Several scattered guests have to maneuver their way down a long hallway to the exit after a virus spreads throughout the hotel. This seems like the hotel version of Train to Busan or 2009’s La Horde, but despite the synopsis and trailer, this virus is given more realism (deadly virus, not zombies) and the “flash” of the two movies mentioned above are exchanged for an intimate thriller about women freeing themselves from abusive relationships.

This is one of those concepts and executions that lends itself completely to becoming an effective low budget horror film. Minimal location, takes place over the course of one-night, small cast, and a focus on relationships/characters over the spectacle, which there are some great makeup effects for the infected.

Throughout the first 20ish minutes Hall presents us with two timelines to show what is about to come, while presenting the story chronologically. These timelines are mainly connected to the two leads of Val (Carolina Bartczak) and her family taking a vacation where it’s insinuated, she has been planning on leaving her husband (Mark Gibson), who is on the trip with them. The other timeline is that of an infected and pregnant, Naomi (Yumiko Shaku) crawling down the hall to the exit. Naomi is overseas on a business trip that she is not planning on returning from, because she has already made the decision to leave her abusive partner, something Val is still struggling with. The intention of showing an already infected Naomi attempts to add more foreboding to Val’s story, because it becomes clear very early on that this isn’t the ensemble piece it markets itself to be. Which is a shame. The idea of having and ensemble of characters with equal importance stuck in a hotel with a deadly virus is way more intriguing than what unfolds onscreen. Even Naomi’s story offers some amazing variation, but unfortunately her depth is thrown out to be the movie’s sacrificial minority for the white woman and her child. This happens toward the end as well when a chunk of time is dedicated to show an older couple that had no importance to the story up until that point (or after) but are provided a substantial spotlight. If the story were just about Val getting her daughter out of this hotel then it would be fine. Instead other character involvements feel like filler to reach an appropriate feature-length mark. Since these timeline changes and side characters are not constant enough, they inevitably do not fit.

It should be noted that the themes of domestic violence play very well with a realistic subtly more akin to these actual relationships. The husband isn’t shown as some caricature associated with the cinematic representation of an abuser, but instead there’s the nuances of control, manipulation of their daughter, subtle remarks geared at breaking down Val’s self-esteem. This is where the Hall shines and could radiate for a feature’s worth of time. Unfortunately, he is taken out of the picture as a major threat early when he deteriorates from the virus. Yes, he shows up as hallucinations and is a threat in the psychological sense, but it’s not enough to keep the tension going. The possibility if Val trying to get her daughter out and facing a healthy, angry husband, probably would have been.
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Overall, as many of these go lately, the film is very well made, the acting superb, but it comes down to the lack of focus on a plot that needed another solid rewrite to tackle obvious storytelling issues. On a side note, Naomi, who is alone, is infected quickly, yet Val and her daughter who have been in close proximity of an infected individual and interacted with other guests weren’t? That’s Hall in a nutshell.


2 out of 5

​Review by Craig Draheim 

From the satanic panic of 80’s suburbia to the more tragic real life events of Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, cults hold a strange fascination for many of us. A charismatic leader preying on the vulnerable, placing himself in a position of absolute power over them, isolating them from their families and the ‘real world’.

Perfect fodder for a horror film!

Welcome to the Circle is the horror debut of writer/director David Fowler, who until now has mostly made… er… wildlife documentary features. For Disney. Normally when a filmmaker jumps straight into horror features without dabbling in shorts it sets off my alarm bells, but in this case the trailer intrigued me; it had a compelling premise and some shots that promised creepiness to come. So I figured I’d give it a shot.

It starts very strongly. We meet Greg (Matthew MacCaul) and his young daughter Samantha (Taylor Dianne Robinson) on a camping trip. A midnight mauling from a bear sees them rescued by the members of The Circle, a tiny mysterious cult who live alone in the woods. At first it all seems very hippy-dippy, with cult members greeting their guests with ‘Love and Blessings’ and taking pictures for their ‘healing wall’. But it quickly becomes apparent that all is not as it appears, and everything takes a turn for the sinister. Can he and Samantha make it out alive?

The first third of the film makes for great viewing – apart from the breakfast scene, which is almost unbearable; more on that in a moment. Fowler’s clearly got a good eye for how to convey a potentially expensive set-piece (say, a bear attack) on a budget without it coming across as hilariously naff (sharp chaotic edits, suggestive sound). He also has great form when it comes to disorienting and unsettling the audience; there are some great moments where space and time seem to bend, done simply and effectively. These are few and far between until the third act, but they’re when the film truly shines. Splicing in grainy black-and-white footage is a weird choice but it works really well in context, taking the story out of its small setting and cleverly suggesting a deeper and grander scope to the story. Even the tried-and-tested ‘creepy mannequins’ trope is used well, as the film tries to have you questioning what might be real and what might be a hallucination.

Unfortunately, about 40 minutes in, the film starts to fall apart faster than a Cadbury’s Flake in a tumble-dryer. It’s about this point that we abandon the father-trying-to-protect-his-daughter narrative completely and we’re introduced to an entirely new set of characters, who’re on a mission to rescue one of the cult members. Their guide is our new protagonist Grady (Ben Cotton). You know Grady is a A Badass because because he growls his expository lines in a monotone so quiet he can sometimes barely be heard over the music. The film’s pacing and structure go out the window here too as everything slows to a crawl and we’re treated to endless scenes of people talking for ages but not saying very much at all. By the film’s midpoint I was irretrievably bored.

This is indisputably the weakest of the film’s ingredients. The dialogue is already a bit dubious at times (“I see that old photograph on the wall has caught your eye,” says one character just after we see that old photograph on the wall catch Greg’s eye – come on, trust your audience to fill in the blanks). That breakfast scene I mentioned earlier is a stark foreshadowing of the bulk of the rest of the film: everyone talks in riddles and cod-metaphysical declarations like “to meet Percy Stevens is to be Percy Stevens, and to be Percy Stevens is to meet Percy Stevens, and to meet Percy Stevens is” and so on ad nauseam. I get it – the circle, circular, fair enough. But they belabour the point so much that the scene just took forever to end.

And most of the rest of the film is like that. Lots and lots of dialogue about the nature of The Circle and its mysterious founder, and how life is death because death is life and doing nothing isn’t doing anything but sometimes you have to do nothing to do something and oh my god just shut up already.  The thing about profound revelations about the nature of the world is that hearing them is supposed to instil you with a sense of awe. It should make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you realise you’re close to understanding a fundamental truth that’s just out of your grasp but if you could just somehow comprehend it… But this is way off that mark. And it just goes on and on and on.

At one point, one of the rescuers complains that the logic of the cult doesn’t make any sense, and she’s certainly right. There’s actually numerous moments like that. Hand-waving your film’s logic by having a character point out it doesn’t make sense isn’t cute, it’s annoying and just draws the audience’s attention to the fact that your film’s logic doesn’t make any sense. The worst part is that Fowler seems to know that it, so he doubles down and has his characters insist that that’s the point. The cult’s logic relies on illogic. It’s meant to sound like utter nonsense, because it’s all a cosmic joke, get it? It’s so shallow that it’s circled back around to deep again, you see? This just doesn’t wash. It’s lazy writing poorly disguised as meaningful philosophy, and frankly it’s insulting the audience.

This is compounded by a poor sound mix that makes the dialogue difficult to parse at times, especially between Cotton and Robinson who both whisper to each other in a monotone that’s all but drowned out by Reid Hendry’s otherwise excellent score. Most of the performances are good enough, and while Robinson is sometimes a bit wooden she’s quite young and early in her career so she has plenty of time to learn and grow. The standout is MacCaul, who does a fine job portraying fatherly concern and confused horror as the shit hits the cult fan. I just wish there had been more of him and his story, which is what sold me on the film in the trailer.

Welcome to the Circle is a disappointment, especially after it had such a promising start. David Fowler clearly knows how to direct as he drums up tension well and is a dab hand at hiding the limitations of budget. It’s just such a shame that it’s wasted on a story that takes pride in making no sense at all while trying to convince us that that’s because it’s actually, like, totally deep and meaningful, man. It feels like Fowler watched The Endless and said ‘Pfft, I can do that’ but didn’t understand any of the real human mechanisms behind why that film works so well.

This is a rare instance of a film that’s left me angry at having spent time on it.

I may have to go watch one of his nature documentaries to calm down.

Review by Sam Kurd 

Director: Damien LeVeck
Writers: Damien LeVeck & Aaron Horwitz
Starring: Ryan Guzman, Kyle Gallner, Alix Angelis

Another successful "exorcism" streamed online - or so it seems. Can the "exorcist", producer and their team bring the ratings up? Ratings skyrocket, when a real demon gets involved.

The Cleansing Hour takes a new approach to the exorcism/possession genre. Max (Ryan Guzman) plays the priest in a live stream reality exorcism show run by his friend Drew (Kyle Gallner). The show is a moderate success with a decent social media following and branded merchandise. Max craves celebrity and Drew just wants to grow the business by branching out into ghost hunting and other supernatural content.

At their next live stream, an actor no-shows and Drew’s girlfriend Lane (Alix Angelis) reluctantly agrees to play the part and pretend to be possessed. That’s when things take a turn for the worst as we discover that Lane is really possessed and Max, the pretend priest, must face off against a real demon. It’s a brilliant twist on what we all know is a tired genre. The Exorcist has never been topped and most of the genre has been uninspired knock offs. So the original concept is much appreciated.

The actors do a great job of grounding the piece in the first act, so that we’re actually invested in the characters before things amp up. Kyle Gallner in particular is the core of the piece, being the more likable foil for Guzman’s narcissistic faux priest. Ultimately, the story does lead us to a somewhat familiar conflict as Max and Drew scramble to exorcise the possessed Lane. It culminates in a nice twist, that I won’t give away. Overall, it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re sick of the often stale offerings from this subgenre. (3.5 out of 5) edit.

The Fly 2 (1989) - especially when compared to its superlative predecessor - is a mediocre film except for one standout moment.  In the final act of the movie, the main antagonist - businessman Anton Bartok (gleefully played by Lee Richardson) - has fallen foul of a teleporter accident, emerging from the pod as something else entirely.

In the closing scenes we Bartok slowly and painfully drag his new monstrous bloated maggot-like form across the sawdust floor of his pit, a single eye staring helplessly on. Does some fragment of human consciousness exist in there? Is he aware of his awful, horrifying predicament? Despite his villainy, it seems almost too harsh a punishment – to think of Bartok’s once brilliant and now fractured mind unable to do anything else but be forced to contemplate his cruel lifelong fate.

I think it was being introduced to Cronenberg in the late eighties through the cult BBC2 movie series Moviedrome that got me into Body Horror. I’d be watching them late at night in my bedroom on my portable colour TV, my face almost pressed to the screen – not in homage to Videodrome, but as a result of my headphone lead not being quite long enough to support secretive nocturnal viewings.
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It’s a genre that stuck with me, and if I’m ever asked to think of my favourite moments in horror, my mind will invariably leap to The Fly, or the ending of The Fly 2, or to the frenzied black and white metallic chaos of Tetsuo and its sequel. (And, as a moment of non-horror, the moment in the otherwise laughable Superman 3 where Vera (Annie Ross) is captured by the computer, screaming for mercy as she’s painfully transformed into a cyborg. It might sound daft, but I imagine this scene holds similar terrifying memories for those subjected to it at a tender age.

Which, in a roundabout way, leads us to The Special (2020). Directed by B. Harrison Smith and based on the novella of the same name by James Newman and Mark Steensland, it’s an independent horror film that is doing the festival circuit and is now doing the rounds on various Video on Demand services.  The poster intrigued me, selling it as “Fatal Attraction meets The Blob” in that lurid pink and purple popularised by Nicolas Cage Horror films (namely Color Out of Space and Mandy).
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The poster is a little too on the nose for me, giving away a little bit more of the film than I wish I’d known in advance, but it could be argued it sold me on it.

Davy Raphaely plays Jerry, husband to Lisa (Sarah French).  Jerry suspects that Lisa is having an affair and discloses his worries to friend and work colleague Mike (Dave Sheridan). Dave has the ideal solution to Davy’s woes – a visit to a brothel in a secretive location to have sex in revenge.

But not just with any woman, oh no. Jerry is to demand the titular “The Special”.

The location of Madame Zhora’s brothel in question is kept hidden from Jerry, driven there with a bag over his head.  Upon arriving, Jerry’s initial awkwardness reticence dwindles when he sees the women available.  Mike pulls him away and introduces him to Madame Zhora, asking her to give Jerry “The Special”.

Jerry is taken to a small bedroom, the door locked behind him. To his confusion, there’s nobody else here. Other than some sparse furnishings, the only item of interest in the room is a sealed box with a single hole, with a simple instruction written upon it.
“Stick it in here.”

Barely pausing for breath or to check the edges of the hole for splinters, Jerry just does that.
And whatever is inside that wooden box rocks Jerry’s tiny world. Passing out with the sheer ferocity of the resultant orgasm, he awakes in Mike’s car, already half-way home.
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What unfolds is a tale of addiction, as an obsessed Jerry becomes compelled to seek the same experience again, a sensation he’s even willing to murder for. His work, health, friendships, and marriage suffer as he becomes singularly fixated on both protecting and screwing whatever lurks within that tiny wooden frame.

Shot around Pennsylvania, The Special is a film that does a lot with a small budget, with some frankly beautiful aerial drone photography of the streets and roads. The locations all feel suitably grubby, and there’s a thin membranous film of sleaze to every shot. I was reminded of the work of Frank Henenlotter on more than one occasion, particularly with his work on Brain Damage and the Basket Case series – all films sharing a DNA that make you feel like having a particularly thorough scrub down and shower afterwards.

Both direction and performances are perfectly adequate, and the story moves quickly along to an invariably grim conclusion. Films about addiction rarely end well, and The Special is no exception. My wife and I viewed the film together and both had our suspicions about how it was going to end – we were both right, but neither of us were disappointed.

An excellent film can be ruined by a bad ending (I’m looking at you, Kill List), or an average film uplifted and rescued by a good one.

The Special is a good film with an amazing ending. It’s now been two days since I’ve watched it, and I’ve thought about the ending multiple times. Like the fate of Anton Bartok, it’s one that will stick with me long after my memories of the finer details of the film have subsided and faded.

The Special is not without its faults, and I’ll address my primary one here. Addiction is a common trope in horror, and for good reason. There’s a structure to it which we can all anticipate, and there’s an entertainment to watching a character deteriorate and change – be that physically, mentally, or both.  The aforementioned Frank Henenlotter’s Brain Damage (1988) is a good example, with a seemingly normal Joe becoming obsessed with the reality-warping psychedelia that the small turd-like creature attached to his brainstem can provide. Joe Begos’s excellent Bliss (2019) is another, with the lead Dezzy becoming addicted to a powerful hallucinogen to overcome a creative block.

In the case of both movies, we as an audience experience the effects of the drugs in question. We experience the euphoria and sensory shifts and the shift and flux of reality and can therefore see the appeal. This lets us sympathise with the leads to a certain extent, because whatever they’re doing looks like some damn good shit.

In The Special, despite Jerry’s first explosive knock-out cum-stained-trousers experience, it never seems that incredible. In fact, rather soon in the film than I’d expected, it almost becomes a little mundane.  Jerry goes to ridiculous lengths to satisfy his urges, and both the direction and his performance are never quite good enough to convince me that those lengths are worth it.
But - Fuck man, that ending.

About the Author
David Court is a short story author and novelist, whose works have appeared in over a dozen venues including Tales to Terrify, StarShipSofa, Visions from the Void, Sparks, Burdizzo Mix Tape Volume One and Corona-Nation Street. Whilst primarily a horror writer, he also writes science fiction, poetry and satire. His last collection, Scenes of Mild Peril, was re-released in 2020 and his debut comic writing has just featured in Tpub’s The Theory (Twisted Sci-Fi). As well as writing, David works as a Software Developer and lives in Coventry with his wife, three cats and an ever-growing beard. David’s wife once asked him if he’d write about how great she was. David replied that he would, because he specialized in short fiction. Despite that, they are still married.
 
Website: www.davidjcourt.co.uk
Twitter: @DavidJCourt

It Cuts Deep is released today and to mark it's birthday we have a review from Craig Draheim, and if you scroll to the end an interview between Craig and the director of the film and star of the ​Nicholas Payne Santos and Charles Gould

The man-child with commitment issues strikes again! But like the tired character trope, it has been made clear that the audience and the other characters are exhausted by its jokes and gimmicks.

It Cuts Deep tells a story of Ashley (Quinn Jackson) and Sam (Charles Gould), who venture to Sam’s childhood home for an intimate Christmas vacation. While Ashley is looking to begin settling down, Sam consistently avoids the topic with sexual humor. However, when Nolan (John Anderson), an old acquaintance of Sam’s, comes into the picture, Sam begins growing possessive of Ashley and tries to fight off Nolan’s advances.

The movie opens with a quick slasher-esque kill of two fornicating teenagers, then we are immediately transported to Sam and Ashley at a rest stop on their way to the house. Within their first moments of screen time, Ashley talks about getting married and having children, which Sam deflects with anal jokes. Instantly we know these people and wonder how they are even still together. Ashley is not subtle about how she feels, and Sam’s jokes are not cute, like how that character-type is normally packaged. The two are on different frequencies and don’t have enough chemistry to love each other. However, they convey having been together long enough that they have fallen into a complacent routine. We have/know someone who has been in a similar relationship, so the generic portrayal is identifiable.

The acting is great all around and fits right into that indie/mumblegore (the horror version of mumblecore) style, where it is meant to be more of a dialogue, character-driven piece than it is something with a lot of spectacle. Even the moments that don’t work feel appropriate within the world that has been created, which mainly comes from Charles Gould. This has been marketed as Gould’s starring vehicle and his big transition from standup to acting, which has some of those clichés. Usually when a standup comedian is transitioning into film, they’ll have their character provide a lot of “jokes,” one-liners, or gags. This is the case for It Cuts Deep, but its benefit is that these don’t land, and it’s made clear they’re not supposed to, especially as the movie begins to take a sinister twist.
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Overall, it is a solid, self-contained, indie feature that looks great, which with today’s technology is very easy to obtain. Credit must be given to the production design or location scout for providing a pre-snow winter aesthetic. All the dead trees and brown leaves turn the environment into its own character, and I am always for more cold-based horror movies. As mentioned above, based on the type of movie it is, the plot isn’t that intricate, building its whole premise off the notion is Nolan sinister or is Sam crazy, even for non-horror fans, you’ll figure out the answer long before Nolan ever enters the frame. Like many in its category, It Cuts Deep showcases a strong emerging voice from all involved, yet if they had a little more experience under their belts and some fine-tuning, they could’ve created a true knockout piece.

3 out of 5

As I write this, England is entering its second national lockdown. While it’s not quite a shelter-in-place order, it is round two of claustrophobia and isolation for many of us, and with the nights drawing in as Winter stalks towards us, what better time to watch Darkness in Tenement 45, a horror film about being trapped in your home for fear of a deadly microscopic threat outside?


The year is 1953. Stalin has hold of a biological weapon, and Eisenhower gives the order for New York City to be evacuated. Despite this, hundreds of people refuse to evacuate and barricade themselves in their buildings to wait out the threat. We follow the trials of the inhabitants of one such building – Tenement 45.


It’s been one month. Supplies are dwindling and morale is low. Level-headed leader Felix (David Labiosa) is just barely able to keep things from falling apart, while overbearing matronly type Martha (Casey Kramer) keeps a close watchful eye on her teenage niece Joanna (Nicole Tompkins) who suffers from a mysterious condition referred to as “the darkness”.


When Felix sets out into the possibly-biochemically-hazardous city to forage for supplies, the cracks in the small community of families begin to widen and tempers run high. With Martha’s power growing and waifish Joanna struggling to contain her symptoms, is the danger indoors greater than the danger outside?


Darkness in Tenement 45 is writer/director Nicole Groton’s first foray into horror – and sadly it shows. Neither she nor cinematographer Carissa Dorson have a background in horror film, and there’s little evidence of a love for the genre in the film itself. While everyone starts somewhere, it’s odd to see a horror film made by a crew who mostly don’t seem to have even dabbled in horror shorts before embarking on an ambitious feature. The same can be said of the cast, with the notable exception of Nicole Tompkins who knows a thing or two about bioweapons, having been both the voice and the mo-cap actor for this year’s Resident Evil 3 video game remake.


The proof is in the pudding, and this pudding is sadly a bit bland and tasteless. Everything feels flat, from the performances to most of the shots and the pacing. On a positive note, the score by Logan Rees starts out well, dark and moody, especially when played over the stylish opening credits. It starts to go off the rails later when it’s not used appropriately to fit the tone of the scene. Case in point – one of the building’s inhabitants is Felix’s son Tomas (Nicolas Aleksandr Bolton) who lives with his older sisters. He pervs on them, is obsessed with their busts and hides himself away in the closet to masturbate while they’re in the room. This is horrifying stuff, but the music chosen to accompany all this is an old song played on a record, the type you’d see a couple slow-dancing to in most films set in this period. It makes an already uncomfortable scene more uncomfortable to watch, but not in a satisfying knot-in-your-stomach type way.


That’s the biggest problem with the film, I think. Lack of tension. The film should feel tight and claustrophobic, to sell the sense of a group forced to huddle together and falling apart as egos clash. Or the cast should be smaller, dwarfed by the space in the building’s rooms, to mirror the isolation you’d feel if you weren’t sure if you were the last people in your city. Instead, everything feels like business as usual, just in dingy run-down rooms. It doesn’t help that they open the front door so many times that it really doesn’t feel like there’s the slightest danger of an airborne toxin being around because if there were then they’d all be dead already.


The cast try their best to make us feel like they’re in dire straits, but they’re just not selling it, and the adults vs. kids climax is unintentionally hilarious with an ending that can be seen coming a mile away. The weakest link in the cast is Kramer as Aunt Martha, whose attempts to be authoritarian are strained and forced. Tompkins is game, giving Joanna a kind of wide-eyed concern at everything around her and doing her best to make Joanna’s ambiguous condition interesting. At first I thought The Darkness might bring a supernatural twist, and wondered if there was some sort of demonic presence involved. Sadly no, it’s yet another Mystery Hollywood Mental Condition that manifests itself in weird dreams (shot in that ugly blue/red light I hate) and bursts of violence against others for no real reason.
  
It’s interesting that despite the presence of two African-American foster kids and the Hispanic family in the building, there’s not a single sign of any racial prejudice going on. In this film that’s set in America in the 50s. Perhaps this was a conscious decision, as this is ground that’s well-trodden in things like Lovecraft Country, but it’s very conspicuous by its absence. I’m not at all saying that if you make a film set in the 50s it should be wall-to-wall racial slurs; it just breaks the suspension of disbelief when the main conflict is between the adults and the kids as a monolith, without any sense or even mention of the injustice and inequality that would likely have been in play. Characters use the word ‘orphan’ to refer to the foster kids with almost as much malice as they’d use a slur, so maybe this was an intentional substitute. It just feels like the filmmakers didn’t trust themselves enough to handle it maturely so they just ignored it. If only they’d done the same with the mental health issue.


Ultimately, Darkness is Tenement 45 is a let-down. What should be a taut psychological horror about a group of people from diverse backgrounds forced to shelter in place together is instead a dull plodding chore with nothing to say beyond ‘adults don’t listen to kids and mental illness is dangerous’.


Avoid.

Review by Sam Kurd 

Director: Veena Sud
Writers: Veenda Sud, Based on “Wir Monster”written by Marcus Seibert & Sebastian Ko
Starring: Peter Sarsgaard, Mireille Enos, Joey King

Director: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour
Writers: Wade Allain-Marcus, Stephen Herman, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour
Starring: Mamoudou Athie, Phylicia Rashad, Amanda Christine

Craig: If it was their original intention or not, Welcome to The Blumhouse felt like it was trying to capture the time of television movie/miniseries events, where these teleplays would play out over a couple nights that you just HAD to watch because it was the only time it’d air in the foreseeable future and we weren’t overloaded with an unlimited amount of content. It works, without going retro and being “in your face” about this four-movie event, Blumhouse was able to provide that feeling and the type of stories that would be used, and Black Box is a prime example of why it works. While many can (and have) made connections to Get Out thanks to some plot devices and themes within the movie, its Twilight Zone-approach to horror, and because it happens to be afrocentric, it’s undeniable that Black Box is its own tale that breaks away from the horror mountain that has become known as Get Out. 


The story is being told through the eyes of Nolan, who suffers from memory loss after a car accident that kills his wife. Finally after realizing he can’t get work and is on the verge of his daughter’s school calling CPS, he agrees to an experimental treatment that has the ability to go into his subconscious and make a virtual reality representation of his memory in some attempt to help the wheels turn. However, his memories seem slightly off based on what he’s been told by friends and family, and there’s a creepy figure that continuously attacks him within each simulation.


I don’t want to speak further on the plot to avoid spoilers but some of the genius within Black Box is by playing off of what has become Blumhouse-tropes (paranormal, jump scares, etc.) and then completely shifting the story with a reveal halfway through the movie. Normally this kind of “twist” would be used as an ending piece but instead setting it in the middle Nolan is forced to face the true horrors of the truth as the creepy figure takes a backseat. By doing this we don’t purely have a technically well-crafted movie but it allows for the acting and storytelling to shine through, giving the heart and substance needed to provide us with something memorable. Black Box offers some creepy scares associated with the Blumhouse brand but has a level of restraint to showcase the maturity of the company post-Get Out. ​

Writer/Director: Zu Quirke
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Jacques Colimon, Ji Eun Hwang

​Kyle:  Nocturne is a unique update of the classic Faust tale.  Juliet (Sydney Sweeney) is a dedicated young pianist and misfit overachiever teenager with big dreams of a career as a classical musician, the only thing is her sister Vivian (Madison Iseman) got accepted to Juilliard and she didn’t.  But there is a showcase coming up at their school and it is Juliet’s chance to show her stuff.  Then she discovers the music book of a virtuoso violin student who leapt to her death and she must decide what she’s willing to do for success.


There’s a lot of familiar beats of sibling rivalry and teen drama, but there’s also a great deal of social commentary about the idolatry of success, its effects on our mental health and the definition of success as an artist.  The cinematography and sound design are incredibly specific and effective, particularly a stunning visual nod to Vertigo.  That combined with the additional themes of youthful angst, art and success, make this more than just a rehash of a classic story.  And the ending is to die for. 

Directors: Elan Dassani, Rajeev Dassani
Writer: Madhuri Shekar
Starring: Sarita Choudhury, Sunita Mani, Bernard White

A superstitious mother is convinced that her daughter's new boyfriend is the reincarnation of a man who tried to kill her 30 years ago.

Craig: Evil Eye uses Hindu mysticism and modern-day parental relationships to create a new approach to the universal themes of domestic violence passed down through generations. While it’s accessible to all audiences, the subtle nuances connected to Indian-American culture is what allows this premise to stand on its own. As we follow Pallavi’s journey to escape from (what she considers) nagging from her more traditional-minded mother, Usha (Sarita Choudhury), the story shifts to Usha’s focus once Pallavi’s finds someone who seems like the perfect man. Is he the reincarnation of Usha’s abusive ex or does he just happen to have the same controlling traits? Or is he the perfect man and Usha has yet to overcome her own trauma? We know what the answer is going to be and it plays out exactly as expected. When you’re watching it you wonder how effective the story would be if it focused more on the realistic approach to untreated trauma instead of going into a full reincarnation plot. Maybe more memorable.


The movie is based on a radio play of the same name and as much as I personally enjoy horror audio drama, Evil Eye feels like it worked better as purely audio or even a stage play. Most of the story consists of phone conversations between mother and daughter, with the (potentially) villainous Sandeep and Usha’s husband, Krishnan popping in occasionally. I’ll admit there are plenty of films that can make phone calls, a single actor/location, or anything else of that nature dynamic…for the most part, this isn’t one. It looks nice, the acting is fine, Choudhury carries the movie but unfortunately the script doesn’t provide her with the depth that her character and the story deserve. It comes down to a script that should have been adjusted better to fit the cinematic storytelling needed to counteract the minimal cast, plot, and location by making it more interesting.


Overall, Evil Eye is watchable and can keep you engaged but like many movies lately, it falls into the cliched category of a product that technically looks great, has strong plot/thematic elements but is pretty forgettable by the following day.

Welcome to the Blumhouse’s average score: 4 1/2 out of 5