Review – Page 7 – Reel Film Chronicles

Crawl

I probably wouldn’t have sought out Crawl if it wasn’t for a couple of things; the first one being that it’s produced by the beloved Sam Raimi and directed by the intriguing Alexandre Aja, who has some decent films under his belt, including Horns and Mirrors (which I remember watching nearly a decade ago and being legit nervous to look in the mirrors of my apartment when I got home). The second, more prominent reason for Crawl to float to the top of my watchlist was just how many damn alligator movies that I’ve been watching with my friends lately. It started innocently enough with a couple of Australian pictures (and yes, they were crocodiles there and my inexperienced Canadian-reptile brain doesn’t know much of the difference) then into a couple of North American releases aptly named “Alligator” and unoriginally, “Alligator 2.” They were tremendously fun films – maybe it was the foreign feel of a giant lizard roaming about: I’ve seen enough movies about bears to know to be on the lookout for them here in my native country,…

Terminator: Dark Fate

2019 | dir: Tim Miller | 128 m Terminator: Dark Fate is another in a long line of belated Terminator sequels that I will have to try to actively forget. In this case, it shouldn’t be too hard. Terminator: Dark Fate was an utterly forgettable film, but at least it wasn’t aggressively bad like the previous entry in the series, Terminator: Genyisys. (I still die a little inside whenever I read that title). Why are studios still subjecting us to these sequels? And perhaps more importantly, why are audiences still subjecting themselves? The obvious answer is that because the original Terminator is an iconic sci-fi film and Terminator 2: Judgement Day is widely regarded as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) action movies of all time, they set the bar so high and piqued our interest so much, that we’re willing to risk laying down our hard-earned cash for utter garbage just for the slim chance to chase that high again. And like most junkies, Terminator fans still haven’t learned our lesson. For some insane reason, despite all obvious evidence to the contrary, I had incredibly high hopes going into Dark…

Homefront

I didn’t even see Franco’s glaring mug at the bottom of the poster for Homefront: seeing his name in the opening credits brought a chortled laugh, but then the names kept coming. Winona Ryder. Kate Bosworth. Clancy Brown. Frank Grillo! Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone! What madness have I draped myself into, this quiet, cold Sunday January evening. With the popcorn sufficiently covered in seasoning and a cold soda on the end table, I continued my journey into the neglected, unwatched films of my digital movie collection. After coming off a series of decent films on, the previous week, including The Elephant Man, Comet, and Joe, I approached Homefront with some hesitation; indeed, I’m not a BIG Statham fan and by that, I should say I don’t go out of my way to watch his films but I don’t shy away either when they’re on (I haven’t see all the Crank movies or Transporter films). As I was prepared to bury myself in my phone for the duration of the movie, I found that I couldn’t take my eyes away throughout…

The Descent: Part 2

Any sequel to The Descent was going to have a hard time, so expectations going into this were fairly low. Indeed, I didn’t even know this movie existed; I had seen The Descent at home long after release and it became an instant classic and put away as a film too scary to watch again. Not necessarily because the horror of the creatures, but moreso the claustrophobic passages and situations the women find themselves in. I shudder just thinking about it. But, as I get older and a tiny bit more brave I found myself needing to revisit the original before tackling the sequel, and I’m happy to report that I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Depending on which version of The Descent (having different endings) you saw/remember, Part Two will begun with some confusion, but this is easily remedied with a quick web query. Unfortunately the bewilderment doesn’t stop there: Sarah – our protagonist and sole survivor of the first – is found two days after the events of the first and is immediately brought into the…

The Changeling

Hopefully you don’t mind a little context for this. I’ve tasked myself over the past few months to follow along with The Evolution of Horror podcast series as they take on the various genres of horror; first was slashers, and now we’re onto ‘ghosts’ and as a result, I’ve been watching a decent number of older ghost-related movies (as evidenced by a few quick entries on this very site). There’s been one problem though: I’ve found my mind wandering and quickly becoming bored with many of these films; I felt especially bad for The Haunting, which is highly spoken of but I could barely sit through it without checking my phone and yes, even excusing myself from the room brush my teeth during one particular scene. So I was nervous to continue on this trend, less I don’t give these movies the respect they deserve – although honestly some of them may not: nobody is saying they all have to be good. My friend suggested turning my phone off while the movie is on, so I took it a step…

Halloween (2018)

{field 2} | dir: {field 3} | {field 4}m Halloween is one among many John Carpenter masterpieces that he has deigned to bestow up the world, and I have, of course, watched it many times. The rest of the sequels… not so much. As part of my annual horror movie marathon this October, I decided to get caught up the rest of the Halloween series. Much to my dismay, I discovered that much like the Friday the 13th series, the sequels to Halloween represented at best diminishing artistic and entertainment returns and at worst head-scratchingly terrible movies, the scripts for which probably wouldn’t receive a passing mark if they had had been submitted as creative writing assignments in a grade 4 class. Yes, I’m looking at you Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween: Resurrection. These are sequels that are so bad that it felt like they were made specifically to insult and alienate fans of the series (or at least of the original film). The Halloween sequels seemed to go off the rails almost immediately, adding increasingly nonsensical aspects to the Michael Myers mythology that made the character less impactful and…

The Lighthouse

It’s been nary twenty four hours since somberly leaving the theatre after watching The Lighthouse and I’m still unsure what I just witnessed, but I do have a feeling I just participated in something unique, and maybe even great. Throughout the nearly two hour runtime of the film, I was mesmerized from beginning to end, and there were many moments that have stuck with me, with noted significance on the performances by Patterson and Dafoe: they were incredible. Dafoe’s Thomas Wake has a few close shot monologues that had me pouring over every word, every movement of his face and terrified as I gazed into those unblinking eyes. Pattinson plays Winslow, a newcomer in the lighthouse keeping world: he is adamant to perform his duties by the book, but is quickly (or maybe it’s slowly) rolled over by Wake’s relentless task-driving and unwillingness to adhere to anyone’s rules but his own. Wake keeps the upper portion of the lighthouse off limits to Winslow, which – combined with living in such small quarters with someone and a belligerent seagull – drive…

Leatherface

Just a few short weeks ago I launched into my journey to view all the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films; it’s a project like those that came before it for Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but I was not prepared for how many Chainsaw movies there actually were. Or even how the “timeline” of these may be more messed up than the Halloween series. Alas, the final movie was upon me and I was looking forward to wrapping this series up, as I became nauseated with the ups and downs of quality throughout. Leatherface does away with the Massacre moniker presumably since it’s (yet another) origin story of our miscreant psychopath, but I do feel as though it would belong: it’s firmly planted in the “family comes first at all costs” that the entire series has been consistent with. In an effort to differentiate or perhaps re-invent the series, this movie tries to play tricks on you but to no real consequence; the story is familiar as we follow a group of young adult killers escaping…

Texas Chainsaw 3D

Regretfully, I did not get to see this movie in theatres in proper 3D, and it’s too bad: I feel as though the horror-style 3D effects that are so common in the genre when it utilizes the technology are so over-the-top that they add a layer of cheese and fun that other movie genres cant’ get away with. That being said, it’s still blatantly obvious when these effects are going all in while watching in regular 2D, and I can’t help but chuckle every time. Oddly enough, this entry in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series picks up exactly where the original left off – then advances some twenty or thirty years (the time passed is messed up anyway). So many of the other entries pick up much later or re-tell the original in a different way, so it was refreshing to see some of the actors even come back to complete some scenes for the aftermath of the climax of the 1974 original. However, as we advance to modern times the movie feels like a lacklustre attempt; it falls behind the two…

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

I was reminded of watching Ouija, followed by it’s prequel and remarking that the prequel ended up being much better than the first film. Going in with that logic, I was expecting a similar treatmeant but alas, The Beginning is not a better film than the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake from just a couple of years previous. I see why this movie was made but don’t really see any reasoning on why this movie exists on screen. R Lee Ermey gets a lot more screen time here and I can’t complain about that, nor really the film as a whole. One thing that really stuck with me in a review I read was how this film makes Leatherface “a less sympathetic character” and it’s spot on: the previous films explored different sides of Leatherface, to a point where he was an ineffective killer and easily persuaded/scared by his own family. He didn’t choose to be the way he was: he was born into that family and it dictated all his actions; he was almost endearing. This prequel removes all that character development…