J*A*S*M

An arthouse take on the zombie survival genre that doesn’t rush and where the action happens as if by the way, which is pretty interesting. The camera is static, the attacks happen rather out of frame, but the zombies can still be pretty fast, and there’s no point waiting for action set pieces. We don’t get to know how the zombie epidemic broke out and what caused it. The same applies to the characters: we meet them and follow their paths for a bit, without any risk of getting to know something more about them; they simply don’t communicate, even among themselves. All this generates a rather gloomy atmosphere of total resignation and apathy; a world where pretty much everyone is reconciled with the fact that civilisation has irreparably collapsed.

I have almost no experience with Indian horror, but this film was better than expected. No dancing numbers, no singing, just a modern spook obsession, a narrative horror blockbuster. But it didn’t have to be 132 minutes long. On the other hand, there’s always something happening, it’s such a fun and nimble film. If you aren’t put off by the first crazy ten minutes or so of the opening credits, I believe you’ll stay till the end. And if you go against the flow and forgive the Indians for their overacting, the unconvincing effects and the clumsy editing here and there, you will also enjoy it. I had fun, actually, I was pleasantly surprised.

A solid genre snack with a cute black humour ending. #lapelicula

I’m sincerely unable to understand how this film has managed to receive relatively positive reviews abroad. A naively presented, badly acted and blandly directed piece of crap where the two main characters compete on who is more irritating. It goes nowhere interesting at all, the scary scenes don’t work and the competition for the least likeable horror heroine has hereby finished already in February.

The first quality horror film of the year. For two thirds of its length, it’s a terrifying and mysterious forest madness and I was ready to give it the highest rating, because everything works perfectly genre-wise. It’s also further proof of how much better horror can be when the main characters aren’t only pretty young faces from a poster, but living characters – or normal people. The night sequence in the abandoned forest cabin was the creepiest movie experience I had a long time; it was really chilling. The closing third takes things a bit further than I would have expected, at the expense of the atmosphere the film was building up until that point. And the ending is proof of how valid the old wisdom is: that horror works better when the core evil is hidden. So I’m keeping the last star for myself, but otherwise, I’m very satisfied.

It’s terribly unfocused. The first half is satisfying overall – you can see the production values, the actors are decent and there are a couple of relatively interesting ideas. Unfortunately, it ends up strangely splitting into individual episodes where there’s always someone whose job is to scream, all while running around in the generic interiors of a spaceship. In a better written film, the final conflict between the astronauts of the first and second dimensions could have been a central premise, the basis of a fantastic dilemma and a suffocating atmosphere. But not in this film, which carefully walks around the interesting themes. The connection with Cloverfield is a decent base, but not very well delivered. I’m rating it at about 50%, I’m disappointed with the resulting quality of the film, though that could have been expected given the delays and the release straight to Netflix.

Some of the competent independent horror filmmakers, who a few years ago were great hopes for the genre, have been ruined by the mainstream and their latest or upcoming films are no longer reason to be happy (a typical example is Adam Wingard), but Adam Green has dived into the shit without any help, and he didn’t need any commerce for that. With this hopeless reboot, Degen Crowley has exactly three films more than necessary. Congratulations. The latest addition to the series lacks interesting ideas, lacks a script, lacks effective humour, lacks well-made gore, lacks actors and, last but not least, doesn’t even have the production values that would at least make it nice to look at. Crap all around.

Plotwise, it tries to do something a bit more interesting than a banal and tiresome third instalment, and that’s probably this sequel’s main virtue. Adam Robitel is clearly a much weaker director than his predecessors and the execution of the moments that make up the story are mostly tortuous and naive. This time, the duo of funny demon hunters are really out of place, their attempts at humour are more embarrassing than before and they simply don’t match the relatively serious chords this episode tries to play. I’m hesitating between two and three stars. This time I think I’ll leave it at three, but, please, no more sequels.

Three stories in one, or an anthology within an anthology. The curator of a museum of criminal curiosities (the artefacts are Easter eggs from some of the previous episodes) is guiding a lonely visitor, telling her the stories behind the exhibits. A genre stew that combines horror, comedy, drama, revenge film, grotesque, romance and I don’t know what else. I won’t lie, it didn’t leave me with a very coherent impression. The individual stories are all pretty good and keep their heads above the water of interesting ideas. Unfortunately, IMHO, what they all have in common is that they would’ve been better if each of them had their own dedicated episode. It ends up being meh! It’s impossible to get acquainted with the characters, which prevents the possibility of a real experience from their sad or scary fates. And, at least in the first and second story, the voiceover of the narrator really pulled me out of the plot.

The first episode of Black Mirror without any surprising points or twists? Or rather, the first episode of Black Mirror without any core ideas? Like, what happened to this series and why? A simple, black and white, post-apocalyptic chase with a robotic dog where even the modest forty-minute run was too much. I was all the time expecting something interesting to happen, but nothing does. If it was at least tense, but not event that. The most pointless episode of all.