Category: Horror

Talk to Me

Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou

Oof, it’s been a minute hasn’t it? I have tons of excuses but let’s just cut that and get to why I’m here, I saw a movie and wanted to write about it. If you’re familiar with my tastes, then you already know I’m a big fan of the horror movies from A24, I loved Hereditary, Saint Maude, and The Lighthouse in particular, so whenever they release something I pay attention. Talk to Me already had a level of expectation going in, I’d heard that a lot of beloved genre filmmakers praised it, and that it had been doing well financially, but A24 stuff doesn’t always click with me, so I wanted to see it before I recommended it to anyone. Oh man, am I glad I saw this. Talk to Me is a breath of fresh air, a new take on an outdated horror subgenre that shows just what you can do with a simple premise and quality filmmaking.

M3GAN
Directed by Gerard Johnstone

At the end of last year, I saw a series of trailers for M3GAN, a movie about a lifelike doll going on a killing spree. As someone who’s seen most of the Child’s Play franchise (about everyone’s favorite killer doll Chucky), this was all familiar territory, only genderswapped. Considering that this was also a January release, a time of year notorious for the release of projects that studios just want to get rid of, I was not feeling particularly hopeful about the quality of M3GAN. I went into M3GAN thankful that at least it wasn’t going to be three hours long like every other movie getting released now, but left shocked, as M3GAN is kind of good.

The Menu

Directed by Mark Mylod

It’s good to be back! After a barrage of real life I can finally get back to movie watching, and what better way to dive back in than by starting with a movie I really wanted to see? Although not the most hyped or marketed film of 2022, The Menu’s packed cast and intriguing trailer grabbed me, so as soon as I had some time I checked this out. To give a slight spoiler for the rest of the review, the wait was definitely worth it!

Hellraiser (2022)
Directed by David Bruckner

As a franchise, Hellraiser has been through a lot. With evil video games, trips to space, multiple police procedurals, and a low-budget remake so bad that Doug Bradley refused to appear in it; the Hellraiser brand has kind of taken a beating. Revitalizing franchises has been all the rage for these past few years, with Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Predator all getting new entries recently, so I wasn’t shocked when I heard that Hellraiser was going to get a new entry, the 11th in its franchise. What did surprise me was who was announced at the helm, David Bruckner, who directed the excellent film The Night House. Bruckner made an impression on me with The Night House’s gothic atmosphere and supernatural horror elements, a lot of which reminded me thematically of Hellraiser, and he seemed to be a logical choice for this reboot. After all the pain it’s gone through, Hellraiser deserves another good movie, did we finally get one?

Barbarian
Directed & Written by Zach Cregger

Pearl
Directed, Written, and Edited by Ti West

If you’re not into independent horror then both of these movies may have flown under your radar, but for horror nerds like myself, this was a super fun double feature that is only really possible around this time of year. Both of these are kind of on the same wavelength and I don’t want to go into too much detail on either one, so I’ll combine these into one post.

We’re All Going To The World’s Fair
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun

Things have been a little slow around here lately, I’ve missed out on some big movies that came out, ones that I even enjoyed, and I am planning to talk about Nope and The Black Phone, but I’ve been extremely busy with life and stuff. Seeing as Spooktober is almost upon us, I’m going to get back into the swing of things by talking about a new movie that was recently added to HBOMax, We’re All Going To The World’s Fair. All the drama going on with HBOMax aside, there are some quality original horror movies up there, like The Empty Man, which you should see before it gets removed in a few days, so I was hoping this would be another good addition to their library and was looking forward to this coming out. Has it lived up to that hope? Let’s get into it!

Mad God (2022)
Written & Directed by Phil Tippett

Some of you may not have heard about Mad God before, which is understandable. Even though its creator, Phil Tippett, has worked on big-name franchises like Star Wars and RoboCop, Mad God was a Stop Motion animated passion project that Tippett worked on for 30 years, a true labor of love that left a lot of weird horror fans, like me, waiting as patiently as we could for it to finally be released. It’s here. And it’s everything I hoped for and more!

Men (2022)
Directed & Written by Alex Garland

Alex Garland may not be the biggest name in film, but he’s worked for the past decade on a series of movies that have generally received critical approval, if not always box office success. I personally am a fan of Garland’s, from his work on Dredd, to the great visuals and concepts in Annihilation, and of course Ex Machina, Garland’s science fiction masterpiece that introduced me to the wonders of Oscar Isaac being allowed to act. So when a trailer for a new Alex Garland film came out, even an incredibly vague trailer, of course, I was quite hyped. After a series of scheduling conflicts stopped me from seeing it sooner, I’ve finally gone out and experienced the latest Garland weirdness, so I can now judge whether it stands up to his previous films. And the answer is a resounding ‘kinda?’.

Morbius (2022)
Director: Daniel Espinosa

There’s been a lot of negativity around Morbius, so I wanted to start this review by saying something positive for a change. Morbius really stimulated my intellectual curiosity, I left that theater and my mind buzzed with questions. Sure, they were questions like, “Why would Sony unleash Morbius on an unsuspecting world?”, “At what point did everyone on set give up?”, and, “Why didn’t anything happen in that movie?”, but those are questions nonetheless. I’m still trying to figure out why Sony took Morbius, a character that isn’t exactly iconic or particularly deep, and gave him a feature film as a debut. I could see introducing him as a side character in Venom 2 and then, if he becomes a fan favorite, getting a spin-off, but not an immediate solo film. That’s enough of that though because now I need to get into the nitty-gritty and explain why Morbius is the cinematic equivalent of waiting two years to cross a street, taking one step into a crosswalk, and getting immediately hit by a bus.