Hello dear reader, I hope your February was a lovely romantic time of metaphorical and/or literal boners. I watched some movies of vastly varying quality and realised I should probably try to watch more new releases in the future, haha. I also wrote a review of Saint Maud for the awesome Ghouls Magazine which was pretty cool.
All of my reviews are spoiler free.
Saint Maud (2019) 9.5/10
Rose Glass’s debut feature Saint Maud is an alarmingly brilliant, unnerving and enigmatic psychological horror touching upon themes of psychosexual confusion, mental illness and religious belief. Maud, a disturbed and recently converted Catholic nurse, is assigned to care for Amanda, a celebrated former dancer who is dying of cancer. Maud begins to believe that it is her duty to save Amanda’s soul which leads her into a whirling vortex of dangerous obsession and ascetic fanaticism. As the titular Maud, Morfydd Clark delivers a particularly haunting and heart-breaking portrait of a traumatised woman, isolated and unable to find genuine connection with others. Jennifer Ehle is also wonderful as the chain-smoking, caustic Amanda. As a cancer patient, I’m generally not a fan of using cancer sufferers as the backdrop for another character’s emotional crisis, however I found Amanda to be a thoughtfully written and devoid of irritating sentimental clichés. Whilst it is a slow burn of a horror film, the economic use of special effects is powerful and I found myself genuinely terrified by the paroxysms of body horror. Additionally, the chilling, nerve-jangling score and outstanding sound design reminded me of Mica Levi’s best work. Like all good horror films about religion Saint Maud examines the inescapability of the corporeal and skilfully presents the dark ambiguity of Maud’s spiritual experience. Last year turned out to be an absolutely cracking year for British horror with titles such as His House and Host, but for me Saint Maud really is the icing on the blood-splattered cake and it richly deserves its place as one of the best horror films released in 2020.
Check out my full Saint Maud review at Ghouls Magazine here.
Wishmaster (1997) 5.5/10
SFX master Robert Kurtzman’s fantasy horror is daft, campy nonsense, but the wacky special effects and tongue-in-cheek cameos make it an enjoyable, non-taxing watch. An evil, wish-granting djinn escapes from his 12th century stone prison to steal artifact appraiser Alex’s soul and to just generally act like a total dick towards anyone he meets. Andrew Divoff is suitably malevolent and devilishly quippy as the Djinn. I also loved Jenny O’Hara as the folklore expert Prof Derleth who seems like a cool bitch and someone you would want to have at a party. For the seasoned horror fan there’s a reference carnival and the film features appearances from horror legends Robert Englund, Tony Todd (criminally underused) and Kane Hodder. To the modern eye there is something hilariously quaint about the amount of on-screen smoking and nobody bats an eyelid at the incessant workplace harassment. However, the ending doesn’t quite make sense, there’s some ropey 90s CGI and it’s not particularly scary although one scare did get me. Frustratingly, there are some promising aspects of Alex’s backstory that don’t really go anywhere and the bizarrely tacked on heterosexual ending (as if it were a deep Code-era movie) makes me think there’s a possible queer reading of Alex. At a stretch you could argue it’s a parable about late-stage capitalism and the prevalence of greed, but ultimately it’s a Sunday afternoon watch when you don’t feel the need for anything too challenging. It is a load of silly nonsense, but if you like silly nonsense then you’ll have a good time.
Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh, Ich seh) (2014) 8/10
Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s feature debut is an enigmatic and excruciating psychological horror that acts as a powerful examination about the consequences of idealising motherhood. Twins Elias and Lukas live in an idyllic lakeside home in the Austrian countryside, but when their mother returns home from a cosmetic surgery procedure and exhibits some unusual behaviour they begin to suspect that she may be an imposter. Susanne Wuest delivers an incredible performance as the Mother (she is not given a name) and the film wittily plays with the ‘Mother-as-Monster’ trope, sometimes she literally looks like a Mummy or it appears that she’s wearing a serial killer’s mask. The Mother also feels like a welcome twist on the New Mother folk tale (Coraline’s the Other Mother being one of the most recent adaptations). As the twins, Elias and Lukas Schwarz deliver some pretty impressive and ambiguous child acting. Franz and Fiala cleverly make use of our shifting sympathies and expertly ratchet up the tension with some seriously nail-biting and shocking sequences including the extremely upsetting final act. The film is also beautifully shot with incredible colour-saturated landscapes, and the family’s isolated and sanitised modernist home expresses a real sense of uncanny unease. I noticed that there were a lot comparisons to Michel Haneke’s Funny Games (1997), but I think the film is more thematically similar to The Babadook with its emphasis on a woman’s loss of professional and personal self, albeit offering a far darker resolution to this predicament. It may be a tough watch for some, but the film poses some difficult but necessary questions about our expectations of women’s behaviour during motherhood and perhaps even the consequences of not adequately dealing with and understanding mental illness.
Pumpkinhead (1988) 6/10
Stan Winston’s directorial debut is a sometimes creepy, cult folk horror about grief and the limits of revenge that ultimately fails to live up to its unique premise. Rural store owner and widowed father Ed Harley loses his only son Billy in a terrible biking accident and vows to take revenge on the city teens who caused his son’s death. However, after asking a local witch to summon the demon Pumpkinhead to exact his revenge, he discovers there is a high, bloody price for vengeance. As Ed Harley, Lance Henriksen is pretty good and has some surprising zaddy energy especially at the beginning of the movie. Florence Schauffer as the old witch, hilariously named Haggis, is suitably sinister and decrepit. However, there is also some incredibly hokey acting from the teens and Winston does make some ropey directorial choices. Sometimes it feels like there are essentially two movies existing in the same space – a really interesting supernatural folk horror with a Southern Gothic twist and a mediocre teen slasher that don’t quite gel together in the end. But hats off to Winston’s legendary practical effects skills which are utilised to create an inventive monster that is part alien, part angel of death and weirdly reminded me of the Pokemon Mewtoo. Overall, there’s some promising ideas about the tension between the city and the country, the all-consuming power of grief and the limits to vigilante justice, but ultimately it doesn’t explore these themes in a satisfying way. But if you’re just looking for a fun creature feature with a difference it’s worth checking out.
Eve’s Bayou (1997) 8/10
Kasi Lemmons’ feature debut is a gorgeously filmed and moving horror melodrama about memory, family strife and Southern mysticism. The film centres around the Batistes, a middle-class Creole-American family in 60s Louisiana, whose daughter Eve unintentionally witnesses her father’s infidelity at a family gathering. This incident sparks off a series of events which culminate in the death of her father (this is not a spoiler Eve literally says this in the opening monologue). Lemmons creates an engrossing Southern Gothic family drama which feels infused by the writings of Tennessee Williams and Toni Morrison. The film powerfully examines sexual repression, inherited trauma and the enigmatic nature of shifting memories. Practically all the performances are brilliant, but an eleven-year-old Jurnee Smollett delivers a particularly mature and effective turn as the head-strong Eve. Debbi Morgan as Mozelle, Eve’s supernaturally gifted aunt, is also awesome and is such a fascinating character that I wish she’d had her own film. Diahann Carroll as the rival psychic Elzora is a riotous and sometimes terrifying presence and Samuel L. Jackson is also surprisingly understated as Louis, Eve’s alcoholic father. Cinematographer Amy Vincent captures the beautifully lush scenery to create the mysterious bayou setting and there’s a really fantastic jazzy score by the Oscar-nominated composer and musician Terence Blanchard. I also appreciate this one of the few mainstream films from this era that refreshingly doesn’t have any white people in it. This is not your ‘typical’ horror movie, but if you want a thought-provoking and rewarding film that will haunt you long after the credits have rolled come climb aboard.
So what did you think of these movies? Do you agree with me or did I get it all wrong? Let me know in the comments below.
Let's Scare Lauren to Death 