Reviews

Our second Jodie Comer film in two nights! Here she is much better and with an outstanding Mid Western US twang.

Writer/director Jeff Nichols always captures the beating heart of the middle America that infuses previous works-Mud, Take Shelter and Loving and with grizzled Michael Shannon.

The feel of America in the 60s is perfectly captured here with the look, sounds really capturing what lives these characters live. One can almost taste the bike fumes!

It's an effective set up to base a story on but there really isn't much of a story more a series of moments. A guy wants to introduce other members into the club, the president disagrees, they fight, the president wins, the president agrees. One biker gets in a bar fight, he is maimed, the president exacts revenge (including unnecessary burning down the bar-unacceptable) .. A younger gang wants to join the club, they can't. Norman Reedus's character comes from California to get revenge on another biker that left his club but decides he isn't going to get revenge;instead he joins the club and it's never mentioned again. This could have been a decent springboard to set up the story but no it's more vignettes. On and on.

There is no forward thrust, no momentum.

Tom Hardy has a presence but he looks and sounds like he did in Legend, Peaky Blinders, Lawless etc. In fact, he could have been in all these in one go. He's a fine actor but maybe try something else-typecasting in the villainous hard man roles is tiresome.

Norman Reedus looks like he just come of The Walking Dead and he likes motorcycles-a bit of smug casting.

If Nichols wanted to show the lives of these individuals and couldn't add a story to the narrative then surely this would have worked better as a three part Netflix documentary.

I did enjoy it and would watch it again but it could have been much better.

The original ' The Strangers'(2008) was a nifty little exercise in tension building with creepy camerawork and decent lead performances from Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman;it gained a cult following and rightly so.

The inevitable sequel was okay and gave the masked antagonists their comeuppance. That's it end of story.

No, the vultures are circling the carcass and now we have the new film; which I don't know what they want to call it except its a passable , forgettable, cliched 'cabin in the woods' set up with all the tropes lined up.

Lead actor Ryan Brown is wooden as the trees that circle the cabin, not so much emoting fear but looking constipated-the scene where he kills the wrong person and goes from horror to calm is a classic scene of bad acting.

The great Brian Butcher lookalike Richard Brake is given nothing to do (? Used more in the inevitable sequels) except use his wonderful face to creepy effect.

For beer and snacks on a Friday night after a tough week its passable but really didn't need to be remade at all.

File under ' Recommended Films For Elsie and Molly'.

Adria Arjona and Glenn Powell have sizzling chemistry in this enjoyable comedy (based on a true(ish?) story) that has a neat plot setup allowing these two fine actors to display their good looks ,banter and unusual good humour.

This wouldn't look out of place on a 1940s Howard Hawks screwball comedy with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.

The scene where Gary informs Maddy they are being listened in on and must act to fool the eavesdropping is a comic masterclass.

Richard Linklater writes and directs with pace and flair and only the silly,unconvincing ending really ruined it for me. It felt too neat and tidy and would have surely aroused the New Orleans police department into how and why Jaspar died.

This needed further development.

What starts out as a down on his luck chef with a gambling debt who takes on the identity of his recently decreased pal turns into a darkly funny, pacy horror/ thriller that has us both chuckling at the insanity of the story and it's various sick side turns.

We both kept imagining that this twisted dinner party would be something extravagantly silly that both Matthew and Liz would attend in London or indeed Phil with his cooking at home for obnoxious people with money. ' Tongue sorbet', anyone!

Like the superb 'Fresh' from a couple of years ago, this is a showcase of body horror, cannibalism and keeping an audience guessing that is lean (no pun intended) and doesn't need a lot of money to make one satisfied throughout the experience. Unlike Furiosa!

Some audiences may balk that the initial idea of why America has turned itself into a country of civil war isn't explained, I tend to think that it is fairly obvious and therein lies part of the problem-its too on the nose with where the US is headed/could head. The Jan 6th insurrection obvs plays a huge part in it and it's easy to see the various citizens armed and dressed up as the participants of that day.

If, like I did, one just let the story unfold this is a tense film that reminded me of other twisted recent US road movies mainly Bones and All, in it's hellish landscape, the scene where they encounter the two beaten up looters and a unhinged Jessie Plemons are clear examples of this.

The plot may be too episodic and the last ten minutes overdone within the White House ( surely the President would have a ' bunker room' to contain himself and his staff in the event of a coup?) that it turns into a overdone actioner with bullets bullets bullets.

It's a brave film that shows the integrity of photojournalists (even though I still don't trust any journalists) and a worthy double bill with Michel Franco's equally scary dystopian New Order.

Half way through this turns into a "'Boys From Brazil' crazy like setup which piqued my interest because up till then this was a very standard horror mixing up the usual tropes of sexually repressed young women, strict/stern older nuns who have a habit of inflicting pain on those younger than them, dim corridors with something lurking within, pompous music and predictable sounds.

It all seems so passe that once the big reveal comes around I went straight back into boredom; mentally checking off all the aforementioned tropes.

Once again if either Elsie or Molly say that this is " the most scariest horror ever" I wouldn't dispute it. Its really didn't stir for this jaded old horror hound!

This comedy horror begins well(helped that I knew nothing about it beforehand) as a 'And Then There Were None' mashed up with 'Sleuth' and'The Usual Suspects' all set in a large house.

It then develops into a standard 'vampire bumping off various forms of irritating characters with the obligatory female separated from her son drug abuse history that just so happens to survive at the end' horror.

The last third is stretched out to kick ass, is she dead then is he dead clichés.

Giancarlo Esposito turns up briefly to collect the paycheck and wear fangs.

It all just seems so done before.

If Elsie and Molly wanted a comedy horror that isn't taxing or too cerebral I'll recommend.