Baskin

This Halloween I watched...

Actually I'm not sure what the fuck I just watched, though i'm pretty certain everybody ended up in some Turkish vision of Hell, it was extremely fucked up. I definitely enjoyed it.

Thor: Ragnarok [IMAX 3D]

A continued demonstration that Marvel's cosmic weirdness side is definitely where it's at as the action is wisely moved far away from earth and the absurd pomposity of indestructible protagonists is neatly skewered on lashings of rich humour and bright primary colours.

Happy Death Day

Treats its audience as less intelligent than its blunderingly stupid protagonists, refuses to explain its central conceit and ends with a reference so smug and self serving that it just made me want to piss in the mouth of everybody involved whilst screaming 'THIS IS WHAT WATCHING YOUR FILM FEELS LIKE.'

Creep 2

Couldn't possibly have the power and the impact of the first film so instead concentrates on being a truly excellent sequel that knowingly subverts the first film. Superb.

The Endless

Ironically lets itself down a little bit by actually having an end, but there's so much cool shit already happened by that point that it's easy to forgive.

Bad Genius

Always grounded, yet always dynamic in its telling of students cheating on exams and the phenomenal amount of tension it wrings out of the whole affair.

I Am Not A Witch

Not really my bag but nonetheless an intriguing look into the culture of Zambia. Unfortunately my knowledge of Zambia meant that as I was watching some of the more crazy events unfold I couldn't tell if they were based on real crazy or made up for the film crazy. Maybe that was the point.

Ghost Stories

Faithful adaptation of an already very excellent stage play.

You Were Never Really Here

I came for the Greenwood score which did not disappoint and left having watched a subtle noir inversion centred around a man cathartically doing bad things to bad people.

Downsizing

Uses tiny people to say fuck the bigger picture.

Quality Time

Started as a quirky exploration of male failure to grow up. Ended as a searing indictment on my life in my 30s.

Bladerunner 2049 [IMAX 3D]

Stays true to the original by being visually staggering but breaks away from the original by having depth.

The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave [La notte che Evelyn us cì dalla tomba/ The Night She Arose from the Tomb]

Manages to cram in an escape from a mental hospital, medieval torture chambers, a lot of topless redheads, a seance, mysterious murders, murders with no mystery at all, grave robbing, a number of complex affairs, fake licence plates, corpse eating foxes, loads of softcore fumbling about, the undead, a swimming pool filled with sulphuric acid, a spooky painting, a paraplegic who can walk, strippers, hallucinations, champagne, murder by snake, doublecrossing, double-doublecrossing, double-double-double crossing and so much nudity that it actually becomes quite distracting.

And if you're wondering how all that hangs together as a story, it doesn't.

Gerald's Game

A faithful adaptation with some excellent direction, fantastic dog acting and the giant from Twin Peaks, putting this toward the top end of Stephen King movies.

I Am Not A Serial Killer

Deliberately slow paced mumbling that tends to quietly freak out every time it approaches tedium.

XX

Four short films by female directors that cover Ketchum, corpse concealment, demonic possession and the Antichrist, arranged in order from excellent down to pretty good and all glued together by weird stop motion animation.

Don't Knock Twice

I struggled to get past the redundancy of the word 'Twice' in the title if I'm honest. It was certainly made clear why two knocks summoned the unstoppable supernatural evil, but at no point was there offered a plausible scenario whereby you'd be required to goad the unstoppable supernatural evil by just knocking once.

Missed exposition toward the end that may have made this less shit, but i was busy googling to see if there's already a film called Don't Knock. There isn't.

The Autopsy Of Jane Doe

Reminiscent of eighties movies where folk would be stuck in one location as everything around them gets weirder and weirder, only centred around a refreshing father/son relationship that's high on sensible, logical reaction and low on 'dad issues'.

February [The Blackcoat's Daughter]

Inexplicably fumbles its twist out in to plain view about half way through the movie leaving it desperately clinging to slow creepy atmospherics until the end.