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horror

Late Night With The Devil – Cameron & Colin Cairnes (2023)

  • horror

And so it came to pass that I saw two horror films in one weekend, while I usually skip the genre. Both films are quite interesting though.

Jack Delroy has a popular late night talkshow in the 1970’ies. After some succesful years, the number of viewers is going down and Jack and his producer are trying to think of ways to win back the attention of the television audience.

On Halloween evening, the show interviews a medium and intents to pursue on that ‘occult path’. Jack knows of a psychologist who treats a young girl who was born, raised and abused in a sect. It appears that the girl is possessed.

The evening that Judy and Lilly are to be interviewed, all hell literally breaks loose and while the film until then was mostly a peek into the 1970’ies television business, horror elements are rapidly introduced.

All in all an interesting watch.

Mandy – Panos Cosmatos (2018)

  • horror

This film had been on my wish list for a while. A horror of Panos “Beyond The Black Rainbow” Cosmatos.

Mandy and lumberjack Red (Nicholas Cage) live in a remote wooden cabin. When a sinister sect moves into a building close by, the leader lets his eye fall on Mandy. His henchman kidnap Mandy at night, while leaving Red nailed to a tree in their garden. Mandy does not conform to the leader’s wishes and the sect set Mandy on fire while Red is watching. Red sets out for revenge.

The first part of the film is a surreal hippy type film with bright colours and a psychedelic rock score not entirely unlike “Beyond The Black Rainbow”. It looks quite nice. The sect brings a bit of an occult tone.

Especially after the kidnap, the film turns into a slasher horror. The tone gets darker, less psychedelic and Cage is allowed to do ‘his thing’. This is not the most interesting part of the film, but all in all “Mandy reminds me that I should perhaps not leave aside the horror genre entirely.

Nosferatu – Robert Eggers (2024)

  • horror

I had to look it up, but the case here is that in 1922 Murnau wanted to make a film of the novel Dracula of Bram Stoker that has been published in 1897. Stoker had passed away in 1912 and his heirs made claim to the copyright of the book. In order to continue with his plan, Murnau still used the novel, but he changed names. Therefor the story does not play in the British village Whitby, but in the German Wisburg. Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter; Mina became Anna, Abraham von Helsing Albin Eberhart von Franz and Count Dracula Count Orlok. When Murnau’s film came out, the Stoker family sued him and won.

Eggers made a new version of Murnau’s film of a century ago, so he kept the names that Murnau used and not those of -for example- Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992).

As we got used to from Eggers’ films such as “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman“, “Nosferatu” became a nice, gritty, old-looking film with great camera work and sceneries. Fortunately he did not turn the film in a modern jumpscare horror (a few useless scenes aside), so what you will watch is a minimalist, slow, moody film with a known story. No surprises, but a descent film.

Longlegs – Osgood Perkins (2024)

  • horror

A bit of a weird horror film and since weird is good, “Longlegs” is somewhat interesting.

A young FBI agent is put on a decade long running serial killer case in which families end up dead around the birthdays of their daughters.

With interesting camera work and colours, including vague, surrealistic scenes, Perkens tells a story of the ominous “Longlegs” (Nicholas Cage, hardly recognisable) who haunts little girls.

The atmosphere is decent, the weird scenes amusing and the overall result not bad at all.

It – Andy Muschietti (2017)

  • horror

I suppose I saw the original “Stephen King’s It” (1990) as it was quite a thing back in the say. But I do not even remember that this appears to have been a mini series. In any case, this remake is also already 7 years old. It was not high on my list.

Muschietti’s version has strong “Stranger Things” (2016-8) vibes. A group of young outsiders team up to fight a supernatural evil. The presence of Finn Wolfhard adds to the similarity.

I suppose you will know the story. A rural American village is terrorized by the clown Pennywise. Children disappear, but it are also children who set out to fight it.

Just a horror. “Stranger Things” is way better, both in the 1980’ies atmosphere and storywise.

The Basement – Jeremy Lunt (2008)

An Amazon Prime short (28 minutes) which Amazon lists for 2017 and IMdB.com in 2008.

Two hotel employers explore the extensive basement of the hotel. There appears to be something down there.

Set as an interview looking back at past events, this poorly acted minimalist film aims at being more of a creepy horror than a gory one.

Disco Inferno – Matthew Castellanos (2023)

A Netflix short (19 min) horror. A tormented mother leaves her baby in a church. Many years later the church is turned into a soul disco. The female half of a dance couple has some frightening experiences while she is in the church for a dance event.

The story brings no real surprises. “Disco Inferno” is an alright short.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – Tim Burton (2024)

Another revamp of a ‘modern classic’. Fortunately it was made by Burton himself. Burton got a part of the old cast together. Michael Keaton plays Beetlejuice, just as in 1988. Also Winona Ryder returns in the same role (Lydia Deetz), but then 30 years older and Catherine O’Hara as her mother. New actors are Monica Belluci as the evil ex; Willem Dafoe as a dead cop; Justin Theroux as Lydia’s husband-to-be and an amusing Dani deVito.

Burtons opens with the introduction of old and new story lines. Delores comes back from the (un)dead and Lydia Deetz is the hostess of a ghost TV show who has to travel back to the house where the first movie played. Her daughter wants as little as possible to have to do with her mother and grand mother, but she has to join the family at the villa.

There are no big surprises in the film. Needless to say that Beetlejuice has returned after 30 years with his gruely humour. The family has to travel through the ghastly world of the (un)dead and the world of the living in order to prevent things from going awry. Burton came up with a descent level of ‘joke density’ often referring to the first film. The film is still very much “Beetlejuice” and very much Burton, but -of course- more ‘contemporary’.

Quite amusing.

Sharker – Patrick Chamberlain (2024)

I ran into this “independent film” on Amazon Prime. Well, in the time you had “B-movies” (perhaps still), but “Sharker” would be more of a “C-movie”. Bad acting, hardly a story, cheap special effects, an attempt to shock by use of sex, drugs and violence. “Sharkers” looks like a group of people having a laugh making a movie.

And so we follow Harry, who gets replaced by his girlfriend for the colleague he invited for a threesome. Snorting his pain away in a club, he meets a drug dealing couple and goes to their house. From then all everything goes wrong and Harry finds the whole drug scene after him.

The film goes from corny humour, drug abuse and violence to splatter horror. Add some psychedelic drug infused scenes and you have got an idea of “Sharkers”.

Not a particular good film, more of a fun-watch so to say.

Minore – Konstantinos Koutsoliotas (2023)

We follow the simple life in a rural part of Athens where a small community goes to a bar to sing Greek folksongs every night. There is one foreigner there looking for his biological father.

It takes quite a while before the film turns into the horror that usually describes it. There are strange sounds to be heard, people walk like zombies into the sea, but nobody is really alarmed until some sort of flying octopuses start to appear from the fog and eat people. When the group of familiars realise what is going on, they set up a plan to fight the monsters.

“Minore” is an alright film. It is a little weird, but nothing that you have never seen before. The typical Greek elements are nice, the horror towards the end is somewhat amusing.