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Jakob's Wife (2021)
Great gore doesn't quite save a weak story
The good: Like many horror fans, I was excited to see Barbara Crampton in a meatier role. I was also pleasantly surprised by the presence of some really great practical gore effects, especially after seeing some fake CGI smoke in the dentist scene.
The bad: The script is an absolute mess. IMDB lists this as having three writers, and it feels like they never talked to each other. The worst bit was when Anne was forced to choose whether or not to save Jakob, and she chooses to save him, which should be the end of the movie, but there's another half hour of them being indecisive about each other.
It's not necessarily bad, but unfortunately doesn't live up to the little bit of positive hype I was hearing.
Willy's Wonderland (2021)
I don't get it
Yeah, it's kinda crazy that it's taken this long for anything resembling a Five Nights at Freddy's movie, but the fact that so many seem to be satisfied with this boggles my mind. You take one of the most dynamic, interesting actors alive, and completely remove his ability to talk? Nicolas Cage is so fascinating because of how he delivers his performances. What's the last Cage movie you saw that would not be destroyed by removing his delivery?
The Dunwich Horror (1970)
What a waste of time
I gotta hand it to Corman and his people. He has a real talent for making a 90 minute movie feel a half hour too long.
There's a single drop of the original Lovecraft story in a big bucket full of Rosemary's Baby. I watched this because of Stockwell's recent passing, and I really wanted to like his performance, but this just isn't the one to put on his in memoriam reel. I don't know if his delivery of his lines are by choice or by the director, but his version of Wilbur is less unholy monstrosity and more boring grad student. The last half hour of the film is cycling between three shots: Sandra Dee writhing and moaning, Stockwell saying "Yog Shoggoth" a hundred times, and a point of view monster killing people extremely slowly with different light filters. You can almost make out a good film here, but man, do you have to squint.
Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)
An underappreciated gem
I'm going through the Disney Plus catalog chronologically, and I've recently hit the years when Dean Jones is in basically everything. This was one of my personal favorites growing up. On rewatching these films, I think That Darn Cat is better, but this one is still pretty darn good. It's certainly superior to The Ugly Dachshund, where Jones and Suzanne Pleshette have seemingly no chemistry. In this, their relationship is less integral to the plot, but they work much better together.
Of course, the real draw for the movie and the reason I loved it so much as a child, is the unhinged performance by Peter Ustinov as Blackbeard. It's honestly a little hard to describe his affectations: a lot of shouting, weird noises, and a real commitment to the portrayal of Blackbeard as a drunkard on an emotional roller coaster. It's delightful.
Tentacoli (1977)
The tender love story between a Southern man and his orcas
In a movie that actually features legitimate talented actors:
John Huston
Shelley Winters
Henry Fonda (literally phoning in his performance)
...it says something that the most meaningful, compelling scene is when Bo Hopkins tells the two killer whales he's been training how important they are, and how he'll understand if they don't come back.
If this movie were 80 minutes, it would be really fun schlock, but it is way too long for a movie about a killer giant octopus.
The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
Seeing it without the benefit of nostalgia
I was a little too young for this one, so I had not seen it until today.
If I had seen it as a child, I would have doubtlessly been scared, and I would appreciate it more today as a result.
On its own merits, it's not particularly remarkable. The acting is not great. The majority of the interactions with the younger sister consist of her doing something under the influence of the spirit, and then when she's asked any follow-up questions, she snaps out of it and says she was never doing the things she was doing. I really wanted to like Lynn-Holly Johnson, but I found her to be whiny more often than not.
And the movie's cardinal sin is that it cannot wait to end. As soon as the third reveal act happens, everything falls into place so easily, and the second we get the payoff, the movie just ends.
I admire what this movie was trying to do, and I wish it had been more successful, but this feels like a misstep for Disney, and was doubtlessly a setback to advancing darker family stories.
Destroyer (2018)
A film that tries a little too hard
The directing is more than solid. And with a better script this might have gotten Kidman an Oscar nom. But the film thinks it is much smarter than it is. It aims for something grand, but can't quite achieve it, and with a running time of 121 minutes, it doesn't really work as a genre piece either. I think you could cut 15-20 minutes off of the film and it would not only be a less intimidating watch, but it would be tighter overall.
Hagazussa (2017)
10 pounds of atmosphere in a 1 pound bag
There's nothing wrong with horror films that are heavy on atmosphere. They obviously don't play well with mainstream audiences, but if you're looking for something that gets under your skin, a film with less focus on script and more on production design can be a really enjoyable experience. Personally, I'm a big fan of Oz Perkins, whose films are very difficult to recommend to casual viewers.
But atmosphere can only take you so far. Eventually, something needs to happen. It feels like the director had ideas for disturbing scenes (and the rape is a genuinely well-crafted, terrifying moment) but very little to connect these scenes.
The pie scene from A Ghost Story gets criticized for its almost-comical length, but this movie is full of scenes like that, but they're just transitions. Why show her walking into the water at normal speed, when you can take five minutes to do it?
I really wanted to like this. But this is a real slog. If you must watch it, watch it 2x speed, and you'll get basically the same experience but in around 50 minutes.