Review: Bambi: The Reckoning (2025)

So, I find myself in a situation.

When I wrote my review for Winne the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, I basically said that the Poohniverse looked stupid, and that it and the first Winnie the Pooh movie were terrible if enjoyable.  So what happens when one of these movies is actually... dare I say it... good?

That is the predicament I find myself in right now.  Bambi: The Reckoning, by all accounts, is a well-made, solid film.  The acting is good (even from the child actor!), the design for the evil Bambi is good, as is the CGI for him.  The plot makes sense, the kills are gruesome and well-done... How did they manage to make such a solid entry?  Was it because this is the fourth in the series (I have yet to see Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare but this movie kind of made that a priority?) or did the decision to keep this short (the movie is 80 minutes long with credits) force them to cut any unnecessary tangents out of the film?

To give a brief summary of the film: We get a quick animation of Bambi's history - mother killed by poacher, Faline killed by a van that dumps toxic waste into the waters that Bambi eventually drinks from - then we are immediately into the film, which is basically Bambi Kills Everyone He Can.

There is a human plot: Xana (Roxanne McKee) and her son Benji (Tom Mulheron) are going to visit her husband Simon's (Alex Cooke) family, although Simon cancels his participation due to work obligations before the other two have left.  There are relationship problems between Xana and Simon - he is a distant father - but Xana is trying to hide it from Benji.

There is also a plot regarding some hunters who are obviously after Bambi, but leaves the how and why ambiguous for now.

First unexpected surprise: The two are attacked before they reach the extended family.  The stakes are present fairly early - no slow build - and while not especially gory, the death of the cab driver is still brutal.  While our main characters still make it to the family house, they are already hurt and bleeding before the real meat of the movie starts!

We do get a brief breather as we get to meet the extended family.  There's some sort of implied connection between Bambi and Mary (Nicola Wright), the dementia-riddled grandmother of Benji, but otherwise we get quick establishing of the characters (nothing too deep, but enough to separate them as distinct characters from one another) before Bambi attacks the house and sends the family running.

Second unexpected surprise: Bambi doesn't kill everyone in this movie.  Outside of the killer deer, four other characters get various other kills scattered throughout and all of them make sense within the context of the story.  I won't spoil who dies or who kills, but it was a great way to keep the action varied while still keeping the overarching threat of Bambi.

The family (what remains of it, this movie kills characters left and right) eventually meets up with the hunters and the reason the hunters know about Bambi is a fairly major plot reveal, but not delivered with any pomp: they say why they are after him and immediately move to try and kill him.

Third unexpected surprise: The human antagonists (for the hunters do fulfill that role) are actually threatening, both to the family and to Bambi.  There's always the worry in these types of movies that, if there are human antagonists, they are cartoonishly evil or make decisions that are incredibly stupid if any sort of thought it applied to them.  In this movie, they keep it simple and it works wonders as far as increasing their threat.

Overall, I really wasn't expecting anything from this movie other than dumb fun like the previous two movies I watched.  And that was a major mistake on my part!  This movie, judged on its own merits, is good!  It won't win any awards, but it's solid.  I'd even recommend it to people outside those interested in the Twisted Childhood Universe.  Which is not what I expected going into this.

7 out of 10

Review: Night of the Lepus (1972)

Fucking children...

Night of the Lepus primarily follows Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun), a rancher looking to get rid of the massive amount of rabbits on his land and married scientists Roy and Gerry Bennett (Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh), the two tasked with coming up with a solution other than poisoning to get rid of said rabbits.

The two scientist attempt to inject the rabbits with a serum that will cause birth defects (and thus reduce the rabbit population that way) but instead it makes the rabbits grow larger and more aggressive.  They then must destroy the rabbits to prevent any from making it into the wild, but wouldn't you know: their daughter Amanda (Melanie Fullerton) switches one of the injected rabbits with one of the control rabbits then convinces her parents to let her take one of the control rabbits home.

You see where this is going...

Soon enough, giant rabbits are terrorizing the countryside (thanks Amanda) and everyone must put their heads together to figure out a way to stop them.

It's a fairly standard eco-horror plot (though this dips a toe into SciFi a bit more than others of the same type, like Frogs), propped up by having well-known actors like Leigh, Calhoun, and Whitman as stars.  It was part of the 'Animals Run Amok' trend in the early 70s and is most notable for how the fact the 'monster' of the film was rabbits was hidden in both the posters and trailers.

The film utterly fails to make the rabbits scary.  Director William F. Claxton mostly had regular rabbits running on miniature sets and used slow motion to make them seem larger (this does not work at all) and then had people in rabbit suits for scenes where a rabbit needed to be up close 'attacking' someone (this looked even worse).  I appreciate the effort (1972 was not a good time to try to make a film with this plotline and have it even approach realistic special effects), but it was ultimately a failure.

The film does gain some charm from (despite?) the terrible effects.  Contemporaneous critics called the acting wooden, but I thought it was fine for the most part.  No one elevated the material in any way, but no one was terrible either.  The score is fairly nondescript, but after consecutive days of movies with jarring sound cues, that is almost welcome.  The movie is serviceable, which might be its biggest sin.

See, this movie has the makings of a true cult classic - ridiculous premise, terrible effects, sincere acting - but it never really rises up (or down, to be more honest) in such a way that it becomes campy.  Again, it is serviceable.  Other than the complete failure of the effects, it mostly succeeds in telling its story.  Maybe it would have been better had it not had established actors?  It never quite hits the level of truly terrible, which weirdly would had helped it.

But back to that child: Every death in this movie can be traced back to Amanda, and unless I missed something somewhere (very possible) she never even fesses up to switching out the test rabbit.  And this isn't a small death toll movie - an entire village is basically overtaken/eaten by the rabbits, and the National Guard has to be called in to handle the problem.  This is bullshit, and there should've been some sort of consequence!

Would I recommend this movie?  No, but mostly because of how forgettable it is, which is something a giant rabbit movie should never be.  But it isn't bad, and there are worse movies to watch.

5 out of 10

Review: Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre (2016)

Sometimes you come across a movie title and you just know that you have to watch it.  The name might not scream 'prestige' or even 'good' but dammit, it has a name you just cannot ignore.  It could be something like The Big Gay Musical or (to use a TV example) Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills: a name so ridiculous that it demands your viewing.  This is how I found myself watching Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre.

Now look, I did not go into this movie expecting cinema.  With a name like that, I expected something cheesy, moronic, exploitative, and funny.  It's about sharks attacking people in Arkansas!  And the people being attacked are inmates and guards at a women's prison!  How could this not be entertaining?

Easily, it turns out.

Now, I won't say the movie is entirely terrible (even though it is), but that title is selling a certain type of movie that it does not deliver.  All the more disappointing since it is directed by Jim Wynorski, whose previous credits include Slumber Party Massacre II, The Return of Swamp Thing, and The Bare Wench Wench Project 3: Nymphs of Mystery Mountain.  Hell, the film advertises that Traci Lords is in it!

It feels like the movie goes wrong pretty early into it.  After an opening that delivers exactly what I was expecting for this type of movie (two guys 'fracking' in a way that shows no one involved understood what fracking actually is), we get to the women's prison (that does not in any way look like a prison) and they leave it immediately.  It's in the title that you are at a women's prison!  And you leave it and never return!?

Despite that immediate flaw, the movie still shows promise: All of the inmates are incredibly hot women wearing white t-shirts and jean shorts (you know, your classic prison garb).  They go into the woods for... reasons? to work (doing the worst shoveling I have ever seen in my life, and I was a lazy teenager who had to dig an insane amount) (Don't ask, it's way more boring than you'd think).  There is an extended section of this part of all of the women pouring bottles of water on themselves.  At this point, I think the movie, aside from a horrible location change, is back on track.

Except it quickly loses it again:  The first inmate kill is incredibly basic (which, okay, don't blow your load early and whatnot) but despite ripped clothing and blood splattered everywhere, everyone agrees that she just ran off.

And guys, my expectations were low, but come the fuck on!  I don't expect this to be anything other than ridiculous, but don't make the characters so stupid that this is the conclusion they come to!  Again, the movie almost saves itself with one of the characters - still being stupid, she says a tree is bleeding - shows her 'blood' covered hand to the camera and it sits there just a bit too long before moving to the next part.

The remaining prisoners and guard (there was a 'prison break' involving the girlfriend of one of the inmates catching the guards off-guard and kidnapping them that leads to the second guard dying by shark) end up at a house where the guard and the Good Inmate team up to take back over the group (the movie being stupid in a good way again) and then they realize that sharks are around when another inmate gets killed by them.  This is also when we learn that the sharks can swim out of the water and into the ground.  Again, blessedly stupid according to expectations.

Two geologists stumble upon the group to drop exposition and provide a higher body count.  The group tries to escape the sharks and periodically lose a member here and there until only two (or are there more?) remain, having escaped.  I don't have to spoil who the survivors are, it's kinda obvious who it will be.

There are some fun moments scattered throughout, but why name the movie this and not lean into it?  I'm gay, I don't need to see naked women, but how did this movie not have a single naked breast in it?  There are 3 different types of exploitation movies being referenced in the title alone that would create the expectation of gratuitous nudity!  Again, I am not the target audience but even I feel a bit cheated out of this expectation.

You might noticed that I never credited Traci Lords to a role despite mentioning her at the beginning.  That is because her character, a police officer, does not interact with the main plot until the very end of the film.  She (and her partner) could be completely removed from the film without affecting a single thing.

I wanted this movie to be a good time.  And it occasionally was!  But it just didn't use its premise well enough to be anything other than a way to pass time.

3 out of 10

Review: Tentacles (1977)

It's always interesting reading the backstories for some movies as I watch them.  For instance, Tentacles, the 1977 killer giant octopus movie, was originally written as a more comedic take on the formula popularized by Jaws.  However, it was retooled and rewritten to be a more serious film.  Either version was an attempt to cash in on the Jaws craze, and I wonder if it might have been better to go in the comedic direction.

Set in Solana Beach, California, this film follows reporter Ned Turner (a slumming John Huston) as he tries to find the source of a series of attacks by an aquatic animal.  He gets help from diver Will Gleason (Bo Hopkins, trying really hard to make the material work), and butts heads with Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda, originally the lead before a heart attack forced him into this smaller role) the businessman responsible for antagonizing the giant octopus (Is this a spoiler?  Could it have been anyone else, really?).

We also have Tillie Turner (Shelley Winters), the sister of Ned providing a B-plot (her son is in a sailing race where all of the entrants get attacked) and Claude Akins as Sheriff Douglas Robards as a third person for many of the scenes.  And I mean that: there are several scenes where it is primarily two people talking and it seems that the Sheriff is there just to provide an additional voice to the conversation.

Because this was an Italian production, every other character in the film is played by an Italian actor.  Unfortunately, most of these actors have incredibly distracting voice dubs, and there is a noticeable difference in the sound quality of these actors vs the American cast.  And it is even worse when one of the Americans shares a scene with an Italian.  I'm not sure if it would have been better to try to get American extras or just let the accents stay with the current actors, but it makes for a weird viewing having the dubs mixed in.

This movie also has some very odd directorial choices.  Several scenes feature what amounts to a screenshot (nothing in the frame is moving for several seconds) before cutting to the same scene only with movement this time.  There are also random music queues scattered throughout that almost have rhyme and reason to them, but miss just enough (and in a few cases, they miss wildly) that most viewers will notice the odd musical choices.

The special effects are bad, but better than I would expect for a movie with as small a budget as this one had.  Which is damning with faint praise, but what else can I say about a movie that, in one scene, has a killer whale attack the octopus where the viewer can tell it is a toy whale being thrust at a normal-sized octopus?

I hate to pick at this movie - it's akin to kicking a wounded animal - but it is such a misguided production in so many ways that I struggle to find anything to praise.  Shelley Winters gives the movie more effort than it deserves yet still the performances doesn't work.  Bo Hopkins, as alluded to above, also tries to salvage something from the script but something, likely the direction, holds anything worthwhile at bay the entire time.

If I am going to praise the movie for one thing, it will be that it really does not hesitate to kill characters.  The very first kill is a baby, family members of the main characters die throughout. and the movie isn't afraid to kill anyone, which is something.  It just isn't enough to save this movie.

3.5 out of 10

Review: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Creature from the Black Lagoon has a simple enough premise: Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) discovers a fossilized claw that appears humanoid but has webbing and claws.  Excited, he manages to get funding from Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Dennings) to expand his expedition to find more of this new discovery.  Along for the ride are Dr. Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissell), and colleagues (and lovers) Dr. David Reed and Kay Lawrence (Richard Carlson and Julie Adams).  Said expedition then learns that this creature is not entirely extinct, as they encounter one while searching for more remains.

The impact of this movie cannot be overstated.  While Universal had a history of successful horror films (Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, and the Mummy), by the 50s most of these characters were old hat - having appeared in movies together in various combos, and almost all having interacted with Abbott and Costello also.  The Gill Man was an entirely new - and entirely original - creation that was so instantly iconic that you'd be hard-pressed to find any 'fish man' that deviates away from this design.

Of note: though only makeup artist 'Bud' Westmore receives onscreen credit for the creation of the Gill Man, animator Millicent Patrick - one of the first women to be hired by Disney as an animator - also contributed heavily to the design.  This is because Westmore very angrily argued against the studio promoting her involvement.

The movie stands out for how consistently the tone plays throughout the film.  This could very easily have been something akin to The Brain from Outer Space (not a real film) but director Jack Arnold ably controls this film:  Staging the sequences so they are never not interesting (the swimming duet between the Gill Man (Ricou Browning for the underwater sequences) and Kay being a particular highlight), and keeping the film moving in a timely manner (the film feels much shorter than its 79 minutes).

When the Gill Man moves to land (played by Ben Chapman for these sequences), he still feels altogether alien despite his humanoid appearance.  Chapman deserves credit for moderating his movements to keep the Creature otherworldly so that the audience can never be fully at ease during his appearances.

The performances across the board are fine to good - much better than one would expect for a B horror movie from the 50s.  Julie Adams (credited as Julia Adams for this film and much of her earlier filmography) is justly an icon for her role in this, but best in show likely goes to Richard Dennings as the much more cutthroat Mark, who'd prefer to kill the creature rather than just study it.

Originally released in 3-D and considered one of the best of those from the 50s, I unfortunately only got to experience the 2-D version.  And I wonder how much is lost because of that difference.  Because, despite all the praise I can heap on this film for what it has accomplished, I am much cooler on it than I expected.

Possibly the music has something to do with it.  The Creature's theme - played continuously throughout the film - gets tiresome given how often and how loudly we hear it.  Despite the performances being good, none of the characters truly stand out - even Kay is more famous for her abduction by the creature than the character work of Julie Adams.  For whatever reason, this movie just didn't 'click' for me despite the skill and craftmanship that went into it.

Would I recommend it?  Yes: it certainly deserves its place in horror history, and I think even non-horror fans can enjoy it, though they might struggle a bit with the 50s style of acting.  I could even be convinced to give it a rewatch, though I would certainly want it to be 3-D next time.

6 out of 10

Review: Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

Clown in a Cornfield, based off the novel by Adam Cesare (which is a fun read), follows Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas), who has recently moved from Philadelphia to Kettle Springs, Missouri.  Kettle Springs is home to the Baypen corn syrup factory and its mascot Frendo the Clown.  Quinn quickly falls in with a group that makes horror YouTube videos based off the mascot, and when that group is pursued by a veritable army of costumed Frendos, she has to find a way to survive.

This movie is very much a throwback slasher:  Characters are fairly thin outside our lead, motivations are an afterthought, and the redshirts are fairly obvious.  However, it is still a fun time with some inventive kills and sly comedy scattered throughout.

Slashers - especially one that is paying homage to the 80s slashers - live and die by their energy.  Slow slashers rarely work (and for them to succeed, the slowness needs to be part of the gimmick like with In a Violent Nature) and boring/cliche kills can turn it into a slog.  So there is a constant battle to one-up previous slashers in both these ways that can turn the story into something perfunctory just so the focus can shift to those other priorities.

Because this is based off an existing novel, the story part is taken care of.  The adaptation trims quite a bit from the story, but the bones are there and allows the focus to shift to other aspects of the filmmaking.  Short of a complete rewriting of the novel (which, why would you adapt from a novel if that is your aim?), they have a blueprint to keep things from going too far off the rails.

The movie also succeeds with some inspired casting: getting a whole cadre of character actors to fill out the roles of the townspeople.  The biggest name is probably Will Sasso, but Kevin Durand and Aaron Abrams also make appearances.  All of the performers do an excellent job.  None of them break new ground with their performances, but they match the tone that the movie is asking for and flesh it out just enough to give it a pinch of realism.

The movie also wisely moves along at a quick pace to go along with the high energy.  We meet our characters and set up conflicts fairly quickly, and the kills start soon after.  At 96 minutes, it has to be judicious with its scenes and director Eli Craig (with an assist from editor Sabrina Pitre) makes sure not a moment is wasted.

All in all, this is a fun little movie.  It isn't doing anything to rewrite the genre, but it's a fun time.

6 out of 10

Review: Freaks (1932)

Freaks, directed by Tod Browning, is a complicated film.  Filmed in the pre-code era, it offered a compassionate look at those with disabilities and was vilified for it.  It is a tale of revenge that gets lumped into the horror category, mostly for the wrong reasons, but does feature moments of horror within it.  Originally 90 minutes long, producer Irving Thalberg - without letting Browning know - edited the film, removing so much of it that the alternate footage had to be added to give it a theatrical run time of 64 minutes.  The full version is lost.

It's hard to talk about the film on its merits when the version that survived to today is so heavily compromised.  Not only that, but a modern audience would approach it in a much different way than a contemporaneous one - which is the proper way to review it?  I'm going to somewhat split the difference between the two, but I can't say if that is the best method.

The story of Freaks is simple: Hans (Harry Earles), a dwarf circus performer, is smitten with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) a trapeze performer.  Because of a large inheritance he has received, Cleopatra leads him on for a bit before hatching a plan with her paramour, Hercules (Henry Victor), to marry then poison Hans so that she can get all of his money.  Unfortunately for Cleopatra and Hercules, they are found out and the titular freaks get their revenge.

The movie is one of contrasts: An early scene shows two men talking about what basically amounts to eugenics before coming across the sideshow performers and being horrified by them - this providing a counterpoint to the many familial scenes within the circus performer community, with both the 'freaks' and several of the 'normal' performers living amongst one another. Phroso and Venus (Wallace Ford and Leila Hyams) a clown and a seal trainer, consider many of these performers to be their friends, and Venus is attacked by Hercules because she knows too much about their plot.

There is also the infamous 'One of Us' scene where, after marrying Hans, Cleopatra is offended to be welcomed by the freaks and called one of them.  Whereas the 'freaks' are happy to welcome another into their group, the beautiful (and somewhat Aryan) Cleopatra - despite performing in the same circus - considers herself better than this other group.  Director Browning, who himself had traveled with a circus, likely didn't do this by accident.

The movie is not without problems, despite being in many ways well ahead of its time.  The revenge against Cleopatra and Hercules is still portrayed as horrifying because of who is pursuing them more than a proper comeuppance for their crimes, and Frieda, Hans's love interest, is played by Daisy Earles, the sister of harry Earles.  While the former is likely a combination of the heavy edits to the movie and the time period in which it was made, the latter really feels like it could have been avoided with additional casting.

Still, the movie is an interesting time capsule into the how filmmakers in the past worked to be subversive, and two years later the Hays Code would have made the making of this film all but impossible, so it should be treasured for what it did accomplish moreso than criticized for what it did not.

Would I recommend this movie?  It's short, so even if someone didn't enjoy it, it isn't asking too much of their time to check it out, so I'd say yes for that reason alone.  Film buffs should definitely watch it though.

8 out of 10

Review: Frogs (1972)

It's weird seeing Sam Elliott without his mustache.

Frogs finds a very-young Sam Elliott, playing photographer Pickett Smith, as he finds himself spending an evening and day with the wealthy Crockett family after one of their clan almost runs over his canoe with their boat.  Apologetic, they offer to let him dry off and spend the evening with them on their island.  An island that is teeming with frogs (or, toads that we are meant to believe are frogs).  Those frogs, and the various other wildlife on the island, have plans for the Crockett family and their visitors...

I think whether or not you enjoy this movie is heavily dependent on whether or not you can roll with the combination of a silly premise and serious acting.  While there is a certain level of campiness to a few of the performances, most of the actors play the dialogue dead serious.  It works for the film - I don't think the movie would work if there was any sort of leaning into the ridiculous premise - but if the viewer can't get into it, they will not enjoy this film.

I was able to get into it.  It's always interesting to see a before-they-were-famous performance and it is easy to see the easy charisma of Sam Elliott in this performance.  Several of the female characters are instantly in lust with him, and the viewer can actually see why they are into him so quickly - not an easy feat to accomplish.

Because of the large cast - there are a grand total of 10 members of the Crockett family, plus two servants and a guest in addition to Pickett - the deaths happen early and frequently.  While precious few of them are caused by frogs - I'll let future viewers be surprised at the actual total - all of them are caused by wildlife of some sort.  A few of them, while lacking realism, are still gross to watch, including one poor soul who ends up with a tarantula in their mouth - and not a fake one.

I'd almost like to watch a making-of this movie.  A man wrestles a live alligator in one scene, the trailer shows a woman dropped into quicksand by a giant butterfly (this does not make the final cut of the film), there is an extended sequence with animal sounds coming from stuffed animals where most do not match: I willing to bet the making of the film is just as if not more interesting than the finished product.

Overall, I'd say the film is enjoyable.  It could probably do with a few less scenes of frogs menacingly staring at the camera, but it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, though I can definitely see opinions varying wildly on this one.

6 out of 10

Review: Wolf Man (2025)

I think the critics got it wrong on this one.

The 2025 Wolf Man follows the Lovell family (Blake, played by Christopher Abbott; Charlotte, played by Julia Garner; and Ginger, played by Matilda Firth) as they go to Blake's estranged father's home after he is declared legally dead.  However, it t urns out his father is not dead, but now a werewolf who attacks the family, infecting Blake.

This version of the classic tale diverges from other versions by having the turning process be long and painful.  Blake starts to get heightened senses, but then loses the ability to talk or even understand his family.  The metamorphosis is slow, and complicating matters is that the werewolf that infected him continues to hunt the family into the night.

There are undercurrents here of family trauma being passed on to the next generation, as well as less subtextual moments relating to relationships within a family that is strained but not broken.  The slow decline of Blake - treated as an infection given to him - feels pointed in a post-COVID film, and I appreciate director Leigh Whannell twisting the age old myth in such a way.

A film like this is going to live and die on its performances, and with a cast of 5 - two of which are fairly small - there isn't any room for a bad performance.  Thankfully, all of the cast do an amazing job.  Abbott in particular does an amazing job of showing Blake's slow loss of his humanity (it isn't stated, but is implied, that once you transform it is permanent).  Garner, as a mother who worries she doesn't connect with her daughter or husband as she should, also delivers.

Whannell does add some flair to several sequences in the film.  Several chase scenes are fairly inventive - my favorite being one involving a greenhouse - and the decision to cut between Blake's 'werewolf' vision/hearing and that of his family works very well at creating otherworldliness that would be missing in a standard werewolf movie.

This movie also wins points by not being overly long.  An hour and 40ish minutes - including credits - means that we get to the actual meat of the movie fairly quickly, and it doesn't drag at all as the family is trapped/attempts to escape Blake's childhood home.

I will say that this movie is more focuses on the psychological and body horror rather than on jump scares.  I think it is the correct choice for the story that Whannell and co-screenwriter Corbett Tuck want to tell, but for those looking for more traditional scares, this won't scratch that itch.  However, I'd definitely recommend it to those who don't mind a different type of horror.

8 out of 10.

Review: Fear No Evil (1981)

It really isn't surprising that a horror movie from 1981 would have a character possessed by Lucifer dabble with homosexuality (I think... it is never really clear if lead character Andrew - played by Stefan Arngrim - has always been Lucifer, or if he was possessed as a baby.  And those aren't the only possibilities either).  What is surprising is just how very gay this movie gets.

The plot:  Andrew Williams has been... something... since he was a baby.  At 17, he starts manifesting powers and acting demonic and it turns out he is the devil, Lucifer.  Three angels - also reincarnated as humans during this - have to seek him out and kill him before he brings about the end times.  Things get so incredibly gay along the way.

I really don't mean to harp on it so much, but I can't believe a movie that wears homosexuality so proudly on its sleeve got away with it in 1981.  Sure, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 was also insanely gay, but it at least was mostly subtextual.  This movie has an extended scene where two men - naked, I feel I should add - kiss in the locker room shower of a high school.  It start out as bullying and turns into something else.

As Andrew finds himself becoming more and more evil, he gets gayer and gayer.  It's marvelous.  He summons the dead, he forces a coach to kill a student, he wears lipstick.  All things that prove he is evil.

Now, I have to be honest here:  Long parts of this movie are exceedingly boring, and I totally understand anyone watching this movie and deciding it is not worth the time.  But for every draggy, boring scene (mostly following the reincarnated angels) there is some sort of batshit insane scene to pull you back into the movie.

The popular girl group wear satin jackets that say Queen B's and that B means exactly what you think it does.

It helps that Stefan Arngrim really commits to the performance.  He gives the role more than I think it asks for - in particular, his early apparent struggles with turning evil really muddy the mythology of what is happening - but he does an amazing job with what had to be an insanely risky role for 1981.  It transcends into something genuinely campy (in a good way) and is the primary reason I'd recommend this movie.

Andrew's father starts screaming his son is the devil like he is in another, better movie.

As for the other performances, they are mostly fine.  A few performances are rough, but nothing terrible.  All hit the proper tone the movie is going for, if nothing else.  If I had to pick a next best, it would be Daniel Eden as Tony, one of the bullies of the school, whose character is second to only Andrew as having the most out-of-pocket scenes scattered throughout the film.

There is so much male nudity in this, even outside the shower scene.

When shit really starts to hit the fan - a church play results in mass stigmata; the summoned dead attack other students on an island that somehow has a castle-like structure - it has one last moment of absolute what-the-fuckery before the angels confront our devil and save the day (Spoiler?  The devil wasn't going to be gay and win in 1981 people, come on).  And I do mean what the fuck did I just watch?  I can't even begin to think of spoiling it: it needs to be encountered, like stumbling upon a wendigo in the woods.  Knowing about it beforehand only lessens the impact.

Lucifer is made up of lasers.

Tonally, it is all over the place, as evidenced by the wild swings between boring and absolute crazy, but hot damn did I enjoy this.  Even if it is draggy, it's only 99 minutes long, so nothing drags for so long that it isn't worth the wait.

Like Empire of the Ants, this movie really transcends a proper rating given the anything goes approach to the screenplay.  But I'll give it a 6 out of 10.

Review: The Pit (1981)

The thing about cult movies is sometimes you watch them and end up not being part of the cult.  I'd come across this movie in random forums or online lists of 'forgotten' films (and even The Angry Gay fave Final Girl) so I finally gave it a shot after seeing for cheap at Kino Lorber.

It was not my favorite.

I will say that lead actor Sammy Snyders does a good job in the role, and the trogs, while not very intimidating once they leave the Pit (spoiler?), at least have a somewhat original look to them.

But I am getting ahead of myself: first the plot.  Young Jamie Benjamin (Snyders) is an odd child.  Despite being 12ish years old, he still talks to his teddy bear (named Teddy, not very original is young Jamie) and doesn't socialize well with anyone his age.  However, he has discovered a pit in the woods filled with monsters he calls trogs.  He feeds them meat from the butcher, but finds himself unable to purchase more after a time.  What will he do? (He will feed them people, obviously).

So, first, this movie drags.  It opens with Jamie pushing someone into the pit, but then waits another 30+ minutes before it happens again.  Once Jamie does start murdering people, we get the exact same scene from the opening - in its entirety! - among the kills.  The kills are mostly done as a montage, and once they are done, we get some more 'plot' that doesn't do much to progress the story.

There are subplots in this film involving eventual victims, but they go nowhere and don't add anything to the movie so it feels unnecessary to get into them, other than to complain about them making this 101 minute movie feel even longer.

It may be that I'd be more invested if the acting was better, but it's pretty rough the entire runtime of the movie.  There's sometimes charm in that (see: Sleepaway Camp), but there still needs to be something interesting going on for it to work.  And none of it is interesting.

There aren't even that many shots that are visually stimulating either.  It's a very plainly shot with nothing inventive done throughout, and some shots actually take you out of the movie with the thought of 'What were they thinking?'

I am glad other people enjoy this and the world is better when people enjoy movies, I am just not a fan of this one.

3 out of 10

Review: Empire of the Ants (1977)

This is a bad movie.

Full confession: I love it anyway.

It's always odd when I write a review for a movie under those circumstances: This is going to be an insanely positive review for something that, at best, I can only give a 5 out of 10.  And even that would be a generous score.

The plot: Land developer Marilyn Fryser (Joan Collins) brings a cadre of prospective buyers to a beachfront development.  Unbeknown to her or the clients: toxic waste has been dumped into the waters near the development.  Some of that waste has washed ashore and ants have encountered it.  Things go south very quickly once the people encounter the ants.

Going into this relatively unspoiled, I assumed it would be similar to the other 1977 film featuring killer ants, Ants in that it would be incredibly aggressive and poisonous ants.  Instead, we get ants similar to those found in 1954's Them! - giant monsters that are out to eat any humans that cross their path.

Now, most of the ant effects are terrible.  The director used process shots, where close up images of ants are superimposed onto scenes with the actors.  It doesn't look great, and oftentimes doesn't match what the actors are reacting too.  A scene where the cast is menaced while in a canoe features one of the actors waving an oar in a direction that no ants are in.  I love it so much.

For close up shots, they do have puppet ants for the actors to interact with, but the camera work is so crazy during these scenes that you cannot get a good look at them.  They seem acceptable?  But it is probably on purpose that we don't get to see them clearly.

Surprisingly, many of the characters are given depth not usually seen in this sort of movie.  Nothing super deep (this is still an Animal Runs Amok feature) but arcs are present, though occasionally confusing.  I get the feeling that Marilyn is supposed to read as a more villainous presence than she does - especially given her fate by the end of the movie.  However, don't expect any surprises as far as who survives and who doesn't: this movie isn't going to deviate from the formula too much as far as its characters are concerned.

SPOILERS BEYOND!

I will say that the final act took a large swing that I did not expect.  Given my familiarity with the genre - and this subgenre within it - I can honestly say that this movie took an unexpected risk.  It doesn't work very well - it is the only part of the movie that feels like it drags a bit, but deciding to have the ant queen using its pheromones to enslave a nearby town is absolutely bonkers.  The viewer suspects something is going to happen given the pointed comment about a large sugar factory, but I don't think any viewer would have predicted this turn.

SPOILERS END!

So, what rating do I give a movie like this?  It has terrible effects and mediocre acting, but it honestly had me laughing and having a good time in spite of (because of?) all of the problems with it.  I can honestly see me rewatching it/forcing my friends to watch and enjoy the unintentional campiness to it.  There is a sincerity to this badness that makes me love it in the same way I love Sleepaway Camp.

My heart wants to give it at least a 7, but my mind knows that it doesn't deserve anywhere near that high a score.

4 out of 10, but a permanent place in my heart.

Review: Grabbers (2013)

I have a weakness for creature features.

This isn't anything new - I've mentioned it several times over the years - but I feel like any review of a creature feature needs that reminder.  Not because I'll be more forgiving of a creature feature (I will rip a bad one to shreds if I've a mind too), it's just that many of the tropes and cliches of the genre don't bother me.  If anything, I find them to be a feature: I know what to expect and can enjoy those occasions when expectations are subverted.

The horror-comedy Grabbers indulges in many of the tropes of the genre, but the twist to it (and the reason I love it) is that the protagonists discover that the titular creatures will not eat you if you are drunk.  So a plan is hatched to save the town by having a party at a tavern with free beer the entire night.  A perfect MacGuffin for the comedy part of the film.

There is no steely-faced man staring down death like in Jaws or Godzilla: our heroes are so plastered that they struggle to move a table to block a door.  Their compatriots struggle to stand up straight or go roaring out to fight the monsters with a Super-Soaker (or whatever the Irish equivalent is - for this is set in a small Irish town).  Everything about the fight against the creatures is ridiculous.

The performances are all fairly good - everyone calibrates their performances to match the tone of the movie.  Leads Richard Coyle and Ruth Bradley (as Ciaran O'Shea and Lisa Nolan) have a few more serious moments that are played well enough, and Russell Tovey (as Dr. Smith, the island scientist) is best in show amongst the cast.

The creature design is also well done - a swarm of tentacles surrounding a mouth with a froglike tongue it uses to grab prey.  The CGI for the creatures (for there are many) is definitely a little lower budget, but nothing overly distracting from the movie at large.

I do have a few criticisms for the movie though.  For one, the tavern where a large part of the movie takes place isn't given nearly enough attention for a location of such plot importance.  The layout is a bit weird, and I imagine it would take another watch for me to really understand how the set 'works' as a whole as opposed to the three main locations within it.

The movie also takes its time getting to the meat of the plot.  While it does have a few characters encounter the creatures early (and meet their untimely ends for their troubles), getting from the second attack to the main gathering at the tavern could use a bit more brevity or a few more kills.

Overall, this is a fairly enjoyable film.  I'm sure some of the humor goes over my head since I am not Irish and it was definitely made for a local audience, but I still had a good time watching it and laughed quite a bit.

7 out of 10

Review: Cursed (2005)

It's a bit surprising I had not already seen this movie.  Wes Craven directed and written by Kevin Williamson, the team behind Scream, this is the exact sort of movie high school/college me would've been all about.  Maybe its poor reviews when it released kept me away?  Whatever the case, I finally got around to it 20 years later.

Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the movie doesn't prove to be essential viewing for any but the most diehard Craven fans.  It's a fairly average movie that might've been better had the producers (the odious Weinstein brothers) not tinkered with it: Forcing a PG-13 rating on it, having scenes rewritten and re-shot, and firing the legendary Rick Baker (who did the effects for An American Werewolf in London!) in favor of CGI that is below average even by 2005 standards.

Despite that meddling, the movie is mostly okay.  It follows siblings Jimmy and Ellie (Jesse Eisenberg and Christina Ricci) as they discover themselves to be werewolves after getting into a car wreck after hitting one. They then have to figure out who the original werewolf is to break the curse.

It's a fairly by-the-numbers story that I think is really undercut by the forced PG-13 rating.  Some more appropriate swearing and some better kills might not have made this great, but it certainly would've made the thin characterizations and thin plot more forgivable.  The best scene of the movie is also the only one that really gives it any personality, so it's a shame to see it constrained in such a way.

That scene, where bully Bo (Milo Ventimiglia) apologizes to Jimmy and then comes out and comes on to him, is deeply funny and both Eisenberg and Ventimiglia play it just straight enough (no pun intended) to really bring out the chuckles.   The movie takes the cowards way out by having Jimmy end up with Brooke (Kristina Anapau) rather than allowing a main character to be gay, but I will give the movie credit for keeping Bo alive to the end and having him end up friends with Jimmy.

Ricci is given far less interesting material to work with, and while she is very good at spinning gold from weaker dialogue, it ultimately defeats her here.  Most of her scenes are opposite Michael Rosenbaum, who is very much phoning it in, or Joshua Jackson, who feels like he is playing three different characters spliced together to make a single one in the final cut.

Really, this movie is missed potential.  There's the nugget of something interesting here, but too much personality has been removed for the movie to be anything other than okay.

5.5 out of 10

Review: Psycho (1998)

Fresh off of the success of Good Will Hunting, director Gus Van Sant had carte blanche to make whatever movie he wanted.  And he chose to not just do a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, but an almost shot-for-shot remake.  It was an audacious choice, and one that was likely to fail no matter what, but I can't help but love that it happened.  Not because I think the movie is good (the movie is not by any stretch good), but because I love it as a film school thought experiment made reality.  Can you mimic something so completely and still have it as effective as the original?  Or is there some sort of undefined alchemy present in the making of a movie that can never hope to be recaptured?

This version of Psycho doesn't definitively answer those questions, but it does make a compelling argument for the answers to be 'No' and 'Definitely.'

I'll knock out the differences first.  The movie has more nudity, right out the gate.  I don't know that this was added as anything more than a 'I can get away with this in 1998' change, but at least in the instance of the opening scene with Viggo Mortensen (as Sam Loomis, the boyfriend) and Anne Heche (as Marion Crane, the doomed), the change makes for a humorous moment as Marion tells the completely nude Sam he cannot follow her out because 'he has to put on his shoes.'

The movie also changes the amount of money stolen to a more modern $400,000 and implies a bit of a media frenzy at the end after Norman has been arrested.  The movie somewhat updates the costumes, but not completely: the styles range over all the decades from 1960 to 1998, and not to the movie's benefit.  It does however, feed into the feeling that this film is a fever dream.

The last major change is the violence.  More of it is shown - again, likely because now it could - but Van Sant inserts flashes of random images meant to invoke the character's life 'flashing before their eyes.'  It also doesn't work, and this more than any of the other changes is one I wish he had not made.

I'll also note the change to color from black and white, but I don't really find it to be of any significance to how the film is perceived.  If it does distract or impact the movie in any way, it wasn't in such a way that I took note of it.

So, with that commentary out of the way, how do I feel about the rest?  Mixed, to put it mildly.

Two scenes in particular stand out to me as proof that there is a kind of alchemy in the making of a movie:  The first is the scene where Marion interacts with the police officer after sleeping in her car.  It's not a particular noteworthy scene in the original, but it just seems weird and out of place in the remake.  The second is when Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn, back when he still tried to be at least a little interesting as an actor) has to clean up after 'Mother' has murdered Marion.  Nothing about the scene noticeably changes, but it feels like the remake version takes so much longer.

The actors all had an interesting choice in how to approach this remake, and the decisions range all over the spectrum.  A personal favorite of mine is Rita Wilson as Caroline, a coworker of Marion's.  She plays the character as a mean gossip, and it is one of only two performances that go in a completely different direction from the original.

The other is Julianne Moore (as Lila Crane, the sister).  She plays Lila as a much angrier, desperate person as opposed to Vera Miles's take on the character.  It's a breath of fresh air in the movie, especially once paired with Viggo Mortensen's most casual take on the boyfriend character.  They play off each other very well and feel like the only two performances that were on the same wavelength.

Anne Heche is fine as Marion.  It's a hard role to make your own without showing that you are making it your own, but she does an adequate job.  Janet Leigh's stylized performance was in service to Hitchcock's vision, whereas this one feels like it is trying to find wiggle room within Van Sant's.  Again, it isn't terrible, but the weight of the performance that preceded it is visible throughout.

The biggest disappointment is Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates.  Saddled with a role just as iconic as Heche's, he does try to make it his own or at least do something different with the interpretation, but it just fails.  Which happens!  Sometimes an experiment, like a shot-for-shot remake of an iconic film, just doesn't work out, as happens here with Vaughn.  I just wish there was something I could point out as a success, but nothing works: the weird giggle, the overt masturbation scene, not even the facial acting of the final monologue really works.

Pretty much every other character is absolutely fine.  William H. Macy (as Arbogast, the private investigator) is normally an actor I enjoy and he does fine in this role, but not even he could get me invested in the character.

Overall, I'm happy to watch this film a second time after first watching it back in 1998.  It doesn't work, but sometimes it is nice to talk about an interesting failure.  At least it tried something different and weird.

5 out of 10

Review: Psycho (1960)

How do you write about one of the most-discussed classics of horror cinema?  It's a question I've wrestled with ever since I decided to start this October's horror movie marathon with Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's most famous movie.  What new thought or observation can I add?

Ultimately, I don't need to add anything: This is a damn good movie - not quite timeless, but it holds up amazingly well for a highly stylized horror thriller from 1960.  Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh give iconic performances, the camera work is famously innovative, and the movie is filled with movie moments that won't soon be forgotten.

The most famous of those moments,  being the shower scene that sees Janet  Leigh's Marion get murdered by the titular psycho.  Risqué for the time, it used implied violence with its hectic editing to make the viewer think that more violence was shown than was actual visible.  It's masterful, and the early killing of the star actor sent the audience reeling.

But what about the lead up to that famous scene?  Also amazingly good.  Leigh does the bulk of the early work in the film, and she more than matched the tone and style that Hitchcock was going for.  The roadside talk with the police officer in particular is anxiety personified as Marion can't help but act suspicious while trying too hard to not act suspicious.

Her scene with Perkins' Norman Bates is also ably played - Marion is so in her own head she misses every alarm bell that rings during that conversation.  I've mentioned that Leigh's portrayal is iconic, but it is also unbelievably good.

As is the performance of Anthony Perkins. So many split personalities in the years since have paid tribute to this performance, and we only really see Perkins as the Mother character in the famous final monologue.  I wonder if, had I not been spoiled about the plot twists of this movie years before I watched it, I too would've been just as charmed by Norman Bates and his odd weirdness as Marion was.

The latter part of the film, focusing on Lila Crane and Sam Loomis (Vera Miles and John Gavin) feels less like a narrative switch more like a disconnected reality: The audience knows that Marion is dead and the money she stole had nothing to do with it, but we still watch as Lila and Sam try to find her and figure out if Norman and his mother have anything to do with it.

It's a bold structural move, to leave the audience without any sort of real protagonist for the latter third of the movie.  However, given how quickly the story progresses it never completely gets away from the audience, only carries them along with Lila and Sam up until the end.

I will say that the middle section focusing on Arbogast (Martin Balsim) is a bit draggy for me, even if his scene with Norman is easily the best part of Perkins's performance.  It's necessary to reach the end of the film, and his death is another highlight of the film, but otherwise I would consider this to be the most skippable part of the film - even moreso than the exposition dump scene with the psychiatrist.

So much about this movie works, and I'd easily agree that it justly deserves to be called a film that changed filmmaking.  Well worth seeing.

9.5 out of 10

Review: The Long Walk (2025)

Sometimes, bleakness has its place.

The Long Walk, the film adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name (and originally published under the name Richard Bachman) is a damn bleak movie.  If you go into it blind (and I'd recommend going into it as blind as possible) you get a feeling from the beginning that something is off.  The tone is established quickly and early, and even before the first major turn of the movie (the elimination of #7 Thomas Curley, portrayed by Jojo Rabbit's Roman Griffin Davis) you know that this will not be a happy film.

From that elimination, the is a pervasive sense of dread.  A figurative shoe that the audience is collectively waiting to drop as we follow the remaining walkers - a much smaller 50 than the novel's original 100 - as they carry on with their journey: a continuous walk that does not end until all but one is eliminated.  Winning gets the Walker a large amount of money and any wish they want.

With the basic plot underway, and quick character introductions before they start walking, we get to know our main group of Walkers: Ray Garraty, Peter McVries, Arthur Baker, and Hank Olson (played by Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Tut Nyuot, and Ben Wang respectively) along with secondary characters Stebbins, Gary Barkovitch, and Collie Parker (Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, and Joshua Odjick) also getting moments.

This group provides the emotional throughline of the film, with a quick bond forming between Garraty, McVries, Baker, and Olson.  Their discussions as they walk give insight into how this dystopian world operates, although more could've been done to build up the character of The Major (Mark Hamill), who is the apparently leader of this terrible future.

Given that the bulk of the film is just the characters walking - with occasional eliminations of other minor characters - their discussions are key to the viewer making it through this bleakness.  There are surprising moments of humor and occasional bouts of melancholy shading the characters, and their eventual eliminations are all effective in affecting the viewer.

As far as adaptations go, it makes substantial changes to the source material while still keeping the nihilism that litters the King novel.  I'm not sure all the changes are for the better - the order of the eliminations and how they occur varies wildly.  However, most of the changes are unabashedly good, so I'll reserve judgment on the others.

Going further into the movie runs the risk of spoilers I'd rather not give, but trust that the bleakness continues through right to the end.  There are brief moments that escape it, but make sure you are in the right headspace before seeing this.

7 out of 10

Review: Primitive War (2025)

Ever see a movie that wildly exceeded your expectations?  Because Primitive War not only surpassed my expectations, but this is a legitimately good film in a way that several movies of this genre don't even try to be.

When first viewing the trailer for this movie, I was sold pretty quickly (anything with dinosaurs is a pretty easy sell to me, if I am being honest).  My expectations weren't exactly high though, due to some dodgy CGI in the trailer, plus some extremely cliche music choices - albeit a choice that fit the trailer well.

If I may digress a bit, there are movies where the special effects stop mattering after awhile.  Probably the best example of this is Jaws.  Nowadays, most of the audience agrees the shark is not very realistic looking, but that doesn't change the fact that the movie is a classic because the story is so gripping that the 'realism' of the shark is secondary to what is happening onscreen.

Primitive War, while not on the same level as Jaws by any stretch (which is not a knock against the film, very few movies are on the same level as Jaws), also accomplishes the feat of the CGI not mattering after awhile.  And the CGI is not bad - it definitely has a few weak moments in the film, but that is the exception and not the rule.

What works best is that this is a war movie that happens to have dinosaurs and writer/director Luke Sparke treats it as such.  We spend some time with the soldiers before they are sent off on their mission, and while it is brief, it is enough to establish the characters and show the camaraderie amongst the Vulture Squad.  We care about these characters before they are put into danger, which adds a level of tension throughout the entire movie.

Credit has to be given to the cast.  I always found it strange that Ryan Kwanten never really took off in the US during or post-True Blood and this film is a good example why: He ably carries the bulk of the emotional weight of the movie.  It makes me hope that he gets more opportunities like this one in the future.

Amongst the supporting cast, I imagine Tricia Helfer and Aaron Glenane (as Sofia, a Russian scientist and Logan, a sniper for the Vulture Squad) will get the most accolades, but I was most impressed by Anthony Ingruber as Keyes.  The character's relationships with the other members of the Vulture Squad - particularly that of Logan - add a richness and depth that the movie didn't ask for, but which greatly elevated the film as a whole.

Director Luke Sparke also does a fine job with the action of the film.  Interesting shots are scattered throughout, with a scene inside of a cave particularly noteworthy for how claustrophobic he manages to make the viewer feel.

My only real criticism is that I can tell that the novel was greatly cut for this adaptation.  Several characters feel like they should have been larger or more important than the end result and perhaps could have been trimmed or combined with other characters.

Overall, this is a solid movie with much better-than-expected direction and acting that I would expect for an independent film with a B-movie premise.  I'd easily recommend it.

8 out of 10

Review: Weapons (2025)

I'm a bit surprised at the critical response to this film.  As I write this, Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 95% positive from critics and 87% positive from audiences with Metacritic also having it at an 81. This is a very acclaimed horror film in a year filled with such, and this is possibly the weirdest one to be so warmly received.

Not that the plot is too far out there.  As famously shown on the poster and in trailers, the basic plot is that all of the students (save one) of a third grade class taught by Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) get up at 2:17 a.m. and leave their houses and disappear.  The film starts about a month after the event with Justine ostracized and the parents still angry that no progress has been made on finding their children.

The movie is broken into several different parts, each named after the character that it focuses on.  It starts with Justine, but also follows parent Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong), drug addict James (Austin Abrams) and Paul (Cary Christopher), the lone student that came to class that fateful day.

The timelines of all of these characters all intermingle with one another - Justine's part starts after Archer's but before James, that sort of thing - but tie together in ways both obvious (seeing a scene start from a different character's point of view) and subtle (the film shows but does not tell who vandalizes Justine's car).  None of this is hard to follow, though it might take a moment to figure out certain timeline events until the point where they collide occurs, and it likely rewards the audience for multiple viewings.

The movie takes its time getting to the eventual reveal of what happens, and uses its story structure to show escalations out of order to keep you guessing as to the answer.  All of the actors do a great job tying everything together and no performance feels out of place, either in the various timelines or the film overall.  Tonally, there isn't much to criticize: the film is somber all throughout with just enough jump scares - usually delivered via dream sequences - to keep the audience from getting too comfortable or complacent.

There are a few minor criticisms to be made. The first would be the ending of the film.  Not the entire ending, mind you, but part of it.  Part of the ending is so darkly comedic and perfect that I almost don't want to criticize it at all, but what follows that particular moment of catharsis feels rushed.  I don't want to give spoilers, but the cathartic moment and what leads up to it is amazing, so having the movie end so quickly after it feels like a proper denouncement is missing.  Again, not a large complaint, just a small wish for a bit more to properly wrap up.

(The other complaint involves some very minor spoilers, so feel free to skip this paragraph to avoid those if so inclined)  The other problem is that, for a very large portion of this film, it reads as an metaphor for a school shooting - even going so far as to show an AR-15 with the time of the children's disappearance in one of the dream sequences.  It plays into the title of the film and hangs over movie up until the actual reveal.  But once it drops that, it completely drops it.  Nothing even hinting at the previous metaphor comes up for the remainder of the film.  It makes it lose a bit of energy.  Nothing too detrimental to the film, but I can't help but wonder how it would've changed the film if they had held onto it all the way to the end.

It also indulges in the 'bury your gays' trope that I could very much do without.

But aside from those small quibbles, this is a solid film.  Not my favorite of the year, but a damn good piece of filmmaking that really makes me feel like I should check out director Zach Cregger's previous feature Barbarian.

8.5 out of 10

Review: Elio (2025)

Sometimes, a studio is a victim of its own success.  Pixar has created so many stone-cold classics in the animation genre that even a mediocre outing feels like a huge disappointment.  And while I'd argue that Elio is a perfectly fine animated film, I can see why so much about it is considered such even before getting into its anemic box office numbers.

Elio follows the titular character, Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab), a young boy who longs to be abducted by aliens after his parents die and he moves in with his aunt, Olga Solis (Zoe Saldana).  Elio is an outcast who spends the majority of his time in his pursuit of abduction.  Eventually he actually is abducted and finds himself representing Earth as its ambassador in the Communiverse.  And I'll stop the summary there.

There are so many tropes in that short description of the film that it could easily be a dozen other films up until the alien abduction.  The film originally had a bit more characterization for Elio and you can feel the gaps in the screenplay (I won't go into details but the removal of said characterization was enough that original director Adrian Molina and original voice actress America Ferrera both left the project).

It's sad, because the film is missing a personality that it desperately needs for both its lead character and for its alien plot.  Several of the alien ambassadors are a marvel of animation, but 15 minutes after the movie it's almost impossible to name a single one of them.  Even the antagonist of the film is a stock character that's been seen a hundred times before and will be seen a hundred times after.

None of these criticisms are unforgiveable sins, they just add up to make this one of the lesser efforts from Pixar.  It's worth seeing, especially compared to the lesser efforts of the other major animation studios, but it might be that Pixar film that most people forget about.

6.5 out of 10