Well, we’ve taken a look at David Leitch’s efforts this year, between directing Bullet Train and producing Violent Night; let's see what the other half of 87Eleven has been up to. And it seems that Chad Stahelski’s giving another stuntman his turn in the director’s chair, bringing J. J. Perry out of a several-year hiatus to helm this action-comedy about vampire hunting in sunny California. And I gotta be honest, I think I like this more than Violent Night.
The words ‘satire’ and ‘irony’ can put some strange ideas in people’s heads. Under the right circumstances, they are the bedrock for attitudes behind some of the greatest works of art across many mediums. But under the wrong ones, they’re just an excuse for utter laziness. The Internet is basically a carwash that scrubs all manner of context from whatever is placed on it, and in that scrubbing, there is all manner of satirical humour that operates under the impression that, if you just admit that you’re lazy or just being a dick, that magically makes it okay and “the point” of doing so. But it’s one thing when the average layman tries their hand at something like this, which is usually embarrassing but nothing more than that; it's quite another when Hollywood money is being thrown at it.
As much as I want to try and keep my expectations in check with this one, I can’t lie: It’s another team-up between a director and writer that I have immense respect for as creatives. Henry Selick, as I imagine he was for a lot of alternative kids out there, was my gateway drug when it comes to stop-motion animation, and his work on Coraline is what got me to fall in love with the works of Neil Gaiman. And while he’s also in the writer’s room here, he’s sharing it with Jordan Peele, one of modern horror’s most vital mainstream voices, and someone who has already got a certified winner under his belt this year in Nope. With how much import I place on names whenever looking at films on here, I went into this hoping for a ‘two great tastes’ situation, and honestly, that is definitely what I got… although it took me a bit to lock in with it.
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.
Those who don’t follow the names of people attached to films as obsessively as I do may not be familiar with the name Phil Tippett, but chances are you are at least familiar with his work already. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, RoboCop, Willow, Starship Troopers, the birthing scene in Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1; when it comes to the art of stop-motion animation and visuals effects in general, he is one of the masters. And over the past thirty years, he has been gradually working on the film that would be his magnum opus. An 83-minute stop-motion film which he would direct, write, produce, and of course, lovingly craft everything on the screen. And in June of this year, this work finally found public release on home of streamed horror Shudder, and holy shit, is this a film that needs to be seen.
