Deedle, deedle, Blackcoat’s Daughter. What was in the holy water? Gone to bed on an unclean head. The angels, they forgot her.
It’s February, and the students at the Catholic boarding school Bramford Academy are about to get picked up by their parents for a week-long break. Kat, a freshman at the school, wakes up from a nightmare where she’s witnessed her parents dying in a car crash. And later her parents do not arrive to pick her up, and they cannot be reached by phone. At the same time, a senior student named Rose suspects that she might be pregnant, and has lied to her parents about when to pick her up so she can buy some time to get things settled. Kat and Rose ends up being the only two left at the school, aside from two nuns. Kat starts acting weirder and weirder, and receives strange phone calls.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (aka February, and also aka The Daughter of Evil) is a supernatural horror film from 2015 written and directed by Osgood Perkins. It was his directorial feature debut, and stars Kiernan Shipka as Kat, Emma Roberts as Joan and Lucy Boynton as Rose. While Perkins have made several slow-burn horror films during the years, including the Netflix film I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) and Gretel & Hansel (2020), he’s gotten most known for his recent satanic horror film Longlegs with Nicolas Cage himself playing a crazy satanic serial killer. And you could’ve easily believed that The Blackcoat’s Daughter belonged to the same universe, as they’re both having satanic devil-worship elements and the same dark, helpless nihilistic atmosphere. Just like the titular character in Longlegs, we here also meet a character who not only ends up becoming a victim to evil forces, but totally embraces it. The conventional portrayal of possessed people needing and wanting to be saved is turned completely upside down.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter is weighed with symbolism, with a narrative that explores the themes of mental illness, loneliness and longing, and how it can open up a crack that invites bad things in and lets them fester. The movie is divided in three parts, skipping a bit back and forth in time until we are left with the inevitably bleak and despairing ending. It’s a very dark and brooding film, never offering any kind of fast pace and the horror elements are often mostly subtle. It may require a bit of patience to fully get the most out of it, and is definitely a movie better suited for those that prefer slow atmospheric horror over fast-paced action and jumpscares. If you liked Osgood’s latest movie Longlegs, chances are you will also enjoy The Blackcoat’s Daughter.
Writer and director: Oz Perkins Country & year: USA/Canada, 2015 Also known as: The Daughter of Evil, February Actors: Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, James Remar, Lauren Holly, Greg Ellwand, Elana Krausz, Heather Tod Mitchell, Peter James Haworth, Emma Holzer, Peter J. Gray IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3286052/
Here comes the sequel that people actually have wanted to see for too long. Meanwhile, we had some videogames, comics, the awesome animated series, and I envy those who were lucky enough to experience the Broadway musicals that became huge successes. So, it’s fair to say that Beetlejuice’s spot and impact on pop-culture seemed to be bigger than we’d even realized. The time and years also came and went while the sequel was announced several times during the mid 2000s until it became the boy who cried wolf. It became too good to be true, but to be honest: I would rather wait for twenty years than see Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, whatever that was supposed to be. But now, only 37 years later, the juice is finally loose.
But still, my biggest concern here was how in hell they were going to recreate the same magic, vibe and the distinct cartoonish tone from the original without missing the mark and the perfect balance completely. Because it could easily have become a catastrophic, tone-deaf cringefest that would shuffle right in the same footsteps as Son of the Mask, to give the worst example. The year is also 2024, where legacy sequels have been pretty bland and forgettable, with some few exceptions. And then we have our favorite goth uncle, Tim Burton, who hasn’t quite been himself in a long, long time. Life happens to all of us. But that was until he directed the first episodes of Wednesday, where we saw some of his mojo coming back. So there was hope. Then came the teasers and the trailers and we were sold.
So, what’s the Deetz family been up to during all these years? Lydia Deetz is still herself, now as a professional medium, not a big surprise there, and has her own Paranormal TV show which she hosts with a live audience and all. And no, she’s not married to Zak Bagans. She’s been dating her producer, Rory (Justin Theroux), this film’s version of the eccentric Otho (until he isn’t). Lydia also has a daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), and they don’t have the best relationship, since Astrid thinks her mother a complete whackjob and a fraud. It’s more complex than that, though. And, of course, she doesn’t believe in the supernatural at all. Her biological dad also died years ago and she can’t stand Rory.
Delia (Catherine O’Hara) is in Manhattan, New York, where she has an art exhibition. She’s still a redhead and a more borderline self-centered bitch than ever. But where’s Charles, Lydia’s dad, you ask? He is all by himself in the ghost house up on the hill, chilling the peaceful life, we have to assume. Wait, the phone is ringing. It’s Delia. Charles is dead, she says. Died during a plane crash. Oh… Time for an awkward little reunion in the small town of Winter River to arrange his funeral. And the old model still stands in the attic, Beetlejuice’s little loophole entry to the surface world.
Yes, there’s a lot of family drama going on, because there’s a lot to catch up to after almost four decades. But there’s no reason to worry – The showman himself, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), is just waiting for the right moment to join the reunion, and he has way more screentime than he had in the original, which was only 17 minutes. In the meantime, he’s kept himself busy with his Bio-Exorcist career, having a big open office space in the Neitherworld where he has a staff of Smallheads to do all the paper work.
Speaking of reunions: The Maitlands couple we saw in the original, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, is long gone and not to be seen. We get the point and reason why: ghosts don’t age. They get a brief mention by Lydia, who gives her own logical explanation of their absence just to tie the films together fittingly. Davis looks fabulous for her age, by the way, while Baldwin has morphed into the bitter rageaholic that he is. Teddybear Otho, on the other hand, isn’t even mentioned. And that broke my heart a little. Especially considering that Glenn Shadix fell in his home and died tragically of blunt head trauma in 2010. RIP.
Anyway – Meanwhile, downstairs in the world of the dead, we get to see a pretty wild entry of the films secondary villain. And that’s none other than Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, Dolores (Monica Bellucci), a cute mix of Corpse Bride and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. And you’ll also get a clear picture of why she meant nothing to him, nothing at all, as referred in the first film. It’s also hard to not feel some sympathy for Mr. Juice when some historical pieces are being put together. Because he absolutely means something to her, and not in some positive way. We also have a vital love-interest sideplot with Astrid and the neighbor boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti) which takes some pretty interesting turns.
Lydia is still haunted by the memories of Beetlejuice, who once tried to force her to marry him. She’s kept all of this a secret from her extended family, but when she starts to see quick flashes of him lurking everywhere she goes, the can of worms starts to open. The plot starts to thicken when both Astrid and Rory find out about this Beetleguy, and it’s just a quick matter of time when one of them can’t resist the temptation to spit out his name three times.
And when the news came that Willem Dafoe had been added to the cast, I was pretty sure that he was going to play Jacques LaLean from the animated series. Instead, we meet Wolf Jackson, a former action star, who’s now living out his fantasies in the afterlife as a police officer in the Neitherword. And for some reason, he’s on the tail on both Beetlejuice and Dolores.
I was a little surprised how practical and old-school the film actually was, both when it came to the effects and especially the sets. Because the cynical side of me just assumed they would CGI/green screen the whole Winter River town and the ghost house itself, because that’s what Hollywood normally does these days. Instead, we also have a sweet nostalgia trip to the quiet little town of East Corinth, hidden somewhere in the forest countryside of Vermont. And the Neitherworld is a whole place by itself where we get to see more of with its crooked, narrow, colorful hallways and chess floors, a place you’d like to explore for yourself. Maybe some day.
Tim Burton’s zany imagination and inspiration is back in full force here. So is his energy, which makes Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feel way more of a passion project than just another sequel. I bet everyone had a blast making this, not to mention the make-up crew who had all the different types of dead people we see in the world downstairs to work with. Every aspect to the smallest details are done with such care, love and respect to the original, without overstuffing us with shallow member berries. We have some of those, of course, but they’re really tasty.
We also have some references from the old times, such as Beetlejuice’s backstory told in the stylish black & white style of Mario Bava, and get ready for the roller-coaster ride that is the Soul Train. It’s crazy, wild, chaotic, unpredictable and lots of fun. A big morbid cinematic Halloween candy bag with some even more unexpected surprises. The older fans who grew up with the original, and the animated series in the early 90s, will definitely feel the warm and fuzzy nostalgia bug.
Michael Keaton still nails every step and tone of the title character. He slips right into Beetlejuice and the iconic outfit as if it was 1988. The slapstick, the small tics and details with his bizarre mannerism, are still intact with the perfect balance without being too much. And after pushing 70, and blessed with some excellent genes, Keaton plays the role as if he was 41 with a body full of demons. All the co-actors do a solid job and I liked the more nuances in the family dynamic between Lydia and her stepmom Delia, which was very one-dimensional in the first film. The one I wish had more screentime was Dolores.
And to finally address the real boogeyman in the room, that is Jeffrey Jones, who played Lydia’s dad in the first film. Yeah, whatever happened to him. He’s a registered sex offender, if you didn’t already know, and hasn’t been doing anything acting related since 2014. And since this isn’t a Disney production, he is persona non grata. Still, Charles is in the movie, in some very bizarre, morbid and hilarious way. And he’s actually way more present than I expected. Also, what they did to his character without writing him off completely was pure genius, comedy gold, and I laughed every time when that poor fucker popped up on the screen.
The music here must also be mentioned, which is just fantastic. It’s classic Danny Elfman, and he really pours his ghoulish heart into every single note and detail. He gives a more thick and sinister tone to the classic opening theme, like he did with Batman Returns (1992). The opening credit sequence is another aspect, which, in all honesty, I didn’t expect until that old Geffen logo came and did its rotation on screen. I knew already then that we were in for a ride. So, by all means; please take notes and bring back the classic themesongs and opening credits again, because they rule.
The film earned back its budget already during the opening weekend, so there’s no reason for the Warner brothers to not say his name one last time with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. In the meantime, you can now bingewatch all four seasons of the animated series on Tubi.
Director: Tim Burton Writers: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Seth Grahame-Smith Country & year: USA, 2024 Actors: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti, Nick Kellington, Santiago Cabrera, Burn Gorman, Danny DeVito IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2049403/
She’s a killer, she’s a thriller. And a ballcrusher. But most of all – she’s Maxine FUCKING Minx!
So, after waiting for two months after the official theatrical release, we finally got to see MaXXXine on the big screen here in Norway. Two months to avoid any spoilers and such. So let’s fucking gooooo!
MaXXXine takes place in 1985, six years after the incidents at the farm we saw in X which have been reported in the news as the greatest film title never released: “The Texas Porn Star Massacre“. Since then, Maxine still snorts lines, lives in a small apartment in Los Angeles, and still works in the porn biz. Like a character from GTA, she’s been upgraded to have an agent (Giancarlo Esposito, Gus from Breaking Bad) that is actually not a shady sleazeball, and earn enough decent money to not stay in Cecil Hotel. Writer and director Ti West throws no punches to set the tone and takes us far into the memory lane of a country in full moral panic. Rock and heavy metal have consumed the youth, parents freak out as their kids listen to Twisted Sister, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, etc. Dee Snider is at full war with Tipper Gore who wants to censor his music. Yes, there was actually a time when music was the most evil thing on planet Earth, in God-fearing America, at least. The first wave of the Satanic panic has hit full force as the serial killer, and the self-proclaimed Satanist, Richard Ramirez (aka The Night Stalker), is body counting around the city. Yet a far more innocent USA than it is today.
Anyway – life isn’t as bad as someone in Maxine’s situation should be, even though she’s clearly very damaged and struggles with PTSD. But life goes on. Especially if you want to get a chance to star in a Hollywood film. And now, as Maxine is in her mid 30s and wants to be in “real movies“ and climb the career ladder up to the more mainstream surface, she sees the opportunity to audition for a horror movie called Puritan II. And since Maxine is a phenomenal actress as Mia Goth, she impresses the director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) and secures the role on the spot. Yay! The producers are not so keen on casting her, though, with her filthy porn background and all. Well, we all have to start somewhere.
But the road to her Hollywood break isn’t getting that easy when she gets a VHS mysteriously delivered at her doorstep. On the tape we see clips of her from “The Farmer’s Daughters”, which was filmed at the farm that she does her best to forget. A sleazy weasel of a dude (Kevin Bacon) dressed like Jack Nicholson from Chinatown tracks her down to blackmail and paint her as the killer in the so far unsolved murder mystery in the Texas Porn massacre case, if she doesn’t do as told. In the meantime, friends and colleagues within her porn circle starts to get killed in brutal ways by an obscure person in a giallo outfit.
X was the throwback of the 1970s, the standalone prequel and character study of Pearl was filled with 1930s Technicolor, and this one the neon-soaked 1980s. Three different eras with three distinct styles. And of all the 80s throwback films that have been spewed out during the last twenty years or so, I dare to say that Ti West has come closest to duplicating the style flawlessly. Whereas similar attempts come across more like parodies, MaXXXine feels more natural, organic and like a pure 80s film from start to finish. The way it’s shot, edited, the music and how the characters behave, the overall vibe and atmosphere, is perfection. Tarantino should be jealous. Maxine is also a character easy to vibe with and root for, many thanks to Mia Goth, who deserves all the praise she can get.
One would expect Mia Goth to outshine the whole cast, but surprisingly, there isn’t one character here that I found shallow. We have a frustrated good cop, bad cop duo that really do their best to get the link between Maxine and the killer. And Maxine is caught in the middle of the urban crossfire while she just wants to get on with her life, until she has no choice but to get her claws out. Kevin Bacon also seemed to have a really fun time here as the side-kick villain. And just like Maxine, if we’re going to ignore the porn, Kevin Bacon also got his start in a horror movie, that is Friday the 13th (1980). Lily Collins grinning from ear to ear while having her face smeared with fake blood was super cute. And it warms my ghoulish heart to see the Psycho house, which is a character by itself, still standing in the Universal Studios Lot and being taken care of.
The soundtrack is also filled with 80s music, all from ZZ Top to synth pop like Animotion. We also hear tunes from New Order, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ratt, Judas Priest, and more. I must point out a lost opportunity to use the song Ballcrusher by W.A.S.P. here, though. And you know what scene I’m talking about. The film ends (—UH-OH SPOILER—) appropriately enough with Bette Davis Eyes, which the film also pays a tribute to.
Yeah, I’m really creaming all over MaXXXine, maybe because the film was much better than expected after the more lukewarm reception. We had an overall blast with this one in the movie theater and wasn’t bored for one second. The common complaints I’ve noticed is the third act/the reveal/the last ten minutes. The ending is predictable, for sure, and the reveal didn’t come as a shocker. No spoilers here, but I really loved how the film painted Christianity as an equally bad thing, for lack of a better word, as Satanism. What a big, fat middle-finger to flash straight in the face to moral activists.
Writer and director: Ti West Country & year: USA, 1985 2024 Actors: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Moses Sumney, Halsey, Chloe Farnworth, Charley Rowan McCain, Simon Prast, Lily Collins IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22048412/
– AAhh..AAAhhh, FUCK ma PUSSY! You make me so WEEEH…!!
The year is 1979 where the young 27-year-old Maxine (Mia Goth) snorts a big, fat line to get ready for another day in the porn biz. She wants to be famous and no one can blame her for being a runaway daughter of a Kenneth Copeland-like televangelist. We’re in hot n’ sticky Texas where she and a small film crew are driving to the middle of Leatherface land to shoot their next porn flick titled “The Farmer’s Daughters”. No hitchhiker to spot here, just to mention, their trip goes as smoothly as a stiff, slippery cock sliding into a freshly-shaved vagina. They drive by a nasty and gory accident scene, though, where a poor cow has been sliced in two after a clash with a truck that makes Maxine throw up in the car. Welcome to Texas, even though it’s all filmed in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Our crew is the producer and Maxine’s boyfriend Wayne (Martin Henderson), RJ (Owen Campbell) is the director, his girlfriend, Lorraine, (Jenna Ortega) is the one holding the dick… sorry, the mick, and she’s the youngest on the crew. She’s shy and doesn’t say much, but you can bet she has a horny little beast hidden in her shell, just waiting to get unleashed. We also have Maxine’s two co-actors, the BBC Jackson (Kid Cudi) and the blonde chick Bobby-Lynn (Brittany Snow).
Their destination is an old farm owned by the old, miserable and one-foot-in-the-grave couple, Howard and Pearl, who are way past their glory hole days. The natural circle that we call life is harsh and brutal and is not for everybody to embrace gracefully. Howard is a goblin-and bedbug-bitten-looking gentleman who’s agreed to rent out a guesthouse to the crew as long they mind their own business and stay away from the main house. Pearl, who looks like the witch from Pumpkinhead, is quick to get her old, half-dead eyes lazer-focused on Maxine. Because she reminds her of her younger self, and gets jealous of her youth. And Howard is too afraid to have a heart attack if he tries to sexually please her. I think they would both have a heart attack, to be honest. But it’s worth a try, because what is there to lose at this point. Pearl is also played by Mia Goth, hidden by a thick layer of convincing old-age makeup.
Anyway, Pearl gets more drawn to her in some creepy, obsessive way and starts mirroring her like a true, deranged narcissist. Some may sympathize with Pearl, but I don’t. I know the kind too well. And….well, I think I’ve said enough about the plot.
The film takes its time to build up the more and more eerie mood and atmosphere, and the uncertainty of where the plot is actually going. After the quick flashback in the opening scene (which I forgot to mention) where the local cops find a horrific murder scene in the farm basement, we have a foreshadowing tone from the start that slowly builds up. So, this is not your typical fast-paced teen-slasher, in other words. It’s after the first hour mark that the horror elements really start to kick in, and it goes full slasher-mode from there on.
Our small group of actors does a solid job with their roles and have great chemistry. They’re also likable and well-written, which is a big plus since we spend a lot of time with them. It was also somewhat peculiar to see Jenna Ortega in a far more pure and innocent role (until she isn’t) after watching the first season of Wednesday. Mia Goth is, of course, the big star here as the rebellious young Maxine who just wants to be famous and prove her dad a thing or two. She’s at her best, if not intense, when playing the old, fragile and unhinged Pearl, where it’s hard to at least not feel some pity for her.
There isn’t too much to say about X without tipping the toes too far into spoiler territory – but overall, X is a rough and decent 1970s-sexploitation throwback flick with some gnarly, brutal kills and raunchy soft-core nudeness – and not least with a unique angle on the slasher genre. Ti West knows his stuff when it comes to the visual aesthetics from that era, which he also nailed in The House of the Devil (2009). The film should have gone full-out hardcore with the sex scenes, though, so it could’ve gone full circle with an actual X-rating. That would have been fun.
X followed up with the sequels XX and XXX and can be found after some quick searches on PornHub. Har-har, just kidding. Watch out for Pearl and the recent MaXXXine.
Writer and director: Ti West Country & year: USA/New Zealand, 2022 Actors: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Kid Cudi, Martin Henderson, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, James Gaylyn, Simon Prast, Geoff Dolan, Matthew J. Saville, Bryony Skillington IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13560574/
Julia is married to Francis, who has a mother from Romania but grew up in USA. One day, he gets a promotion at work and is relocated to Bucharest, so it’s time to pack the bags and move to Romania. They move into an apartment building where the windows face the opposite building. Julia spends a lot of time on her own as Francis works long hours, and she gets more and more unnerved by seeing a man in the building across the street, who just stands there and appears to be watching her all the time. Her fears aren’t exactly subsided when she and Francis one day comes over a commotion on the street with an ambulance, police and a crowd of people. Apparently they just found the body of another victim of “The Spider“, a serial killer who decapitates young women. Like this wasn’t more than enough to fray her nerves, she’s also struggling with finding her place in a city where she doesn’t know anyone, and doesn’t speak the language. She befriends one of the few english-speaking neighbors, Irina, which appears to ease her mind a little. One night, when she stands looking out the window, the “watcher“ is at his usual place. She wonders if he actually is looking at her, hoping she might be wrong, and decides to test it by gently waving at him. At first, the man just stands there like he hasn’t seen anything, but then he waves back. And things spiral into something that’s completely out of Julia’s control.
Watcher is a psychological thriller from 2022, written and directed by Chloe Okuno as her feature directorial debut. It was filmed in Bucharest, Romania. The movie is based on an original screenplay by Zack Ford, and stars Maika Monroe as Julia, Karl Glusman as Francis, and Burn Gorman as the watcher. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and was later theatrically released in the US, mostly to positive reviews. It still only made a total of $3.2 million against a budget of $5 million.
The movie follows a woman who moves to a new country with her husband, feeling alienated and alone in unfamiliar surroundings. The language barrier only adds to the feeling of being alone, and with her husband being so busy at work she hardly knows how to pass the time and make herself fit in within a world not quite her own. The pacing is slow (yep, another slow-burner), but it gives you enough time to get a proper grip on the isolation and paranoia that builds within the protagonist. You also can’t help but wondering if Julia is just a bit too paranoid for her own good: what is a real threat, and what is caused by her misconceptions and fear? When she’s standing in the window watching the watcher…then who is actually watching who? Yes, the movie does play along with the idea of making you question everything, but we also experience everything Julia does, positioning us in the same isolation she feels and with the same experiences. Thus, we do not necessarily question that something is wrong here, we just don’t know to what extent, and this makes it all the more thrilling.
Watcher is a suspenseful movie filled with paranoia and anxiety, and definitely worth a watch if you want a slow-burning mystery thriller.
Fun fact: when Julia wanders around in Bucharest and decides to visit the Cinema, she watches Charade (1963). It’s the same movie that was played in It Follows (2014) when Jay (played by Maika Monroe) and Greg went to the movies together.
Director: Chloe Okuno Writers: Zack Ford, Chloe Okuno Country & year: USA/Romania, 2022 Actors: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Tudor Petrut, Gabriela Butuc, Madalina Anea, Cristina Deleanu, Bogdan Farcas, Daniel Nuta, Ioana Abur, Flaviu Crisan, Stefan Iancu IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12004038/
Maiden Woods is a small, isolated town surrounded by forest. We start off with a team of loggers that goes missing, and when the foreman tries to find out what happened to them, he encounters the body of one of them. Or, that is…a part of it. Upon finding a severed arm, he is then attacked and killed by some kind of unseen monster. Later, Paul Shields who is the sheriff in town goes together with Donny Saunders, his new deputy from New York, to speak to a farmer who insists that one of his horses has been stolen. Paul believes that the horse has simply escaped and decides to not think too much of it, and goes on to pick up his son Adam who will stay at his place for the night. He and his wife, Susan, no longer lives together after their other son, Tim, died in an accident. During the night, Adam claims he’s seen a creature in the back yard, and Paul also hears some strange noises but doesn’t see anything. The next morning, there are large hoof-like footprints in the snow around his house. Shouldn’t be too strange since they live nearby a forest and all that, but what’s quite peculiar is that the footprints appear to come from an animal that walks on two legs. On top of that, the footprints are left all around town. Paul, of course, believes it to be a prank. What else could it be, right? But then he hears about more animals that have gone missing, and the hunters informs him that all the deer and other animals in the forest seems to have left, indicating that some kind of large predator may have come to the area.
Dark Was the Night (released as Monster Hunter in the UK) is a creature feature horror film from 2014 directed by Jack Heller and written by Tyler Hisel. It is loosely based on the story about “The Devil’s Footprints“, a phenomenon that occurred in 1855 in England where people in a small town woke up to find biped hoof prints all over the place in the freshly fallen snow. Also, the title of the film addresses the 1927 blues-folk song Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground by Blind Willie Johnson.
What sets the movie apart from many typical creature feature films, is the focus on mystery-fueled horror suspense during the majority of the playtime. It’s kind of a slow-burn, the monster is lurking in the dark and out of sight and the atmosphere is much more sinister and dark than the simple premise would make you expect. Hiding the monster is actually a good thing here, as it works wonders for creating the creepy tone. Kevin Durand, which was most recently seen in a role in the vampire horror movie Abigail (2024), does a good job on portraying a worn out and drained sheriff who’s had more than enough on his plate as of late, only to be dealing with something quite out of his comprehension.
And night surely is dark in this movie! And the day is…blue. Just as blue as the sheriff who looks like he’s on the verge of a breakdown at any moment. To be honest, I’m not really sure what the deal with the color palette is, but I have a feeling it’s used to somehow enhance the emotional state of the characters, or to provide a feeling of it being chilly since it’s set during the winter time.
Unfortunately, the movie does fall a bit apart during the final moments, mostly due to the rather lackluster reveal of the monster (could have been a cool game boss, but as something scary in a horror movie, not so much), and a somewhat cheesy ending. Overall, though, Dark Was the Night is a decent mystery-fueled creature feature film.
Director: Jack Heller Writer: Tyler Hisel Also known as: Monster Hunter (UK) Country & year: USA, 2014 Actors: Kevin Durand, Lukas Haas, Bianca Kajlich, Nick Damici, Heath Freeman, Ethan Khusidman, Sabina Gadecki, Steve Agee, Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum, Billy Paterson, Terry Fiore IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2251281/
Rain Carradine is an orphan who works with her adoptive brother Andy at the mining colony Jackson’s star. Andy is a reprogrammed synthetic human, whose only mission is to do what’s best for Rain. As can be expected, the mining colony is a shithole that treats its workers like slaves, and when Rain’s contract is unexpectedly extended, she’s had enough and wants out of the place in whatever way possible. Tyler, her ex-boyfriend and some of their fellow friends have found a derelict spacecraft nearby, and they decide to go on a salvage mission in order to retrieve the cryonic stasis chambers before others beat them to it. They all want to leave and travel to a planet called Yvaga, and together they fly a mining hauler to what they find is an abandoned research station called Romulus and Remus. Of course it proves to not be so abandoned after all, which is revealed when two of them are trying to retrieve some stasis chambers in a room filled with facehuggers. This inevitably leads to one of them getting an unwanted facial, which again leads to, well…you know what. All hell breaks lose and they must avoid both facehuggers and Xenomorphs while also having a time limit as the space station is getting closer to crashing with Jackson’s planetary rings.
Alien: Romulus is a sci-fi horror action film from 2024, co-written and directed by Fede Alvarez. It is the seventh installment in the Alien franchise, but it serves as a standalone “interquel” which is set in a timeline between the events of the first Alien film from 1979, and Aliens from 1986. It doesn’t take too many glances before you realize how it is definitely a love letter to the original movie from 1979, and Fede Alvarez even sought out the special effects crew from the 1986 movie to have them work on the creatures. Thus, the movie includes physical sets, practical creatures and miniatures which were used wherever possible. The animatronic effects were created in collaboration with Legacy Effects and Studio Gillis, where Legacy Effects is the successor to Stan Winston Studios, who worked on the 1986 film Aliens, and Studio Gillis is the successor to Amalgamated Dynamics, who worked on Alien 3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997). Aside from that, Fede Alvarez was also inspired by the video game Alien: Isolation from 2014, a game he played around the same time as his movie Don’t Breathe (2016) was released, and said: “I was playing, and realizing how terrifying Alien could be if you take it back to that tone“. So, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of love for the original movie and the franchise here. Is it nostalgic? Yeah, of course it fuckin’ is, and no, that’s not a bad thing.
The characters are much younger than in earlier Alien movies, none of them are fully fleshed out but it works well enough and makes them all moderately interesting. The interaction between Rain and her “brother”, Andy the artificial human, gives the movie a bit more heart without trying too desperately to pull on your heartstrings. The gore (although there isn’t any abundance of it) is decent, and the visuals and atmosphere are good. The use of practical effects though is very much the icing on the cake in this movie, and oh boy does some of those effects show the obvious rape analogies with phallic and yonic designs all over the place. A scene where a Xenomorph emerges from what I could best describe as an enormous slime-vagina on the wall, showing its phallic head in full display, very much leaves little to your imagination and if you’re one of those who never saw these obvious phallic designs in earlier Alien movies, then, well…here you have it. Now you cannot unsee it. Then again, if you’ve ever seen some of H. R. Giger’s other works (the guy who was responsible for the visual design of the creatures in the 1979 Alien film) you shouldn’t be too surprised over its obvious sexual undertones.
Overall, I thought Alien: Romulus was a blast when viewing it in the theater, and while it was nowhere near as bloody and gory as Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead (2013), it was fun and felt as one of the Alien movies as of late that gave much of the same feeling of claustrophobia and unsettling atmosphere as the first.
Oh, and if you want more Alien, check out the impressive animated fanmade horror short Alien: Monday which was also released this year after having been in production for 6 years!
Director: Fede Alvarez Writers: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues Country & year: USA, UK, 2024 Actors: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu, Rosie Ede, Soma Simon, Bence Okeke, Viktor Orizu, Robert Bobroczkyi, Trevor Newlin IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18412256/
We start off with a security guard running through a subway station, and upon entering a room and seeing his reflection in a mirror, he starts freaking out and begs for his life. This doesn’t end well, as his reflection takes a shard and cuts its own throat, and the same thing happens to him. Then we move over to the life of Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) who is a suspended police detective on mandatory leave from the New York police department after a shooting that went terribly wrong. Now, he works as a security guard and will start working at the Mayflower, which is a luxury department store that was destroyed by a fire five years earlier. And of course: the building has a vast array of mirrors still standing from when the store was open. How convenient. On his first night of patrol, he notices eerie things like how the mirrors are covered with handprints which seems to be from the other side of the glass. Couldn’t be anything suspicious about that, right? He also finds the wallet of the guard we saw in the opening scene, who he was told had killed himself. Inside the wallet is a note saying “Esseker”. He starts seeing more and more visions, and Ben becomes convinced that the mirrors play a part in what is happening here. And when his sister is also killed by her own reflection, Ben is fueled by rage and fear for his family’s safety, and becomes determined to figure out the mystery behind the mirrors and the mysterious note in the previous guard’s wallet.
Mirrors is a supernatural horror film from 2008, directed by Alexandre Aja (High Tension, Piranha 3D, Crawl). The film is based on a South Korean horror film from 2003 called Into the Mirror, and it was originally supposed to be a straightforward remake until Aja was brought on board to read the script, which he then wanted to change as he was quite dissatisfied with the particulars of the original film’s story. Thus, Mirrors only includes the basic idea involving mirrors. It was shot in Romania, most of it in Nicolae Ceausescu’s unfinished Academy of sciences which is located in Bucharest.
Abandoned places and spooky mirrors is of course a fine setup for a horror movie, merged with a protagonist who is troubled, divorced and having an alcohol problem (funny how those things always go hand in hand) we are left with what will inevitably not bring much new to the table, but at least it will offer some good creepy atmosphere and a mystery that keeps you intrigued enough to keep watching. Another plus is that there’s some really effective scenes, especially that of the sister’s death. If you watch this movie with some of the directors other gorier and grittier movies in mind, however, this one’s very different. There’s none of the really gritty vibe which can be found in High Tension for example, or any abundance of gore like in the incredibly gory Piranha 3D. This one’s a different meal, and Aja’s movies does indeed come in varied forms, you can rarely expect the same thing over and over from him. Which is not a bad thing.
Overall, Mirrors is a nice supernatural horror film where Jack Bauer, uhm, I mean Kiefer Sutherland plays the role as the alcoholic ex-cop pretty well. The best part of the movie is when everything is still a mystery, as the creepy vibe does diminish a bit once the supernatural goings-on are revealed, but this isn’t exactly uncommon in mystery-fueled horror movies. I have also seen the original movie this one was based on, and this is one of the (rare) cases where I actually prefer the re-imagined version. This is probably largely due to this movie being a re-imagination rather than a remake.
A sequel, called Mirrors 2, was released in 2010.
Director: Alexandre Aja Writers: Alexandre Aja, Grégory Levasseur Country & year: USA, 2008 Actors: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Cameron Boyce, Arika Gluck, Amy Smart, Mary Beth Peil, John Shrapnel, Jason Flemyng, Tim Ahern, Julian Glover IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790686/
– HAIL, HAIL, Virgin HIGH! Drop your pants it’s FUCK, or DIE!
And that’s a classy, colorful quote from the more obscure Scream clone teen slasher that is Cherry Falls. That Shakespearean line didn’t just come from nowhere, by the way, because listen to this: In the small, idyllic town of Cherry Falls, teens start to get killed, one by one. And one particular thing the victims have in common is that they’re (- drumrooooll -) virgins.
One of the town’s young virgins is Jody (Brittany Murphy). She’s also the teenage daughter of the sheriff Brent (Michael Biehn). And when he starts to see the clear pattern of the killers motive, we have a pretty awkward father/daughter moment where he straight out asks her while she’s lying in her bed if she’s…you know…has lost her innocence with her current boyfriend, and the conversation continues like this:
You don’t have to worry about it. We broke up the other day, she says.
Yeah…., dad replies with a sigh.
Then she asks with a straight face Are you disappointed? Are you still disappointed that I’m still a virgin?
Dad answers No, no, not at all (Yes, you are). I’m very, very proud of you.
Good acting saved this scene from the ultimate cringe.
But, still though, since the script seems to be written by an alien boomer, we have some eye-rolling moments sprinkled all over the place with some questionable thought of logic. This is also what makes Cherry Falls so amusing, odd and weird. And the sweet cherry on the top is a borderline zany Britanny Murphy (RIP) with her teen angst boiling up to eleven and looks like seconds from bursting out in a panic attack. Please have someone give the girl a box of Belgian chocolate and a big teddy bear. It gets weirder when the news about this mysterious virgin-killer reaches all the kids at the Cherry Falls High School, and they have the plan of the century you’d never guess: To organize a huge event where all the virgin teens in the town gather to have a big, fat sex orgy, a fuck fest, with the T-shirt worthy slogan “Hail, Hail, Virgin high, drop your pants its fuck, or die!“ Alcohol included. Good luck and have fun. The title for this film should have been Fuck or Die. The German title is the closest with Sex oder stirb (Sex or Die). It’s far from the bloodiest slasher film out there, but it’s certainly one of the horniest. So I’ll give it that. Meanwhile, our protagonist Jody, sets her own little investigation to track down the killer.
Fun fact: Ken Selden actually wrote the script as an X-rated movie, so the orgy scene at the end could go full-out in softcore style. I bet Showgirls would look like My Little Pony in comparison. Too bad it never “came” to its full climax, that would have ended the 90s era of teen slashers with an epic orgasmic bang.
And if you find the tone of the film somewhat confusing and completely off, you’re not wrong, as director Geoffrey Wright and scriptwriter Ken Selden were clearly not on the same page. You see, Selden wrote the film from a more silly and satirical angle on the slasher genre, whereas Wright went for a far more serious approach. He also cut out many of the comedic elements to add more horror. Unfortunately, the kills are nothing much, where the only memorable death scene is the girl who gets tied and nailed to the ceiling after being stabbed to death. That’s at least the only one I can remember.
Despite its troubled production, Cherry Falls has its qualities. It’s polished, well-directed and goes its own unique way. So it’s not just a blatant copy of the more well-known teen slashers of that era. In the midst of the weird, muddled silliness, the film manages to keep on track with a serious mass-murder mystery to be solved. We also have an intriguing killer, spiced with some elements of true-crime to keep you invested. The killer also gives some Malignant vibes where I wouldn’t be surprised if James Wan took some inspiration from.
As mentioned, Cherry Falls didn’t have a smooth production, to put it mildly. The creative differences between the writer and the director are one thing, but the film is most notoriously known for being the most expensive movie made for TV with a budget of 14 million $ (approx the same budget as Scream.) The film was originally set up for a wide theatrical release in the US, but did never get an approval through the censorship – which is kinda odd since this is far from the most graphic mainstream slasher out there. But just the thought of teens having sex scares the bureaucrats at the rating boards more than anything else. The film also crashed with protests from the residents of Richmond where part of the movie was shot. So the film was dumped on TV (way before streaming services were a thing), and I would guess seen by few. It was only screened at theaters in the UK and other places in Europe with great success, even though the box office numbers are unknown. It has gained a cult-following throughout the years and was released on Blu-ray by Scream Factory in 2016, where they did their best to get the license to the fully uncut version through USA Films, but to no avail. Maybe there were some real orgy scenes to dig up there. Who knows.
Director: Geoffrey Wright Writers: Ken Selden Country & year: USA, 1999 Actors: Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, Michael Biehn, Jesse Bradford, Candy Clark, Amanda Anka, Joe Inscoe, Gabriel Mann, Natalie Ramsey, Douglas Spain, Bre Blair, Kristen Miller IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175526/
It’s summer and the place is a sleepy hillbilly fishing town, Noyo, in northern California, where the local women are starting to get raped by humanoid fish monsters. Some context: it all starts with a fishing trip going horribly wrong when they catch one of the humanoids in their fishnets. It goes from bad to worse when the fisherman’s young son falls overboard and gets pulled under the water and killed. The boat gets blown to pieces when a flare gun accidentally fires into the gasoline-soaked deck.
Fishmonsters must be on everyone’s mind who witnessed it, right? Of course not. The locals suspect Johnny to have caused the explosion, because he’s an Indian and those who died on the boat didn’t like those kinds of people. Racist alarm. Well, there’s not much of a mystery here as the viewer is fully aware of what really happened. A dog disappears and gets found by the shore, totally mangled. Poor doggie. But that’s not the only one, as all the dogs in town have been brutally killed overnight and discarded like trash by the docks. And the only dog left alive is Johnny’s, the Indian guy. Not the greatest start when the town is preparing for a festival, sponsored by the legendary Olympia Brewing Company.
It gets more serious when more townspeople are getting killed. The schlock elements really kicks in with a teenage couple having a swim at the beach and getting attacked by some humanoids. Here we see them in full costume, which actually doesn’t look too bad. But that’s until we see them in motion, because actors in big, heavy rubber costume suits are not a good combination. A scientist, Dr. Susan Drake, enters the scene to get to the bottom of the case and her research can inform us that the town is being plagued by mutated salmons.
Killing dogs is one thing, but the most alarming thing must be that the humanoids rape the female victims, something that was not originally included in the rough cut. First-time film director Barbara thought a rape scene with a rubber-looking fishmonster would look dumb. She has a point, though. And her being a feminist, she refused to film such a scene. Roger Corman (RIP) was a producer on this thing, which explains a lot as his fingerprints are spotted all over the place. But why he hired a female feminist to direct under his New World Picture company is a ball-scratcher. Well, he never hired a woman to direct again. So, he fired Barbara (even though she’d already completed the principal shooting) and hired Jimmy T. Murakami (Battle Beyond the Stars, When the Wind Blows) to shoot the scene. Corman got some backlash for this, so for the hell of it, he recycled it one year later in Galaxy of Terror with a giant, horny maggot.
Another fun trivia: actress Ann Turkel, who plays the scientist, once said why she chose to do this film: “It was an intelligent suspenseful science-fiction story with a basis in fact and no sex“. It also had the working title Beneath The Darkness, which she loved. Oof, talk about being totally duped. Roger Corman, you little rascal. Because, not only did Corman add more scenes of graphic nudity, and spiced up the sleazy nature and monster rapes to amp up the schlock elements, he also changed the title to Humanoids from the Deep, which Turkel of course hated.
The script is very unfocused which blends some out of place slasher elements with melodrama between the Indian and the other locals that escalates into cheesy mass-fistfights while we’re waiting for some fishmonster action. It’s still a silly, entertaining and campy B movie that walks the tiny line between the more wooden Z movie territory. Surely not a masterpiece. The climax at the carnival is a highlight where we have some really bad acting to laugh at, and the film is as cheesy and fun as the title suggests. The awesome cover art for the Blu-ray does not lie, in other words. The gore is minimal, though, so don’t get too excited. But the little we have is pretty solid. Some of the makeup crew later worked on films like Cocoon, RoboCop, The Blob, Night of the Creeps, BladeII and more, so that should say something. It’s also worth mentioning that the film has the first musical score by James Horner, who was to become one of the most prolific composers in Tinseltown.
Director: Barbara Peeters Writers: Frank Arnold, Martin B. Cohen, William Martin Country & year: USA, 1980 Actors: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Pena, Denise Galik, Lynn Theel, Meegan King, Breck Costin, Hoke Howell, Don Maxwell, David Strassman IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080904/
Deedle, deedle, Blackcoat’s Daughter. What was in the holy water? Gone to bed on an unclean head. The angels, they forgot her.
