Stopmotion

Stop motion animation is hard work. You move a puppet a centimeter, take a picture . . . and then repeat the process thousands of times.

If you’re lucky, that’s all you need to do to bring your work to life. But if you’re unlucky?

This is precisely the fun of Stopmotion. While Ella works hard at creating her own stop motion animation (which is of course driving her crazy), things outside the job begin to feel very creepily like the job itself. Almost like her project is taking over her life . . .

This is truly unsettling stuff, and all sorts of moviemaking techniques jerk us around in ways we don’t want to be moved. Hinges will squeak on your joints; putrid lighting and waxy meat will have you questioning your perception.

Are several scenes too long, making the movie feel dragged out? Yes. And is there a moral to the story? I can’t tell. But, this is a movie that shows how creation can sometimes bring agony; its sights and sounds are truly immersive, showing us thoughtful, professional moviemaking minds at work.

Whose movie is this?

In a Violent Nature

Nature seems to go like this: You eat until you’re eaten. In a Violent Nature seems to have been written with this in mind.

It follows Thing, who has been awakened, and who will not eat or sleep until it kills those who’ve disturbed it. Like those people staying in that cabin . . .

And so we trail a few steps behind Thing as it walks ever so patiently, step by step through the crunchy leaves, to do what it does. Its prey are so close—we can hear them talking, just out of our sightline. Moviemaking techniques like these make this a hair-raising, heart-pounding watch.

And yet, walking with Thing for minutes on end (even if weirdly therapeutic forest-bathing), we begin to consider: Why? And why do we care?

We learn very little about Thing; even less about its prey. So what if nature is violent, do we need a reminder of that? Another horror movie full of slaughter, just because somebody’s feelings were hurt?

If you like to see gore, this movie has it, and I suppose is creative in that way. But otherwise?

Guess who?

No One Will Save You

No One Will Save You . . . from how unbelievable this movie is?

For most of its runtime, it’s an impressive and gripping watch—a sci-fi horror with writing that’ll keep you guessing and acting that’ll have you sweating! But at some point, it’ll confuse you; and by doing so, it just may lose you.

The movie follows Brynn, who lives alone, and is clearly lonely. Though her home and town seem quaint, they seem to be missing needed connections.

Seems cozy, though!

Soon enough we learn why, and soon after that, the spooks begin: Thing(s) seem to be visiting Brynn’s house at night. My oh my are these moments scary, and zero dialogue adds to the natural tension, making you almost wanna scream.

All this makes for a fun and striking watch, for sure! But don’t be disappointed when you can’t find a deeper message: What the movie gains from technique, it loses from screenwriting that tries to do too much. To say that there’s a resolution here, other than the credits rolling, would be an overstatement.

The Menu

The Menu is big-time saucy. As slick and entertaining as it is . . . discouraged and disappointing.

The idea is that Margot goes to dinner. She’s wondering why Tyler is so excited about it, but the restaurant’s boat takes them to its island where the staff lives. Other diners include food critics and movie stars. Margot, if you don’t want your rez, I’ll take it!

The intro to all that is a bit bland and choppy, but next comes the meal, when things really get tasty.

Course by course, the chef explains what’s happening. This dish is this, but also, it means that. Moviewriting like this pokes fun at fancy restaurants and their diners just as often as it plays with our expectations. This is smart and funny stuff.

And horrific. To give more detail would spoil the fun, but basically, the diners get way more than they paid for. I have changed my mind about that rez.

The casting, acting, and editing (like almost every aspect of this movie) illustrate professional execution of a distinguished variety. Well done!

And yet . . . I am disappointed. It feels like the moviemakers wanted to say nothing matters in the most beautiful, cinematic, opposite way. What’s the point in that?

Ah yes, the meat and scissors course.

Old

Old does have its surprises, but the title tells you everything you need to know.

Step One: A family goes on vacation. They’re quirky and beautiful like their destination, a tropical, paradisal place. Hiccups pass as each member tries their best to enjoy this special moment. How sweet.

Step Two: Something terrible happens, destroying all good vibes and any hope of a return to normalcy. If you’re curious about what that could be, well, I won’t mention the title again.

There is a contrast of wonder and terror here. Smart! As aging may well be the scariest thing out there, the bulk of the movie is for us an uncomfortable, emotional experience. Kudos go to the concept-creator here—and the actors, who portray our fundamental fear at its most horrifyingly condensed.

Whether you’ll enjoy it all, though, will depend on your patience with the characters, and especially with the ending. Would you do what they do? Can you believe this is happening?

For most of the time, I thought yes. Brilliant camerawork—capturing one character frozen while the others are in motion, or, close-framed and obscuring but hinting at the objects of all these horrified gazes—had me begging for some resolution.

And then, alas, it came. And then, I felt a little older.

Another smartly-framed scene in which the camera stays put—increasing our increasingly-desperate curiosity.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Baby crying again? Throw it out the window already!

I joke, folks, though The Yellow Wallpaper does not. This psychological horror reminds us that disturbing comes in different packages.

Take Jane and John. This married couple will spend the summer with their newborn at a lovely estate. Nice, right?

Wrong. Oh so wrong. Jane’s face screams it. Hubby (who is also her doctor) has arranged this trip to fix whatever Jane is living with, and wow does the prescription have side effects.

You’ll stay in this room Jane, I picked it out for you. It gives you a bad feeling? Nonsense. And stop with your writing, you must rest. Enjoy the grounds, now, but don’t stay outside for too long. Oh, and I might be gone a couple days; someone has to pay the bills around here. See ya!

This mix of patriarchal- and medical-malpractice is maddening. And as you’d guess, Jane’s condition worsens in its midst. Whether it’s anxiety or postpartum depression, boredom or schizophrenia, we can’t tell. What we do see—heck, what most of the movie is—is long, quiet scenes of Jane staring at things. Exploring dark parts of the estate, here; staring at that terrible yellow wallpaper, there. Wait—did you hear that?

Brief and few moments of narration do not change the feeling of this movie; it is slow, naturalistic. Kudos go to essentially all of the moviemakers here. You can see where the story is headed and it makes you wanna scream.

Fair warning, though, I was taken out of it more than once. Jane’s descent feels about 20% longer than it needs to be; its different scenes aren’t meaningfully different. And while Jane’s character is a difficult one to portray, filled with inner dialogue and turmoil that can only be hinted at on the surface, I found the portrayal to lack a certain depth. Little things like eyes darting (which can happen when actors try too hard to avoid the camera) and Jane’s accent (markedly different than those of her fellow characters, and curiously modern-sounding at times) are what I’m thinking of here.

With a meaningful, interesting premise and lovely techniques to explore it, The Yellow Wallpaper captured my attention for a while. More often than not, however, I had the feeling that this movie was almost there. That tempered my experience a fair bit.

Fear Street: Part Two - 1978

Do you study the roller coaster first, or just go for it? Isn’t the fun part getting thrown around in unexpected ways?

I think the same is true for movies. The less you know, the better. But Fear Street: Part Two - 1978 breaks that maxim; you’ll get a whole lot more out of this movie if you watch its prequel (Fear Street: Part One - 1999) first.

Duh, you’re thinking. And duh, I thought, while watching. How could I have expected more from this?

The story begins where the last one ended: Deena and her friends are plagued by an evil that they’re unsure how to defeat. So they go in search of their only hope, a woman who had encountered that same evil years ago and who seems to have survived unscathed. A good sign, right?

Not so fast, says the survivor. In a movie-long flashback, she recounts what happened to her sister and friends back at summer camp in 1978. Everything was normal until someone started acting funny. And then someone else . . .

What this movie series does right is to swell with angsty, frivolous teens. This gets us on edge—and distances us from the gravity of the situation when one of them is inevitably chopped to pieces. The story unfolds slowly but surely, and the production is of professional quality. But it’s all been done before.

The movie lives off of stale approaches: the summer camp horror, the catchy music played as ugly violence unfolds, the caricatures of people.

You’ll enjoy Fear Street: Part Two - 1978 if you’re looking for a movie solidly in your comfort zone. It has mystery, gore, and good versus evil. But because it offers nothing new, the ride has no thrills.

Fear Street: Part One - 1994

Shadyville offers no prospects . . . unless you count murder.

Deena—heck, everybody—knows this. Her small town has become a hopeless, confusing place where high schoolers make light of killers; notoriety is the closest thing to accomplishment that they can imagine. It’s almost like everyone knows, deep down, that this place has nothing for them but pain.

As Deena and her friends will soon find out, there’s a reason for that. And it’s more sinister than they ever could’ve imagined.

You’ll learn too . . . eventually. The first half of Fear Street: Part One - 1994 feels just as long as its title. While petty, unsympathetic teens vie for the most-unlikeable-human award, little else happens. That makes it hard to care about what’s going on.

But if you can sit through the nonsense, the second half will reward you with classically-inspired, professionally-produced slasher horror. Indeed, the story’s structure gets better with compounding interest: Each plot point ratchets up the entertainment value by several multiples—and as time passes, with increasing frequency.

It all begins with, well, I’ll let you take a guess. And this affects Deena especially hard now that her boo and confidant has moved to the idyllic, rival town of Sunnyvale. When teen angst puts Deena and her crew in a spooky situation, more than just human emotions are rattled. A mystery dating back years and fears is uncovered once again.

The movie is no masterpiece, but its blend of light and dark makes for a fun date night. Especially if you’re in the mood for a scare, you could do worse than to watch this flick.

Squid Game (오징어 게임)

How did you fare on the playground? Be honest with yourself.

OK, good. Now that you have an answer, it doesn’t matter. Squid Game will chew you up and spit you out regardless.

It’s a jarring, violent story—but one so inventive and compelling that you’ll see yourself in the characters even as you’re repulsed by them.

Gi-hun introduces us to it all ever so innocently. He appears to be a degenerate gambler like any other, stealing from his elderly mother here, letting down his daughter there. But then a strange thing happens.

The man is given an offer: play on a grand scale. Play a game that, with debts like yours, it would be foolish to turn down . . .

To those of us with impulse control, this would appear too good to be true. And it is.

After Gi-hun accepts, a complex mystery is presented. This game has severe rules, in a severe setting. And Gi-hun is not alone. Not at all alone.

Each episode illustrates a bit more about the game’s players and creators, but devilishly leaves us wanting more. And the game itself? Disturbingly compelling. Our playground pastimes, adultified. Nine episodes of binge-worthy, nail-biting entertainment await you.

The winner will take home a prize that does something to our animal brains. All of them. Even us viewers safely watching outside the screen know this is crazy; we know this is unfair and violent and impractical, and yet we ponder it anyway. Watch it anyway.

It’s the kind of show you desperately want to talk about with someone else. Not necessarily because it’s good, but because it taps into something universal, illustrating and examining our human strategies to this game of life.

I watched every episode of Squid Game like an addict: always high, never satisfied. Am I happy about it?

Collective

A nightclub fire has killed more people than it should’ve. Reporters let us in on each step of their investigation, and it’s looking to be a bombshell.

Watching their patience in the face of an unknown and evolving enemy will get your blood pumping. But the fire investigation, it turns out, is just the tip of the fuse. State hospitals, the department of health, and the highest powers of Romanian government are implicated in related horrors.

Prepare yourself. The facts uncovered are disgusting; heartbreaking; almost unbelievable.

So why spend time with such a downer? Because to prevent tomorrow’s horror, we must understand today’s. Because we need reminders of how important it is to speak up for what’s right—and how important it is to have the right to speak up. 

Vampires vs. the Bronx

Miguel loves his community. But more and more, neighbors are leaving: The Bronx is gentrifying.

That may be a bad thing, but there’s something worse to be tackled, and only Miguel and his friends seem to recognize it. The Bronx is now feat. vampires.

The kids’ quest to save home is witty and entertaining. Bronx-ness permeates every scene without feeling fake or forced. The movie is meant to be spooky, but you’ll find yourself more happy than haunted.

Get Duked

Teenagers can suck. These three stand out even in that crowd, so they’re sent to the Scottish countryside for detention. The idea goes: You can’t fool around if you want to survive.

What could go wrong? A lot, it turns out. Especially when drugs and secret societies are involved.

This movie is just outrageous. It’s hilarious, punchy, and filled with youthful irreverence. The leads work well together, and as silly as it is, it makes an interesting point.

She Dies Tomorrow

Amy can’t explain why. She just knows. So, she spends her last day doing things that make her happy.

She also tells people. And that’s when the movie gets interesting. Her conviction spreads like a virus, with each new host reacting in its own way.

The slow start and choppy timeline make this movie feel a bit too intellectual (in part because it’s more thoughts and discussions than actions). But good acting feeds off a great premise. Colorful close-ups infect us with a feeling: There are powerful things going on that we cannot see.

It’s a weird, eerie one.

Vivarium

Vivarium is life . . . if you can call this living.

Gemma and Tom are looking for a house. An eager, if strange realtor knows just the place for them: A perfect place to live forever.

Anyways, the young couple doesn’t need perfect, and this one-note neighborhood is far from it. Things turn queasy when Gemma and Tom try to leave.

This movie is just spectacular. From beginning to end, every aspect (set design, coloration, editing, cinematography, writing, acting, directing, music, and so on!) creates a plastic, unsettling world that tells a story about ours. Humans can aspire, making perfect little things to use in our perfect little homes. But we’re deluding ourselves. Nature is one, scary thing, and we all know it.

Green Room

Green Room is where you wait. The anticipation kills.

Aint Rights is on tour, and is so underground, it seems, that nobody will attend their shows. Desperate, the band accepts a gig in a remote location. The crowd is . . . a bit rawer than the usual.

The band’s lyrics are hard, but its members are soft. This becomes painfully clear after one of them witnesses a crime. Aint Rights is now too real a name.

Every element of this movie maintains a terrific tension. It’s so good, and so prolonged, that you’ll almost beg for the spark. But fair warning, it’s more lightning than static.

El Hoyo (The Platform)

The Platform is a whole ’nother world.

We don’t know why it exists, who’s in charge . . . or how many people it tortures. Goreng doesn’t either, but he may be the first to explore enough to find out. As the only person to voluntarily enter this place, he’s either its savior or biggest stooge.

From the first moment, our world shrinks to the size of this vertical prison. Trapped with Goreng, his hopes and despairs become ours. Earworm music captures our unease, reminding us that truly, this very moment is all there is.

It is a thought-provoking, exciting, and twisted piece.

Aurora

Aurora is scary movie lite: sometimes spooky, sometimes silly, and mostly boring.

A ship has crashed offshore, ruining a nearby hotel’s ocean view. Leana and her sister therefore find themselves running an empty hotel—until unexpected visitors arrive . . .

The climax is well done, both scary and exciting. The rest of the movie is not. Uneventful scenes try to build a spooky tension, but in reality are just boring. When things do happen, they are often not scary, or add nothing to the story.

Climax

It is difficult to describe the point of Climax.

A dance team has finally nailed its act. Before taking the show on the road, it’s time to party! The crew relaxes, dances, gossips. It’s a good time—until somebody spikes the punch. Whatever was used, it does not mix well with the crowd.

Watching these pros dance is a good time. Music and camerawork help you experience their flow. But at several points, the director interrupts: with advertisements, credits, or philosophical messages; it’s unclear. Put that choppiness together with the horrific descent of the characters into lunacy, and the movie can feel unapproachable. Maybe that’s the point?

Pooka

Pooka is unsettling—and not in the way a horror movie should be.

Wilson is a struggling actor. Big break nowhere in sight, he tries his luck as a costumed children’s entertainer. Initially, he wouldn’t dream of donning this suit. Now, he literally cannot live without it.

This movie plays with the audience. This makes the timeline confusing, if not straight-up wrong. The end tries to reconcile this and other quirks, but it’s unsatisfying, and raises more questions than answers.

Velvet Buzzsaw

Art meets horror in Velvet Buzzsaw.

Josephina is fed up with the shallowness of the art world. Then she stumbles upon a collection of masterworks, guaranteed to make her rich. She’s ready to play the game once again, and her perfectly pretentious colleagues all vie for a piece of the action.

The problem? This art was created by a man haunted, who didn’t want his pain shared with the world. If his creations are exhibited against his wishes, the price to pay will be high indeed.

This is a good concept for a horror movie, and it provides some fun, symbolic death scenes. Although character development is lacking, you’ll get the picture.