fights and make some of the battles feel really tactical. It definitely made the “cool” factor more prominent. On top of this, the hand-to-hand combat is crisp and precise. It’s not John Wick level, but it’s definitely better than something you’d see in an average movie. Every punch and kick feels like it has an impact, even if characters get up despite the pummeling they receive. Dance choreography was also energetic and crisp. It made watching the songs more fun, even if I didn’t care much for the songs themselves.
The problems with the movie are standard. The plot is fairly generic. A lot of twists can be seen if you’re familiar with the action genre even a moderate amount. As such, if you’re looking for huge innovation, you might be disappointed. Some of the twists are heavy handed which hurts the replay value of the movie.
Finally, the movie uses a series of shots that just caused me to feel disoriented or out of place with the movie. There are a lot of circular shots where the camera keeps going in a circle. It doesn’t really add a lot to the mood or the plot when used and just feels out of place. There’s also an excessive amount of slow-motion shots. It’s used well sometimes, but overuse makes it feel more boring as the movie went on.
Rating
TLDR:War is a fun action movie with great fight scenes and phenomenal chemistry between its leads. The plot feels fairly generic, but it never once feels boring
Final Rating: 7.3/10. If you like cool choreography, like action, or enjoy good bromances check out this movie.
Kristen Connolly as Dana Fran Kranz as Marty Chris Hemsworth as Curt Anna Hutchinson as Jules Jesse Williams as Holden Richard Jenkins as Gary Bradley Whitford as Steve
Release Date
2012
Running Time
95 minutes
Since I was re-watching my favorite horror movies for my best horror movies of the past decade list (to be released soon) , I decided to watch Cabin In the Woods one more time even though I saw it recently in my Halloween Marathon challenge. I’m genuinely happy I did because wow, did I come away with so much more than I initially saw. All the issues I had with the movie before were ideas that the movie directly criticizes and looking at the movie again with the knowledge of how it all ends proved a humbling experience. Goddard and Whedon have written one of the most ambitious and intelligent horror movies of all-time, let alone the last decade and I’ve never been so excited to have been wrong before.
I’ll keep the review spoiler free like before because this movie is best experienced knowing almost nothing going in. Even now, I think my previous review might have said too much, so I’d suggest only looking at it after watching the movie. It’ll make it even funnier. I have a lot of thoughts about the movie that I’ll write in the spoiler section here and in a piece I’ve been brewing up. Now that that’s out of the way, the movie follows a group of 5 friends: Dana, a shy nerdy girl. Typical final girl status; Marty, the fun stoner of the group who drops nuggets of wisdom; Curt, alpha but intelligent cool guy of the group; Holden, a book smart nice guy; Jules, the fun outgoing girl who’s in a relationship with Curt. Every character feels familiar at once because they’re similar to archetypes we’re all familiar with in horror, but are distinct enough to stand out. The attention to character details really shines through and makes reveals later in the movie more satisfying.
If you’re a fan of horror, you owe it to yourself to watch the movie just to see all the different homages. Now that I’ve watched more horror and expanded my palette (primarily due to this past October) I could recognize more of the mise en scene. There’s a lot of love present from the attention to detail to the way the plot unfolds. The movie deftly navigates multiple tropes, simultaneously using them, making fun of them, and being in something in addition to them. Every single actor/actress gives their all in their respective performance and the movie wouldn’t be the same without their dedication to the script. You can tell they’re having a lot of fun with the subtext at play and it makes every moment memorable. I was surprised at how much of the movie I remembered as I re-watched everything. It has a way of sticking with you because the entire experience is something wholly unique.
This is a meta- movie that requires a lot of self introspection. When I said in my opening paragraph that my re-watch was humbling, I meant that I realized that during my first viewing, I had been so caught up in perceived issues that I never considered the point of what was being said. I missed the forest for the trees. It’s not that I think my analysis of the themes before are wrong. It’s just that that my former analysis only operates one level removed from the movie and the movie goes a lot further than that. The beauty of The Cabin in the Woods is the more you think about what it says about you, the more you get out of it. It’s a movie that rewards familiarity with horror in general, but also the way that the horror market works. If you know your place in that market, you get a lot more from this movie than someone watching just for the sake of scares. The movie isn’t just meta. It’s meta-meta and it’s done for the sake of seriously critiquing the way horror is conceived of and consumed.
Thankfully, if you’re not into all of that “meta nonsense”, there’s a fun story that works purely at the level of function. Watching the tale of the group is still scary. It’s just scary in a horror comedy sense, more so than a typical slasher movie. There’s a lot of blood and gore. There are gruesome kills and serious moments. However, the nature of the movie might make those moments less scary than one would expect. Going into the movie with an open mind and no expectations and knowledge of it gives you the best chance of enjoying a fun and unique experience. I laughed myself to tears more than once and found myself genuinely admiring how diverse the layers of humor were.
Report Card
TLDR
The Cabin in the Woods is a movie that ages with experience and time. The more you think about your place in the horror industry and your own expectations, the more you appreciate the decisions Goddard and Whedon made. On the surface level there’s a lot of humorous scenes and gory fun to be had. If you’re looking for subtext or enjoy meta-content then this movie is for you. It’s unique in that it gives viewers exactly what they put into it. As a result it can work for a variety of audiences. If you enjoy horror at all, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view Version #1 of this review. Go to Page 4 for Version #1’s spoiler discussion. Go to Page 5 to view this review’s progress report .
When the narration started at the beginning of the movie I knew I was in for a rough ride. The expectation is set – you know what you’ll see will be heinous and grotesque- and then the camera goes from a series of camera flashes over a series of red disturbing images, before cutting away to a decomposing, grotesque cadaver sculpture. Through this immaculate progression, Tobe Hooper was able to set the pace and tone of the movie, while creating an initial shock to get the viewers ready for the slasher horror to come in his seminal independent movie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
We follow a group a of young 20 something’s with no care in the world as they attempt to check on the graveyard of the titular character Sally’s (played by Marilyn Burns) grandfather. After they check and leave the station, they end up picking up a hitchhiker and everything starts to go downhill from there. The unsuspecting and happy-go-lucky group are forced to endure nightmarish events and visuals.
When everything goes to hell in a hand-basket, the camera really helps amplify the tension and induces a panicking feeling. The camera dips and turns, slants sideways, quickly zooms in, and constantly keeps the viewer on edge. It perfectly highlights the chaos and disorientation of later scenes, creating a morbid dread. The lighting is also incredibly interesting. A lot of the horror/scenes leading up to those moments have a lot of sunlight in them. The juxtaposition created with the grotesque and inhumane acts with a sunny background, really highlighted how nefarious and isolated the main environment is. It helps highlight the hopelessness, which along with some early foreshadowing, really makes some character fates tragic.
All of this is even more surprising, when you realize the movie, unlike its titles suggestion, isn’t especially gory. The violent scenes aren’t scary because there’s tons of blood and guts, or a lot of loud bumps. The movie is scary because it puts you in a paranoid and disturbed state of mind, and forces you to confront the way you’ve normalized and participated in “violent” actions.
The way the movie introduces it’s villain and their subsequent actions really drives the point home- humanity is capable of awful, violent things. From the way it parodies elements of family life, to its commentary on our relationship to food, the movie constantly makes it clear- humanity is its own worst enemy. What we see as depraved, is merely those undercurrents amplified. The movie honestly feels like it’s bringing to light the worst subconscious traits and tendencies we have as a species, and forcing us to really confront those things.
I felt scared and uncomfortable the whole time the film. From the opening scene to the very end, I never felt “safe.” That kind of feeling is rare and unsettling. It’s also really surprising because I saw Poltergeist earlier last week, and after realizing that Hooper directed both films, was in a positive shock. Some of the visual effects in that movie make a lot more sense now that I know it came from the same mind that made this nightmare. It also made me appreciate how well he, as a director, could capture different moments of horror.
Check out my spoiler thoughts where I go in more intensively on some themes and why the movie felt as unsettling as it did.
Rating
TLDR:The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an incredibly frightening and grotesque look at the undercurrent of our psyches.
Final Rating: 10/10. Chilling. Innovative. Revolutionary. If you want to feel scared, genuinely scared and off balance, watch this movie. People who like slashers or artistic takes on the dark undercurrents of humanity should also check it out.
George Romero’s 1968 piece of art, Night of the Living Dead, tells a gripping tale of a group of survivors fighting against a horde of “living dead” zombies encroaching the house they’re hiding in. However, the real, more insidious enemy plaguing the group are their ideological divides. The film feels so much like a social commentary and, surprisingly, seems incredibly pertinent to the status quo.
The first scene into the bait-and-switch into the lead character was unexpected and genuinely surprising. We start off with a view of Barbra (played by Judith O’Dea) and her brother walking towards the cemetery to pay respects to their father. From there we go on an almost absurd journey, as Barbra tries to escape an undead chasing her. As she finds shelter, we get introduced to the real main character, Ben, played by Duane Jones. I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, and I can only count on one hand how many black leads I’ve ever seen. Especially thinking about the fact that this movie was released in 1968, Duane’s portrayal of a strong, steady, calm, and resourceful black man taking charge and holding off the undead is incredibly subversive.
Eventually as we’re introduced to the rest of the cast, we see the signs of ideological fracture among the group. Harry, played by Karl Hardman, serves as the chief foil to Ben and they both represent different outlooks on relation and responsibility. The clashes between them serve as a kind of commentary on the costs of survival and the extent of our obligation to our fellow people.
Romero is phenomenal at showing and not telling. Yes, there are exposition dumps woven throughout the movie, but the a lot of the information describes events that we, as the audience, have already seen. This helps create a really dynamic viewing experience which is only amplified by the use of slanted camera angles and amazing lighting choices. The shadows are really accentuated which ramps up the tension, but more importantly the constant use of fire and flames through the movies really pops and creates an impact. Special effect design is also great – the gore effects are visually disturbing and accentuate the depravity of the creatures enough to make them scary even now. However, despite using so many of the above to create a scary spectacle, never once, does the focus of the movie feel like it’s too “away” from the protagonists. The monsters are there – but they’re there to highlight issues and serve as catalysts – the focus is always clearly on the characters.
I would go into more but I don’t want to risk spoiling anything so I’ll end the spoiler free section here.
Rating
TLDR:Night of the Living Dead is a dark take on humanity’s response to an terrifying threat. Although it’s a zombie movie on the outside, on the inside it’s a fascinating journey through the darker canals of the human mind.
Final Rating: 9.5/10. If you’re someone who keeps up a lot with social issues and the news, watch this movie. It’s surprisingly though provoking now, five decades later. Anyone who likes psychological films or zombie films should also give this a go.
Based on a true story text. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is tucked away within frames in the frame. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is lost in thought. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) turns to answer the landlady. The landlady (Dee Wallace) wants Samantha to take the apartment. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) stares down at the place’s listing. The price is out of her range. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) walks back to her dorm room as the title card drops. The opening sets the tone with its healthy sprinkle of 70’s and 80’s horror homages and references to the Satanic Panic gripping the times. The milieu sets expectations, so we know what to expect. Samantha’s good luck is going to very quickly run out.
The film opens with text claiming that it’s based on a true story regarding the Satanic Panic of the 80’s. The text fades to black which then fades into to a view of a room. A young woman, Samantha (Joceline Donahue), can be seen framed by a set of doorways and shadows; she’s tucked away within the space. The camera slowly zooms in to get a better perspective of her; she’s lost in thought and the long zoom only exemplifies the intensity of her deliberation.
Suddenly, an older woman (Dee Wallace) approaches Samantha from behind and asks the latter if she enjoys the apartment unit. Samantha snaps back to reality, turns around, and claims it’s perfect. The landlady is enthused by the response. She claims that she didn’t like another applicant who seemed like trouble and would rather Samantha, someone who reminds her of her own good-natured daughter, move into the location instead.
But while the residence appears to be perfect, it’s clear there’s an issue. Samantha gazes apprehensively at the listing’s price and the reason for her earlier indecision simultaneously becomes apparent: she doesn’t have the funds needed to afford the location. When she mentions her financial struggles, the landlady decides to waive some initial fees and put off the first payment; helping out a daughter surrogate matters more than making a higher profit. With some financial wiggle room, Samantha hops off to her dorm room.
While she traverses, the opening sequence proceeds in gusto with loud yellow credits, diegetic music introduced by Samantha’s Walkman, and a few freeze frame shots. If the opening’s “true story” homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror wasn’t enough, this sequence makes the 70’s/80’s horror milieu that the film is placing itself within clear and sets expectations of where the story is going to go, cueing the viewer to focus in on the smaller details on the journey as opposed to its destination.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue)sees a sock on her door. A babysitter ad is surrounded by notices about an upcoming eclipse. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) takes the first slip with a callback number for the ad. The add uses the “$” symbol as a replacement for “S”.With an awful living situation in her dormitory, it’s no wonder that Samantha is desperate to escape. Getting money to leave is the only thing that’s on her mind which is why a babysitting ad provides to be so tantalizing.
But at the end of her trek, Samantha sees a sock hanging on her door, a telltale sign that her roommate (Heather Robb) has the room occupied for carnal purposes. Frustrated, she knocks on the door and reminds her roommate that it’s morning, implying that the latter’s “adventure” has been ongoing since the night and has prevented Samantha from being able to enter her own living area. What should have been her private reprieve from the world becomes an uninhabitable space occupied by antagonistic “others”.
Unwilling to walk in and deal with her roommate and her roommate’s partner in the nude, Samantha walks off and leaves the dormitory. She passes by a bulletin board plastered with flyers: in the center is an ad for a babysitter job and surrounding it are calls to join in watching an upcoming eclipse. The camera lingers on the board with the ad positioned center-frame even after Samantha passes by it highlighting the importance of what it conveys.
Then, Samantha walks back into frame and re-reads the babysitting ad. She checks around to make sure no one’s watching her and takes the first of the slips containing the number to call. She leaves the frame and the camera zooms in on the ad, emphasizing that the “S” in “Sitter” is written with a “$” symbol; Samantha’s desperate desire to find a new residence necessitates a quick stream of cash and that’s all she can focus on now.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) calls the number. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) wallks away from the phone. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) responds to the caller. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) stares suspiciously at the phone. The paranoia sets in as Samantha experiences a strange phenomena with a public phone. She calls the number on the ad but gets no response, so she leaves a message with a proper call-back number. Yet, as soon as she begins to leave the area, the public phone begins to ring. Somehow, the client managed to track down which public phone Samantha was using and call it all well under a minute. The feeling of being watched becomes palpable as Samantha looks back at the phone as if anticipating a presence to be lurking.
She gets to a payphone and calls the number only to hear the answering machine; she leaves her name and number and asks for a callback if the opportunity is still available. The camera stays in place as she walks off, framing both her and the phone against one another; the visual importance given to the inanimate object generates a slight unease.
But then the phone starts to ring. Samantha is as surprised as us and walks back to receive the seemingly impossible call. Accordingly, she asks the caller, who is revealed to be the babysitter client, how they got the payphone number and called it; the sequence of events implies that someone had to have been watching her put the call in to call back the phone quickly enough so that she would be able to hear it and pick it up. Yet, the client sidesteps the question and presses on with the opportunity, ascertaining if Samantha is still interested. She quickly pivots; money is more important than strange coincidences and she can’t afford to question a gig offering a nice payout.
The caller asks to meet at a building in the university and Samantha agrees. She walks away from the phone again and the composition from earlier is replicated. This time, she turns around and looks at the phone quizzingly. The strangeness of the call still lingers on her mind.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) hesitates before opening the door. Samantha wades through a minefield of clothes. Her roommate’s partner hits on her. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) waits in front of the student building. A dissolve of Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) waiting. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) decides to leave. The empty building fades to a sign of……the Eclipse PieSamantha (Jocelin Donahue) vents to Megan (Greta Gerwig)Even when Samantha can get into her room, she isn’t allowed to rest as she’s immediately accosted by her roommate’s lover of the day. Desperate to get out of the location, but immediately and in the long run, she waits for a long time for the client to come and meet her to no avail. She expresses her frustrations about her situation to her friend later that day all while the upcoming eclipse lingers in the backdrop.
She treks back to her room and sees the sock removed from the door knob. She hesitates for a moment, accepts the possibility of walking on her roommate having sex, and then opens the door to go in. Yet, what she enters into isn’t that much better. Her roommate’s side of the room is absolutely filthy with clothes littering the floor. After traversing the cloth minefield, Samantha tries to pack her bag but is promptly hit on by her roommate’s partner. It’s no wonder why she wants to leave as soon as possible.
Yet, things only proceed to get more frustrating for Samantha as she waits for her caller to approach. Even though she puts her Walkman on, the music is barely audible; she can barely focus on it in preparation for what’s to come. A dissolve showcases time passing her by. When she realizes that in the time she’s waited an entire class has finished, she decides to abandon the endeavor. The disappointing scene dissolves into a sign for “Eclipse Pie” – another mention of the eclipse.
It’s at this restaurant where Samantha finally divulges the frustrations building up in her up to the point to her best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig). Her fears about not having the money to get to a place she can call home swell up and threaten to burst. The babysitter job was the perfect opportunity to get cash quickly and under the table.
Megan tries to lift Samantha’s spirits up. First, she assures Megan that the latter will be taken care of if she can’t find any money. Megan comes from a family of wealth and at the very least will help her friend with a place to stay. Second, she highlights that the job could have been awful: “the kid could be from hell.” This call-back to the opening text’s mention of “Satanic cults” adds to the unease surrounding the situation. Perhaps, it’s a good thing Samantha didn’t get the job.
When Megan offers to help Samantha get revenge by finding and tearing down all the potential babysitter ads put up by the no-show client to ensure that no one responds to their call, there’s a part of us that wants Samantha to agree and prevent the seeming inevitability. However, Samantha, the upstanding girl the landlady characterized her to be, refuses her friend’s offer to retaliate and goes back to her room to figure out what to do.
Samantha tries to get a moment’s rest. The faucets cover up the noise of Samantha crying. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is frustrated in the stall. The water swirls around the drain, accumulating faster than it can be removed. The sound of water from the faucets covers up the sounds of Samantha’s frustrations while making the weight of her misery apparent: her problems are piling up faster than she can possibly get rid of them.
Unfortunately, while her roommate’s nighttime visitor is now gone, her roommate is still very much present and her constant snoring makes catching even a moment’s rest impossible. Samantha seldom places her head on a pillow before giving up and going to the bathroom. She flips all the faucets on. The noise generated by the streams covers the sounds of her crying. She’s isolated in the bathroom stall and the seemingly insurmountable pressure she feels is perfectly encapsulated by the image of the drain in the sink overflowing with water from a never-ending tap.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) writes down the Ulman address. The moon begins to get covered in shadows. Megan (Greta Gerwig) and Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) drive to the residence. The cemetery lingers. The camera lingers on the front door. An unseen man opens the door for Megan (Greta Gerwig) and Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) . When the babysitter opportunity presents itself again, Samantha immediately decides to give it a shot. The eclipse takes a bigger prominence as a shot of the moon is shown after her decision is made. Her journey to the residence amplifies the feeling of unease as the camera lingers on a cemetery and withholds as much information about what she’s walking into as possible.
But back in the room, Samantha is greeted with unexpected news from her roommate who informs her that someone called and left a message regarding a babysitter job. Immediately, Samantha jumps on the opportunity, gets the number, and calls the client once more. She quickly forgives his excuse for not coming: he had a hectic morning and found himself unable to come. He mentions that he had another sitter lined up but they backed out and gave him trouble and thanks Samantha for calling back in spite of his treatment of her. Just like with the landlady, it appears that the upstanding Samantha is here to save the day and take the place of another deviant woman.
He asks her to come in for the night and babysit till a little after midnight in exchange for double the rate of pay. With no hesitation, Samantha agrees and calls up Megan for a ride. The film cuts to a shot of the moon, a reminder of the coming eclipse, as Samantha gets into Megan’s car. During their long drive up to the client’s household. Megan admits that she took down all the ads she could find; Samantha realizes that her opportunity was a result of this interference as the client had no one else to reach out to. Megan, for all intents and purposes, got Samantha her position for the night.
This revelation is accompanied by a lingering shot of a cemetery the girls drive by – a sign of things to come. The cemetery dissolves to a shot of the girls finally making it to the house. They get out and make their way to the front door and knock. A long zoom on the door handle raises the stakes on what’s to follow, creating an anticipation to discover the truth behind the job opportunity. The door opens and the girls look up as a pair of long arms extends out to greet them; the client’s face is withheld from the frame and the viewer amplifying the mystery and beckoning both the viewer and the girls to discover what lies in wait. But as the night goes on, Samantha finds herself embroiled in a dark mystery that threatens to completely destroy her life.
While the nature of the mystery, presaged by the film’s opening text and multiple subsequent clues, offers little in the way of genuine surprise, it gives director Ti West the perfect backdrop to explore the anxieties of the time and present an almost mythological depiction of the horrors associated with the respective culture shift. Like the films whose styles it pays homage to, The House of the Devil uses the literal struggle its protagonist undergoes to identify the stakes of the culture war of the era, revealing that the true horror of the “other” side stems not from their perverse desires but from the way those desires seem to mirror and pervert traditional desires.
Samantha’s journey seems to be a slow one, but its meticulous construction gives West ample time to set up her archetypal innocence and establish threats, unseen to her but visible to us, which bubble underneath the surface until the final few minutes of the film where the violence finally erupts. It’s when the struggle finally comes to its climax that the cinematography shifts from the slow and meticulous to the rapidly shifting and handheld, reflecting the transitional state resulting from the horrific conflict. When the dust finally settles, the camera regains its composure and documents the aftermath of the battle, tying the thematic and narrative strands up in a nice, neat, mortifying package
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The House of the Devil perfectly encapsulates the best qualities of 70’s and 80’s horror films, capitalizing on cultural anxieties to elevate macabre sequences into terrifying nightmares. This is a Satanic Panic story that simmers in wait until just the right moment before bursting into a bloody hellscape that no fan of horror should miss.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Who would win? A group of punk rock musicians or a gang of violent Nazi’s/white nationalists. Jeremy Saulnier’s, Green Room, follows a the band, the Ain’t Rights, as they play a gig at a far-right venue and come witness to a murder. What follows is a heart-pounding thriller that’ll keep you on the edge of your seats as you witness the group try and get out with their lives.
What makes the movie feel so tense is the normality of the characters. Obviously, I don’t mean the fact they’re musicians that take questionable gigs – rather, it’s because none of the characters have some unexplained skill set that’s perfect for the scenario. No one is actually a secret combat veteran or a perfect shot. Instead, the group is made up of normal human beings who are placed in a terrifying situation and have to use their collective wit to try and escape. The best part? For the most part, their actions and decisions are pretty believable.
This effect is achieved in part by great acting and dialogue choice. Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) all play off each other great as band mates and their chemistry and sense familiarity helps create tension and investment in their characters. Amber, played by Imogen Poots, always feels a bit off-mysterious and strange- which helps keep the intrigue. Finally, Patrick Stewart as Darcy, the film’s villain, is incredibly sinister. You can feel the calculations and his performance really sells how meticulous his planning is. On top of the acting, a lot of the dialogue seems natural and makes sense. This helps create a sense of immersion so when the group makes a decision, it doesn’t feel like it comes out of the blue. This also helps a lot of the outcomes feel earned. between the viewer and the character on the screen.
The film is also gruesome and doesn’t shy away from more gory and bloody moments. This in combination with the darker color scheme, create a gritty and intense feeling that only amplifies the suspense as the movie goes.
Problems mainly occur more prominently in the latter half of the movie. Although most of the plot threads or character threads get developed, there are others that are just raised because? They feel almost like they should be important, but they never really go anywhere. The characters also seem like they all became less intelligent as the plot goes on so the ending doesn’t quite stick the landing.
Rating
TLDR:Green Room is a 90 minute heart pounding suspense film that has great twists and turns. The dialogue and characterization is mostly believable, and though some issues prop up in the second half of the movie, the journey is still a hell of a lot of fun.
Final Rating: 8.3/10. A great movie with some like-able and grounded characters – you should check it out if you want an adrenaline rush or want to feel more alive.
The moment I saw Diane’s(JoBeth William) reaction to the initial infestation of the haunting/poltergeist infestation, I knew I was in for a different supernatural movie experience. Tobe Hooper’s, Poltergeist, follows a suburban American family as their house is taken over by outside spirits. Though the haunting/infestation starts off as innocuous furniture re-arrangements, it quickly descends into a nightmare, as the family struggles to deal with make it through the ordeal
The first thing I really loved was how early on in the film the haunting is set up and its consequences foreshadowed. For example, the opening scene opens up on a television set playing the American anthem. The camera starts zooming into the TV, as the screen starts flickering. The focus on the flicker in the blue light highlights the association between a boundary flickering on and off, and is commonly used to amp up the tension of scenes or to highlight the absolute presence of the paranormal.
There also seems to be a critique of violence and appearances. As the first act continues to unfold, we see Carol Anne (played by Heather O’Rourke), watching a blank flickering screen. A scene exemplifying this that stuck out in my head occurred when Diane sees her Carol Anne watching a blank screen, calls it bad for her daughters eyes, then switches the channel to a war movie with violence on the screen. It felt like foreshadowing, as though Carol Anne would think something bad was good for her. But more importantly, it felt like a critique of how normalized violence can be. Diane immediately also turns away from the television, signalling she may not have seen what she put on for her daughter or know what the content was. This felt like a criticism of assuming the safety of common procedures- like sometimes the seemingly innocent, might have a malevolent undercurrent.
Effects wise, the movie is gorgeous. Some of the special effects seem corny now, but I’d assume they looked a lot scarier back at the release date. However, this only happens a few times. For the most part, some of the visual scares were downright disturbing. They looked real and alive, as though they actually came from some demonic realm.
Most of the problems I had with the movie stem from some early characterization which may or may not be unfair. I felt like some of the actions the characters took felt out of place with the events unfolding, but thankfully these moments were few and far between.
Rating
TLDR:Poltergeist was a beautiful film with great visual effects and an well-developed and fleshed out exploration of a family dealing with the unimaginable.
Final Rating: 9/10. This seminal work deserves a watch from crowds old and young. There’s something in it for everyone and no matter how scared or not scared you are by the end, you’ll have been entertained.
What’s real? Who can I trust? Does it matter? Stanley Kubrick’s ,The Shining , dives headfirst in its examination into the inner workings of the human mind. This story of an isolated family, forced to man and take care of an otherworldly hotel, tackles issues associated with violence, dependence, and isolation-making sure to weave a narrative that highlights each of the above in nuanced and diverse ways.
The first shot sets the tone and really drives home how isolated the main environment of the movie, the Overlook Hotel, is from society. As we follow Jack Torrance’s, played by Jack Nicholson, car driving up the long, winding, mountain road we get to see he how far away the area is from the rest of society.
As he enters the hotel we’re greeted with one of many “timeline” narration cards. I loved how they were used frequently to give a sense of progression of time in the movie, but more interestingly, they made the movie feel more like a novel. I haven’t read the Stephen King novel, this adaptation is based on, but the structure of the acts and their respective lengths made the movie feel like a visual book, as opposed to a normal movie. Almost like it wanted to convey the sense of progression and growth a book can do. The effect felt really impactful in highlighting character progression/regression. Furthermore, the use of one-point perspective for a lot of the scarier and more visually striking shots helped the more intense moments of the movie feel haunting. I couldn’t avert my gaze, and a lot of the times, the “lead up” to the eventual reveal was as if not more intense than the final image, due to the amount of tension and anxiety it created.
The family dynamic present between him, his wife, and their son serve as the catalyst for a lot of important plot points. Paying attention to their interactions at the beginning of the movie, you can tell despite the initial strain, there’s an attempt at kind of coming together and connecting. But as more information gets revealed, the faces slowly reveal fear and paranoia, and a fuller picture of the family comes up. Watching Wendy’s (played by Shelley Duvall) expressions to her husband’s continued eccentricities was simultaneously engrossing and petrifying. I did find it interesting that despite being most intimately connected to the “shining,” Danny (played by Danny Lloyd), doesn’t play as big a role as I thought he would. He was believable in the sequences he was in though, and I enjoyed his other voice/performance.
However, any discussion of the acting in the movie would be remiss if it didn’t go over Jack Nicholson’s performance. He stole the show here and really helped sell the mood and theme of the whole movie. From the moment we meet the Torrance patriarch, he seems like a man on the edge of a see-saw, almost like he’s teetering on the edge of madness. From his facial expressions, to his responses to scenarios he feels like an volcano, ready to blow. As the events of the movie progress, we see him desperately try and maintain a sense of control-of not only himself, but his grasp on reality.
Thankfully, for Jack , Kubrick wants the audience to join him, by casting doubt about everything. Characters say things that contradict previously understood information. Then something happens to confirm the contradiction. Then something happens that maybe throws that previous thing out of the water. Or maybe not. That’s the beauty of the movie. It leaves a lot open-ended, but it does so in a way that feels earned and not sloppy. Camera angles, transitions, and brief still images constantly kept me on edge, wondering if I really did have a grasp on what was going on.
Rating
TLDR:The Shining is a haunting tale of the effects of isolation and dependency. By using an already strained family as the main characters and splashing in elements of the supernatural, it takes its themes and questions to some of their most interesting destinations.
Final Rating: 10/10 Beautifully paced, shot, and executed. I’ll be thinking about the ending for a while and who was actually telling the truth
From the opening shot of the John Carpenter’s masterpiece science-fiction horror film, The Thing, I knew I was in for something different. After all, the first real thing we see is a UFO crash into the Earth before a great transition to the title card. Then immediately after, we cut into a helicopter chasing around a dog in the Antarctic, desperately trying to gun it down. The best part? This is only the beginning, and the story that follows is even grander and raises even more questions.
The story follows a group of American scientists, their encounter with an unknown alien creature that can imitate any organism it consumes, and their subsequent struggle to survive and eliminate “the Thing.” The acting is phenomenal from the entire cast . It genuinely feels like everyone is certain that they’re a “good” guy and everyone else is suspicious or corrupted by the alien creature. . Lighting and perspective are played around with a lot to amp up the feelings of paranoia. Furthermore, Kurt Russel as MacReady was captivating. He took charge of the scenes he was in, much like his character did during his movie. His serious reaction to a lot of the more imaginative scenes in the movie, really sell the impact and gravity of what’s going on.
However, what makes the movie truly mesmerizing and in turn, genuinely disturbing is attention to detail. From set design, to lighting you can tell a lot of the choices were done intentionally to seed additional doubt over the status of certain characters and to constantly cause the viewer to feel uncertain. The visual effects on display made me actually lean back in fear. The monster was disgusting and didn’t even feel out of place compared to special effects in movies today. I was shocked to see that this movie was actually almost forty years old. It’s aged phenomenally! There’s one scene in particular that I’ll go into more detail in the spoilers section, but after reading on how much work went into it, I appreciated how much more it actually scared me. This does come with a warning to my more squeamish friends- some of the visual scares are a bit bloody and there’s some really out there imagery, so be warned.
Put together- the elements of the movie present, at least in my opinion, a pretty bleak interpretation of human affairs and left me with a sense of nihilism. I can see why critics at the time weren’t huge fans. But despite, the seemingly bleak nature of the movie- it’s beautiful in it’s portrayal of the costs of survival and the things we’re willing to do in its name.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise or horrors so the spoiler free thoughts end here.
Rating
TLDR:The Thing is bleak and ambiguous, leaving a lot up the viewer for interpretation. From the effects to the cast, the story will constantly keep you on edge, nervous, and paranoid, just like the characters.
Final Rating: 10/10. It’s good. Real good. Take the deep dive. I know I know. A 10 in the first 3 days? I promise- it’s well worth it.
