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.