Run Rabbit Run (2023) - Movie Review

‘Elevated horror’ as a sub-genre heading has its elitist undertones and occasionally nebulous usage, but there is still a certain aesthetic that fits that heading. Artsy and unconventional horror films have been a backbone of the genre since its inception, but specifically since the early-mid 2010s, there’s been a noticeable push towards that kind of fare.

In retrospect, the whole movement (if it can even be considered unified enough to count as such) felt like a direct reaction to the waning years of the found footage craze spearheaded by Paranormal Activity, which was reaching its nadir around the time that elevated horror films really started to take off. Instead of the façade of amateur filmmaking provided by the prominent handheld camerawork, and the gratuitous use of jump scares, elevated horror tended to delve more into the formalist side of things, returning to the technical fundamentals to see how far they could be pushed and bent to create new sensations. I may not entirely agree with the naming and framing of this general wave, but as a functional label, it can be quite handy.

Aftersun (2023) - Movie Review

We never know people as well as we think we do. No matter how close we get to someone else, or how honest they are to us about what makes them tick, there will always be this invisible wall that will prevent total understanding from taking place. In the moment, it’s possible to overlook this and just take joy out of being with that person, getting to share experiences with them and connect with as much of them as can make it through that wall. But as they drift apart, as people inevitably do for one reason or another, it eventually reaches a point where all that is left is the memory. Those imperfect, incomplete moments that have already been captured. It can be a source of great comfort, or possibly great pain, to reflect on those moments as a means of reconnecting with that person, albeit asymmetrically, but recollection is a funny thing. It’s not always as we remember it.

The Royal Hotel (2023) - Movie Review

After landing on my Best of 2020 list with the chilling and rather emblematic The Assistant, I was definitely curious to see what writer/director/editor Kitty Green would come up with next. And sticking to her roots as a documentarian, she pulled inspiration from the doco Hotel Coolgardie to tell the story of two American backpackers who find themselves in the middle of woop woop, working at a bar until they can make enough to continue their trip. Well, if they make it that far, that is.

Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2023) - Movie Review

There is something especially Aussie about a small-budget independent local production finding its way into the modern trend for exorcism horror… by playing into the nation’s predominant fascination with true crime stories. This is based on the real-life death of Joan Vollmer, a 49-year-old Antwerp resident who died in January of 1993. She was being exorcised by her local congregation, with her husband Ralph being the one who instigated and took part in the proceedings, and she died during the attempt. Four of those involved, including Ralph, were charged with manslaughter but ultimately walked away with such a slap on the wrist that they and their congregation “clapped, sobbed and hugged each other at the news”, with Ralph himself saying that the magistrate’s finding was the will of God

Sanctuary (2023) - Movie Review

For about as long as I’ve shown any real interest in film, I’ve always tried to advocate for enjoying films regardless of where that enjoyment comes from. I have sat through way too many bad films that I went into knowing that they’d be bad, of my own free will, to turn my nose up at what anyone else chooses to do for fun in their off-time. And while I can’t say I have all that much first-hand experience with S&M and other such play routines, quite a bit of my understanding of engaging with media, and indeed my championing of Edgelord Optimism (finding positivity in disturbing and weird shit), shares a lot of DNA with BDSM philosophy. Pain can lead to its own form of pleasure, even if it’s the hyperbolic pain of a bad movie.

Hypnotic (2023) - Movie Review

There are few things that fill me with more delight than seeing the words “Directed by Robert Rodriguez” in big fuck-off letters on a cinema screen. I’ve gotten to the point where I would willingly watch the guy work on just about anything, but there’s something special about seeing his work on the big screen. The human lab rat turned one-man film crew who lives and breathes neo-exploitation and old-school pulp cinema, he’s the guy that marked the real turning point for my fascination with filmmaking as a creative process, and auteur theory in particular. And with his latest, a detective-led crime drama that spirals out into a government conspiracy involving psychics and the power of hypnotic suggestion, there’s quite a bit of other auteurs to be found in the construction here.

Tár (2023) - Movie Review

As soon as I was done with this two-and-a-half-hour film, I audibly asked “What?”. And judging by the amount of giggling I heard from the rest of the audience at the cinema, I wasn’t alone in that reaction. That reaction is still strong within my mind while I’m trying to write this review out, so if this comes across as more aimless and meandering than usual… well, I at least appreciate you recognising that I’m not always like this.

Knock At The Cabin (2023) - Movie Review

Like with M. Night Shyamalan’s last film Old, the premise here is the kind of high-concept story that wouldn’t look out of place in an SF anthology series like The Twilight Zone. While vacationing in a remote cabin in the woods, couple Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) along with their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) receive the titular Knock from four strangers (Dave Bautista, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint). Under the impression that the world is about to end, they tell the couple that there is only one chance to avert the apocalypse: One of the family has to die, and it has to be by a loved one’s hand.

The Wonder (2022) - Movie Review

This has the single most peculiar opening to any film I’ve reviewed on here. It’s peculiar because this is a period drama that begins with a shot of the sound-stage that the sets in the film are located on, panning across while Niamh Algar narrates about how this is indeed a film and asking the audience to believe in its story as the characters will. There’s an initial pang of worry that this is insecurity showing through on the director's part, similar to Terry Gilliam’s introduction for the film Tideland that essentially begged his audience to regress back to the mind-state of a child in order to understand what was really going on. But that fades away rather quickly because, oddly enough, this ends up being an ideal introduction to this film on two different fronts.

Spiderhead (2022) - Movie Review

Fresh off the smash success of Top Gun: Maverick, a rousing display of American pop cinema that felt like a return to normalcy after the last couple years’ worth of COVID calamity, Joseph Kosinski’s other film from 2022… kinda feels like a rebuttal to his own work.

Goodnight Mommy (2022) - Movie Review

Okay, I know that remakes are far from new for Hollywood, but when I think about how this is now the second time I’ve looked at the remake of a film I’ve already reviewed… I feel old. Thinking back to when I first watched this back in December of 2015, even though it wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things, I can’t help but feel every one of those seven years hit me like the Ghost of Amateur Blogging Past just plopped down and sat right on my chest.

Anyways, it’s also another English-language remake of a foreign film, and considering The Guilty managed to do pretty well in translating its narrative as well as its filmmaking ethos, maybe this’ll work out too. Or maybe it’ll just be more ammo for the “just learn to read subtitles” crowd.

Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (2022) - Movie Review

Alejandro G. Iñarritu, who we last checked in with way back at the start of 2016 with The Revenant, now joins Branagh, Gray, and Spielberg in releasing a film this year that comes with a heavy dose of autobiography. I can understand how wanky this can come across to some people, having a filmmaker devote so many hours to their own story (with varying degrees of varnish), but as an auteurist, there’s something I find quite fascinating about these kinds of productions. They take the idea of film as a personal form of art (ignoring how each and every film is the result of collaboration in one form or another) about as far as it can go while still being in the context of a work of fiction. And with this film, we find the director… well, in a pretty dark place.

Glorious (2022) - Movie Review

A man comes face-to-face with a demigod. Well, as face-to-face as you can get to a being whose mere presence would drive the man mad. What seemed like a chance encounter was in fact ordained by fate, for the demigod has a tremendous favour to ask of the man. A favour that could mean saving the entire universe, or dooming it at the hands of an even greater God. Now, have all of this take place in a disgusting truck stop restroom, and have the man (Ryan Kwanten) be a viciously hungover man depressed over a recent break-up, and you have the plot for this absolute gem of a film.

Blonde (2022) - Movie Review

Even in a year that gave audiences the media hurricane of Don’t Worry Darling, this will likely go down as the most controversial film of 2022. Over the last few months, I’ve heard no shortage of horror stories about CGI fetuses and how exploitative its depiction of Marilyn Monroe’s life is. Since it is one of the bigger titles of the year, I knew I’d have to get to it eventually… but understandably, I’ve been a bit apprehensive about it. But hey, it’s got Ana de Armas continuing to spread her wings as a lead actress, and I quite liked the last film I saw from director Andrew Dominik in One More Time With Feeling (not to mention Nick Cave and Warren Ellis doing the soundtrack for this as well); maybe this will be another case where I find something good where others didn’t. Well… maybe I did? Even after I finished writing this, I’m still not sure.

Deep Water (2022) - Movie Review

After a twenty-year hiatus from filmmaking (save for a brief stab at screenwriting in Alex Pettyfer’s Back Roads), one of the few directors that could actually get his head around erotic mainstream cinema, Adrian Lyne, has returned. And true to his sweaty and mentally fucked-up trappings, it’s an unsettling take on the idea of romance, but there's a fair bit of rust showing through as well.

Mister Organ (2022) - Movie Review

 

“This is the weirdest film I’ve seen all year.”

That was my immediate reaction to this New Zealand doco once the credits started rolling, but thinking back on it, it doesn’t seem that strange. It’s the story of a man who, by director David Farrier’s own admission, is fucking boring, and it starts out looking at the titular Mr. Organ and his involvement in a bout of aggressive car-clamping outside of an antiques shop in Auckland, New Zealand. But as both Farrier and the audience are drawn deeper into Organ’s endless supply of shaggy dog stories and bewilderingly frequent court appearances, the effect created is beyond surreal.

The House (2022) - Movie Review

 

Yep, still on an animation kick, and this is a real beauty here. Put onto Netflix back in January, this is a three-part anthology film all about the titular House. This is another situation where the use of stop-motion specifically does a lot for the storytelling all on its own, as putting emphasis on tangible textures and physical objects makes a tighter connection between the audience and the setting that these stories fixate on. It also makes each story’s more horrifying aspects sink in even deeper.

Sissy (2022) - Movie Review

This film has a lot in common with Bodies Bodies Bodies. It’s a black comedy-horror slasher type deal that takes the piss out of social media influencers and the kind of attitudes they engender. Except, where Bodies Bodies Bodies had a bit of a voyeuristic bent to it, treating the influencers with some distance between them and the audience in terms of relatability, this one is more of an inside-out affair. It focuses on Cecilia (Aisha Dee), a mental health advocate on social media, who is invited to the hen’s night of her school bestie (Hannah Barlow’s Emma, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film with her husband Kane Senes). Shit accidentally goes wild.

Don't Worry Darling (2022) - Movie Review

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at a film that’s been swallowed whole by its own production drama. Paws Of Fury kinda had that same result, but the drama there was mainly background noise that you’d have to dig for. Don’t Worry Darling, on the other hand? It has been one of, if not the, most talked-about film of the year, and not even for anything do with the film’s content. Hell, the behind-the-scenes drama and marketing gaffs for this could (and has elsewhere) make for its own write-up.

But rather than just fill this review with references to #Spitgate, or how this movie feels like a movie, or hypothesising how much worse this could’ve been if Shia LaBeouf was still in it… well, outside of just mentioning them then, that’s not what I’ll be doing. Partly because, even at its most talked-about, all of this just isn’t that interesting to me (I’m not here for the gossip, I’m here for the movie), but mainly because this film is such a… bizarre creation all on its own that there’s already enough material here.

Smile (2022) - Movie Review

cw: mental illness, suicide, trauma

Ever had someone tell you to cheer up when you’re not feeling happy? Maybe they’re someone close to you and you just got done explaining the hows and whys of you not feeling happy, or maybe it’s some complete rando who sees you looking a little glum out in public. But all the same, they see you in distress and think to say that you simply shouldn’t be so down, as if you had never thought of that as an option before.

It’s the kind of advice that is arguably well-intentioned… but there’s a certain effect that comes with it. At its best, it can feel like you’re not allowed to have your own feelings, your own reactions to what’s going on, and that you just need to stop whining and put on a happy face, if not for yourself than to at least not inflict your ‘bad vibes’ on others.

But at worst, especially when it comes packaged with that same person showing off how their own forced happy face looks, there’s something almost malevolent to it. You’re feeling bad, and here’s someone just… smiling at you. Wanting you to do the same, whether you feel like it or not. And if you live with a chronic mental health condition, where these moods are a regular part of your life, all that insistence to force that happy face can feed into the much darker companions that those conditions tend to magnetise. You must be ‘normal’… or else. Or else what?