Welcome dear reader. Here’s a round up of all the new films (well new to me!) I’ve been watching this month. My reviews are SPOILER FREE.
Relic (2020) 8/10
I really enjoyed this film. It is a beautifully made horror drama about a family trying to come to terms with illness and intergenerational trauma. I actually didn’t find it particularly scary, although I certainly enjoyed the nods to J-Horror and it has arguably the eeriest use of Christmas lights I’ve ever seen. It successfully builds up the creepy, phantasmic imagery and delivers a poignant and tender climax that had me in floods of tears. I definitely feel a much more in-depth analysis post brewing somewhere in the corridors of my mind. It’s a cracking feature debut from Natalie Erika James and I hear her next film will be a folk horror set in Japan about motherhood – I AM SOLD.
Assassination Nation (2018) 6/10
Oh boy do I have mixed feelings about this movie. Written and directed by Sam Levinson (son of Barry), it is a frenetic comedy-horror-thriller about the murderous chaos in an American town (significantly called Salem) caused by the leaking of the resident’s private electronic data. It definitely has a lot of exploitation-style fun, some relatively badass female characters and seems to have a fairly decent representation of a transwoman. If you view the movie purely as an allegory for the current state of political dialogue in the US (note: plenty of this can be applied to the UK), you can forgive some of the paper-thin character development and at times ridiculous, on-the-nose dialogue. However, it does suffer from a pretty strong bout of insufferable edgelordism – the not so subtle Tarantino plays (cult Japanese cinema references!) and an irritating use of trigger warnings, including one for THE MALE GAZE (“I’m using a very creepy male gaze, but it’s totally cool cause I acknowledged that’s what I’m doing, so it’s ironic don’t you geddit?!?”). This is definitely one of those movies in the burgeoning ‘I wish this was written and/or directed by a woman’ category. So if you’re looking for a bit of dumb excitement with a (largely surface level) provocative message the film’s fine, but if you want something a bit deeper and more thoughtful it may leave you unsatisfied.
Bloody Reunion (스승의 은혜) (2006) 7/10
Im Dae-Woong’s debut film centres around an ailing retired teacher and a reunion with her former students that rapidly descends into gory mayhem. I actually enjoyed quite a few things about this movie, there’s some good performances and it offers a pretty fierce critique of the South Korean school system and society at large. For the most part it effectively mixes some classic Korean horror narrative tropes with a dollop of American torture porn. However, the climax is somewhat incoherent (but not in a deliberate, thought-provoking way, it’s more like someone just did a bad editing job) which ultimately makes it a tad unsatisfying. But it’s certainly worth a watch, especially if you enjoy South Korean horror cinema.
The Vanishing (Spoorloos) (1988) 9/10
Obviously pretty late to the party on this one, but holy shitballs what a film! George Sluizer’s tale of a man searching for his missing partner is technically a psychological thriller, but it feels very much like a horror film. It’s uncomfortably chilling from the start right up to the claustrophobic finish. The movie is a terrifying mediation on the absence of closure, the ultimate unknowability of our significant others and perhaps the terror of leading a bourgeois life. It certainly wears its Hitchcockian heart on its sleeve, but what’s really remarkable is that the film feels like an existential take on, and deconstruction of, the serial killer movie, but way before the genre had even established its tropes and cliches. As a cinephile this film is a real pleasure to watch and its lasting influence on the horror genre is plain to see. I hear that the American remake is a complete bag of arse, so I’ve skipped that for now.
Banshee Chapter (2013) 7/10
Blair Erickson’s debut feature is a decent, lo-fi film that nicely blends Lovecraftian horror, found footage and real-life CIA experimentation. The movie follows a journalist seeking to uncover the truth about her friend’s disappearance after he ingests a highly suspect psychedelic drug. It has some good scares and creepy moments with an early Marble Hornets aesthetic vibe. It also features a great performance from Ted Levine as a mischievous, Hunter S. Thompson-esque writer. Although the film isn’t entirely successful, I think it has some interesting commentary on our desire to understand people’s inexplicable behaviour and reframe it through the lens of conspiracy theory. This one’s definitely good for a fun Saturday night watch in the dark.
Valentine (2001) 6.5/10
I completely missed this movie during the 90s/early 2000s teen horror cycle, and I think that was because I’d heard it was absolute shite. However, the joy of cinema is that movies age and unknown pleasures can spring forth at a later date. Valentine is one such case. Don’t get me wrong it’s not an under-appreciated masterpiece, but it is a highly enjoyable campy slasher from Urban Legend director Jamie Blanks. You can definitely play 90s/00s slasher bingo – it has a hilariously earnest nu-metal soundtrack, features at least one person who has been in Buffy the Vampire Slayer etc. But its commentary on (hetero)sexual politics and male entitlement is actually kind of amazing, even if it might be completely accidental. Oddly enough the film’s unrelenting level of male threat partly reminded me of Repulsion, a depressing thought given it was made four decades earlier. Also worth mentioning is Denise Richards as Paige – a character that is a complete legend, we clearly didn’t deserve her in 2001.
So what did you think of these films? Do you agree with my assessment? Or did I get it completely wrong? Let me know in the comments below!
Let's Scare Lauren to Death 