Olivia Hussey as Jess Margot Kidder as Barbara Keir Dullea as Peter Marian Waldman as Mrs.MacHenry John Saxon as Lt. Kenneth Fuller Douglas McGrath as Sergeant Nash
Release Date
1974
Language(s)
English
Running Time
98 minutes
If you’ve been keeping up with the site since the Halloween 2k19 Marathon (also known as when I first started this whole shindig), you’ll know I’m not the biggest fan of slasher movies. Growing up the only one I ever saw (and am a huge fan of) is John Carpenter’s Halloween. Thankfully, after taking a dive into the slasher cannon (Nightmare on Elm Street,Friday the 13th, Scream) , I’ve gotten fonder of them and wanted to catch up on the basics. After the mess that was Black Christmas (2019), I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and watch the original Black Christmas, often hailed as one of the most important slashers from a technique standpoint. I went in curious and have come out a true believer. I’m happy to see that Black Christmas is not only my number one Christmas horror now (replacing Krampus) , but it deserves even more recognition and fandom than it currently gets.
From the moment the movie starts, you know something is wrong. The camera surveys a sorority house from the outside, like a voyeur. It’s made clear that we’re following the antagonist’s point-of-view through the beautiful and impressive at the time, first person shot. Just within the first few scenes, it’s clear there’s a very real danger waiting for the girls in the comfort of their own home. Soon after, the telephone rings as all the girls listen to the apparent ravings of some psycho-sexual pervert. As the night goes on, the girls are targeted one by one as they attempt to navigate the harrowing events they’re facing. It’s a setup that thrives because of its unsettling atmosphere. No gore. No awful jump scares. No absurd exposition. Every scare is well set-up, well executed, and well earned being viscerally jarring enough to shake you without disrupting the tension that’s building in the background. The movie dumps you straight into a state of anxiety and leaves you there from start to finish.
Unlike the 2019 sequel/remake , the original takes its time exploring women’s agency from smaller issues like being told in patronizing fashions how to be secure to larger issues like whether or not abortion is morally okay. The genius comes from how subtle the social commentary comes of. Nothing hits you over the head screaming “MAN BAD” or “WOMEN MOST OPPRESSED GROUP EVER”. Instead, the story generates its thematic discussion by juxtaposing the differences in the way agency is accorded to men versus women in similar circumstances. For example, when the girls initially put in their call for assistance they don’t get a real response until things start becoming more serious. Meanwhile, when an elder gentlemen literally SHOOTS a police officer, he gets a slap on the wrist. Moments like these are littered throughout to constantly highlight the hypocritical standards by which women are judged. Whenever one of the girls ends up getting killed, their murder often transitions into a joyous, everyday, playful kind of scene. It’s almost like an sick demonstration of how violence against women gets crowded out/erased and the way the technique consistently used makes that all the more apparent.
Now what pushes the movie over the top is the wide array of fleshed out and memorable characters at its disposal. Jess is our no-bullshit, cooperative protagonist who’s trying to live her own life and keep the peace. Barbara is the foul-mouthed , highly independent, deviant lifeblood of the sorority and has some of the best comedic moments in the movie. She takes the role of the traditional “sex-d” up male side-kick and makes it fully her own. Speaking of funny, Waldman absolutely knocked it out of the park as the house mother, Mrs. MacHenry. She’s the perfect blend of sardonic and fake sweet and watching her put on her airs is a delight. I was surprised at how much I was laughing in the first and second acts , but with characters this funny it’s not hard to tell why. What surprised me is how likable,diverse, and developed the male characters are. Sure, there are your generic domineering chauvinists like Sergeant Nash. However, there are also well-meaning people like Lt.Fuller, who outside of his thematically necessary blind spots, acts like a decent human being.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
If you love horror movies or are a big fan of the slasher genre and haven’t checked this gem of a movie out you’re doing yourself a disservice. Black Christmas blends together a compelling story, layers of mystery, memorable and likable characters, and ties them all together in a way that demonstrates the trials and horrors of women’s’ agency without being preachy or too on the nose.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report.
Kate Siegel as Maddie Young John Gallagher Jr. as The Assailant
Release Date
2016
Language(s)
English
Running Time
81 minutes
Hush tells the story of Maddie, a deaf author, suffering from a particularly grueling case of writers’ block. Given her condition, she doesn’t notice when a nameless intruder stakes his claim in her house, hell bent on torturing her until it’s no longer fun and then killing her after. Little does he know that Maddie’s not ready to give in and she’s more resourceful than she looks.
This is the first Mike Flanagan movie I ever watched and is the first of many reasons why I will watch anything he makes (As of writing this, I’m only missing The Haunting of Hill House). Typically when I watch a movie, I have anywhere from a few to a lot of “Why don’t they just…?” or “That doesn’t make sense and would never happen!” thoughts. That issue happens far less often in a Flanagan movie because he spends time justifying every decision and helping the audience understand exactly what all the outs are. This movie takes great pain to humor the audience’s “what-if” scenarios, in a way that’s both logistically and visually satisfying.
The movie does a great job of establishing each of the main characters as individuals and as a cat-and-mouse pair that’s trying to take each the other one out. Siegel is excellent as the lead and manages to convey a lot of intention and emotion through excellent facial expressions and physical acting. She’s not allowed to talk in a traditional sense, so watching her “show” her thoughts makes the experience feel more personal. Within a few scenes, I was invested in her well-being and found myself rooting for her to win. She uses her circumstances and wit to constantly navigate the situation, so the movie feels unique in how competent the “final girl” starts off. It’s a refreshing change of pace that keeps the movie feeling fresh in a genre that needs new life injected into it. John Gallagher Jr. is unnerving as the unnamed assailant. He’s a total psychopath and the movie hammers that point in more than once. Early on, when he realizes Maddie is deaf, he decides it would be more fun to torture her and go in for the kill, because he could prolong it like a game. The cold, calm, and composed way John fulfills his actions makes it clear that the events in the movie are nothing more than sick and twisted entertainment for his character. Side characters are used effectively. None of them linger for longer than they need to and they’re presented as capable in their own right. It makes them feel like they’re real parts of the world, as opposed to throw-away characters meant to change the pace up and add new sources of tension.
Maddie’s condition is used to great effect and Flanagan has found a way to give her a voice in spite of her lack of speaking. Things happen in the background, and Maddie doesn’t turn around to look at them. It’s typical horror movie bad decision 101, but in her case it’s understandable because she can’t hear the noises of the “things” happening around her. It creates excellent square sequences where we see menacing things happen around her and know that she’s walking straight into harrowing circumstances.
Though the movie is deftly crafted and well-paced, it doesn’t do anything spectacular to change up the genre or make its themes refined. There’s a simple underlying story of defying expectations and using them to your advantage, but it’s only ever explored in one way. It’s relatable but not complex. That’s not a bad thing, but given how well executed and conceived the mechanics and performances are, the same level of nuance in the themes or story would have elevated this movie into something really great. Don’t get it twisted, this is one of the best slashers of the past decade. I just thought it had way more potential.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Hush is one of the best slashers of the past decade and is sure to entertain anyone who has a hankering for a bad-ass “final” girl. Deaf author vs sadistic psychopath plays out with a lot more finesse and nuance than you’d expect.There are innovative communication strategies, well executed chase sequences, and tons of chilling harrowing moments. Best part? It’s only 81 minutes, so you don’t need to spend a long time waiting around.
Rating
9.0/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report .
Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson/Red Winston Duke as Gabe Wilson/Abraham Shahadi Wright Joseph as Zora Wilson/ Umbrae Evan Alex as Jason Wilson/ Pluto
Note: This review contains spoilers regarding the first 40 minutes of the film as opposed to the site’s usual benchmark of 10-20 minutes. The same effort towards sustaining the intrigue and momentum of the film, especially in its second and third acts, is maintained in this review, and all plot details revealed are just meant to be a springboard to discuss the scope of the work in better detail. Nothing discussed should undermine the “best” portions of the film or the many mysteries that keep the story engaging.
Thousands of tunnels exist underneath the Continental United States with no known purpose. A weather warning about a storm. An add for “Hands Across America”. Adelaide (Madison Curry) sees her reflection on the screen. An ad for the Santa Monica Beach. Adelaide (Madison Curry) wins the “11th” prize. After an introductory quote, the camera slowly pushes in towards a television which features a wide range of images on its screen: a weather warning, an advert for a charitable performance, a young girl’s reflection, and an advert for a beach. This initial tapestry will come to mean something far greater as the film continues.
The film opens with a quote explaining that there are thousands of tunnels underneath the Continental United States. Many of these passages have no known purpose and are thought to be empty. The quote disappears and the film cuts to a television screen which the camera slowly pushes in towards.
First, a weather report for an incoming storm plays. The number “11” is featured in the frame in three separate locations – a sign of things to come. Second, an advert for “Hands Across America”, a fundraiser meant to generate funds for the homeless via donation and a public demonstration of persons linking their hands across the country, proceeds in detail. The channel is changed by the viewer, a young black girl, Adelaide (Madison Curry), whose reflection can be seen on the screen temporarily. Finally, an advert for the Santa Monica Beach proceeds. Thus, the tapestry of the film is established: a storm, the number “11”, a mirror reflection, a symbol of unification meant to help the disenfranchised, and a beach for persons to enjoy a vacation in.
This image of the beach is replaced by the beach proper. Adelaide and her parents attempt to enjoy the festivities present at the location. Her father wins her the “11th” numbered prize, a Michael Jackson Thriller t-shirt, and the family unit departs to explore the grounds.
Adelaide (Madison Curry) heads towards the hall of mirrors. She drops her apple on the beach. Adelaide (Madison Curry) enters the hall of mirrors as a storm rages on behind her. Adelaide (Madison Curry) is forced to confront distorted reflections and is unable to find an exit. Adelaide (Madison Curry) comes face to face with her corporeal Other. Adelaide (Madison Curry) screams in terror. A rabbit stares into the camera. The blood red title card appears. A classroom of caged rabbits is revealed. The prologue continues to develop the meaning of the television images that came before in disturbing fashion. The “11’s” come to be associated with a Biblical warning promising terrible things to come. As the young Adelaide descends a staircase, drops her red apple, enters a maze of mirrors, and finds herself trapped by her reflections with no way out, the feeling of dread continues to get worse before bursting as she finds herself face-to-face with a corporeal doppelgänger. She screams but instead of showing a direct response to her cry for help, Peele cuts to the eyes of a rabbit and has the camera slowly track out – an opposite movement to the opening. The title card drops in a blood red that call’s back to the apple before the brand new environment, a classroom filled with rabbits, is shown with seemingly no explanations.
The trio splits apart and Adelaide finds herself roaming the grounds of the beach and its festivities by herself. She comes upon a man holding a sign reading “Jeremiah 11:11.” The Bible Verse in question proclaims: “Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.” The preceding signs of “11” take an ominous tone, especially in conjunction with the aforementioned storm – something wicked is coming.
Adelaide descends a set of stairs and the mood gets eerier. She comes upon a Native American themed hall of mirrors titled “Shaman’s Vision Quest.” Thus, the indigenous is transformed into a commercial specter promising an internal revelation. The young girl drops her candy-coated apple – an Edenic symbol and a snack food associated with Halloween- on the shore before venturing into the abode. The foreboding feeling continues to build as a storm begins to rage outside – the ominous pieces showcased in the opening rear their heads in successive fashion.
Inside, Adelaide is thrown off guard first by a random power outage which forces her to traverse the darkness, a mechanical owl that frightens her, and then by a series of mirrors which distort her reflection and make the exit to the attraction impossible to locate. Her journey inwards transforms into a reflective labyrinth with no way out. Afraid, she starts to whistle the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in an attempt to calm herself down. But as she proceeds to try and find through the maze of mirrors, she runs into a doppelganger – a corporeal copy of her instead of a reflection in glass. Her face breaks out into shock as the camera closes in on her expression before quickly cutting to the gaze of a rabbit staring into the frame.
In contrast to the opening push in on the television, the camera pulls back from this new visage, as though concluding the initial movement and tying the two together, and reveals a host of rabbits, all of which are trapped in sequential cages spanning the entire room. The blood red title card drops, calling back to the dropped apple from earlier and signaling an impending sense of violence.
The composition of this new room seems to be a classroom setting but outside of desks and rabbits there are no identifiable markers to make sense of where we’ve been transported to or why Adelaide’s scream has been answered with the gaze of an animal. The words of Jeremiah make this jarring edit all the more concerning. Is the cut to caged animals a deified sign of abandonment in response to Adelaide’s horror or something else entirely?
The camera goes over a forest……and settles on a car driving along. An image on the back of the car reveals the family’s backdrop before we even see them – we know their makeup. The camera moves over trees to the back of a car; an image of a family informs us of our lead characters before we get a chance to see them.
Instead of an answer, the momentum from the camera pulling out continues as the film cuts to a view of a lush, green forest. A car is seen driving through the greens. A sticker on the back of the car informs us that a family of four – a father, a mother, a son, a daughter – are traveling together. The symbolic representation of the family conveys all the information that’s required to understand this unit’s breakdown, but the camera cuts to reveal the individual persons behind the figures, imbuing the symbols with a content that personalizes them. A grown up Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) and her husband, Gabe (Winston Duke), are taking their kids, Zora (Shahadi Wright) and Jason (Evan Alex), to their beach house for a fun-filled vacation.
Adelaide arranges a host of toy animals “hand-to-hand” across a sandy plane, recreating the “Hands Across America” image. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) is transfixed by her past. A spider runs past its inanimate Other looming over it and casting a shadow. Adelaide’s trauma stays at the forefront of her mind and sings from her past linger like a puzzle for her to solve.
However, while things appear to be normal within the family, it’s apparent that the past still haunts Adelaide. While her family engages in a variety of shenanigans that helps us get a feel for their respective personalities – Jason is a playful trickster, Zora is a moody teen, Gabe is an energetic and playful father – Adelaide drifts from the present to the past, reliving her confrontation with her doppelganger and its aftermath. At first, she recounts the therapy session her parents took her to following the event. It’s revealed that she lost her ability to speak following the encounter with her Other self and built a line of toy animals “holding” each other’s “hands” across a beach-like backdrop; this image of unity, a reference to the “Hands Across America” advert from earlier was her object of focus in the face of trauma. Suddenly, she snaps back to the present and notices a spider crawling under a larger, inanimate model spider – an “itsy bitsy” spider and its unalive Other casting a shadow over it.
Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) stares at a stuffed bunny in adoration. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) looks at an image from her past. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) sees her younger self dancing in front of her. She can’t escape her fate as her past bleeds into her present and the symbols and their respective relationships continue to develop – a confrontation is coming soon.
Later on, she curiously picks up a stuffed bunny and looks at it with affection – a perplexing connection given the nature of the cut from her encounter with her Other self to the caged rabbit. Despite seemingly not encountering the creature herself, her encounter having ended with the confrontation and never approaching the hidden room containing the furry creatures, the animal has a hold over her. Along with the doll, she finds a picture of her from her youth in dance garb. This younger self materializes in the present, bringing her trauma to the forefront of her psyche and cementing the connection between the furry creature and the past that still haunts her. The web of symbols continues to get more intermixed amongst one another.
When Gabe mentions wanting to take the family to the Santa Monica Beach for the evening, Adelaide quickly refuses. She fears giving her trauma more control over her psyche via a confrontation with the arena in which she experienced it. Yet, her family’s, namely Gabe’s, passionate pleas get her to acquiesce to a short visit.
Gabe’s boat presentation doesn’t go as well as he hopes. The police take the body of the man who held the “Jeremiah 11:11” sign. The Wilson family casts long shadows on the beach. Jason (Evan Alex) walks past the mirrors. A red frisbee perfectly covers an image of a blue circle. Jason (Evan Alex) sees a bleeding man on the beach. No sooner do they she leave the house do creepy coincides start to arrive – 11:11, shadows, the house of mirrors, replacement, and a spectacle that causes fear. The past is starting to repeat.
He calls the family out to bask in his new boat purchase, albeit one that barely works and seems far from pristine, before the group leaves for the beach. His short-lived material celebration starts the journey on a dour note. The mood shifts towards a jovial attitude as Luniz’s “5 on It” plays on the car radio, prompting the family to sing along and share in the experience – fitting given the lyrics’ emphasis on paying one’s fair share (for drugs). However, as they get closer to the supposedly serene vacation spot, they notice police officers dealing with a deceased person. The camera lingers on a sign in the corpse’s hand just long enough to reveal that this is most likely the same person from Adelaide’s past who held and is still holding the Jeremiah 11:11 sign.
It’s not just her repression coming back into fold within her psyche, but the event itself seems to be repeating – a beach, then the quite literal sign from Jeremiah. If the pattern follows, confrontation with the Other is next. Fittingly, the soundscape transforms and an eerie chorus takes charge with a background chant. The sound of drums introduces a sense of discord as the family makes their way across the beach, casting large shadows, doubles, against the sand.
The mood turns temporarily jovial again as the group makes contact with their wealthier friends, the Tylers, who immediately engage in frivolities, boasting about their materialistic interests and highlighting the still-present class differences between the two families; even with a summer-home and a boat, the Wilson’s still experience a disjunction between their expectations of “wealthy life” and their reality. However, a series of unnerving coincidences continue to prop up during the groups dialogue, becoming increasingly disconcerting for Adelaide, who stays on a razor edge the entire time, watching over her family and ensuring that nothing happens to them.
Soon after, Jason momentarily disappears going towards the bathroom, passing by the same hall of mirrors his mother went into years ago during her fateful encounter. However, the location has gone through a transformation, and the indigenous décor has been replaced by European iconography; the Native American mascot has given way and been replaced by the wizard Merlin as it’s the European stand-in who now promises to reveal one’s “true” self. This seemingly innocuous transformation imbues the idea of the “Other” as a double that the film has been building with newfound colonialist undertones. This idea is accentuated when a red frisbee randomly falls onto the towel Adelaide is sitting on; an image of a blue dot is completely covered with a physical red circular object- a callback to the dropped Edenic apple from her youth and a repetition of the double as a replacement.
When Jason returns from the bathroom, the pressure building up culminates in a violent experience: he sees a loner bleeding out on the beach, seemingly unaware of the world around him. The air is rife with malevolence and it seems that something terrible is about to happen as history is on the verge of repeating. But Jason is immediately “rescued” by Adelaide, who refuses to allow her son to go through the same trauma she did when left to her own devices all those decades ago. The Wilson family quickly departs and leaves the scene before anything else can threaten to happen.
Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) reaches out to Jason (Evan Alex). The clocks hits “11:11”Adelaide realizes Jason’s seen too much – the violence is imminent. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) looks at her reflection while recounting her past.The power goes out after Gabe tries to “lighten” the mood. The Wilson’s doppelgängers stand in silhouette holding each others hands. Try as she might, Adelaide can’t hold back the past’s encroachment and comes face to face with the doppelgänger she’s spent her whole life running from. Thus, the confrontation with the shadow Other begins (again).
Adelaide tries to reestablish a sense of normalcy back at the home. She reaches out to Jason and holds his hand, showcasing a sense of affection and solidarity with him given his off-kilter experience. But then the clock hits 11:11. Jeremiah’s warning refuses to go away and no number of assurances can hold back the tide of problems he prophesizes to come. Adelaide knows as much when she sees Jason’s drawing of his extreme encounter; violence is on the way and it can no longer be stopped or ignored.
She starts to come undone as her walls break down; the trauma of her past cannot be compartmentalized any longer. Suddenly, she finds herself telling Gabe about her history on the beach and her fateful encounter with her doppelganger; despite being able to get away from her Other, she lives in fear of eventually being caught by them and subject to something heinous. Gabe tries to lighten the mood with some humor, but the power, as if in response, goes out; just like the funhouse all those years ago, Adelaide is forced to traverse the darkness and find a way out, this time with family in tow.
But try as she might, she can’t run away from her destiny and finds herself face-to-face with a group of doppelgangers, one matching each of her own family members. This group, fully unified in a hand-to-hand embrace, stands in shadowy silhouette, ready to confront their “other” selves, our protagonists. For close to 40 minutes, Peele has let the respective elements – rabbits, reflections, shadows, Jeremiah’s warning, doubles – build up against a vantage point alluding to systemic violence – classism and imperialism – before finally allowing the battle between the self and its Other to “truly” begin in explosive fashion.
At a surface level, this story about doubles is unnerving in its own right and comes replete with its own associated motifs and undercurrents – the ideas of the loss of self and the encounter with unsavory elements that one tries to repress. And at this level, Peele certainly allows genre elements to play out in visceral, brutal fashion as the encounter marks the start of a series of escalating, violent clashes between the mirrored selves. However, the beauty of Us, stems not from these identifiable moments of subjective violence but from the way such moments reveal the “zero-level standard” of an “objective” violence that operate unseen in the background [1] Zizek, S. (2008). The Tyrant’s Bloody Nose . In Violence. introduction, Picador. . By placing identical but completely different persons, objects, and musical choices against one another and intermixing between them, Peele forces us to confront the ideological basis we use to categorize similar looking phenomena into completely distinct categories.
The ever-present doubling necessitates a navigation as every reflection brings with it its own set of questions. Characters don’t just meet their doubles at an individual level, but they also experience that double at a familial and social level – every structure, big and small, is presented with its mirror image which becomes more fragmented the bigger it gets. This makes the opening of the film before the confrontation all the more relevant, as even subtle characterizations become pivotal in examining the way differences bleed from the micro to the macro and become terrors that must be confronted.
Even the musical choices – inspired tracks which include the Beach Boy’s “Good Vibrations”, Fuck Tha Police by N.W.A, and the aforementioned “5 on It” by Luniz – play into this introspection as the context in which they play changes and symbolically restructures the nature of what the lyrics are getting at, sometimes within the same scene in which they’re introduced. No sound-image is as simple as its initial presentation and the constant juxtapositions force the viewer to navigate a maze of reflections, much like Adelaide did, in order to find the “truth” within.
It’s only by the end of the film that the nature and power of this “truth” is revealed as it operates both as a structuring mechanism within the narrative as a whole and as the grammar the film proper utilizes in jumping from scene to scene, demonstrating that the true horror comes not from an identifiable subject acting maliciously as much as it does from our symbolic interpretation of that violence qua violence – horror is what we make of it.
However, this message becomes muddied in the final act. Unlike Denis Villenevue’s Enemy, another doppelgänger horror thriller which commits emphatically to a surreal and less grounded worldbuilding in its storytelling approach and opts to use symbols as points and counterpoints to guide the viewer forward in a maze of meaning, Us bizarrely pivots to trying to ground its narrative in a sense of realism that immediately makes it seem absurd. We’re so attuned to the interplay of the symbols and the nuances behind them because of Peele’s dedication to getting us to engage with the film in a more cerebral manner that the film’s decision to explain the mystery in more concrete, definite terms ends up distracting us from what came before. Focus becomes split as suddenly the concern shifts from trying to understand the way violence operates vis-a-vis said symbols to the mechanics behind the way the narrative unfolds – a regrettable choice as its in this latter section that Us is far better at showing than explaining. It’s like reading poetry, filled with metaphor and analogy, and then being interrupted by mechanic prose which disrupts the melody; consequently, the poignancy of what came before feels less so.
Compared to his Peele’s previous effort, Get Out, which has a far smaller scope in what it wants to target but is far more concise in getting there, Us can feel haphazard, but the ambitions behind what it wants to say make it just as interesting, if not more so, to discuss and analyze. If one is willing to suspend their sense of disbelief for just long enough, they’ll walk away just as changed as the characters do by the end of this shadowy encounter.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Though it stumbles in its worldbuilding by the final act, the ambitions behind this doppelganger story offer far more than meets the eye as its examination of violence and the way its conceptualized reveal the source of “true” terror.
Rating
9.6/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Samara Weaving as Grace Le Domas Mark O’Brien as Alex Le Domas Adam Brody as Daniel Le Domas
Release Date
2019
Language(s)
English
Running Time
95 minutes
As someone who loved Samara Weaving’s performances in both The Babysitter and Mayhem, I knew I had to watch this movie. I didn’t even watch a trailer – I just went in expecting to see a fun Weaving movie. I got that and so much more. Ready or Not is funny, clever, and brutal all at the same time.
The story follows Grace as she’s made to play a game of hide-and-seek after marrying into the wealthy Le Domas family. Except in this game, getting caught means being killed. What follows is an intense cat and mouse situation where Grace and the Le Domas family constantly seek to out maneuver the other party. What keeps these moments fresh is the circumstance under which the game is played and the family operates. I won’t spoil it, but the movie keeps you guessing on what’s really going to happen the whole time. Up until it was over, I didn’t know what was actually going to happen.
Even after having only seen the movie once in theaters and once for this review, I can remember most of the characters and their personalities fairly well. This movie, unlike a lot of other ones with big casts, doesn’t feel like it wastes any of its characters. There are clear motivations for each member – which is even more impressive when you realize how large the Le Domas family actually is. Yes, some of the arcs or backgrounds aren’t amazing or profound, but the fact that they are there at all is impressive.
Weaving absolutely kills it in her portrayal of Grace. She’s funny, wide-eyed, resolute, bad-ass, desperate, and everything in between. Her energy shines through and makes it really easy to root for Grace. It gives you a reason to care about the story and I found myself invested in the outcome. I think Brody’s performance as Daniel (Grace’s brother-in-law) was also fairly well done. He showed complexity and nuance and has some of the best character moments in the movie.
The movie’s discourse on families is interesting and doesn’t feel ham-fisted. Grace wants to be in the family because she’s always been alone- so for her family is a safe place. Meanwhile, her husband Alex resents his family for the practices they engage in so he wants to run away – but he still feels the need to follow tradition- which highlights just how strong family can influence the ordering of our desires. The way the parents evaluate their children’s’ spouses speaks volumes in what qualities they consider valuable. The perversion of family values is where the movie shines and the way it frames that discussion in relation to wealth adds another layer to think about.
Now for the problems. There are some character decisions in the third act that feel a bit off. They’re not incomprehensible, but they feel like they could have been developed a bit more so they wouldn’t feel as sudden. There are also some procedural issues I had with what knowledge what characters had about the mystery at the core of the plot. It feels like certain people should know things that would radically change their actions, but they don’t. Finally, there are moments where the camera feels/is handheld which takes away from the grandiose aesthetic. I wish the shots were stable throughout/moved only during more action-y scenes. This issue felt even more prominent on my second viewing. None of these problems are enough to make the movie bad, but they do lessen the themes the movie builds towards.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Ready or Not is a clever twist on the comedic slasher genre. The plot is well-paced and will keep you guessing about what’s going to happen up till the very end. There are some story issues that creep up in the third act, but they can’t detract from the absurdly fun journey/ending. If you enjoyed Knives Out,you may also like this. It’s weird – but this movie feels like a spiritual horror version of that one.
Rating
9.0/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Sharni Vinson as Erin A.J. Bowen as Crispian Davison
Release Date
2013
Language(s)
English
Running Time
94 minutes
I swear after I first saw this movie, I was certain a sequel would drop eventually, but unfortunately it seems like that’s not the case. It’s a shame because You’re Next has all the ingredients necessary for a classic slasher movie: stylish kills, great villain design, a dry perverse black humor, and a wonderfully bad ass main character in Erin. The premise- a rich family is targeted by unknown assailants and have to fight for their lives- is simple enough, but its execution shows a real understanding of the craft.
What immediately set this movie apart from others for me is how thought out the story feels. Character motivations are present even for the bad guys so everything has a human element to it. Erin is immediately likable and is a great protagonist to latch onto. Sharni is a bad ass and from the way she carries herself up to the way her character takes charge, it’s apparent that she’s not going to be a pushover. The killers each have different face masks corresponding to a different animals which represent their personality traits. It’s subtle character work that goes a long way in making the group of villains feel distinct aesthetically. The members of the rich family feel nice and distinct in the few moments they get to interact with each other. I wasn’t expecting so many characters to feel so unique.
The reason the characters feel so memorable is because of how odd they all are. The family might be rich, but that doesn’t mean they’re any more functional than a middle or lower class family. The earlier scenes where they play off each other are great, even if the delivery of some of the lines feels wonky. Someone’s always got something strange enough to say to add a “unique” sense of humor to scenes. I personally thought the movie was hilarious (intentionally). I appreciate dry in-your-face humor that’s predicated on the absurdity of what occurs. I think it’s a more acquired taste so if you don’t think it’s funny watching it, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I think watching it from the point of view of a comedy makes the viewing experience more memorable and might be something you consider trying out.
Despite nailing most of important stuff, the movie suffers from a lack of impact. What I mean is that we barely get a chance to gauge the characters relations among each other, so when people start dropping it doesn’t feel like anything.It’s a shame because the few moments they talk to each other had me laughing, but all of that is pushed to the wayside for immediate action.That might be good if you just want a constant source of action, but that’s not my cup of tea. The movie also struggles to balance its tone at times. It wants to be funny but then acts too seriously at other moments to let the humor breathe. It makes it hard to process, especially when the third act starts.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
If you like weird humor that’s dark and kind of perverse and also enjoy gory slashers, then You’re Next is made for you. There’s a sensible story, aesthetically interesting villains, and a great protagonist waiting to be discovered. Just be wary of strange tonal shifts and bare-bones characterization.
Rating
8.2/10
Grade
B
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Jessica Rothe as Tree Israel Broussard as Carter Phi Vu as Ryan
Release Date
2019
Language(s)
English
Running Time
100 minutes
I was so happy when I saw that Happy Death Day was getting a sequel. I actually went to this movie on opening week and remember leaving the theater feeling immensely satisfied. After watching it again recently, I’ve come to understand why. It’s like every problem I had with the first movie has been resolved in this one. The movie makes the brave decision to ACTUALLY expand on the ideas (if only all sequels could do this) which help it carve out an interesting little niche.
The movie picks up immediately after the first one and it’s revealed that the cause of all the time loops is Ryan’s science invention. After a series of mishaps, Tree ends up sent to a parallel dimension and is forced to find a way to escape the baby faced killer again. The sci-fi addition to the franchise gives it some much needed personality and makes the gimmick something more interesting. The way the characters end up reacting to the new knowledge gives us a ton of fun creative scenes that really push the black comedy aspect.
Characters from the past movie get more to do in this one. Because it’s a new universe, everyone shows a different side of themselves which gives Tree a lot of room to navigate and form new opinions. It makes people from the first movie feel more layered and is a fun play on the butterfly effect. It also gives the movie a more poignant emotional core that really made me feel for Tree. Speaking of Tree, Jessica Rothe kills it again in her performance. She’s given more room to have fun in this one and she takes a lot of pleasure in it.
Unfortunately, the one area the movie didn’t really improve on is the horror element of everything. The killer and their motivation in the first movie was pretty whack so I was curious to see how it would play it out in this one, and while it’s believable to an extent, it also feels kind of out there.
The pacing of the movie also feels off- there’s one moment in the third act where it feels like the movie has a natural ending, but then it keeps on going. It’s not that the extension feels bad. In fact, what happens makes a lot of sense- but it feels like it’s missing the polish the rest of the movie had. Maybe a subplot should have been removed and some events should have happened in a different order. I don’t know. It’s just a weird anomaly. The end credit scene does give me hope that the third movie (Please come out) does some crazy stuff, so here’s to that.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Happy Death Day 2U takes everything that was good from the first movie and amps it up. There’s a more interesting story, better character building, and even more fun levels of absurdity. The movie is more science fiction that it is horror, so if you’re expecting focused slasher you may want to look elsewhere.
Rating
8.4/10
Grade
B
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Alec Owen as Brent / Brock Olivia Taylor Dudley as Motherface Patton Oswalt as Chief of Police
Release Date
2015
Language(s)
English
Running Time
103 minutes
Despite what its title would imply, Dude Bro Party Massacre III is not a sequel to a well established franchise. Instead, it’s a criticism of privilege and insulation from punishment, an introspective look into frat culture and the social construction of masculinity, a fun satire of horror and slasher tropes, and is dumb and over the top in the best possible way. You can take out your brain and just enjoy the spectacle or you can have fun with the underlying themes- the movie works well for diverse crowds.
The plot is structured like a VHS tape- with an overarching slasher film and a series of advertisements in between- like someone recorded the movie as it ran on TV. The main story line follows the notorious Motherface, a killer who targets fraternities. The story is absolutely bonkers and goes in places I never expected. I can say with absolute certainty that most of ya’ll haven’t seen anything like it. The ad portions are fun, short, and to the point and never feel like they takeaway from the main movie.The absolute chaos of the movie also keeps repeated viewings fresh. If you like unique and interesting kills in an 80’s fashion, this movie has them in spades. The practical effects are great and I loved the ingenuity behind certain executions. You can tell there’s a lot of love that went into this.
Though the film intentionally tries to fail the Bechdel test, it absolutely feels like a feminist movie. Yes, the main characters are the brothers in the feature fraternity, but the movie makes it painfully obvious that all the members have participated in pretty horrendous stuff, despite how comical it all plays off. Motherface’s journey as such almost feels justified. It’s a slasher movie where you simultaneously for and against the “villain”. However, the movie still takes time to explore the nuance of a fraternity and the ideas of brotherhood related to it. Despite their problems, the frat members aren’t all malicious dudes. Some of them enjoy the experience because it gives them a sense of bonding that helps them feel less alone and isolated. It keeps the movie from ever feeling preachy.
Despite how much I love the chaos of the movie- at times it feels like misdirection for midsdirection’s sake. There are moments that are ominous and meant to trick a first time viewer, but they never feel like they pay off in the themes. So their fun but feel pointless. The movie also kind of drags on in the end. Don’t get me wrong – I love the ending. It’s amazing. But it also had me going why? These aren’t huge issues but I feel like they kind of muddled the point.
Report Card
TLDR
Despite being too absurd for it’s own good at times, Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a surprisingly topical satire that’s sure to leave you smiling by the end of it.If you want a fun movie to watch with friends put this on (as long as people are okay with gore). It should delight a lot of audiences. It’s smart, unexpected, and feels like a roller coaster in the absurd.
Rating
8.8/10
Grade
B+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Imogen Poots as Riley Aleyse Shannon as Kris Lily Donoghue as Marty Cary Elwes as Professor Gelson
Release Date
2019
Language(s)
English
Running Time
92 minutes
(NOTE: When I first wrote this review I had not seen either of the previous Black Christmas movies. As of the most recent edit I have)
Earlier this October, I ended up watching Green Room for my horror movie marathon . I loved Imogen Poots performance in the movie (it stood out to me), so when I saw that she was going to lead a fun looking slasher flick, I had to go ahead and watch it When the movie started I was enthusiastic and don’t get me wrong- I liked a lot of moments. However, I was left disappointed by the ending and the abundance of missed opportunities. This movie had real potential and squanders it by throwing nuance and subtlety out of the window in favor of an absurd resolution that actively hurts the movies themes and renders character arcs dissatisfying.
Poots plays Riley, a sorority member who’s recovering from an assault she experienced on campus. The film is incredibly topical and deals with a lot of issues regarding rape culture and the treatment of assault on campuses. The look into sorority life and mixed feelings about what sisterhood entails are interesting and well established at the beginning of the film. Does commitment to the cause require sharing stories against survivors wills? Poots is great and portrays the struggle she faces with a genuine sincerity that makes rooting for Riley natural. Cary Elwes is hilarious in his campy over the top role as Professor Gelson, a chauvinistic professor who’s a bit too partial to his former frat house. His introduction is great ( in an awful kind of way) and I liked it. He’s also the only redeemable part about the third act so credit is due.
Early kills are also shot well. Yes, they’re obvious and the set up doesn’t feel unique or awe inspiring, but they’re well executed. The first death in the movie set my expectations with how nice it was in both the manner of kill and its aesthetic presentation in the snow. The deaths that follow never reach the same highs in style or impact. That’s pretty bad because we never get to know or learn anything about this character which means a nameless characters death is better executed and has more of an impact than characters we actually get to spend time with.
Early on the film does a great job of establishing the real fear women face everyday. The fear of walking down a street with an innocuous fellow coming down behind you. Even if he’s just out and about and doesn’t mean anything, there’s a palpable fear about the “what if”. Moments like this are littered in the first two acts of the movie and present a horror story grounded in a real kind of feminist critique. The horror is predicated off the power structure that normalizes violence by creating conditions that help men more than women.
Unfortunately, all this subtlety is thrown away by the third act and the interesting themes about empowerment vs martyrdom vs autonomy get completely sidelined for a “hurr durr man is evil” ending. It’s disappointing because it feels like the movie wants to be and feel “woke” in the most neoliberal way, so it sacrifices nuance to just preach common and boring tropes. “Raping women is bad” should not be the benchmark movies aspire to be progressive or meaningful. “All men are bad” likewise doesn’t do anything for the issue except bog it down in muck and make explicit decisions in regards to rape culture impossible to pinpoint. Things like culpability, susceptibility to culture, and the invisible pervasive of power systems feel like jokes by the end of the run-time. Rape culture is a topic that requires nuance and subtlety – something I thought the beginning of the movie hinted at, but I was woefully off. To say I was sad with how everything ended is an understatement. This movie isn’t just a disappointment. It’s a genuine travesty and feels like an insult to feminist theory and praxis.
This would at least be tolerable if the violence or carnage was fun but as I’ve already indicated neither of those targets hit the mark either. In fact, the third act is marred by horrendous cuts, shaky camera, and a genuine want to cover up the action as opposed to displaying it. As a result, any feeling of goodwill vanishes by the end of the third act. Somehow the movie thematically fumbles the ball undoing all the little work it did near the beginning and visually fumbles by not playing up the kills or having nice action set pieces. To come from the original Black Christmasto this feels like a huge step down and a disservice to the amazing social commentary that movie manged to present in the 70’s. Hell, even the 2006 remake of the movie is fun to watch because of how mean spirited and dark its willing to get. This most recent remake can’t even do that. It genuinely feels like a chore to get through and is not a movie I’ll be revising any time soon.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Black Christmas is bag of missed opportunities that ends up a lot more disappointing than expected. You’d think the story of a victim-turned-survivor fighting for her life against a deranged killer would take more advantage of the #metoo movement, but instead it botches any attempts at depth for contrived story moments. There are some nuanced moments that show promise but they’re never developed in meaningful ways. Is it the worst movie ever? No. Does it deserve the hate it gets? No. Is it a movie that undermines itself and pale in comparison to its predecessors? Yes. Save yourself the time and just watch the original.
Ezekiel Z. Swinford as Shane Elizabeth Maxwell as Amber Kelsey Pribilski as Chloe Don Daro as Mike Evan Michael Glover as Nelson Michael Morford as Billy
Release Date
2018
Language(s)
English
Running Time
94 minutes
Virgin Cheerleader in Chains. I originally couldn’t believe the title of the movie when I saw it. All I knew was that I had to watch it. At only 94 minutes, it wouldn’t be that much of a time commitment. Even if it was bad, it might have some cheesy moments. However, after having watched the film, I can say I was pleasantly surprised with Paulo Filho and Gary Gannaway’s meta comedy horror movie. It’s smart, quirky, and fun enough for fans of the genre to give it a whirl.
The movie follows a group of friends as they try and film a low budget horror movie and end up getting more than they bargained for. But the plot really isn’t the main focus of the movie – it’s just a tool to allow the story to do clever and witty things. The way the film is cut together constantly forced me to pay attention to see how resulting scenes would play out. A good example, is the on the point dialogue. A scene will have characters kind of lament and make fun of horror cliches and then within the scene or the next scene, something will happen related to that initial commentary. It’s intentionally over the top and in your face about it, which for me made it all the funnier. It was a risky decision, but I thought it came off just right. Think closer to Scream than the Scary Movies. My only issue is that this incredibly direct set-up only happens a few times during the run-time, and I thought it was the best part of the movie. There are attempts at jokes made through more conventional meta jokes (whatever that means), but it never feels as unique as the more over the top scenes. There was one scene in particular where I had to go and pause the movie because of how much I started laughing , which I was surprised at.
Aesthetically the film is hit or miss (mainly hit). Most shots are well composed and look professional despite the low budget of the movie. However, certain shots stick out like a sore thumb. In particular, the nature traversal shots look out of place and more amateur. There are also these weird nightmare sequences in the first act that wonky and last too long. They didn’t creep me out as much as ruin my immersion in whatever was going on. Thankfully, the practical effects are great. There’s a lot of blood and a lot of moments of in your face violence. I’m more squeamish, so I had to look away at times, but fans of splatter films should rejoice. Set design is also great, and I appreciate the attention to detail. In particular, the house used for the third act oozes creepiness and I loved the way the way the rooms felt.
Finally, let’s talk about the acting. There are some performances in this movie I absolutely adored. Elizabeth Maxwell’s performance as Amber was amazing and she restored my faith in film after some shaky performances from others in the first act. Her “audition” scene had me crying in laughter after its conclusion and I appreciated it. Kelsey Priblinski is also great at Chloe and really starts to come to life when she gets “certain” suspicions about other characters. The scenes they have together were some of my favorite and oozed personality. However, there’s one one character that made me irritated in almost every scene they were in. Billy. I have no idea why he’s in the script- none of his jokes ever land, and he just feels like a walking racist caricature. I can’t blame Michael Morford too much for his portrayal of Billy, because it felt like the script forced the character to just be horribly unfunny. The accent probably made it worse, but that feels like a script decision. Otherwise, outside of some weaker performances in the first act, the acting is pretty good and believable.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Virgin Cheerleader in Chains is funny and smart ,despite feeling uneven at times. I appreciated it’s meta-commentary and wish it had just gone further with it, but the incredibly fun third act was well worth it. Go out and support smaller movies, so we can continue to get cool innovative stuff.
Rating
7.3/10
Grade
C
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Adrienne King as Alice Peter Brouwer as Steve Laurie Bartram as Brenda Kevin Bacon as Jack Mark Nelson as Ned Jeannine Taylor as Marcie Robbi Morgan as Annie
The full moon appears. The campers sing at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958. Campers gather around the campfire while singing. A POV shot through the the children’s cabins.The moon gains prominence. A young couple starts to make love while being watched by an outside party. The couple is killed. The camera freezes the frame on the victims face, pushes into it, and then fades to white. The title screen breaks through the glass along with score. The opening scene evokes shades of John Carpenter’s Halloween. A POV camera stands in for a killer who murders a couple after they’ve begun to intimate as the track whispers “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” in the background to the swell of an orchestra. It’s effective, to the point, and a perfect encapsulation of what the movie is about.
Clouds go over the full moon as the camera tracks down from the celestial object to a campground, Camp Crystal Lake. The year is 1958. People inside one of the cabins sing a cheery camp song. The film cuts away to an POV shot. It’s subject wades through the campground and looks at the children. Meanwhile, the cheery diegetic track gives way to a more foreboding non-diegetic set of orchestral noises accompanying a whisper-like chant: “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma ma”. The film cuts back to the cabin where the cheery song is being sang and the ominous track dissipates for a moment.
After the singing is done, two of the camp counselors sneak off to enjoy the indiscretions of youth. A close-up of the foreboding moon comes up for a brief moment before the film cuts back to the couple as they vacate to a empty cabin and go upstairs to enjoy more sensual pleasures. However, just as they start getting intimate, the film cuts back to the POV shot and its subject. The non-diegetic chant comes back in and continues to increase in intensity. Suddenly, the subject is face to face with the couple who realizes they’re being watched. The two of them get up and make some excuses to the figure – clearly someone they both know. However, the subject slashes and kills both of them. The camera pushes in on the final victim’s face, cementing the expression of fear before the screen dissolves into an intense flash of white light; the title card shoots forward and breaks the glass screen.
Now, the year is 1980 and the story picks up on a group of camp counselors who have been hired by the owner of the Camp Crystal Lake campground, Steve (Peter Brouwer) to help him with his attempt at re-opening the location. As each of the youthful characters makes their way towards the camp, they run into locals who inform them of site and its terrifying reputation. The townspeople try and warn the new counselors of previous incidents at the camp like a drowning in 1957 and the murders of 1958 to get the youthful bunch to quit, but the youngsters refuse and set-up shop at camp with Steve, getting the campsite ready for a grand re-opening. Unfortunately for them, the movie’s opening moments has informed the viewer of the threat of murderer, so the seeds for the carnage are now allowed to bloom.
If the structure of the opening feels familiar, it’s because the movie intentionally emulates the footsteps of John Carpenter’s seminal classic, Halloween. There’s a scene of conjugal innocence interrupted by a killer whose point-of-view becomes the camera’s view. There’s an iconic theme and music profile associated with the terror; composer Harry Manfredini’s “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” whisper replaces John Carpenter’s terrorizing synths. This is all intentional; director Sean Cunningham and screen-writer Victor Miller wrote the film explicitly to ride on Halloween’s success and capitalize on what they thought were its strong points for as cheap as possible. [1]Kennedy, M. (2019, December 7). How Halloween directly inspired Friday the 13th. ScreenRant. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://screenrant.com/halloween-movie-inspired-friday-the-13th-franchise/.
However, it’s precisely where the movie openings diverge from one another where the issues effecting Friday the 13th can be made clear. Halloween ends its opening sequence by revealing that its killer is a young boy, Michael, shocking the audience and setting it’s story’s dark tone. The film’s use of the P.O.V shot disguises the identity of the killer but reveals their modus operandi and points of focus. However, once the initial act of murder is done, the P.O.V shot is flipped to a traditional view of the subject and the viewer is aghast and made aware that the killer is not normal and is out of synch with the “morally righteous” world. Because the killer is treated as a heinous monster the film is able to focus less on developing their character; through just their screen presence, the killings are made terrifying enough and the tension stems from following the victims that have to deal with the killer who is beyond any reason or comprehension. This creates multiple points of interest and tension.
But Friday the 13th treats the identity of its killer as the driving force of the narrative, generating tension from the possibility of the killer being any of the characters. Yet, because the story gives no clues about the nature of the identity of the killer till late into the third act when the reveal is all but inevitable and also doesn’t make any of the victims interesting in their own right outside of being possible red herrings, there’s absolutely no narrative momentum. Given the movie’s release context and the nature of its killer, it makes sense that Miller wanted to ensure there was no chance the killer’s identity would be revealed. However, because the focus is so stringent on maintaining “perfect” mystery until the moment of the reveal, there’s no reason to care about the movie, sans bits of gory fun, until that moment happens. Naturally, this puts the brunt of the thematic and emotional weight of the narrative on the killer’s reveal and reasoning for acting as they did, but Friday the 13th’s set-up is convoluted to say the least and does not spend nearly enough time laying the seeds for these revelations to feel earned.
Even within the context of the violence, there’s no effort made at establishing any kind of clues regarding the killer’s psychological profile. While Halloween spends little time characterizing its killer, it does relish in showing off its killers macabre decisions to give the viewer room to think about the nature of the killer’s thoughts; there’s an unease generated by trying to and and eventually making sense of the grim choices being made. Friday the 13th doesn’t even try to show personality behind the butchering; while the nature of the kills sequences are all creative by the standards of the time, there’s no connective tissue between them that would lead even a diligent viewer to gleam any meaningful information about the killer’s identity or reasoning for acting in the way they do.
This means the movie, up till the killers reveal, is functionally irrelevant character interaction and nicely put together gore sequences. No character, sans the killer, has a motivation that the viewer can latch onto as a reason to root for anyone through their trials and tribulations. While the group of “protagonists”, though calling them that feels like a stretch in itself, is generally likable, nothing inventive or fruitful ever happens because of or between the characters to distinguish them in meaningful fashion. Unfortunately, this makes the murderous moments ones with low stakes and subsequently renders the characters’ deaths as nothing more than beautiful bits of carnage candy.
But even without stakes, delightful gore with no narrative fat is certainly appealing, depending on the viewer, in its own right and that’s what Friday the 13th excels at delivering. The characters become blood-soaked paintbrushes in makeup designerTom Savini’s hands, conjuring up visions of the macabre and grotesque. Cunningham relishes in the sensuality of the violence and setting up the bodies in cruel and tragic fashion. This effect is accentuated because the movie only shows a few of the murders; selective moments of mutilation engender a matrix of fear which makes the reveal of other bodies all the worse. Because the moments of brutality are incorporated selectively, they actually manage to be shocking. This is why in spite of being light on plot, the film still manages to unnerve. While the characters may not be all that relatable, the way their bodies are violated certainly makes one a bit squeamish concerning their own flesh. It’s no wonder then that in spite of its own inception as a Halloween clone, Friday the 13th has managed to leave its own indelible mark on the slasher genre, demonstrating that good enough gore can make up for a lot.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Friday the 13th functions more as a vehicle for slaughter than a deeper foray into the human condition, providing the audience little more than momentarily evocative carnage candy until the explosive reveal of the killer’s true identity and motivations. Though there’s little subtext and the mystery driving the heart of the story is unfairly withheld from the audience until its reveal, the ride the movie takes viewers is fun even decades after its initial release in theatres. For those fans looking for quick, brisk, and to the point slasher-fare, Friday the 13th more than holds up.
Rating
7.4/10
Grade
C+
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Kennedy, M. (2019, December 7). How Halloween directly inspired Friday the 13th. ScreenRant. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://screenrant.com/halloween-movie-inspired-friday-the-13th-franchise/.
