I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems to me that over the past while, horror movies have actually been getting quite a bit better than they once were. They sprinkle a bit more humour into things, and subject matter is finally stepping away from haunting, possession and a whole lot of grief symbolism. Filmmakers have been doing a good job about putting their new spins onto old ideas, be they sequels like 'Saw X' or re-imaginings like this, which is a loose, modern take of 1936's 'Dracula's Daughter.' Admittedly, I wasn't entirely sure what to think of things judging by the trailer, but was ultimately sold on one of my favourite actors of villainy, Giancarlo Esposito, and looked forward to seeing what he would be a part of throughout the film. As it turns out, however, if you're like me and go to see what's up with Mr. Esposito, you might be disappointed to know that he's really not a big part of things here. Having said that, though, I was nevertheless pleasantly surprised by how the film turned out, and still had a lot of fun with things. It all starts as we see a young ballet dancer named Abigail (Alisha Weir), dancing her little heart out on stage in an abandoned theatre. In the meantime, six unnamed criminals are setting up at Abigail's home, awaiting her arrival. The six criminals have been sent to kidnap this girl by their informant, Lambert (Esposito), who intends on holding her for ransom, as Abigail's father is said to be a powerful man. The six are told they will each receive their payment of 7 million in 24 hours as long as Abigail is left safe and unharmed. The six in question are all given nicknames derived from the original Rat Pack. Joey (Melissa Barrera) is the all-around lead, a recovering drug-addict and former Army medic; Frank (Dan Stevens) is a former NYPD detective; Sammy (Kathryn Newton) is a bit of a ditsy hacker born into money; Dean (Angus Cloud) is the wheel man, and seemingly the stoner of the group; Rickles (William Catlett) is a Marine sniper, and Peter (Kevin Durand) is a mob enforcer, a fellow Canadian, and the all-around "dummy" of the group. But like, what can ya do, eh? He's still a big part of the humour here, bud. Eventually, the group does figure out who Abigail's father actually is (and no, thank God, it's not just Dracula), which sends a wave of fear through the group when it comes to the stories some of them have heard about the man. We can think of it as the equivalent of what kidnapping Tony Soprano's daughter might entail. The catch here, however, is that eventually it's also revealed that not only are they holding the daughter of someone important, but they're also holding a vicious little vampire who isn't afraid to defend herself by any means necessary. I have to admit, I kind of wish that I knew absolutely nothing about this movie going in, because it would have been more fun to have things revealed to me as they're revealed to the group here. Still, though, that doesn't take away from how fun the film is. It's perhaps a little slow-moving at first, but it's filled with light humour to fill the time. Once things do get going, things get nice and bloody, and even at time are a touch reminiscent of the 'Evil Dead' movies as far as amounts of blood. It's messy, but the messiness is part of the thrill of it all, as sick and twisted as that may seem to some. I think what stood out the most to me, personally, was Alisha Weir's performance as Abigail. I'd even say it was the highlight of the movie. With her range, this performance alone could act as a sort of resume for her down the line. While that is probably the most impressive part of the movie, audiences will still get their laughs, their jumps and their gore. I could equate this to more of a thrill ride than anything in the same genre that tries to dig deeper. It's a friendly reminder that sometimes when it comes to horror, we just wanna have fun with it. 4/5
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It's hard to know what to feel about this one, altogether. If one refers to a lot of reviews and criticisms about the film, they'll see that it's not going all too well. And while I completely understand where these criticisms are coming from, as I have quite a few, myself, I can't deny that there were bits and pieces about this that I DID enjoy, even if it's on a level of "guilty pleasure." Looking at the overall spirit of things, it feels like they were trying to tip their hat to such 80s horror titles as 'Nightmare on Elm Street' to some degree. Having said that, one should "bear" in mind that there are aspects of this movie that I have a certain bias towards, but that doesn't mean these things were necessarily executed well, either. This is one of those movies that feels like it's one thing for about half of it, and then it switches into something completely different, not quite feeling like the same movie. The first half is reminiscent of movies like 'Child's Play' or 'Annabelle' in which this teddy bear known as Chauncey just kinda sits there, and it's up to the kid who has befriended him to freak the audience out. The film centres on a new stepmom/children's author named Jessica (DeWanda Wise) who is trying her best in her role. But while the young Alice (Pyper Braun) is friendly with her, the typical (and annoyingly bratty) teenager, Taylor isn't a fan. After a series of horrible nightmares involving her own creations, keeping her and her husband, Max (Tom Payne) awake at ungodly hours, they decide to move the family into Jessica's childhood home in an attempt to calm things down. To no one's real surprise, Taylor isn't entirely on-board, but Alice keeps things civil. It's not long before Alice discovers a teddy bear (Chauncey) in the house's basement and forms a bond with him. According to her, Chauncey makes up a scavenger hunt for Alice to complete, which actually consists of a pretty controversial list, and long story short, like any film like this, things go off the rails fairly quickly with a concerned adult/parent, a kid who doesn't understand or know any better, and the kid's imaginary friend/doll/toy who is secretly pulling all of the seemingly supernatural strings. So yeah, this is something we've seen done before, done better, and becomes altogether pretty predictable. In my opinion, what kind of adds to it is when their neighbour, Gloria (Betty Buckley) comes into the picture with memories of babysitting Jessica, and a whole big conspiracy theory about imaginary friends and the world they come from. I really don't wanna spoil much here, but I will say that this is where I get reflections of concepts from 'Nightmare on Elm Street', and I have to give the film at least a little credit for creativity. The problem is that it's too much too fast, changing the film's tone, completely. and just because I thought they made some creative choices doesn't make it altogether good. Critically, I'm not a fan of how the film handled the kids' real mother (Alix Angelis) who in some ways felt kind of crow-barred in to add some level of horror to things while not entirely adding anything to the plot. If I'm honest, a lot of the writing is kinda rough too, and they seem to go a little too far with Taylor's mouthiness sometimes. I get that she's supposed to be a bratty teenager, but it's also evident that she cares a great deal for Alice and will do anything to help her, so they could have done better with giving us a reason to route for her. I do, however, like some of the concepts they put into the second half of the movie, and I have to say, I am fan of some of the creature design here once things do get going. It's a tricky one to navigate. On one hand, it's creative and even sometimes kinda fun. But on the other hand, I'd be hard-pressed to call this a "good" movie. It's one I can't really recommend one way or the other, and I'd say it'd probably be better to await streaming. But I'd still argue it's passable for someone dipping their toes into the horror genre, especially when, at times, it delivers some corny laughs. At best, it's probably just a guilty pleasure. 2/5 Well, this was an interesting experiment, to say the least. The thing is, I can't imagine upon seeing this that it was ever gonna really pull people in. The only audience this could really be aimed at is the same audience that liked the '93 film 'My Boyfriend's Back' and are aiming to find a little nostalgia from the era. Even though this is a film that plays more on 80's nostalgia, let's not forget that for a while there, the 80s bled over into the 90s, and 'My Boyfriend's Back' is a good indicator of that. Regardless, it's no surprise at all to me that this bombed. Another potential draw to the film would be writer Diablo Cody, who certainly has her own cult audience in the palm of her hand (just like I'm in Edgar Wright's hand, to be perfectly fair), but I'd argue that they will be the ones to really take something away from this as opposed to someone like me, who's admittedly indifferent to Cody. I think this was a weird route to take in order to create something fresh for our nostalgia, much like 'Stranger Things' has managed to do, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me remember some of those oddball one-off dark comedy films from the late 80s/early 90s. The film centres on introverted "weirdo", Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) whose mother was violently murdered some time prior to the film's events, and she's still got it on her mind. Her father, Dale (Joe Chrest) remarries a "wicked stepmother" type named Janet (Carla Gugino) who's terrible towards Lisa, but she brings her daughter, Taffy (Liza Soberano) into the mix who befriends Lisa as her new stepsister, and makes attempts to get her out of the house, including going to a house party where everything sort of kicks off involving, fair warning, a scene of her drink being spiked with something pretty heavy. In the process of tripping balls, Lisa heads to a cemetery that she frequently visits in her own time, speaking one-on-one with the grave of a young Victorian era man whose name we never get. In her depressed and drugged state, she wishes she "was with him" (as in dead), but the magic wish comes true in a different way, in which the young man comes back in a zombie state (Cole Sprouse) and seeks Lisa out, eventually resulting in the classic scenario of hiding a person or thing from the rest of the family and society, which has been done time and time again, but I will say this does a few different things with it. Bearing in mind that this is, in part, a horror movie, a lot of that comes from this idea that other people's body parts can be sewn onto the zombie guy, then, by way of a broken tanning bed, the body part in question merges with him making him more and more fully human every time. It's a cool idea, but as one can imagine, some of it manages to get kinda low-brow and is likely to make one's eyes roll. With that said, and without spoilers, I'll offer fair warning right now that the film gets incredibly weird and creepy, and one will have to look past some things to appreciate the ending. My thoughts on the film as a whole are a bit convoluted. On the negative end of things, I can't imagine who was asking for such a project, the film gets suggestively weird, even for me, who generally embraces weird, and in all honesty, this isn't gonna be something I remember much of by the end of the year. But some positives include some humorous dialogue and performances, a touch of renewed nostalgia, and the acting makes it feel like a film lost in time. If this was shown back in the early 90s, it would probably fit in pretty well. I would say to a general audience that one is gonna have to accept what the film is trying to call back to in order to fully appreciate it. You're also gonna have to be able to open your mind quite a bit to accept a few things here and there. I came out of this with a certain appreciation for what it did, but at the same time, it's really nothing special. At best, it's a decent call-back to an era. At worst, it's something predictable we've seen again and again. It's nothing I'd say is terrible, or even that bad, but it's pretty out there, so proceed with an open mind if you wanna enjoy it at all. 3/5 I tend to usually have faith in Blumhouse Studio's ability to deliver a decent horror flick, but I can also say that they're not always home runs. One such example is this year's otherwise intriguing (to me, anyway) 'Night Swim,' coming to us from writer/director Bryce McGuire, who presented this concept originally as a better, much creepier short, running just about four minutes long and, while still not wondrous, having a better effect than this film as a whole. So I'm just gonna say that off the bat - the short is more entertaining for me. What drew me in with this was the idea that I'm not sure I've ever seen a horror movie use a swimming pool as its "monster," so to speak. I'm sure it has happened somewhere, but short of Freddy Krueger using a public pool in 'Dream Child,' I'm hard-pressed to think of anything to use as their main source of whatever curse or haunting this is. I'm still unsure, as the film does a lame job explaining things. Either way, I saw some originality and considered it a cool idea to scare those swimmers who could still feel safe from "Jaws" in a swimming pool. It was a new thing for people to fear, and I wanted to see how things played out. So we open in 1992 with what is essentially the film trying to be 'It,' when a little girl named Rebecca (Ayazhan Dalabayeva) tries to get her sick brother's toy boat out of the family pool when a mysterious force yanks her in. Fast-forward to the present day, and we get to the Waller family, looking for a more permanent place to live after the father, Ray (Wyatt Russell) is forced to retire from professional baseball due to multiple sclerosis. When water therapy is recommended as part of his therapy, Ray expresses a desire to move into a specific house the family checked out with a pool - the same pool in which Rebecca drowned in 1992. While the water therapy seems to do wonders for Ray, his wife, Eve (Kerry Condon), begins to get concerned over her husband's often odd behaviour, and their kids, Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren), begin seeing and experiencing weird things in the pool when they go swimming. As far as anything else goes, one can just take this as a much weaker version of 'The Shining' or 'Amityville Horror' in which the father is empowered by bad things, and the family has to survive to the end. Yeah... without meaning to spoil anything, we've just seen this done before and done better. As far as the pool and its weird haunts go, it is eventually half-explained. While Rebecca's drowning takes a bit of a front seat, there's also something more seemingly demonic going on there, and the best answer we get is that the pool was built over a natural spring. It goes from that to something like, "Who knows what things were built over?" and that's what we get. It's cool to use one's imagination to fill in the blanks, and I don't always wanna be spoon-fed, but the explanation here felt incredibly lazy. We just get what the pool does instead of why it does it. I will be fair and say that I could have missed a subtle detail that suggests something like "ancient burial ground." But even if so, it's subtle enough to easily be missed. It ends up being a movie about choice and sacrifice. But, again, it's been done before and better. The one thing I'd say this movie has going for it is that I do find the concept of a cursed and/or haunted swimming pool original enough to give it just a little tiny bit of credit. The thing is, they failed to execute it very well, having about 90% of the suspense involve reaching for something in the pool from poolside, creating such predictability it's ridiculous. It's hard to get hyped for movies of this type when they're released in January or February, but as I said, Blumhouse often does a good job, so it's always a roll of the dice for them. For example, I really enjoyed last year's 'M3GAN', but at the same time, 'Five Nights at Freddy's' was quite lame. You never know with this studio, but unfortunately, this was one time they didn't exactly blow the competition out of the water. It may have a moment or two of mild horror, but I wouldn't highly recommend it until you check out the short first. Then if you don't like the short, simply do not bother! 1/5 |