I Want You Inside Me is a modern twist on a horror classic. The film is a great take on the idea of a vagina dentata, at least in a loose sense.
Our protagonist's first boyfriend disappears after the pair have sex in a cave. He keeps trying to call her, but something interferes with the sound. We don't really find out what happens until our protagonist moves on.
The whole thing could be looked at as a metaphor about giving in to your desires in case you'll be fully consumed.
The Stylist features a hair stylist who has a love for wigs and acquires them in an interesting manner.
Our lead appears to be a standard hair stylist who does a lot for her regular customers. She stays open late, provides wine, and provides what looks like a wonderfully relaxing atmosphere, at least on the surface.
Of course, this is a horror film, so things are different than they appear. Shortly after the after-hours client gets her wine, the viewer realizes there was more in the glass than a little merlot.
After the now-unconscious guest is fully out, the real horror begins. Our stylist begins to scalp the woman in the chair. After waking up screaming, our stylist does what she needs to do and runs the scalping scissors into the lady's temple.
The film ends in a basement with many other wigs, all with the same ring of flesh around the outside.
The short honestly doesn't have much going for it outside of the character-driven nature of the film. The body horror is relatively tame, even a touch comedic. The plot doesn't fully exist.
That being said, our main character is incredibly intriguing. We learn about the internal torment that drives her to imitate others, even to the point of stealing their hair.
The Stylist certainly isn't the most mind-blowing short horror film out there, but it's more than worth the fifteen minutes it takes to see it in its entirety.
He Took His Skin Off for Me is an incredibly strange film. The premise of the movie is exactly the title and the following fallout.
I suppose it is body horror, of a sort. Really, it's a strong metaphor about relationships, about love, and about sacrifice. In its runtime of eleven minutes, the movie dances on the line of what will be the last straw before the man who took the skin off of his body for his significant other puts his skin back on and leaves. We see struggles and frustrations.
In the end, what the author of the short story, Maria Hummer, and the director, Ben Aston, wanted to say about relationships.
All in all, using such an extreme body horror technique to illustrate such a tender metaphor is unique, to say the least.
Thale is an atmospheric horror film from Norway based on the huldra from Norwegian folklore.
A pair of crime scene cleaners stumbles across a hidden room containing Thale, a huldra who holds the appearance of a woman. The first two-thirds of the movie are the pair unraveling the mystery of who and what Thale is and why she is in this hidden compartment.
These two-thirds are fantastic. The world building is fun and pulls from the folklore, and the mystery of it all ramps up and up. We don't know that Thale is there, and once we find that out in a spectacular fashion, we slowly begin to unravel the puzzle of it all. Is Thale an abused little girl? Is she a monster? Is someone looking for her?
As this draws out, we begin to find out more and more about the characters. Each of the main three has a story to tell and a backstory worth investigating, but we really only catch glimpses of everyone's story, although we do see significant amounts of Thale's.
While the atmosphere, the world building, and the character building are excellent in the first two-thirds of the movie, this seems to fall off during the climax. It turns out that there are people hunting Thale. They incapacitate the two cleaners using gas while Thale hides back in a bathtub with a gas mask hooked up to air.
After a cut, we find that the two men are outside, tied up and blindfolded. A man moves to dispose of them after giving the standard evil villain monologue but is interrupted by an explosion. The explosion destroyed the building where Thale had been picking off the remaining people hunting her down. After the explosion, a pack of huldra come through and rip the man to shreds, leaving the two cleaners alive.
The film ends with all of the problems being solved. Thale is back with the rest of the huldra, and the problems that the two other protagonists were dealing with were magically solved.
While the first two-thirds of the film was full of strong aspects, the last third flipped all of that on its head. The atmosphere shifted from creepy and mysterious to something you'd find in an action movie, and the ending was simply everyone getting what they wanted without a satisfying resolution to the buildup of tension and mystery.
Is it worth a watch? Sure. Don't expect to be blown away, though. The slow burn of the first forty to fifty minutes is incredibly enjoyable and the last parts of the movie are fine, even if they don't follow the same mold.
Black Sunday is a black and white gothic horror film focused on the revenge plot of an executed plot and the people trying to stop her.
The plot itself is fine. It's nothing extra special, but it facilitates the movie well enough. The characters and many of the other general building blocks of the film are also fine. So why is this movie worth watching?
Well, the director, Mario Bava, does a stellar job of setting the scene. The soundtrack to the movie is spectacular. The black and white really aides to the atmosphere, as does the cinematography. The cinematography, in particular, is outstanding. The film relies on a wonderful selection of long shots. There are many shots where the length doesn't particularly add to the story, but it certainly adds to the atmosphere and overall creepiness of the movie. The film also includes some fairly gruesome scenes, nothing quite like a splatter film, though. The scenes are well placed and add to the experience rather than become the focus themselves.
All in all, if you're after a great atmospheric horror film and don't care much about a plot or characters, you may find yourself enjoying Black Sunday.
First and foremost, this film feels like someone went to their local grocery store, grabbed a random three-dollar mystery novel off the checkout shelf, and decided to make it a movie with some extremely popular and attractive people. In other words, it's a silly mystery movie with crazy, zany twists and turns.
Some of those twists and turns were easy enough to see coming, but some of them were straight out of left field. In addition to the entertaining twists, the film does a decent job of not taking itself seriously. The humor in the movie is peppered in during great moments. Some of it is cheesy, but if you're going to this film for a deep, thought-provoking film, don't.
The characters themselves are all extremely exaggerated. Lively's Emily is over-the-top sophisticated, crass, and private to the point where she won't allow pictures or even paintings of her face. Kendrick's Stephanie is bubbly, eager, awkward, and overly friendly. The rest of the cast fills in the needs around them, and while the cast is filled with one-note characters, they fulfill the needs well. Golding's Sean was my least favorite, but mainly because he doesn't have a defined archetype in a film filled with single-aspect characters.
The biggest issue with the film is the plot itself. Emily contradicts herself with the motive for her faking her own death. She tells Sean that she did it for him and for Nicky. Then she says she did it for her. On top of it all, she doesn't appear to have a plan to get the insurance money after it comes through. The film could have easily alleviated all of these issues with a quick scene or a line about fake passports for Emily and Nicky.
All in all, A Simple Favor is a fun romp filled with crazy twists and turns, humor, and great acting. Don't think too much about the film itself, and just go have some fun. It's definitely worth a getaway matinee.
The Black Panther is a fun romp, but it definitely has some issues. First, the good.
The action is fun, the emotions hit home, and the story isn't dirt-poor.
While the CGI gets ripped on from time to time, I thought it was solid enough for a Marvel movie. The fight scenes were relatively well-choreographed, as well. The ritual combat scenes were exciting and visually appealing. The fights in Korea were also fun to see, and while I'm not a fan of car chase scenes as a whole, I did enjoy this one. It was reminiscent of a James Bond movie.
In fact, that's another appeal, at least to me. The secret technology base and the fun action scenes were a great callback to James Bond-type movies. I do think the movie would have been complemented by giving T'Challa a similar vice as Bond's, although Marvel probably wouldn't veer down that line for the seemingly morally absolute King of Wakanda.
The story, well, it's a mixed bag. Everything seemed crammed together with major emotional keys being rushed through or somewhat ignored. The concept is fine though. A long lost relative comes to challenge the new king, wins, and shows his colors, becoming something amoral. The king comes back and takes down the usurper, realizing something about themselves/their kingdom in the process. It's tired, but not so tired it damages the movie.
This is where the issues begin to rise, though. The movie is really a movie and a half or two movies crammed into one. Wakanda has a ton of wonderful mythology, but almost none of it is explained. The movie never really explains how the Wakandans used vibranium was used to make themselves wealthy. It touches on it in some exposition, but there was much more that was just glossed over.
In addition, W'Kabi became radicalized by Killmonger much too quickly for such a pivotal relationship to flip. Some of the emotional aspects of the movie fell flat because they weren't given enough screen time.
Despite its flaws, Black Panther is a fun movie that adds to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It should have been two movies, but I doubt this is the last we'll see of Wakanda.
Sisters tries really hard. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler certainly have chemistry and some of the best moments of the movie come from that chemistry. Still, the film falls flat on its face more than once.
The movie is mostly cringe humor. It's filled with one character or another doing something embarrassing. While this can be done really well if used correctly, Sisters seems to hit everything with the cringe hammer until it cries.
This isn't really expected, and neither is the abundant use of bodily and sexual humor. There are some great moments in the movie relating to these, as well.
The real issue with the movie is it feels like the writers went at it with a list of "funny" situations and tried to fit them all into a loose theme. Throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks inevitably means there will be a bunch of junk laying on the floor.
Biblical code prophecies aren't anything new. They aren't even particularly interesting. Finding tangentially connected phrases using arbitrary letter skips that somewhat relate to past events in a massive text isn't particularly groundbreaking.
Thankfully, the documentary doesn't really focus on apocalyptic Bible codes or even past ones. The narrator mentions it a few times around planned commercial breaks early in the documentary to keep people around, but the most interesting part of the film came near the end.
The documentary is primarily focused on locating the Ark of the Covenant and the rumored original Torah contained within. This is Tim Smith's, the man who found the codes, goal, as an original copy of the Torah could reveal codes that have been lost to time due to errors from scribes.
While the general theme of the movie, unsurprisingly, is about using the God Code found in the Bible to locate the Ark, other interesting tidbits of information are added as well in regards to the location of Solomon's temple. This information compounds with the code Smith has found regarding the Ark's location.
Of course, the film doesn't offer any opposing information, but overall, it's a fairly interesting History Channel-style documentary, even if the first 30 minutes could be cut out.
A girl who's bad at romance. A troubled guy who's still living in a past relationship. A meddlesome child with a host of "helpers" who tries to make the two fall in love.
The ingredients aren't much of a variation from one of the Hallmark Channel's typical archetypes of movies. The execution really isn't either.
We don't see much in the way of twists and turns. The girl who can't date well dates a bunch of overly exaggerated guys and has a pushy sister who is always trying to bring her back to earth.
After locking eyes with the handsome artist at a show, the girl, Sam, reaches out to said artist on his website. Here comes a twist that isn't much of a twist if you've ever seen a Hallmark movie with these ingredients. It turns out the artist's son actually runs his website and initiates a relationship with girls who his dad.
This is only half as creepy as it sounds. The son is doing this so his dad, Heath, can meet someone who is compatible with him. Of course, this leads to Sam getting on a train and coming to the family home.
Heath has no idea who Sam is, Sam is embarrassed, and the movie progresses as expected. The writers do throw in another "twist". Heath has a manager who appears to really like him, although he's fairly oblivious to her intentions.
After the two spend some time together out in the woods, the two fall in love (within the scope of a few days). Heath bumbles his way into hurting Sam, of course, and she leaves in a fit of tears. He literally shows up on a white horse to whisk her away to London.
If you're looking for a movie that makes you think, pick something else. If you're looking for a fun way to kill an hour and a half and you're in the mood for a cheesy romance flick, you could do worse than this.
A religious conspiracy theory, at best. The cinematography is nonexistent. It's really worse than that. The narrator, Trey Smith, who is also the writer, director, and everything else, is about six inches from the camera, covering the entire right-hand side of the screen. The other half is a semi-random set of images and short videos. The narrator's voice is extremely nasally.
Ultimately, it's probably more 'information' than old-school History Channel documentaries, but the quality of what is shown is way lower than those. The theories he talks about are somewhat interesting, but I do feel that the video could be half as long and get the same point across.
