VOD: Woman Of The Hour (dir: Anna Kendrick, 2024)

"Everyone's risky."
 

Based on real events, this unsettling Netflix drama sees Anna Kenrick directing and starring as a struggling Hollywood actress in the 1970s, who goes on a TV dating show and is matched with a photographer who also happens to be a serial killer.  Kendrick impresses in the lead role as always, and her direction is clear and offers some nice touches.  The thriller aspect of the film plays well, even if the set-up is rather unsubtle.  It has a straightforward three-act structure: backstory, the TV show, and a third act which is possibly the most interesting as it becomes largely a two-hander and a shift into an unexpected resolution.  The film offers little beyond its basic central concept, but it is well delivered and the sombre and bittersweet coda has a real shocking impact.

VOD: Hundreds Of Beavers (dir: Mike Cheslik, 2024)

"!"

In possibly THE cult hit of recent times, truly fuelled by festivals and word-of-mouth, applejack Jean (a cider-maker) sees his orchard and business destroyed by beavers, so he sets out into the snowy wilderness to get revenge, finds a love interest and becomes a fur trapper to impress her father.  Fusing lo-fi animation and greenscreen with live action, it is a relentless stream of very silly sight and sound gags, many of which are laugh-out-loud funny.  The silliness is compounded by having the beavers and other animals played by people wearing childishly exaggerated costumes, as the beavers and nature inflict a barrage of slapstick indignities on our hapless protagonist who can never catch a break.  The film bowls along without dialogue, accompanied by a whimsical silent-movie-styled score.  The first act is probably the funniest, and the second act drags a little, but all credit to Ryland Brickson Cole Tews's clowning skills and  to all involved for keeping up the madness and inventiveness right to the end.

Hundreds Of Beavers is every bit as utterly daft and entertaining as its reputation suggests. 
 

VOD: Margaux (dir: Steven C. Miller, 2024)

"Ow!  So much ow!  Babe!"

In this high-concept hi-tech thriller, spring break in a luxury smart house for a group of box-ticking college friends turns into a battle for survival when the home's next-generation AI turns against them.  The film looks pretty and glossy, the connected/online/learning-AI gimmick is used purposefully, and the Final Destination-lite kills are adequate enough, in spite of the occasional low-end CGI.  

The film makes a point about how society blindly accepts AI, but surprisingly it says little more than 1973's classic Demon Seed.  The plot generally bears little scrutiny, especially when it descends into third act silliness, but there is plenty going on with a couple of twists on the usual formula.
 

VOD: The Sadness (dir: Rob Jabbaz, 2021)

"This is your new life..."

Championed by Damien Leone (of Terrifier fame), this Taiwanese film sees a photogenic and likeable young couple (well played by Berant Zhu and Regina Lei) facing a mutating viral pandemic that turns people into depraved killers.  After a gentle opening, it does not take long for the full-on gory mayhem to start, like an extreme Tom Savini let loose on the 28 Days/Weeks Later series.  The film is deliberately unpleasant and over-the-top violent to watch, shot through with an unsettlingly sombre and bleak tone.  The set pieces are executed well, notably an early claustrophobic subway train carriage massacre.  This is a simple and efficient example of the sub-genre, making its point about mankind's primal urges in a clear and unsubtle manner.  The third act runs out of steam and the ending is downbeat, but overall The Sadness is one of the stronger entries in the virus/zombie arena. 

 

VOD: Late Night With The Devil (dirs: Colin and Cameron Cairnes, 204)

"I'm very excited for you to see it unfold before your very eyes!"

The BBC's infamous Ghostwatch had a poltergeist invading a TV studio during a live broadcast. Late Night With The Devil sees a failing late-night American chat show (Night Owls With Jack Delroy) and its tragic host in a desperate bid for ratings glory during Sweeps Week with a Halloween episode that conjures a demon.  After a nicely-crafted prologue that sets out the characters and the show's story well, the legendary episode is played out in full, complete with 1970s stylings, mise-en-scene and (pre-widescreen) TV format presentation all recreated faithfully and convincingly, although the black-and-white widescreen in-studio footage during the commercial breaks jars a little. It is all driven by a very watchable and well-judged performance by David Dastmalchian, aided capably by the studio guests, a psychic, a sceptic, a parapsychologist and her charge, a strange girl survivor of a satanic cult who is (allegedly) possessed by a demon (tying in with the 1970s obsession with The Exorcist).  It perhaps loses a little credibility towards the end with its Halloween III nod, over-the-top effects and the host's stylised unravelling grip on reality, but at its heart, the film has a simple and somewhat slight conceit that is delivered well overall.

 

VOD: Natty Knocks (dir: Dwight Little, 2023)

"What's a payphone?"

This seemingly by-the-numbers low-budget horror-thriller has a lot of the genre trapping in play - small town, Halloween Eve, burning a 1970s 'witch', present day son taking revenge on the children/grandchildren of the persecutors - mixed with fan-pleasing stunt casting of Bill Moseley, Danielle Harris, Robert Englund and director Dwight (H.) Little.  In spite of its genre familiarity, there is an effort made to make the story reasonably grounded, with divorcing parents and the effect on children, possible domestic abuse and 'teens' who actually talk like real teenagers.  It feels like there is a lot going on its lean running time, there is a subtle atmospheric music score throughout by Misha Segal, and whilst the movie offers nothing that is really scary, it is quite interesting to see how the story plays out and how all the elements (just about) come together.
 

VOD: It's What's Inside (dir: Greg Jardin, 2024)

"What the f**k?  Is this real?"

The psychological thriller gets a real modern twist, as a group of social-media-savvy college friends reunite at a lavish mansion for a wedding, and one of them - a tech pioneer - brings along a machine for a 'game' that enables them to swap bodies and to guess which person inhabits which body.  Not only does jealousy, deception and using other friends' bodies for sex make for a delicious dramatic mix, but a game-changing moment creates a serious life-changing dilemma for the gang.  Its rapid-fire dialogue and content demands attention in order to follow what is going on once the bodyswapping starts, and the initial shallowness of these vapidly-anonymous characters - exposed by the emptiness of their talk and lives - gives way to revealing their selfishness and self-centred needs.  The playful musical soundtrack is fun, and the energetic cast sells the nonsense for all they are worth.  The film might have benfitted from spending a bit more time with the characters before the bodyswapping starts, and the mid-section certainly is rather confusing, but it is nevertheless an interesting take on the body-swap conceit.  
 

FILM: Terrifier 3 (dir: Damien Leone, 2023)

"You're disgusting!"

Happy Christmas!  With a mid-October cinema release slot, Damien Leone's third entry in the Terrifier series makes an obligatory nod to Halloween (when the first two movies took place) but is mostly set in the days before Christmas whilst moving forward five years, enabling the film-maker to juxtapose Art the Clown's bizarre atrocities with warm, cosy and familiar Christmas holiday settings, which the film does to good effect.  The film wears its genre inspirations well, from 80s slasher franchises and Italian nightmare horrors to 2000s torture porn, and the film looks good on the big screen/widescreen, perhaps more interesting cinematically than the second film if not as tight narratively (and a shoehorned in mystical backstory that makes the Thorn storyline from Halloween 6 look plausible).  The sound design and physical/make-up effects teams obviously had a ball, with sound effects foregrounded unpleasantly and gore effects that push the film to its limits, particularly the 'shower scene' from the trailer and the very lively finale showdown.  Particular credit should be given to David Howard Thornton as Art The Clown, who gives another excellent performance of precise mime that makes the character work better than a lot of horror villains, with most of the other characters doing a decent melodramatic job of chewing the furniture.  The Terrifier films are (definitely) not elevated horror but heightened horror, and as provocative indie slasher films, they deliver effectively enough.   

 

VOD: Kill (dir: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, 2024)

"He's killing everyone!"

Indian commercial cinema has come a long way in recent years, and this hit action thriller will delight fans of the John Wick series.  Here, an army commando (an impressive feature debut by Lakshya) attempts to rescue his beloved (Tanya Mariktala) from an arranged marriage whilst travelling by overnight train to New Delhi.  After this brief and simple set-up, our hero has to contend with a ruthless gang of bandits, a runaway train and a very unpleasant lead villain (Raghav Juyal).  Lakshya commands the screen with smooth moviestar charisma and easy physical fighting skills, proving to be the film's main asset.  The film almost seems to come to a conclusion forty-five minutes in - when the title screen finally appears! - but it simply paves the way for an extraordinary relentless revenge-fuelled and even harsher second half, with significant losses on both sides.  There are obvious echoes of recent hits like Bullet Train and Train To Busan (without zombies), but the smartly-filmed and well-edited claustrophobic confines of the carriages and corridors emphasise the danger and physicality of the situation.   Given its title, the film certainly does not hold back on the violence - there are lots of stabbings in this film - but Kill has real drive, energy and a pulpy feel that make it a must-see for action/thriller fans.

 

VOD: The Boy And The Heron (dir: Hayao Miyazaki, 2024)

"How could you do something so cruel?"

After his mother dies in a dramatic hospital fire opening to this long-gestating movie, young Mahito relocates to the countryside with his industrialist father and his pregnant new wife, where a mystical heron guides the boy on a fantastical spiritual journey.  This gentle and contemplative film wanders along at a steady pace, with simple but beautiful animation, the charming and elegiac music score by Joe Hisaishi that contributes much to the feel of the film, and the starry English dub works fine. Like the best of Miyazaki/Ghibli, it offers real imagination on the screen with hints of bigger issues not too far away (war, mortality, family, philosophy and the journey of life),  Quirky characters give flavour to the often tranquil moments, from the comedically malevolent heron to the elderly retainers on the country estate.  The film is full of story and visual ideas, perhaps a shade too long but a delight nonetheless.
 

VOD: The Strangers Chapter 1 (dir: Renny Harlin, 2024)

"Why are you doing this to us?"

The Strangers perhaps relied more on claustrophobia and cinematic technique rather than a strongly-developed story, and this largely redundant thriller prequel offers more of the same but less effectively, as a young couple on a trip stop to eat in a small backwoods town, develop car trouble and have to stay in a remote woodland AirBnB, only for the familiar masked home invader trio to show up. Cue weirdly-behaving townsfolk, lots of shots of backlit trees at night and Moonlight Sonata, and a lot of this film feels very familiar both generically and touchstones from the original movie.  It plods along and is adequately (if unexcitingly) executed, delivering everything you would expect and nothing more, with even the 'shock' mid-credits scene being utterly predictable.  With the threat of a 'To Be Continued' screen, as two further entries to make this a new trilogy were filmed alongside this one, the world is hardly likely to be holding its breath for their release.
 

VOD: Sting (dir: Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024)

"I'm much too drunk for this...!"

With France offering Infested and the Arachnophobia remake on the way, Australian production Sting offers the arrival of a space-spider in a meteor shower during an ice storm which is 'adopted' by a emotionally-isolated girl, but it grows rapidly and terrorises the pets and residents of a New York apartment building.   The slow first act sets up the central family's dynamic well if in a somewhat dull manner, but the interest level picks up a little as the evolving spider becomes more voracious and graduates from attacking animals to the humans.  Sting is made competently and acted adequately, although the whole film is perhaps too slow-moving for its own good and does nothing really new within its genre confines, right down to the very final shot/reveal.
 

VOD: Infested (a.k.a. Vermines) (dir: Sebastien Vanicek, 2024)

"What are you doing with a glass?  Just hit it!"

In this French spider movie, the residents of a brutalist gloomy suburban apartment block face off against a growing invasion of poisonous spiders as they are put into quarantine after young bug-collector Kaleb acquires a desert spider that escapes and multiplies.  Unusually for the genre, the film has a gritty urban setting and a mostly young adult cast, led by a committed performance from Theo Christine.  The very active use of camera works well in some of the action scenes, whilst in others it merely looks jumbled and not aided by streams of dull dialogue and a persistently dark mise-en-scene, especially in the final act that resorts to a lot of shouting in near-darkness.  There is a genuine attempt to move away from typical Hollywood style in order to show how supposedly ordinary people would react in this situation, with its limited effects work used sparingly but purposefully and effectively.  The film is moderately interesting if underlit and occasionally over-melodramatic take on the bug/invasion movie. 
 

VOD: Inside Out 2 (dir: Kelsey Mann, 2024)

"It's not about who Riley is.  It's about who she needs to be."

Any worries about this sequel to the beloved Disney/Pixar hit are dispelled quickly with a punchy and captivating opening scene that places the viewer quickly back into the familiar interior/exterior world of Riley, now a teenager (thirteen years old), with the onset of puberty ("People, it's the apocalypse!") setting up an interior renovation and introducing a new set of characters/emotions.  The new emotions are good value, as they consign the originals to The Vault, from which they have to escape and find Riley's Sense Of Self, driving the movie forward and giving room for new ideas.  Andrea Datzman provides a beautiful yet unobtrusive music score, and the whole film is necessarily more layered and detailed that the original, if perhaps lacking a little in the emotional highs by comparison but providing an entertaining and energic romp that follows the first film well.
 

VOD: In A Violent Nature (dir: Chris Nash, 2024)

"Did you really think this was gonna work?"
"What?"
"This whole thing that you're doing."
"I don't know. It's worth a try, isn't it?"

This notorious indie slasher/horror gets straight down to business with the removal of a cursed amulet from a derelict woodland fire lookout, which brings about the resurrection of masked killer Johnny, who goes after a group of campers.  The USP here is that the film largely follows this classic set-up through the point of view of the killer - imagine a camera literally following behind a Jason or a Michael Myers.   The film eschews a music soundtrack and uses lengthy and unusual shots for the genre (such as bird's-eye and extra long shots), which emphasise the isolation and immediacy of the lurking danger, together with the claustrophobic feel generated by Academy ratio.  Johnny's slow, steady trudging through the woods has a hypnotic menace (that some will find repetitively dull), observing the victims just out of their sight plays well, and a couple of the kills are realised spectacularly on-screen with unpleasant relish.  The film does tread a very fine line between being a 2024 homage to the masked-killer-in-the-woods story and an interesting experiment in re-presenting the classic slasher genre, with the latter just about winning.     .
 

VOD: Apartment 7A (dir: Natalie Erika James, 2024)

"The neighbours here are awfully friendly."

Attempting a prequel to a stone-cold classic is always a risky business, as this mid-1960s set story takes on a very minor character from the original Rosemary's Baby and delivers not always successfully.  A young female dancer/singer suffers a terrible injury during a stage performance, and after subsequent humiliating failed auditions is taken in by a quirky elderly couple who offer her an apartment in their building for free, but as her health and success rises, the residents have another (familiar) fate in store for her.  The film tries hard to recreate the 60s style and unnerving tone of the original (with the occasional American Horror Story vibe thrown in for today's audience) but frequently it falls short, and apart from the showbiz theatre thread, it offers little that is interestingly new.  Although not a remake as such, the film still clings to the original film for dear life, so today's audience seeing it fresh might get more from it.
 

VOD: Killer Heat (dir: Philippe Lacote, 2024)

"I am Greek."
"My dog is more Greek than you are."

Amazon/MGM's Greek-set thriller - from a Jo Nesbo story - finds Levi (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as a dissolute ex-pat PI hired to investigate the death of the son of a wealthy shipping/crime family in a suspicious free-climbing accident, hired by the weary sister-in-law Penelope (Shailene Woodley) to probe the death further and coming up against her husband, the surviving unpleasant twin brother Elias (Richard Madden).  The three usually strong lead actors surprisingly struggle to inject life into their characters in the bland by-the-numbers story and dialogue they are given, not helped by Gordon-Levitt's dour gumshoe-lite voiceover and the overall flat pacing.  Not even the (oddly unsunny) locations make up for this rather dull tale.  Even the finale reveal is heavily-signposted and comes as no surprise as the very limited scope of the story offers no other real place it could go.

 

VOD: Tarot (dirs: Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, 2024)

"Does anyone else feel like this is a bad idea?"

A group of college students rent an isolated mansion to celebrate a birthday, discover a creepy old hand-made set of tarot cards in the basement, break the rule of using some else's tarot deck and subsequently find their readings coming true in excruciatingly literal fashion with Final Destination-style deaths ensuing.  The actors attempt to inject some youthful energy into their rather dumb roles, and presumably these characters are environmentally-conscious, as there is little evidence that they can operate a light switch, making the whole film a murky slog to watch.  With such a mindnumbingly simple and insulting premise and story, Tarot generates very little more than a frequent rolling of the eyes.
 

VOD: The Last Breath (dir: Joachim Heden, 2024)

"Don't drink and dive, buddy - it's dangerous!"

As the underwater/shark movie revival continues, The Last Breath starts off with a brief Jaws-like World War II-set attack off the Virgin Islands and the sinking of a battleship, before shifting to modern-day explorers finding the sunken wreck; cue a group of blandly stereotypical old college friends diving to the boat and being picked off one-by-one by sharks and injuries...and that is about it.  The underwater work - and there is plenty of it - is solid enough if repetitive, dialogue is relentlessly dreary, but the film does manage to present some quite interesting survival dilemmas and choices for the characters.  However, with the first attack coming halfway through the movie and brief/swift jeopardy sequences, endless slowly swimming murky ship corridors is mostly not very gripping.  You will not win any prizes for working out who will survive to the end in this below-average genre entry.