Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
I have come to the conclusion that director Jane Schoenbrun makes films with me in mind, specifically. Their previous films We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow were bold swings, exploring themes of technology, adolescent angst and identity. Their latest film spoke to me on a cellular level. It is by turns hyper-stylized, intellectual, meta-textural, introspective and deeply personal. It has a deep reverence for genre and pop culture while demonstrating how powerful a tool cultural media is in shaping our collective identity. Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”) and Hannah Einbinder (“Hacks”) are sexy, funny and delicious in their respective roles. The stacked supporting cast is a wicked delight; the needle drops were pitch-perfect; and the surrealistic production design/art direction are pure eye candy. Think Scream/Friday the 13th by way of David Lynch.
Resident Evil
Director Zach Cregger just gets it. He is now three for three, following the success of his critical and box office horror hits Barbarian and Weapons. His move from original storytelling to established IP is seamless, still providing grisly genre thrills without skimping on his unique flair for subverting audience expectations. He has a masterful command of tone, mood and atmosphere, and an uncanny ability to merge humor and terror while never losing sight of the narrative stakes. Lead actor Austin Abrams is charismatic and instantly relatable as a neurotic medial courier having the night from hell. His inability to accomplish a single task successfully becomes a running comedic bit that never loses steam. At 97 minutes, the film moves at a thrilling, break-neck pace. It is less a faithful adaptation of the popular source material than it is a vehicle for placing audiences “within” the franchise’s gaming experience. We become the unwitting avatars in Cregger’s hellish landscape.
Buddy
Director Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks) brings his peculiar brand of off-kilter horror and scathing sitcom satirization to the silver screen to disturbing and uttering effect. Kelly confirms my life-long suspicion that there was something deeply creepy and off-putting about children’s programs like “Barney,” “Teletubbies” and “The Wiggles.” Underneath those cheerful, furry exteriors was something dark and unsettling. Taking this specific, seemingly innocent universe and exposing its sinister underbelly, Kelly creates an iconic new horror villain that promises to unleash the childhood fears buried inside your subconscious. Conceptually, this is quite brilliant, provocative and novel featuring haunting, indelible images that are absolute nightmare fuel. The humor is deranged and jet black. The production design is absolutely bonkers. The main theme song is a chilling ear-worm you won’t be able to stop chanting. In short, say goodbye to your happy childhood memories. They belong to Buddy now.
Hokum
With 2024’s Oddity and now this, director Damian McCarthy has mastered the traditional, old-school approach to horror. The kind that requires creepy, dilapidated locations, cursed objects, ghostly soundscapes and eerie atmosphere. There is a tactile, ornate quality to the production design and practical effects that feel reminiscent of a bygone era. Adam Scott plays a grieving, pernickety novelist with a sardonic tongue who hurls insults to unsuspecting guests to mask his inner turmoil. In an effort to finish his latest book series, he visits a remote inn in rural Ireland for inspiration and to scatter his late parents’ ashes at their honeymoon destination. Things take a turn when he encounters malevolent, demonic spirits that conjure painful memories from his past. While the story is a bit familiar, McCarthy generates suspense and plenty of well-executed, one-of-kind scares that rival some of the best in the genre.
It Ends
There is nothing scarier than the transition from adventurous, carefree adolescence to isolated adulthood. It is a painful, unavoidable rite of passage that director Alexander Ullom’s debut feature understands on a personal, soul-deep level. Dreading the inevitable divergence of their respective life and career paths, a group of friends and recent grad students venture out on an evening drive for a celebratory meal and send-off. Their plans are derailed when they turn on a mysterious, never-ending road that promises fatal consequences if they come to a stop. This is a haunting, meditative “existential” horror film about the anxieties of adulthood, unfulfilled dreams and unresolved trauma filtered through a Gen-Z lens. What starts as something sinister morphs into something introspective, melancholy and heartbreaking. The cast of newcomers (Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth and Mitchell Cole) are uniformly excellent.
This article appears in Thunder Season Preview.