Tag Archives: Supernatural

Talk To Me – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A completely fraught film that captivates and terrifies you in equal measures.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Mia holds the hand.

Talk To Me Review –

As I do this final wrap-up of 2023, there is one film that I tried to see multiple times, but life or odd showing times always got in the way. I knew I could not do my end-of-year lists without seeing it, so I was happy to see it had slipped onto Netflix while I had my back turned.

So to set the scene, there is a part roaring in a suburban house, but cutting a swath through the gathering is Cole (Ari McCarthy) looking for his brother Duckett (Sunny Johnson). Cole is concerned but is shocked when he finds Duckett under the influence of something. Trying to get him to safety, he confronts all the partygoers filming the pair out of amusement when Duckett pulls a knife from the counter and stabs Cole in front of the gathering. Later, Mia (Sophie Wilde) is still reeling on the anniversary of their mother’s death when she takes her friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s Brother Riley (Joe Bird) to a party where the kids are playing a new game, Talk To Me. It is a porcelain hand covered in words that, if you say the right words, you can see a visage of the other side and let them into your body. Just don’t let them stay more than 90 seconds.

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Musings on The Leftovers (or did Nora Lie?)

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TL;DR – In which I wax lyrical or ramble about the series The Leftovers and its exploration of faith and truth.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series.

Two men on a roof after an apocalypse that didn't happen.

The Leftovers Review –

Today, we will do something a little different than usual in that we will be less of a review and more of a retrospective on a series. Well, it’s not quite a retrospective, but more some musings that have been rumbling around in my head for months and that I better put down on paper somewhere so I can let them go rather than pondering on them all the time. With that in mind, we delve into the world of guilt, trauma, religion, faith, and crisis.

So to set the scene, three years before the start of the series on October 14th, 2011, two per cent of the world’s population vanished instantly. One hundred forty million people were gone in a moment of time, with no rhyme or reason as to why they were chosen. A child was screaming one second, gone the next. A family was eating breakfast one moment and gone the next. The person you were holding hands with during a science experiment, the person you were making love with, all gone. How do you move on after an event like this? Can you? Can society? Can the town of Mapleton and the Garvey family? Now from here, we will be looking at the whole series as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Five Nights at Freddy’s – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It captures the feel of the video games, though the added narrative might not work for everyone.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza

Five Nights at Freddy’s Review –

In the not-so-distant past, if you heard the words ‘video game adaptation’, it would provoke a feeling of instant cringe. At best, they were okay, often terrible, and much of the time, they were embarrassed about the very material they were adapting. But 2023 has bucked that trend with The Last of Us and Gran Turismo, some of the many knocking it out of the park. Well, it is time to see if they can keep this run going and terrify me simultaneously.   

So to set the scene, we open in on a man (Ryan Reinike) in clear distress as he crawls through some vents, desperate to escape, but no exit can be found. Sometime later, Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is desperately looking for a new job after mistaking a father grabbing his kid for a predator. If he can’t get a job, he will lose custody of his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) to their awful Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). With very few options left, he takes a security gig at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. It was once all the rage but has sat chiefly abandoned since the 1980s. All Mike must do is sit in the security room and keep an eye on the place, but no one told him the place might be keeping an eye on him.

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The Exorcist: Believer – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a stunningly tense affair that gets closer to the original than I think people expected.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Katherine walks down the ailse of a church covered in communion wine.

The Exorcist: Believer Review –

One of the jobs I set for myself this year was to explore the world of horror more. It was an area that was a bit of a blind spot for me, and I needed to engage with it a bit more. While I am not sure if I have been as successful with that as I would have liked. However, M3GAN, Outpost, and Evil Dead Rise have helped. But I am not sure that anything will prepare me for The Exorcist.

So to set the scene, one morning, Katherine (Olivia Marcum) and Angela (Lidya Jewett) go to school, and they disappear, vanishing until they are found walking in the forest disorientated. The girls think they have been gone for hours but have been missing for three days. Their parents are just happy to have them home, that is, until they start acting odd, dangerously odd. For you see, it might not have been just the girls who returned home that evening, and traditional medicine might not have the answer.

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A Haunting in Venice – Movie Review

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TL;DR – The stronger of the three so far that explores faith, mystery, and, of course, murder.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

skellington

A Haunting in Venice Review –

I love a good murder mystery film, and when you want a good murder mystery, you can’t go past the Queen of Murder Mysteries, Agatha Christie. She has a way with words that have made it through the ages, and the latest interpretation of her work on the big screen has been helmed by Kenneth Branagh with their Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and Death on the Nile in 2022. Today, we get the third instalment in the series, and what, spoiler alert, is my favourite of the three.

So to set the scene, it is now 1947, and it has been ten years and one world war since we last saw Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) on the Nile. After a lifetime of investigations, Poirot has taken to seclusion and retirement in a house in Venice with only his bodyguard Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and the daily pastries boat making their way past his door. It is a life of quiet solitude that is punctured when an old friend/acquaintance/annoyance, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), arrives at his door with a conundrum. There is a medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), going around claiming that she can talk with the dead, and no matter what Oliver can do, she can’t work out Joyce’s tricks. Joyce is doing a séance for local celebrity Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) to speak with her recently lost daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson) as it is Hallowe’en. All Poirot has to do is work out her tricks, and surely there won’t be any other deaths …

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The Nun II – Movie Review

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TL;DR – We get a film that terrifies in its opening and reigns with a bombast at the end. You just have to get between these two points.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

The Nun appears in a magazine.

The Nun II Review –

In 2023, I set myself a goal of dipping my toe more into the Horror genre, and while I am not sure how successful I have been on that front, I have continued with some interesting new entries in that genre. Today’s entry is another film in the Conjuring Universe, of which I have only seen The Conjuring 3, and neither of the three other films the main character appears in before now. With that in mind, can you follow a sequel when you missed everything leading up to it?     

So to set the scene, it is 1956 in Tarascon, France, where a young alter boy is going about his daily routine to prepare for evening mass, not knowing that an evil presence lurks in the dark. Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) is now working in a quiet monastery mentoring young nuns like Sister Debra (Storm Reid) when she is told that The Nun (Bonnie Aarons) is back and carving a swath of destruction across Europe. But the potential victims dramatically increase when The Nun homes in on a school.

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Renfield – Movie Review

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TL;DR – At times, it is a delightful bloody mess, but it does struggle in places

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film

Dracula.

Renfield Review –

Some genres in cinema are almost timeless and resurge from time to time. The last time vampires surged to the front, they were sparkly and problematic for various reasons. But with the recent strengths of What We Do in the Shadows, it was only time until someone took that energy into the cinema space, and that is what we are looking at today.

So to set the scene, we open with Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) giving a little back history of his life since he rocked up to Count Dracula’s (Nicolas Cage) castle at the start of the 20th century. When Dracula gets injured by sunshine when hunters attack, Renfield moves the two to New Orleans to set up in the dilapidated Charity Hospital. Renfield needs to find victims to help Dracula heal, so he attends a co-dependent relationships self-help group where he hunts for abusers. However, one day while protecting Rebecca (Awkwafina) from Tedward Lobo (Ben Schwartz) and his henchmen, he saves many innocent lives, sending him on a crash course with his master.  

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We Have a Ghost – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A frustrating film sometimes, but when it finds its feet, you feel its strength and spooks.   

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

The house at night before all hell breaks loose.

We Have a Ghost Review –

I always like to see when a filmmaker takes a spin on what they are known for. Christopher Landon has a long career in horror space with Paranormal Activity and Happy Death Day, but could he make a more family-orientated supernatural film land as well? Well, this is the question we ask as we dive into a world of ghosts, or well at least a world of a ghost.  

 So to set the scene, one night, while the Moon was full, all was quiet until screams erupted from a house bathed in eerily green light. All at once a family rushes to their car and drives away, and the house closes itself up. Kevin (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) and his family move into the rundown house one year later. There is a lot of tension between Kevin and his father, Frank (Anthony Mackie), over the move, as it is one of many the family has gone through. But as Kevin walks through the house at night, it suddenly gets cold, a chair starts moving by itself, and then a spectral presence explodes out of the walls. But instead of being scared, Kevin laughs, beginning a very different relationship with the ghost Ernest (David Harbour) as they team up to help each other.     

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Lockwood & Co. Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This was a fascinating series with an exciting premise yet to show its full hand, but I want to see where it goes.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

A UV Protection light for night.

Lockwood & Co. Review –

There are some shows that you check out just because there is an idea that is so interesting that you need to check it out. What happens if ghosts are real and they just start attacking people? How would that change a modern society where death is all around? It is a question that I very much wanted to find out.

So to set the scene, it has been 50 years since the problem changed the world. One day people just started to drop dead in mysterious ways at night. Soon the world discovers that ghosts or visitors have come back, and if they touch you, well, you’re dead. It was a chaotic time as the world tried to find out how to fight back until they discovered the power of Iron, Salt, and Silver and that some children and teenagers could see the visitors fight them. In 2020, one of those teenagers is Lucy Carlyle (Ruby Stokes), but after being hung out to dry by her former boss, she makes the trip to London to join one of the giant ghost agencies. But without her parent’s permission, no one will take her, well that is until she stumbles into the office of Lockwood & Co., run by Anthony Lockwood (Cameron Chapman) and supported by George Karim (Ali Hadji-Heshmati). They are the only agency that is run by the teens who are doing the dying, so they know what the stakes are. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead for the show.   

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Movie Review

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TL;DR –  It unravelled a bit at the end, but I enjoyed the ride up till then.   

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid and post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film

The family sit on a broken car.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Review –

With our next catch-up film, we get to go back to a movie released on New Year’s Day in 2022. I had meant to watch this well before this, but there was a lot of toxicity around the film building up to release, which put me off a bit, and it never worked into the schedule until now. But what failed at Halloween is now ready at Christmas, and it is time to dive in.  

So to set the scene, on a stormy night at Shandor Mining Co., a man leads an invisible entity back to his farm. He tries to catch it, but the power fails, and the creature attacks before he can recover. With his death, his farm in Summerville, Oklahoma, reverts to his estranged daughter Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), who is in financial struggle and moves out there with her daughter Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) and son Trevor Spengler (Finn Wolfhard). They were hoping to be able to sell the place, but nothing is straightforward, and they have to stay for a while. Things are going okay, but for the daily earthquakes with no source. That is until Phoebe finds her grandfather’s old ghost trap, and she, her friend Podcast (Logan Kim), and teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) open it up and let out a coming doom.  

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