Evil Dead Rise (2023) - Movie Review

I’ve never gotten on the hype train for the Evil Dead series. I certainly appreciate the legacy of the films themselves (a world without Evil Dead is a world without Braindead, and that would be a sad world to live in), and I don’t think any of them are bad necessarily. I just can’t seem to get into them as much as others have. The first Evil Dead just doesn’t do much for me (tree rape doesn’t exactly warm me up to a film), and while Evil Dead II is quite fun, I struggle to consider it more than just alright all things considered.

Army Of Darkness… yeah, okay, that film goes hard, I can’t front. After truly hitting his stride with Darkman, Sam Raimi really cut loose to deliver a properly gonzo and aggressively goofy bit of medieval fantasy action-comedy ridiculousness. But even with how much I enjoyed it, considering the sharp change in setting and tone, part of me thinks that I got into this because of that change, rather than anything to do with the shared IP.

Now for the tricky bit: As an overall entertaining movie, Army Of Darkness is the franchise’s peak. But in terms of a proper scary film, I liked Fede Álvarez’s reboot/sequel thingy from 2013 more than either the original or Dead By Dawn. I really got into how it toyed with the franchise formula, using the Deadite possession angle as metaphor for addiction and withdrawal, making the astoundingly blood-soaked finale feel genuinely cathartic in how much progress Mia had made to get to that point. I’m also just a fan of how Álvarez handles atmosphere in films like that, really bringing the dread out of the situation.

With all of that in mind, I went into this latest addition to the franchise on a mixed note. I may feel a bit left out as far as the entertainment value of this franchise as a whole, but Evil Dead 2013 had me hoping that this could give me more of that expansion on the original material that could get me on-side with it. And yeah, it certainly did its own thing with the franchise lore, but I once again find myself a bit underwhelmed by the result.

Suzume (2023) - Movie Review

From the director of Your Name, the only body-swap romance film I can think of that’s actually worth watching, the latest from animator Makoto Shinkai makes that film’s high concept look downright pedestrian. I mean, most films look normal compared to the story of a Japanese schoolgirl who falls in love with a chair cursed by a cat-god, but my point still stands.

Allelujah (2023) - Movie Review

It’s Shitty Plot Twist time again!

Yep, we’ve got another film where my usual attempts at weave around story specifics for the sake of spoilers (as I’ve said before, I don’t like the idea of ruining the experience of a film for anyone, even if I personally didn’t care for it) are rendered moot because the narrative not only hinges on a major twist, but so does the film’s efficacy as a whole. This is the kind of shift that had me going from generally liking the film, albeit not all that enthusiastically, to having a confused slack-jawed look plastered on my face for the entire ride home from the cinema. It has been quite a while since a single moment has so utterly demolished the rest of the film around it, but that’s what we’ve got here.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) - Movie Review

After their last film in Game Night, with its story all about role-playing games and how revealing they can be for the personalities of those playing them, writer/directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are now going after the biggest name when it comes to RPGs: Dungeons & Dragons. The extent to which these guys have advanced since the days of Horrible Bosses and Vacation only grows more staggering with each passing release (even if our last check-in with the duo, Vacation Friends, was not that great), and since I’ve actually gotten into a bit of dice-rolling recently, I was doubly excited to see what they had cooked up (all while trying not to let D&D owner Wizards Of The Coast themselves become cooked over the Open Game License fiasco that would’ve caused trouble for a lot of content creators and fans alike).

Now, my own experience with D&D is rather limited; I only have a handful of actual game sessions to my name, and quite a few character sheets and backstories that likely won’t get used, but never say never (the story must be told of Hughal Dughal, the Dwarven pro-wrestler monk). But between those sessions, the nights spent brainstorming backstories, my general interest in video game RPGs like the Elder Scrolls series, and from watching liveplays of groups like Critical Role, I’d like to think I have a good enough idea of what makes this specific IP, and indeed tabletop RPGs in general, appealing. And it looks like Goldstein and Daley have nailed it.

Beau Is Afraid (2023) - Movie Review

The more time I spend contemplating the work of writer/director Ari Aster, the more frustrated I get with him. His feature debut Hereditary is a special film to me for a number of reasons. On first viewing, while I was impressed with the film craft and atmosphere, that ending really threw me for a loop. Then I clung onto Nyx Fears’ compelling and thought-provoking take of it as a trans allegory, which not only says something about how convoluted the lore surrounding King Paimon wound up being that that was the more logical explanation, but it’s one of the bigger instances of my flirtings with edgelord optimism; the approach of finding positivity in the midst of emphatically fucked-up ideas and scenarios, in this case being an empathetic view of society’s lack of empathy towards trans people. Or, at least, when viewed through that lens.

All of that makes for one of the more complicated connections I’ve made with a film I’ve reviewed on here, and possibly ever seen beyond that, and those two ideas (fatalistic family tragedy about how we’re doomed to choices beyond our control, or Lynchian psychological portrait of a mother’s rejection of her trans son) are still butting heads in my brain at the time of writing this.

And to think, Hereditary has basically become a running joke among my family, since I really got into the trans interpretation of it and… well, let’s just say that my attempts to convince my parents of the same was less than successful.

My take on Aster’s follow-up, Midsommar, though? Much simpler. It’s a dark break-up movie dressed as a slasher dressed as a Pagan acid trip, and it’s the film that finally got Florence Pugh on my radar as an actor worth looking out for.

Anyway, between those two, I went into Aster’s latest with some trepidation based on past experiences, but still hoping for something good. I mean, after Aster was rather insistent on Hereditary’s story being literal, seeing him go for something properly David Lynch/Charlie Kaufman is at least an interesting direction to take, as is the decision to lean more into his pitch-black sense of humour. However, what ultimately resulted from this is a film that did not work for me.