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.

 

VOD: Monkey Man (dir: Dev Patel, 2024)

CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF THIS BLOG!

"In the great tapestry of life, just one small ember can burn down everything."

Dev Patel plays The Kid, the titular fighter-for-pay Monkey Man, who infiltrates the ranks of a criminal organisation on a revenge trip that goes badly wrong and finds himself the one who is hunted.  The film takes its time to build the world  and that of Monkey Man that fuses a gritty India-set contemporary tale with a well-laid backstory, modern-day politics, spirituality and mythology very deftly.  Whereas the first act delivers pure action, a more contemplative second act gives the film depth that pays off well in the bruising finale. Visceral action/fight sequences and a fast-cut car chase at times feel a little John Wick via John Woo (which is not a criticism!), but Dev Patel's directorial debut (as well as acting and co-writing here) is bold, rich, stylish and vibrant, his on-screen performance as committed and nuanced as ever, all delivering an extremely watchable slice of very smart action-thriller entertainment. 

 

VOD: The Union (dir: Julian Farino, 2024)

"Don't let the pretty face fool you. I'm from the street!"
"Yeah? Which street is that? Sesame Street?"

Mike (Mark Wahlberg) is an ordinary construction worker who gets pulled unconvincingly into the world of glossy cartoon espionage via an encounter with an old girlfriend Roxanne (Halle Berry) in this typically silly Netflix actioner.  Wahlberg finds a sense of everyman resignation that comes across well, whilst Berry is adequate but never feels like a good fit for the role.  The saving graces in the supporting performances are the mighty J.K.Simmons as the spy gang's leader and Lorraine Bracco as Mike's mother.  The London setting used for most of the film is used well, with a couple of picturesque European locations used to bookend it.  The Union is an efficient and functional lightweight actioner that may convince younger viewers but no-one else.