Halloween Ends (2022) - Movie Review

I went into this with what I’d consider a reasonable amount of cautious optimism. Halloween Kills from last year still left me hankering to see how this trilogy was going to wrap up, but with the rather glaring flaws that showed up there, I was admittedly worried that it was the sign that things were going to properly bottom out. This would be the trilogy that first blazed its way into cinemas and created a fresh, clean slate that swept away the myriad of messy follow-ups to the 1978 original… only to do its own restocking of similarly wasteful material. I don’t even hate Kills as much as a lot of others seem to, but it still left me with a rather worrying impression, despite how much I got into its meatier subtext.

Thankfully, though, I am happy to report that this properly returns to what made the 2018 film work as well as it did. Although you’d be forgiven for being completely thrown off by what this finale has to offer.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) - Movie Review

At the tail-end of 2016, I reviewed a film called Swiss Army Man. It remains one of the most surreal features I’ve ever covered on this blog, and I loved the absolute hell out of it… although, by its own admission, it’s most certainly not going to work for all audiences. It’s a cult film made by decidedly cult filmmakers, and considering it found its way mainly into the more arthouse cinemas in my area, Daniels (the writing/directing team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) seemed destined to stay on the fringe. Then their latest collaboration was released, to the most mainstream cinema local to me, and is seemingly adored by everyone. And what makes that fact even more astounding is that this film that has caught on like wildfire? It’s not even that much of a change-up from what these guys usually get up to.

Halloween Kills (2021) - Movie Review

Something about this film’s mere existence is bothersome, without even getting into the content. After how cleanly the 2018 film dealt with the franchise’s continuity baggage, and how it managed to tell a story that felt just right when put next to the original, the sheer notion of continuing from there feels off. I don’t like the idea of this turning into the very clutter it trimmed out last time, and unfortunately, quite a bit of this feels like clutter. And yet, even with that in mind, I still can’t bring myself to hate, or do much of anything but be satisfied with what I got. Confused yet? Yeah, me too, so let’s try and sort this mess out together.

Knives Out (2019) - Movie Review

Films like this… intimidate me. As someone who writes about every new movie I watch, I certainly don’t make it a habit of hiding my true feelings in regards to pretty much anything I’ve written about here, whether I love it, hate it, or walked away unfathomably bored. But my come-up as part of the wider YouTube angry critic scene has definitely influenced how I approach all of those features. If something is bad, I hold no qualms in outlying every single way it has failed… but what about the opposite? What about those films that are just so engaging, so well-crafted, so endearingly good?

Surely, a film that is entirely positive is an impossible thing; no film is perfect, and even with films I love, I usually bring up even the most minor of issues to keep things balanced. Then there comes a film like Knives Out where, no matter how hard I strain my grey matter, I struggle to find fault in what it presents. I don’t know if this film is indeed perfect, but holy shit, it's so damn close that there's nary a difference.

Halloween (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: For the past 40 years since the massacre in Haddonfield, serial killer Michael Myers (Nick Castle) has been locked up in a mental hospital. However, when the bus meant to transfer him to another hospital crashes, it seems that Michael is now on the loose and coming back to finish what he started. As he slashes his way back home, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) prepares as she has for the last 40 years to take down this vicious monster once and for all.