A great poet once said, “Everybody dance now. Dun dun dun dun dun.” Those words have never been truer than in Gaspar Noé’s drug-induced nightmare dance party Climax. Before Climax I had never seen a Gaspar Noe film. I’m too afraid to watch Irreversible and have never been high enough to watch Enter the Void. So with generally positive reviews and a non NC-17 Rating (a rare feat for Noé) Climax seemed like a good entry point. Did it stick the landing?
Instead of writing another Shocktober post, today I’m putting up our latest episode of The Pick. Keeping with this year’s Shocktober theme, we’re talking about one of the truly immortal horror franchises of the 2010s – Goosebumps! Ok, so maybe it’s less of a horror movie than a wacky comedy that aims to introduce kids to the beats of a horror movie. But either way, we get a lot of Jack Black talk in, both in regards to his weirdly entertaining performance in Goosebumps and the lack of him in Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. Also, we manage to fit our ice-cold Joker takes into this jam-packed episode. Continue reading
Does it make me a basic bitch if I need to engage with a film on its most literal level to enjoy it? Or, to take a step back, is it fair that I need to enjoy a film to like it? The Killing of a Sacred Deer clearly has a lot going on that thoughtful critics can engage with: complicated social criticism, obscure references, deep themes, and deliberate deconstruction of cinematic tropes. But it’s also, for me, a movie that pushes director Yorgos Lanthimos’ stoic style too far. When I hear the phrase “it’s not for everyone,” I always think “I’m not everyone, it must be for me.” But in this case, a deliberately off-putting movie made me too uncomfortable to really like it. And I think that may be my problem, not the movie’s.
Three Shocktobers ago, I reviewed the micro-budget horror Creep for reasons that are hazy to me now. I’m sure I had no idea what to expect (other than a lot of Mark Duplass), and I was pleasantly surprised. That said, I would have never expected that a remake would’ve come to fruition, since it’s like, who knows about this movie? As far as I know it was released only on Netflix, and it wasn’t even one of those hit Netflix movies that teens love. But like a lot of horror movies, I’m sure a sequel was made for the simple fact that it’d be cheap to make. Once again, I didn’t have many expectations, but was pleasantly surprised to find that Creep 2 is just about as good as its predecessor. Continue reading
The year is 1922. A gallon of gas costs $0.22. Warren G. Harding is a shitty president. Germany can’t get enough of that Nosferatu and Wilfred James has done a very bad thing. Adapted from Stephen King’s 2010 novella of the same name and written/directed for the screen by Zak Hilditch, 1922 is a Southern Gothic thriller in its purest form. Except it’s the Midwest. Nonetheless, you have murder, transgressive thoughts, desires, impulses, ghosts and corn in a brooding thriller far better than its Netflix Original trappings.
It’s hard to say what kept me from seeing mother! when it was released 2 years ago. There seemed to be a lot of negative hype surrounding it, though this came mostly from its unprecedented “F” CinemaScore, which is not something I’d ever cared about previously. Perhaps it was also because critics didn’t seem to be in love with it as much as they were in love with discussing its unwieldiness. So it made the film seem like an overtly difficult watch, but also like it might not ultimately be worth consuming its more provocative elements. Well, I can now say I agree with the critical consensus that it’s a hard film to love, but is also so batshit insane that I’m glad I finally got around to seeing it. Continue reading
Train to Busan begins with a disturbing image that I wish the movie explored more. A farmer drives his truck into a quarantine zone and becomes distracted trying to reach his vibrating phone in the passenger seat. While his eyes are off the road, he runs over a deer. The farmer gets out, inspects his vehicle for damage, then resumes his journey. But the camera lingers in place and the dead animal suddenly lurches back to life. This begs so many questions, like what animals are infected? Do they only want to eat their own kind or will they attack anything they see? Unfortunately, Train to Busan is not the zombanimals movie I’ve been waiting for. It is, however, one of the most fun zombie movies I’ve seen in a while.
