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‘His House’ Movie Review: The Best Horror Film of 2020, Hands Down!

The more empathetic you are as a person, the more you’re able to immerse yourself within the story of a horror film, or any film for that matter…placing yourself in the shoes of the characters being chased down by zombies or tormented by demons. You imagine what it might be like, or try to figure out what YOU would do in such a situation, and maybe even shed a tear when somebody gets slaughtered on camera. It’s all part of the cinematic experience, and empathy can really amplify that experience.

However, for some people, it might be difficult to truly imagine what it must feel like for a refugee landing in another country. It’s an entire story in itself, and one with far more horror elements than you might think, depending on the journey. And when you toss in an evil entity lurking beneath the surface, it really puts you to the test.

'His House' was written and directed by Remi Weekes, who had never made a feature film prior to this. That makes it all the more impressive that he was able to pull together what I think is not just the best horror film of 2020, but one of the best films of the year, period. But for some reason, too many people have never even heard of 'His House,' let alone seen it. And that’s a shame, because this is the sort of film we need to see more of within the horror genre, which is often overcrowded with bad B-movies or Hollywood features hellbent on making a buck rather than telling a gripping story of any real substance.

'His House' centers around Bol and Rial, a couple from Sudan who are seeking asylum in London, following a treacherous journey across the Mediterranean that nearly left them dead. They’ve been given a second chance at life in London, where they are assigned low-income housing in a rough neighbourhood. They can’t get jobs, are faced with strict restrictions, and are given a small amount of money to live off each week. To make things worse, their new home is situated on the outskirts of London and is plagued by peeling wallpaper, shabby furnishings, and trash lining their front lawn. Still, it’s a blessing compared to the war-torn bloodbath of their homeland.

Bol is fixated on assimilation, eager and desperate to fit into this new world, while Rial seems like a fish out of water, struggling to find her place here. As they try to settle into their new surroundings, it becomes clear that they aren’t alone, as something sinister lingers within the walls of their new home. As the terror escalates, we discover a dark secret that has been haunting the couple ever since they escaped Sudan, one that they must make right before it’s too late.

There is nothing bad I can say about this film. The story is distinct and relevant, the acting (namely the leads Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku) is superb, the visuals are outstanding, and the horror elements are on par with some of the best horror films of this last decade. We get to experience something special here, in that this is a totally original story backed by a stellar cast and crew, helmed by an up-and-coming filmmaker ready to make his mark.

'His House,' which premiered in early 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival, was picked up by Netflix soon after and released that Halloween. Fortunately, it’s still available to stream; so, I recommend you seek this one out, because it’s a rare gem of a movie that deserves to be regarded as one of the best the horror realm has to offer.

For the record, I’d give ‘His House’ 4.5 out of 5 stars. 

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‘Caveat’ Movie Review: A Short Film Disguised As A Feature

The trailer for ‘Caveat’ did exactly what it was supposed to do…sell me on investing 90 minutes of my time into this film. Unfortunately, like so many trailers, it was somewhat deceiving. There is not much of a story to tell here and so the trailer really just sold us on what little ‘Caveat’ had to offer, much of which is simply not worth the investment. In fact, this film could have worked far better as a short film instead, a concept that would have filtered out the expanse of uninteresting and unimportant filler.

It all became a little clearer when I realized that this was the feature-length debut for Irish filmmaker Damian Mc Carthy, who had previously worked on only short films, some of which even garnering him comparisons to the great David Lynch. However, Mc Carthy’s talent for short films did not carry over into this feature-length production, or at least not in my opinion.

‘Caveat’ stars Jonathan French as a drifter named Isaac, who reluctantly agrees to watch over his friend Moe’s adult niece, Olga, in exchange for cash. It’s not just that simple, however, as Olga (played by Leila Sykes) is a disturbed young woman living alone in a rundown house on a remote island without a boat to speak of. Oh, and in order to put Olga at ease, Isaac must be chained in a harness that restricts him to only certain parts of the house. Still, he agrees.

It’s kind of a ridiculous scenario to begin with and only gets more absurd as the story unravels. There’s just too much here that is nonsensical and unnecessary, such as this sort of possessed toy bunny that serves no real purpose outside of padding the trailer and perhaps even the film’s poster art to entice an unsuspecting audience.

Outside of the story itself, it was tough to get through this one out of sheer boredom. It is dreary to the point of depressing, thanks to a setting that is even emptier than the film’s story. The characters are left to fend for themselves as well, with little backstory to lend them any empathy or sympathy. You just don’t care, or at least I didn’t.

I don’t mean to come off as overcritical or even mean, but I went into this film with high expectations and came out ultimately disappointed. I can’t say it was a missed opportunity, because I just don’t feel like this story had enough substance to fill nearly 90 minutes. Like I said earlier, ‘Caveat’ would have benefited had it been made into a short film instead.

Despite everything I just said, this film might be right up your alley, who knows! In fact, it’s got a pretty decent rating on both Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd, with an 83% certified score on the former. So, if you’d still like to give it a chance, it’s streaming right now on Shudder.

For the record, I’d give ‘Caveat’ 2 stars out of 5.

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‘Teddy’ Movie Review: The Werewolf Film You’ve Been Waiting For!

I’ve never really been a fan of werewolf movies, although to be fair, I’ve never really SEEN a lot of werewolf movies. Mostly because I was never really that interested in seeing werewolf movies. To be honest, it’s pretty tough to make a werewolf come off as genuinely scary or even realistic-looking on film, especially if you’re going to include a transformation scene. Good luck.

‘An American Werewolf in London’ has, for the most part, set the bar for these particular films, and it has certainly stood the test of time, although there have been a number of other werewolf films since that have left their mark as well. However, it seems as though there are far more misses than hits when it comes to this subgenre. Admittedly for myself, it’s hard to take a werewolf serious, even in a horror film. I just don’t find them that entertaining or scary.

‘Teddy,’ co-written and directed by French twin brothers Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma, is an exception. Perhaps because it doesn’t focus on the actual werewolf aspect (to the point where it’s hard to truly classify this film as such) and we rarely see the creature itself, but also because it’s just so well done. It is different than what you’d expect from an American feature, especially if you’re here for the gore factor. There’s some, but nothing gratuitous.

It pays its attention to the characters instead, namely the titular character Teddy, played perfectly by former French child star Anthony Bajon. He delivers a memorable performance of a guy you’re not supposed to like but you end up cheering for anyways. He keeps it real and has a dark, albeit juvenile, sense of humour. However, underneath it all, there’s a young man who truly cares about the people he’s closest to.

Teddy has his problems, for sure, struggling with money issues, working for a toxic boss, and living with some family members who are deemed the “village idiots,” according to Teddy himself. His saving grace is his girlfriend Rebecca (played by Christina Gautier) and his dream of building a home for them one day in the country. It’s what drives him to put up with all the rest.

One day, while on his way to work, Teddy is attacked in the bushes just outside his home, though he never gets a good look at whatever it is that bit him. Slowly, he understands what is happening to him, and it comes at a time when it seems as though his world is crashing down around him. You really feel for Teddy and his circumstances, especially as the film comes to an end.

There are no real special effects in ‘Teddy,’ no big names on the marquee, and no jump scares or cheap shots at comedy. It’s like a gritty, indie take on a genre that desperately needs more films like this one, which I feel would have been ruined with a larger budget or the wrong people at the helm, or if it had been made in America, for that matter. With that said, it is certainly not for everyone, especially if you’re looking for a creature feature.

‘Teddy’ is only the second feature film for the Boukherma brothers and their first foray into the horror realm, although I use the word “horror” loosely here. But I hope it will not be their last, because we need more horror filmmakers like this, willing to take risks, try new things, and breathe fresh air into worn-out ideas.

‘Teddy’ is streaming right now on Shudder.

For the record, I’d give ‘Teddy’ 4 stars out of 5.

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‘Blood Red Sky’ Movie Review: A Missed Opportunity?

I grew up being told not to say anything at all if you have nothing nice to say. I think that’s not always the right approach, especially when it comes to critiquing something like a film. And although ‘Blood Red Sky’, directed by Peter Thorwarth, was somewhat of a letdown, there are certainly some nice things I can say about it. However, you have to take the good with the bad, as I was ALSO told growing up.

The film kicks off on a Scottish airbase, where a hijacked airplane is forced to land. A lone occupant emerges from below the cargo hold, a young boy named Elias. From there, the film flashes back to a German airport, where Elias is waiting to board a transatlantic flight alongside his mother Nadja, who appears to be suffering from cancer. They are en route to New York to seek treatment of Nadja’s mysterious affliction, the revealing of which becomes the big twist somewhere in the middle of this 2-hour film.

The story ramps up, of course, when the passengers realize that the aircraft has been hijacked by a group of terrorists, including a psychopath disguised as a flight attendant. There are some immediate and brutal casualties before Nadja is forced to reveal what she’s been battling with for several years now, which is unravelled in multiple flashbacks as the story unfolds. To be honest, I would have loved for the director to focus more attention on this background story than the current development instead. It felt unfinished and could have been used for an entire new film in itself, a prequel perhaps.

Instead, ‘Blood Red Sky’ focuses on what is happening on this plane, which takes longer than it needed to and goes places that really took away from the believability factor, which sounds silly once you find out the actual goings-on of this film. The acting is pretty good here, sure, especially the young actor who plays Elias (Carl Anton Koch), but there is little connection between the audience and these characters, or at least that was my personal feelings. And the character design is flawed, let’s just say that.

For the most part, they did a great job with the effects, including the practical effects, but there were multiple scenes of the plane flying through the night sky that were simply unconvincing.

Overall, the film’s premise was the true highlight here, but the execution of it left much to be desired, unfortunately. Whether it was studio interference, time or budget restraints, or just personal taste, ‘Blood Red Sky’ came off somewhat of a lost opportunity. It’s available to stream right now on Netflix.

For the record, I’d give ‘Blood Red Sky’ 2 stars out of 5.

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‘Come True’ Movie Review: A Nightmarish Look Into the Unconscious Mind

I have so much respect for those do-it-all types of filmmakers; the ones who turn a film into a personal passion project in which they invest all their time, effort, and skills into until they’ve come up with something special. Anthony Scott Burns and his latest film, Come True, is a perfect example of this sort of filmmaking, as he took on not only the directing of this Canadian sci-fi horror, but also the writing, editing, and cinematography, and he even provided some of the score under his musical stage name, Pilotpriest. Now that’s dedication.

With that said, Burns clearly had a specific vision for this film, one that he was able to pull off with a small budget and an even smaller crew. However, you’d never know, as Come True is a well-crafted film with striking visuals, impressive acting, and a fascinating plotline which is tied up with a twist ending that’ll only make you want to rewatch the movie with a new perspective.

Come True is set around an insomniac teen named Sarah (played by Julia Sarah Stone), who apparently has a troubled home life and so is essentially homeless and sleeping over at friends’ houses or even outside on playground equipment. This leads her to enroll in a university sleep study, where she befriends one of the scientists and soon discovers the true and surreal objectives of the research program.

The program has been monitoring the dreams of its sleep patients and then translating their brain wave activity into actual imagery, using a newly-developed and groundbreaking technology. In other words, they’ve been spying on their dreams. It’s something right out of a Twilight Zone episode, set to a synth-centric soundscape and a foggy tempo that leaves you feeling like you might actually be in a sleep state yourself while watching it.

In fact, this film as a whole had this sort of ambiguous element to it, from the protagonist and her backstory to the general setting of the film. But I’m sure this was done on purpose, especially considering that it really tied into the final reveal of Come True, which I’m sure some viewers will ultimately be disappointed with.

The film is cohesively broken up into four themes inspired by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s theories of the collective unconscious. Come True is really anchored in this realm of ideas, and visually and/or thematically inspired by the works of everyone from David Lynch to fellow Canadian David Cronenberg. Actually, the film sort of wears its influences on its sleeve, paying visual and auditory homage to classics like Night of the Living Dead, Twin Peaks, The Shining, The Prince of Darkness, and TRON, and even the recent sleep-paralysis documentary The Nightmare.

Another work that helped shape Burns’ vision was the 1951 Disney film Alice in Wonderland, which he said “inspired the dreams in this movie a lot: the artistry, the idea of spotlights, and everything else fading into blackness.” Burns continued, “A nightmare narrative that takes you on a journey of nonsense, continuously shifting based on what the protagonist is feeling at that time, is a huge inspiration for the film. I have terrible nightmares, too.”

Scattered throughout Come True are these sort of cinematic dioramas that seem to be ripped out of Sarah’s nightmares, which are simultaneously unsettling and beautiful. These particular scenes, which look like they’d be right at home in one of those depraved horror video games, also introduce an unnerving dark shadowy figure that haunts Sarah’s dreams, though it ultimately becomes a bigger piece of the puzzle here than some sort of boogeyman character.

Come True is not the type of film you’ll see riding high at the box office. They almost never are. It’s slow, it’s dreary, and it relies on complex themes and concepts rather than jump scares and bankable villains. In other words, this film is not for everyone. And sure, the fact that this movie was shot entirely in my hometown may have subconsciously influenced my rating of it, but I know that I would have enjoyed Come True no matter where it was filmed. Burns put in a lot of work here and if you ask me, it paid off.

For the record, I’d give Come True 4 stars out of 5.