Year-End Wrap Up Part 2 (of 3):
Night of the Demon (1957):
night-of-the-demon-poster.jpg
This is another film that has been on my radar for a while since floating back to the horror community's consciousness and I'm really kicking myself for waiting as long as I did to purchase the Indicator blu-ray. Based on the M.R. James story "Casting the Runes," the film follows an American psychologist (Dana Andrews) teams up with a niece of a colleague who has recently died under mysterious circumstances to investigate a cult that may have been involved in the colleague's death. A love a good curse-with-a-ticking-time-clock film and this appears to be the granddaddy of them all--frankly how much Raimi's Drag Me to Hell owes to this film was illuminating--and it didn't disappoint in the least. I was worried that the wife wouldn't like it as she hated Tourneau's Cat People; however, she wound up loving it. Tourneau directs the heck out of the film and the two leads have great chemistry together and Andrews plays the squared-jawed skeptic perfectly. There is the well-known controversy that Tourneau did not want the titular demon ever to be shown and I kinda agree that I wish it hadn't, at least in the beginning, so as to play into the doubts of whether the curse is real or not. Regardless, the film still works perfectly and this--and the Indicator disc, which is packed with both the UK and US versions and tons of special features--is highly recommended and worth the cost. Grade: A
Longlegs (2024):
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I've been a fan of Osgood Perkins's films since catching The Blackcoat's Daughter--which is so much better on a rewatch, by the way--and equally enjoyed I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, even if it was a LOT slower and more obtuse than his previous offering. To say his film's are a "deliberately paced" would be an understatement as Perkins's films work more on a slow drifting mist of dread and small intense punctuations of violence to unnerve the viewer. Whether this works or not really depends on how willing one is to meeting the film on its own terms. I was very hesitant to pull the trigger on this one due to Nicolas Cage's involvement as I find him very hit-or-miss and tend to enjoy him more reined in rather than fully unleashed. However, the film very much worked for me and feels, in a lot of ways, like a spiritual cousin to The Blackcoat's Daughter. The film follows Maika Monroe (The Guest, It Follows) as a young FBI agent recruited by her superior (played by a fantastic Blair Underwood) to help in hunting a serial killer. If this sounds a lot like Silence of the Lambs, then you wouldn't be too far off, but Perkins takes a hard right turn into weirdness as the story unfolds and it, for the most part, it works. There is a late reveal that I saw coming, but besides that I found the world that Perkins created to be fascinating. If slow burn--or Nic Cage at his weirdest--is your jam, then this might be for you. Grade: B+
Quick aside: If Perkins's adaptation of King's The Monkey lives up to the promise of its trailer, then its going to be a blast.
Oddity (2024):
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I reviewed director Damian McCarthy's previous film, Caveat, and found it rather wanting. Some of the film's logic didn't quite work for me, but it was clear that McCarthy was a talent to watch. I will absolutely say, without a doubt, Oddity is a complete banger of a film and I will now be watching anything that comes my from Mr. McCarthy. To talk about the plot would give away far too much and I would recommend going into this as blind as possible. Within the first few minutes, the film gives a hook that is so smart that I was floored I hadn't seen it before and then it gets better. I will also say that I don't get fooled by jump scares easily and this had at least two that knocked me back in my seat in its execution. I loved this film and will be buying it on disc to add to the collection. So good! Grade: A
Speak No Evil (2024):
6NwAlU6ZH6ua3sYpFAUpUnoKUmi.jpg
I was initially going to pass on this remake of the 2022 Danish film, but I had heard good things and that the film went in a different direction than the incredibly bleak and nihilistic original. It also had the bonus of being directed by James Watkins, who directed the fantastic Eden Lake, a film that I've shared countless times with people and that is always a crowd-pleaser. Well, after watching the film, I'm a little torn. First the good: Watkins does a great job directing the film, ratcheting up the tension as the film progresses. And James McAvoy absolutely kills it in the role of increasingly menacing Paddy. Aisling Franciosi is also simply amazing as Paddy's counterpart, Ciara. The film is pretty beat-for-beat the same as the original until the last act and then it diverges quite a bit and becomes a more traditional Hollywood thriller as the two families battle each other. In this regard, the film becomes one I'd be a lot more likely to revisit, but also a lot less interesting than original. In the remake, an infidelity has been added to the backstory of our two protagonists, Ben and Louise. Yet, the film seems to side with Louise's reasons for her affair in Ben's self-pitying selfishness when his career collapses. Adding this to Ben's passive nature throughout the film, a newly added revelation about Paddy and Ciara's past, and a new, more upbeat ending, the film positions the film's themes around malformed masculinity and the brunt borne by women in these relationships. However, the original poses a far more interesting questions--at least to me--about how much criminal acts are facilitated and exploited by society's reliance on social norms; if society wasn't so nice and polite, would criminals have the opportunity to be so bad? This is complex argument is negated in the remake, replaced by a rather safe critique of domineering patriarchal masculinity. Overall, this is not a bad film and I think most people would find it much more enjoyable than the original. Maybe if I hadn't seen the original, I would have liked this more than I did. Grade: B-
Night of the Demon (1957):
night-of-the-demon-poster.jpg
This is another film that has been on my radar for a while since floating back to the horror community's consciousness and I'm really kicking myself for waiting as long as I did to purchase the Indicator blu-ray. Based on the M.R. James story "Casting the Runes," the film follows an American psychologist (Dana Andrews) teams up with a niece of a colleague who has recently died under mysterious circumstances to investigate a cult that may have been involved in the colleague's death. A love a good curse-with-a-ticking-time-clock film and this appears to be the granddaddy of them all--frankly how much Raimi's Drag Me to Hell owes to this film was illuminating--and it didn't disappoint in the least. I was worried that the wife wouldn't like it as she hated Tourneau's Cat People; however, she wound up loving it. Tourneau directs the heck out of the film and the two leads have great chemistry together and Andrews plays the squared-jawed skeptic perfectly. There is the well-known controversy that Tourneau did not want the titular demon ever to be shown and I kinda agree that I wish it hadn't, at least in the beginning, so as to play into the doubts of whether the curse is real or not. Regardless, the film still works perfectly and this--and the Indicator disc, which is packed with both the UK and US versions and tons of special features--is highly recommended and worth the cost. Grade: A
Longlegs (2024):
220px-Longlegs_film_poster.jpg
I've been a fan of Osgood Perkins's films since catching The Blackcoat's Daughter--which is so much better on a rewatch, by the way--and equally enjoyed I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, even if it was a LOT slower and more obtuse than his previous offering. To say his film's are a "deliberately paced" would be an understatement as Perkins's films work more on a slow drifting mist of dread and small intense punctuations of violence to unnerve the viewer. Whether this works or not really depends on how willing one is to meeting the film on its own terms. I was very hesitant to pull the trigger on this one due to Nicolas Cage's involvement as I find him very hit-or-miss and tend to enjoy him more reined in rather than fully unleashed. However, the film very much worked for me and feels, in a lot of ways, like a spiritual cousin to The Blackcoat's Daughter. The film follows Maika Monroe (The Guest, It Follows) as a young FBI agent recruited by her superior (played by a fantastic Blair Underwood) to help in hunting a serial killer. If this sounds a lot like Silence of the Lambs, then you wouldn't be too far off, but Perkins takes a hard right turn into weirdness as the story unfolds and it, for the most part, it works. There is a late reveal that I saw coming, but besides that I found the world that Perkins created to be fascinating. If slow burn--or Nic Cage at his weirdest--is your jam, then this might be for you. Grade: B+
Quick aside: If Perkins's adaptation of King's The Monkey lives up to the promise of its trailer, then its going to be a blast.
Oddity (2024):
329Hr6xHw9pmdGkh3UHx7pOE4q.jpg
I reviewed director Damian McCarthy's previous film, Caveat, and found it rather wanting. Some of the film's logic didn't quite work for me, but it was clear that McCarthy was a talent to watch. I will absolutely say, without a doubt, Oddity is a complete banger of a film and I will now be watching anything that comes my from Mr. McCarthy. To talk about the plot would give away far too much and I would recommend going into this as blind as possible. Within the first few minutes, the film gives a hook that is so smart that I was floored I hadn't seen it before and then it gets better. I will also say that I don't get fooled by jump scares easily and this had at least two that knocked me back in my seat in its execution. I loved this film and will be buying it on disc to add to the collection. So good! Grade: A
Speak No Evil (2024):
6NwAlU6ZH6ua3sYpFAUpUnoKUmi.jpg
I was initially going to pass on this remake of the 2022 Danish film, but I had heard good things and that the film went in a different direction than the incredibly bleak and nihilistic original. It also had the bonus of being directed by James Watkins, who directed the fantastic Eden Lake, a film that I've shared countless times with people and that is always a crowd-pleaser. Well, after watching the film, I'm a little torn. First the good: Watkins does a great job directing the film, ratcheting up the tension as the film progresses. And James McAvoy absolutely kills it in the role of increasingly menacing Paddy. Aisling Franciosi is also simply amazing as Paddy's counterpart, Ciara. The film is pretty beat-for-beat the same as the original until the last act and then it diverges quite a bit and becomes a more traditional Hollywood thriller as the two families battle each other. In this regard, the film becomes one I'd be a lot more likely to revisit, but also a lot less interesting than original. In the remake, an infidelity has been added to the backstory of our two protagonists, Ben and Louise. Yet, the film seems to side with Louise's reasons for her affair in Ben's self-pitying selfishness when his career collapses. Adding this to Ben's passive nature throughout the film, a newly added revelation about Paddy and Ciara's past, and a new, more upbeat ending, the film positions the film's themes around malformed masculinity and the brunt borne by women in these relationships. However, the original poses a far more interesting questions--at least to me--about how much criminal acts are facilitated and exploited by society's reliance on social norms; if society wasn't so nice and polite, would criminals have the opportunity to be so bad? This is complex argument is negated in the remake, replaced by a rather safe critique of domineering patriarchal masculinity. Overall, this is not a bad film and I think most people would find it much more enjoyable than the original. Maybe if I hadn't seen the original, I would have liked this more than I did. Grade: B-
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