THE BELKO EXPERIMENT [2016]

Wolf Creek director Greg McLean misses the mark the with violent thrill-ride The Belko Experiment.
In a Battle Royale-esque set-up an isolated office building is put on lockdown when the employees are ordered to kill each other or else everyone dies.
With a script penned by James Gunn one would expect it to be a real hoot but somehow director McLean sucks all the fun out it by taking it far too seriously.  One can tell there were funny moments in Gunn's original script but without his comedic timing and visual influence it all falls flat.  Perhaps if it were smart or more imaginative with it's kills (think Operation: Endgame's bat-shit crazy office supply murders) it might have worked but there's none to be found here either.  It threatens to erupt with complete madness but never really does with the exception of a near hit in the final act.  It just never quite reaches it full potential and leaves much to desired.

2½ perverts out of 5

HUSH [2016]

Director Mike Flanagan reformats Wait Until Dark for the modern generation with the delightfully tightly woven home invasion thriller Hush.
Instead of a blind Audrey Hepburn, we have Flanagan's wife (and co-writer), Kate Siegel, playing a deaf woman using her handicap to fend off a crossbow wielding psychotic who's taking a fancy to hunting her from outside of her tiny woodland house.
With the main character being deaf it makes for an interesting watch due to minimal dialogue and a delicate nerve-shattering attention to sound design.  Another admiral element to the story is instead of trying to build tension with the whole "where's the killer?" trope, we're treated to an intensely intimate game of cat & mouse through the mind of an established author.  Flanagan's concise pacing and the duo performances keep the film going when it becomes to "slashery" and when it's not it's a deliciously vicious little gem.

3½ B I T C H-y cats out of 5

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE [2016]

One of the most intriguing parts of writer/director Dan Trachtenberg's character-driven thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane is that no one knew it existed until less than 2 months before it's release.
A very distant relative of Matt Reeves' Cloverfield film, we follow the suspenseful tale of a woman who wakes up in an underground bunker, after a car crash, to find two men with her, one of who claims he's saved her from a chemical attack on the country.
The slow-burning psychological torture in such a claustrophobic setting makes for some pretty engrossing moments that open up more questions than answers with each disturbing reveal.
Trachtenberg aims for a B-movie feel that is cleverly crafted, well-acted and manages to hit all the right buttons for anyone looking for a refreshingly simple but engaging thrill-ride.

4 Slusho machines out of 5