2023 (mostly) horror movie roundup
Apr. 17th, 2024 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteThe Nun II (2023)
I was looking forward to this one with unreasonable excitement. The first Nun film was a hash of tropes, lazy misdirection, plot holes, and eerie special effects, and I had plenty of fun wallowing in the cheesy creepiness of it all. I figured that even if the second film was just a bunch of callbacks to the first and more special effects, I would be satisfied.
And it was! I admit, that's a very low bar to pass. But you just don't get many decent effects-driven horror films these days. I saw it on a blustery post-Halloween autumn evening, with the lights off and some cocoa. The retconned mythology made absolutely no sense, the motivations were flimsy, and almost all the scares were telegraphed way in advance or mercilessly spoiled by the trailer. But I didn't care! This is my pop-culture version of Twilight.
6 out of 10 foam-rubber statues up.
No One Will Save You (2023)
This scrappy and effective sci-fi film is directed by the same person who wrote it, and that clarity of vision really does wonders. I went in knowing only the basics: There's some kind of alien visitation thing going on near a house in the country and the occupants need to deal with it.
Here's what I didn't expect: The movie is a fantastic example of "show, don't tell", seeing as it contains barely half a dozen lines of dialogue, but still manages to communicate some very tricky information. The most impressive part of that is the pacing. Pacing is fantastically important but it's generally invisible when it's working, so we don't think about it. But this movie is edited in a way that gives the viewer time to assimilate information provided by previous scenes, or previous shots, while still moving the action along briskly the rest of the time.
That, some totally nutty creature designs, and an absolutely 100% committed performance from the lead actress made this a great watch for me.
7.5 out of 10 alien foot-toes up.
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
It would be hard to make the premise of the Evil Dead films feel fresh if they kept happening in a cabin in the woods, especially after the blast of trope-exploding irony that is The Cabin In The Woods, so this film wisely moves the action to a run-down apartment complex, which more people can relate to anyway. That alone wouldn't make it worth seeing, but there are two things that kept me watching until the end.
The first was the sound design. It's weirdly mixed, full of crunchy off-putting noise and chaos, and yet shows enough restraint to avoid getting annoying. I loved it. I'll probably play this movie again with the picture off, at some point.
The second was the loopy action. Mean things happen to good people in this movie. Then even worse things happen to them. Then entirely different mean worse things. It's so loopy that you're compelled to keep watching just to see what they think of next. Can I recommend this for people who've seen the first two (three?) films and like that blend of horror-comedy? Absolutely not. There's no intentional comedy here. Just lots of gore to inspire nervous laughter in the theater. But if that and weird sound design are your bag, give it a try. Put it on while you're doing chores!
5 out of 10 creepy stairwells up.
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
Derivative cheese, but entertaining. Everyone involved seems to know what they need to deliver, and how. Russel Crowe gets to mutter semi-spiritual hogwash like a Dan Brown character and alternate between cautious sleuthing and kicking down doors. The character is a balancing act in general: If he doesn't ham it up at least a little, we're not going to play along, but if he hams it up too much, we're not going to invest in him.
The universe of this film could effortlessly cross into the Nun franchise, and if that happened I would love every second of it.
Now, does that mean it's good? Well...
6 out of 10 suspicious hidden rooms up.
I.S.S. (2024)
The hook is perfect. You can describe it in 30 seconds: A crew of Russians and Americans sit looking out the window of the International Space Station as the Earth scrolls majestically below them, then they start seeing flashes of light, and soon both their countries are consumed in nuclear fire. Now what do they do?
It's timely, it promises hard space sci-fi shenanigans, and it's got cool special effects. Count me in! I should have known it was too good to be true because of the date: January is always a dumping ground for movies that have something wrong with them. In this case, it seems like the script is to blame, but it's really the direction.
I make that claim because I was all set to enjoy this movie and then less than two minutes into it, I felt a curious disconnection from the characters on the screen. Sure, they made stupid decisions, and it was impossible to square their aggression and stupidity with the obvious science and survival background that they should all possess. But all that happened later. The trouble was immediate: The things I was being shown were not anchored to a perspective with any emotional rhythm, nor did they advance the action. It was just information.
So, two minutes in, I gave in to my desire to fast-forward through entire scenes. My trust in the director was broken: They had committed the cardinal sin of wasting my time, and I was not going to let them waste any more.
I could give you a shot-by-shot breakdown of how it happened, but dang, that would be boring.
Well, at least there's Constellation! That had some cool space station business.
2 out of 10 fuzzy fx shots up.
Thanksgiving (2023)
The origin story of this movie is pretty amusing. It's the only movie I know of where the trailer for the movie came out 16 years beforehand.
It's a slasher film joined smartly with a whodunit, as most good slasher films are, and it has enough red herrings to keep you happily distracted while the bodies pile up. It also gets incredibly gruesome. And despite the trailer being as old as the iPhone, the screenplay incorporates modern social media gracefully. Almost all horror films these days pretend that smartphones don't exist, or just give up and set their stories in the previous century, or in some apocalyptic future, or some isolated seaside town, or a colony of luddites, because smartphones disrupt so many of the classic tropes. This movie doesn't cover all the angles (why don't the kids use location sharing with each other?) but it does way better than most.
It would have been amazing to see in the theater, but I've had a hard time with theaters lately. The ticket prices just don't make sense any more, and the seats are all big easy-chair things that compete with your comfy chair at home but have the sad side-effect of separating you from all the other people in the crowd around you. And the crowd is, frankly, the only reason I would go to the theater! If I wanted a big screen and good sound and a comfy chair all by myself, I would just stay home!
A solid 7 "turkey" legs up.
Scream VI (2023)
I can't remember if I've seen all of these films, because they blend together. I know I got through the first two at least.
This one was meant to be a fresh take that would somehow reinvigorate the franchise. That's how it was advertised. But while the first couple of scenes were a nice self-contained twist on this ancient formula, everything after that was, frankly, pointless.
If you're interested in a fun throwback, go for the cheaper but much more playful "Totally Killer", or the much more up-to-the-minute "Bodies Bodies Bodies".
4 out of 10 masks covered in fake cartoon blood up.
Talk To Me (2023)
Here's another movie with a good hook: There's a severed hand, and if you grab it, you suddenly start channeling a dead person, but it's a different one each time. This bizarre prop somehow becomes a popular party trick among social-media obsessed teen partyers. Hijinks and maladjusted kid drama ensue.
The movie takes things in a more specific, character-focused direction, and ends up being a bit less clever than you wish it was, but what sticks with you afterward is the way it explores a very modern problem through the metaphor: Young people are foolishly inviting anonymous and very likely dangerous strangers to play a central role in their emotional lives, and it's sickly compelling, and also too woven into their social fabric to resist. There's a good reason this movie was a big hit with people born this century. They can relate, to a worrying degree.
7 out of 10 weird fake hands up.
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023)
You know it's a doomed voyage, and you know why. The only mystery is in the order and nature of the deaths. The effects are good and the director keeps a tight control over his camera, but unfortunately there just isn't enough personality in the monstrous antagonist to keep things interesting.
It's not bad. It's crafted better than most of the things on this list. But a must-see? Meh.
5 out of 10 suspicious darting shadows up.
I was looking forward to this one with unreasonable excitement. The first Nun film was a hash of tropes, lazy misdirection, plot holes, and eerie special effects, and I had plenty of fun wallowing in the cheesy creepiness of it all. I figured that even if the second film was just a bunch of callbacks to the first and more special effects, I would be satisfied.
And it was! I admit, that's a very low bar to pass. But you just don't get many decent effects-driven horror films these days. I saw it on a blustery post-Halloween autumn evening, with the lights off and some cocoa. The retconned mythology made absolutely no sense, the motivations were flimsy, and almost all the scares were telegraphed way in advance or mercilessly spoiled by the trailer. But I didn't care! This is my pop-culture version of Twilight.
6 out of 10 foam-rubber statues up.
No One Will Save You (2023)This scrappy and effective sci-fi film is directed by the same person who wrote it, and that clarity of vision really does wonders. I went in knowing only the basics: There's some kind of alien visitation thing going on near a house in the country and the occupants need to deal with it.
Here's what I didn't expect: The movie is a fantastic example of "show, don't tell", seeing as it contains barely half a dozen lines of dialogue, but still manages to communicate some very tricky information. The most impressive part of that is the pacing. Pacing is fantastically important but it's generally invisible when it's working, so we don't think about it. But this movie is edited in a way that gives the viewer time to assimilate information provided by previous scenes, or previous shots, while still moving the action along briskly the rest of the time.
That, some totally nutty creature designs, and an absolutely 100% committed performance from the lead actress made this a great watch for me.
7.5 out of 10 alien foot-toes up.
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
It would be hard to make the premise of the Evil Dead films feel fresh if they kept happening in a cabin in the woods, especially after the blast of trope-exploding irony that is The Cabin In The Woods, so this film wisely moves the action to a run-down apartment complex, which more people can relate to anyway. That alone wouldn't make it worth seeing, but there are two things that kept me watching until the end.
The first was the sound design. It's weirdly mixed, full of crunchy off-putting noise and chaos, and yet shows enough restraint to avoid getting annoying. I loved it. I'll probably play this movie again with the picture off, at some point.
The second was the loopy action. Mean things happen to good people in this movie. Then even worse things happen to them. Then entirely different mean worse things. It's so loopy that you're compelled to keep watching just to see what they think of next. Can I recommend this for people who've seen the first two (three?) films and like that blend of horror-comedy? Absolutely not. There's no intentional comedy here. Just lots of gore to inspire nervous laughter in the theater. But if that and weird sound design are your bag, give it a try. Put it on while you're doing chores!
5 out of 10 creepy stairwells up.
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
Derivative cheese, but entertaining. Everyone involved seems to know what they need to deliver, and how. Russel Crowe gets to mutter semi-spiritual hogwash like a Dan Brown character and alternate between cautious sleuthing and kicking down doors. The character is a balancing act in general: If he doesn't ham it up at least a little, we're not going to play along, but if he hams it up too much, we're not going to invest in him.
The universe of this film could effortlessly cross into the Nun franchise, and if that happened I would love every second of it.
Now, does that mean it's good? Well...
6 out of 10 suspicious hidden rooms up.
I.S.S. (2024)
The hook is perfect. You can describe it in 30 seconds: A crew of Russians and Americans sit looking out the window of the International Space Station as the Earth scrolls majestically below them, then they start seeing flashes of light, and soon both their countries are consumed in nuclear fire. Now what do they do?
It's timely, it promises hard space sci-fi shenanigans, and it's got cool special effects. Count me in! I should have known it was too good to be true because of the date: January is always a dumping ground for movies that have something wrong with them. In this case, it seems like the script is to blame, but it's really the direction.
I make that claim because I was all set to enjoy this movie and then less than two minutes into it, I felt a curious disconnection from the characters on the screen. Sure, they made stupid decisions, and it was impossible to square their aggression and stupidity with the obvious science and survival background that they should all possess. But all that happened later. The trouble was immediate: The things I was being shown were not anchored to a perspective with any emotional rhythm, nor did they advance the action. It was just information.
So, two minutes in, I gave in to my desire to fast-forward through entire scenes. My trust in the director was broken: They had committed the cardinal sin of wasting my time, and I was not going to let them waste any more.
I could give you a shot-by-shot breakdown of how it happened, but dang, that would be boring.
Well, at least there's Constellation! That had some cool space station business.
2 out of 10 fuzzy fx shots up.
Thanksgiving (2023)The origin story of this movie is pretty amusing. It's the only movie I know of where the trailer for the movie came out 16 years beforehand.
It's a slasher film joined smartly with a whodunit, as most good slasher films are, and it has enough red herrings to keep you happily distracted while the bodies pile up. It also gets incredibly gruesome. And despite the trailer being as old as the iPhone, the screenplay incorporates modern social media gracefully. Almost all horror films these days pretend that smartphones don't exist, or just give up and set their stories in the previous century, or in some apocalyptic future, or some isolated seaside town, or a colony of luddites, because smartphones disrupt so many of the classic tropes. This movie doesn't cover all the angles (why don't the kids use location sharing with each other?) but it does way better than most.
It would have been amazing to see in the theater, but I've had a hard time with theaters lately. The ticket prices just don't make sense any more, and the seats are all big easy-chair things that compete with your comfy chair at home but have the sad side-effect of separating you from all the other people in the crowd around you. And the crowd is, frankly, the only reason I would go to the theater! If I wanted a big screen and good sound and a comfy chair all by myself, I would just stay home!
A solid 7 "turkey" legs up.
Scream VI (2023)
I can't remember if I've seen all of these films, because they blend together. I know I got through the first two at least.
This one was meant to be a fresh take that would somehow reinvigorate the franchise. That's how it was advertised. But while the first couple of scenes were a nice self-contained twist on this ancient formula, everything after that was, frankly, pointless.
If you're interested in a fun throwback, go for the cheaper but much more playful "Totally Killer", or the much more up-to-the-minute "Bodies Bodies Bodies".
4 out of 10 masks covered in fake cartoon blood up.
Talk To Me (2023)
Here's another movie with a good hook: There's a severed hand, and if you grab it, you suddenly start channeling a dead person, but it's a different one each time. This bizarre prop somehow becomes a popular party trick among social-media obsessed teen partyers. Hijinks and maladjusted kid drama ensue.
The movie takes things in a more specific, character-focused direction, and ends up being a bit less clever than you wish it was, but what sticks with you afterward is the way it explores a very modern problem through the metaphor: Young people are foolishly inviting anonymous and very likely dangerous strangers to play a central role in their emotional lives, and it's sickly compelling, and also too woven into their social fabric to resist. There's a good reason this movie was a big hit with people born this century. They can relate, to a worrying degree.
7 out of 10 weird fake hands up.
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023)
You know it's a doomed voyage, and you know why. The only mystery is in the order and nature of the deaths. The effects are good and the director keeps a tight control over his camera, but unfortunately there just isn't enough personality in the monstrous antagonist to keep things interesting.
It's not bad. It's crafted better than most of the things on this list. But a must-see? Meh.
5 out of 10 suspicious darting shadows up.
