EvilPhoEniX

A nice little post-apocalyptic intimate survival drama with nice monsters! You could say it's a low-budget little sibling of A Quiet Place, which is of course a level above, but the effort counts. The planet has been destroyed it's a bit annoying that we don't get to know why or how, but immediately the film focuses on Nicolas Cage, who survives with his two sons following a routine during the day as the monsters attack at night. The first half is quite slow and intimate, but it gets noticeably better as the monsters arrive. I commend the original design of the monsters and the use of practical effects (the way they knock their faces off was excellent and creepy, and the sound!). The finale is pleasantly action packed, so definitely an enjoyable monster genre film. It could could have more gore and Cage could could have started a chainsaw by the end and played Ash from Evil Dead – I would have jumped for joy, but I'm satisfied. Emotionally on a strong 3, but I'm feel generous given the current rating, and also for that crazy jump-scare at the 20 minute mark, that one really got me. 65%

Definitely overhyped abroad, but it certainly has its moments. We have a girl on the run carrying a mutated strain of the Ebola virus, so any contact with anyone is fatal (she doesn't know it though) and then we have a woman who is tasked with catching her before the apocalyptic consequences occur. The budget wasn't the highest, but I've seen worse. The first half is quite tedious but once it gets to the first infected it had my attention. The make-up effects were nice, everyone's face decomposes nicely and the infected are quite aggressive, so the moments with them are fine, but there aren't that many. The potential was definitely higher, but not many contagion horror movies are made, so this one is fine for me. 55%.

Ha! This is a blast like an aged Spanish wine, where laughter will be replaced by crying and the ending will definitely not be pleasant. Take a pressure gauge and tissues, you'll need both! I can say very little about the film, because the less you know the better. Anyway, we have a couple who have just had a baby, they are going through a tough time and the father decides to buy a new coffee table, only later admit that it was the biggest mistake of his life. Well, that's the biggest mistake of his life. At the 20 minute mark comes a twist so shocking that you'll have to pause the film, walk around, light a cigarette and gasp at what the fuck just happened. And then it begins! A black tragic comedy cut through with psychological terror, where one moment you are laughing and the next you are physically uncomfortable, and when you are laughing you are telling yourself that you are a bastard! The wife's reaction to the broken table is an excellent humorous highlight – I actually laughed out loud there. The closer the film gets to the end, the more the atmosphere thickens and the conclusion it's pure emotional hell and a mental breakdown of all the characters, including the viewer. There didn't even need to be words, just screaming and music! Excellent! 85%

A pretty nice movie with Mark Wahlberg going on an adventure race in the jungle where he meets a dog and becomes a full-fledged member of the team. I'm a bit disappointed that the race itself lacks any sort of typical survival parameters, there was no significant thrilling obstacle apart from the cable car, and the whole thing is mostly about the doggie's relationship with Marky, which can stir up some minor emotions at the end, but I won't scratch for a higher rating. Nice but ordinary. 6/10.

Teenage silliness with a fresh idea involving two dead guys who are detectives solving supernatural cases and various ghosts, witches and other monsters. I was quite looking forward to it, I'm just disappointed that it's conceived in a teenage style. It's kind of a combination of Wednesday, Ghostbusters and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, leaning only lightly on the horror theme, but more darkness and and R-rating would have done it a lot more good. It also deals with a lot of relationship and LGBT stuff, which I'm not a big fan of, and it lacks stronger characters and a better developed script. The best episode was #3 with the time loop with a father murdering his family for several years. From episode 5 onwards I watched it purely out of obligation and wasn't really enjoying it. I'm not the target audience. 5/10.

Shogun is definitely a revelation in the series field this year and should be seen by everyone. Until the 5th episode I was sure of a 5 star rating, but then my great enthusiasm started to wane as my faith in some epic battle started to fade away, and it ended up being very intimate. The series has spectacular sets, great performances – Hirojuki Sanada is awesome, Mariko is perhaps the most beautiful Asian ever, and Aijin is also great. It has meticulous dialogues, great atmosphere, strong emotions (episode 9 is probably the strongest) and it's also quite suspenseful. The series is actually flawless in all respects except for the lack of action sequences, and I can't forgive that because the samurai didn't just conduct political intrigues, they also cut each other and there was obviously a budget here, so they could have easily crammed a 15 minute battle into those 10 hours. Considering the whole 4th episode was dedicated to cannons (there was even the best gore scene of the series), it's a shame that they didn’t use them once more during the series and the ending just disappointed me because nothing was resolved properly. I'm sorry because there won't be a samurai movie or series this expansive for quite a while. I still enjoyed it, but there was no ejaculation. 8/10.

I think in this duel of the daughters of horror greats, Shyamalan vs Cronenberg, the winner is decided. The daughter didn't didn’t do a very good job and delivered a sort of talky drama that cuts to thriller at the end. I don't think daddy will give her any praise for this one because it was boring as fuck. It's got a pretty interesting theme that could have turned out well in more capable hands, but the acting is pretty bad, the pacing is very slow and there's definitely nothing satisfying at the end, where some gore could have come in handy. This was quite painful. 3.5/10.

The first season had the more attractive setting of Hawaii, not that Sicily isn't beautiful, but the Hawaiian exoticism had its charm. Yet I have to say that the second season has more interesting characters, better plot twists and overall I enjoyed it a lot more. Of the familiar faces, I liked Theo James, Aubrey Plaza and the return of Jennifer Coolidge. Simona Tabasco as the hooker was an instant crush, and for the biggest likable character there's Will Sharpe,  I felt quite sorry for him, that relationship was pretty toxic. You really care about the characters, their development and their relationships are very well written, you hate the opening theme song of the first season and then love it and the final twist is really very good. Very entertaining, gripping and addictive, I'm glad I gave it a chance. 8/10.

I once suffered through Rose Glass' Saint Maud, but I was looking forward to this one thanks to the stylish trailer. It's okay and I'm very much between 3 and 4 stars, but I'm going to be stricter in the end because the plot is pretty straightforward with no significant changes throughout, and Kristen Stewart is not a pretty sight to look at. Luckily the testosterone-soaked Katy O’Brian was the best character in the whole movie, I could see her as a final girl in some kind of monster movie. The film has a nice retro look of the American backwoods, a nice lesbian romance with R-rated erotic scenes, a sleazy Ed Harris, and there were some corpses, so I liked it, I enjoyed it, but I was expecting a bit more. The bizarre fantasy ending didn't quite work for me. 65%

Sébastien Vaniček and his instant ticket to the A-Horror League. I'm gonna go give out prizes, because this is where history is made. So Vaniček made a dream debut (right on the lines of the recent successful debutants like Robert Eggers, Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, Zach Cregger), the best spider horror film of all time (it's quite funny that the previous king is already 30 years, Arachnophobia), kicked off this year's French wave and at the same time made the best horror film of the year – no one could ask for a better way to start. Whether Infested will be dethroned by the new Alien or Nosferatu at the end of the year is another matter, but until then it can enjoy the pedestal merrily. And now for the film. After a long time, I experienced very uncomfortable feelings with horror, and since ghosts and demons don't do anything to me, spiders as a real evil definitely had an effect. The housing estates of the French ghetto evokes an interesting atmosphere in itself, you don’t get to really form much of a relationship with the characters but that didn't bother me. The craftsmanship is excellent and once it gets going, it really is a spider atmospheric hell crammed with jump-scares like Sam Raimi's Drag me to Hell, and I twitched along decently (I also praise the aptly chosen musical score!). Admittedly, it got more intense as the spiders got smaller, but even the big ones had something going for them – that's where the CGI came in handy. It's a bit marred by the ending, I was expecting a bigger carnage, the mass battle spiders vs cops was over too quickly for my taste, and the whole thing ends quite hastily – I could have easily managed 20 minutes more – but these are minor flaws in the beauty of a film that is born once every three decades. Anyone who doesn't appreciate that is an arrogant scumbag and an enemy of the state and me. 9/10.