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Uniquely fresh yet also deeply lodged in the history of cinematic horror, with a powerful breakout performance from David Dastmalchian. But its triumph is, ironically, marred by the use of “AI” “art.”
Unusually psychologically astute and utterly unnerving as it digs into the enigmas and anxieties of artistic creation. Style is substance in this challenge to the very concept of an “animated movie.”
The visceral meatiness of this demonic-possession–infectious-zombie combo hits like a blow. The social and political context for the grotesquerie is even more appalling, and so very pertinent.
The cringe of modern relationships stinks up this antiromance. Its bald truths, all but ignored in pop culture, about how women navigate romantic and sexual relationships with men, demand to be heard.
A mysterious, mournful film about proscribed teenaged-girlhood and feral female sexuality. There’s nothing entirely original here, but what it has to say, it says with enormous confidence and panache.
Nicholas Hoult is lovely. Hammy Nicolas Cage is amusing. But everyone in this movie is in a different movie; the tonal mismatches are baffling. Was it the first draft of this script that was greenlit?
More of the same old religious-horror hoohah, plus Russell Crowe hamming it up, complete with terrible Italian accent. Its only twist on the usual exorcist-movie nonsense is genuinely pretty appalling.
There is only one thing worse than an M. Night Shyamalan movie with a twist ending. And that is one without a twist ending. Feels like a faith-based movie trying to sneak in under a disingenuous wire.
Many movies have attempted to replicate the festive insouciant brutality of Die Hard. No movie has come closer to this lofty goal than this dementedly delicious nightmare before Christmas.
Idris Elba fights a lion. This is what we are promised and this is what we get. The purity is sort of beautiful. But is it a failure of the movie, or a success, that it treats such nonsense earnestly?
