Rhys Reviews

Tag: film

  • John Carpenter Ranked

    John Carpenter is one of the masters of the horror genre, forming the basis for the slasher sub-genre, but also dabbling in the psychological horror, the science-fiction horror and even wandering outside of the horror genre. He is characterised heavily by pessimistic and nihilistic films, and by composing his own scores for his features, becoming a soundtrack artist long after he has finished being a filmmaker in the modern day. With the upcoming Halloween season, following will be a ranking of the eighteen theatrically released films directed by the horror auteur, not including his direct to television features or his involvement in anthology features.

    18) Ghosts of Mars

    Pam Grier, Natasha Henstridge, Clea DuVall and Liam Waite in Ghosts of Mars

    Starting the list off, comes Carpenter’s second most recent film released into cinemas, 2001’s Ghosts of Mars. Starring a central cast of Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Jason Statham and Pam Grier, the film centres itself around a future where Mars has been colonized. A squadron of police officers and a convicted criminal are forced to work together to fight against the possessed residents of a mining colony, with the ghosts of the planet’s original inhabitants taking control over the peaceful residents. The film has slowly become a cult classic to many fans of the director’s work, but the film also marks a downward trend in the director’s late career, from the 1990s to the present day. The film essentially serves as a remake of one of Carpenter’s classic features, Assault on Precinct 13. Just like that film, the feature brings police officers and criminals together to stop a gang that essentially act as zombies, mindless monsters that exist as cannon fodder in various action sequences where they try to break into one building.

    Where that original feature is entertaining, this film just blends itself in mediocrity, with all the central players failing at making their characters feel convincing or entertaining. The film lacks the central feel of a Carpenter feature; his nihilistic characters and plot lines are replaced with a film that feels more campy and embarrassingly unfunny compared to a genuine horror-action feature. Carpenter’s score feels generic and unimpressive, lacking a unique hook that makes it stand apart, and the direction flounders in keeping up with the set style of 2000s horror, with an oversaturated look and shaky camera use that makes it fall in line with the eventual style that Saw, in 2004, would set for the genre. Action sequences can be fun at parts, but when the film stands out so much from the general quality of Carpenter’s work, it is hard to praise anything in the feature

    17) Village of the Damned

    Christopher Reeve in Village of the Damned

    In a 2011 interview, John Carpenter described his remake of Village of the Damned as a ‘contractual assignment’ that he was ‘really not passionate about’. Starring Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski and Mark Hamill, the film follows what happens after all women in a town are impregnated by brood parasitic aliens, with the children growing rapidly and having psychic abilities. Based on 1957’s The Midwich Cuckoos, the book has created various adaptations of the work, with 1960’s Village of the Damned and its sequel, 1964’s Children of the Damned, being the basis of Carpenter’s remake. The novel also spawned a television remake, sharing the same name as the novel rather than the film version, released in 2022. A remake of Village of the Damned had been in the works for a decade since the popularity of 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with the adaptation being aimed to tackle the subjects that the original film could never tackle.

    With censorship at the time of production, the original could not even mention impregnation and could not explore the true focus of the narrative, abortion. Outside of this big change with the lack of censorship, Carpenter’s version of the narrative just falls short and ends up feeling campier than a serious outlook on abortion. Reeve’s final role before he was paralysed in 1995, both him and Hamill feel miscast in their roles and fail to convince as serious stars, and the score suffers, similarly to Ghosts of Mars, as feeling generic, and at times, out of place in such a dramatic feature. The film marks the ‘work for hire’ time in Carpenter’s career, with the 1990s serving him badly with a lack of creator-owned projects.

    16) Escape from LA

    Kurt Russell in Escape From L.A.

    A fifteen-year late sequel to Carpenter’s classic feature, Escape from New York, 1996’s Escape from L.A, is a derivative film that feels in line with sequels to 80s classics. Similar in case to features like Ghostbusters 2, the film serves more as a remake of the original film than a direct sequel, with very little callbacks to the original and more of Carpenter just doing the same plot beats again. Set in a near-future world of 2013, where the United States is ruled by a President for life, the film sees Snake Plissken returning into action when the president’s daughter steals the remote of a new superweapon. She finds herself in L.A., which has been walled off from the rest of the States as a prison-city, and Plissken is tasked to save her and retrieve the weapon to stop his upcoming deportation. Carpenter has long declared his sequel to be his favourite of the two, stating his reasons as because of the film’s darker and more nihilistic tone and its deeper themes, but the film fails at being either of these things.

    A competent film, but a lesser feature when compared to Carpenter’s original, the film feels sillier and more cartoonish than a darker feature. Scenes including a paragliding action sequence, a chase on surfboard and a showdown between heroes and villains through a basketball game come across as goofier than anything, and the turn from impressive miniatures and practical effects to poorly aged digital effects lead the film looking less impressive than ever. Originally, the film would be followed with an end of a promised trilogy, as Escape from Earth would double down on the special effects, however the poor box office performance left all plans for the franchise on the cutting room floor. The shining light of the film comes from Kurt Russell’s still impressive performance as Plissken, he is still committed to making the character cool and the character never flounders when the rest of the film does.

    15) The Ward

    Amber Heard in The Ward

    There would be a nine-year gap between Ghosts of Mars and Carpenter’s most recent big screen venture, 2010’s The Ward. He has since directed an episode of the streaming series Suburban Screams in 2023, but until then this was his most recent directorial work, with the director falling out of love with the medium in the years since Ghosts of Mars. It was during his short stint working on two episodes for Showtime’s anthology series, Masters of Horror, that his love for the medium returned. The Ward sees that love for return, and though it is nowhere near groundbreaking, it is a chilling story that proves that Carpenter still can make a tension inducing and briefly scary feature. The film follows a young woman who is institutionalized after setting fire to a house, and once arriving at the institute, she becomes haunted by the ghost of a former inmate at the ward. Starring Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker and Jared Harris, the film suffers from a script that undermines everything Carpenter has done with the atmosphere and setting.

    Characterisation is basically null in the film, with each inmate having one personality trait, and the late-game reveal that the narrative is all happening in one person’s head, and no one is real gives that a reason, but leaves the film feeling cheap and empty. Knowing the central twist as well, leads to the film feeling impossible to enjoy on a rewatch, when nothing that is happening on screen is real, it is hard to become invested.

    14) Memoirs of an Invisible Man

    Chevy Chase in Memoirs of an Invisible Man

    The production of Carpenter’s take on H.F. Saint’s novel, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, would be hellish and would almost make the director want to quit, a hard start to his downward trend in filmmaking during the 90s. The film was backed by the studio because of Chevy Chase’s intense interest in using it as a star vehicle to move him from being a comedic actor to a serious star. The star was most well-known off the back of his stint on comedy series, Saturday Night Live, where he starred from 1975 to 1976, and then a comedy leading man in films like 1980’s Caddyshack and the five National Lampoon’s Vacation movies. His move to serious actor was a confusing one, and the departure of director Ivan Reitman, famous for Ghostbusters, came about because of these budding heads of tone, with Carpenter eventually hired after Superman-director Richard Donner left the project after eight months.

    The film follows Chase as Nick Halloway, a man who is rendered invisible after an accident, and he soon becomes the target of a CIA operative who sees him as a potential new weapon for the American government. Chase wanted to base the film in drama, focusing on the troubles a man would have when becoming invisible and how that would drive him away from his friends and family, and wanted the film to be a central love story. This is where the film falls flat, Carpenter directing a light-hearted comedy drama, where the main star is refusing to do the comedy aspect only leads to disaster. The film is tonally confused, and there are interesting uses of the invisibility effects, and a fun performance by Sam Neill, but Chase only bewilders in his performance, and the central connection between him and love interest Daryl Hannah is nowhere to be seen. The troubled production has only led to an equally troubled feature.

    13) Vampires

    Thomas Ian Griffith in Vampires

    When asked in an interview on his opinion of the filmic version of his novel, Vampires, author John Steakley pointed out how the adaptation retained much of his dialogue but none of his original plot, though he liked the film. Carpenter’s 1998 film Vampires has become a cult classic since its release, spawning a franchise which contains two direct-to-DVD features, 2002’s Vampires: Los Muertos and 2005’s Vampire: The Turning. Moving away from the gothic loneliness that the monsters were known for, Carpenter’s film tackles the vampires as bloodthirsty monsters which more resemble zombies than anything like the Draculas of the past. Starring James Woods as Jack Crow, who leads a team of vampire hunters, after being raised by the Catholic Church to become their master vampire slayer. The plot kicks into gear after his crew are killed, and he must pull together new members to take down the first vampire, Jan Valek, who is after a centuries-old cross. The plot is paper-thin, essentially a series of engaging action sequences that are stitched together by something resembling a plot.

    The film has become a cult classic because of its reliance on action, it is a movie trying its best to be cool and kick-ass, with a central performance by James Woods that feels laughably over-the-top at times. Carpenter has always wanted to make a Western, with many of his films falling into Western-lite at times, with Ghosts of Mars and They Live being the prime examples. Vampires serve as the closest to a Western for Carpenter and showcases his tendency to make his films increasingly goofy and comedic in the 90s, but its also hard to be completely invested when Carpenter makes all his characters so increasingly unlikeable. It has gained a cult-following in the years since but outside of some great action and some maybe not on purpose-comedic moments, it is hard to see why.

    12) Dark Star

    Serving as Carpenter’s debut feature, the science-fiction comedy, Dark Star, is a bit rough around the edges as a student film but has enough charm and is important enough to the genre that it deserves to be high enough on the list. Set up essentially as a spoof of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film went through a journey from University of Southern California student film, to expanding with reshoots in 1973 and then having a limited theatrical release in 1975. Serving as Carpenter’s first directorial project, the film also offered Carpenter his first chance to score a feature. The film follows the crew of the deteriorating starship, named after the title of the film, twenty years into their mission to destroy unstable planets which might threaten the future of galactic colonization.

    The film feels messy at times because of the clear inclusion of various random sequences to lengthen the runtime of the film, with the film’s plot essentially being a bunch of comedic sequences one after another until the central bomb plot takes place in the back half. The film does not really get going into that secondary half, but the inclusion of a beach ball alien is humorous and makes up for some of the shortcomings of the set up. Outside of making a career for horror auteur John Carpenter, the film is equally important for launching the career of Dan O’Bannon, who would take the beachball alien concept and turn it into screenplay of the hit 1979 film Alien. His animation work here would also lead him to provide the special effects animation for 1977’s Star Wars, setting himself up as a signature creator for the science-fiction genre, and marking the importance of Dark Star as a figurehead of the genre.

    11) Christine

    Keith Gordon in Christine

    The opening sequence of John Carpenter’s Christine sets itself apart from the original novel instantly, as the film opens with the creation of the signature car, with the car instantly revealed to have a mind of its own as it injures a mechanic. The film marks a connection between Christine and femineity, the car strikes out in anger when a man touches herself in a private area, and later becomes jealous when Arnie, it’s owner, becomes entwined with another woman. It is far away from Stephen King’s original concept for the central car, where the car was possessed by its previous owner, marking it as a normal car made evil through possession, where Carpenter’s is evil from the assembly line. Like Kubrick’s take on The Shining, this had led King to disliking this version of his novel, but outside of this central origin difference, and some more cinematic depictions of the death sequences, the film is faithful to the textual events. The film was handled by Carpenter as a work-for-hire job, while he was trying to develop a filmic version of King’s other novel, Firestarter. The film follows Arnie Cunnigham, as his life takes a dramatic change when he purchases the car known as Christine, which only becomes worse when he meets a new girl at school, and the car begins to take control over him.

    As a work-for-hire job, the film excels in showing the class of Carpenter’s 80s work, working hard to make a car scary and capable of gruesome kills. The film conveys an interesting personality through an inanimate object, and Keith Gordon’s central performance as Arnie holds the film together perfectly. The character is as multilayered as the novel, the film spending so much time away from the character so that by the end of the feature, he feels as evil and alien as the car, Gordon tracking a change in his performance, from innocent and kind student to a crazed murderer. Even if King does not like this version of his work, it has the spirit contained in it for sure.

    10) Prince of Darkness

    Donald Pleasence in Prince of Darkness

    The second instalment in what Carpenter names as his ‘Apocalypse trilogy’, alongside The Thing and In The Mouth for Madness, Prince of Darkness is a mix between Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. Starring Donald Pleasence, in a welcome return to the world of Carpenter after last being in Halloween, and a larger cast, the film follows a group of quantum physics students who are assigned to assist a Catholic priest. The priest has found a liquid at a local monastery, which they soon come to find is a sentient, liquid embodiment of Satan himself. At heart, the movie is a possession film, a possession takes on The Thing, as the characters fall one by one to the possession in a similar way to that previously mentioned feature. Like Raimi’s Evil Dead movies, the charm comes in the possessed creature effects, and the compelling ways that each character plays their possessed self-compared to the original character, mixing the serious nature of Evil Dead with enough goofy and comedic performances that makes it stand toe-to-toe with Evil Dead 2. The central romance of the film feels underwritten, but each other aspect of the film more than makes up for it. An early found footage scene is included, well before the concept boomed with the release of The Blair Witch Project, and the film works to convey a film brimming with doom and despair.

    The liquid possession angles the film explores seems to be a clear comparison to the AIDS epidemic that was still raging during the release of the film. The possession is transmutable, passing via fluid transferred between person to person. Similarly, the film also transmutes many references to homosexuality across its runtime, namely through a sequence where Walter, an implied gay man, is only able to escape from a group of possessed women, by coming out of a closet. Homosexuality, at the time, was believed to be the only sexuality to be infected by AIDS, marking a deeper meaning in a tonally comedic film, balancing both comedy and heavier themes perfectly.

    9) Assault on Precinct 13

    Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston in Assault on Precinct 13

    Carpenter’s second feature as a director is essentially a remake of George A. Romero’s classic 1968 feature, Night of the Living Dead, only swap out the mindless undead instead for an army of mindless gangsters. The film even retains Romero’s accidental social commentary by focusing the film on a black lead during a time where that was a phenomenon in mainstream cinema. Originally developed as a straightforward Western, a film that Carpenter has always wanted to create, the film explored a similar plot to Rio Bravo, where a sheriff’s office is attacked by the local rancher’s gang when the sheriff arrests the corrupt rancher. When the film lacked the budget required, the film was downsized to taking place in the present day instead, following a police officer who must band together with a death row-bound convict to defend a defunct precinct against a criminal gang. The film opened to mixed reviews, and a dwindling box office performance, but would soon become a cult classic, allowing it to even garner a remake in 2005, starring Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke.

    Even if no longer a Western, the film still retains Western components and features a running gag of the line ‘Got a smoke?’, a reference to the various cigarette gags that came from Howard Hawks classical Westerns. The film features a poppy score from Carpenter, a synthy electric score that breaths strong life into the action, as the station gets swarmed by army after army of faceless goons. The film’s most shocking moment, however, comes from the execution of a little girl in bloody fashion, an event that kicks off the central plot of the film after a slow start of plot build-up. The MPAA threatened that the film would receive a X rating if the scene was not cut from the film, and Carpenter relented, removing the scene from the copy he gave to the MPAA, but distributing the film with the scene still present to play coy with them. It was for the best that the film retained this harrowing sequence, it marked it for what it truly was, one of the very best exploitation features.

    8) In The Mouth of Madness

    Sam Neill in The Mouth of Madness

    The one movie that still proved that Carpenter had the ability to make a tremendous film during his ‘work-for-hire’ period of the 90s, In The Mouth of Madness is a great outlier in Carpenter’s filmography, a supernatural film that feels smart and surreal in its narrative, that many critics considered it pretentious during its initial theatrical run. Starring Sam Neill, in his return to the world of Carpenter after a villainous turn in Memoirs of an Invisible Man, as an insurance investigator, visiting a small town when looking into the disappearance of a successful horror author. Once reaching the town, the lines between reality and fiction begin to blur as Neill’s character begins to question his sanity, as this famous horror author seems to be able to bend reality to his own whim. The horror from this feature comes from the sense of the loss of free will, questioning how much free we will really have when something dictating our every move can be written. It is a clearly multilayered feature, questioning even what insanity really means, when one can be labelled as such when they are just acting outside of the regular order of nature put forward by society.

    The texts written by the central author also make people insane, essentially showcasing Carpenter questioning the true meaning between crime and media, does what people view through film, television and fiction truly make them violent, or is it the people themselves that is to fault. There is a grand scale to the narrative that is so unlike Carpenter, with excellent creature designs and a genuine foreboding tone. Inspired by the works of H.P Lovecraft, and clearly with the author being designed to be like Stephen King, the film matches the scale of those two authors perfectly. The film even opens in media res, as Neill’s character tells the film’s narrative in a similar way to Lovecraft’s work, it’s a love letter to Lovecraftian horror that truly works.

    7) The Fog

    Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog

    Started in 2020, and occurring annually on April 21st is Fog Day, a day where fans will watch Carpenter’s classic supernatural feature, The Fog. The fact that there is an entire day named after the film is a shocking one, especially after it received incredibly middling reviews during its initial theatrical run in 1980. In the years since, the film has garnered a cult following and an impressive re-assessment as one of Carpenter’s finest works, a drive which brought upon a critically panned remake in 2005. The film follows the day-to-day lives of the residents of a small coastal town in Northern California, whose lives are mixed up when a strange fog arrives in town. The fog brings ghosts linked to the past of the town, as the ghosts seek revenge on the children of the men that wronged them many years in the past. Dean Cudney’s cinematography is the star of the show of this feature, as Cudney shoots an incredible number of scenic shots of the coastal town, as it becomes encased in eerie fog, with the one brimmer of light coming from the tall lighthouse poking out in the distance. Carpenter makes the use of shadows to shoot the ghosts in complete murky light, more silhouettes than fully formed designs that add to the creepiness of the sequences, the fog hides them, and the lightning follows suit, but the little you see, of the zombie-like pirates makes for memorable creature design.

    Carpenter’s strength here is the build-up, bringing together an incredibly well-cast set of characters that make the town feel alive, the tension palpable and makes you question the validity of the ghosts when both sides are almost human. Tom Atkins, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh and Carpenter’s at-the-time wife, Adrienne Barbeau, all deliver strong performances. At heart, the movie is about the pain and sin that causes a town, a nation to be built, for each beautiful thing created, someone else is either stolen from or hurt for it to be made. 100 years on, the townsfolk celebrate their town with no idea what was done to create that very town, a topical message that could be conveyed to various aspects of American life, with a clear analogue to the pain and suffering brought to the Native Americans.

    6) They Live

    Roddy Piper in They Live

    Carpenter’s career was characterized heavily by a series of films that were pessimistic in nature, even before he got to a feature focusing around Lovecraftian monsters controlling free will, and no film is more pessimistic than 1988’s They Live. A precursor to that before mentioned Lovecraftian feature, They Live follows a drifter who finds a special pair of sunglasses that reveal the secret truth of humanity. Putting on the sunglasses, they reveal to Nada, played by Roddy Piper, that the ruling class are aliens concealing their identities and rule the world through manipulating people to follow the status quo through subliminal messages across various forms of media. Based on the 1963 short story known as ‘Eight O’clock in the Morning ‘by Ray Nelson, the short story’s film rights were bought by Carpenter as he used it as a basis of his more developed script. His take came from how dissatisfied the director was with then-president Ronald Reagan’s economic policies, also known as Reaganomics, which was focused around increasing defence spending, slowed growth of government spending, reducing government regulation and tightening the money supply to reduce possible inflation. These economic policies were mixed in value, on one hand causing an entrepreneurial revolution, and on the other, the national debt tripling in eight years. The biggest outcome was the rise in consumerism in the country, another factor that Carpenter was spoofing in this feature, connecting mass consumerism as one of the major causes of drone-like personalities and American patriotism.

    The film’s signature sunglasses sequences were shot with black-and-white photography, a filmic style which brings the sequences closer in line with war propaganda films during the second World War. The film has all the action movie quirks that makes films like Assault on Precinct 13 and Big Trouble in Little China work but mixed with an excellent amount of social commentary that makes every punch and gunshot come with a thematic purpose. It is a complete shame that the movie has essentially become the opposite of its thematic theming in popular culture, becoming a pop culture juggernaut in one of its central macho lines, and the film’s alien designs becoming synonymous with street art.

    5) Escape from New York

    Kurt Russell in Escape from New York

    Written originally in 1976 as a response to the Watergate scandal, the political turmoil of the time where American society did not trust their own president caused Carpenter to pen Escape from New York. The project would not be released until 1981, after the director had enough pull to begin production on such a risky movie after the smash hit of Halloween, and after Michael Myers actor Nick Castle was able to touch up the script with some humorous additions. The film mirrored a common trope for the time, concerning a grim and gritty look at New York City that perpetuated through the 80s with films like Ghostbusters and then into the 90s with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a level of humanity drawn through humorous New Yorkers. Dealing with a near-future, a future which is ruled over by a forever president, and one where Manhattan Island in New York City has been caged off as a maximum-security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and the President is kidnapped into the streets of New York, federal prisoner Snake Plissken is given twenty-four hours to find and rescue the President to be able to be pardoned for his crimes. Plissken is easily where this film shines, he seems like your typical action hero, but he is incredibly stubborn, angry and resentful across the film, speaking in low octave with almost growls rather than the typical one liner you would expect from an 80s action hero. Kurt Russell really shines here, playing against type as a gritty and serious action star after years of being a comedic actor.  

    He is known by every character in the film, building a mystique around him and the eventual excellent action sequences he will be able to pull off, and he has morals. The film twists the script on the typical hero-villain dynamic, Plissken is a shady individual but he’s a hero, while the people he is helping are clearly the villains. The President is the true antagonist, and the people who are keeping him hostage are just victims of a system that had put them down and refuses to give them the rehabilitation they deserve, a pure criticism of the American prison complex. It is a film which gives its viewers all the gritty action you would want out of your Hollywood blockbuster, but also enough to chew on under the surface, a bridge of both best worlds of cinema.

    4) Big Trouble in Little China

    Kurt Russell, Dennis Dunn, Victor Wong and James Lew in Big Troubles in Little China

    20th Century Fox hired Carpenter to helm Big Trouble in Little China because of his reputation of being able to work incredibly fast, with the film facing a limited preproduction schedule of only ten to twelve weeks and rushed into production to beat a similar releasing film. The Eddie Murphy starring feature, The Golden Child, was seen as big competition for the studio, a film Carpenter was even offered to direct, sharing similar narrative threads, and having such a big star attached. Big Trouble in Little China was originally put into production as a separate film, mixing the action of the Western with the new popular sensibilities of the martial arts feature, but would be rewritten into being more modernised. This version of the script would be what enticed Carpenter to the feature, fulfilling his desire to one day direct a martial arts feature. The film, which continued Carpenter’s lack of success at the box office during theatrical runs, followed drifter truck-driver Jack Burton, who must help his friend Wang Chi rescue his green-eyed fiancée from criminals in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The green-eyed woman is important to the plot of an ancient sorcerer, who requires a woman with green eyes to marry him to be released from a centuries-old curse. An interesting genre blend of various tones and genres, from the American action movie, the comedy, mystical and supernatural elements and the martial arts feature, Carpenter’s high-flying feature has everything and has become a deserved cult classic in the years since release.

    Kurt Russell returns to the world of the Carpenter feature, his role of Jack Burton inspired by the machismo of actors like John Wayne, but with an entertaining satirical edge. The film flips the American movie on its head, where once the American lead would have a foreign sidekick, Russell’s Burton is macho and cool, but he is a goof, and out of his element next to such strong leaders like Wang Chi. He is along for the ride in a narrative that spins around him, never through him, to the point that he is knocked out and misses the entire final battle. The failure at the box office of Big Trouble in Little China is what led John Carpenter back into the world of independent filmmaking, disillusioning him with mainstream Hollywood, where he would only come back for work-for-hire jobs. It is a shame as well that the movie put a pin in his big-budget career, because the film is one of the perfect summer blockbusters, feeling like a genre-blender at its best.

    3) Halloween

    Nick Castle wears the mask of The Shape in Halloween

    1978’s Halloween is an important release in the Hollywood zeitgeist for various reasons, from it being Carpenter’s first box office success, to launching the career of Jamie Lee Curtis, or being a big factor in the boom of the slasher movie sub-genre into the 80s and 90s. The slasher film existed beforehand, with 1960’s Psycho, or the double release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas in 1974, but the story of babysitter killer Michael Myers, who returns to Haddonfield after escaping a mental asylum to kill everyone who stands in his way, lit up the zeitgeist and proved the sub-genre could be a box office success. The final girl, the use of point-of-view shots of the killer, the chase sequence and the defining of sex as the cause of death in the feature would become staples of the genre and would define the entire Halloween franchise. To date, there are thirteen movies released in the franchise, with varied levels of involvement from series creator Carpenter, who essentially handed over the franchise after releasing the first feature.

    The sequel’s script would be penned by the director, the third feature would move away from Michael to go through an anthology lens because of Carpenter’s insistence, and the director would return as producer and composer for Blumhouse’s requel trilogy, 2018’s Halloween, 2021’s Halloween Kills and 2022’s Halloween Ends. The slasher genre would follow the Halloween genre across the decades, with the initial boom coming from 1980’s Friday the 13th, which was a remake without the name of Halloween, to the genre being revived in the wake of 2018’s Halloween. This importance comes with a major reason; Carpenter’s initial Halloween feature is one of his very best. It is his very best score, with his most memorable motifs, and has two winning central performances by Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence. The film’s central villain is incredibly intimidating and eerie, a feeling that many slasher villains cannot convey, with the eerie sound of his breathing being felt across various sequences. The film’s final shots linger on empty spaces, leaving the film on a menacing note, retracing each location from the film and proving that nowhere is safe, the boogeyman could be anywhere.

    2) Starman

    Karen Allen and Jeff Bridges in Starman

    What starts as a science-fiction adventure with a creepy alien morphing sequence, soon becomes an emotional drama that stands as the biggest outlier in Carpenter’s filmography. The film, starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen, follows an alien arriving to Earth in response to the invitation found on the Voyager 2 space probe. The alien takes the form of a cloned body of a grieving widow’s husband, as the widow and the clone must take on a cross-county road-trip to send him home and escape the government who is after him. The film has been theorised to have been put into production as a response to the success of Spielberg’s ET: The Extraterrestrial and picked up Carpenter after The Thing failed at the box office because of audience’s being more familiar with positive alien features off the back of that previously mentioned Spielberg venture. The film, which went through at least six different script drafts, one where the signature alien flew during sequences, feels like an outlier in a career which is characterized heavily by films which feel pessimistic in nature. The film is hopeful and warm, a love story which uses its central science-fiction narrative to wow and surprise rather than to make the audience uneasy, a scene where Bridges’ alien revives a deer that has been killed by a hunter is one such powerful moment.

    It is a road movie, with each character the central leads meet across their journey feeling warm and sincere, and even the central governmental forces allow the characters to go at the end. Karen Allen’s character feels like Carpenter willing himself into the narrative, a nihilistic character who feels only pain from the death of her husband, whose nihilistic tendencies are proven wrong by the film’s genuine pleasantness. Bridges received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the film, in a performance that feels so inhuman but never in a terrifying way, a perfect encapsulation of the fish out of water trope, he is charming in his eccentricities, and the central love story is moving and powerful. The movie ends on a terrific note, a loving final embrace leads Allen’s widow pregnant with a child who is both the child of her late husband and the alien she loved soon after, a moving final beat that encapsulates the tenderness of this film compared to each other Carpenter feature.

    1) The Thing

    Kurt Russell in The Thing

    No other film could be placed first on a John Carpenter ranking, The Thing is just his magnum opus. Based on the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr, which had already been adapted into the 1951 feature film, The Thing from Another World, the film is another Lovecraftian horror from the director. The film tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica, who encounter an alien life-form that assimilates, then imitates organisms. The group is brought against each other, believing any one of them could be the signature ‘Thing’. The film is a perfect encapsulation of the feeling of paranoia and isolation, the viewer is along for the ride in trying to decide who is the Thing, the film leaving it up to the audience to catch up on the mystery as the characters figure it out together.

    The setting of Antarctica also brings the isolation to the forefront, it is open plains of nothingness, encased in darkness which makes the characters cold and isolated, it is an eerie location which is used to its best effect. As mentioned previously, the film was a box office bomb when released in 1982 and was even slated by critics. It has since become a staple of the science-fiction genre, a creature feature with excellent creature effects by Rob Bottin, a film which is both disturbing and impressive in its use of practical effects. The eventual 2011 prequel, with the same name as its title, would try to compete with its CGI effects, but nothing can compare to the practical effects shown here, The Thing looks inhuman in each body modification it causes, but there’s always human elements to it, an eeriness to each form it takes. The film was initially given to director Tobe Hooper, and various other directors were considered after Carpenter briefly decided to leave the project to direct a passion project, which then fell through, but it is hard to see any other director helming the film. It’s Carpenter’s first big-budget feature, and cinematographer Dean Cudney’s as well. Only Carpenter could direct such a bleak film as this, playing the best to his nihilistic tendencies, as the situation feels hopeless and impossible, but balancing that with such well-realised characters.

    Kurt Russell takes the lead once again, but with a character who is forced to lead, bouncing off such a wonderful supporting cast that is led by a wonderful performance by Keith David. When asked in an interview, Carpenter stated that the film is pro-human, in comparison to the original text’s pro-science exploration, or the initial film adaptation’s anti-science exploration. The film’s humanist approach to its storytelling has led to a series of discussions about the film’s thematic meaning, namely because of its creation during post-Cold War tendencies. The paranoia can be seen as a metaphor for the red scare at the time, with people not knowing who to trust in the wake of Communists being found across the country. The film is also exploring nuclear annihilation through mutually assured destruction in the wake of the Cold War, with the death of The Thing only being possible if both our lead characters die alongside it. However, the film’s end leads the film on a forever sinister note, a cliffhanger ending that only Carpenter knows the answer to, as both characters sit opposite each other not knowing if either or both are The Thing, a perfectly mysterious ending that leaves the audience thinking long after the film is finished.

  • The Long Walk Review

    Stephen King has made a long career as one of the most successful American horror authors of all time, crafting horrific stories from Carrie to Salem’s Lot, or from IT to Christine. However, the author has also stepped outside of that box with various novels of various other genres, from the crime thriller of Mr Mercedes, the fantasy story of Eyes of the Dragon, or the science-fiction narrative of 11/22/63. Dystopian narratives have an equal importance to the career of King, mostly published under the authors’ pseudonym, Richard Bachman. King wrote five novels under this pseudonym, with his 1981 novel, Roadwork, and 1982’s The Running Man, which will soon hit the big screen directed by Edgar Wright, falling under this category, but the most famous would be 1979’s The Long Walk.

    The Long Walk serves as King’s first written novel, written during his freshman year at the University of Maine, but would not be released until well after King’s first published novel, Carrie in 1974. A film adaptation of the novel would be in development for years, with Night of the Living Dead-director George A. Romero being considered as director in 1988, and Frank Darabont, who was on a strong run of King adaptations after the release of 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption, 1999’s The Green Mile and 2007’s The Mist, was able to secure the rights to the novel in 2007. The project was finally put into active development under Lionsgate, with Francis Lawrence directing, announced in November 2023, and the film adaptation has finally been hit the screen.

    Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson in The Long Walk

    The Long Walk is set in a dystopian future ruled by the mysterious Major’s regime, where an annual event takes place where a group of youths must walk for miles until there is only one left. The event promises a wish and a large cash prize, as each contestant walks to win, and aims to not fall behind their pack or they will earn their ticket, or in other words, their death.

    Dystopias and post-apocalyptic settings are the backbone of Francis Lawrence’s career, with only his second feature being the Will Smith-starring zombie feature, I am Legend. Though not directing the original, Lawrence would be the helmer of the Hunger Games franchise, directing 2013’s Catching Fire, 2014’s Mockingjay Part 1, 2015’s Mockingjay Part 2 and then 2023’s prequel film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. His next feature will even be 2026’s The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. This long connection with the dystopian genre has made him the perfect choice to helm this adaptation, and Lawrence proves himself as the right choice throughout this feature. A relatively straightforward story, its essentially just one hundred minutes of walking and conversations between people, but Lawrence can breathe enough life and style into every shot that keeps the contained narrative continuously entertaining and intense. Frequent uses of beautiful long shots and tracking shots that showcase the scenery and landscapes, reminding the audience of the beauty of nature and the hope that comes from it in such a depressing narrative.

    Charlie Plummer in The Long Walk

    There’s a thrilling uphill sequence, as the camera tilts with the characters and the audience feel the pain and suffering. The film does not shy away from the violence, it is bloody and disgusting at times, with each kill bleak and depressing. Disorienting editing, shaky camera and a loss of audio are all used frequently to get a view into the character’s heads as they lose consciousness during the long walk, as a visual graphic showcases how miles they have walked. Jeremiah Fraites’ score also sells the terror at the centre of the plot, booming synths showcasing the meaningless of this event as the central characters face a threat that was made by their own society to cause them pain.

    The tension of the film really comes from how much the film excels in making each contestant feel like a three-dimensional character, making the audience terrified for when each member falls. There are main characters clearly, but even the lesser characters, who go out early or are more in the background, have a scene or two to make them memorable, and make their deaths feel less like creating a kill count. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson serve as the central relationship of the film, the uniting characters that bring all the themes into play and surround every other character becoming developed and nuanced. They represent two separate sides of the coin in responding to a dystopian future, Hoffman’s Ray is pessimistic and easily succumbing to the violent nature of life, and Jonsson’s Peter is gentler and kinder, believing in humanity, nature and the possibilities that come with freedom. It is an interesting dichotomy that the film plays with, as they both argue their points but come closer together because of their shared pain but differing worldviews. Jonsson proved himself as a powerful actor with Alien: Romulus and he continues to wow here, coming out with the most heartfelt and human performance of the entire cast.

    Mark Hamill in The Long Walk

    That is not to say, however, that the rest of the cast are anything to scoff at, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Joshua Odjick and Karate Kid-star Ben Wang all deliver memorable performances, with enough backstory and characterisation that their secondary roles do not ever feel secondary. Mark Hamill also slides perfectly into the role of the Major, he is in so little of the film that every scene feels completely memorable, as the film talks about him more than shows him, and everything that talk about makes him even more vile for when Hamill makes his presence known.

    For fans of the novel, the film is an incredibly faithful rendition of the novel’s events, essentially just making changes to character’s backstories to make others hit more and remove the repetition of each character’s homelife. The source texts’ narrative is straightforward, so small changes are needed to make it more cinematic, but the series of events are the same, and the biggest changes do not come until the conclusion, which fits into the films various themes that are more present here than in the source.

    The text features crowds following the walkers around the Long Walk, but this adaptation completely removes this, really hitting home the normalisation of violence and the commercialisation of violence when people can just sit at home and view. Pain comes as a necessity to the structure of this dystopia; the entire thing would fall apart without it and its that fact that drives the characters. The film is increasingly sombre, violent and depressing, but there is always a touch of humanity and hope through the characters’ humour and connection to one another, questioning what will succeed to the end, humanity or the governmental bodies that seek to crush that humanity.

    Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Joshua Odjick in The Long Walk

  • The Conjuring: Last Rites Review

    Mia Tomlinson in The Conjuring: Last Rites

    In 2013, famed modern horror director, James Wan, released a film based on the cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren, famous paranormal investigators and authors focusing around the supernatural. Based on the case files of the Warrens, the same case films that inspired by the events of the Amityville franchise, The Conjuring was a massive success and would soon join the likes of Saw and Insidious as famous franchises that James Wan helped launch. Followed by a Wan-directed sequel in 2016, the franchise would blossom into a cultural juggernaut, with three Annabelle spinoff features, released in 2014, 2017 and 2019 respectively, two Nun spinoff features, released in 2018 and 2023, and a standalone film focused on Mexican folk lore character La Llorona, with The Curse of La Llorona releasing in 2019. The franchise has become immensely successful across the years, grossing a combined gross of $2.8 billion against a budget of $263 million, becoming the most influential horror franchise of the modern day after the end of Saw and Paranormal Activities’ tenure as box office king.

    The expansion of the franchise has slowed down once entering the 2020s however, and the critical reaction to most of the films, namely the spinoffs, would become mixed and poor. Wan would leave the director’s chair for the third core entry in The Conjuring series, with director Michael Chaves, who helmed The Curse of La Llorona, taking the reins of the entire franchise, following up 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It with 2023’s The Nun II. Both films did not fair as well critically as Wan’s time with the franchise, but Warner Bros seems to still be confident with Chaves being in the director’s chair. The final chapter is what is being advertised as Chaves’ next film, The Conjuring: Last Rites, even if it has also been stated as the potential end of the first era of The Conjuring Universe, with a supposed second phase in production.

    Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring: Last Rites

    Based on the Smurl haunting case, where the family of Jack and Janet Smurl alleged a demon was inhabiting their home between 1974 and 1989 and was then published as a novel known as The Haunting, penned by the Smurl family, Ed and Lorraine Warren and Scranton newspaper writer Robert Curran. The film works as the supposed final case of Ed and Lorraine Warren, as things become personal when daughter, Judy Warren, and her fiancée become involved in a case that will potentially cost everything

    As a finale to the series, Chaves plays the film safe, as essentially a greatest hit of both original Wan features. The previous entry, subtitled The Devil Made Me Do It, went in a different direction, subverting the haunted house formula to play out a narrative focused on possession and a central courtroom drama plot. It only makes sense to return the franchise back to its roots for the final entry, but it only works in returning to the roots if there are still enough fresh angles on the material to be mined. Here, Chaves is playing out the greatest hits of the franchise and giving out very little new, and it is hard not to compare the effectiveness of the scares between Chaves’ work and Wan’s. Wan is one of the most effective horror filmmakers of the modern era because of his distinctive style, his moody colour palettes, his ability to blend genres between horror and drama, and his fast-paced editing gives the movie rhythm and speed.

    Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring: Last Rites

    Chaves is a capable director, but he just cannot deliver a direction as distinct and compelling as Wan’s, his work looks too clean for trying to match the vision of Wan, and his scares just rely on jumps. The narrative even just acts as a remake of the events of Wan’s second Conjuring feature, mixing a storyline focused on the Warrens with a family in terror by a demon, a demon which is personally invested in drawing the Warrens out, as the narratives converge. Last Rites has the exact same narrative and then borrows nearly every scare from the first feature to a lesser effect, proving maybe that it was right to end here, when there is so little originality left.

    Wan’s signature genre blend is not handled the same here either, the film jumps back and forth between the signature haunted house events, as the family is plagued by a demon, while switching back over to following the Warrens and their daughter, as the film attempts to wrap up character arcs. The focus is clearly on the Warren’s storyline, so the hauntings suffer from a lack of attention, with so little time given to it that the audience will never care for the family in danger or feel genuinely scared when the events are fast-tracked heavily to get to the conclusion. The Warrens’ narrative is easily the best part of the family, and they continue to be the height of this franchise, no matter what someone may think of their real-world personas. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are both wonderful here, one of the most perfect casting duos in horror history, as they bounce off each other so perfectly. It is great to see them get so much focus, but when it takes an hour and ten minutes of a two-hour film for them to get involved in the central haunting, it’s clear that your film has some severe pacing problems.

    The film instead has a clear focus on potentially backdooring a continuation by propping up the Warren’s daughter as the new central character. Mia Tomlinson portrays an older version of Judy Warren, who was portrayed previously by Sterling Jerins in the other three Conjuring features and McKenna Grace in Annabelle Comes Home, who acts as the film’s protagonist, as she comes to terms with her abilities and having the mantle passed down to her. Ben Hardy also stars as Judy’s fiancée, Tony, who feels a lot less developed compared to Judy, but is clearly set up as a new protagonist moving forward. It’s a passing of the torch, and the future does not look as promising without Farmiga and Wilson.

    Madison Lawlor and Orion Smith in The Conjuring: Last Rites

    As a finale as well, the film just fails to wrap everything up. It feels more like a middle chapter of an ongoing franchise, where much of the film is still left open-ended enough to warrant a continuation, like the studio was unsure whether to commit to the finale lens if the film is successful enough. The marketing has teased a loss or sacrifice that caused this to be the final case for the Warrens, but that seems to be more of a marketing ploy rather than to be relevant to the text’s content.

    With all this, the film plays out its events incredibly safe, with a predictable narrative that does not offend, shock or even leave an audience in awe, only leaving an audience whelmed. It reads as a film that exists to keep a franchise alive that makes an alarming amount of money for the studio, with very little passion behind the camera. Michael Chaves is a perfectly okay director, but it fails at being scary or balancing the elements that have made the previous films in the franchise so successful. The central performances are strong but are lost in a film which is attempting to conclude a saga, set up new instalments and play out the greatest hits all at the same time. It is the last breath of a franchise that really should have ended when Wan departed from the saga, and the film fails to explain its existence at large.

    Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring: Last Rites

  • Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Review

    Kyle MacLachlan and Sheryl Lee in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

    Famous director David Lynch died this year, on the 15th January 2025 at the age of 78. He was well-known for his avant-garde filmmaking, which focused on surrealist and experimental features, becoming one of the most famous and well-respected directors of the modern day. Releasing 10 films across this career, his most iconic features would include his directorial debut Eraserhead, the drama adaptation The Elephant Man, the neo-noir mysteries Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, and the space opera adaptation Dune. However, what could be argued as his most well-known and well-regarded project would be the ABC series, Twin Peaks. Premiering on April 8th, 1990, and running for two initial seasons until 1991, the series followed the residents of the town Twin Peaks, as the town’s golden daughter, Laura Palmer, mysteriously dies. FBI special agent Dale Cooper arrives to the town to help the investigation but is soon drawn into a darker story which mixes the melodrama of a soap opera, eccentric comedy that was common to Lynch’s work and horror and surrealist elements. Created with co-showrunner Mark Frost, the show was pitched to the network around the mystery of Laura Palmer’s death, but Lynch and Frost made the promise that the mystery would eventually become a background element of the show as the audience becomes more comfortable with the residents of Twin Peaks.

    Opening title sequence of ‘Twin Peaks’

    After an incredibly successful first season, which Lynch directed multiple episodes across the 8 initial episodes while multitasking with his feature film Wild at Heart, ABC demanded season 2 to put an answer to the question of who killed Laura Palmer. Being forced to reveal such a crucial plot reveal prematurely led to a lot of knock-on effects for the famous show, namely Lynch and Frost both stepping back from the show until returning for the finale, and a ratings decline. Once being one of the most watched shows in 1990, the 15th episode of the show’s second season would be placed 85th out of 89 for ABC’s ratings numbers. The return of Frost and Lynch to the writer’s room could not save the show, and after multiple timeslot changes that only hindered the show more, the show would be placed on indefinite hiatus and eventually cancelled on a cliffhanger. Though the show would eventually return for a third season in 2017, that would finally address the long-simmering cliffhanger, fans’ original hope for answers would come in Lynch’s feature film follow-up, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

    Released in 1992, the film serves as a prequel, a fact that turned off many viewers who were hoping to finally receive the answers to Twin Peaks’ cliffhanger ending, where series protagonist, Dale Cooper, was replaced with an evil doppelganger. The film was booed during its screening at the Cannes Film Festival, and was panned by the American press, eventually ending up as a box office bomb. Foregoing the show’s large cast of eccentric characters and its upbeat and humorous tone, the film goes for a darker tone and a surrealist directorial style that was more in line with Lynch’s work. A set of deleted scenes would be recut into a separate film, Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces in 2014, which featured the various characters from the show that were cut from the film for time. Instead of the larger cast, the film focuses on the murder of Laura Palmer, stepping the audience into the toes of the character that was only known to her audience because of her death. She is plagued by the malevolent spirit known as Bob, as the film tracks her final seven days, where she soon finds out that her own father is Bob.

    The move between television and film comes with the movie literally beginning with the smashing of a television by a man as he murders Teresa Banks, the original victim of Bob. This opening marks the idea that Lynch seems to be putting across the film, that nostalgia and fan service is not what the film exists for, it is pulling its audience into unfamiliar settings and setting itself apart. This would be a decision that would be followed in the show’s third season, known as The Return. This can be seen even more by the film’s opening act, where FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley are assigned to investigate the death of Teresa Banks in Deer Meadow, Washington. With the appearance of Gordon Cole, a character played by Lynch himself in the series, and the appearance of a death girl for the FBI, the film begins with a false sense of security. The plot sounds eerily familiar to Twin Peaks’ original storyline, with the opening act even initially planned to feature Cooper instead of Chester Desmond, but actor Kyle MacLachlan requested for his role to be lessened compared to the series.

    David Lynch, Chris Isaak Kiefer Sutherland in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

    The plot may seem familiar, but the setting of Deer Meadow welcomes the film to breaking that familiarity, as the settings that would be central to comedy for the series would instead be conveyed as combative and tension-building. The residents of Deer Meadow do not welcome the FBI with open arms, shown through the diner sequence, a place that was routed into the television series as a place of comfort and joy. The police department welcome Cooper into Twin Peaks with open arms, as Sherrif Truman essentially becomes Cooper’s best friend straight away, but the police department of Deer Meadows are violent towards Desmond and Stanley. These differences open the film for an audience familiar with the brand that things are not going to be the same here, you cannot go home, and everything will feel the same.

    This difference in tone translates over when the film transitions over to the familiar town of Twin Peaks. The series’ iconic theme, composed by Angelo Badalamenti, pulls the viewer into feeling comfortable, but rather than pulling into one of the various characters that make up the show, the first character we see is Laura Palmer. Actress Sheryl Lee finally gets to play Laura Palmer in all her various shades of grey, a fully realised character that only existed as a dead body and a ghost that haunted the Black Lodge in the series. The feeling of unfamiliarity is mirrored by the appearance of Donna Hayward, Laura’s best friend, who is recast and played by actress Moira Kelly here. Donna may be Laura’s best friend, but Laura refuses to allow Donna to become like her, to follow her into her sexual liberation or her sexually driven sadness, and the recasting almost adds a sense of isolation to the proceedings.

    The pieces fall into place across the film, as the film retraces the steps of the investigation into her death from the film, as Laura places those clues down that Cooper, Truman and the rest of the cast would soon discover. The investigation in the series brought unexpected reveals to Laura’s character, the golden girl who brought food to the less fortunate and helped with English lessons, was revealed to be moonlighting as a prostitute, and cheating on her drug dealing boyfriend. Laura Palmer haunts the narrative of Twin Peaks, and it is until the reveal that her own father was sexually assaulting her that you get a full understanding of Laura. The events surrounding Laura’s death are choreographed to feel true and real, the comedic overtones of the show are replaced by scenes that are shocking and disturbing, from the explicit rape of Laura, to seeing her death played out through her own point of view.

    Ray Wise, Grace Zabriskie and Sheryl Lee in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

    Ray Wise plays Laura’s father, Leland, and he is easily one of the most complex performances and characters across the film. Leland’s reveal as Bob came as the final straw in Lynch and Frost’s relationship with the studio, a reveal that would have been saved for many seasons in the future. The reveal and execution of that storyline however is incredibly powerful, as Ray Wise gives a fantastic performance with his last scene, crying in his final moments as he realises what he has done to Laura throughout the years. There’s a clear intention to blur the lines of what really Leland is, and how much control does Leland have in his own body when Bob is in the mix. Fire Walk With Me continues this distinction, Wise plays the character as both terrifying and sympathetic, he is ruthless, demanding his daughter to clean her hands before dinner or verbally assaulting her once he catches wind of her relationship with James Hurley. However, he also has scenes of genuine kindness and remorse, as he apologises for his dinnertime outburst and hugs Laura. It is clear from the series that Leland was sexually abused in his youth as well, potentially by Bob, and he is just passing that trauma down to his own daughter.

    The home is portrayed as something frightening for Laura, as the fan spins above, and her own mother seems to be ignoring the sexual abuse her daughter is facing. Grace Zabriskie’s Sarah Palmer smokes and cries at what is happening to her daughter, and screams for Leland to stop his verbal attack, but never protects her daughter, she knows what is going on but is powerless to do anything about it. The entire proceedings are just played incredibly straight and sad, there is so little comedy after the opening act, and it just hits home harder how real this movie feels. Stripping out all the supernatural aspects, the film is boiled down to a domestic drama about the sexual abuse faced by a young daughter, a father who is inflicting that sexual abuse while questioning why he is doing so, and a mother who just wants to look the other way.

    David Bowie in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

    Mark Frost declined to be involved in this film, as Lynch and Frost were mixed on what to write the story around; Lynch wanting a prequel, and Frost wanting a continuation of the events of the series. Frost would continue to be involved in the franchise for years after, penning various supplemental material, such as The Secret History of Twin Peaks in 2016 and Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier in 2017, before having an equal role in the show’s revival. However, Lynch’s signature surrealist nature comes about across the runtime of Fire Walk With Me, leaving the show as much as a prequel as it is a sequel. Various characters make their appearance known across the runtime, and some creative visuals open the door for their return in the show’s third season, name in point being the namedrop of Judy, and the appearance of David Bowie’s Phillip Jeffries. There is even a brief appearance of a character from the future, as Annie Blackburn appears from the Black Lodge, a character who was added to the original in the tail end of the second season as an attempt to raise ratings by giving Cooper a love interest. She appears in an unsettling sequence, where the bloodied body of Annie appears after being trapped in the Black Lodge at the end of the series, and warns Laura that the good Cooper is trapped in the Black Lodge. This would be written in Laura’s diary and become one of the most important plot points moving forward.

    These sequel moments highlight the dream-like nature that would soon come in Twin Peaks: The Return, as the film bridges the gap between soap opera-drama and Lynch’s signature filmic tendencies. The signature red drapes, eerie editing with quick cuts and over-lit blinding horror scares, a strong control over sound and the use of silence and blaring music, are all signatures to how Lynch creates that dream-like reality for his films, and it is incredibly present here. But, at heart, the movie is the story of Laura Palmer, a character who the audience never actually meets. This film allows that audience to become familiar with the character, and her struggles, and when they will return to the show’s pilot episode again, and Andy and Truman find her body, the audience will grieve alongside them.

    Sheryl Lee in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

  • The Legacy of The Exorcist

    Linda Blair in The Exorcist

    On release in 1973, audiences waited out in long lines for Warner Bros biggest film since The Godfather, a film which was reported to have some of the strongest audience reactions to this date. Various viewers reportedly fainted during sequences, a New York citizen was reported to have miscarried, and one man was carried out in a stretcher after only 20 minutes. Nausea was frequent, and Catholic viewers, including both people who had lapsed in their faith and current faith practisers, stated that they experienced spiritual crises before and after watching the film. In the UK, the film drew protests from the Nationwide Festival of Light, a Christian public action group, and once released on home video, the film was withdrawn from being available after the passing of the Video Recordings Act in 1984, which sought to ban so called ‘video nasties’. This film, which gained so much outrage and paranoia, is The Exorcist, director William Friedkin’s supernatural-drama based on screenwriter William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel of the same name. The Exorcist has become an iconic horror feature in the time since, spawning a franchise and influencing the future of the horror genre in subsequent years, after grossing $193 million worldwide, and a lifetime gross of $441 million after re-releases. The film spent decades as the highest grossing R-rated film (adjusted for inflation), until being de-throned by Stephen King adaptation IT in 2017, and became the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Blatty winning the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the production crew taking home the Academy Award for Best Sound.

    William Peter Blatty’s original novel was inspired by the one of the very first cases of demonic possession known to the public, a phenomenon that would being more widespread in the years after the release of the Exorcist. Exorcisms, performed by the Catholic Church, were a low commodity in the years before Friedkin’s film, but cases reported to the Church became more frequent after the film’s release. It would even get to the point that demonic possession would come to the courts in 1981, with the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who claimed that he was possessed by the devil when committing murders. The trial would go on to be the basis of the third Conjuring film, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in 2021.

    Behind the scenes of the Head Twist sequence in The Exorcist

    Blatty’s basis would be a lot less mainstream than Johnson’s case, with the novel being based on a series of exorcisms performed on an anonymous boy by the attending priest, Raymond J. Bishop, and under the pseudonym ‘Roland Doe’ or ‘Robbie Mannheim’. It was claimed that the boy became possessed after coming into possession of a Ouija Board, which would become a small plot point in Blatty’s screenplay. So little was known about the case during Blatty’s discovery of the events, that it took until December 2021 for the American magazine, The Sceptical Inquirer, to report the purported identity of the boy as Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. Blatty’s signature drive to craft the novel came from seeing Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby in 1968, being drawn to the film’s ability to keep the audience unsure whether Rosemary’s concerns for the supernatural nature of her baby were genuine or unfounded. He was, however, unhappy in the ending, believing the reveals to be shlocky in nature, and was determined to craft a novel that bridged the world between realism and the supernatural convincingly.

    The appearance of Pazuzu in The Exorcist

    This becomes the route of the narrative thrust of both the novel and the film adaptation. The Exorcist follows the mysterious demonic possession of eleven-year-old Regan MacNeill, the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress. Her mother, Chris, pursues every angle to try and explain what is wrong with her daughter, and after scientific means fail her daughter, she recruits two priests to try and exorcise the demon. Those priests come in the form of Father Damian Karras, a priest who has lost his way after the death of his mother, and Father Lankester Merrin, who has done battle with the demon before. The novel and film retain the same basic plot developments, but Blatty’s screenplay narrows the focus down to the key plot points and characters that make up the narrative crux. The time frame of the events is shortened, and characters like Chris’ staff, Dennings and Regan’s father are removed entirely. A lot of the most horrifying content of the novel was also toned down in scripting, mainly the sexual aspects, once it was clear an age-accurate actress would play the eleven-year-old character. Blatty’s screenplay also foregoes the ambiguous nature of the novel’s perception of the supernatural events, with each occurrence of Regan’s supernatural abilities being paired with a reference to a real-world case where the root of the problem was revealed to be scientific in nature. Outside of Karras’ initial concerns over the validity of the claims, the film version removes the sceptical perspective entirely.

    This lack of scepticism leads the emotional throughline of the film’s narrative, a mother’s pursuit to do anything possible to save her daughter. Chris is a famous actress and moves herself and her daughter to a new home for an upcoming role, and this movement leads to an isolation for her character instantly, and Blatty’s screenplay pairs the small-town drama aspect with horror perfectly. The film never gives the viewer a perfect answer for how Regan becomes possessed, it could be the Ouija board, but its never told for sure, and this mystery thrusts Chris into action. She takes Regan to every scientific expert she could think of, with the film displaying these scientific machines as cold and terrifying, with many audience members finding the angiography sequence to be the film’s most unsettling moment. When all the natural means fail her, the film crosses over into the supernatural with her, placing her complete faith in the unknown and to the two priests that could save her daughter. Ellen Burstyn delivers a moving performance across the film, capturing a vulnerability and an openness to a mother who will do anything for her daughter, and the slow-moving nature of the opening allows the audience to gain a connection to the bond between Chris and Regan, and even more so Burstyn and Linda Blair.

    Jason Miller in The Exorcist

    The balance between realism and faith also comes in the character of Karras, played by Jason Miller. Karras is a complex character, he is railroaded by his grief, losing faith in God after he seen his mother go through so much pain before death. It’s this pursuit of meaning to regain his faith which holds together his arc. He falls under the pull of his grief when Regan’s possessed self makes fun of his mother, but he ends the film allowing good to prevail. His fall from the window allows him to remove the demon from the mortal plane, and he knows that in his death, God will accept him once again. Miller’s performance matches Burstyn’s, he is calm and collected, the pain coming from his eyes and his facial expressions, but he conveys a sense of warmth and kindness. These two central performances convey why The Exorcist is such a compelling film, it bridges the world between horror and drama so perfectly, it’s a movie about a woman trying to save her child and a man trying to regain his faith, with supernatural undertones to compliment those narrative elements.

    That is not to say, however, that The Exorcist is without its frightening scares. What once was known as ‘one of the scariest films ever made’, may feel less frightening to a modern audience who are used to supernatural clowns and nuns, but the film’s horror still works frequently. Scenes like the crucifix masturbation scene also works as a scene to both frighten and make the audience uncomfortable, shooting the sequence head on to make the audience feel like they are also in the room. Friedkin’s direction, who was hot off the success of 1971’s The French Connection, which he won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director for, makes the film feel like a pseudo-documentary. The audience feels like a fly-on-the-wall of the events taking place, as the natural lightning and authentic set design gives the film the air of realism. The supernatural aspects are aesthetically toned down compared to the novel, so when they do occur, they hit harder than if the scares were frequent and expected. The head twist sequence is a pure example of this, its terrifying because it is the only attempt at doing something so incredibly outlandish in the film’s runtime.

    Spider-Walk sequence performed by stuntwoman Ann Miles

    A similar experience was exercised from the film, a spider-walk sequence where Regan comes down the stairs in a creepy crawl, ending with a shot of Regan with a blood-soaked mouth. Blatty and Friedkin disagreed on various aspects of the film, namely the crucifixion masturbation sequence, and this was one sequence which Friedkin removed because of Blatty’s insistence. The scene stayed hidden for years, with many people arguing whether it even existed in the first place but was soon found by film critic Mark Kermode in the Warner Bros. archives when researching his book analysing the film, and the scene was reinstated in the 2000s director’s cut. The director’s cut was also used to re-emphasise one of the creepiest sequences of the film, the brief flash of the true face of the demon. The demon would not be named properly until the sequel, but his form would appear as both a face flashed on screen during Karras’ dream, and as a statue found by Merrin in the film’s prologue. The directors cut made use of this subliminal flash and placed it more commonly across the film, placed in frightening moments to give a more dream-like feel to the film.

    Ellen Burstyn and subliminal appearances of Pazuzu in The Exorcist

    The legacy of The Exorcist is a hard thing to describe completely, it was a wildfire of a film which proved that horror films can be taken seriously, making more A-list actors interested in starring in horror features. A massive trend followed the release of the feature, with studios allocating larger budgets to films that fit into a similar niche for the genre, namely 1976’s The Omen and 1979’s The Amityville Horror. Exorcism features would also become a trend in the coming years, a sub-genre in horror that still dominates the box office today, with The Conjuring franchise focused on similar genre tropes started by The Exorcist.

    The film also spawned a franchise, followed by The Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977, a film made without the involvement of either Friedkin or Blatty, and would stall the franchise for another 13 years after failing critically. In response to the negative response to the sequel, Friedkin and Blatty began work on their own sequel, which Blatty turned into his sequel novel Legion, once Friedkin departed from the project. Legion follows side characters, Detective Kinderman and Father Dyer, from the original novel, who become involved in a criminal case with a revived serial killer. The novel became the basis of Blatty’s screenplay for The Exorcist III, which he would also direct. Two attempts at a prequel following Father Merrin’s first encounter with Pazuzu would follow next, with Paul Schrader hired first and then replaced by Renny Harlin to replace him as director. Warner Bros would release Harlin’s Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004, and after becoming a critical and commercial failure, Schrader’s Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist would be released in 2005. The latest attempt to keep this franchise alive, after a two season TV adaptation on Fox, would come from Blumhouse, after acquiring the rights to the franchise for $300 million dollars, with the release of The Exorcist: Believer in 2023. The two sequels would be scrapped after its failure, and a Mike Flanagan-directed reboot is currently in the works for the studio. As a franchise, it seems that The Exorcist floundered, but it only proves how monumental the original is, it was a lightning in a bottle film, and that is hard to capture afterwards.

    Ellen Burstyn returns in The Exorcist: Believer

    Willaim Friedkin and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is a tremendous undertaking of a horror feature, an important film that legitimised the horror genre for the mainstream public. It is a completely accurate adaptation of Blatty’s original novel, with a more streamlined approach that could be argued to make the story even better. What makes the movie work so well, and what the franchise since could not recapture, is the balance between the horror and the drama. The movie, at heart, is about the distinction between science and faith, and the human drama of a man losing his faith and a woman trying to save her daughter, wrapped in a horror story focused on a demon.

    William Friedkin and Linda Blair behind the scenes of The Exorcist

  • Bring Her Back Review

    Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back

    In the age of A24 and Blumhouse, the horror genre has made big names out of the most unlikely of faces. Jordan Peele, renowned director of such hits like Get Out and Nope, made his start as part of comedy duo Key and Peele. Barbarian director, Zach Cregger, began work as part of the comedy television troupe known as The Whitest Kids U’ Know, and Until Dawn director David F. Sandberg was discovered when making horror short films on video hosting website Youtube, with one short film turning into his directorial debut, Lights Out. Horror could easily be seen as gateway genre, built to debut entertaining and unique voices that no other genre may give a chance to, and one of those new key voices is the duo of Danny and Michael Philippou.

    The duo gained their fame from starting off as Youtube celebrities, creating the channel RackaRacka in 2013, a comedy focused channel, where the brothers filmed humorous and sometimes horrific and violent skits. A love for horror could be seen all the way back then, and after working as crew members on the 2014 film The Babadook, they began work on their directorial debut. Talk To Me served as their directorial debut, a low-budget indie that took the world by storm once it was picked up by A24 after being screened at festivals, and soon became their highest grossing film, grossing $92 million worldwide against a production budget of $4.5 million. A bold new take on the possession genre, with fresh new voices breathing new life into a tired old genre, they became a notable name in the genre.

    Sally Hawkins and Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back

    Here, three years after the release of Talk To Me, the brothers have released their follow-up feature, still contained in the horror genre. In 2025, Bring Her Back serves as their return to the big screen, continuing their exploration into the possession genre, in a fresh new way that speaks in unison with their prior work. The film follows 17-year-old Andy and his partially sighted younger stepsister Piper, after the death of their father. Thrown into the adoption agency, they become adopted by a strange woman named Laura, who recently lost her own child, and wraps the two young siblings into a sinister occult ritual.

    Bring Her Back serves as hybrid genre film, mixing the worlds of the horror-possession film with the thriller/woman’s film sub-genre of the psycho-biddy. Launched with the release of the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, the genre conventionally focuses around a formerly glamorous woman who has become mentally unstable and terrorizes people in her vicinity. Continuing throughout the 60s and 70s, the films contained in the sub-genre became to be seen critically by film scholars, seen as offensive films that put down its antagonists as ‘hags’, showcasing their unattractiveness and their insanity.  This 2025 reinvention of the genre stars Sally Hawkins in the role of the ‘hag’, but instead of forming the character a monstrous villain, Hawkins’ character is incredibly sympathetic.

    Sally Hawkins in Bring Her Back

    Hawkins’ career in the modern day has been characterised by a variety of heartwarming and human performances, from the family matriarch Mrs Brown in the Paddington films, or the mute woman who falls in love with an aquatic monster in Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water. Moving into a more horror-focused role, these soft-spoken and humanist performances has not been left behind, Hawkins’ plays the adopted mother character like she is still playing Mrs Brown. There is a sense of eeriness in each of her scenes, like there is something wrong under the surface, similarly to the grandparents in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, but there is something genuine and down to earth about her. She wears glamorous outfits and holds herself strong, in opposition to the 60s’ version of a similar character, but when that eventual ugliness does come out in the film’s final act, it comes out as more saddening and depressing than something horrific.

    Sally Hawkins’ central performance holds the movie together, she is the centre piece, but Billy Barratt, Sora Wong and Jonah Wren Phillips all hold their own performance-wise, as aforementioned Andy and Piper, and Phillips as Hawkins’ Laura’s foster son Oliver. Barratt and Wong share incredible chemistry as stepbrother and stepsister, a believable relationship that is heartwarming to view, a dynamic that is a crucial part of making the film work. Phillips’ delivers one of the most frightening child performances in a horror feature in years but also subdues a small sense of heartbreak into that terrifying performance.

    Billy Barratt and Sora Wong in Bring Her Back

    It is hard to argue whether Bring Her Back is better or worse than the duo’s previous directorial debut, it is going to be a strong argument for fans of the duo. However, it can be seen easily that the films work complimentary to each other. Talk To Me uses the possession sub-genre as a metaphor for drug addiction, the possessing hand makes the film’s lead, played by Sophie Wilde, addicted to the activity. Her addiction leads her to putting her friends in harm’s way and making questionable choices for another go at being possessed. The film is rooted in an exploration into grief; Wilde’s character is rooted to a wish to speak to her mother one more time.

    Grief appears as a complimentary theme for Bring Her Back, the siblings of Andy and Piper find it hard to get over their father, and Laura is dealing with her own grief around her daughter. This combination of grief should bring these characters together in collective mourning, but the unpredictability of the script allows a fresh exploration into the all-consuming feeling of grief, and the steps people may take to not feel those feelings once more. The Philippu’s also seem to be making clear messages around child endangerment and abuse and showing a concern around the adoption agency.

    Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back

    The film never reaches the terror of the scenes of hell in Talk To Me, but the more character focused storytelling leads the film into a tension-focused thriller. There is inclusion of VHS styled footage throughout, which seems to be a staple for A24 features at this point, off the back of films like Aftersun and Past Lives. The footage works however, crafting some creepy imagery, and explaining some of the film’s mysteries in a smarter way than just holding the audience’s hand through an explanation. Sound design works wonders as well in crafting some gross-out sequences. The Philippou’s have a strong control of the camera, with some fantastic editing that keeps the film tense and humorous at moments. There is a great montage set to a Yoko-Ono song which helps the film to bridge the gap between its sense of awkward humour and its tension-fuelled horror sequences.  

    Bring Her Back showcases an undeniable staying power for the youtube famous director duo, they show a great degree of control in balancing tone, with a mix of humour, horror and genuine sadness across the runtime. Bridging the world between the possession film and the psycho-biddy film, the film updates an older sub-genre to modern sensibilities, making the horror both gorey and filled with despair. Overcoming grief and the sense of never getting over that grief hangs over Sally Hawkins’ powerhouse performance, marking this as must watch for the 2025 horror summer season.

    Sally Phillips in Bring Her Back

  • I Know What You Did Last Summer Review

    Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon in I Know What You Did Last Summer

    The success of Wes Craven’s Scream in 1996 cannot be downplayed, the slasher revitalized the horror genre after the 80s slasher trend finished, and opened the door for more self-reflective features, with postmodern film references all over the filmic landscape in the modern day. One of the things it caused mainly however was a line of clear copycats, just like Halloween spawned films like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream spawned such features like Scary Movie and Urban Legend, continuing the new postmodern formula of Craven’s original feature. Probably the most famous film to come off the back of Scream is 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. Based on Lois Duncan’s 1993 novel of the same name, the film took the mystery novel and turned it into a classic 80s slasher feature, a choice which some critics took issue with, viewing it as an out-of-date feature which falls back on the trappings of 80s horror rather than the positives that came from Scream. However, the movie owes its success to coming out a year after Scream, and even though fairing middling in critical reviews, the film was a box office success and has long since became a cult classic.

    The film was even written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson. Followed a mere year later, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was a box office success once again but essentially killed the franchise, receiving even worse critical reviews and being criticised for essentially feeling like a remake of the original. In the years since, there has only been small signs of life from Sony’s hopeful cash cow of a franchise, with an unrelated sequel coming direct to DVD in 2006, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, and a streaming reboot series released in 2021 to Amazon Prime, which was cancelled after one season.

    Lead Killer the Fisherman in I Know What You Did Last Summer

    It is only naturally that after the success of the Scream franchise coming back to the big screen once again, with successful entries in 2022 and 2023 and another instalment in the works currently, that studios would attempt to bring back their own reflexive slasher properties. Hollywood star Marlon Wayans, and his brothers Shawn Wayans and Keenan Ivory Wayans, have been announced to helm another Scary Movie feature, and Sony has returned to make another I Know What You Did Last Summer feature. In typical legacy sequel fashion, the film is titled the same as the original, and began life in 2014 when Mike Flanagan, famous for his Netflix series like The Haunting of Hill House, and Jeff Howard signed on to reboot the property. Initially pitched as a complete reboot of the franchise, removed from any connections to the original feature or the novel it was based on, the project entered development hell once Flanagan and Howard left the project. Revitalized by a legacy sequel pitch from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, the film has finally seen the light of day in cinemas now.

    The 2025 legacy sequel follows a new group of friends who become plagued by a hook-wielding fisherman killer after they covered up an accidental murder. 27 years later after a similar incident, the friend group recruits original survivors Julie James and Ray Bronson to help them stop the killer.

    Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prince Jr in I Know What You Did Last Summer

    The film sees the return of franchise star Jennifer Love Hewitt to the big screen, with her mainly being seen on television for the past decade, with brief appearances on shows like 9-1-1 and Criminal Minds. A baffling scene in the third act sees the character state that nostalgia is overrated, when the entire backbone of this feature is nostalgia. The choice to see the return of Hewitt and Freddie Prince Jr to the franchise is done to harken back to the originals, the movie follows the legacy sequel trend that 2018’s Halloween and 2022’s Scream started. Hewitt takes the role of Laurie Strode or Sidney Prescott from the previously mentioned features, a background returning character that serves only to remind audiences of the original and appear for the triumphant third act.

    Prince Jr continues the archetype started by the return of David Arquette’s Dewey in 2022’s Scream, a grizzled and saddened version of the character we once knew who returns to bring wisdom to the new characters and to inform them on the rules of the franchise. Just like every other legacy sequel, the film follows the exact same formula of the original, essentially acting as a remake but with returning characters. The newly added elements also just make the film feel like a spoof of Scream, the whodunnit nature is more present here, with various potential killers rather than just the one of the original. Red herrings are present throughout, and there is an attempt to have a postmodern conversation about nostalgia, but it all falls flat when the movie is falling back on nostalgia itself.

    Freddie Prince Jr in I Know What You Did Last Summer

    The movie is relatively safe in its narrative, if you have seen the original, then you have also seen this film. There is a bold attempt at subverting legacy sequel tropes in the third act, but it is choreographed well ahead of its reveal and will only serve to presumably annoy people who enjoy the original feature. Hewitt and Prince Jr give serviceable performance in their screen time, but the biggest pitfall of the newest legacy feature is how little it gives its new characters. Each new character is given an archetypal role that boils down their personalities and gives them very little else, giving newcomers Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon very little to work with. When attempting to undertake a narrative like a whodunnit, it is important to make the characters memorable, and this film fails to follow through on that. They all feel like characters that would be found comfortably in an 80s slasher, whose only purpose is to become part of the body count.

    Editing inconsistencies also plague this film throughout, the lead killer seems to be able to teleport in sequences where it is clear moments have been stripped away in the edit, and there are scenes where characters seem to be changing attire in the same scene. The end tease for a potential sequel also seems to be based around a removed scene that was in an earlier screening of the film, with this line inclusion now seeming out of place with that scene removed. The entire plot of the film also hinges on an accident that does not make much sense, with screenwriters Sam Lansky and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson writing themselves in a corner with how to explain the killer’s motivations and the guilt of its central characters.

    Kills are brutal and creative throughout, with Robinson’s direction shining when making the use of shadows and making the use of impressive sound design in engaging kills. It is one of the clear standouts of a confused and middling script, but it cannot save a film which is struggling to stand out from the shadow of the Scream juggernaut. 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer feels like a late entry into the legacy sequel trend, a film irking of the success of much better slasher films in the last decade, and reflects the failings that can come from this once-dead genre.

    Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders and Sarah Pidgeon in I Know What You Did Last Summer

  • The Life of Chuck Review

    Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck

    Stephen King is one of the most popular horror authors of the modern day, publishing almost 60 novels since the release of his first novel in 1974, known as Carrie. Though, most known as a horror author, it’s the author’s non-horror works that have made the biggest splash critically when being translated to the big screen. Director Rob Reiner’s 1986 film Stand By Me, based on short story ‘The Body’, and Frank Darabont’s pair of releases, 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption and 1999’s The Green Mile based on the short story and novel of the same name, stand as prime examples of the success of adaptations of King’s more dramatic pieces of work.

    Director Mike Flanagan has already had tremendous success working with King, adapting two of his horror novels, Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game, into features released in 2019 and 2017 respectively. The director is also most known for his horror works, starting with his low budget feature Absentia in 2011, and most probably known to a general public for his horror Netflix television series, notably 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House, 2020’s The Haunting of Bly Manor, 2021’s Midnight Mass, 2022’s The Midnight Club and 2023’s The Fall of The House of Usher. Before he returns to the worlds of horror, with the director attached to a new Exorcist film and a Carrie television series for Amazon Prime next, Flanagan has sought out a lesser-known King-drama short story to adapt, The Life of Chuck.

    Carl Lumbly and Chiwetel Ejiofor in The Life of Chuck

    Told through 3 separate chapters, that tell the life of Charles Krantz, known as Chuck to his friends, as the film explores the character’s life backwards. Starting with the end of his life, and beginning with his coming of age, the film and original short story showcases how the people in his life shaped him to the man he is, exploring the multitudes of life and memory.  

    Through his previous two works adapting the horror author, it was clear to argue that King and Flanagan almost felt like they were made for each other, the connection between King’s introspective dialogues and Flanagan’s wordy monologues is palpable. The same can be said for The Life of Chuck, a short story that seems like it was made to be adapted by Flanagan. Flanagan makes the genius decision to give this film a voice-over narration, with Nick Offerman doing the voice-over duties, delivering narration directly from the novel word-for-word. This helps the narrative for sure, some of the strongest emotional beats come from Offerman’s delivery and words and helps to bring structure to such a weirdly structured film. Delivering accurate narration onto the big screen is not the only thing pulled from the short story, the film essentially brings everything from the story onto the screen, favouring expansion to some elements than removing any. Narrative-wise, the story of this film leans a lot more on the emotional side of the King adaptation filmography, its overly sentimental and wordy in its messaging, a choice that will not work for every audience member but works well for people used to Flanagan’s dialogue-heavy previous projects.

    Mark Hamill in The Life of Chuck

    Flanagan’s Netflix series, mostly Midnight Mass, would be criticised commonly for its lengthy dialogue sequences, with many conversations between characters ranging between 3 to 5 minutes in length. These scenes could be argued as an example of show, don’t tell, featuring characters discussing the themes of the show, exploring topics of religion, greed, death and the meaning of life, but the writing was so well-realised and moving that it could be ignored for its lengthy inclusion. This film is a treasure-trove of lengthy monologues, the film being held together by the people that come in and out of Chuck’s life, imparting wisdom on him and then leaving the narrative. Running just under two hours, viewers who would criticise Flanagan’s meaningful but lengthy dialogue sequences may find the inclusion here more meaningful and emotional in their frequented but shortened inclusion.

    The themes that the director explored in his long-running series also make appearances here, from discussion around religion, the fear of death and the meaning of life, all explored in new ways through both the characters and the central narration. The narrative also being in reverse chronological order allows for a central mystery to build, opening with characters dealing with the end of the world, and how this end links to a man they barely know, Chuck. Through the reverse chronological narrative, the film becomes more complex and denser as the narrative moves on, revealing answers and a central twist as Chuck’s life becomes simpler and more mundane, from adult to child.

    Karen Gillan and Chiwetel Ejiofor in The Life of Chuck

    Flanagan’s film has delivered an incredibly surprising cast, with most of its biggest names being in small scenes and essentially cameos. Flanagan mainstays, that have populated his casts for a decade at this point each get a moment to shine, notably Rahul Kohli, Carl Lumbly, Kate Siegel and Samantha Sloyan. David Dastmalchian and Harvey Guillen share a fun singular sequence each which brings some welcome levity to the proceedings. Scream and now-Five Nights at Freddy’s star Matthew Lillard has a memorable sequence that will tug at the heart strings, and Nightmare on Elm Street’s own Heather Langenkamp makes a notable return to the big screen. Starting the film off with people reacting to Chuck outside of meeting the character ourselves, welcomes Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan into essentially being the opening acts main characters and they handle the focus perfectly. Newcomers to the worlds of overlong monologues, they seem naturals at talking about the meaning of life and death itself. Mark Hamill and Mia Sara give heartbreaking performances as Chuck’s grandparents, bringing some realistic humanity to such a fantasy-esque narrative.

    Benjamin Pajak in The Life of Chuck

    The titular character has been marketed as being played by Tom Hiddleston, but the Marvel-star is in very little of the film. Chuck’s most common actor is newcomer Benjamin Pajak as the 11-year-old version of the character, and he delivers the true heart of the movie through his performance. The entire narrative reveals itself through his impassioned performance, reflecting himself through Hiddleston’’s short tenure as the character, selling the positivity of the character amongst all the pain he encounters, his love of dance and the teenage angst that comes at that age.

    The Life of Chuck stands strong next to some of King’s most successful adaptations. Mike Flanagan just knows how to breath the cinematic language into the author’s texts, delivering a scene like a man and woman dancing to a reggae beat which any other director could make silly or heartless, but it ends up on the screen as a heartfelt and moving sequence. It may be overly sentimental at times, but the heart is in the right place, it’s a movie which feels like a lifetime, filled with so many characters and actors giving a moment of wisdom. Each sequence feels better than the last, feeling like a film designed perfectly for fans of both Flanagan and King.

  • The Fantastic Four: First Steps Review

    Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby in The Fantastic Four: First Steps

    In the age of the modern superhero boom, the time where characters like Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man and many more have flown into the cultural zeitgeist there has always been one team that has struggled to marvel audiences on the big screen, The Fantastic Four. Originally conceived into live action in 1994, with the Roger Corman-backed low-budget feature bearing their name, that project was scrapped once completed, and will presumably never see the light of day as a released picture. 20th Century Fox took a second chance at the team in 2005, starring Chris Evans, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis, which was successful enough to warrant a sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007. Plans for a third film and a Silver Surfer spinoff would be cancelled after the box office disappointment of the 2007 follow-up, and the franchise would lay dormant again. Just in time to keep the rights away from transferring back to Marvel Studios, 20th Century Fox would return Marvel’s First Family to the big screen with Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four in 2015. Starring Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Miles Teller and Jamie Bell, the film was a massive critical bomb, and the behind-the-scenes drama would break the potential franchise that would come.

    Fourth time seems the charm for Marvel Studios, as the Fantastic Four have returned home and joined their Cinematic Universe, after Disney’s buyout of 20th Century Fox. The Fantastic Four: First Steps follows these famous heroes, four years removed from their origin that gave them their fantastic powers, as they exist in an alternate reality to the one where the Avengers reside. When Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm falls pregnant and the team comes into conflict with Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer and Ralph Ineson’s Galactus, the team must come together as a family once more to welcome the new child and stop their planet from being destroyed.

    Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph

    The most notable part of the film’s marketing campaign has been its focus on its new setting, capturing a reality which resembles the 1960s and the retro-futuristic artwork that Jack Kirby drawn in the team’s first comic outings. The film’s world is one of the highlights for sure, the film has a clear style in the set dressing, costumes and direction that gives it an authentic old-timely charm. A studio which commonly makes the use of green screen instead of authentic sets, Marvel Studios makes a welcome change here by giving their actors an actual palpable world to bounce off with, as the sets complement director Matt Shakman’s direction. Best known as a TV director, directing episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Game of Thrones and Marvel’s own WandaVision, he shows of a great level of control behind the camera and wows with some breathtaking visuals. Cinematographer Jess Hall works to capture the film with so much colour, colour that has been missing from Marvel’s output lately. Michael Giacchino’s score gives the movie an upbeat and timely feel, matching the tension and the family moments that are contained in the film. The world just feels alive because of these technical aspects, and the fact that the film spends so much time showcasing the world’s reaction to the heroics of its signature team. Ripped out of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, the public are important to the movie, saving lives are important and it imbues the film’s optimistic view of the world.

    Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are the leads of the film as the stretching scientist, Mr Fantastic, and the invisible matriarch of the family, the Invisible Woman, respectively. Pascal delivers a side to the troubled scientist that no actor has been able to yet, the fear of a newborn in the family, a part of life he cannot control, or study is something he is terrified of. Pascal delivers the vulnerability of a man obsessed with science, to the point that he thinks there is something wrong with him. Kirby is the first time Sue Storm has felt like a fully fleshed out character in one of The Fantastic Four’s cinematic outings, she is the heart of the team, the matriarch that keeps the family together. She gets to show off her powers during her fight scene with showy effects and flex her emotional range when her son comes under threat.

    Vanessa Kirby and Pedro Pascal in The Fantastic Four: First Steps

    Joseph Quinn’s hot-headed Human Torch gets a lot of play in the story, tying him in with a small romantic story where he gets to fight conventions of the idiot he is thought of as. Quinn nails the comedic aspect of the character, but also how deeply loyal he is to his sister and overall family. Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s super-strong The Thing gets the least to do narrative wise, but he remains a strong character, feeling like the member of the team that deals with the public the most, contrasting his rocky exterior with a kind and gentle demeanour. His romantic side-plot with Natasha Lyonne however feels like an afterthought, contained to merely two scenes. The highlight of the film is seeing the central four interact, they bounce off one another splendidly, with the film spending a lot of time setting up this dysfunctional but loving family.

    Action sequences take a backseat in the film, for a clearer focus on drama. There are essentially only two action sequences across the film, but the film stills have a lot of plots to crawl through in its small runtime. Once the plot starts going, a mere 20 minutes or so into the feature, the film moves at an incredibly fast pace and never lets up, feeling too fast in some moments. Based on the recent news that John Malkovich’s character was cut from the theatrical release of the film, it seems there is a longer cut that exists, a longer runtime that the film would benefit from. More time would be beneficial to focus on the strongest aspect of the film, the family dynamic, but also the side characters that seem like an afterthought in the fast-moving narrative. Additional scenes would benefit the non-existent romantic relationship between Nastasha Lyonne and The Thing, and Paul Walter Hauser’s Mole Man, who’s role feels superfluous in the overall narrative flow. The opening struggles the most with this squeezed runtime, with the editing being sloppy and chaotic as it clearly squashes a longer-opening featuring Malkovich’s Red Ghost into a montage which only mentions the character.

    Ralph Ineson provides the voice of Galactus in The Fantastic Four: First Steps

    A longer runtime would also benefit the most wasted aspects of the film, Silver Surfer and Galactus. This film feels like a second try at Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Galactus saga which was already adapted in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. There, Galactus was translated into a planet destroying space cloud, but here is translated into the giant god in purple armour. The movie sets it apart as well from moving away from the iconic Norrin Radd, comic’s most famous Silver Surfer, in favour of Julia Garner’s Shalla-Ball. The character feels very one note across the film’s runtime, with only one scene giving Garner any material to chew on dramatically. For most of the film, she exists as a visual effects-created antagonist, whose only role essentially serves to herald Galactus and has Human Torch be attracted to her. Ralph Ineson’s Galactus does not serve much better but at least has the booming presence that comes with the design and the voice. The threat of the character feels larger than the actual depiction of the character, his lack of screen time allows him to feel like a bigger threat as his name continues the mind of its characters, but when the character does eventually draw his head into the narrative, he meanders more than wows.

    Julia Garner in The Fantastic Four: First Steps

    The Fantastic Four: First Steps is easily the best out of the team’s cinematic outings, but it is not without its pitfalls. The central four are casted perfectly and are brimming with personality and family charm, but the film doesn’t always blend the world of family drama and superhero action perfectly. Pacing is shaky across the film, and the film falls when dealing with its generic end-of-the-world plot, with paper thin villains. It however promises more to come, with Marvel’s First Family looking to improve in future outings.

    Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph

  • Jurassic World: Rebirth Review

    4/10

    Nothing is ever truly gone, and like a fossil out of amber, the Jurassic franchise is roaring back into cinemas with another entry. 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion marketed itself as the end of the Jurassic saga, wrapping up the story of the Jurassic World trilogy and bringing back original Park cast Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill. That conclusion didn’t seem to stick for long, as a new film was reported to be written by David Koepp, who co-wrote the original Jurassic Park and wrote its original sequel, in January 2024. A mere month later, a director was announced, and it was reported that most of the principal visual effects-footage had been shot and was ready to go, prepared well-in advance to avoid another COVID blunder, which affected the predecessor.

    Describing the director’s role as more ‘shooter than auteur’, director Gareth Edwards had essentially been hired to direct a film that was completely out of his hands. This film was Jurassic World: Rebirth, an attempt at a clean slate for the Jurassic franchise. Set years after the events of its predecessor, Rebirth sees the dinosaurs no longer out free in the wild, but instead re-homed around the equator, the only area habitable to them. The lead characters of the film are a group of scientists and former military who have assembled to obtain samples of three different dinosaurs in hopes of using their DNA to help with heart disease treatments. They find themselves in an abandoned research facility which holds rejected samples of mutated dinosaurs, and a lost family that have shipwrecked onto the island.

    Jonathan Bailey and Scarlett Johansson in Jurassic World: Rebirth

    Director Gareth Edwards has made a name for himself directing franchise films, most notably 2014’s Godzilla and 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the former being another film that was controlled by the studio. Edwards knows how to direct a good-looking feature, the biggest positive that can be applied to this film is that the direction and cinematography is stunning, brimming with colours and looking authentically real. The dinosaur sequences are spectacular of course as well, mainly down to the fact that they have been mapped out and ready to go years in advance. The plot boils down to essentially a fetch-quest, a video game-type narrative where the characters must deal with three separate set pieces, with Edwards essentially bridging the gap between these effects-heavy sequences. The sequences are entertaining, focusing the plot around the Mosasaurus, Titanosaurus and the Quetzalcoatlus, with the primary dinosaur having the most thrilling sequence in the film. There is also a thrilling sequence featuring the T-Rex that is ripped straight out of Michael Crichton’s original novel, one of the only scenes not translated into Spielberg’s original feature.

    What lacks in these sequences however is the complete lack of originality. Seven movies into the Jurassic franchise and it really seems like the franchise is running out of ideas, and especially when the freshest sequence is ripped straight out of the source text. The movie’s plot can be described as colliding together the basic plot of Jurassic Park 2 and Jurassic Park 3 together, taking the research expedition and military component of the former, and the lost family aspect of the former. Even the mutant dinosaurs, who seem to be an afterthought in the movie, only making an appearance at the tail end of the film and in the cold open, pale in comparison to the more thought-out inclusion of the concept in Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The attempt to do all three of these plot elements from former Jurassic movies just leaves them all feeling incredibly half-baked, with no side of the film feeling as developed as they should be.

    Mahershala Ali in Jurassic World: Rebirth

    Scarlett Johansson leads a cast of talented actors, with Mahershala Ali, Rupert Friend and Jonathan Bailey joining her on the expedition. All the actors are trying their best with the material they are given, but Koepp’s script pales in comparison to his former work in the Jurassic franchise.  The characters are incredibly surface level, engaging in bravado dialogue straight out of the Marvel wheelhouse, and bringing up interesting character details that are instantly forgotten about once they are brought up. Explorations into PTSD, the loss of a daughter and the destruction of a marriage, and the moral ambiguity of what they are doing, as they are essentially selling these health cures for money, are brought up in one scene and then never mentioned again, leaving each character half-baked.

    The inclusion of the family as well, played by actors Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono and Audrina Miranda, serves to essentially slowdown the plot, as they enter and exit the movie as a distraction, not serving any narrative purpose. The inclusion of so many named stars also cause the franchise to lose any of the grit or suspense that these movies used to have, deaths are bloodless and mostly off-screen, and the characters exist as superheroes with very little danger facing them. The movie includes various cannon-fodder characters who only exist to die, leaving so many thrilling sequences with very little thrills.

    Never has John Williams’ iconic Jurassic Park theme feel so misused and less powerful than in this film, where it’s thrown into every sequence where the movie cannot convey that emotion by itself. The movie opens with a crawl that reminds the audience what the last few Jurassic World movies kept stating, that people are growing tired of dinosaurs. What it is accidentally proving is how tired and formulaic these Jurassic movies have become, even when a talented franchise director like Gareth Edwards goes behind the camera, it still comes out as the same film you have seen so many times before. The same set pieces, the same character archetypes, even the same dinosaurs, this franchise is going the way of the dinosaur.