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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated
1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going
to review every single movie I see. I’m
going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the
rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future). You can always ask me why I gave the ratings
for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses
under the ‘About Me’ section).
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The House That Jack
Built VG
Most recent film from Danish filmmaker, Lars von Trier (Dogville, Antichrist, Melancholia),
in which Matt Dillon plays a serial killer (Jack) and we’re shown five “incidents”
of his killings. It may sound like a
simple premise and I initially thought it wouldn’t be able to sustain watchability
given it’s 2 ½ hours, but I actually enjoyed it and wasn’t bored once. Of course “enjoy” may be a highly subjective
as well as contentious term to describe such a picture most sane people
wouldn’t label “enjoyable,” but I guess it comes down to that already argued
notion that films are different than reality and us fans (the majority of us)
are sensible enough to know the difference (Alfred Hitchcock once said
something along the lines of cinema being voyeuristic and we, the viewers, are
the voyeurs). So, I guess it was
enjoyable in the same way other films like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, I Spit on Your Grave (both versions), The Last House on the Left (both
versions), Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox (a.k.a. Make Them Die Slowly), The Devil’s Rejects, and others I felt
were “enjoyable.” I can see this film
being compared to American Psycho and
the aforementioned Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, although
it’s not as sardonic as the former and not as harrowing as the latter. This guy Jack is truly a psychopath, not
holding back from offing men, women, or children; there’s even one flashback
scene in which he does something to a small animal as a child that undeniably
made me wince a little. After the five
incidents, the film takes another somewhat dark turn, dark in the sense it made
this critic smile with glee. I was surprised
at how much I enjoyed this 151-minute film.
3/8/2020
Bonus reviews:
Into the Dark: Crawlers G
Into the Dark is a
Hulu anthology series wherein one episode is released monthly and they all take
place during a holiday coinciding with that month’s release. Even “holidays” like International Women’s
Day (“Treehouse”) and Father-Daughter Day (“Pure”) are represented. It’s more of a franchise than a series since
all the episodes are feature-length.
I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed with the series as a whole, my primary
criticism being their lengths as I didn’t feel many needed to be feature-length,
and also that many just happened to take place around a holiday and could’ve taken
place any time of the year. That being
said, I do think this series would’ve been better had the episodes been
30-45-minutes. This is the first
“episode” I’m reviewing and the last one I’ll be seeing for a while since I’m
all caught up and my free trial of Hulu ends soon. This one also takes place around St.
Patrick’s Day (a.k.a. Eradicate the Pagans Day), so I figured ‘tis the season
(blah, blah, blah), and was one of the few I actually enjoyed. The only other “episodes” I gave G ratings
for were “I’m Just F*cking with You (April Fools’ Day, season one),” “Culture
Shock (Independence Day, season one),” and “Pilgrim (Thanksgiving, season
two),” but even those I didn’t think were that
great. This one, involving
aliens/doppelgangers and set-up like a zombie movie at times, may have been a
bit corny, derivative, lacking overall and somewhat too short (a rarity with
this series, as I implied above), but I had generally had fun with it and didn’t
feel like there was too much filler like the majority of the series so far
(hence why I probably felt it was lacking and too short). 3/9/2020
What We Do in the
Shadows: Season One OK
I had no initial interest in checking out this spinoff
series that originally aired on FX and is also available on Hulu (which I
currently have a free month of), but gave in when I saw it was only 10 episodes
all under a half hour. I re-watched the
movie in the midst of it, which apparently I gave a good rating for when I
first saw it in 2015, and I did enjoy it the second time. Horror-comedies have to be done right (of
course that’s always subjective) and I’ve usually never been the biggest fan of
ones that lean more towards the comedy.
In all fairness though, I don’t think the movie or this series was meant
to be strictly horror, more comedy-dramas by way of mockumentary, simply
containing traditional horror characters (vampires as the main characters and
there’s also werewolves and zombies, at least in the movie for the latter). While the movie does have its tongue-in-cheek
moments, I think it simultaneously had more of a serious tone than this series that
definitely felt more comedic. While the
characters in both the film and series are aware of being filmed by a crew,
more attention was definitely brought to that aspect in the series. Although I mentioned this was a spinoff
series, that may not exactly be the best word since the characters here are
different and the location moved from New Zealand to Staten Island, New York. Whatever, you don’t really need to see the
movie before watching this series based on the differences I mentioned,
specifically the tonal changes. This
series was decent, a bit of fun generally, occasionally bloody (like the film),
and none of the short episodes really felt like they overstayed their welcome,
but I, personally, liked the movie better.
Season 2 premieres next month (maybe I’ll watch, eventually). 3/7/2020
Other
movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):
Into the Dark: Midnight Kiss
>>>EH/OK
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: My Valentine >>>EH/OK
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: A Nasty Piece of Work >>>EH/OK
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: Pilgrim
>>>G
(Hulu)
Into the Dark: Uncanny Annie >>>EH
(Hulu)
Rabid (2020) >>>OK
Snatchers >>>OK
Trespassers >>>EH/OK
---Sean O.
3/10/2020
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