Cold Light of Day Will Chill You [Blu-ray Review]

Fhiona Louise’s first and only feature film, Cold Light of Day, is a lightly fictionalized account of the brutal real life murders of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. It opens with two and half dialogue free minutes. The only sound is something between thunder and music pulsing. It’s presumably a musical window into how Nilsen stand-in Jordan March (Bob Flag from 1984) feels as the police burst into his building, arresting him for the murder of multiple young homeless men. He’s taken into the station, where Inspector Simmons (Geoffrey Greenhill) questions him. 

That interrogation frames the film. March tells Simmons his story, starting a few months before the murder. He’s a civil servant who picks up the much younger Joe (Martin Byrne-Quinn) in a bar. Joe describes himself as “one of life’s no-hopers.” He’s homeless and according to March’s account, cheating on the older man. One of the interesting things about the frame of the interrogation is that the story is coming from March, and so while Joe’s illicit rendezvous with another man in the diner bathroom is staged on screen, it’s more likely a jealous delusion than something that actually happened. March didn’t interrupt them, so there’s no way he could’ve known whether or not they had sex in the bathroom.

Keep reading at Wicked Horror!

The Old Ways Revitalizes Exorcism Movies [Review]

Director Christopher Alender and Marcos Gabriel tell a different kind of exorcism story in The Old Ways. After witnessing her mother’s failed exorcism as a child, Cristina (Brigitte Kali Canales) was sent from Mexico to the U.S.  She returns to Veracruz as an adult for an assignment. She’s supposed to be researching, “a story on the local tribes and culture,” but finds herself in a prison cell with a burlap sack over her head instead. Screenwriter Marcos Gabriel (who previously collaborated with Alender on Memorial Day and Muppets Now) drops breadcrumbs, building toward why she’s there.

According to her abductors, Luz (Julia Vera) and Luz’s adult son Javi (Sal Lopez), a demon possessed Cristina when she visited a mysterious cave called La Boca (Spanish for “the mouth”). Cristina insists that couldn’t have happened because demons aren’t real and begs her captors to contact her cousin Miranda (Andrea Cortés). And in the meantime, would they please just give her her bag. She doesn’t say it, but there’s some heroin in there and she needs it. 

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Graveyards of Honor Collects the Original and Remake [Blu-Ray Review]

“He always wanted to be a Yakuza, ever since he was a little boy” an unidentified interviewee says as a montage of black and white photos of future Yakuza Rikio Ishikawa (Tetsuya Watari) plays near the beginning of Kinji Fukasaku’s Graveyard of Honor. Filmed in 1975, it predates Goodfellas, which opens with Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill saying, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” by fifteen years. It seems likely that Goodfellas director Martin Scorsese took inspiration from the original Graveyard of Honor.

Both films were inspired by the lives of actual gangsters. In the case of Graveyards of Honor, Fukasaku (who also directed the classic Battle Royale), the inspiration was a novel based on the real life Ishikawa (while Goodfellas is based on a non-fiction book chronicling the life of Hill). The two films diverge in their narrative structures. Scorsese incorporates the elements of a tragedy, focusing on how Hill’s fatal flaw eventually leads to his tragic downfall. Fukasaku and screenwriter Tatsuhiko Kamoi’s film tries to answer a question asked in the aforementioned opening interviews: “What turned this young man into a rabid dog?”

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

Bacurau Smashes Colonialism [Blu-Ray Review]

The film Bacurau opens with the fictional town its named after being erased from the map, literally. In an early scene, Plinio (Wilson Rabelo) asks his students to find Bacurau on Google Maps, but the section where it is is blank. His students are understandably concerned, and he reassures them, “Bacurau has always been on the map.”

The town is facing erasure in the physical world as well as the digital one. The mayor, Tony Jr. (Thardelly Lima), lives elsewhere and has cut off the village’s water supply. He’s seeking reelection, and is attempting to leverage the water for votes. The road into the town is closed to anyone else, but he brings a literal truck full of books when he visits. Before his goons dump them on the steps of the library, he commands the goons to, “Film it.” Along with the books, Tony Jr. also brought food past its expiration date and addictive medicine with dubious benefits. Bacurau is a chilling look at the way fascist regimes abuse the poorest of their people before the mercenaries arrive.

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The Night is Ruined in the Last 15 Minutes [Review]

Everything goes wrong in the California set, Iranian horror film The Night because Babak (Shahab Hosseini) wants to sleep in his own bed. After a night of partying with his brother, he insists that his family won’t stay over. He and Neda (Niousha Jafarian) pack their one-month old daughter into the car and they start the half hour drive home. Neda doesn’t want him behind the wheel after having had so much to drink, but her license is suspended. Their GPS breaks in the middle of the city, droning, “Recalculating, recalculating” repeatedly. As they bicker, Babak hits something.

When they get out to investigate, whatever he hit is gone. Babak growls, “It’s just a cat. So what?” Neda gets back in the car, but Babak spots a dark figure watching him. He doesn’t mention the apparition, but he caves and agrees to stay the night at the closest hotel.

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

Movies I Watched in 2019

My top 5 new movies are here, via Wicked Horror. Reviews are linked throughout.

1. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (1/1/19) 
2. The Blackcoat’s Daughter (1/2/19) 
3. Bird Box (1/2/19) 
4. The Straight Story (1/3/19)
5. Pacific Rim: Uprising (1/3/19) 
6. Dune (1/10/19) 
7. Dumplin’ (1/11/19) 
8. If Beale Street Could Talk (1/12/19) 
9. Inland Empire (1/18/19) 
10. Cam (1/19/19) 
11. Roma (1/19/19) 
12. Bohemian Rhapsody (1/20/19)
13. The Nun (1/23/19) 
14. Into the Spiderverse (1/24/19)
15. Glass (1/25/19) 
16. Rashomon (1/26/19)
17. Haunted Hospital (1/27/19) (Review)
18. Frankenstein (1/29/19) 
19. Searching (1/31/19) 
20. Castle in the Sky (2/2/19) 
21. Inherent Vice (2/4/19) 
22. Wreck-it Ralph (2/7/19) 
23. Red Sparrow (2/8/19) 
24. The Hidden Fortress (2/9/19)
25. The Man with the Golden Gun (2/9/19) 
26. Hell Fest (2/10/19)
27. The Secret World of Arrietty (2/18/19) 
28. The Equalizer (2/19/19) 
29. The Predator (2/21/19)
30. Assassination Nation (2/21/19) 
31. The Possession of Hannah Grace (2/22/19) (Review)
32. What Keeps You Alive (2/23/19)
33. A Simple Favor (2/23/19) 
34. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (2/24/19) 
35. Ralph Breaks the Internet (3/2/19) 
36. Abducted in Plain Sight (3/3/19) 
37. Princess Mononoke (3/3/19)
38. Leave No Trace (3/7/19) 
39. The Terminator (3/9/19) 
40. Captain Marvel (3/10/19) 
41. Thoroughbreds (3/12/19) 
42. Winchester (3/13/19) 
43. Wizard of Lies (3/14/19) 
44. Vampires (3/15/19) 
45. Ponyo (3/17/19)
46. The Dead Zone (3/18/19) 
47. Another Happy Day (3/21/19)
48. Us (3/21/19) (Review) 
49. Kiki’s Delivery Service (3/22/19) 
50. Dragged Across Cement (3/24/19) 
51. Diabolique (3/27/19) 
52. The Hitchhiker (3/28/19)
53. Equalizer 2 (3/28/19) 
54. You Were Never Really Here (3/30/19)
55. Gringo (3/31/19)
56. Glory (4/9/19) 
57. The Wind Rises (4/10/19) 
58. Yentl (4/15/19) 
59. Overlord (4/18/19)
60. The Gasoline Thieves (4/22/19) (Review) 
61. On the Basis of Sex (4/24/19)
62. Diane (4/25/19)
63. Aamis (4/25/19) (Review) 
64. Avengers Endgame (4/27/19) 
65. Skyscraper (5/2/19) 
66. Mary Queen of Scots (5/3/19) 
67. Schindler’s List (5/4/19) 
68. Hereditary (5/5/19) 
69. The Prodigy (5/6/19) (Review) 
70. Get Out (5/7/19) 
71. Porco Rosso (5/7/19) 
72. Get Out (5/8/19)
73. Can You Ever Forgive Me (5/8/19)
74. The Wife (5/8/19)
75. The Princess Bride (5/9/19) 
76. Escape Room (5/9/19) 
77. Mid-90s (5/12/19) 
78. Don’t Look (5/13/19) (Review) 
79. Green Book (5/14/19) 
80. Eighth Grade (5/15/19) 
81. Deep Blue Sea (5/16/19) 
82. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (5/21/19)
83. Darkness Falls (5/22/19) 
84. Bridesmaids (5/22/19) 
85. Miss Bala (5/23/19) 
86. First Reformed (5/25/19) 
87. John Wick 3 (5/26/19) 
88. Twelve Years a Slave (5/27/19) 
89. Head Count (5/30/19) (Review) 
90. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (6/1/19) 
91. Bumblebee (6/2/19) 
92. Booksmart (6/3/19) 
93. Aquaman (6/3/19) 
94. Bee Movie (6/4/19)
95. Funny Games (6/12/19) (Review) 
96. Always Be My Maybe (6/13/19) 
97. Perfect (6/14/19) (Review) 
98. Training Day (6/16/19) 
99. Border (6/20/19) 
100. Late Night (6/24/19) 
101. Boyhood (6/26/19) 
102. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (6/27/19) 
103. Oklahoma (7/4/19) 
104. Personal Shopper (7/5/19) 
105. Sisters (7/6/19) 
106. Spider-Man: Far From Home (7/7/19)
107. Midsommar (7/10/19) (Review) 
108. Hellboy (7/11/19) (Review)
109. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (7/14/19) 
110. Crawl (7/16/19) 
111. First Man (7/17/19) 
112. Shazam! (7/20/19)
113. Kubo and the Two Strings (7/21/19) 
114. Stand and Deliver (7/22/19) 
115. The Man Who Killed Hitler then Bigfoot (7/23/19) 
116. The Lion King (7/27/19) 
117. Nekrotonic (7/29/19) (Review) 
118. Destroyer (7/31/19) 
119. The Perfection (8/1/19) 
120. Shin Godzilla (8/4/19) 
121. The Reflecting Skin (8/7/19) (Review) 
122. Happy Death Day 2U (8/9/19) 
123. I Am Sam (8/10/19) 
124. The Purge Anarchy (8/18/19) 
125. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (8/18/19) 
126. The Lost City of Z (8/22/19) 
127. Ready or Not (8/25/19) 
128. Neverending Story (8/26/19) 
129. Pet Sematary (8/26/19) 
130. Mohawk (8/27/19) 
131. The Curse of La Llorona (8/28/19) 
132. Clownado (8/29/19) (Review) 
133. Under the Silver Lake (8/30/19)
134. As Above, So Below (8/31/19) 
135. The Purge: Election Year (9/4/19) 
136. The Dead Don’t Die (9/6/19) (Review) 
137. It: Chapter 2 (9/7/19) 
138. Candy Corn (9/9/19)  (Review) 
139. One Cut of the Dead (9/10/19) (Review) 
140. Brightburn (9/11/19) 
141. ET (9/13/19)
142. House of Wax (9/15/19) 
143. The First Purge (9/16/19) 
144. The Dark Crystal (9/16/19) 
145. Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood (9/20/19) 
146. The Mummy (9/23/19) 
147. A Matter of Life and Death (9/24/19) 
148. Castle of Cagliosto (9/25/19) 
149. Trainspotting (9/28/19) 
150. Ran (9/30/19) 
151. Slumdog Millionaire (10/1/19) 
152. Brazil (10/2/19) 
153. Death House (10/3/19) 
154. Midsommar (10/5/19) 
155. Dementer (10/7/19) (Review) 
156. The Man Who Laughs (10/10/19) 
157. Alita: Battle Angel (10/13/19) 
158. Labyrinth (10/14/19) 
159. Rocketman (10/15/19) 
160. The Searchers (10/15/19) 
161. Portals (10/17/19) (Review) 
162. The Joker (10/19/19) 
163. The Tales of Hoffman (10/20/19) 
164. Kagemusha (10/23/19) 
165. Starman (10/23/19) 
166. Yesterday (10/25/19) 
167. The Lighthouse (10/26/19)
168. Winter’s Bone (10/26/19)
169. The Intruder (10/27/19)
170. Bloody Marie (10/28/19) (Review)
171. Hellhouse LLC (10/30/19) 
172. Mayhem (11/2/19) 
173. Parasite (11/3/19) 
174. Network (11/6/19) 
175. El Camino (11/6/19) 
176. Bliss (11/8/19) (Review) 
177. Yesterday Was a Lie (11/9/19) (Review)  
178. The Divine Fury (11/11/19) (Review) 
179. X-Men: Dark Phoenix (11/17/19) 
180. Child’s Play (11/19/19) 
181. Tremors (11/21/19) 
182. The Driver (11/24/19) (Review) 
183. Yojimbo (11/25/19) 
184. Dr. Zhivago (11/28/19) 
185. Doctor Sleep (12/1/19) 
186. Anna and the Apocalypse (12/2/19) 
187. Climax (12/3/19) 
188. The Deer Hunter (12/9/19) 
189. Land of the Dead (12/9/19) 
190. Black Narcissus (12/10/19) 
191. Skeleton Twins (12/12/19) 
192. Black Christmas ‘19 (12/13/19) 
193. Longshot (12/13/19) 
194. The Red Shoes (12/17/19)  
195. Knives and Skin (12/5/19) (Review) 
196. Stray Dog (12/19/19) 
197. Men in Black: International (12/19/19)
198. Fred Claus (12/23/19)
199. Ad Astra (12/23/19) 
200. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (12/24/19)
201. Ready or Not (12/25/19)
202. Frozen (12/30/19) 
203. The Irishmen (12/31/19) 

Don’t See Don’t Look [Review]

Jamie Lee Curtis could scream. Whether you’re a fan of Halloween, Prom Night, The Fog, or any other horror project she’s graced with her presence, we can all admit Curtis’ shrieks were bloodcurdling. They made her films better, more believable. In her directorial debut, Don’t Look,  Luciana Faulhaber casts herself as a character who screams repeatedly, but she doesn’t have the abandon to be believable. Faulhaber sounds as though she’s constantly holding back, breaking the illusion of the film, but consistently puts herself in positions where she’s screaming again and again.

Don’t Look boasts that it is a “slasher throwback,” though it feels more mid-90s than 80s heyday. The premise sees five friends traveling to a remote cabin that belongs to Nicole (Lindsay DiFulvio, now Lindsay Eshelman) for Thanksgiving. Her parents were shot to death in this very cabin, as we see in an orange-tinted flashback that kicks off the movie. About halfway through, a killer that hasn’t been previously hinted at starts picking them, and two other rustic tenants, off one by one.

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

 

Aamis is Still a Better Love Story than Twilight [Tribeca Review]

Aamis (Ravening) opens with a meet cute and a Meat Club. PhD student studying meat-eating habits in Northeastern India Sumon (Arghadeep Baruah) needs a doctor for his friend. The neighborhood pediatrician Nirmali (Lima Das) agrees to help Sumon’s adult friend despite it being her day off, saying, “Perfect. Just what I needed Sunday morning.” She refuses traditional payment, but when Sumon tells her about his “Meat Club” that slaughters and cooks their own animals, she can’t resist trying some.

He brings rabbit to her clinic. Soon they’re talking about all the different meats they want to try — dog, cat, bat, a bug that needs to have the hallucinogenic juices squeezed out before consumption — and finding the weirdest one they can. It’s oddly romantic, but it wouldn’t be a story without a catch: Nirmali is married.

Nirmali’s sister Jumi (Neetali Das) is having a more illicit affair. She and Sumon’s best friend Elias (Sagar Saurabh) keep asking the lovers if they’re having sex but they aren’t. They’ve replaced carnal pleasures with carnivorous ones.

Keep reading at Wicked Horror!

Jordan Peele Does It Again with Us (Review)

In a famous interview with François Truffaut, Alfred  Hitchcock said, “Psycho has a very interesting construction, and that game with the audience was fascinating. I was directing the viewers. You might say I was playing them like an organ.” Jordan Peele’s first two feature films, 2017’s Get Out and this year’s Us are doing the same thing. Watching them in a crowded theater, it’s clear that Peele has audiences eating out of his hand. People laugh when he wants them to. The theater goes silent in moments of suspense. And when he decides it’s time, his viewers scream.

Peele is taking a page from Hitchcock’s book (or would it be a frame from Hitchcock’s film?) in Us, using dopplegangers as Hitch did in Vertigo. These doubles — “the Tethered” — show up outside of Adelaide’s (Lupita Nyong’o) recently deceased mother’s beach house about 15 minutes into Us. They invade the home and sit face to face with their doubles. Adelaide’s, Red (also Lupita Nyong’o), handcuffs her to a table. Red’s voice cracks from lack of use as she explains, “We are America.” Then she sends Abraham to kill Adelaide’s husband Gabe (both Winston Duke), Umbrae to kill Adelaide’s daughter Zora (both Shahadi Wright Joseph), and finally Pluto to kill Jason (both Evan Alex).

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

The Possession of Hannah Grace Doesn’t Possess Its Viewers

Most possession flicks end with the exorcism: a mostly triumphant banishing of the thing that’s been bumping in the night and swaying innocent girls away from Puritanical gender norms. (Are there possession films where the demons inhabit boys? Evil Dead and The Amityville Horror are all that come to mind for me, but let me know any I’m missing in the comments.) The Possession of Hannah Grace flips that, opening with the title character’s exorcism. Things go south. She drives one priest’s head through a spike and before she can kill a second, her father smothers her.

From there, our main character enters. Megan (Shay Mitchell) is an ex-cop fighting alcoholism and the traumata of her partner’s death. She’s taken on the night shift in the morgue to avoid drinking. The film follows the exorcism and the opening credits with Megan’s first day. Director Diederik Van Rooijen sets up a terrifying setting. The lights are on motion detectors. The alarm that signals the arrival of the freshly deceased is loud enough to scare Megan and the audience out of their collective seats. Best of all, Megan is going to be there alone. It’s a terrifying setup.

Keep reading at Wicked Horror!