Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical (2022) - Movie Review

Matilda, both the Roald Dahl book and the Danny Devito-directed film version, were foundational texts for me as a kid. One of my first real exposures to autism-coding in storytelling, Matilda was something of a hero of mine growing up. A child brilliant beyond her years, struggling to grow against apathetic parents and a cruel headmistress, at the center of a story all about the evil that is letting children down. Add to that the iconic depictions offered by the film, between Mara Wilson as the ultimate ND avatar in Matilda and Pam Ferris as the stuff of nightmares in Miss Trunchbull, and you’ve got a story that has a sizeable place in my heart. I figured a musical version of that same story would be decent, but only decent. Not something that could wrestle control away from both of those foundations to become… well, my new favourite version of the story.

Possessor (2020) - Movie Review

It’s been quite a while since a psycho-horror flick got under my skin as effectively as this has. Honestly, it felt like I had lost my taste for the stuff, since I haven’t been as ga-ga over this genre for a while now in my reviews. But then this little number comes along, the sophomore effort from writer/director Brandon ‘Son of David’ Cronenberg, which is about as literal as it gets for a psychological horror film. Namely, that most of the truly horrifying stuff happens exclusively in the main character’s mind. Or, rather, minds.

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.

Mandy (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Logger Red (Nicolas Cage) and artist Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) live a quiet life in a cabin in the woods. However, that life is shattered when they come across a hippie cult run by Jeremiah (Linus Roache), who takes Mandy as his own... and then kills her. Red sets out on a bloody and drug-addled path of vengeance to destroy the cult.