192 Best Releases From the Genre Mystery (Page 8)
Spiral: From the Book of Saw
Watch afterAmerican Fiction (2023),
StarringSamuel L. Jackson,
StudioLionsgate,
If you happen to stumble upon the Wikipedia page for Spiral, the ninth and newest feature film in the Saw franchise, you find a goldmine full of stories, exaggerations, and words strung together that you hardly believe are real. Chris Rock, the star and executive producer of Spiral, ran into Michael Burns, the Vice Chairman of Lionsgate, at a friend’s wedding in Brazil. They chatted about the horror genre, with Rock expressing intent to take his career on a different path. Continue Reading →
Oxygen
SimilarKlute (1971), Maria Full of Grace (2004), Monster (2003), Pi (1998),
Shaft (2000) Stranger Than Paradise (1984),
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Bullet Train (2022),
Director Alexandre Aja built his career finding as many ways as possible to explore tension and suspense. His tone shifts from project to project, from the gruesome violence of The Hills Have Eyes to the goofiness of Piranha 3D. His most recent success, Crawl, was lauded as a true successor to Jaws—just swap the boat for a creepy house and the shark for a pack of gators. But always at the core of his work is Aja’s interest in finding new ways to thrill his audiences, and Oxygen is no different. Continue Reading →
The Getaway
Even early in his career, Philip Seymour Hoffman is too good for this dull shoot-em-up.
Before he passed away at the age of 46, Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in 52 feature films. Starring roles, character pieces, chameleon work—he left a legacy nearly unmatched in both quality and quantity. Now, with P.S.H. I Love You, Jonah Koslofsky wafts through the cornucopia of the man’s offerings.
When you think of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s frequent collaborators, Alec Baldwin probably doesn’t come to mind. Yet these actors found themselves in the same movie on multiple occasions, appearing opposite each other three times. Their collaborations got better as time went on, with their most successful pairing coming in the genuinely funny Along Came Polly. Before that, Hoffman and Baldwin co-starred as a writer and a pervy actor, respectively, in David Mamet’s State and Main. Unfortunately, their original convergence is a rancid waste of time. Continue Reading →
Jupiter's Legacy
SimilarAstro Boy, Ben 10, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, The Amazing Spider-Man,
Hollywood's year-long hiatus on major comic-book adaptation movies has left ample room for streaming services to pick up the slack and then some. Amazon, for example, has wisely curated high-profile releases from existing superhero stories that subvert the genre in ways that would probably ring unfamiliar if attempted by the more mainstream Marvel and DC fare. The Boys is all about poking a gory hole in how superheroes can be vapid, unchecked, and even monstrous celebrities. Invincible just ended its first season with a bang of a finale, taking its colonizer version of Superman to task. And then there's the curious case of Netflix's Jupiter's Legacy. Continue Reading →
Twixt
Pulsating at the heart of Twixt are pains all too familiar to legendary writer-director Francis Ford Coppola. Third-string horror novelist Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), the “bargain-basement Stephen King,” arrives for a book signing in the town of Swann Valley, where, unappreciated and unable to overcome a case of writer’s block, he’s forced to confront his insignificance, his sullied legacy, and the feeling that he has nothing valuable left to say or give. Continue Reading →
Mare of Easttown
Mare of Easttown may at times feel like it’s kicking a dead horse. It’s a grammatically perfect post-Cardinal Bernard Law, cold-case-comes-alive thriller with rich performances by its entire cast. Yet for a story about a maverick detective purporting to be about more than crime, it follows surprisingly predictable beats, leaving little room for illuminating nuance. Continue Reading →
Scream 4
For the horror genre, April 15, 2011, marked a handful of notable dates. On one hand, it was the 15th anniversary of when Scream started filming, starting with the 11-minute sequence in which an onscreen Drew Barrymore, thought by the masses to be the star, was eviscerated in the name of her killers' pop culture fetish. The movie not only reintroduced the slasher film back into the mainstream, but it also brought back one of its maestros. Of course, that'd be Wes Craven. Continue Reading →
The Conversation
Not many artists have stretches of greatness so profound that they transcend their medium. They’re not looked at as just a musician or athlete or director, but part of the fabric of modern pop culture at a particular time. What The Beatles meant to the 1960s, or what Michael Jordan meant to the 1990s, is how Francis Ford Coppola defined the 1970s. Continue Reading →
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
The Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime crossover event on April 1st will mark not only the premiere of a new Law & Order spinoff, but also the return of one Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). For the first 12 seasons of SVU Stabler and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) were the SVU team, the perfect partners. Continue Reading →
The Scary of Sixty-First
SimilarRosemary's Baby (1968),
Dasha Nekrasova leaps out of the gate with an audacious, out-there horror debut as creepy as it is transgressive.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Berlin Film Festival.)
Once upon a time, when a horror film was described as being “transgressive,” it indicated that it dealt with material that went far beyond the social mores of the time. Even fans of the genre were startled by what they were seeing in films like Psycho (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968), and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Nowadays, when a horror film is described that way, it's just code for being super violent and nothing else. Continue Reading →
Tell Me Your Secrets
I am a great lover of camp media. I love the over-the-top, the ridiculous, the melodramatic, and the ostentatious. I love storytelling that delves so far into the extremes of the human experience that it departs from reality altogether. Unfortunately, camp can backfire, and when it doesn’t work, it can become so ridiculous that it’s hard to watch. Continue Reading →
The Luminaries
Part melodrama, part gold rush adventure story, part soulmate fable, and part astrology app come to life, The Luminaries, Starz’s 6-episode adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s 2013 novel, is much like the gold its characters seek: shiny, ephemeral, and ultimately cold. Adapted by Catton and directed by Claire McCarthy, The Luminaries wastes no time in unfurling several plot points in media res, with dramatic but confusing results. Continue Reading →
那夜凌晨,我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN
SimilarThe Thirteenth Floor (1999),
In the endless battle for our eyes and souls between Netflix, Disney+ and HBOMax, too often left out of the discussion is Shudder. As far as niche streaming services are concerned, no one is doing it better than them, with a vast collection of classic, international and original horror. They’re also not afraid to push back against horror fans’ often narrow minded definition of what “horror” actually is. After Midnight may confound and frustrate some, but deserves some praise just for trying something a little different. It doesn’t always work, but it tries. Continue Reading →
Saint Maud
StudioBFI, Film4 Productions,
When it comes to suffering, no one does it like Catholics. Consider Opus Dei, the secretive branch of Catholicism that still allegedly practices self-flagellation, or the hardcore worshipers who recreate Christ’s crucifixion every Easter, rather than dyeing eggs or baking a ham. Even when mortification of the flesh isn’t involved, no other religion promotes the idea of misery as the pathway to salvation. Rose Glass’s nightmarish Saint Maud digs deep into the pathology of that mindset, and is something you won’t likely forget for a long time. Continue Reading →
Тайны следствия
The death of the brilliant, award-winning Swedish journalist Kim Wall made a worldwide headline in 2017, mostly because the details of her murder were so gruesome that it almost felt like a work of fiction. But in Tobias Lindholm’s The Investigation — a grim six-part miniseries based on the killing of Kim Wall — the brutality of that crime is never the main focus. Instead of trying to exploit the drama behind this tragedy, Lindholm chooses to focus on the other side of the story: the hard work and determination shown by the team of police who worked together to seek the justice that Kim Wall and her family deserved to have. Continue Reading →
Ghostland
SimilarOldboy (2003), Saw (2004), Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007),
Nicolas Cage & Sion Sono team up for an incoherent Samurai-Western-Mad Max homage-something or other.
It’s impossible to review a Nicolas Cage movie. They’re the very definition of “critic-proof,” in that they always have a dedicated audience who will declare them “the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” and forgive them for lacking in plot or competence. You don’t like it? You just don’t know how to relax and have a good time. Sion Sono’s first English language feature, Prisoners of the Ghostland fits right in: loud, garish, bereft of anything resembling a plot. Is it fun? It certainly thinks it is.
Trying to explain what Prisoners of the Ghostland is about is a fool’s errand, but let’s give it a go anyway. Nicolas Cage is Hero, a notorious bank robber whose last gig got a little boy killed (but he feels bad about it, so that absolves him). He’s summoned from jail by the Governor (Bill Moseley), who runs Samurai Town, a combination of Dodge City and Neo-Tokyo, with a dash of Terry Gilliam thrown in. Hero is ordered to rescue the Governor’s missing “granddaughter” Bernice (Sofia Boutella), and is fitted into an unremovable leather jumpsuit with explosive charges at his neck, elbows and crotch. Continue Reading →
How It Ends
SimilarCube (1997), Cube Zero (2004), Maria Full of Grace (2004),
Shaft (2000)
Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein usher in the end of the world with a winsome indie comedy about seeking closure and reconciliation.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.)
Directed by husband-and-wife duo Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein, How It Ends can be recognized immediately as a movie filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cameos abound, with each minimal character appearing on balconies, across the street, on the other side of the table. These interactions, despite any emotional connection or progress, end with a wave goodbye, air kisses, or any other touchless way of leaving a situation. As the film meanders forward, this oddness grows, as two people share a genuine moment of importance, only to walk their separate ways with no physical affirmation of that moment. Continue Reading →
Coming Home in the Dark
James Ashcroft's hostage horror is nought but bland, sour sadism.
Before the premiere screening of the New Zealand import Coming Home in the Dark, the festival programmer introducing it led off by admonishing viewers that the following film was “not for the faint of heart.” Of course, for a violent thriller appearing in the midnight slot at Sundance, such words are not so much a warning as they are a come-on designed to lure in those with more outre tastes hoping to find the next gory hit to emerge from the festival. Although the film is certainly gruesome enough, there is nothing here that average viewers will find to b that far beyond the pale. Instead, they are more likely to be put off by James Ashcroft’s hollow and increasingly tiresome exercise in empty sadism whose utter pointlessness is further underscored by its delusions that it is saying something profound.
Alan “Hoaggie” Hoaganraad (Erik Thomson) is a blandly pleasant-looking teacher who is off on a car trip with his wife, Jill (Mirama McDowell )and her teenaged sons Make (Billy Paratene) and Jordan (Frankie Paratene) to the coast. All seems perfectly normal until they, in the time-honored tradition of bad cinematic car trips, decide to stop for a hike and a picnic lunch. It is while completing the latter that they are approached by two men, the extremely loquacious Mandrake (Daniel Gilles) and the more taciturn Tubs (Mathias Luafutu). After a few minutes of vaguely menacing talk, Mandrake produces a rifle and the two interlopers are soon on the road with Alan and the family—at least what remains of it—as their captives. Continue Reading →
Censor
Niamh Algar learns the price of prurience in Prano Bailey-Bond's neon-soaked ode to the video nasty.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.)
It's England in the 1980s - poverty is high, Thatcher is in office, and the so-called moral majority is sounding the alarm about the increasing ubiquity of "video nasties", gory, violent films that, as the hysteria goes, tap into the seediest, most antisocial impulses of the British people. Think Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer, or Cannibal Holocaust: eerie exercises in sociopathy that thrill their fans and terrify their detractors. For Enid (Niamh Algar), a film censor, her job isn't about protecting a sensitive public from the disturbing films she's shown (ones with titles like Deranged and Beast Man), but merely to do her job well. Even so, she's buttoned up in more ways than one, from her uptight clothing to her lack of chemistry with her coworkers. Much of that is due to years of trauma sustained from the disappearance of her sister as a teenager, which she was present for but can't remember a thing about; her parents only recently chose to declare her dead and begin to move on with their lives. Continue Reading →
The Empty Man
StarringRobert Aramayo,
Studio20th Century Fox,
Two-hours and sixteen minutes. There is a version of The Empty Man that’s a solid, efficient horror flick, and then there’s the version that’s two-hours and sixteen minutes. Unfortunately, we got the latter. Adapted from an independent comic book of the same name, this poorly paced, occasionally engaging exercise staggers along like its titular demon. If only there was a way to stop it, before it’s too late. Continue Reading →
WandaVision
Admit it: we're all preemptively exhausted by Disney+'s seemingly endless onslaught of new films and franchise shows set to premiere over the next few years: we're going to be practically drowning in content, all geared toward immersing us in the brands and IPs they mercilessly control and asking audiences to buy into an ever-overwhelming web of interconnected stories. That said, ifWandaVision is a bellwether for the level of experimentation and creativity we can expect from some of these shows, we might not be in the worst hands. Continue Reading →