I liked this more than I expected, because I didn't really like the first two, and people seem to really like the first one. I am into Topher Grace though, and I was very excited to see him. His presence is enough to make this my favorite Predator movie so far. The twist with his character sounds good in theory, but some of the dialogue around it was a little weird. Why would anyone want to stay on the planet?!
It was a bummer watching every character played by actors that I like die while Adrian Brody's character lived though. Also, Adrian Brody cast as the "tough guy" (literally, he is referred to as "the tough guy") is wild. I'm just not a fan.
PS: My husband picked this and said it's horror-adjacent, so I'm counting it as a Halloween watch, but just know that I will generally not consider it a Halloween movie.
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Whoa, this was actually pretty scary. You don't really think it's going to be, and then the intensity keeps increasing, and then by the end you're like, "Whoa, this was actually pretty scary."
I usually struggle to get invested in found footage films. The shaky camera work and sometimes disjointed narrative deter me. In [REC], the found footage almost serves as Pablo's perspective of everything that happens, and it made me feel like I was there, which made everything scarier. I loved it.
When this came out, I worked at a movie store, and someone told me the ending, so for ~20 years I've been refusing to watch it. I'm glad I finally watched it. Even though I knew the ending, I didn't know how they got there, and it was a pretty great watch.
Also, seeing Dale, Carol, and Laurie from The Walking Dead made me nostalgic for TWD's first season. I think everyone in The Mist would have been a little better off with Rick Grimes as their leader.
I didn’t hate this!
It’s the simplest of horror movie plots, but the acting isn’t too bad and the little references and in-jokes to Popeye and related characters is kind of fun!
Catherine O'Hara as the Beetlejuice mom AND the Home Alone mom was such a gift to the world.
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This was REALLY good! I liked this a lot! Good story, good acting, and just really well done.
It’s 1950s “science” and there is ONE bit towards the end that doesn’t really make sense for me, but forgiving that, a GREAT little film.
It's not too late to make a spinoff about the werewolves. I'm not sure if werewolf lore says they age or not, but even if they don't age, we will pretend they look the same age as they did here.
Somehow I had the only seen the Josh Hartnett, the Tyra Banks, and the first Rob Zombie entries into the Halloween franchise, which are probably not the best entry points. I decided this is the year to finally watch the first, and it's a lot better than the three I've seen.
I was a big Babysitters Club fan as a kid, and in the second book (Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls), they established that being a babysitter can be scary. I thought about that a lot while watching this. Nothing good happens to babysitters in movies.
Also, I thought Jamie Lee Curtis was his sister, but apparently that is something added into the sequel?! Crazy.
I love the music.
I like the idea of tying in Pompeii and making the creature look like a casting made from the site. They did a good job with the monster suit and making it look as if it were stone, but they just stopped with the appearance. They should have given the beast some sound effects. Something to give the impression of weight. Some stomping of feet, some grinding of stone on stone as he moved.
Great ideas but not properly realized due to, likely, low budget. A stronger cast and a little more effort could have pulled this one over the hump from a mediocre monster movie to something better.
Midsommar also had naked elders. Ari Aster is leveling the playing field for generational on-screen nudity.
I went into Hereditary only knowing its reputation of being one of the best and scariest recent horror movies. I thought the plot was going one way, and then there was a BIG surprise after a half hour, and everything reset. I liked the story overall, and I liked the transition of drama to horror. The end section had some pretty scary imagery and moments. The slow burn was sometimes a little too slow, and I'd feel my attention stray a bit. It might also be because I didn't like any of the characters. I don't think I necessarily need to like them, but it might have contributed to the occasional focus drift.
The human faces on the fish freaked me out, but mermaids don't freak me out, so I guess the human torso is important to me in a human/fish hybrid.
Can you imagine being the dad? He comes back from working on the ship, and the mom is like, "Oh, we are responsible for this second child now. She was a goldfish, but then she drank our son's blood, so now she's a human. Our son made a lifelong commitment to love her whether she's a fish or a human to save the world, and she LOVES ham, so yeah we will definitely be buying more ham than usual."
The first three Purge movies are fun and kind of bad but also interesting conceptually so I like them. My favorite part of this one is when the girls show up at Joe's deli in their Christmas light-wrapped, blasting Party in the USA and yelling about how they want candy bars. If I went purging, maybe I'd steal candy bars and listen to Miley too.
Too bad it's all downhill from here with First Purge and Forever Purge.
