Horror

Scream: The Ghostface That Launched a Thousand Quips

Jeremy BeckReviews
Jenna Ortega and Ghostface in Scream

Scream is the fifth movie in the Scream franchise, which launched a quarter-century ago with a movie that was also called Scream. If you find this title repetition annoying, you aren’t alone; the film’s characters agree with you. “It should’ve been called Stab 8, not just Stab,” someone grouses at one point, referring to the series within the series that has apparently suffered from creative drought. This kind of meta commentary can be exhausting, but here it carries an element of sincerity. Despite being a bunch of cheap slasher flicks with no big stars, the Scream pictures have always aspired to a fairly lofty level of ambition, striving to combine playful semiotic analysis with genuine cinematic terror. These movies don’t just want to mock the clichés of classic horror; they also want to be horror classics.

Which this new Scream is not. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the duo behind the similarly sly Ready or Not, it’s more functional than suspenseful, serving up the usual medley of shrieks, spurts, and shocks with formulaic toil. But it’s nevertheless appealing, with solid performances and a witty script (from James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick) whose insights extend beyond the usual canned callbacks and self-referential humor. The movie is predictably stocked with insignificant twists—who’s the real killer? who cares?—but its biggest surprise is that it actually has something to say. Read More

Read more

Malignant, The Card Counter, and Movies Going All-In

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Oscar Isaac in The Card Counter; Annabelle Wallis in Malignant

Last Sunday, the critic Walter Chaw tweeted that, because more than 90% of the new movies he watches are “pretty much the same”, he’s more likely to appreciate a film that “just cocks an arm and swings for all it’s worth”. I might quibble with the mathematical accuracy of his first statement, but despite the mixed metaphor, I’m inclined to agree with his second; even when they fail, ambitious movies tend to be more memorable than their cautious counterparts. Chaw presumably had a specific picture in mind, but this past weekend provided multiple titles that refused to play by multiplex rules. One is far better than the other, but both succeed in upending expectations and carving out their own atypical territory.

At the outset—and, in fact, for the majority of its running time—James Wan’s Malignant isn’t especially novel. Despite stemming from a nominally original screenplay by Akela Cooper, it’s another haunted-house chiller that would fit snugly inside the Conjuring cinematic universe that Wan created back in 2013. Its heroine, Madison (Annabelle Wallis, best known to me as Grace on Peaky Blinders), is plagued by visions of a malevolent spirit called Gabriel, one of those shadowy creatures who’s never quite in focus but who looks a bit like the skeleton-masked bank robbers from The Town, only blacker and nastier. In addition to somehow speaking through electronic devices like a demonic Siri, Gabriel seems to be a burgeoning serial killer, and Madison—in an arresting manipulation of the image—periodically finds her mind transported to the sites of his murders, forced to watch his grisly wet work like a helpless, paralyzed bystander. Read More

Read more

Candyman: Mirror, Mirror, Time to Maul

Jeremy BeckReviews
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Candyman

The premise of Candyman has always struck me as a peculiar illustration of risk versus reward. Most supernatural summonings involve some sort of Faustian bargain; sure, the heroes of Bedazzled, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and Rosemary’s Baby all sold their souls (or their son), but they at least got something out of it. Here, the lore is far less complicated, and commensurately less appetizing: Say the name “Candyman” five times while looking into the mirror, and his reflection will appear… and will promptly kill you. To me, such a proposition is in no way enticing. At least the dude in Mephisto can claim to have been duped; if you want to blame someone for getting your throat sliced open by Candyman, all you need to do is look in the mirror.

To its credit, this new Candyman, which was directed by Nia DaCosta from a script she wrote with Win Rosenfeld and modern horror impresario Jordan Peele, is at least partly aware of this absurdity; when one character learns of the legend, she understandably asks, “Who would do that?” followed by a very funny smash cut to a gaggle of vapid high school girls commencing the ritual. In any event, narrative plausibility is not DaCosta’s concern. She’s more interested in fusing the visceral with the political—in making a spine-chilling horror movie that doubles as a trenchant commentary on Black life in contemporary America. She isn’t entirely successful. As a metaphorical text, Candyman is admirable but awkward, struggling to vibrate with its desired resonance. But as a fright fest, it’s pretty good—not exactly scary, but engrossing and polished. There’s plenty of poise to go along with the blood. Read More

Read more

Original Screenplay Weekend! On Annette, Reminiscence, and the Night House

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Rebecca Hall in The Night House; Rebecca Ferguson and Hugh Jackman in Reminiscence; Adam Driver in Annette

Some original screenplays are more original than others. Last week, for example, I reviewed Disney’s Free Guy, a jumbled, weirdly fascinating action comedy that prides itself on not being based on any existing intellectual property, then spins an entire film from references to (and rip-offs of) other intellectual properties. I was happy to see Free Guy perform well (it’s now spawning a sequel, naturally), if only because I want studios to keep making original movies. As if by magic, this past weekend featured the release of three such pictures, a veritable bonanza of novel #content. (Technically there were four, but I failed to make time for Martin Campbell’s The Protégé.) None is a perfect film—in fact, all three have considerable problems—but my disappointment is tempered by my enthusiasm for their very existence. I didn’t love any of these movies, but I did love that I was able to watch them.

Of the trio, The Night House is the most conventional, which isn’t to say it’s typical. Directed by David Bruckner from a script by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, it’s a ruminative ghost story that’s less interested in freaking you out than pulling you in. Its heroine, a high school English teacher named Beth (a fantastic Rebecca Hall), isn’t just the frightened resident of a haunted house; she’s also a little bit scary herself. An early scene, in which she calmly shames a grade-grubbing parent into stunned silence, reveals her capacity for blunt anger, while a night out with colleagues quickly turns into an unhappy hour where busybodies tiptoe around a powder keg. Read More

Read more

A Quiet Place Part II: Hush Growing Children, Don’t Lose Your Nerve

Jeremy BeckReviews
Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place Part II

The traffic light works. That’s how we know, even before the appearance of a freighted title card (“Day 1”), that the opening scene takes place during the era has become colloquially known, during our collective struggle with COVID-19, as the Before Times. (Remember, even movies that were made before the pandemic are totally still about the pandemic.) So even though the small town’s main square seems oddly deserted, the signal’s automatic flickering from green to yellow to red instantly communicates an attitude of relative safety. Yet at the same time, the introduction’s formal composition—the smoothness of the camera, the emptiness of the streets, the chaotic footage glimpsed on a news broadcast—articulates an undeniable sense of Damoclean danger. The apocalypse may not have arrived yet, but it’s surely on the way.

This expertly staged opening sequence, which builds from needling anxiety to clammy tension before erupting into all-out mayhem, confirms John Krasinski’s considerable skill as a director. He’s only made a handful of features, but here he again evinces a talent for conveying information and atmosphere through canny visual details. When he supplies a simple shot of a timid boy wincing in panic as a fastball buzzes past him during a Little League game, he isn’t watching a sport; he’s defining a character. Read More

Read more