Strange Darling (2024)

This was a fucking delight from beginning to end. I hesitate to even say more, because it's the kind of film that benefits from keeping its audience completely in the dark, knowing nothing but the curious title. It unfolds in a non-linear, almost Tarantino-esque fashion. True to its name, it's a weird little indie that will keep you guessing. These are the kinds of experiences that I absolutely cherish in the movie theater because there is no precedent for it.

4 Snuffleupaguses (Snuffleupagi?) out of 5

The Entity (1982)

When Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) is assaulted in her home by a malevolent entity she seeks help from the medical community, most of whom try to write off her experiences as psychological delusions and repressed trauma. Despite their 'expert' assurances, the violent and sexual attacks increase.
The supernatural aspect is always there, but it's the human trauma that stands out, thanks to a fine performance by Hershey, who personifies the dread of not being safe in one's home and the horror of not being believed.
The camerawork and FX are genuinely creepy and upsetting a lot of the time, and the attacks are accompanied by a pulse-pounding score that's as dramatic as hell in the night time but less so in daylight hours. Based on true events, if not for the weak finale The Entity would be a lot more terrifying overall.

3½ visitations out of 5

BLACK SWAN [2010]

Director Darren Aronofsky crafts one of his most unsettling cinematic works with the intimately terrifying psychological horror Black Swan.
Nina is a dancer fully committed to her art, so when she wins the coveted lead role in the newest New York Ballet company's production of Swan Lake, her sanity begins to unravel as her dedication strengthens.
Natalie Portman is at her absolute best here, holding the icy heart of the film with a fearsome blend of fragility and maddening obsession.  While it's up to Aronofsky to capture the claustrophobic world with a cold gray eye that ignores the background and leaves most of it's focus on Portman's self-obsessed reflections of herself.  Like a rich dialogue filled ballet all it's own, Black Swan quite often defies logic in a way that would only make sense in a theatrical production and that's where it finds it's most compelling moments.  

4 shattered mirrors out of 5

Paris Trout (1991)

PT is a period piece set in Georgia, 1949. Theoretically there’s one law for all, regardless of skin colour, but in reality that’s not quite true, because money talks. Dennis Hopper is Paris, a white store owner and moneylender to the local mixed community. Cross the line of non-payment and the lender becomes a shark with teeth sharpened on a stone of racism.
The overuse of diffused light got on my nerves, but there’s a real sense of history in the surroundings it fell on. It’s as if the cultural climate has permeated the furniture and the room in which it sits. But what really makes the film are the fine performances from everyone involved.

3½ poisoned bites out of 5

Falling Down (1993)

Michael Douglas has had enough of traffic jams and heat waves; enough of the guy in front; enough of the screaming kids in the bus on the adjacent lane; enough of the bastard fly that’s buzzing inside his oven-like car with the crappy air-con as if it owns the place. Michael Douglas has had enough, period. It’s like having a paper cut the entire length of his body.
The character is an average Joe with a shorter fuse than most, but everyone should be able to relate to his pains on some level because we've all had a day go from bad to worse to cataclysmic.
Beneath the black humour is social commentary on how the little guy gets swallowed up by the system. It's more exciting than it sounds.

4 weapon upgrades out of 5

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

There’s some very silly casting in TLToC. There’s a white Jesus, a ginger Judas from NY and a Rock Star Pontius from Blighty; it’s laughable. The music is similarly ill-fitting most of the time, but the screenplay by Paul Schrader, adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel, is so good in the first half that I was able to keep my chuckles in check and enjoy the show.
It presents Jesus as a man with hopes, fears and doubts, like any other man would have in his position. His real strength comes from his response to those states of being, not from something wholly supernatural.
The part that got many Christians' cotton undies in a twist is during one of Marty’s slips and is best forgotten. If they’d put it into context before throwing stones they might have understood that.

3½ women called Mary out of 5

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 [2013]

Director James Wan & writer Leigh Whannell reunite for the sequel to their insanely scary 2011 sleeper hit Insidious.
Chapter 2 picks up shortly after the events of the first film so the scares start up so soon it gives the viewer next to no to time to familiarize themselves with the setting or the atmosphere and detracts from the terror quite significantly.  Instead, it relies on cheap, yet effective, jump scares that are almost immediately forgotten about.
It's cheap, predictable, silly and immensely disappointing compared to the first film.
Oh well...at least Wan had The Conjuring this year.

1 set of ouija dice out of 5

Riding the Bullet (2004)

A twenty-one-year-old guy obsessed with death hitchhikes back to the town where he grew up. You can guess the rest from the cover art.
Mick Garris can’t decide if he wants to make a comedy, a trippy road movie or a straightforward horror and as a result there are too many different approaches that drag the viewer out of the story, causing the atmosphere that he seems capable of building to collapse in a fractured shambles. The biggest shock was that David Arquette was good. 0_o

2½ if you’re going to suicide just do it and quit being a little bitch out of 5

11:14 [2003]

5 different stories literally collide into each other which results in the darkly comedic 2003 thriller 11:14.  Each featured character is an idiot and every choice they make leads into bad, bad things for themselves and anybody that crosses their paths.  It's fast-paced and well acted with help from flashy dialogue and non-linear storytelling which all make for a jewel in the rough.  A "what you see is what you get" type of film but still bloody good fun.

3 gunfire n' church bells out of 5 

INSIDIOUS [2010]

Saw creators James Wan & Leigh Whannell craft a delightfully frightening haunted house story that does it best to avoid the usual cliches in this tired formula.
Rose Byrne continues to impress with her role as the frightened mother while Patrick Wilson is off and on as the distant father. The dialogue is pretty bad and horribly delivered in several spots but doesn't subtract from the insanely intense first half of the film, complimented by a Penderecki-esque score by Joseph Bishara. The second half starts to fall apart due to it's premise getting too silly and a 'villain' that may be the lovechild of Darth Maul and Freddy Krueger.
In the end, Insidious delivers on the scares and that's all I expect from such a film.

3 creeped out baby monitors out of 5

Breakfast of Champions (1999)

Based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel (I don't know how faithful it is), this strange, off-putting "comedy" of sorts stars Bruce Willis as a used car salesman who becomes obsessed with some writer or another...I don't know. I couldn't make heads or tails out of anything in this movie. It made about as much sense to me as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (which I also plan to revisit soon). It simply tries too hard to be kooky for its own good, with its incomprehensible mess of a plot and collection of unhinged, neurotic characters.
At the very least, this movie introduced me to the music of Martin Denny.

0 Cross-Dressing Nick Noltes out of 5