“Something is likely to happen.”
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
For most of the two-hour runtime, Antonio Mendes Esparza's slow-burn thriller doesn't feel like a horror movie. There are no gores, evil spirits, or gorgons. But, as follows from a middle-aged woman who loses her grip on reality, the film calmly embodies Sartre's observation that hell is another.
Life doesn't work for Lucia (Marena Artio), a heartfelt, naive, and sometimes quit woman who lives with her ailing father in Madrid. She has few friends. She loses her job at a dental company and her money is tough. She is heartbroken when her unrequited love, a handsome neighbor who said his name was Karafu, moves out of nowhere, like Puccini's “Turandot.”
To help her to heal her sadness and feel more connected to the world, Lucia begins driving a taxi. Her life lightens up after attacking a friendship with Roberta (Aitana Sanchez Kyung), one of her riders, a sophisticated theatre producer who has an interest in Lucia's troubled past. When betrayal comes, and while there are many in this soft but hopeless film, fear cannot stand up straight to the horrifying ending for Lucia, and almost, for viewers. Alterio offers a fearless and engaging performance that won the Goya Award, a Spanish Oscar version.
Nothing to assume: That's my advice before seeing JT Molner's stunning and cleverly constructed thriller.
The film begins pursuing a truck down a desolate road in the wilderness of Oregon by a bloody young woman (Kyle Ganner) with a gun-bearing young man named Willa Fitzgerald. So far, we're talking about standard stalker-thrasher movies, right? I died by mistake. Who these people are and how they reached this horrifying moment is the horror highlight of 2024, as it is the mean twist that drives this film. But understand this: those six paranoid chapters are scrambled for good reason.
Overall, the acting is formidable. Fitzgerald is sly, mad, wild. Like the “Smile” movie, Gallner is vulnerability, threats, and equality of sex. As Apocalypse Preppers, Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey become modest nuts. And Giovanni Libisi shines through with his debut as a cinematographer for feature films. The man knows how to make a night in a cheap hotel room that looks like a date on Devil's Playground.
“The Curse of the Seven Seas”
Stream on Netflix.
I almost scrolled past this movie when Netflix added it to the recommended queue. The mystical voyage title suggested that I might be prepared for a G-Rated Scooby Doo-inspired family adventure film. Because what Indonesian director Tommy Dewo delivers is a strange and entertaining possession film that interrupts the crazy lazy and its unevenness.
The story is immersed in Indonesian folklore and complicated, but it is summarised in this: sucipto (Christian Sugiono) is desperate to protect his family from the curse of a generation in which relatives, including his son Aldi (Ali Ilham), see the devil. As the living room and the undead fight it in family homes and on the streets, Deo kills the characters in an outrageously shocking way. Barbed wire pierced through the skin, losing the number of times the blood slicks were kicked out. (One decapitation absorbed the camera lens.) The most adorable boy carries the most horrifying death.
CGI Snobs scramble the unpolished digital effects, but I found them. And I found them to have the charm of the real VHS era.
“Dead”
Stream to tremble.
Swipe After swipe, the hookup after hookup, Alex (Blu Hunt) hasn't had luck in Los Angeles. When she meets Kyle (Ben Smith Petersen), he seems too good. He is handsome, kind and enjoys listening to her. Sex is out of this world. But when he ghosted her – literally, at the beginning of many supernatural twists in the film – when he lost his life, or perhaps reappears, he places Alex in a quest to understand why and how this good guy escaped.
Elric Kane's guaranteed film seamlessly blends elements of science fiction and psychological thriller, pondering thoughtfully the horrors of human death, and oddly highlights the point of the wonders of modern dating. (Some of Woowoo's stories in the script about the human condition made me chill.) The setting isn't now, but the film has the soft, chilly quality of a grindhouse thriller since the '70s. – and a film shoot with the shadows of Iona Bashir.
“Park Maniac”
Stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Earlier this year, I recommended “The Calendar Killer.” This is not a fear, but a German psychological thriller that I enjoy most at camp. This month we travel to Brazil to offer a similar stupid crazy serving.
Based on a true case from the 90s, the film is about Francisco (Silver Pereira), a paste-like serial killer who nicknames the park maniacs while terrifying a young woman in Sao Paulo. Director Mauricio Esa makes a film about the brutal attack in a close-up of Francisco, giving us a frightening view of what we see through creeping eyes.
The madman's tail is Elena (Giovanna Grigio), an ambitious young journalist who wants to create his name in the boys club newsroom by finding a psychopath before the police do so. When Elena becomes hell in understanding the maniacs of the park, he becomes obsessed with his infamous name.
Does the plot make sense? sometimes. Is that important? Not so, Pereira (and his curly locks) gives him a consistently creepy performance. Bonus: The film was a hit in the 90s, ranging from “Gonna Make You Sweat” by C&C Music Factory to “Rankings” by Sepultura.
