Monday, February 13, 2023

Bones and All/Deadstream

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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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Bones and All                                                              G
A cannibal romance.  Perfect for Valentine’s Day, no?  Will romance fans enjoy it?  Hard to tell, but the cannibal scenes (and there are some) aren’t too disturbing (says I) and aren’t lingered on too long.  Will horror fans be turned off by the romance?  Not necessarily.  Hell, Shaun of the Dead is a romantic comedy with zombies and was fully embraced by the horror community (I’m a fan even though it is a bit overrated).  Horror fans are typically more open-minded as long as there are horror, or just horrific, elements.  This is a coming-of-age romance with cannibals, the cannibal aspect making it a bit more unique than other coming-of-age romances (obviously).  In this film, they are labeled “eaters” and apparently have the ability to smell other eaters.  Whereas cannibals in other films seemingly do it by choice, these cannibals (excuse me, eaters) appear to do it innately, possibly through genetics, even feeling bad after certain instances.  It’s never disclosed as to why they need to do it, they just do (they also eat regular food too).  They can’t stay in one place after they eat, therefore this is also a road movie (never staying in one setting for too long).  It does feel a tad lengthy towards the end at a little over 2 hours, but it’s generally a compelling take on the cannibal subgenre.  Yes, it’s ultimately a cannibal film, being the common theme, which, again, makes it a more unique coming-of-age romance since they don’t often contain dark subject matter.  [The director, Luca Guadagnino, also helmed Call Me by Your Name and the awful Suspiria remake, so perhaps romance and horror are his specialties?  You can check out my review for the former, which also stars Timothée Chalamet, in here---https://vampireclown82.blogspot.com/2018/03/mooby-reviews-31818.html; the latter I just gave an EH rating].  Happy Valentine’s Day!  2/12/2023

Deadstream                                                                 OK/G
Found footage movies are dead.  Aside from the Paranormal Activity films, the majority of them were kind of old after The Blair Witch Project (a film I hated initially, but grew to at least appreciate), which is said to have started the trend (even though Cannibal Holocaust is said to have inspired that; in style only, obviously).  Naturally, with any genre/subgenre, there are always going to be exceptions.  This is actually one of them.  Available on Shudder/AMC+, it involves a dude trying to win back fans for his livestreaming (get the title?) series after an incident by visiting a haunted house in Utah.  It’s kind of a meta-found footage film as it calls attention to many of the tropes.  At first I thought I was watching a parody (a subgenre that’s always kind of been dead to me), but it gradually does get a bit serious (Need I say ‘obviously’ or ‘of course it does?’  Doesn’t it always get a bit serious when ghosts/haunted settings are involved in found footage?).  Serious in the horror-comedy sense, which this film most definitely is, it often being a hybrid genre that doesn’t always work.  This does manage to pull it off, for the most part---I actually did laugh out loud more than once, and, I don’t care what anyone says, but, found footage or not, seemingly empty houses at night, be they abandoned or not, are always going to be inherently creepy.  Sure, there may be clichés and predictable moments (need I say ‘obviously’ or ‘of course there are’ in a 2022 release?), but I generally had some fun with this.  2/11/2023

Bonus review:

In Search of Darkness:  Part III                                  OK/G
The third and allegedly final (as it’s labeled The Final Journey Into ‘80s Horror) film in this documentary trilogy covering Eighties horror.  [You can read my review of the first film in here---https://vampireclown82.blogspot.com/2020/08/three-horror-documentaries.html, and the second film in here--- https://vampireclown82.blogspot.com/2021/05/creepshow-season-2in-search-of-darkness.html].  I watched this in segments being that it’s roughly 340-minutes, and I’d like to meet someone that actually sat through the entire feature in one sitting without taking at least one break!  I don’t see a need to explain what it entails (you can check out my other two reviews above for descriptions), but basically films are picked from each year in the 1980’s and discussed by celebrities, both esoteric and exoteric (there’s also about 20 minutes worth of everyday fans discussing their love of the decade and genre during the end credits).  I’m just curious as to why and how the specific films were picked each time (Was there a voting process?  Were titles picked out of a hat?).  I have seen the majority of films picked all three times, but there have been some I haven’t (yeah, if you can believe it, I actually haven’t seen every single movie out there, nor do I desire to).  It seems there were more titles this round I haven’t seen though, and the majority of them I don’t care to after seeing them discussed.  Those were really the only times I was bored, but there were also instances my mind wandered when too much time was spent on films I have seen.  Still, I like the format of this doc trilogy and wouldn’t mind ones covering 70’s and 90’s horror, as I mentioned in my review of Part II.  Plus, it’s always fun conversing about movies, even if you watch other people do it.  2/6/2023

Other movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):

Attachment  >>>OK
   (In Danish and English with subtitles)

The Friendship Game  >>>B

Saloum  >>>OK
   (In French and Wolof with subtitles)

Sorry About the Demon  >>>OK
            (Shudder/AMC+)

---Sean O.
2/13/2023

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