Review Category: Movie

By Jack Bottomley

The deranged and dream-troubling spirit of John Erick Dowdle’s under-seen 2007 Found Footage classic The Poughkeepise Tapes lives on in films like Isaac Rodriguez’s fantastic Mister Creep, just with added dashes of The Gallows and Sinister.

Detailing the efforts of a group of college students to broaden their CV with a student film about missing persons, soon they turn their hand to something greater, something that won’t just get a grade but could make American history. As they delve into the Internet urban legend of a masked serial killer who killed around 200 people and filmed strange videos with their bodies. Thought to have been executed 20 years ago, authorities have supposedly hidden any trace of his crimes. So they search for not only the secret location of his tapes but try to uncover the buried history of this hidden killer.

The concept is perfect for the found footage format, and Rodriguez delivers his story effectively, using the low budget along the way. While his cast works with him in offering realistic and strong performances that help the film flourish. Especially the brilliant Amber Lee Solis, who becomes central to this group of characters as their filmmaking journey and investigation descends into some grave depths.

Mister Creep feels authentic and atmospheric, suspensefully building its own lore and making its believable dark web-baiting internet mythology stand out, even when some well-worn horror tropes are present and correct.

The settings are well chosen and equally well shot, and despite the token aesthetic found footage distortion tactics, Rodriguez allows his cinematography to muster a chill, never hiding it fully behind the static and conjuring some truly nightmarish imagery to flash onscreen, and using darkness, photography and background superbly, to offer some shocks and frights that are far less loud in nature.

Integrating a supernatural element to the story, alongside its themes of the murderous darkness behind the American dream and our unsettling fascination with it, and the pursuit of legend and renown in the crowded field of film. Mister Creep tackles rather a lot in its brief 76 minutes. Admittedly, it may sometimes lose focus at points or stretch realism but never loses its plot. Continually, the film delivers an effective horror experience that is a most pleasant surprise, with an appropriately creepy central masked figure. Not to mention a nasty little doll!

Mister Creep is a raw, concentrated, found footage horror experience with some seat-jumping scares. Don’t adjust the aerial!

Mister Creep is on digital now.

By Jack Bottomley

It has been over 11 years since our favourite cat in footwear swashbuckled his way through a big screen animated adventure, and now the man, the myth, the moggy returns to action… but is Puss’ latest daring tale truly worthy of our fluffy hero?

The Last Wish catches up with our cream-lapping hero Puss (Antonio Banderas), as he reaches a scary realisation that he has used up eight of his nine lives. However, in this last life, he faces a dark threat that is calling for him. To escape his fate, Puss goes on a daring adventure to a mystical land to find the magical wishing star and have his wish for replenished lives granted. But he isn’t the only one who hopes to be wishing upon a star!

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a dazzling, creative triumph that shares many outstanding qualities with Gore Verbinski’s Rango. The Last Wish is not just an improvement on Puss’ first fun solo outing way back in 2011; it’s a mesmerising sequel that re-energises the Shrek-verse and ends with a tantalising tease.

This film repositions DreamWorks firmly back into the conversation for the first time in years when it comes to the best major studio in mainstream animated filmmaking. Last year, they delivered an early winner with The Bad Guys, and this year they have repeated that remarkable feat and then some with a film that is already a strong contender for the year’s best animated feature.

The whizz-popping wish-chasing story is fantastical groundwork for a far deeper and richer journey into the quality of life, finding the value in what has always been in front of you, grappling with mortality, and living with anxiety. There are so many carefully crafted textures to Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow’s screenplay, as director Joel Crawford and co-director Januel Mercado, let the film run free, unleashing a funny, poignant and exciting torrent of imagination, sword-swinging action, and meaningfully layered family entertainment. It really is the cat’s whiskers.

Taking in an array of influences from anime to Zorro, and some other surprising genres, the film’s CG-meets-painted animation style is absolutely gorgeous. It provides a visual accompaniment that is just as impressive as the story, along with Heitor Pereira’s culturally explosive score. The screen is just full to bursting with ideas, emotion and lovable characters and is utterly impossible not to fall in love with Harvey Guillén’s ever hopeful Perrito the dog. He accompanies Puss on his journey, and is a heartwarmer and heartbreaker in equal measure, while Banderas’ ever-brilliant work as Puss expands the character in many breathtaking ways and Salma Hayek Pinault’s return as Puss’ former friend/flame Kitty Softpaws offers further unexpected narrative heft.

Meanwhile, some of the newer characters (many who’re deliriously entertaining spins on classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes) are a joy, from John Mulaney’s memorably irredeemable ‘Big’ Jack Horner to Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone, and Samson Kayo’s criminal gang take on Goldilocks and the three bears. Additionally, DreamWorks unleashes arguably its greatest ever villain (at least since Gary Oldman’s Lord Shen) in Wagner Moura’s genuinely terrifying, red-eyed, sickle-spinning Wolf, whom has an air of Tim Curry menace about him and steals every scene he is in.

The Last Wish is a spellbinding, funny, and gorgeous piece of animated storytelling that restores this franchise to past glory. The real cat in the hat is back, and his boots are very much made for walking! Me-wow!

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a purrrfect family film.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is in cinemas now and will be on Disney+ on July 8th.

By Paul Mount

If Hollywood has taught us anything over the years, it’s that it’s probably not a good idea to go on a road trip across the dusty, deserted terrain of middle America because it’s almost bound to end in tears. The Fearway is a surprisingly accomplished and enjoyable spin on a familiar tale, combining elements of Spielberg’s Duel with the likes of Jeepers Creepers and Dead End.

Sarah (Shannon Dalonzo) and Michael (Justin Gordon) are travelling to visit Sarah’s ailing father when they are suddenly tailgated by a black limousine. They pull in at a convenient rest stop before continuing their journey but their pursuer returns and they somehow find themselves back at the rest stop and attracting the attention of its oily, creepy manager (Simon Phillips) who is keen for them to spend the night at the rest stop. They set off again but they can’t escape either their vindictive pursuer or their ultimate destination.

Running for just 80 minutes, The Fearway delivers plenty of mystery and intrigue across a slightly uneven script. Initial scenes between Sarah and Michael in the car strive to establish their bantering relationship but quickly become irritating. However, the film perks up when the strange fanged creature following the couple – he’s not a vampire, by the way – starts interfering with their destiny in ways they can’t begin to imagine. The resolution is quite clever if a little under-developed, the cinematography is superb for a low budget feature and the film works to create a sense of tension and unease rather than full-blooded horror (there’s nothing gory or unpleasant here). We still wouldn’t recommend a road trip across dusty America, but The Fearway is certainly worth hitching a ride with.

The Fearway is out now on digital platforms.

By Sol Harris

Skinamarink is being sold as a nightmarish horror film in which two children wake to discover the windows and doors missing from their home. That’s a somewhat disingenuous description given that that implies the film has characters and a plot. It’d be far more accurate to describe Skinamarink as 100 minutes of intentionally frustrating, close-up shots of door frames, the ceiling, toys on the floor and other mundane domestic paraphernalia – all punctuated by a couple of shots of doors and windows disappearing at the 15-minute mark.

Our characters rarely do anything – or even appear – and their actions are mostly implied when they do. The film asks to be taken as a surreal mood piece, but when the vast majority of its horror comes courtesy of the laziest form of jump scare – forcing your audience to sit in excruciatingly long shots of dark, nothingness, only to startle them with a loud screech and a flash of movement – it’s difficult to understand the buzz that it’s generating. Especially when the same circles championing it are the sort of people who would likely scoff at the remarkable craftsmanship on show in a film like The Conjuring.

The one shot which does work to elicit genuine fear – almost justifying the unpleasant, grainy, dark cinematography throughout the film – is far too reminiscent of a standout moment from last year’s Barbarian to do much in the way of redeeming the film.

Still, say what you will about Skinamarink. At least now we have a word to describe that specific way we used to torture our characters when we played The Sims as children.

Skinamarink is streaming on Shudder.

By John Townsend

Found footage is, it seems, back at the forefront of horror with films such as Jed Shepherd’s Host and Deadstream from Vanessa and Jospeph Winter. And now we have The Outwaters, a film that is apparently so scary it’s being billed as the most terrifying movie of the year. So, is it the most terrifying movie of the year?

Well, no.

Four friends head into the Mojave Desert to shoot a music video and things get very weird, very quickly. And the experience is a similar one for the audience as after quite a laborious, often tedious opening half that establishes very little in the way of character depth – you’re supposed to just like these characters without knowing anything about them – the craziness kicks in with psychedelic episodes, bloody murders, Lovecraftian-esque tentacled things, and lots and lots of screaming. Only you can’t see what’s going on. The best you can hope for is a glimpse of something gruesome slightly out of focus as the narrative switches influences so frequently as to render the film incoherently unwatchable.

And, as with all bad found footage films, the camera is barely justified. The opening tedium does at least warrant its usage, adding credence to the setup. In the near hour of jumbled carnage that ensues, there’s just no reason for anyone to keep filming.

If you make to the grim finale, you’re treated to scenes that one presumes are supposed to shock, but one particular moment is almost comedic in its ludicrousness. In a rich period for horror, The Outwaters is some way short of being the scariest film of the year.

The Outwaters is out now in the US.

Let’s face it; killer dolls have been done to (an often grisly) death in genre cinema. Chucky, Annabelle, Robert (best forgotten) and Fats in the underrated 1978 Anthony Hopkins chiller Magic have slashed and sliced and diced for decades, creeping out audiences with their stories of cutesy (or not so cutesy in the case of Chucky) mini mannequins brought to life by some supernatural MacGuffin or other. On the face of it Megan, Blumhouse’s latest min-budget horror directed by Gerard Johnstone, would seem to have very little new to offer its particular subgenre. But despite the fact that it ploughs a very familiar furrow – there are no real surprises and nothing especially scary – Megan works because it gives the idea a modern spin. The titular ‘living doll’ is a Model 3 Generative Android, an artificial intelligence that learns, observes, adapts and eventually goes off on its own killing spree. If Terminator has taught us anything, it’s that robots and AI aren’t to be trusted, and whilst M3gan is a bit too broad to serve as  Black Mirror-style ‘cautionary’ tale, its strength lies in the fact that Megan is a machine created by humanity rather than animated by some supernatural entity or other.

Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist at competitive hi-tech top company Funki, takes custody of her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) when the girl’s parents are killed in a car accident. Workaholic Gemma finds it hard to bond with the girl until Cady spots a failed prototype of Megan and her interest inspires Gemma to complete her work on a fully-interactive ‘doll’ that she pair-bonds with Cady.  Even as Gemma’s excited boss plans to launch this revolutionary (if hugely expensive) new toy onto the market, Cady and Megan are beginning to develop a fiercely-strong emotional attachment, and Megan is quietly self-improving and operating independently.

Despite the slightly derivative nature of its storyline, M3gan is a brisk and hugely enjoyable romp. Johnson ramps up the tension as Megan – her waxen, immovable face is unnerving enough even before the doll starts misbehaving – begins to operate outside her programming, and if her killing spree isn’t especially gory, with one or two exceptions, he manages to create some disquieting moments as Megan stalks her victims brandishing a knife and, in one sequence out in the woods, turns into a scuttling spider-doll as she chases her prey. The frantic finale goes full-on Terminator as the unstoppable doll does everything in its power to protect itself.

M3GAN is in cinemas now and hits digital on April 3rd

By John Townsend

The Pale Blue Eye, the latest collaboration between director Scott Cooper and Christian Bale, is a moody, Gothic expression of atmosphere and melancholy. There is a mystery – or perhaps two? – at its cold heart, but Cooper understands that location and character are more important in instilling fascination in his audience.

Based on a 2003 novel by Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye follows retired detective Augustus Landor (Bale) who is drawn into investigating the murder of a cadet at the nearby United States Military Academy of West Point. And this was a grisly murder, with the hanged cadet having had his heart removed, the body left on display to be discovered. The confrontational Landor growls his way through the early stages of the investigation before encountering one Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), who he enlists to help.

The mutual fascination between these two characters – the educated Landor revealing very little while Poe’s dialogue is peppered with profundity and monologue – seems to be what excites Cooper, and scenes of their verbal jousting are among the most interesting in the film. But there is still a mystery, and while it’s slow, rather formulaic reveal is abundant with more grisly murders and miserable confessions, it’s entirely secondary to the relationship of the two leads. Bale does what Bale does, inhabiting a brooding, secretive character similar to many he has played in the past, while Melling’s Poe is superb, flirting with camp caricature yet remaining nuanced and unpredictable.

This may not be Cooper’s best film, but it is another example of how much of an expert he is when it comes to creating a tangible atmosphere.

The Pale Blue Eye is streaming on Netflix.