Sorry to disappoint everyone, but I will not be seeing the Taylor Swift concert movie. I have nothing against Taylor Swift, I just had no desire to sit in a room with screaming teenage girls to watch a filmed concert that I'm not in the demographic for. It's best for everyone if I just stay home. Four stars, probably. I'm sure it's great if it's your thing.
Taylor Swift dominated the multiplex and it was even picked up by my art house, as well, so this is the rare weekend where I didn't go to the theater. I had plans to make up for it with a beefy streaming section, but my internet went total dumpster fire this weekend, which made streaming limited. The one app I can usually get to work is Shudder (and even that crashed a few times and I had to watch sections on my phone, that's how bad it was), so enjoy this duo of horror movies from the horror app.
Netflix & Chill
The Puppetman
⭐⭐
Streaming On: Shudder
Genre: Horror
Director: Brandon Christensen
Starring: Allison Gorske, Kio Cyr, Angel Prater
A man murders his wife claiming to have been controlled by some unknown force. As he sits in prison awaiting his death sentence, his daughter begins seeing the people around her acting beyond their control as well. The Puppetman feels like a bland Nightmare on Elm Street retread, only with less imagination, for a good long while, though if you stick with it, you might find yourself saying "Okay, that wasn't too bad." The problem with this movie is that its primary twist is so heavily telegraphed throughout the first half of the film that as a viewer I found myself counting the minutes until the characters finally realized it. Once the movie stops playing coy, it starts becoming more spirited: Death scenes start to become more creative (one prolonged one where a girl holds her face into a fire is genuinely disturbing) and some of the film's subsequent twists are more interesting. After about an hour, the movie becomes a full-length feature of the Twilight Zone episode It's a Good Life, and it's actually pretty fun. The Puppetman plays with some interesting ideas, though it hasn't quite embellished them adequately enough to say this script was ready to be filmed. It takes too long to get to an obvious conclusion, but you can see what it's trying to accomplish.
V/H/S/85
⭐⭐
Streaming On: Shudder
Genre: Horror, Anthology
Director: David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, Mike P. Nelson
Starring: Jordon Belfi
V/H/S is one of my blind spot horror franchises. I was always aware it was a thing, I just never tapped into it, other than watching spin-off film Kids vs. Aliens earlier this year for this blog. Now ten years later, we're on the sixth main installment (not including two expansion spin-off films), and I'm finally taking the plunge. V/H/S is a horror anthology franchise with each segment told in the "found footage" style, retro'd up to look like a VHS recording (like Paranormal Activity 3 or Skinamarink). Usually, it's one of those franchises that asks up-and-coming horror directors to contribute something and get their name out there, though heavy hitters will probably join in too. The biggest name in V/H/S/85 is Scott Derrickson, who is kind of a big deal, having helmed Sinister, The Black Phone, and even the megabudget Marvel film Doctor Strange. Other names I'm familiar with are David Bruckner, who directed the excellent The Night House, and Mike P. Nelson (NO NOT THAT MIKE NELSON), who directed the lackluster Wrong Turn remake/re-imagining. Gigi Saul Guerrero and Natasha Kermani are both entirely new to me, though the former seems to be primarily a TV director and the latter has an under-my-radar film on Shudder called Lucky that apparently is very good.
Of the segments featured, Derrickson's is the most well-rounded, featuring a cop who is receiving pre-recordings of murders in the mail days before they happen. It's an interesting idea, and while it could use some embellishment, the segment does it enough justice. Nelson is given a two-part segment centering around a group of friends under attack by cultists, which has slight frustrations with ambiguity (which are likely intentional) but is an enjoyable one-two punch of macabre nonsense. I also took a liking to Bruckner's wraparound bumpers, which are like an Alien Autopsy special about a mutating being named Rory. Guerroro's segment, featuring TV and rescue crews in the middle of an earthquake finding horror underground, has great style to it, but it felt like there was too much going on and not enough of it coming together. Kermani's is probably the least of the group, featuring a woman searching Lawnmower Man style virtual reality for a godlike being, which feels like it should be a hit-and-run incident of horror that just takes too long to get going. Neat effects work, though. While I was not too impressed with the anthology as a whole, personally I find the format works well for the found footage. Creating a narrative in found footage is tricky because you have to juggle the plot beats while justifying the storytelling device, which can become a burden in long form. In short bursts, the stories rarely have a chance to become problematic in presentation. They can feel anemic in certain areas, but there is a beauty in their lack of detail, seeing bursts of horror coming into being during these small snippets of one's life story that are being recorded. I think there is an endearment to that idea that has allowed V/H/S to survive, even if it probably isn't all that impressive. I felt this collection was lackluster myself, but I'm almost interested in checking out a few more once I get a chance.
Saw X ⭐⭐⭐
New To Streaming
Expend4bles ⭐⭐
It Lives Inside ⭐⭐⭐1/2
New To Physical
The Boogeyman ⭐⭐1/2
Coming Soon!
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