Director Tim Burton raises an undead franchise with a story so sputtering it seems more like a merciless cash grab than a creative revisit to the ghastly scene of the crime. Despite the nostalgia factor reserved for the 1988 original film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (C-) offers too little too late as characters return to their countryside home for more adventures in and out of the afterlife. The big surprise is Michael Keaton, three decades after originating an iconic mischievous performance as the titular demon, doesn’t miss a beat in picking up where he left off in his high jinks; he’s largely an underused comic delight and gets to partake in a gaggle of fun gags including one in a foreign language. Winona Ryder (her character now a reality show ghost hunter) and Catherine O’Hara (still a dotty artist and stepmom who is rarely home alone) reprise their roles too with flickers of gusto but are overshadowed by Jenna Ortega as a new protagonist with some far fresher takes. The first hour of the film suffers from exposition overload, with obtuse explanations – some pithy and some prolonged – as to why certain characters aren’t present in this episode. The second hour is largely unexpurgated madness and mayhem, with frivolous plot points featuring Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci going absolutely nowhere fast. Thankfully sight gags and sing-a-longs are stitched together in the final act for old times’ sake, equal parts fringe and cringe. The humor and gore are sometimes a bit darker than the first, but the movie’s devil-may-care spirit consistently conveys it’s not working all that hard to impress. There’s a twist or two and a bit of novelty at the very end that stand out, but mostly the movie feels like returning to one’s old haunts where nothing is functioning as effectively as it did before. Even Danny Elfman’s music only comes alive when riffing on past themes. After all these years, Burton still loses track of story in service of shiny objects, even if some are clever indeed. This sequel may appear in some ways like a dead ringer full of zingers akin to the first film; but it mainly plays like a sketch stretched out to feature movie length.
A tightrope wire of unsettling mood and ominous dread, writer/director Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs (B+) is fairly certain to secure its place as the year’s iconic horror movie. Maika Monroe is magnificent in a very controlled performance as an FBI agent with psychic skills assigned to a decades-spanning unsolved serial killer case with evidence of the occult. Blair Underwood is effective as her by-the-books boss and Alicia Whitt memorable as her concerned mother, but it’s Nicolas Cage as the incredibly creepy title character who steals his brief but indelible showpiece sequences under unrecognizable prosthetics. He’s unhinged in all the best ways. Our protagonist heroine discovers a personal connection to Longlegs and endeavors to stop him before he strikes again. The film reveals its mysteries at a deliberate pace and maintains a singular vision including immersive cinematography by Andrés Arochi punctuated by Zilgi’s spellbinding music. Perkins doesn’t lunge for obvious jump scares but instead maintains a terrifying tone for most of the film’s duration, with many of the film’s shocks occurring in broad daylight. His blend of supernatural and psychological suspense pairs nicely with horrifying imagery of brutal carnage, porcelain dolls and bygone nostalgia of seemingly innocent bucolic days. It’s an eerie tale well told.
The third film of director Ti West’s stylish trilogy departs the Texas terrain of chainsaw massacre homage (X) and Technicolor melodrama pastiche (Pearl) to culminate in a 1980’s-set Hollywood thriller vibe, but alas MaXXXine (D) loses its novelty fast. Aside from nailing the nostalgia and period detail of the mean streets and backlots of a drug-fueled horned-up Los Angeles, West’s latest movie rarely rises above base camp. Mia Goth, so mesmerizing in previous installments, is rather ho-hum as final girl “Maxine Minx” pursuing fame and fortune in what she hopes will be the crossover horror film role from all the pulp friction of her career in the adult-oriented movie milieu. Flashbacks to the first film interfere with the pacing and don’t do much to build character; what could have been fun, funny or subversive comes off as generally mundane. While honing her craft, Maxine must fend off the advances of a mystery nocturnal serial killer, a sleazy investigator (Kevin Bacon) a mercurial director (Elizabeth Debicki), a hapless cop (Bobby Cannavale) and more, but the flimsy story and script do no one in the ensemble any favors; and the final reel is embarrassingly shot. Frequent long shots and split screens attempt to evoke a Brian De Palma aesthetic, but there are scant thrills and even fewer kills. A constantly shifting tone and confounding character intentions will prompt most folks beyond the most patient viewers to lose interest. This trio of films came on strong with creativity and cunning and now ends with an uninspired whimper.
Reviews of the first two much better films in this trilogy:
In a cinematic year filled with logline leftovers based on Air Jordan sneakers, Blackberry devices and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, moviegoers can express guilty pleasure and gratitude for a film adapted from its own Grindhouse mock trailer. Expect to preview coming attractions for a surefire franchise-in-the-making because Eli Roth’s latest scrappy, schlocky and overstuffed horror movie is certain to become a perennial feast: this first Thanksgiving (B-) film with a Final Girl delivers a multi-course cornucopia of clever kills. The movie’s cold open foists viewers into the mayhem and satirical delirium of a Black Friday sale riot that ends in a bargain-hunting bloodbath; a year later, in a related revenge storyline, a sextet of precocious Plymouth Rock teenagers try to avert a mysterious serial killer intent on creating a carving board of the Massachusetts town’s denizens. Nell Verlaque is a bright and nuanced lead actress supported by an ensemble of familiar faces such as Patrick Dempsey (yikes, that terrible Boston accent!) and Gina Gershon (mercifully muted) in supporting roles. The film is exactly as advertised – a Scream-style thriller mystery festooned in harvest season accoutrements, from pitchforks to parades. In the film genre of splatter films set on gory days, this is much more mid-tier slasher à la Happy Birthday to Me than rising to Halloween masterpiece levels. The story contains genuine jump scares, grisly murders of the bloody disgusting variety and ribald belly laughs. The film’s veritable turkey trot of graphic violence is so mercilessly cartoonish, it makes Cocaine Bear look downright avant garde. There’s an inspired moment when the heroine hides from the masked “John Carver” among mannequin heads in a beauty school classroom and employs hairspray as impromptu mace. Roth paces the film with finesse and fury and continually raises the stakes; he never mistakenly confuses his film with high art. Sure some elements are undercooked, but it’s ultimately a cavalcade of communal gasps. Buckle up, pilgrims, for high-camp, high-stakes, horned-up plenty.
If Halloween and Back to the Future had a love child, it would be Nahnatchka Khan’s Totally Killer (C+); and in terms of radical surprises, this comic horror movie has very few flux (capacitors) to give. The contemporary teen protagonist, played by a funny deadpan Kiernan Shipka, must go back in time to the 1980s to avert a killing spree affecting her loved ones. Olivia Holt is effective as the heroine’s teenage version of her mother, and Julie Bowen is entertaining as mom in the modern day. There are some clever time travel conceits, nifty needle drops and funny asides about what passed for acceptable a generation or two ago, but there’s not quite enough here – including few scares – to warrant a strong recommendation. The “Sweet Sixteen” murderer clad in a Max Headroom style mask won’t likely enter the pantheon of killer classics, but the acting skills of Shipka portend more opportunities for uncanny comedy ahead.
The latest tepid incarnation of the half century spanning Exorcist movie saga is doubly damned in that it purports to change the course of a flimsy franchise that has never once matched the shocking original film and that David Gordon Green, fresh from his diminishing returns directing of a Halloween series reboot, is somehow up to the challenge of staking a claim of this devilish house of hellfire horror tropes to captivate a new generation. With the leaden TheExorcist: Believer (D), he neither serves up any nifty nostalgia nor provides any relevant new hot take. Frankly, the reason for this story’s existence is about as clear as pea soup. In the room where a few supernatural things happen, Leslie Odom Jr. makes insufficient impact as a widowed dad in a rural Georgia town whose tween daughter (Lidya Jewett) goes missing and comes back hissing. After almost building a credible amber alert procedural, Green bides time in the second hour with rubbery demon effects and little sets of deadened eyes that would make Polar Express characters’ heads spin. The filmmakers employ the notion that it takes an interfaith village to cure the tween and her similarly possessed friend (Olivia O’Neill) by throwing a cowardly priest (E.J. Bonilla), a holistic healer (Okwui Okpokwasili), a wannabe nun (Ann Dowd), another parent (Jennifer Nettles) and a parade of grassroots DIY warriors at the possession problem. None of the cast makes much impression, and even having O.G. star Ellen Burstyn burst in to the proceedings can’t penetrate the pall that’s hanging over this dull episode. Unanswered questions ranging from why the movie’s opening takes place in Haiti to ultimately why any of it takes place at all, are in abundance. Lousy effects and a plodding pace set the stage for the realization it’s not even scary. Banish this curious cash grab from your must-see queue.
A new film based on a little-known chapter of the Dracula saga proves to be monstrously boring. André Øvredal’s moribund nautical vampire tale The Last Voyage of the Demeter (D+) rarely sets sail into either creative or scary waters as the undead bloodsucker lurks and lunges in equal doses from the cargo hold of a nondescript merchant vessel traveling from Romania to England. The film’s mundane production values, self-conscious narration, cheap-looking creature effects and general lack of specificity about the shipboard whereabouts of this shape-shifting Lil’ Nos(feratu) X mark another low point in Universal’s “revisals” of classic monster pics. The mystery of why Vladdie can’t simply dispatch of the puny crew of imbeciles makes the dramatic dance even more of a transoceanic trance. Only Corey Hawkins as the protagonist, a shipboard MD caring for an unwitting stowaway (Aisling Franciosi) in need of transfusions, demonstrates any discernible pulse in the acting department. There are traces of race politics here, but the characters are too uninteresting to properly embody their arcs. Any teased promise of allegory is more bark than bite. The missed opportunities are countless. Typically pacing in a supernatural thriller is slow for a while to stoke the tension, but this adventure just gets more glacial: a captain’s slog to be sure! Only the film’s ability to elicit unintentional laughs in the final reel provides much of a jump scare surprise.
The blunt force trauma of being a modern teenager receives its horror film embodiment in Danny and Michael Philippou’s story of friends who thrill to a psychic portal unleashed by a disembodied hand that foists dread into their heads in the often thrilling Talk To Me (B). This nifty A-24 Australian import featuring the eerie embalmed handshake sure to bring all the boys and girls to the yard starts strong and builds decent momentum, with resultant head-trips both expansive and concussive. The co-directors are particularly adept at drawing their audience magnetically into the throes of outlandish juvenile antics, a veritable arm wrestle with the supernatural, and they rarely give up their grip. Among the cunning conjurers, Sophie Wilde as our bedeviled heroine and Joe Bird as a wide-eyed innocent are standouts. Both dexterous young actors could varsity letter in possession. Other characters barely registered but were engaging enough to sometimes buttress the blow of the body counts. Creepy practical effects, shocking jump scares, startling sound design and a few surprising peccadillos keep the slight but mighty proceedings fresh amidst the digital dimensions and massive head wounds. Serendipitously, the most bonkers sequence in the hands-first haunting involves a rogue foot. For most of its brisk running time, this head-banging handmade tale definitely has legs.
This movie was staid when it should have slayed. An intriguing premise devolves into just a bunch of running scared in Tim Story’s horror satire The Blackening (D). The film follows a group of Black friends on a Juneteenth holiday weekend who encounter masked murderers while staying at a cabin in the woods. At the film’s core is a mysterious board game that turns players against one another in a type of racial roulette, but most of the plot is just actors running from room to room screaming. Grace Byers and Melvin Gregg are among the accomplished standouts in the ensemble. Among those who stand out for all the wrong reasons, Jermaine Fowler gives a stupendously misguided performance, jawdropping in its caricature. Story shows scant skill in helming this type of horror movie, with no cleverness to the kills or pacing for the scares. There’s more mystery and suspense in any given Scooby-Doo episode. What could have been a sly play on tropes or an intellectual dissection of the role race plays in these kinds of movies is largely squandered. In terms of dignity of daring, nobody gets out of this one alive.
All the joys of the Scream franchise – surprise slayings, fun rules, sly cinephile references, newbies and nostalgia, all in a wily whodunit package, come together effectively in Scream VI (B+) co-directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. Characters who seemed tentative in the last go-round come of age with self-assurance in this installment with an invigorating change of venue to New York City. Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are dynamite as the central sisters smarting from the events of the 2022 film, and Jasmin Savoy Brown, Liana Liberato, Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere are among the standouts in the ensemble. The co-directors make great spectacle of Manhattan’s alleyways, brownstones, subways and even a movie palace as their topsy turvy series entry stylishly careens to effective showdowns. The whole movie is about subverting expectations with ample surprises up its sleeve. There’s a highly effective sequence to tickle the fancy of horror movie fans with a near-fancon of spooky cameos plus an array of genuinely suspenseful action scenes and a lot more gore. This energized entry brings some glory back to Ghostface.
An iconic film writer/director and his three on-screen protagonists each get points this time around for adapting. A high concept thriller based on a novel, M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin (B-) pits faith versus fear as a same-sex couple and their adopted daughter are visited by a quartet of strangers with a disturbing proposition. This unconventional home invasion story with plot holes aplenty is lifted by three performances including Dave Bautista as the peculiar leader of the trespassers, Ben Aldridge as the alpha dad lawyer and Kristen Cui as the wise pint-sized girl. Jonathan Groff is a weak link as the other dad; his character barely registers despite some pivotal final reel action. Shyamalan awkwardly handles some of the fight choreography and flashes to the world outside the wooded domicile, but the movie’s missteps are largely forgivable in the context of the fierce family tale. By borrowing from someone else’s story, the suspense auteur finds unexpected surprises.
Premiered at Sundance Film Festival from Neon Films. Released via video on demand 2/14/23.
Tropical resorts seem to be the modern milieu for disassociating with one’s central humanity, and auteur Brandon Cronenberg’s horror thriller Infinity Pool (B-) is the latest instance of a not so innocent abroad discovering he’s not feeling completely himself. Without spoiling the labyrinthine plot, expect curious customs in a foreign land, relentless violence, the appearance of doppelgängers and an array of hedonistic detours. Unfortunately Alexander Skarsgård doesn’t command the screen with enough gravitas to justify his journey, but his co-star Mia Goth is an unhinged sensation as the seductress who brings out his primal instincts. She’s proving to be the follow-her-anywhere marquee star of horror shows. There’s a point in this film where a very original premise gets lost in a fog of Altered States meets A Clockwork Orange tropes, but Cronenberg ultimately reins it in and lands his thesis. Beyond the bizarre brushes with ultra violence, there’s a compelling message about wealth and power and creating one’s own moral universe. The tale could be tidier but is fairly engrossing.
