Specifically Horror Movies

Movie reviews primarily. Unhealthily obsessed with cats

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

I do not intend for anything I post on this account to be meaningful to anyone. This is just an avenue to express my feelings on the horror movies that pique my interest.

Horror is an intensely versatile and divisive film genre, sometimes for good reason. Sometimes production companies simply vomit ideas onto a screen and call it a movie. Sometimes you feel so strongly one way or the other that your only course of action is to write about it.

If you see this, thanks for looking I suppose. Feel free to engage :)

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Obsession: Christ, That Poor Girl

Yesterday, I took myself on a solo date to see Obsession. I have to say, in an empty ass theater, you hear so much more of the background noise. You also get to hear small, individual reactions from other viewers and can kind of gauge whether you're missing things. I will say, I don't think I missed anything. This was fucking good that I was sat at attention the whole time.

AN ALERT ABOUT THIS FILM: A cat dies, pretty much immediately. The cat resurfaces later in the film, desecrated. It's sad. I wish I knew. So there you go.

Brief synopsis time:

Bear, one of a quartet friend group, prepares to tell another friend in the group, Nikki, how he feels for her. In the midst of his nerves and attempting to woo the girl, he goes to an apothecary and purchases a "One-Wish Willow", an unassuming gimmicky product claiming to grant you one, one-time-use wish. Eventually, in Bear's failure to express himself to Nikki, he uses the One-Wish Willow himself. This split-second decision changes the course of the lives of each friend, eventually ending in regret, blood, and fatal ultimatums.

Spoilers ahead.

My Likes

I have a lot I liked about this movie. I found the plot really easy to digest, which occasionally resulted in layup guesses at where the movie was going, but I can look beyond the tropes to appreciate what's in front of me.

The aspect ratio of this film forced you to zero in on what was happening. There was less room to look off to the side and miss something happening in front of you. I found that really cool as I'm always scanning the background for clues and indicators.

I liked that Bear was a pussy, through and through. I like that he also remained selfish to a bitter end. His character was very well-worked in the sense that his actions were somewhat predictable in a "Oh come-the-fuck-on" way. You almost never agree with his actions, but they are true to form.

I don't know if it was just the theater I was in having excellent acoustics, but the background noises were very apparent in this film. There was the repeated use of an owl hoot, and I feel like it was indicative of something, but I'm not sure what. My best guess would be that they happened at points of realization for Bear, but that might not be true. He certainly didn't realize jack-shit (outwardly, in an actionable way, anyway) until he was worried about his own well-being.

NIKKI WAS FUCKING TERRIFYING. I am so fucking scared of the dark, and this is so niche, but one of my biggest fears is watching someone I love be erratic and not respond to me (I'm certain this fear comes from watching too many horror films as a child.). Her jagged leg movements, the slow creep she did from the corner of the room to Bear's bedside... I was fiddling with my seat trying to separate myself from the moment. THAT is an indicator of a fantastiaclly produced scene.

I like that when Nikki started acting bizzare, screaming at the top of her lungs and then flipping to a "okay honey :)" response, it almost forced me to let out a dry-humor chuckle in the same space that Bear would have been letting out an awkward-moment chuckle. It immersed me in the scenes a tangible way, which is phenomenal.

I loved that there was a "True Nikki" and a "Wish Nikki" battling for control over Nikki's body throughout the film. The moments where she was so scared and repulsed that she shoves herself away, and the immediate snap back to clinging and obsession were jarring in such a good way. There's a scene where Bear makes a phone call to the TabiCat company that created the One-Wish Willow, and the operator says "do you want to talk to Nikki?" and it is just the screams of someone who is clearly in agony was an excellent, excellent touch. I can say the same for the scene where Nikki's body is sleeping, and True Nikki asks Bear to please just kill her while Wish Nikki is asleep. Her character is one of my most favorite "villain"-ish characters in recent memory.

I really, really hate to put this in my "likes" category, but the cat's death was in fact relevant to the plot and NOT needless, as is almost always the case. Wish Nikki's obsession over the cat dying and getting rid of the body, the only being that Bear loved other than her, was astute.

There is a poem Nikki reads in a scene at a party where you can clearly tell that the two entities inside Nikki's body are battling and that one is being tortured. I wish I could remember any of the verbiage, but truly, it was so insane. It was such an intrinsic touch.

My Dislikes

I think the cat dying was integral to the plot. However: I do not understand how the cat died. I do not understand how the cat got into the medicine cabinet and opened Bear's late grandma's sleeping pills. I understand it was a setup for Bear's ultimate demise, but it's genuinely impossible for that to happen. I must have missed something that made the death possible, but even Bear said "how did you get into these?" when he found that poor little baby.

This is a nitpick, I know. I hate that an idiot man made a stupid decision, waited as long as possible to try to reverse it, and left True Nikki to clean up the mess. Though, this is indicative of his love for Nikki always having been skin deep (no pun intended), which was clear from the jump. Bear killing himself, in that moment, was the most selfish thing he could've possibly done. True Nikki already begged to die, Wish Nikki already killed literally everyone else and mutilated her body to an insane extent, and Bear kills himself. You stupid fuck. Couldn't even leave her with a note on the spare One-Wish Willow you had? Absolute pussy, sorry. I wouldn't have wanted it to end any other way, really, but thinking about it pisses me off lol.

The subplots were pushed really, really hard. The blatant body language and verbal cues were so in-your-face that it became annoying. I knew within the first five minutes that Ian and Nikki had been sleeping together and that Sarah was into Bear. It was so obvious that I initially thought Nikki was Sarah, until they called her Sarah.

The director had these scenes where Nikki would do these really prolonged, giant smiles in long camera shots. It was not alarming or creepy, at all. Those shots were a waste of time and would've been better utilized if she was doing those grandiose smiles and the eyes looked somewhat tortured, like if they were wide open and the pupils were shot then it would've been a much better addition to the atmosphere. A small thing, but it happened enough to take notice.

Overall...

This movie was so fucking good. In speaking to others about this movie I learned it was low-budget/indie, which makes sense, because they relied more on human action than special effects to amplify the "creep" factor. If this movie had a higher budget, I probably wouldn't have loved it as much, because they'd lean on more SFX opportunities. High props to Blumhouse for putting their name on some more non-slop films. Everything felt so organic, which pulls you into the story more. Incredible. For these reasons, I'd give this an 8.5 or 9/10. Curry Barker did a phenomenal job and you can't ask for much more than what Obession delivers in the horror genre.

This is a high, high recommend from me. Feel free to leave some discussion if you feel I've missed something. Overall, May/June have been a very good season for horror. Excited to see what fall may bring :)

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Backrooms: Befitting, I Think

Pookie and I went to see Backrooms this afternoon, having to go the next town over for any tickets as they'd all sold out. Pretty crazy, but 100% understandable given the hype that's been drummed up around this move. But even given all the hype, apparently this movie was trashed on Twitter for sucking, which I actually don't fully agree with.

Side note: I hate that I am so old now that I get so annoyed with children in a packed-out theater. An attendant walked over and threatened to kick them out and I almost clapped. Being old is embarrassing. My karma has definitely been served ten-fold for doing the same shit at that age.

I've watched a shitload of KanePixels. I find the concept of the Backrooms to be really, really interesting and spooky. I am less familiar with the hardline rules for the Backrooms, so forgive me if my barometer is amiss on some of these takes.

A little synopsis:

Clark, the owner of a furniture store, struggles externally with declining sales, and internally with mental strife surrounding a recent split from his wife. He seeks solutions for internal issues with a therapist, Mary, and solutions for external issues with an electrician coming to investigate his spontaneously climbing electric bill. After anomalous occurreneces in the store, Clark finds an entry into The Backrooms; will he find insanity, salvation, or both?

Let's start with the likes:

A disclaimer: I am not a Backrooms expert, and to that end I cannot speak to the biblical accuracy of this movie. However, from what I do know, the movie stayed pretty true-to-lore, so props for that. Most major motion pictures (dont even get me started on Lord of The Rings) face a steep loss on plot rules and depth, so props for decent preservation.

I think that this movie focused less on horror, and more on disturbance; which I really love. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of jumpscares, but it was not terribly scary in the traditional sense, which at times worked against itself considering the lore. However, leaning away from the horror and immersing you into the atmosphere of the Backrooms was a great move, as that's what the Backrooms are all about.

I enjoyed that there was some lore explanation, sort of. Clark at one point gives a monologue to Mary, that sums up some of the tenets of certain Backrooms levels.

I liked how many Backrooms levels they included. We got the initial office space level, the pool/tile levels, the neighborhood level, and even that level that has the bottomless pit in the middle and shows the infinite levels above and below. I'm sure these levels have some form of "official" titles, but if you're aware of the lore you know what I mean. I wish we got to see the supermarket level (honestly might've been in there in a chase scene, but I'd want more) or the funhouse levels, but I guess those might not be canon enough.

The use of sound as a fear instrument was great. They used heartbeat sounds often throughout to indicate fear, which like, maybe I'm a simple monkey-see-monkey-do gal, but when I hear an elevated heartbeat my heartbeat also elevates. It's a great mechanism in its simplicity and effect.

Some dislikes... and spoilers.

I genuinely don't understand why there wasn't more fear of The Entity in this film. He's brought up in like, caveman paintings on the walls and I think kills a couple characters, but he's basically MIA (I think) in the second half of the movie.

This is a spoiler, but also a genuine question: after Clark traps his therapist (Mary) and starts eating the carbon-copy people, an enormous duplicate of himself comes in. Is THAT supposed to be The Entity? I don't understand! Why is his duplicate so fucked up and giant compared to every other one?

I really wish they spent more time on the levels, and I wish ASYNC, the Backrooms exploration company, intervened faster. If their goal is understanding of the space, why wouldn't they have tried to intervene on Clark faster? He was clearly delulu enough to divulge all secrets, so like I don't know. He was also inherently violent at this point so I get it sort of.

I am not 100% solid on the basis of entities in the Backrooms, but how the fuck was Clark able to tame the girl that was trying to stab him? How was he able to EAT the entities? I know there are some harmless entities, but I've never heard of eating them, not even to mention taming them. This might be something I'm totally unaware of but it seems a foreign concept.

I like to watch the background in films for some hidden-in-plain-sight spookiness, and there was almost none in this film, which is such a missed opportunity. I think there were a couple, but I mean, for being in a space that is ever-changing and entities are trying to hunt you, there should've been more.

We knew nothing about Clark, who was our main protaginist for most of the movie, except that he might be an alcoholic and he's getting divorced and wanted to be an architect. Lots of focus on Mary's backstory, which of course tugged at the heartstrings, but felt excessive given how little we knew about Clark. I would've sat through an additional 15 minutes of film to know more about the guy we followed primarily to start, especially considering a lot of Mary's details were kinda needless.

Overall:

I really enjoyed this, though I felt there were areas needing improvement. Overall I think it's a solid 7/10, but only if you know about the lore prior to jumping in. It's probably a 5 or less if you don't know anything about the Backrooms. They could've given some more explanation I think.

If you're expecting creepiness and suspense, you'll like this film. If you're looking for a typical cat-mouse horror, not so much. I think A24 made an incredibly astute decision in making the director a 20-year old, someone who can be innately familiar with the genesis and development of Backrooms as a whole. It was produced well and I think Kane Parsons has a lot of potential to make great art.

Please let me know if there's any vitals I'm missing pertaining to lore, or if you have some answers to my questions; I'd really love to discuss this one. :)

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Primate: Chimp Bad. Movie Mid.

Today, as I went to a theater for which I paid $9.75 each for my husband and I to sit in, I was reminded of the underdevelopment of the human brain at the age of 16. Teenagers were hooting, hollering, clapping, and draining me of my life's essence during this movie's duration. Unintentionally reminiscent, perhaps, of a certain human-related animal...

Okay, let's move on to the movie. I had no idea this existed until I drove past my local theater's pylon and saw a cute little monkey silhouette next to some scary lettering. Here's the premise:

An atypical family in Hawaii has a quirk: a chimp as a pet, thanks to their late mother's linguistics research. One day, the two daughters and their deaf father notice a bite on Ben the chimp. As the girls throw a party while thair father's away, disease spreads and becomes deadly; not just for Ben, but those around him.

So, yeah. I'm just gonna come out and say this was an extremely gimmicky film. I thought about it a lot on the way home, and it actually just follows the plot structure of like, every slasher movie. Just replace the weapon-wielding murderer with a rabid great ape, and you won't even have to see Primate because they end the same way. Upon light research into the director (Johannes Roberts), the boring plot makes some sense, as he also directed 47 Meters Down.

Dislikes abundant.

I have no notes on score, tone, or mood, because it was so run-of-the-mill.

Ben the chimp was low-key a shittily-written character. In the film, Ben has to learn how to open a sliding door to the house. However, later in the movie, he somehow innately knew how to operate a key fob to a car. A girl is trapped inside frantically locking the doors (how original!), and Ben somehow knows which one of the buttons on the fob is "Unlock". Oh, and he also knows which button pops the trunk. You see what I mean here? If they just had him like, punching the key fob and inadvertently unlocking the doors, I would've been way less annoyed. The operative word is less annoyed, because this is still a rabid animal who somehow knew to find the keys inside the house and dangle them in front of the girl as a taunt.

Spoiler in the next paragraph.

I can't stress enough how much this was like every slasher film. They even did the scene where the survivors believe the killer is dead and they embrace, but he gets up for one last attack and THEN dies. And, of course, the only survivors are the family. Even the deaf father. Yawn, yawn, yawn.

To add literal insult to injury, going back to that car scene I mentioned, it felt reminiscent of the real-life tragedy of Travis the Chimp and his victim, Charla Nash. Maybe I'm a little woke, but I would've replaced that scene with like, anything else.

However...

There was a near-redeeming amount of attention paid to the gore in the film. Like, my chest was tight from how uncomfortable and realistic these injuries looked. The effects were exceptional and you'd certainly believe this damage could be done by such an animal. That was quite possibly the only original and positive quality of this movie.

In short:

I say the phrase "that's like (noun), just in a different font" often. This is like a slasher, just in a different font — nothing more than a regurgitation. Be that as it may, if you're into slashers and gore, there is an argument to be made that you might find this appealing. For me, I'd give this a 4/10. Fire away at me if you have some otherworldly insight on this, and have a lovely weekend, people.

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Smile: Shoulda Watched it Sooner

After a very eventful Thanksgiving, followed by a very gross family drama phone call this morning regarding Thanksgiving, I needed something in my life that did not suck.

This did not suck.

I didn't watch this originally because frankly, the plot sounded like shit. Ooooh, someone smiles and people die! Whatever shall we do? But honestly, I think the descriptors I heard for this film were so off-base. This was really fucking good. I'll start with a quick sum-up:

A string of 19 suicides and one murder leaves big questions, and even bigger horrors for a therapist named Rose and her surrounding family. Is there a way to break this cycle of terror?

Okay, now on to my likes (AND SPOILERS!):

The plot was not necessarily unique, but it was throughly well-done. Basically, a demon not too dissimilar from a Wendigo finds a victim and forces them to commit a gruesome suicide in front of one witness (all while, you guessed it, smiling). That witness is then haunted/possessed by the demon and has a week or less to live before they, too, are forced to commit a gruesome suicide. One victim found that you can kill another person with a third person as a witness instead of killing yourself, which is how Rose connects these dots to what is ultimately her own demise.

The jumpscares in this movie were so, so cool. They're atypical compared to your run-of-the-mill "pop out behind the door" or "standing in the window in the distance" (though that last one did happen). I'm talking bodies posing in ways they are just not supposed to, shapeshifting humans, and run-ups on the camera all with smiles on their fucking faces. Jarring, and so so good.

The swells in the music and ominous sound effects were superb. Right on par with what you'd expect in a horror movie, super simple and effective.

I like that the demon has an omnipotence that aids them in selecting their next target. It's alluded to in the film that all of the past victims have had a traumatic event/passing in their own lives, making them susceptible to this possession. It's sort of a "you can't win" kind of plot-point, like there doesn't seem to actually be a way to defeat this demon unless you kill yourself by your own volition.

The length of this film was really good. I didn't find many lulls, it kept you pretty invested with the pace it used for the plot.

The ending fucking got me, dude. I called it, but only after I saw too much of it for it to be anything else really. The fact she never left the house was perfect, and I'm glad this wasn't a "happy ending" movie.

THE DEMON WAS SO SCARY LOOKING.

Okay, onto my dislikes.

The fucking cat dies. I don't feel like I need to say much more on this. I understand the plot development but that doesn't mean I have to like it at all.

The character of Rose's fiance was so poorly written and he didn't act very well in this film. Sorry, but he took me out of the immersion, like, often. There's a scene where Rose is trying to tell him what's going on and he says something like "well mental illness is genetic, right? I had to research these things before I hitch my whole life to you!" Like, dude. Your fiance is a fucking therapist. You're telling me she never told you that herself? You never asked the person who would know that answer?

The previous relationship with her cop ex-boyfriend, Joel, wasn't explained well enough for me. I got the gist, but would've appreciated a little more context on why he felt it appropriate to stop by her workplace unannounced.

The demon's voice sucked. When the demon was posing as the therapist in Rose's home, and says "Almost time, Rose!" I literally said "ew" out loud. It was such a basic-ass voice effect.

So, my conclusion:

This was such a good watch and I should've seen it sooner. I missed all of the hype and discourse surrounding this movie because for some reason, that is just how I approach movie watching. I want to see if (a) it's enduring, and (b) if it's actually as shitty as the nay-sayers claim. Smile really fucking beat my initial assumptions to death. It had me, my husband, and my sister sleeping over genuinely nervous. I'd recommend this over and over, and an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes is fairly on-par. I'd give this an 8.25, perhaps an 8.5. If you've got some free time and a hankering for a smidge of anxiety, this is a great film to watch.

Hoping everyone has a wonderful holiday season, and the strength to navigate all of your own family's bullshit this year. My prescription for such cases is always a good spooky movie :)

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Heretic: Not A Waste of Time

This week , I finally got a job offer (I accepted; hello crazy good salary) and today I got inarguably my coolest tattoo to date. Fantastic. Then, I came home and watched Heretic. I don't know that it's fantastic, but I thought it was pretty good. Overall, good fucking week.

Upfront, I give this movie a 7. Maybe a 7.5. I loved the originality of the plot, disliked some of the "I'm a genius man" tropes, but the good decently outweighed the bad. I saw a lot of commotion about this movie when it came out, but nothing beyond trailers because I love going into movies that pique my interest blind. I didn't expect it to take the turns it did.

Just to give a brief synopsis before I dive in with spoilers ahead:

Two Mormon missionaries with varied pasts seek to indoctrinate an old man who seems willing to learn; but is he what he seems? Are we what we seem? Is anything as it seems?

Okay, so my likes:

Honestly, can't get over the plot. It's such a good idea. There are so few original ideas nowadays, and I feel each must be celebrated because that's what keeps the horror industry going. It's a religious context with an arguably predictable twist, but not predictable until the last 45 minutes of the movie maybe. Ah, shocking, the man who trapped the easily-fooled young women in his home is obsessed with control. Who saw that coming?

I like the challenges to religion within the film, and I like the rebuttals. I won't get into my personal religious beliefs because I don't think it's relevant, but I think A24 portrayed religious debate in a fairly agreeable format. Religions are of course derived from other religions, there is overlap, but it does not negate personal belief, and it shouldn't.

The lack of jumpscares in this film were glaringly obvious, and I kind of liked that they didn't reduce to camera tricks and instead focused on enriching plot. There's like, maybe two jumpscares, if you can even call them that. There's not the typical musical swell or anything, just a kind of an oh-my-god shot and a slightly louder noise.

I LOVE THAT THEY SWITCHED PROTAGONISTS. You spend a good chunk of the movie believing that Sister Barnes will be The Final Girl, if you will, and the shocking switch to the underwhelming Sister Paxton (after Barnes is "killed") who now has a keener eye for the sleights-of-hand of Mr. Reed was so, so good. I would've never guessed that would happen.

I like that while they do kind of take the piss on religion throughout the whole film, with kind of a culmination in the belief that religion is nothing but control in a shiny package, they leave the door open for faith at the very end. In the beginning, Sister Paxton says that when she dies she wants to come back as a butterfly that only lands on the tip of someone's finger, so they know it's her. In the very end scene, she hallucinates a butterfly landing on her finger. Not the finger tip, because she is not dead yet - and that is for her to do once she passes. Very beautiful symbolism with depth.

For the dislikes:

Really hate that it had to be two female missionaries that fall for the unassuming old man's trap. I could be super wrong, but I thought most Mormon missionaries were male? It would've had the same effect if it was men without reinforcing (a) male power dynamics and (b) female subservience and naivete. I have the exact same gripe with the fact that all of the people he was keeping as cattle for the prophet/resurrection trick were female as well. You can call me "too woke" now.

I found the arrogance of Mr. Reed to be like, almost unfounded at times. He said things that made nearly no sense with pride, but these things were not challenged with a look from the girls or some other cue. As an example: he brought up disliking lies (when he reveals he knows they didn't get a call from the curch because the walls and ceilings are lined with metal) but ostensibly lied about the girls being free to leave (he said something like "all of us can leave whenever we want", but they're locked inside the house and he's fucking lying about there being an exit in the basement). If you're going to present this man with such bravado who believes the true religion is control, he should probably have actions aligned with that. It bugged me a shit ton that he was waxing eloquent on fairness/honesty while being shifty. And I know, control doesn't necessarily mean honesty! But his character places such a huge emphasis on truth so early on, even confessing to some of his lies, and it turns out it meant literally nothing.

The significance of the bamboo water collection contraption in his little "chapel" was not explained, or if it was I didn't catch it. They pan to it so many times. I may be too dense to understand the symbolism or something.

So annoying that Sister Barnes, after having her throat cut and her arm mutilated, found the strength to get up and thwack Mr. Reed with the plank hard enough to kill him. I don't know. They could've just portrayed her as less wounded initially and I would've been fine with it.

My Final Thoughts

So, on the whole, this movie is not at all a waste of time. In fact I think it's worth the two-hour runtime to watch Heretic. I enjoyed the breath of fresh air that this plot proivded me with, and enjoyed this film with the caveat of absolutely hating the male-female power structure. It is so outdated at this point to give me female leads who get themselves into dangerous situations with men that are this easily avoidable. In the film they have a rule that a woman must be present to enter a home, but they take this strange man's word for it that his wife is "just shy" when they mention later that they were warned not to waste their time on trying to convert this guy. Women in this country have NEVER been on a higher alert to potentially dangerous situations than we are right now. That's my biggest gripe, but putting my personal opinion aside, this really was a good and original movie.

I wrote in my last post that A24 seemed to be resting on their laurels in the horror department and this proved me wrong. What I actually think, now, is that they're resting on their laurels in the plothole department. There are a lot of fun concepts in A24 films, but some of these plotholes are so glaring in the recent releases. I don't think fun concepts are as fun when Point A somehow leads to Point F with no explanation.

Hope y'all enjoy the rest of your spooky month!

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Bring Her Back: You Know What? Alright

Two days ago, I got scammed by a fake Joann Fabric closing sale and compromised 2 credit cards plus my debit card. Today, I finally got around to watching a horror movie on a crispy, rainy fall day. Life comes at you fast.

Seriously though, I've done a good job of preserving myself from all the marketing for this movie since its release. I had almost no idea what it was about until the photographer shooting our house told me about it. He said if I like A24, I need to watch this. Having watched it now, I actually disagree.

A brief synopsis: A brother and nearly-blind sister duo lose their father in a tragic accident and are placed with a reputable foster mother, but "reputable" does not mean well-intentioned. From here, spoilers lay ahead.

This film was fine. I wouldn't write home about this film. I think it could've been better, maybe, if it was longer. If I had to pick a movie this reminds me of, I'd say it's like Orphan, but if Orphan had a role-reversal and a demonic aspect added to it.

I'll start with the likes.

Bring Her Back put a slightly new spin on posession and supernatural horror. When I first heard it was a supernatural movie, I thought "cool, same shit different day". After watching it, I can say it is actually slightly different shit, different day. It did not break the mold, but I like the rules of the ritual that had to be followed to, uh, bring her back. "Her" being the foster mother's daughter. I like that it's sort of formulaic, like how the host body must die in the same way that the vector died (idk what to call the original body, tbh.)

I like that it's not a total happy ending. Based on how predictable the plot was, I thought both brother and sister would make it out, but thats not the case. I also really liked (and it's so weird to say I "liked" this, but I like it in the horror genre sense) that once the Family Services agent found out that Laura was a fucking freak, she almost got back to the car and instead got straight obliterated. Such a common horror trope, but I wasn't expecting it somehow.

I can't write this without mentioning the absolutely fucking insane body horror showcased throughout the film. I don't want to put this in the "likes" category because I certainly didn't like it, but it was very good. That aspect, I think, made this movie more remarkable than its plotline. I had to look away at least 5-6 times. I fucking hate body horror showcasing teeth, and the tooth scene is making my hands feel weird as I type this.

In the same vein as the previous point, Ollie's special effects were absolutely top notch. His bloated stomach with the ribs sticking out in the back were a very cool touch; showing you the body itself is starving, but the spirit within him is consuming what it wants.

Actually, I'm giving Ollie's character a whole bullet point. He was, by far, the best written character in the film. His plot twist, him actually not being Ollie and instead being a random missing child, jarred me. Props for Ollie.

Okay, onto my dislikes.

I usually like to touch on the creative usage of sound/silence in films, but this did not do that. Kind of a bummer, because I feel they could've done something cooler with the spirits Ollie was hosting, but hey. I'm just an unemployed girl on a laptop.

The plot was so fucking predictable. My husband and I figured out the basic structure maybe 20 minutes into the movie? Idk, whenever it was that they introduced Ollie. I wish they did more.

You gain almost no background on the two main characters. Okay, the sister is blind. Does she like literally anything, or are we just supposed to note that she's blind? Okay, the brother loves his sister. Does he just lift weights occasionally, or does he have some sort of personality?

Not only do you have almost no background on the main characters, but apparently even though they're so close, not once did they speak to each other about the odd shit happening around them. It's a ridiculous plothole. I understand the characters are battling grief, but grief does not negate innate survival/social instincts.

They never once explain how a retired Family Services worker-turned-foster parent got ahold of a VHS detailing a resurrection ritual that is spoken entirely in Russian. I understand she probably did some research after her daughter died, but that is an inference that could've been replaced with plot and would've made this movie better.

My Rating & thoughts

In all, this is a 6/10 for me, and that's because Ollie's character was great and I liked the ritual itself. if you like demonic supernatural horror then I think you'll like this, but I don't think it'll be your favorite. It's not mine, at least.

Just an op-ed here: I think A24 as a production house is great, but are they starting to rest on their laurels in the horror department? Why was this so hyped? It was not amazing. A Different Man was so much better than this (psych horror, I know) and got far less attention. The unique ideas need to be celebrated so much more, because I'd put this on par with a regular Blumhouse money-throw.

Next up this spooky season is Heretic, so hopefully that changes my mind. Enjoy your October, y'all.

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

A Perfect Child of Satan: I Hate This Man.

There's a class of horror that I look down on, like "gore for the sake of gore" or "the goal is to make you sick". Exploitation, smut, the yuckiest of the yuck. If that makes me not a true horror enjoyer, then that's fine with me. I would never subject myself to Slaughtered Vomit Dolls or anything like that, but I thought to myself: is there a reason people watch these things? So, I watched the shortest version of this genre that I could find to see if there's something to it: A Perfect Child of Satan. And all I did was prove to myself that Lucifer Valentine is a fucking loser.

This is a 20-minute short film. If you've not seen it (do yourself the favor and don't), the premise is a girl is going to meet a guy she's been dating online for the first time. The girl is a sex worker, because of course she is. She's looking for a genuine connection, and of course she doesn't find that. She's sexually brutalized and eventually murdered for 8 minutes. Did I mention this is only 20 minutes long?

This is just a fetish project with bad acting. It was foul to watch. We get to watch an already-exploited young woman be further exploited. What's the message, here? What's the gain? Nothing. I got to watch someone's jerk-fantasy and feel fucking gross about myself. Yippee.

If I could tell Lucifer Valentine to go fuck himself, I would.

The only good part was a 10-second scene where she's showing her pet cat. Thank god nothing bad happens to the cat.

I wasn't even going to write about this at first. I thought I could watch it and move on, but I should've known better because I never shut up. This type of shit propels the horror genre to exploit young female actresses, it gives an outlet AND a green light for the sick fucks who do this in real life. Exposing otherwise normal women to roles like this is psychologically damaging. 8 minutes of this? 8 fucking minutes? Yeah. Mr. Valentine is a shitbag. I wrote this basically just to say that one last sentence.

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Weapons: Honestly? Solid

My husband and I had an open house this weekend at our home, so we were staying with the in-laws. We went and saw Weapons at a theater near them, where during the last 10 minutes of the movie, an extremely intoxicated guy sat next to me chugging nips from his pocket and coughing. So the last 10 minutes I don't remember very well. But, the movie was pretty cool otherwise.

Synopsis of the movie: an entire classroom of children goes missing in the middle of the night, except one child and the teacher. The town turns on the teacher, but where could those children be? A parent of one of the missing children investigates, with all parties discovering far more than they bargained for.

I hate to be this person when everybody is loving this movie so much, but I didn't find it as exciting as described online. That's not to say that I didn't like it! I really, really did. The concept is so out-of-the-fucking-box while sticking to the traditional twists of horror films. My rating? 8.5 out of 10. Really, it was so good. Just not the best movie I've seen. I'll get into my likes/dislikes.

Here's the likes.

So, a marker of a good movie (for me) is their use of sound and silence. You can make a shitty movie, but I'm sat if the score is doing it for me. The use of silence hit the mark. There are scenes where there should be sound, but there is none. And it is so fucking suspenseful. I was genuinely stressed in that theater which doesn't happen to me often.

The jump scares were stellar. I feel there was a higher concentration of them in the first half, which didn't necessarily bother me, but comes to mind writing this.

The plot is so original. You can liken it to a couple movies, maybe Dark Skies a little, maybe Sinister a little, but the vibe it held was totally unique. In the horror genre, the tropes get so tired. This was refreshing and genuinely spooky.

It was funny. It was funny, and scary, then funny again. Aunt Gladys became a caricature, which honestly was the only correct outcome considering the fatal flaw in her witchcraft, which is that ANYONE CAN DO IT.

The ending is good. I love when horror films don't have a happy ending. This one has like, a pro and a con ending, which is different and I liked it. People are saved, but at what cost to them?

I fucking love Julia Garner. Full stop.

Okay, now the dislikes.

This movie is structured in perspective views. You follow one character for a while, then another, then another. It takes you out of the vibe at times, which can be a good thing I guess because the first perspective was fucking scary.

The first 45-ish minutes of the movie hold a totally different vibe than the rest of the film. I loved the first part of the movie, it was so scary that I looked at my husband and said "wow, what the fuck". It became much less scary and the humor intensified after the first two perspectives. It almost feels like two different movies - both good - but one is dark and scary and the other is light and spooky.

There's some witchcraft (I think) in the movie that is not explained well. I also think they could've gave some more context to Aunt Gladys, but I am okay with the information I inferred.

Overall, this movie fucking rocked. I am so happy that I saw it, even if losers walk into theaters stumbling around and making me uncomfortable. I would watch this again, and you should watch it too.

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

A Different Man: Wow?

Hello, movie people. Been a while. In this time I've both bought and lost a house, so that is adulthood for you I guess. Emotions have been challenged, and this movie carried that theme. My opinions are not fully formed so you'll be reading my decoding of what I've just watched.

Let's start with the easy stuff, first.

The score in this movie was absolutely incredible. The dissonant contemparary-ish, almost twangy song that repeats through the movie and just makes you feel off... incredible. I've never had score pull me in like that, truly.

The film style I also loved, though some might disagree with me. This is shot in grainy 80s-90s style with the classic dingy apartment sets of the 80s, complete with gingham furniture and CRT TVs, but it is set in an 80s-inspired present day. Even the gore in the film is so 80s, with the classic latex skin effects and blood that looks nothing like blood. There is an absence of phones, but there is a scene that takes you out of the fantasy in the back-30 of the movie where they are using a Nintendo Switch. That is my only real ding on the style.

The plot is so unique and thought-provoking. A brief summation: A disfigured man is invited to join a revolutionary clinical trial that could completely change his appearance; but is that really what he wants?

Now, let's get into the more nuanced items in this movie. Synopsis and spoilers ahead.

The premise is nothing new. New girl moves in next door. Our main character, Edward, who has the facial disfigurement, adores her. But of course, he believes he could never be good enough for an able-bodied person. Our premise turns here. He gets a golden ticket when his doctor offers participation in a clinical trial where the science makes absolutely no sense (pharma is my day job!), but the drug can transform the soft and hard tissue of the face into an otherwise normal-looking person. He participates. His "old" face sloughs off and he finally gets a taste of the life he has longed for, the life of a "normal" guy. For some reason, he does not tell the love interest/neighbor, Ingrid. Instead, he tells a story to a maintenancee man in the shitty NY apartment that the owner of the unit had killed himself, which Ingrid overheard. He creates a flashy life for himself as a handsome man under a new name (Guy) until he sees Ingrid walking into a theater one day. She is casting for a play called "Edward". It is about him. He weasels his way into the leading role, becomes a love interest, but things fizzle when an actor (named Oswald) with the exact same face deformity he used to have starts hanging around the theater, being a nice person and showing you don't have to be pretty to have a good life. Ingrid becomes interested in Oswald. This enrages Guy/Edward. He spirals, even wanting his own face back and carrying out a crazed delusion with a mask at some point, until an altercation with Oswald where he becomes critically wounded. Ingrid and Oswald end up supporting him and his medical bills, he spirals again, ends up in jail, and the movie ends with a confusing dialogue between the three at dinner, with Edward somehow out of jail.

Anyway, I am trying to understand the moral behind this movie. It's not a "be careful what you wish for", it's not a "looks aren't everything" really either. I think it's actually about the meaning of identity. I'd liken this movie in parts to American Psycho, in the sense the main character has a fundamental misunderstanding of who he is. He loved Ingrid, but left her behind anyway. He wants a "normal" face, but abandons everything he once found comfortable once he gets it. He wants Ingrid back under completely different circumstances than where their love began. He wants money, popularity, acclaim, but once he has it he realizes that he was living a life for others. Not for himself.

That is why Oswald enrages him so much. He is authentically himself, loved despite a superficial flaw. He never let his disability hold him back from pursuing anything or anyone. I think Edward is so angry that he was blinded by his self-loathing. Or maybe he hasn't come full-circle yet and is mad at everyone else for loving Oswald, and he's taking it out on the easiest target.

Honestly, there are parallels we can draw from this movie to real life. I live day in and day out as a big girl. I envy the big girls, some bigger than me, that I see on Instagram looking beautiful in outfits that show more skin than I could ever take a picture in myself. I just sit here and self-loathe, defeated and deflated. Ironically, I feel no different after watching the movie. I don't know what the solve is to that, and neither did Edward. Hopefully I don't kill anyone about it.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to drop film insight if you have any.

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

When Evil Lurks: Holy Shit

We are 25 days into the spooky month and I have watched an abysmal amount of horror movies. Almost none have been scary.

This, however, was.

I don't use the term "scary" lightly, because I think a lot of things that people say are scary do not actually scare them. This did actually scare me. Superficially, of course, but scared nonetheless. I was blown away by the plot.

ALSO: I think it's important to forewarn that this movie has a lot of children who get injured or cause injury, sometimes on screen. Also, a goat is shot as well as two dogs. They show more of their death than what is common in American film scenes to show. You've been warned.

As an aside, I really do love a good foreign film. To only watch films in your own native language shuts you off from some of the most creative ideas in a genre, regardless of what that genre is. My husband doesn't watch subtitled movies. When Evil Lurks is in Spanish. He missed out on a fucking great movie.

A Brief Synopsis

This movie takes place in rural Argentina. It is a known fact that evil is real here; possessions have a definitive form, there's a policing body made specifically for dealing with those who are possessed, "infected" (the body has become an incubator for the devil, the body cannot move. These people are referred to as "Rottens" in the subtitled translation), or civilians otherwise affected by these phenomena.

The story follows two brothers aiming to help their neighbor, who has a destitute family living on a small piece of his farmland. This destitute family helmed by an elderly single mother also includes an orphan boy and her biological, "rotten" son. The mother requested her son's removal and execution, but the priest sent to remove the son was found dead in the surrounding woods.

In a good faith effort to remove the evil from their abutting lands, the brothers and the landowner bring The Rotten (bio son of mother) hundreds of kilometers away from them, intending to leave him on a roadside but not kill him (that would result in the direct possession of one of the three of them. Executions have to be done in a specialized ritual by the aforementioned policing body). It does not go to plan. From there, evil presences follow them.

Mood and Tone

This movie definitely has a very distinct mood that does not always match the tone. The mood is perfect; I can't complain, really. You're just as confused initially as the main characters, and you're learning about the rules for dealing with these evil forces along with them. You're just as anxious as them. You're just as confused, or fearful, or shocked, or disgusted. You feel a really keen sense of empathy (not for all characters, but still). I love that.

The tone, however, is really fucking weird. Lighting is extremely important and this movie had a shot style akin to like, a comedy or romance. It was so extremely off-putting at times. Bright, harsh Argentinian sun almost washing out the characters on screen, key characters in an important scene not having a dedicated light on them, and general dimness in literally vital scenes to name a few. Maybe that was intentional, but I fail to see the benefit it gave the story. I found the film style to be my least favorite part of the whole thing.

My Highlights

As mentioned, I loved the mood of this movie. Along with that, there was no shying away from gore. I don't love gore but a tasteful or impactful amount is so transformative to a story and this really hit the mark. None of the scenes were gross just for the sake of being gross. They all had a part of the story to tell.

Also, I love the way they played with the concept of evil and the Devil and possession. In this film it is not subjective. People DO get possessed. Evil IS tangible. It's not like silly Vatican horror where there's the notion of nonbelievers who assure it's all made up. No, everyone believes in what is happening because it's fact. It is taboo in the culture to mention it, sure, but it's not refuted. It gave so much room for creativity in the plot's structure and because of that structure the everyday rules of avoiding this evil were sensible. Obviously, evil is as old as time. New-age solutions to eliminating this evil only redirect it back onto you. I don't know, I thought that was cool.

Lastly, this movie created scenes that genuinely scared me. I was unnerved, shocked, frightened, and grossed out all at different points within an hour and 40 minutes which is hard to achieve. I'm being vague because I don't want to give anything away. I want y'all to watch this movie.

My Lowlights

I really fucking hated the tone of this movie sometimes. I think there were some really weird quickly-heated social interactions that didn't make sense to me. This could be a cultural barrier; maybe it is common in Argentina to get argumentative after one or two sentences with law enforcement or extreme aggression with your neighbor who is actively helping you with a personal matter. I think a smidge of explanation, even in a passing line from a character would've resolved this.

Speaking of law enforcement, there was one point where one of the brothers goes to see his ex-wife who has a restraining order against him. This guy walks up to the police car, the cops are like "hey you're violating this restraining order, you're gonna get arrested" and he just continues on with the crisis he is in in that scene. The cops do not follow him or anything, they actually are not seen again for the rest of the movie which is kind of funny.

The mother of the brothers at one point is talking to her grandkids about the rules for keeping this evil away from you. She violates like three of the seven rules in 10 minutes and then violates the rest later that night. There are little weird plot points like that which don't add up but also don't detract from the experience.

There is a scene at the end where the special effects are kind of like "aw, come on". They do not mesh with the SFX styles showcased throughout the entire movie, but then again it is for a scene unique to that one part. I give grace for that because I know nothing of SFX or the cost to make a realistic-looking crushed head.

Conclusion/Rating

I am legitimately so glad I watched this. I don't see a lot of rich-in-plot movies anymore, and I don't see a lot of directors willing to reinvent a wheel such as Devil/evil/possession in a way that works. The ending ties everything up in a bow that IS NOT a happy ending, which I love in a horror movie. It is horror. Nobody needs a happy ending.

I give this like an 9.2 out of 10. I highly recommend this movie but only if you can withstand seeing a combined 10 minutes of animals being killed in a non-meaningless way.

Happy Halloween, my friends.

[galindaelphaba]

SKINAMARINK (2022) dir. Kyle Edward Ball

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Hellraiser: Well, I Watched It

So I have never seen any of the Hellraiser movies. From what I had heard, it was like Saw; so I figured you could kinda pick up anywhere in the (vast) movie series. In the sense that it's not so much horror as it is gory humor, I'd agree.

Initially I watched Hellraiser: Judgment, and it was so terrible that I had to go back and watch the original to try to understand if that was on par for the general plot. It uh, kinda was I guess.

For anyone like me who has gone decades without seeing the classics, here's the general basis of Hellraiser: There are these ornamental boxes that act as portals to Hell. In both movies I've seen, the plot is that someone wants to open the portal, and there's also an innocent party who has no idea what the box is and pays a price of some sort. There is also a lot of sex and gore, like most classic horror. The basis of why some people want to open the portal is essentially BDSM, like just for the sexual enjoyment of being tortured.

I wonder often why the horror genre and sex so interconnected. Is it the vulnerability? The shock value? Simply a distraction from poorly thought out plots? Either way, whatever. Makes watching movies with my siblings really fucking weird.

Anyway, here's the review. It's bad. Not like "the special effects are terrible because it was the 80s" kind of bad, it's just fucking bad. It falls into the category of funny horror: like most of the Saw franchise, the Paranormal Activity franchise, the Friday The 13th franchise... you get it.

Once you get past the fact it's bad, you enjoy the movie as a funny horror. There's no point in talking about tone or mood or score, really. I don't even remember if the score was good or bad, I'd say it was probably fine for that reason. At one point they have a cutscene of a flower blooming out of nowhere. You're kinda like "oh, flower blooming, that has to be symbolism". Not really. The next scene takes place in a hospital room and it turns out the nurse is watching a tape of different flowers blooming in the room. No words or scenery. These are flowers on a completely black backdrop. Definitely funny.

My biggest gripe? For how much people love Pinhead, he was on screen for maybe 10 minutes the whole first movie. He was also one of multiple crazy looking demons. He was definitely on screen a lot more in Hellraiser: Judgment. Not that it really matters but I just thought Pinhead would be a much bigger deal.

I would actually recommend this film. It's funny. I wouldn't recommend it as a scary movie, but something to show your friends who don't like scary movies. There's no physically possible way to be scared during these 90 minutes of silly special effects. It's a 2/10 on the horror scale and like a 6.5/10 on the funny horror scale.

Happy Halloween, y'all. I'm hoping to watch some more classics in the coming weeks as well as some of the new Hulu Original drops I'm hearing so much about. Next on my list is definitely The Substance, though. Enjoy your spooky month fellow boring horror enjoyers <3

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Oddity: A 90-Minute Benchmark

Here is the thing with scary movies: I will always, always pick a 90-minute horror first. There are some good films that are long, but think of some really popular ones: Blair Witch Project, Saw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre... not necessarily my favorites, but they all clock in around the 90-minute mark and get the job done. Oddity is precisely what you should receive from an hour and a half investment of your time. It's a good mix of the occult, "the creeps", and tasteful jumpscares. it actually gave me one of my biggest scares from a movie in recent memory. I'm not trying to glaze the film, it was just one scene that really got me. I have a sincere fear of masks.

I've been learning German in my free time (Freizeit!) and can confidently say: Ich mag diesen Horrorfilm :)

Enough time has passed from release that I don't mind giving spoilers, so read ahead at your own risk.

I thought it was very cute of them to pay homage to Caveat in the sister's oddity shop. Caveat was also decent, and I think that if you liked it you'll be sure to like Oddity. Thinking now, they parallel in a lot of ways.

I very much loved the role of the twin sister. I loved that she was consistently one step ahead and gave you someone to root for to the end. I also like that she was not infallible, and met an end on her own terms. As someone with only sisters, her death really touched me.

I also sincerely, sincerely enjoyed the use of silence. Silence is such an overlooked aspect in horror movies, usually it's shrill warnings in the score that tell you something is happening. The absence (or low level) of noise gave way to a lot more tension in the chest, a lot more wonder as to what would happen next. Just a fantastic utilization of that negative space.

I feel like I encounter a lot of "good for her" movies. This was a "good for her" movie twice over, with Darcy having her closure before her passing and the girlfriend (Yana) finally having some fucking sense and leaving.

Let's talk annoyances.

The introductory plot made not a lot of sense. The couple bought basically an old-timey castle and only used.... 1/4 of it? You can chalk it up to the renovation part of the subplot but like... after having this place over a year, all you've done is put in a half-done kitchen (that we can't see), a very modern looking bathroom (in your stone, old-as-shit house), a bed and a couch? Whatever. It's not a huge deal but did annoy me.

What annoyed me more, actually, was the girlfriend moving in to this house apparently very quickly after his ex-wife was murdered there. Please, please, please give more background to the decision if you're going to have a character do something fucking stupid like that. She had an apartment nearby. It doesn't make any sense for her to live in the murder castle.

The way some of these characters were written... so rude? I mean, you find out later (or guess pretty early on!) why the husband was a prick, but the girlfriend was fucking insanely rude. The entitlement in some of her lines was wholly unnecessary, you didn't need to do much at all for the audience to dislike the girlfriend. You already start out disliking her. It was too much for me.

Ted (the husband) deserved worse. I liked the wit of Darcy in his demise, but wish it was in line with Ivan's punishment. Ted deserved much worse and I was so frustrated with the lack of description of HOW people die when they ring the bell. It was slightly annoying to be left wanting like that.

Score was great, tone was solid, the mood could've used more thought as said above with the character dialogue. Overall, solid 7.75 out of 10. I would watch this again, and once more I say this is what to expect from a 90-minute movie.

[glorianas]

Our prayers keep us safe from the devil

LONGLEGS 

(2024)

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

You've Lost A Lot of Blood - The Book

I read this and wanted to throw my thoughts around, mostly to sort through them.

This is the only book I've read where everything, including the "Editor's Note" and following footnotes, is a fictional part of the story. I ignored the Editor's Note initially. I have never found one that benefitted my experience reading. I did not read it until I was finished with the book because I was so pissed off that it didn't make any sense.

After reading everything, I think this lacked. This is my second Eric LaRocca book; I read Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke which was, also, a little underdeveloped. Generally, I'd say a 4.5/10 for both of these is fair. Neither are a book I'd recommend.

It's so disjointed. Basically, the book structure is like reading a few chapters of a novella broken up by some poems that have absolutely nothing to do with the story and also transcripts of "interviews" between the fictional author and his partner. If this sounds confusing that's because it is. You don't get the full picture until the final "interview" and the footnotes from the fictional editor.

I'll review in order, I guess:

The Editor's Note didn't make very much sense but did provide context. Three people: The Editor, Martyr, and Ambrose. Martyr is a bad guy. Ambrose is Martyr's current partner. The Editor used to date Ambrose in college. It is not at all explained how The Editor knew Martyr, or that The Editor and Ambrose kept in touch past college. The Editor says he knew Martyr, has his collection of works, and wants to come to terms with his knowledge of Martyr and Ambrose's crimes. How does The Editor want to come to terms with it, you ask? Republish and profit off of Martyr's work, I guess.

I did enjoy the little poems, but would've enjoyed them more if it was not so spaced out. Maybe a chunk of poems before the novella, then in the middle of the novella, then the rest at the end. Every 2-3 chapters you are reading a poem and a transcript.

The transcripts are ridiculous. They're conversations between Martyr and Ambrose. It's explained beforehand that Martyr edited these recordings later to add exactly what he was thinking as he is speaking into them. In case he forgets, I guess? But he went in later and added these thoughts, so he clearly remembers well enough? It's nonsensical.

The novella was alright. The plot is like a mix between Black Mirror's Playtest and White Christmas. Could've done without the 30-second lesbian scene in it. Sex is, plot-wise, sometimes good for a story, but not in this case. It lasts for about 5 sentences and you leave it more confused than anything. Speaking of being confused, there is almost no imagery words used at all in the novella. I'm pretty sure the only colors referenced are black and red. The story involves a lot of things made of metal and makes note of an aspect's presence, but does not describe it. Like, saying this mechanical object has gears and valves is like describing a flower by saying it has petals. No shit. What the fuck should it look like though.

Anyway, not a great read. Would I have rather read something better? Obviously yes. Did it pass the time, though? Yep. I liked that time passed more than I liked reading the book.

[boring-horror-enjoyer]

Immaculate: Nothing New, But Not Bad

I just got around to having a little movie night with my husband and watching Immaculate. I will always love the novel of a movie theater, but oh my god I love being in my 'jamas with my cats and locking in on some film.

Sydney Sweeney is phenomenal. I have heard she's a great actress but not seen anything with her in it (to my recollection). Her guttural and raw acting style for this role did not disappoint.

Plot wise: this is definitely not a novel concept. I'm pretty sure this came out around the same time as The First Omen, which I saw and disliked for a few reasons, and there are a surprising amount of parallels between the two movies. If I had to pick the better movie, Immaculate is a no-brainer. If I had to pick even a top 5 of the religious horror subgenre spanning like, the last few years, I'm not sure this would make the cut. That is not a total knock on this movie, though. I think that if religious horror is your absolute jam, you'd be happy with watching this. You probably wouldn't put it on again, though.

It's a pretty literal title. They probably had some multi-connotation intention behind it, like, the immaculate woman holds the immaculate baby and her (religiously) immaculate body is desecrated by the people who believe the most in the immaculate. If you Google the definition of immaculate, all three of the definitions are showcased in this movie. I am officially done using the word immaculate now.

My monkey brain is annoyed they didn't show the "baby." There was a lot of gore in the movie and I figured it would get shown because of that, but I will give props to them for making me use my imagination. Good decision. It really helped the ending. The sounds were enough for you to know.

Cinematography: again, pretty literal. A lot of scenes involve height and perspective. The priest preaches from a level above the seats, the nuns or "ordinary folk" are seated below, and there are stairs leading downward to the "oooo evil scary" subfloor where they keep the "oooo evil scary" relic. Name a more literal positioning. The mood of the cinematography was nice, I love a broody/moody color scheme. The scene where Sweeney is posed like Mother Mary is impactful. I loved the focus on her expressions, it was giving Midsommar-May-Queen energy. Overall, good stuff.

I'd rate this a good 6 out of 10. I liked it, but did not love it. Sydney Sweeney's portrayal was absolutely wonderful and saved this movie from being a dull money-grab. When you're not introducing new impressions, it's so valuable to introduce new imagery. It's worth a watch if you like this theme of horror.