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If you're just coming here for the first time, uh... you're late. The site is no longer updated daily (see HERE for the story). But it's still kicking a few times a month, and it's better late than never! Most reviews nowadays are labeled "FTP:" and you should read THIS PRIMER to understand why. Also, while they're marked nowadays, many of the site's older reviews (i.e. 2010 or older) do contain unannounced spoilers, so tread carefully! Thanks for coming by and be sure to leave comments, play nice, and as always, watch Cathy's Curse.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

JULY 4, 2025

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (3D SCREENING)

Of all the random words they could use instead of a number for a sequel, I'm not sure why they went with "Rebirth", because Jurassic World Rebirth is actually coming along in less time than most of the gaps between entries (only the stretch from Jurassic World to Fallen Kingdom is shorter, by a week or so). And also, it's mostly the same old stuff, borrowing plot points from most of the previous entries (with Jurassic Park III being the surprise biggest influence) and adding almost nothing new to the proceedings. Rebirth of what? It's all the same and we haven't had time to miss this property! It's the first one to have a female lead, I guess.

Not that Scarlett Johansson's femininity has much to do with anything, as her character is the most generic one here. She's a mercenary/tracker/whatever for hire who is tasked by health tycoon Krebs (Rupert Friend) to get blood samples from the three biggest dinosaurs in order to make a new heart medication (because relatively few dinosaurs ever died of heart disease, so they figure there's something in there that will help humans - it's not a bad scientific mumbo jumbo plot for this particular franchise, in all honesty). And where do they get these samples? Yet another secret InGen island, of course! Granted I've never memorized any of the sequels, but I can't recall a single scene in any of them where we are shown a complete topical/aerial shot of the entire islands we've already seen, so why they couldn't just say "They had another lab on Isla (Whatever) that we didn't know about!" instead of expanding their global reach yet again is beyond me.

Anyway, she needs a weary tough guy named Duncan (Mahershala Ali) and his boat to get them to this island, and they also need a handsome dorky guy (Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Loomis, which delighted me) to collect the samples, and then there's a few other people on the boat who might as well be named Fodder 1, 2, and 3 (one of them is played by Ed Skrein, so I like that this movie gives us the replacement Transporter AND the replacement Hitman). This group is fine and even fun to watch, but as we know, if a Jurassic Park movie is made and doesn't feature a 11ish character, everyone who was involved in the making of the movie will be put to death, so out of nowhere we meet a family of a dad/widow, a little kid, an older teen, and her dummy boyfriend, who are sailing across this particular body of water. They run afoul of the Mosasaurus (who is the same one from the World movies, still out on the open water - he's the only returning character from any of the others) and are rescued by ScarJo and her team, as the Mosa is their first target.

Surprising no one on the planet, their boat ends up wrecked and they become stranded on the island they were going to anyway. A helicopter will arrive in 24 hours, so they just need to get their other two samples and fly home. To be fair, as far as stories go, it's one of the better ones a Jurassic sequel has offered, and the script (by returning vet David Koepp) at least gives us a few memorable characters in Duncan, Loomis, and Krebs, which is an upgrade from any of the other "World" entries. But Koepp also makes a fatal blunder when it comes to the two groups: he keeps them separate but intact once they get to the island! The family of four remains together on their own, and ScarJo's team sticks together elsewhere, carrying out the plot. Therefore, every time they cut to this group of four definitely safe characters, all of the narrative drive AND tension goes out the window, because they are only trying to accomplish surviving, and we know they will. All of the wild card characters are also the only ones with a reason to be there, so their scenes deliver - honestly, without the family this might easily have been the best sequel. The scene where they get the sample from the Mosasaurus, set on the open sea, is the best this series has offered since the trailer/cliff bit in Lost World, but (as with that movie, which at least still had "Whoa, dinosaurs!" novelty going for it) we spend the next hour and change on a series of less exiting setpieces, most of which we've seen in the others. There's a convenience store scene that apes the kitchen scene from the original, pteranodon attacks swiped from JP3, and the final battle is pretty close to the one in Dominion, with the newest big beast (a "D-Rex") attacking everyone as they wait for rescue from a helicopter.

(Though given how much it feels like JP3, the fact that it *has* a climax is an improvement, I guess.)

Speaking of that lesser third entry (skip this paragraph if you don't want some mild spoilers) they also needlessly chicken out on killing off a character without showing HOW they survived, just as they did in 2001 with Allesandro Nivola's Billy. I won't say which one, but at a certain point one of them sacrifices himself to save the others, luring the D-Rex away so the others can get into a boat and make their way down river - it's a great, earned scene! But then a few minutes later they see a flare and find that the character is magically alive, with no explanation as to why the D-Rex suddenly ignored them. I don't know why these movies can't ever seem to commit to making these animals as dangerous as we are supposed to believe they are, but it takes on extra silliness here because the whole movie hinges on the facility being abandoned for 15 years because the D-Rex got out and everyone was so frightened, and yet it only manages to kill one major character, who we knew was going to die anyway because he was the film's obligatory evil human.

As for the 3D, it's pointless and I forgot it was there half the time. I only splurged because I had to; the AMC app glitched after I bought my tickets for a 2D showing, and by the time I realized my transaction didn't actually go through, the seats I chose were gone and all that remained were front row. And it was on the 4th, so we had barbecues and pool parties to get to, so it was either see it over a week later (my wife and son are currently visiting family; I stayed behind to watch the cats) or see it in a half empty 3D theater. It baffles me that they still bother with this, over a decade past the 3D heyday, but whatever. My kid was delighted a few times, so it was worth my extra six bucks or whatever the difference was.

Other than that, it at least looks spectacular, as Gareth Edwards does a much better job of directing than Trevorrow or Johnston (JA Bayona remains the champ in the "Well if it can't be Spielberg..." department). Some of them have been spoiled in the marketing, but he has a knack for fun shots where a character is oblivious to the dino action occurring behind them, and even with the needless back and forth between the two groups, he at least is able to keep track of his damn story from scene to scene, unlike his immediate predecessor. The movie is far from sloppy, and the dinos look great, but there's only so much Edwards can do with a script that shoots itself in the foot by keeping the two groups apart for the majority of their time on the island. If Ali's character had been stuck with the family, and maybe one of the kids with ScarJo, then it would keep the two groups invested in reuniting with the other, but at a certain point I started wondering why any of them would even care if they found the other team as long as they found their rescue ship.

Six sequels, and none of them better than "it was fine." I don't know why it seems so hard for them to even come close to the original's highs, but I also know that the movies still make a ton of money every time, so there's really no incentive for Universal/Amblin to try. It's a shame that they were really close to having something here with the main plot, only to torpedo all of its momentum every time they cut back to the dumb family, but that seems to be the series' main calling card: screwing up a can't miss pitch ("What if the park actually opened?" "What if the dinos got the mainland?" "What if we brought back Sam Neill and got you in and out of there in 90 minutes?") and coasting on a handful of decent scenes and our (by now) Pavlovian response to the John Williams theme. See you again in 2028, I guess.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

28 Years Later (2025)

JUNE 29, 2025

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

For a while there, it seemed like the 28 (something) Later franchise was done; Alex Garland and Danny Boyle seemed less enthused as time went on, while also noting that there were some issues with the rights holders (independent of the fact that they were put out by Fox, who no longer exists). But for whatever reason, the stars aligned to give us 28 Years Later (from Sony), which is kicking off a new trilogy of films, with the second due next year. Why they skipped 28 *Months* Later is a mystery, however, because the movie could have taken place simultaneously with Days for all it mattered.

Despite including some footage from Years in a montage, the movie’s ending of the virus spreading to Paris (and thus, presumably all of Europe, at the very least) is ignored – it’s still confined to the UK and the survivors all live on an island. And no one that survived the previous entries shows up, though apparently Cillian Murphy (who is listed as an executive producer here) will be in the next one. Instead, we focus on a kid named Spike, whose dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is basically the leader of their small island community and is eager to take his son to the mainland to find supplies, which is of course a dangerous mission that will involve him killing his first "infected." Through this process he realizes his dad is kind of a tool, and doesn't even seem to really want to help his sick wife/Spike's mom (Jodie Comer), so Spike takes it upon himself to seek aid for her sickness. So it's kind of a coming of age movie woith zombies, which is admirable!

But... you know, I was kind of excited to see the series continue getting bigger, and if anything this feels smaller and more contained than the original. And while they are free to ignore as much of the existing canon as they please to ignore Weeks' implications of a. further spread and b. a possible cure, they can *not* get around the fact that 28 Days was a breath of fresh air at the time for a mostly forgotten sub-genre, but in the 20+ years since, we’ve been inundated with zombie stuff. (And don’t give me crap about the use of “zombie” – they even refer to the “infected” with the Z-word *in the film.* They are and always have been zombie movies, despite pedantric claims to the contrary.) And so while the movie is perfectly fine, even great for a stretch in its final act, it’s also… not particularly interesting?

I mean, maybe I’m putting too much stock into the fact that Boyle and Garland returned after mostly sitting Weeks out (Garland took a pass at the script and Boyle directed a few sequences), assuming that their expanded filmographies since would have them bringing those bigger ideas to their old playground. But instead it’s mostly kind of anonymous, with the first hour or so feeling much like any number of undead movies (or episodes of Walking Dead and its infinite spinoffs) we’ve seen in the past two decades. There’s the religious nut who sees the whole thing as some kind of rapture, the supply runs that turn deadly, the should-be nailbiting scene where someone has to convince the person on the other side of a locked door that they’re not infected… we’ve seen all this stuff over and over, and there’s nothing to really distinguish it apart from (waves a hand at the “zombie” section on Shudder).

That is, except for the film’s photography, which is mostly trash. They shot the whole thing on iPhones, and at times it manages to actually look worse than the first film did. When they're outside and it's well lit, it looks fine, with the occasional image even striking depending on what's in it (the pile of skulls you've see in the poster is even more alluring in context), but whenever it switches to nighttime it's downright horrible to look at. There’s a scene where our hero Spike is talking to a village elder type in their dark kitchen, and I swear it’s the ugliest looking thing I’ve ever seen on a big screen. For the first film they said it had to be digital because they needed to get in and out of some of the locations quickly (using film would slow things down), but as this entire story is set in the woods and other isolated locales, I’m not sure what the excuse was. Digital photography has certainly gotten a lot better over the years, but you’d barely ever be able to know that from the evidence here.

So it’s pretty ho-hum and not much to look at for a while (unless you like zombie dong - by law I am required to mention that yes, this film has zombie dongs), with the scattered action seeming more obligatory than organic (a mid-film scene with a soldier unit comes in so abruptly I momentarily wondered if I had blacked out), but then Ralph Fiennes finally enters the narrative and things turn around. Without spoiling the particulars, he’s also a bit of a stock character for these things (the guy who turned his back on the group and went off to be alone/maybe go crazy) but the details – and Fiennes' performance – elevate it to the point that I stopped minding how meh the journey was to get to his sequence. It’s like those TV shows that take a few episodes to get going; you just need to sit through some pretty average (at best) stuff to get to the good stuff.

Of course that sucks for a reviewer, because the only thing really worth talking about is the movie’s third act, which I naturally do not want to spoil. And if you’re in the theater you probably aren’t going to just get up and leave – it’s not BAD, just not very interesting or involving if you’ve even kept half an eye on the genre since 2003. But if you’re reading this while watching it on streaming: stay the course! It gets better! And also sets up the next film, for which the people who survived this one will be returning along with Jim (the kids who supposedly held the key to a vaccine or cure from Weeks will presumably not be showing up). That one’s directed by Nia DaCosta, but thanks to the returning cast there will be some story continuity for the first time in this series, which is enough reason to seek it out. That said, for my money, Weeks remains the series’ high point. You can call it heresy; I know I'm in the minority there. But the first film's first act was its best before it petered out, and this one took forever to get to the part that I found most interesting. Weeks may be a little more "generic", but at least its tense (and better looking) all the way through, and consistency is always better to me than a series of highs and lows.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dangerous Animals (2025)

MAY 27, 2025

GENRE: PREDATOR, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)

With Jaws turning 50 this year, we’re gonna see a lot of shark related stuff; some tied to the film (there’s another documentary on the way!) while others will just be coasting on its success and popularity. Given the fickle nature of moviemaking and distribution, it’s almost impossible to believe that Sean Byrne and writer Nick Lepard knew that Dangerous Animals would end up being released almost 50 years to the day after Jaws’ debut, but I’m sure they’re relieved that they made one crucial choice along the way which will help avoid strict comparisons: this isn’t really a killer shark movie.

"But there's a shark on the poster and in the trailer!" you are saying, right? Yes, there are sharks in the movie and yes, at least one character is bitten by one. But the real menace of the film is a serial killer, Tucker, played by Jai Courtney. He runs a little service that takes people out on his boat and then lets them descend into the water in a shark cage so they can get some up close and personal time with the big fish. But I guess he’s already gotten enough Yelp reviews, because after they have their fun and they get back on board he cuts them up a bit to lure sharks over (less stinky than standard chum, I assume) and then tosses them into the water while videotaping the ensuing carnage.

But as he points out at a crucial moment in the film, the sharks are just doing what they do. This isn’t Jaws or any of its countless knockoffs; maybe it’s because it’s also an Australian movie but I honestly thought about Wolf Creek more than Amity Island as the film unfolded. Indeed, at one point the sharks actually ignore an easy victim Tucker has lowered into the water, as if to make sure the audience is fully aware that these animals aren’t inherently evil the way so many “killer shark” movies make them out to be (or else the title might be Evil Animals). Most die-hard Jaws fans probably know by now that Peter Benchley regretted his role in turning sharks into some kind of menace in our minds and spent the last few years of his life working on preservation and education about them, but it's rare to see a movie that makes the same point.

As for Tucker? He is indeed evil, and I’m happy to say Courtney is absolutely terrific in the role. Like most moviegoers, I didn’t care much for his early appearances in things like Die Hard 5 and Terminator Genisys (that they were also bad movies anyway didn’t help), finding him to be a rather bland presence. “Why do they keep pushing this guy on us?” I thought every time he popped up in something. But then he turned out to be one of the bright spots in Suicide Squad, and now with this it’s seemingly confirmed: this man is born to play wackos and bad guys, not action heroes. Don’t get me wrong, the film’s two heroes (Hassie Harrison as Zephyr and Josh Heuston as Moses) are also quite good and their chemistry is pretty charming. But this is Courtney’s show through and through; the type of showcase that had me momentarily wondering why I ever used to roll my eyes when I saw his name. He’s dialed up to 11 more often than not and is clearly just having FUN playing this role, and the movie actually loses energy sometimes when he’s been off screen for a while. If you told me ten years ago, walking out of that awful Terminator movie, that someday I'd be saying "I wish that movie had even more Jai Courtney!", I would have thought you were insane! And then you could have told me who would be elected President twice and I'd be like "Nope, the Jai thing is still harder to believe."

Back to the heroes – they’re no slouches, either. They have a rather inspired meetcute (Moses sees Zephyr stealing some ice cream and tells her he will report her to the store clerk unless she helps him get his car started) and hit it off rather (OK, fine) swimmingly, but as she is a commitmentphobe she bails on him (while he preps a breakfast for her! Heartbreaking!) and goes off to surf on her own, which is how she ends up running afoul of Tucker. So Moses spends a chunk of the movie just trying to find her, and while his biggest clue is a rather large leap in ultimately correct guesswork on his part, I forgave this bit of contrivance because it just meant they'd be reunited that much quicker. Honestly, while we're all here for the sharks and Jai, I wouldn't have minded watching a whole movie about these two figuring their stuff out to give love a chance!

This of course helps the back half immediately, because (again, with Wolf Creek on my mind) at no point was I convinced either of them would definitely survive the ordeal. There are no other major characters in the movie (the closest is an associate of Tucker's, and we aren't sure if he is aware of the murders which also adds a bit of suspense to the proceedings), so it really comes down to "OK, one of them will probably bite it, but WHICH one?" with the added bonus of not wanting either of them to die because I want them to get married someday, dammit! Lepard's script really nails that balance of racing through their meeting/falling for each other so we can get to the exciting stuff but not to the extent that I can't believe Moses is bothering to go through all this for someone he just met.

Also, the shark stuff looks good. Again, since this isn't a movie where they are the main threat, there's not a lot of traditional shark action, but at least it doesn't look like crap when it's time for them to make their mark. And the runtime is a tight 90 or so (bless you all, in the wake of the painfully long new Mission Impossible), with almost no real lulls to it (unless you hate LOVE, you monsters). Byrne knows what he's doing; it might not be the triumph that Loved Ones was, but it certainly proves he was no one hit wonder, and hopefully it won't take another decade for him to get another movie made (after Devil's Candy, which was decent but not exactly a must-see). And I'm glad IFC is giving it a decent push for its theatrical run, because it's the sort of big screen thriller we don't get to see often enough these days, and my man (yes, I'm calling him "my man" now, that's how good he is in it!*) Jai deserves to have a mass audience give him an apology.

What say you?

*OK he also sang along to Meat Loaf at the after-party, in a bar where they foolishly allow people like me to control the jukebox. He coulda won me over even if I just got out of Die Hard 5 with that move.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

APRIL 29, 2025

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)

When a franchise takes a considerable amount of time off, the results are often lacking; the initial excitement for a new entry tends to quickly fade as the runtime proceeds. Friday the 13th was at its best when they were just cranking them out, and it took THREE attempts at reviving Saw for them to come up with something that excited the fans as much as the once-annual entries managed. But no one told the makers of Final Destination: Bloodlines, which comes a whopping 14 years after the 5th film and is every bit as good as that one - possibly even better.

The subtitle isn’t just the usual “Let’s avoid numbers so we can get newcomers” gimmick, I’m happy to report (spoilers for the basic plot ahead!*). As opposed to the standard “someone has a premonition, saves a half dozen or so people, and then they proceed to die anyway” setup, this time around we open in the 1960s, with the opening of a skyview restaurant (between this and Drop, these things are having a cinematic moment!). The usual thing happens: we focus on a single person (Iris, played by Brec Bassinger) who watches as everyone around her begins to die in spectacular ways after a disaster, only for her to wake up after being killed herself, seeing it’s all a vision. But it’s not the girl in the sequence that wakes up! Turns out it’s her granddaughter, Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), who has been repeatedly plagued by this dream for the past couple months, wreaking havoc on her peace of mind. So Stefani grills her family about her (long-estranged) grandma and finds out what happened at the restaurant: Irish actually saved EVERYONE all those years ago, and then spent a life being so careful that she actually managed to have children, and those children eventually grew up and had their own children… Being a Final Destination movie, you should be able to figure out what happens now: Death is after them all, because they never should have been born in the first place! Iris has spent decades avoiding his tricks and spawned two children, each with multiple children of their own, giving the movie its usual assortment of victims but with the added wrinkle of none of them escaping death the first time around. Stefani's attempts to tell them what's going to happen has no benefit of the doubt, because they didn't witness firsthand her ability to see the future as the main characters in the five previous films managed to have. This is a great concept for two reasons. One is despite the subtitle’s attempts to make us forget, this is “Final Destination 6” after all, and the formula definitely got a bit repetitive (this is one franchise I would never want to marathon), especially without any returning characters (except Bludworth, more on him soon) to latch ourselves onto. The other is that it means every character only dies once, avoiding the occasional issue where someone’s premonition death was more interesting/fun than their actual one later.

We also get a fun twist to the standard “order”, in that they are dying in the order they were born, complete with a “wait, we had it wrong!” twist. It’s just enough of a tweak to the formula to give the film a freshness that the last couple entries lacked. I mean, I really liked FD5 a lot, but it was the ending doing a lot of that heavy lifting, as the rest was kind of more of the same (albeit with an improvement in quality over the two previous entries). Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a complete departure; we still get the Rube Goldberg sequences, the misdirects, and the gore, but the family dynamic and “bloodline” concept makes it feel just as unique as the first one did 25 years ago, giving the series a shot in the arm that another standard entry couldn't have managed after so much time has passed.

And it actually pays tribute to the other entries in some fun ways. A brief reprisal of the “If you kill someone you get their time” idea from 5 produces what may be the darkest joke in the entire franchise, and there’s a pretty good gag invoking one of the series’ earlier accidents. But it should go without saying that the film’s Bludworth scene is the highlight for such things, because as we know Tony Todd passed away last year shortly after completing his work here, forcing us to say goodbye to him after he utters his final line (if he has any other films in the can, we can be assured they won't be given IMAX releases). The scene itself is not much different than his others (popping up halfway through to offer cryptic remarks about death, mainly), but the weight the scene carries, knowing the actor’s time ran out in reality, makes it a true knockout. I’m not afraid to admit I actually teared up a bit, and the scene ended with a thunderous applause at my screening.

The characters are also more fun than they’ve been in the last few. 3-5 all focused on a group of younger friends, and they weren’t all that memorable on their own (I honestly can barely tell the male leads of 4 and 5 apart), but the family dynamic means we get the widest age range that we’ve seen since FD2, and the way they play off each other is also unique to the series. The standout is Richard Harmon as Erik, who featured heavily in the film’s first trailer (the tattoo parlor scene) and gets the most laughs as the obligatory skeptic character. But the drama of this somewhat estranged family was also compelling enough to keep my attention in between the death scenes; there’s a brief bit where one just holds out a spare key to his distant/not-well-off sibling that I found so sweet, which isn’t something I can remember feeling in the five other movies.

And the deaths! You'd think by now they'd run out of ways to kill these people, but nope. Each one is unique and has some kind of added bonus to it, with a healthy mix of the standard Goldberg sequences and what I guess we can call "Terry Deaths", after the shocking/amazing bus death in the first one. I don't want to spoil much of the particulars, except to say that the trailers have NOT spoiled as much as you might think, and that the movie will have you fearing a certain medical procedure in the same way the last one made us all weary (wearier?) of LASIK surgery. And there's a funny bit that almost comes off as a meta joke about the series' calling card, and it plays so perfectly I actually wanted to rewind the movie in the theater to see it play out again. Haven't had that kind of reaction in ages.

Long story short, they made it worth the wait, and it stands among the series’ best while also finding the most successful way to stand apart from the others. Even though it runs longer than any other one, it never really felt like that to me, and the death scenes are all terrific. It’s funny without going into FD4’s ridiculous territory (which I admit I liked on my first go around, but found less appealing on rewatches), and gives us a core cast of characters who we don’t necessarily WANT to die. Kudos to the new creative team for finding that balance and maintaining it throughout. Hopefully it won’t take another decade plus for a 7th film, but if Todd’s death has them deciding to maybe let it end here, at least it’ll be on an inarguable high.

What say you?

*I actually got yelled at for telling someone where the opening accident occurred, which made me think of the time someone (else) yelled at me for the phrase “a woman dies” (the context otherwise completely removed) in my review of the 4th one. People take spoilers very seriously with this series, I guess.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Monkey (2025)

FEBRUARY 23, 2025

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As I find Osgood Perkins' output pretty hit or miss so far (and by that I mean the only one I've liked is Longlegs) and the original Stephen King short story left so little an impression on me that I can't even be fully sure I read it*, I wasn't exactly going to be first in line for The Monkey. But when I heard it had Final Destination vibes, I got a little more interested, and so carved out some time (and 45 bucks for the silly popcorn bucket) to check it out on opening weekend after all.

Interestingly, the movie ended up being a rumination on the randomness of death, which struck a little nerve with me considering the circumstances under which I first saw (well, "attended" might be more accurate) Longlegs. In the movie, a pair of 12 year old twin brothers named Hal and Bill find a strange monkey toy in their departed (perhaps dead) father's things, and quickly discover that winding the key on its back and letting it play its little drum solo will result in someone dying. However, they can't *control* it per se; winding the key while thinking about the bully at school or something doesn't mean the bully at school will be the one to suddenly die under freak circumstances. Once the kids figure this out (and we in the audience chuckle at a few outlandish deaths) after losing their mother and beloved babysitter, they dump it down a well in hopes that no one will ever find it.

That wouldn't make for much of a movie though. We flash forward 25 years and the now adult Hal (Theo James) lives a solitary life and works at a grocery store, not exactly making the most of his time. He is, however, about to spend a week with his estranged son before the boy's stepfather (played by a cameoing veteran actor who does a lot of genre work but somehow has never made a King movie before? ) takes full custody. Unfortunately, the bizarre murders start up again, and (spoiler I guess? If it's a "reveal" it occurs pretty early) it seems his twin brother Bill, also estranged, may be responsible. Can Hal put a stop to it again and keep his son safe?

Naturally I won't answer that question, but I will say that the film's strange tonal shift from "hahaha, these deaths are so wacky!" to "Hey, maybe you should learn to embrace life" didn't quite land for me. I enjoyed the movie overall, but the first half is notably more successful, and the attempt to impart a little life lesson seemed grafted in from a different/earlier draft of the screenplay. Frank Darabont wanted to make this movie for years, and while I'm sure his version wouldn't have had the Rube Goldbergian deaths (though some are merely insane, like a guy camping in a sleeping bag being trampled by so many horses that the remains aren't even recognizably human), I think the "live life to the fullest because you never know when your time is up" messaging would have felt more earned, maybe even poignant, in Frank's more (imo) dependable hands. As is, it came off a bit like someone saying "Hey that's not funny" after everyone else in the room enjoyed a good laugh at a dark joke.

And that's a shame, because Perkins is unusually qualified to make a movie about the randomness of death, especially in a tale about parents and their children. His father was HIV-positive and died of pneumonia, and his mother died in one of the planes on 9/11. That kind of covers the whole spectrum of death, from "a known disease with a common outcome" to "wtf, what are the odds?" But either in his attempt to make a slightly more commercial movie than even Longlegs (the film was produced by James Wan, whose audience-pleasing films makes this an unusual pairing) or just the usual pratfalls of expanding a short story in to a full feature, the film's strengths all come in the top half, buying enough goodwill to keep it in the "worth seeing" section while falling short of a full blown win.

But the thing I found most interesting was an inscription on the box that the monkey is found in: "like life." As Hal explains a bit later via voiceover, it's a bit of a warning that the monkey's actions are random, much like life itself. No matter how much they want a certain person to die, the monkey is just going to kill who he wants - he's not working for you, even if you were nice enough to turn his key and give him a little exercise. But—and maybe this is just the result of my way of thinking—when the message first appeared, prior to Hal explaining its meaning, I read it differently. To me, "like life" meant, simply "ENJOY life", because you do not indeed know when your time is up. In the past year alone I've had friends die from long illnesses and others drop dead while carrying out the most mundane tasks in their day to day, and yet there are certainly a few people out there who deserve the early grave and are thriving. And if you have a certain sense of humor about it (which I do, and it seems Perkins does as well, considering how silly the deaths here), there's no reason not to, well, LIKE your life. Do what makes you happy, and take the risks. Ask out your crush. Try a new restaurant. Ride a unicycle. Whatever you think you might enjoy, there's no reason to keep putting it off. The brain is far too random to risk seeing that bus coming for you with no time to get out of the way and have your last thought be "Damn, I never tried sushi."

And I can't help but think the movie might have been more successful in the back half if it actually went with this theme full throttle instead of just kind of tossing it in with moments left in the runtime. Instead, there's a very strange additional character named Ricky, played by Rohan Campbell from Halloween Ends, who is obsessed with the monkey and wants to keep it for himself. It seems like half of his role ended up being excised in order to keep focus on James' dual performance as Hal and Bill, especially when it comes to Ricky's own family, as he, like Hal and Bill, has a brother who doesn't seem to be a lot like him but also kind of completely spaced out. It felt like there might have been an attempt to draw parallels between Ricky's situation and Bill's (especially when you consider the similar physical appearance of their mother next to Bill and Hal's aunt, who raises them after their mother dies), but none of it really lands, and honestly they could have cut him out entirely and not really changed anything. Nothing against Campbell, to be clear, it's just a strange diversion to the narrative without much payoff, and coming at the expense of Hal and Bill's potential time together.

Third act blunders aside, it's a solidly entertaining way to kill 100 minutes, if nothing else. There's a laid back priest played by Nicco Del Rio who is almost worth the price of admission alone, and—if someone tracks these things—features the equivalent to Lawrence of Arabia's legendary match cut in terms of darkly funny reveals (if you've seen the movie, it involves a cut to a portrait of one of the male cast members). And even though a lot of the attempts at genuine emotion don't quite work, Tatiana Maslany does wonderful work with her role as the kids' mother, who seems to already be aware, without the monkey's unusual way of suggesting it, that life is too precious to waste. Maybe an extended cut (or at least a few deleted scenes) on the eventual Blu-ray will clear up some of its murkier narrative issues, but as is it's still worth seeing, and continues Perkins' current (and surprising!) transition into a guy who can keep his warped sensibilities while still telling a story that a general audience can get behind on the big screen.

What say you?

*I know I read "The Mist" before the movie came out, and remember a couple others in the same Skeleton Crew collection, so I must have read it all the way through x number of years ago as I'd have no reason to be skipping around. But I reread it after watching the movie and nothing rang a bell. At any rate, for those curious, beyond (most of) the characters and how they relate to each other, the story and movie are nothing alike. Even the title character is different; in the story he's got the cymbals and in the movie he's got a standard drum. Which worked out nicely for AMC, since the drum can double as a (tiny) popcorn bucket.

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Heart Eyes (2025)

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

GENRE: SLASHER (and ROMCOM!)
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREVIEW SCREENING)

If you’ve ever even taken as much as a cursory glance at this site before, you probably know how much I love slasher movies. But what you may NOT know is that I also harbor a similar soft spot for romcoms; I can’t recite them chapter and verse the way I can my favorite F13s and Halloweens, but I’m certainly just as easy a mark for a new one when it comes along. So needless to say, the elevator pitch for Heart Eyes-a romcom that revolves around a slasher killer-is about the most appealing one I’ve heard in ages. Like even if one side of the equation didn't work, I'd probably be happy with the other, you know?

Watching it unfold it actually dawned on me for the first time that the two genres offer a sort of comfort in their admittedly basic formula. Both have rules they need to live by in order for their respective fans to be won over; a deviation from that formula can lead to revolt. And that’s what makes Heart Eyes so impressive to me, because you can absolutely despite one of the genres but still feel pretty satisfied with it as an entry of the other type. This element was largely absent from the marketing so far; the few hints of the film’s romantic angle (leads Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding grabbing the same coffee, for example) were largely overshadowed by the slasher element, making it seem like it’s just another masked killer movie albeit one with a bit of romance thrown in (as opposed to the genre’s usual approach of just a general horniness among its core cast). But that isn’t really how the movie plays out at all-it really does function as a romantic comedy, perhaps even moreso than as a slasher in some ways.

So if you just heard the idea but thought it was going to cater more toward the slasher side of things: fear not! There’s a meet-cute, complete with accidental headbutt! There’s a mad dash to the airport! There’s the sassy friend who encourages our heroine to take her chance! Director Josh Ruben and the trio of screenwriters (Phillip Murphy, Michael Kennedy, and Christopher Landon) balance the needs of both formulas in an expert fashion, and honestly my one minor complaint concerns the slasher stuff. And given the relative dearth of such fare in theaters anymore (there was exactly ONE given a wide release in all of 2024, Fly Me To The Moon), I kind of wish the marketing had showcased the blend a little better, if only to assure potential romcom lovers that this would genuinely scratch that itch for them.

So how does it work? Well, after a cold open showing the killer (dubbed “HEK”) taking out a vapid influencer couple in a vineyard, a flurry of news reports tell us that this murderer has taken out a lot of couples in different cities (Boston and Philly) on the two previous Valentine’s Days, and now he seems to be in Seattle. Then we meet our leads: ad exec Ally (Holt) has turned in a dud campaign, and her boss has brought in an outside fixer to help come up with a new one. Said fixer? Why it’s Jay (Gooding), the handsome and charming guy she met in the coffee shop that morning! What are the odds???

Anyway, the two meet for dinner to figure out a new campaign, but his attempts to turn it into a date don’t go well. However, when Ally sees her ex with his new flame, she quickly retorts to the “We have to pretend to be a couple” tactic and kisses Jay so the ex can see and hopefully be jealous. Alas, the ex doesn’t really care, and worse: their kiss attracts the attention of HEK, who was staking out this fancy restaurant to find new victims. What follows is essentially a long chase scene as the killer stalks them throughout the city, with our heroes finding a way to check every romcom box along the way, allowing them to fall in love (awww) but with the killer never more than a few minutes behind them (ahh!!!).

At about the hour mark, the movie really nails how well this idea can work (and honestly, made me wonder why no one ever really tried it before that I can recall). HEK has chased our heroes to a drive-in, and they duck into a van, assuming its owners are elsewhere. Turns out they’re just in the back, fooling around, but the couple is kind of into having an audience and they continue enjoying the evening back there while Ally and Jay lay low to avoid detection from their hunter. While they do so, they have a heart to heart, briefly/softly interrupted by the sounds of the couple going at it in the back. It’s an incredibly funny scene, built around a tense situation, AND it’s giving the romcom formula the obligatory “This is why I get scared when I like someone” conversation, all at once. It’s a remarkable balancing act, and I spent the bulk of the scene just kind of in awe at how well it was working.

The balance goes a bit askew for the film’s finale, however (minor spoilers ahead!). Without getting into the details, I will say that the unmasking of HEK wasn’t particularly surprising. Part of the reason for that is that the film offered almost no other suspects to who it could be (honestly, I assumed it would be a Hell Fest-esque “He’s just some guy” kind of reveal, and I am leaning toward the idea that it might have been a better choice) due to its compact cast. The other is actually weirdly revealed in the film itself – a flashback sequence that includes a scene that was clearly cut. This scene explained where a character went during a previous major setpiece, and while I’m sure it was removed for pacing or something, it unfortunately left careful viewers wondering where that person was, and thus going by the law of slasher films, realizing this means also realizing that they’re the killer long before the film springs it on us as a surprise.

That’s why red herrings are so important, because you gotta have a few other characters as a buffer for these moments to really land. Take Scream: it seemingly comes down to “It’s either Stu or Randy!” but there’s still the sheriff or Sid’s dad to consider. Here? Well, I guess Ally’s boss could kind of count, but as she only appeared once before that (and is played by veteran comedian Michaela Watkins) I doubt that anyone on the planet would a. be thinking it might be her or b. would be satisfied if it was. To be clear, the identity of the killer isn’t the issue, and the actor is relishing getting to do the big “Why I do this” monologue, but without any other suspects, and a weird editing choice making it a foregone conclusion anyway, it didn’t quite pack the same punch the rest of the movie did.

Otherwise it’s a remarkably solid example of both of its genres. The leads have terrific chemistry and are both naturally engaging performers; I’m not as familiar with Holt but as for Gooding I actually kind of get why they let him survive certain death not once but twice in the Screams: it’d be silly to toss away the charisma (plus we let it slide for Dewey even more times). The kills are good and gory but without feeling like the filmmakers spent more time concerned with the punchline than the setup, an issue which plagues many modern slashers (so, yes, there are honest to god chase scenes here!). And one must give props to Gigi Zumbado for a late-movie monologue that I can’t explain without giving away the gag, but once it clicked I was cackling and cheering, and she delivers it perfectly. Everyone, as they say, understood the assignment, which is even more impressive when you consider how unusual that assignment was. Basically it’s just a damn good time at the movies. I’d even go again, which is about the highest praise I can give anything these days. Plus it’s an amazing litmus test if you are, like me, a horror fan with a not-so-secret love of seeing Sandra/Julia/etc do their thing: take a date, and if they’re equally enjoying both sides of the equation, you got yourself a keeper. I alas saw it with my slasher-loving buddy (who didn't put out, the prude) but I couldn't help but be amused at the irony: my wife is not exactly drooling at the prospect of an upcoming romantic comedy (I see most of them by myself) but does enjoy slashers as long as they're more in line with Scream and such than, say, Rob Zombie's Halloween (i.e. brutally violent and not "fun" in any way). So while there are some horror fans out there who might have to trick their partner into seeing this by saying it's a romantic comedy, when this hits Blu-ray I might have to try the reverse approach to get her on board.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Companion (2025)

JANUARY 31, 2025

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Fangoria's weekly newsletter came today and it was titled "See Companion with a companion" or something to that effect, but alas like 90% of the movies I see, I saw it by myself. I only live near two of friends, both of whom have wacky work schedules, and I myself tend to keep weird hours, so I've just gotten used to not bothering to coordinate schedules, opting to go off on my own when the showtimes are in my favor. It's not a bad thing, really; the only time I feel self conscious is if it's a comedy, because laughing alone just makes me think someone behind me is going to think I'm a budding Max Cady.

(SPOILERS AHEAD! Slightly more than even the trailer gives away! If you haven't seen the trailers, particularly the second one that they only released a few weeks ago, perhaps do not read until you've seen the movie or at least the trailers. Consider this a warning for the entire review, not just the next paragraph.)

But I, and probably a lot of people, have a friend who I kind of wish I saw it with, because the core of the movie is about Iris (Sophie Thatcher) finding her voice and standing up to her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) when she realizes he sees her as nothing more than an object to boss around and use for his own pleasure when he feels like it, never taking her own needs into account. And my own friend is in this kind of relationship, where their partner practically admits that their only use to them is to take care of them without giving a crap about being a true partner in return. Naturally it's none of my business and I know from experience that if I as much as hint that they deserve better, they go on the defensive and offer "No, they do love me, they just don't show it" kind of explanations, so I just keep my mouth shut, settling for a sigh when I see my friend getting ignored and even occasionally insulted in plain view of their mutuals. (I guess we're supposed to assume they're much nicer at home with no one around? Seems backwards.) But I also know that inspiration comes from unlikely places, so I just hope that they (not a big moviegoer) someday sit down to stream what looks like a fun genre movie with the girl from Yellowjackets, and then are surprised to get their wheels turning when they see a bit of their own predicament laid out on screen. Maybe they'll even get inspired to start taking the steps to stick up for themselves like Iris eventually does? A friend can dream.

Again if you've seen the trailer (or ideally, the movie itself in full!) then you know that Iris isn't a human being, but an AI companion (read: sexbot) for Josh, the tech bro douchebag. The reveal occurs fairly early in the proceedings (if it's even a full half hour I'd be surprised, though in a rarity for a modern movie, it actually felt a bit shorter than it was so I might be off), but even before then you could see how he treats her and think "It's like he doesn't even consider her a real person at all, let alone his girlfriend." There's a subtle bit early on, when they arrive at the isolated lake house that most of the movie takes place in, and we see him carrying his shoulder bag while Iris lugs both of their (much heavier) suitcases, and later during a bedroom scene we see him orgasm and then immediately roll over and go to sleep without as much as a final kiss (and, clearly, not making the effort to get her past the finish line). There's chivalry (carrying both bags/getting her an O first), and then there's equality (recognizing she is capable of carrying her own/use your imagination), and then there's whatever this is.

It's actually part of why I feel the trailer shouldn't have given the reveal away. If you go in knowing she's a robot, you might have a distance from his behavior, a sort of "Well who cares, it's her job to serve him!" But by spending 25-30 minutes with this person and seeing how hard they are trying to please their "perfect" boyfriend while he continues to belittle her with endless microaggressions, you're fully on her side by the time we find out she's not actually flesh and blood, and thus it doesn't matter. Robot or not, you deserve better, Iris!

Of course, Ex Machina already covered a lot of this material, but it branches off in a new direction thanks to Iris being reprogrammed to do ~something~ (THAT I won't spoil) and how this begins a chain reaction of... well, the sort of thing that makes this feel more like a horror movie than the earlier film. It's still firmly in thriller territory, but the deaths are far more gory than you'd see in your typical "people turn on each other" kind of story, and it has a Coen-esque spiral of violence that I couldn't help but appreciate. You will never look at an electric wine opener the same way again, I assure you.

But even through all the mayhem (and laughs; thanks to Harvey Guillén in particular the movie is very funny at times), first time director Drew Hancock-working from his own script-never loses focus on the core concept, which is that Iris may be a package of nuts and bolts tied together with programming, but she's still more empathetic and human than her narcissistic boyfriend. This is aided immensely by how good the two leads are. Quaid's charms (it's crazy how he inherited the absolute best qualities of his parents) are a perfect fit for this character, as we absolutely understand why she'd be drawn to him even before we learn she's actually programmed to. And even when we know what he's really like, there's still a sense of "I can fix him" that is unfortunately the reason so many people (not robots) are in these kinds of relationships in the real world. You WANT to like this guy, even though he repeatedly proves he's garbage.

And Thatcher is already genre royalty thanks to Heretic and Yellowjackets (not to mention Boogeyman, which is better than you'd expect for a PG13 King short story expansion), but this might be her best work yet. There's a scene where her programming has been switched to speaking German and she's desperately trying to communicate, and there's also some humor built into it because Iris is unable to lie (so when the cop asks her what's wrong, she answers truthfully, even though the situation would be better for her if she lied - but he can't understand her anyway!), and the way she toes that line where you feel sorry for her while also kind of chuckling at the irony of her answers is a marvel to watch.

Speaking of irony, it IS kind of a weird time to release a movie where we root for the AI robot, which is somewhat distracting. AI sucks, to be clear, and our government has been overrun with tech bros who want to go all in on it for whatever reason (well, money, duh, but it's very shortsighted even by their standards). At least when Ex Machina came out this stuff was still "in the future..." kind of material, but now it's killing the environment and threatening jobs *today*. Luckily they don't really even use the term "AI" all that much (if ever?), so you can kind of ignore it if you want to, but still. It's THERE, you know?

That said, the takeaway here has nothing to do with AI or robots. Maybe it's just because of my own personal connection to this sort of thing happening (though, again, I'm sure lots of people do), but as much as I was enjoying the movie I kept feeling a bit sad, wondering if my very human friend will ever learn to stand up for themselves the way Iris eventually does here, or if their own shitty partner will keep using them as a toy for their own amusement until they get bored and move on, having wasted the best years of my friend's life. It's a surprisingly hopeful movie in that respect, and another winner from the Barbarian team (Zach Cregger is one of the producers here, alongside his partners from that film). My only real issue? When Iris is delivered to Josh, he's listening to "Iris" from Goo Goo Dolls, and it's a good gag, but I woulda gone deeper with "Iris" from the band Live. Since the trailer is too spoilery and you should only be reading this if you've seen it, I'm gonna put that banger in the usual place.

What say you?

P.S. I know this is the first review in months. Don't get excited for a full return; I am, alas, still basically calling it a day here due to the fact that it no longer generates any income whatsoever and also I'm working on a new book which I'd rather focus my writing time on instead. But the whole "I wish _____ would see this!", something I never could have predicted before I sat down, kinda left me with a bunch of thoughts so I decided to put them down here instead of in a Bluesky thread. Plus it's kind of amusing that Lukas Gage is in this, because he was also in Smile 2, which is the last time I reviewed anything. I like a coincidence! From now on I vow to review any genre film he's in, at the very least.

PLEASE, GO ON...

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