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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
The horror genre has consistently been a genre that has moved with the times, from the slashers of the 70s, the torture porn and found footage sub-genres of the 2000s, and the current trend of socially conscious horror spearheaded by A24 and Blumhouse. Tracking the movement of the genre, below are a list of the most important films to the genre:
Psycho (1960)
Janet Leigh in Psycho
Sometimes dubbed as the first slasher film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was a trailblazer of a film at its time of release. Based on the 1959 novel of the same name by author Robert Bloch, the film centres its narrative around embezzler Marion Crane, escaping from her job with a sum of money and hiding out on the road, leading to an encounter with Norman Bates, a seemingly normal man who runs the Motel she stays at. After a worrying encounter, the film shifts focus to Crane’s friends and family as they attempt to track down the woman and find out what happened to her. Director Alfred Hitchcock is easily one of the most influential American filmmakers, and this can be easily argued as his most influential feature. In a horror landscape where the antagonists were commonly monsters, vampires and creatures from fantastical regions, Psycho finds its horror in a rare case of humanity, setting up a long running obsession with Hollywood filmmaking around serial killers. Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, would become the central figure of realistic horror, a man who can put on a façade to remain in society, but behind closed doors is a murderous killer with sexual impulses. Shocking subject matter for-the-time perpetuate across the feature, as star Janet Leigh is murdered in a violent manner, watched by both the voyeuristic Norman Bates and the audience in his point-of-view. The sudden death of Leigh would have been a shock to audiences, killing off the biggest star early on the feature and shifting focus was very groundbreaking material.
This comes with some of the earliest uses of the point of view shot for the genre as well, as the film puts you into the perspective of the killer, a slasher trope that would become synonymous with the genre come the release of Halloween in 1978. Norman Bates has also seen himself become a topic of discussion through Freudian psychoanalysis, with his close relationship to his mother and his need to keep her alive even after death, by perceiving her body and dressing as her, connecting him to the Oedipus Complex. He cannot separate himself from his mother and develop sexually away from this root, and this can be seen commonly across future slashers, most noticeably Jason Voorhees. Though received with mixed reviews at the time of its release because of its graphic subject matter, Psycho was rightfully praised in the years to come. It has slowly been regarded as the importance touchstone it is in the movement of the horror genre from Universal Monsters and ghouls to the realistic killings to come in the 70s with the slasher genre.
After his passing in 1980, Psycho opened the door to join its slasher family in becoming a franchise of its own, spawning three sequels, a remake, a TV film and a TV series.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Various actors dressed up as zombies in Night of The Living Dead
Shot through black-and-white photography to save budget, Night of the Living Dead would be the first film by director George A.Romero. Although only referred to as ‘ghouls’ across the runtime of the film, this first film by the influential director would become the blueprint for the rise of the zombie sub-genre. The film follows a group of survivors trapped in a farmer house as they attempt to survive the flesh-eating undead that are trying to break inside. Zombies had existed in popular culture before the release of this film, but commonly only linked to voodoo and black exploitation films, where the zombie was linked to magic rather than being distinctly undead. Though it is never explained in depth in the film how the zombies come to be, Night of the Living Dead is important in introducing many tropes that would become synonymous with the monster in the coming years.
The need to feast on flesh and specifically brains, the monster being undead and being able to bite and infect others and the concept of the slow-walking zombie all come from this important feature. Even the concept of man being the true villain in these apocalyptic scenarios come from this film, as the true drama comes from inside the farmhouse as the survivors turn on each other to survive. Though cast without skin tone in mind, the film would become equally important through it being one of the first horrors features to feature a black leading man in Duane Jones. The film ends with its lead being gunned down as the white mob confuses him with the zombies, connecting Romero’s zombies back to race. Many critics have compared the death of the film’s lead as like the at-the-time recent death of Martin Luther King Jr, and the current events of the civil rights movement, taking a critical look at racism in America by showcasing the white mob’s summarisation that a black man must also be a monster.
The film would launch Romero’s storied career with the horror genre, as he would return to make various other zombie features. His two initial follow-ups, 1978’s Dawn of the Dead and 1985’s Day of the Dead, served as continuing the narrative parallels to real world issues through the zombie sub-genre. The films tackled the current rise of consumerism, sexism and took on criticisms of the American armed forces. Before his death in 2017, the director also released three more, 2005’s Land of the Dead, 2007’s Diary of the Dead and 2009’s Survival of the Dead.
The Exorcist (1973)
Linda Blair in The Exorcist
Audiences left their local cinemas in 1973 calling The Exorcist one of the most terrifying films of all time, as it became synonymous with restrictions, namely in the United Kingdom, and for being seen as highly offensive by the Catholic Church. The film, directed by William Friedkin, and written by original novel writer William Peter Blatty, follows the possession of a young girl as her mother attempts anything to get to the bottom of what is wrong with her daughter. When general practices and science fail to help her daughter, she begs a disillusioned priest, a man struggling with his own faith, to come help her and exorcise the demon from her daughter. The aspect of The Exorcist that stands out the most from its competitors at the time is how human and relatable it feels, it blends the worlds of horror and drama perfectly. The horror of the picture comes from the home, as a woman desperate to save her own daughter nearly drives herself mad trying to protect her daughter in the new home and city she lives in. The priest does not believe in his own god, as he must come to terms with forgiving god for the death of his mother to save this little girl from harm.
The movie is slow and dramatic, almost proving the horror genre as something to be watched by critics and not something schlocky and played for audiences, as the film became the first horror to be nominated for Best Picture. The film is also deeply religious in its exploration of faith versus evil, Father Karris may struggle with his faith in the end, but it is only through his sacrifice after devoting himself back to the church, does good win the day. Even after getting her memories removed of her possession, the young Regan sees comfort in the Christian cross. Popularising a new horror sub-genre in the possession film, the film launched the concept of exorcisms back into the public consciousness and led to various calls to Churches to attempt to do them for real. Exorcism films would soon become a staple in the genre, with various haunted house features and possession films following the release of The Exorcist, namely The Amitytville Horror in 1979. The genre remains relevant today, with the Conjuring franchise being one of the most popular franchises in the 21st century, spawning an entire cinematic universe based around possession and exorcisms.
William Peter Blatty would follow his original novel with a sequel, known as Legion. The film sequel would not follow this however, returning Linda Blair as Regan as she takes on the demon again. Exorcist 3 would adapt the novel’s sequel, as the storyline would shift to a demonic serial killer being hunted by police officers. Two prequels would follow, and a direct sequel to the original was released in 2023.
Halloween (1978)
Nick Castle wears the mask of The Shape in Halloween
There were slasher films before the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween, namely aforementioned Psycho, but also Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974, but it is hard to argue against the fact that Halloween pioneered the sub-genre into the 80s. Following the killer Michael Myers, who murdered his sister as a child on Halloween night, the film follows the killer as he escapes from the mental hospital and travels back to his hometown of Haddonfield. There, Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, must survive the night while being stalked by this infamous killer. A low budget film that wowed audiences and set Carpenter onto a storied career in the world of horror, the film is essentially a blueprint for the slasher features that would come into the 80s and 90s. Namely, there was a slew of slashers based around certain national holidays after the release of the film, from Friday the 13th, to Prom Night, or even My Bloody Valentine. The final girl originated from this feature, with many slashers favouring to end with their killer bested by the holy girl, a final survivor who survives not just by her wits but her abstinence. Laurie is responsible in the film, she does her schoolwork, babysits the neighbour’s child, and even agrees to takeover her friend’s babysitting job when she goes to meet her boyfriend. Sex is something that is shown to be frowned upon by the film, people become victims to the killer because they have had sex.
The opening scene is young Michael killing his sister while she is naked, preferring to have sexual activities than to look after the young boy. The slasher film refers to abstinence as something to up your chances of survival, with the killer out for any who doesn’t abide to that rule. Though used in Psycho as well, the film makes the use of various point-of-view shots as the audience looks through the eyes of Michael and welcomes the genre to one of their first marketable masked slashers. Carpenter’s score establishes a central theme for the killer, linking a connection between music and the genre, establishing a killer’s theme would be important. The success of this film would spark a resurgence in the 1980s, with masked killers hunting sexually promiscuous teenagers being all the rage for the horror genre.
The slasher genre only becomes more popular with the continuation of its famed killers in sequels and franchising. Michael would soon become the face of a franchise that has spawned 13 separate features, with its latest feature being only in 2023.
Alien (1979)
Yaphet Kotto, Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright in Alien
During the slasher era of the 70s, where the horror genre was focused on small-town horror and killers wearing masks, the film that stood out more was Ridley Scott’s alien horror. Blending the world of science fiction and horror, the film stood out for its blending of genres, essentially grafting the slasher film into a galactic setting. The film follows a group of the spaceship Nostromo, as they investigate a mysterious alien planet and come face to face with a dangerous extraterrestrial. Clearly inspired by the likes of Jaws by Steven Spielberg, the film made the use of suspense as the alien picks off the survivors one by one, hiding the full design of the alien until the film’s climax.
Sigourney Weaver plays Ellen Ripley, who essentially serves as the film’s final girl, as she outwits the alien and survives past the stronger men to win the day, and the film continues the signature sexual exploration around the horror genre. Sexual imagery appears across the film, with the titular killer laying eggs in its victim’s chest as a face hugger, attaching on its victims’ face. The alien will then pop out of its victim’s chest once born and once separated from its host will form into an adult. This life cycle marks a comparison to phallic imagery, as the face hugger is like rape, while the chest burster compares itself to forced birth and appears phallic in structure. The combination of the worlds between science fiction and horror marks as a blueprint in how to make these sci-fi-horrors, grafting horror narratives and tropes into the mise-en-scene of science-fiction. After the release of this feature, a wave of science-fiction features that blended with horror became a promising trend, with the release of films like The Abyss in 1989.
Alien would spawn itself a franchise, spawning seven features in total. Across these seven features, the films would bridge the world between not just science-fiction and horror, but also action as well. Crossing over with its neighbouring Predator franchise, saw the release of Alien Vs Predator in 2004 and Alien Vs Predator: Requiem in 2007, which served as a bridge between horror, science-fiction, action and adventure features.
Scream (1996)
Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and Jamie Kennedy in Scream
Director Wes Craven joined the slasher boom in the 80s, with the release of his own supernatural slasher, A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. Come the turn of the 90s, slashers were becoming stale, stuck with releasing the same franchises again and using the same tropes that Halloween pioneered. Craven attempted something different with his return to Elm Street, with the release of 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. The director crafted a meta-narrative, where the film existed in the real world where the movies exist, as returning actors instead play themselves rather than their franchise characters, and Craven appears himself in the film. This would essentially be a proof-of-concept for the release of 1996’s Scream, a film that can be pointed out for being responsible for the revitalisation of both the horror genre and slashers themselves. The film follows Sydney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, and her high-school friend group after they must survive a costumed serial killer known as Ghostface, who attempts to murder the friend group on the anniversary or the death of Sydney’s mother.
The opening of the film showcases what the 90s was all about for horror features, as Drew Barrymore is quizzed on her horror knowledge while over the phone with Ghostface, only murdered because she misremembers Jason as the killer in the original Friday the 13th. What made Scream stand apart from its slasher peers is that the characters are like the audience, they know the tropes of a genre that had nearly been around for 20 years at that point, and they know horror trivia. The characters make references to various slashers, there is an entire scene where Randy comments on how to survive a horror film, stating that they cannot drink, have sex or take drugs. Various cameos appear across the film, from Linda Blair from The Exorcist to a janitor who wears an outfit like Freddy Krueger. When the killers are finally revealed, Syndey shouts at them for seeing too many movies, which the two killers reject, featuring a postmodern commentary on violence in the relation to film. Postmodernism refers to works that are aware of other art, self-referentially reflecting other works of art. This self-referential humour is very much part of modern cinema at the time as well, with films like the Marvel movies commonly making jokes about other films, with Spider-Man: Homecoming featuring references to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for example. In response to the release of Scream, the slasher film became a staple of the horror genre once again, with a prominent number of features featuring teenage high-school victims, self-referential humour and masked killers once again. From I Know What You Did Last Summer to Urban Legend, the slasher film was back and had a new film to base themselves off.
Each subsequent film would continue its meta-commentary on the genre, Scream 2 referring to sequels, Scream 3 to trilogy-closers, Scream 4 to the torture porn and remake era of the 2000s, and Scream 5 and 6 to franchises and legacy sequels.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project
Moving into the early 2000s, the horror genre was looking for a new cash-cow, a new sub-genre that would take the cinema going audience by storm, and that came in the release of The Blair Witch Project in 1999. Following a group of three college students that travel to Burkittsville, Maryland, the group are hoping to shoot a documentary about the local legend of the Blair Witch. Once they got lost in the woods, the legend becomes real as they must hope to survive. The film stood apart from its modern horror siblings because of its use of found footage, a term referring to a film which presents its filmmaking as camera-recorded footage that has been found and played for the world, commonly recorded through point-of-view shots of a character’s own camera. There had been found footage before released by Hollywood, most noticeably 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust and 1998’s The Last Broadcast, but the success of Blair Witch was unfathomed. Made for a minute budget, the marketing of the film allowed it to become a massive success, still one of the most profitable films to this day.
The film was one of the first features to make use of the blossoming marketing potential of the internet, launched an associated website which marketed the film as a true event, with each character in the film using the real actor’s names. The potential of crafting a film which could be made for a very small budget and see a return majorly from that, sometimes doubling and tripling that budget, was a rich promise that Hollywood took upon instantly. The late 2000s and early 2010s seen a sudden insurgence of low-budget found footage films, especially after the success of Paranormal Activity in 2007, an indie film that had the backing of Steven Spielberg. Movies like Cloverfield, V/H/S and The Last Exorcism became the newest moneymaker for the horror genre, rising to spawn franchises of their own, like Paranormal Activity.
The Blair Witch Project would become a franchise of its own with the release of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 in 2000. This film would dodge the found footage aesthetic and instead aligned itself with the metatextual commentary of Scream, featuring the original film as a film-in universe of the film’s narrative. 2016’s Blair Witch would return the franchise back to it’s found footage roots.
Saw (2004)
Cary Elwes in Saw
Found footage features were not the only new wave that came during 2000’s Hollywood filmmaking, as the release of the low budget feature, Saw in 2004, opened the door to the ‘torture-porn’ sub-genre. A sub-genre that emphasised the gross-out parts of horror, the sub-genre would indulge in all the blood and gore you would expect from horror but make that its entire focus. Rooted in the so-called ‘splatter films’, films which rooted their narratives around violence, gore, nudity, sadism and mutilation, it was very common for films that were labelled ‘video nasties’ in the United Kingdom. What stands these films apart from the modern ‘torture-porn’ is the difference in release, the original era of splatter films were independent features and commonly released on home video, while the modern variation had bigger budgets and widespread releases from major movie studios.
Saw is relatively tame compared to the franchise it would become, and for the films it would spawn. A low budget feature, the film was made after the screening of a short film that depicted on scene from the longer feature and was written by the duo of Leigh Whannel and James Wan, who would direct the feature. The film follows a non-linear timeline, as two men wake up in a rotten bathroom with no memories of how they got there and how they relate to each other. As they attempt to survive, the police hunt down the notorious Jigsaw killer, after a trial of bodies are found. The Jigsaw Killer serves as the original prototype killer for these films, a killer who places people in traps where they must take part in giving themselves immense pain to survive, in hopes of the victim becoming a better person. The violent nature of these films reflected the mood of the American people at the time, fresh of the heels of 9/11. Films became more violent and serious in tone, torture porn reflecting the fear of the time, reflecting the fear of the unknown and the distrust between one and another. Films which depicted people inflicting pain on each other to the most severe level was the big new thing, and the mistrust of society is palpable. Films that followed Saw emphasised this further, as films like Hostel explored the fear of foreign countries and people to American society, and the racism that comes from that.
Hostel was the first film that was labelled as a ‘torture-porn’ film, but this name was eventually referred to Saw. Saw has since become the poster child of the 2000’s torture-porn era of horror and has also lived past the death of this genre. With the 10th film released in 2023, the Saw franchise has staying power unlike any other.
Get Out (2017)
Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out
Coming into the 2010s, the horror genre had morphed again away from the torture porn and found footage of the 2000s and had opened the door to a new brand of horror. When released in 2022, franchise restarter Scream gave a name to the new trend of horror features as ‘elevated horror’, and it could be argued that the success of Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out in 2017 has led to the new trend of ‘socially conscious horror’. Get Out follows a young black man, played by Daniel Kaluuya, who drives to meet his new girlfriend’s parents, only to find worrying signs about the family. The film features various social and political commentary on America throughout its runtime, exploring life for African Americans and how white Americans can make their life hard even if they are not meaning to. It features a full spectrum on commentary, not just exploring the harm of racism, but the pain that can be caused when people turn a blind eye to racism, claiming to be an ally when they are not committing to change. Even the girlfriend, who would commonly be the one good person in the family or a white saviour, is revealed to be the worst member of the family, dating black men as trophies rather than seeing them as a romantic interest.
Off the back of this film, Peele would make two follow-up films, Us in 2019, and Nope, in 2023, two films that continue thematic messages in their narratives. Get Out would not be the first successful socially conscious horror to be released in the decade but would be the one that would become the most successful, being one of the only horror films to be nominated for Best Picture at the 2018 Academy Awards. This success would inspire a movement of new features that would commonly be released from independent studios Blumhouse and A24. The former would become a famous film distributor moving into the 2020s, spawning various features that would highlight the horror medium of the modern day. Whether its commentary on the greed of the upper class in films like Opus in 2025, criticism of enforcing one’s beliefs on others in films like Heretic in 2024, or exploring grief in Midsommar in 2019, horror has now focused upon making social comments through its horror.
Amie Donald stars as the titular character, with voice work by Jenna Davis in M3GAN 2.0
3/10
No one could predict the success of Blumhouse Pictures’ surprise smash hit that was M3GAN, a killer robot film that went viral on social media app TikTok after a clip was posted of the title character dancing before her next kill. It is known since that the movie was reshot after becoming an internet sensation, transforming itself from a R-Rated feature to a PG-13 that would allow those that made the film viral to see the feature for themselves.
Internet popularity allowed the film to become a success, audiences witnessing a homage to films like Child’s Play or even The Terminator, as a killer robot terrorised its creator and the child she was assigned to help, and featuring enough campy and sensational moments across its runtime to match the internet sensation it became. As frequently it becomes when a horror feature becomes a smash-hit, its now become time to franchise out this new feature, and here we arrive at M3GAN 2.0.
Allison Williams stars opposite the killer robot in M3GAN 2.0
The sequel follows the events of the original feature, as Cady (Violet McGraw) and Gemma (Allison Williams) attempt to move on after destroying the titular killer. When a new humanoid robot, made by the military using M3GAN’s original code, goes rogue, Cady and Gemma must attempt to rebuild the murderous robot that plagued them in the past in a bigger and bolder new body. The three must now work together to stop a potential AI takeover.
If this plot sounds complicated, it is because it is. M3GAN 2.0 does not really know what it wants to be, and the script by director Gerard Johnstone, based on a story idea from original script writer Akela Cooper, is messy and overcomplicated. This follow-up feature removes the horror elements from the original completely in favour of becoming a straightforward action-science-fiction hybrid, feeling like an overcomplicated mismatch of stories told before, like the James Bond films, the Mission Impossible features and most clearly T2: Judgement Day.
Director Gerard Johnstone described the movement between M3GAN and its sequel to essentially be a homage to Terminator and its follow-up. What works there however just does not work in M3GAN’s sequel, the movement to action leaves so much what worked about the original out the door, the kills are replaced with sloppily edited action sequences, the personal story about dealing with grief as a family through a self-help robot is replaced with a over-the-top heist movie with sets and plots that feel ripped out of a Marvel movie. These elements that are missing seem to be replaced with elements that just double down on the elements of the first film that emphasised the internet sensation it became.
Ivanna Sakhno joins the cast of M3GAN 2.0
The original feature’s charm came from the film’s tonal inconsistency, the film was commonly hilarious and filled with campy sequences, but the film took itself seriously throughout. The sequel’s script, which features only a story-by credit from the original script writer, leans heavily into the camp to a detriment at times. The plot, characters and emotional beats struggle under the weight of a film trying to recapture the original, a film attempting to recapture the viral sensation of its predecessor. Jokes land every second in the film, but the fact that the film is attempting to be in on the joke instead of being inconsistent with that tone leaves the film feeling more ridiculous than camp.
Johnstone’s direction was easily the weakest part of the original feature, the film was not popular because of its technical prowess, and when this follow-up has nothing from the first film that particularly worked, that direction becomes more apparent. Scenes are frequently shot over-lit, especially during the first act where the locations look so mundane and visually comparable to a commercial, and when the film does become an action film in the second half, the action is shot so flatly.
Action sequences are hard to follow, shot in quick cuts where Johnstone fails to hold onto a shot for long, leaving a viewer disoriented and confused with what is happening. It is an action trope that feels like it should have long been removed from the genre after the Bourne franchise and franchises like John Wick reinvented long-take action sequences.
The film has not faired well at the box office, with producer Jason Blum already stating that Blumhouse over-emphasised the franchise potential that M3GAN could have had, and the change of genres seems to be a big point of contention. Doubling down on the campy nature of the film and reverting to an action film rather than retaining the serious tone and the horror elements of the original has served to create a film that seems like a pale imitation of its predecessor. Franchise potential this does not have.
Rhys Reviews 