The Craft: Legacy (2020) - Movie Review

A Blumhouse-produced reboot of an old-school piece of feminist-leaning horror… I feel like we’ve been down this dark road before. Okay, in fairness, I don’t want to imply that either that film or this one is irredeemably bad. It’s just that the pattern goes beyond the studio backing it, and right into finding a similar mixture of intriguing and bizarre ideas in trying to modernise the original story. And quite frankly, it hexes itself more times than not.

Jay And Silent Bob Reboot (2020) - Movie Review

“Just for the fans” can be a real kiss of death when talking about any form of media, but movies especially. In the mainstream, finding-those-who-share-your-fandom-has-never-been-easier landscape, there is a lot to unpack around the idea of making products for an already-established fanbase. It can range anywhere from ‘let’s keep our customers happy’ to ‘what they say they want and what they actually want aren’t the same thing’, and pretty much every point on that scale has its ugly side.

But it needn’t always be a bad thing. Sometimes, it can be as simple as showing gratitude for audiences that have kept up with your work for years, even decades, and wanting to let them know that you see them. Avengers: Endgame from last year is an excellent example of that in the more positive sense, and while not really on the same wavelength, I’d argue that this film would be another.

The Grudge (2020) - Movie Review

Time for some 2000’s nostalgia, although we’re not gonna be looking at any of the fun things about that decade. Instead, we’ll be having a good, long gander at the 2000’s J-horror remake trend. It was one of the weirder bits of cultural exchange this side of the new millennium, with Western filmmakers (primarily Sam Raimi and Gore Verbinski, among others) remaking classic Japanese horror films, the results of which were mostly utter garbage. While Verbinski’s The Ring was an okay geographical shift, the rest of the mass including Pulse, One Missed Call, The Eye, Mirrors, and even the Raimi-produced Grudge remake brings down the median. Like, really brings it down. And with this latest, decidedly-American revival of one of the main pillars in that trend, I can’t help but question whatever point this was meant to serve.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) - Movie Review

One of the most common hypotheticals in the realm of time travel fiction is the Baby Hitler scenario: Travelling back in time to kill Hitler as an infant before he grows into one of history’s most notorious dictators. There are a lot of ethical dilemmas and potential consequences that spring out of this idea, but one of the lesser-discussed ones is the possibility that making the kill successfully wouldn’t solve everything. That while the very specific threat Hitler posed may be prevented, something just as bad, or worse, could take its place in human history. It is this idea that forms part of the core of today’s feature, and it makes for one of the most welcome surprises of the year.