Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme

Director ~ Josh Safdie

Writers ~ Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein

2025, Finland-USA

Stars ~ Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'zion

 

More Safdie-stress with Josh’s ‘MARTY SUPREME’, set in 1950s ping-pong world with incongruous 1980s pop hits and focused on a Timothée Chalamet everything-in performance. The Safdie approach is a compelling and perhaps career-best central performance, a stellar cast with a sprinkling of surprise cameos, a breathless pacing kept buoyant by a striking soundtrack, and a piling-on of mostly misfortune brought on by the protagonist’s assholeness. It’s a full coarse meal featuring period recreation a bonus. An obvious Chalamet passion project that saw him putting the muscle in for a canny and aggressive marketing campaign that screamed of its own importance, ‘Marty Supreme’ came on with all the insouciance of its eponymous protagonist.

Yes, there is nothing here that wasn’t covered gloriously in ‘Uncut Gems’, even another excellent score by Daniel Lopatin. Not a fan of incongruous songs on the score, although that’s the postmodern way, and even if they are too on-the-nose I admit the use of ‘Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime’ hit me just right. Expensive for A24 studio, indulgent, sometimes reaching greatness, a description of one man’s stubbornness and delusion. Still, even after following such a selfish hustler for hours and deciding he isn’t worth rooting for because of all the damage he’s done, the third act is still riveting. On the way, it is perhaps Chalamet’s fencing with Gwyneth Paltrow that is best, and the cameos by Abel Ferrara and Tyler the Creator that stand out. Perhaps the ending frustrates because the whole film has been about the dangers of  narcissism when you Follow Your Dream at the expense of everything and everyone else. Is that the American Way? – Discuss. The arrogance of con-your-way-to-greatness?

 

The Seventh Seal

The Seventh Seal

Det sjunde inseglet

Writer & Director ~ Ingmar Bergman

1957, Sweden

Stars ~ Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe

 

His seventeenth film, Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’ was adapted from his own play ‘The Wood Painting’ (‘Trämålning’,1953/1954) which he wrote for an actor’s workshop as director of the Malmö City Theatre. The title ‘The Seventh Seal’ refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation:  "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." (Revelation 8:1) In Bergman’s original play, Death is represented by silence, but Death here is personified by Bengt Ekerot, coming for a knight on his way home from The Crusades. But the knight, played by Max Von Sydow, challenges Death to a game of chess for a delay until he can find meaning.

The influences on the film range from Picasso, Shakespeare, the frescoes at Härkeberga church and his upbringing in a devout Christian household, his father being a rector. A religiously themed film running on symbolism, ‘The Seventh Seal’ is the tonal opposite of Jodorowdy’s ‘The Holy Mountain’, which feels like a film made by a very naughty boy. Instead, Bergman’s vision is playful, clear, pristine, austere, mature, aided by the high contrast black and white. The seriousness of intent and purposeful staginess is the stuff of endless parodies, but there is a confidence here and a surprising humanity that immediately disarms. There’s a lot of lolling around in love and contemplation. The tone is that of a fairy tale being treated to the veracity of a historical drama, although its historical accuracy is erratic: for example, The Crusades were before The Black Death, and witch persecutions in Sweden came much later. But its strength as allegory is not in doubt, and Bergman’s magic touch is in its surety in making such potentially humourless premise easy entertainment.

 

 

Characters speak to one another in existential angst and contemplation, adrift in a world of plague casual misogyny, piety, doubt and stalked by Death. A frivolous and somewhat bawdy mobile theatre is interrupted by a procession of self-flagellating religious zealots that only pause to tell the crowd they are all going to die. It is perhaps telling that the one character without dimension is the hectoring preacher. And yet it is anything but a dark film, offering instead bright black and white and a lightness familiar from Bergman’s earlier amusements such as ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’ and ‘Summer with Monika’. It makes a pit stop for a comic sequence where the blacksmith confronts his wayward wife and her lover the actor, for instance, more like his earlier work, but still has dark gags of Death putting the work in by chopping down a tree and cheating at chess. Interviewed by Melvyn Bragg on the South Bank Show, 1978, Bergman spoke of how he was very scared of Death, how the film acted as “medicine” for this, and spoke of Death’s appearance as a clown or a priest. Indeed, Death is mistaken for a priest a few times.

The squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) is almost a self-aware character, almost meta in his approach to others and the crisis of Faith all around him. In that sense, he acts as an audience guide through this doomed landscape. And you have actors synonymous with Bergman, for he had a reliable and loyal troupe of actors and crew. Max Von Sydow has a natural, unmatched gravitas but without condescension, which is perfect for the existential crisis of Block the knight. Bibi Andersson was Bergman’s lover at the time and instrumental in convincing to cash in his long stint as a director to produce this project. She provides all the natural, earthy warmth acting as a counterbalance to all the “I should murder my wife” humour.

‘The Seventh Seal’ is considered a benchmark film that contributed to cementing if not creating the idea of the Art Film after its screening in Cannes in 1957. Bergman’s questions about Faith and mortality are persistent and open to the subjective biases of the individual, right through his subsequent films to varying degrees. That they serve both believers and non-believers – the knight, for example, is evidently struggling with sensing he’s lost Faith – is a sign of the complexity, generosity and universality of his treatment of these themes. These questions are always tied in with theatre and performance and often the trimmings of horror, from ‘Hour of the Wolf’ and others like ‘Wild Strawberries’. I always enjoy the fact that I never know if he is going to drop in a little horror motif. Even ‘Fanny and Alexander’ begins with Death casually walking across a room. And here, Jöns’ early encounter with a corpse is a full-on genre moment. From the unsettling flagellation parade to the beautiful coastal vistas, from the horror of witch burning and robbing corpses to the broad “but my wife” comedy and the wild strawberries communion, Von Sydow’s knight rages philosophically and carves his way through all the tonal fluctuations. 

In the end, the knight finds no meaning from Death – who declares himself “unknowing”, so no answers there – but rather, meaning in moments of mercy and acceptance. This is enough because, of course, Death will always win in the end. A film that remains enigmatic, humanely philosophical and resolutely positive, despite the subject matter. 

FILM 2025 - horror! science-fiction!

2025 – Horror! Science Fiction!

Favourites:

·         Weapons

·         Redux Redux

·         It Needs Eyes

·         Mag Mag

·         Bring Her Back

·         The Devil’s Bath

 

Ones I could feel myself actively not enjoying:

·         Coyotes

·         Jimmy and Stiggs

 

*That’s* your ending??

·         The Brutalist

1. ·         28 Years Later

·         Sinners

 

Favoured performances:

·         Aiden Delbis, Bugonia

·         Aaron Pierce, Rebel Ridge

·         Jesse Eisenberg & Kieren Culkin, A Real Pain

·         Dina Silva, Frankie, Maniac Woman

·         Raquel Lebish, It Needs Eyes

 

One scene:

One scene:

·         The confession, The Devil’s Bath

·         When he starts singing, Sinners

·         Revenge unleashed, Weapons

·         Kennel in a storm, Good Boy

Ick + Ahh!

·         Utensils in Bring Her Back

·         Glass-eating, Adorable Humans

·         Teeth & other self-mutilation, The Ugly Stepsister

 

 

Started 2025 by seeing David Eggers ‘NOSFERATU’ a couple of times at the cinema and thinking it was quite the achievement, that there were many bold choices, that the cinematography was stunning. That it received so much hate rather than just “It didn’t work for me” was baffling to me (the same with ‘Anora’).

But of the crop of horror high achievers of 2025, one that left me a little out-in-the-cold, was (gulp) ‘SINNERS’. The drama and set-up had me totally hooked and absorbed. No objection to the genre switch, but upon reflection the horror stuff wasn’t much of substance, even if it was all interestingly/curiously rooted in music (including a fourth-wall breaking dance sequence that threw me out of the story to make its point, although poignant). https://

 

But I had no such reservations for Zach Cregger’s ‘WEAPONS’. Going from “Wha?... Hmm… Oh! Haha!” Like his preceding ‘Barbarian’, it’s not that anything overall was truly new, just that his implementation of jigsaw narrative and placement of narrative tropes moved from creepy mystery to delirious fun ride, from arty to crowd-pleaser, so smoothly and enjoyably you barely noticed how tricksy it was. Waiting for it to all come together keeps the intrigue, using interesting characters and a reflection on how a traumatised community reacts, plus it’s increasingly funny and ambiguous enough to leave/encourage debate. There is a moment when all hell breaks loose where such is the visceral release that joyous laughter from the audience is the physical response (I did, the audience I was with did, I’ve heard other similar reports). Julie Garner and Josh Brolin are excellent with, of course, Amy Madigan as Gladys stealing the whole show and making an instant horror cosplay favourite.

 

There was something centrally unconvincing to me about Philippou brother’s ‘Talk to Me’, however much I enjoyed it, but there was no such fundamental reservation with ‘BRING HER BACK’ – which, like ‘Weapons’, was also a warning about the plotting of mature women. From the title alone, we know the probable terrain of the pending horror, but there’s also a lot about sibling love, trauma, loss, grief and vulnerability to get your teeth into. The horror here is of the human condition and feelings, of the weakness of social structures (in this case, foster care) and, of course, other people and their feelings and weaknesses. Sally Hawkins will get all the accolades, but it also contains an excellent sibling relationship with Billy Barrett bringing a soulful big brother performance and Sora Wong as one of the best and representations of a visually impaired character put to screen, given full respect by the direction. The screenplay trusts the genre literate, this is for them, so it relies on clues rather than exposition. It offers some nastiness for the visceral freaks but the nastiness here is more of the distressing kind. If this makes it sound grim, yes, but the look of it is clean and clear and the filmmaking does not rely on dourness for its seriousness. Grief horror, folk horror, horror of human plight and helplessness: and as I see “unfairness” as a prime horror ingredient, this is full of it.

 

Michael Shanks’ ‘TOGETHER’: Given extra heft by casting real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco, a lightweight funride into body-horror and the anxieties of relationships. Something like couples therapy by Cronenberg. It does not the dizzy heights of the year’s esteemed, but there’s enough drama and insight, unsettling sequences, amusement, outrageousness and gruesomeness to make this a fully enjoyable genre experience.

 

As we know, Guillermo Del Toro gets all dewy eyed and then blinded by the victimhood of monsters, and ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ was a predictable fit. Indeed, as Oscar Isaac chews scenery, it is Jacob Elrodi who wins the plaudits as the monster, whose dayglo-patchwork monster design strikes me as “realistic”, what with all the stitched-together parts in varying stages of decomposition. Even if he mercilessly slaughters and knocks about poor stranded ships crewmen (all forgiven later), he is a softened monster with the crueller, psychotic edges cut out. No CGI or AI, it seems, but the whole Gothic look was is such excess, the interior sets so brightly lit, that there was an artificial veneer to much of it anyhow: the hole in the tower floor especially silly. Nothing to object to, but there is the sense it could have been so much more, and more accurate, given the resources available. So much commentary seems oblivious to the essence of Shelley’s novel which is a dissection of humanity, with the creation – rather than monster – being equally existential to a man that wants to be a God. Where Shelley’s novel was remorseless in its presentation of a spurned offspring’s vengeance, Del Toro’s sensibility leads to an unconvincing reconciliation. There is much effort to make Mia Goth into a corrective to all the male angst and pouting but doesn’t truly influence. It’s pretty, operatic, grandiosely mounted, but there’s the sense that some chunk of dark meat has been left out.

 

The horror of unchecked bullying was the foundation of James Croft’s ‘THE RULE OF JENNY PENN’. Like a reverse coming-of-age anxiety piece, a care home becomes the playground for an elderly elder abuser, utilising a children’s puppet for perversity. Although nothing extreme happens, there’s an uncomfortable, slimy feel to the proceedings, fuelled on the helplessness of those too old and used up to be listened to by busy staff. Croft creates a creepy mood and focuses on seeming mindless malevolence. John Lithgow will get all the plaudits but Jeffrey Wright is equally splendid as a Judge that can’t quite adjust to his post-stroke demotion in life.

‘THE DEVIL’S BATH, ‘THE UGLY STEPSISTER’, ‘FRéWAKA’ and ‘THE SURRENDER’ all contained excellent female portrayals. Again, the horror genre is the unsung treasure trove of female performances.

Aislinn Clarke’s ‘Fréwaka’ and Julia Max’s ‘The Surrender’ were both insular and intelligent explorations of intergenerational female relationships, troubled by superstition and folk horror. Practical effects, claustrophobic creepiness and a maturity of tone made these minor horrors smart, interesting and compelling.

Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s ‘The Devil’s Bath’ and Emilie Blichfeldt’s ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ both had The Past as a place of horror and were both more than they started out as.

‘The Devil’s Bath’ very slow burn historical recreation of 18^th Century Austrian small-town religion was mater-of-fact horrifying, it’s almost casual portrayal of a woman’s individuality with nowhere to go culminating in a startling confessional and a final historical context given to make this truly chilling.

‘The Ugly Stepsister’ may have taken the fairy-tale ‘Snow White’ as a starting point but placing it in a world of early body-enhancement and plastic surgery made it increasingly uncomfortable and gut-wrenching. Both were criticisms of patriarchy and religious society’s destruction of women’s psyches and bodies. Both had a lot to say, the former with absolute seriousness and the latter with sadistic satire.      

 

Josh Ruben’s ‘HEART EYES’: An agreeable rom-com slasher that undercuts the former with the latter whenever there’s an imbalance. The tropes of both sub-genres provide comfort food, and there’s certainly lots of Meet Cute before the gnarly kills kick in. It’s one of those recent slashers that feels a bit meta, that embraces its own stupidity and invites the audience to be in on the joke. But it is never clever, just light, tropey and intermittently amusing. Only Mason Golding as Jay occasionally implies a true character beneath his archetypal hunky exterior. The reveal is forgettable and rudimentary.

 

On the milder side of hauntings, there was Steven Soderburgh’s ‘PRESENCE’ and Ben Leonberg’s ‘GOOD BOY’. Both based on particular POVs, with the latter being more memorable and distinct, as well as being not quite what you anticipate. 'The Presence' became more obvious, 'Good Boy' more atmospheric and resolute in its modest ambition.

 

With ‘THE MONKEY’, Osgood Perkins swaps the dread of Stephen King’s short story for a horror-comedy-splatterfest, apparently because his conclusion is “death happens”. Which is stated throughout repeatedly so that loss is meaningless come finale and we simply end on a bad taste gag.

It’s a horror-comedy where kids swearing, a stoner priest, goofy Elijah Wood and big sideburns are the source of amusement, and the convoluted deaths are punchlines. There’s a juvenility familiar to broader comedies here, not just in its ethos (Death Happens!), but it also wants to have a more legitimate story about fraternity and parenthood, curses and responsibility. It doesn’t quite gel, although always great to look at and diverting. There are good double performances from Theo James and Christian Convery as the cursed twins (you know: one good one, one bad one) and well-executed set pieces, but there is no real feeling of the terror of the premise: it’s mostly hijinks.

Osgood is obviously a talented director and always one to watch, can mount scenes expertly, but we’re a long way from the maturity and sure slowburn of ‘I am the Pretty thing That Lives in the House’ and the offbeat reimagining of Grimm’s fairytales with ‘Gretel & Hansel’. Caught between two intentions of being horror-funny and yet trying to say something, ‘The Monkey’ falls short: And again, as with ‘Longlegs’, I was left thinking “That’s your ending??"

 

‘HIM’ by Justin Tipping was a more obvious near-miss: the premise was promising – folk horror narrative in an NFL setting; the religion of football needs sacrifices, etc. – and yet it slips into a mess quickly, using stylistic tricks to try and beef up a trajectory that we presumed going in. With a shell of a lead – Tyriq Williams has presence with little to work with – it doesn’t get under the skin of toxic masculinity or toxic faith and fandom, it doesn’t really present any insight. It is bright and good to look at, initially creepy, ultimately a near miss.

Simon Rumley’s ‘CRUSHED’ was one of those films that makes you feel you’ve visited somewhere very, very dirty, despairing and depraved. A witless teenager shows his young sister’s friend a crush video (animal cruelty is the instigating outrage) and traumatises her into thinking her beloved missing cat has also been a victim, setting off a horrendous chain of events. The almost slideshow means of presenting the story fragment by fragment without a score for guidance is reminiscent of, say, Thai director Edward yang, allowing the breadth of the societal repercussions from schoolboys to sex tourists to emerge. There is a roughness that may come over as amateurness, but the rawness also accumulates into verisimilitude. If it doesn’t quite land, the moral dead-ends and failures, the theological questioning, the hopelessness of finding existential certainty, the trauma caused by such dark business leaves this film haunting and bothering the mind long after, even if you feel you won’t want to watch it again.

Zack Ogle, Aaron Pagniano’s ‘IT NEEDS EYES’ proved a minor gem. Powered by a scenic location and a fantastic performance by Raquel Lebish, once the provocation of the title seems to be about the insatiable hunger of our screens and the darker side of the virtual world, this comes on like it may be something like a Jane Schoenbrun affair (‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’, ‘I Saw the TV Glow’). It’s that too but has more traditional horror intent as well. Coming-of-age scenarios are ripe for the supernatural-horror, and Ogle and Pagniano move deftly between making their points about growing pains and falling down rabbit-hole obsessions before delivering an almost Lynchian conclusion: Is that what you wanted? Impressively and satisfyingly realised. 

 

Finally delivering on the promise of ‘Two Witches’ and ‘Traumatika’, Pierre Tsigaridis’ serial killer ‘FRANKIE, MANIAC WOMAN’ is obviously a descendent of ‘Maniac’, grindhouse, Eighties satirical horrors and feminist genre rethinking before heading off into more sun-drenched, quasi-cultish areas. This is mostly due to the focus and outrage Dina Silva brings: hers is a punk, fearless, funny, musical, frightening performance. The songs and disgust at the music business and beauty standards are hers and yet in no way are we invited to think of her as anything other than deliriously, hilariously unhinged. “I’ve killed a fucking fan!” The gore is often too ripe to be funny, but there’s as much outrage as tongue in the cheek, and as full-on as it comes on, there’s a plan here. For example, one of the best gags, knowing what we know, is Frankie ending up with a troupe of gorgeous women. There’s disgusting, outrageous fun to be had even as something more heartfelt eats away at the edges.

‘ADORABLE HUMANS’ by Anders Jon, Kasper Juhl, Michael Kunov and Michael Panduro.

 “Adorable Humans. Preferably miserable.” Four Danish directors update and re-imagine Hans Christian Anderson. An anthology in which unfortunate protagonists have grievous encounters with Faith, Grief, witchcraft, body horror, sex, and the intrusion of unfathomable malevolent forces. Both downbeat and hallucinogenic, bawdy and given to tonal shifts that you don’t quite notice as the Danish sensibility and black humour gives all the tales a cohesiveness. The abstract and unsolvable elements feel akin more to psychological illness than supernatural failure-of-reality, and often an amalgamation of both. Full of striking imagery and the inexplicable, it is an intriguing and fascinating horror that feels like a perversion of the usual fun portmanteau model.

 

Joe Fria’s ‘SHADOWS OF WILLOW CABIN’ was an indie chamber piece with big feeling and supernatural trimmings. Bryan Bellomo and John Brodsky are excellent, flirty and convincing in an LGBTQ confessional that besieges repressed homosexuality with a supernatural malevolence that can only partially be reasoned with. As the film is so very strong on two troubled people getting to know each other, the ghostly stuff is lesser meat. Firmly in the gay-is-suffering cabin, but there’s a wealth of empathy and experience here.

 

James DeMonaco’s ‘THE HOME’ A brisk pacing, some unexpected feints and practical gore - plus lots of eye trauma - make this diverting. Pete Davidson makes for a slightly soulful protagonist to guide through a plot you can guess from early on, even when padded out by too many nightmare sequences. And there’s even a pathetic fallacy hurricane for the revenge massacre. It’s a mess, scruffy at the edges, increasingly loopy and one of those to add to the Old People Are The Enemy subgenre.

 

Stephen Biro’s ‘A SERBIAN DOCUMENTARY”: With access to a shipload of behind-the-scenes footage as well as interviews with cast and crew, Biro's documentary makes the best argument for this most notorious of films, "A Serbian Film". Watching the effects work is a real treat. It helps that the filmmakers are the most eloquent and understanding of their intentions: if you aren't convinced by this of their most punk disgust at exploitation and the human condition, then you are doubtlessly the closed minds they're outraged by. Five years in the making, Biro spoke on stage of how inflammatory the film and its reputation still is. Perhaps the most shocking conclusion made is that the director Srdjan Spasojevic now feels he didn't go far enough.

They fuck you when you're born, they fuck you when you're living, they fuck you when you're dead - indeed.

 

Macon Blair’s ‘THE TOXIC AVENGER’ was apparently banned, but it is hard to see why, really. Surely it’s the attitude that adds up to make something worth banning, and this is just gleeful comic book gore. It may want to rest on its sentimentality unironically and Macon may not want to rely on Toxie's puerile nature to carry it through, but there's enough gore and gags to make this an audience pleaser. And funny how CGI bloodletting, whilst hitting the mark, still isn't as satisfying as DIY practical. Dinklage gives heartfelt, Bacon and Wood give sleazy, Tremblay gives trembly teen. Perhaps this is slicker but the original remains the real shocker.

 

Daniel DelPurgatorio’ ‘MARSHMELLOW’ was an appealing enough summer camp kid’s anxiety horror, more in the line of ‘Goosebumps’ than, say, ‘Class Trip’ (1998). There are the archetypes without making them annoying, a slightly intrusive score, nice crisp photography, a reliance on nightmares, one of those premises that isn’t going to stand thorough scrutiny and the sense that the film only just got started when it ends.

Perhaps the opening of Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s ‘BONE LAKE’ promises something less graceful, just to get the attention, but what follows is a slick, silly and thoroughly entertaining romp. The great performances are essential to above-average characterisation, which is important when the fragility of couples is the whole discourse: Diego and Sage are thoroughly convincing as a decent couple struggling to get over themselves. Perhaps not quite as twisty and surprising as it thinks, but its thoroughly engaging, gorgeously shot and played and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy.

 

The Adams family are a prime example of made-at-home, interesting and ambitious indie filmmaking, and ‘MOTHER OF FLIES’ is no exception. A young woman facing terminal cancer turns to folk horror for a cure. Or rather the film, being a horror, posits how close New Age healing is to witchcraft; and further to that, in the Q&A afterwards John Adams aligned magic to the science that treated his own and his wife’s cancer. Mostly, this is a triumph of fairy-tale visuals and atmosphere on a tiny budget. This is apparently the Adams’ family back yard. Houses made of trees (more than a treehouse), snakes and rocks imagery, a corpse reciting poetry… The dreamy aesthetic, judicious use of effects (helped some canny editing so that any weakness doesn’t register), a simple mission to outflank impending death and grief and a seamless blend of grunge rock and folk horror make this another fascinating minor gem from this filmmaking family. 

If the first tale of Tim Connery’s anthology ‘THE DRIFTLESS’ doesn’t lead to too much, the second is dourest and shows that the storytelling is going to take its time with a character to get to its point, which pays off for the third. The first story, although spiced up with a couple’s bickering love, it is also the more flippant and obvious. Like the final episode of ‘Adorable Humans’, the second story here is also about a music maker’s writer’s block and supernatural suffering, and both are weirdly, perversely positive. It hints that there’s more weight to this than just fun-and-frolics horror anthology with a nice location.  The final pool story is like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode for a protagonist unable to get its message, and probably the one that will stay in the memory to be pondered over. It’s the highlight of a bright, fun, surprisingly substantial selection with a satisfying overarching tale with Antique Al.

 

William Bagley’s ‘HOLD THE FORT’  was a fun and silly horror comedy, reminiscent of Joe Dante or even a daft "The Mist", if you will. If it does seem to run out of steam and errs on the side of slightly lingering emoting instead of bringing in more genre absurdity, but its good nature and brevity make this thoroughly endearing. Absolutely, you're left with the certainty that there was far more in the premise.

'INFLUENCERS' - Kurtis Davis Harder’s polished sun-soaked sequel. “How did you get off the island?” is asked many, many times, to which the film answers, “Yeah, but we don’t care.” Rather, we get more shading to CW, who it seems has properly fallen in love, but she can’t give up her old ways, and she has a boatload of psychotic past to cover up. With gorgeous locations – France; Thailand – cat-and-mouse games and a focus on social media and character manipulations, it all goes down smoothly. Cassandra Naud is great, Lisa Delamar beguiling, and a little moral murkiness is presented in an attempt for substance: Jonathan Whitesell is the influencer selling toxic masculinity but he doesn’t cheat and it seems like his girlfriend is actually the one in the driving seat. It romps home with a gleeful showdown that both does and doesn’t offer a conclusion, just leaves us with the excess of a serial killer slaughtering social media types that we don’t care for and irritate us anyway.

 

But if you were just looking for straight ahead Final Girl action, there was Rod Blackhurst’s ‘DOLLY’. Hitting that 16mm ‘70s Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven vibe hard, Blackhurst’s Don’t Go Off the Trail public service announcement is ugly and derivative in all the right places, making this a solid homage to those bareknuckle disturbing trendsetters. It introduces a formidable porcelain baby-faced monster, lots of ikkiness to do with her obsession with making a kidnapped woman her baby and some shock-gore that delivers exactly what it sets out to do. Fabianne Therese also makes for a better-than-average victim that must kick in her brutal survivalist mode to get out, as well as confront fears of monstrous motherhood.

 

I initially misjudged Yuriyan Retriever’s ‘MAG MAG’. The opening of the first victim being killed by the ghost whilst pissing all over his friends should have been a clue. Then what follows is the pleasant comfort of J-horror tropes, looking like it will be a series of ‘The Grudge’ style vignettes (there’s even a knowing cameo by ‘Grudge’ director Takeshi Shimizu), and perhaps you are wondering how it will fill out its runtime this way; but then it takes a somewhat leftfield turn into hysteria, perhaps parody (the exorcism), heads off in its merry whim, skipping ahead of the audience, but ends up knowing exactly what it is doing. A revenge curse ghost – Mag Mag herself is pleasingly creepy – turns into a deeper tale of weaponizing various iterations of “love”, from obsessive crushes, abusive, to an innocent child. The chapter narrative means you never quite know where it will be heading and just when you think you do, it ups the stakes. Quite the rollercoaster oddity that delivers the long-haired ghost goods whilst also shaking up the genre to see what else is possible: art love, musical numbers, surrealism, body horror, a note on the corrosive power of loneliness, etc.

 

 And so to more the SCIENCE FICTION side of fantasy...

 

With ‘SUPERMAN’, James Gunn maintained his impressive ability to give fan service while still believing in and promoting the weightier real-world basis for superhero fantasy. There’s a reason why Ian Dunt calls this the most best political film of the year.

On the other hand, ‘THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS’ managed the feat of being fun superhero nonsense, appealing with a retro-futurist look, cribbing a bit from ‘The Incredibles’ (which had cribbed from ‘The Fantastic Four’ comics anyhow).

But it was less self-conscious than ‘THUNDERBOLTS*’, which was entertaining in a minor way like a teenager in a cape trying on big boy shoes. One of those superhero films always awkwardly looking over its shoulder to make sure fans approve. 

Actually, I hadn’t absorbed the trailer to ‘COMPANION’ enough to spoil the reveals. I mean, any genre-savvy fan will suspect, but. As a fun, semi-deep ride slight against presumptive and privileged not to say toxic masculinity, it was nicely mounted and performed. Some may dismiss this another riff on ‘Cherry 2000’, but it’s a continuation of artificial humans since ‘Metropolis’, and updating ‘The Stepford Wives’ premise for the AI age only shows this theme has never quite gone away.

 

 Emotion-led lofi scifi is often a good place to find something fresh in the genre, and Kevin and Matthew’s excellent multiverse tale ‘REDUX REDUX’ impresses with how packed with emotional grounding it is. From grief making our protagonist pursue a hellbent mission to visit all the dimensions to kill her daughter’s murderer to a streetwise brat finding her limitations, the measured pace allows the loneliness to surface even when foregrounded and tent-poled by action set-pieces. Although mostly a two-hander there’s uniformly great acting, lowkey and immersive atmosphere, pleasingly clunky dimension-hopping freezer unit, a script only interested in the characters with little need to linger on backstory, allowing the existential and relationship questions to dominate. Proof again that an indie film with single well written conceit and a solid agenda of investigating the human condition can generate full-blooded, unsettling and rewarding entertainment.

Another interesting example of scifi exploring the technological effect on relationships was BT  Meza’s ‘AFFECTION’. The emotional and physical range of Jessica Rothe truly elevates what could have been a fun enough Who Am I? sci-fi thriller. She is scary in her confused state as well as warm and maternal as things evolve. Julianna Layne’s child performance is also above par, and Joseph Cross never gives up on the emotional motivations of his character. As a chamber piece of unravelling identities and revelations, the themes of gaslighting, mistrust, insurmountable grief and choosing what to care about again show that science-fiction can get to those nooks and crannies of the human condition that other genres can’t quite reach. It not adverse to plot holes and the other weaknesses, but it is fun, ambitious and full-blooded.

 

The ‘Alien’ popularity recouped some goodwill while the ‘PREDATOR’  
franchise, under the guidance of Dan Trachtenberg, stomped its way into slightly different terrain

With Fede Alvarez’s ‘ALIEN: ROMULUS’, has the goodwill a film has accrued ever been undermined so completely by a single line of asinine fanboy zinger? (You’ll know it when you hear it.)

But mostly, Fede Álvarez’s plunge into the ever-popular sci-fi legacy is agreeable, a straightforward romp that returns the franchise to its claustrophobic horror-house-in-space origins. The set design and world-building are thoroughly immersive, the spaceship porn satisfying, the call-backs bearable but for that one zinger (although mileage may vary on this). For the most part, there is a pleasing sense of the set-pieces being well thought-out (one thing leading or solving another) until it just shrugs, speeds up the alien gestation and moves into calling back to later franchise instalments and having unconvincing falls and birth trauma, etc. But the undemanding fun is delivered and the Scott-tinkering of the prequels pleasingly sidestepped.

Cheekily packaged with a poster that, at a glance, resembles ‘Invaders from Mars’, the pleasure is in ‘EXPLORER FROM ANOTHER WORLD’s recreation of a beloved sci-fi era with modern gore excess. Directed by Woody Edwards, the made-on-a-farm and red-and-green predominance captures both the feel of low-budget outer space invasions and the palette of classics like ‘Forbidden Planet’ and ‘This Island Earth’. The end credits behind-the-scenes glimpses reveal what a small production this is, and its winning points are not going too zany, standing by a brief runtime and excellent alien design. A delightful homage.

‘THE GORGE’ by Scott Derrickson probably took too long with its set-up, but why wouldn’t you when you have Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy to soak up all the attention? A breezy romantic-scifi-horror with a strong couple finally getting to battle video-game monsters. Serves well as an undemanding monster movie with above-average set up and character chemistry.

 

Although Danny Boyle’s ’28 YEARS LATER’ was a favourite with many, and although won over by Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes, something didn’t quite gel. Or perhaps it was the geezerism of this particular Surviving Zombies society. You get the impression that they pine for the lost civilisation of ‘Eastenders’. This was more a folk-horror interpretation of the franchise than a zombie free-for-all, reaching with some success for the emotions instead of bloodletting. It was often pretty, offered nothing new in its portrayal of post-apocalypse character, tantalised with the folk horror Fiennes cameo, tried to put this in a Lost England’s Glory context with inserts of historical footage, ended with rejection of the island culture, venturing out to discover the world for yourself, and then ending with a tonal whiplash by introducing an ending more in line with Boyle’s music video sensibilities and a reassertion of geezerism. Bad ending that promised more – and more is already here.

 

Boon Joon Ho’s ‘MICKEY 17’ was a broader, less smart adaptation of Edward Ashton’s novel, ‘Mickey 7’. Of course, ‘Parasite’ was such a masterclass of balancing tone and genre that expectations were going to be high for Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up. Novel Mickey 7 is increased to 17 but into simply a dope for the film: he has less agency, less of the backchat and quiet smarts. The awareness and insight he keeps close to his chest is lost in the film, which operates on broader strokes. Bong calls Mickey 7 “pathetic and ultimately hilarious”,* but surely that’s unfair and a misreading. Film Mickey is an unwitting victim of abusive capitalism, new technology and slapstick, more a straight up idiot than the quietly sly and opinionated character. So, despite the excellence of Robert Pattinson, if you are a fan of the book you may feel cheated. And in the film, Marshal is simply a Donald Trump parody with manipulative and villainous trophy wife: Mark Ruffalo dives headfirst into the Trump impersonation that clerly puts the unsubtlety of the film foremost. Come the ending, the fascinating cloning concept and analogy seems to count as secondary, lost in a mash-up of excellently imagined scifi setting, comedy, political satire and genre diversion. It may be fun enough, but there’s none of the perfection of ‘Parasite’ and less of the pleasing metaphor of ‘Snowpiercer’. 

(* - ‘Mickey 7’, Edward Ashton, Q&A with Bong Joon-Ho)

 

Although typically provocative and potentially thrilling the concept of video graves may be – watch deceased loved ones decay to process your grief – David Cronenberg’s ‘THE SHROUDS’ discoursed itself into flatness. I was attuned to the cold discourse of his difficult first films and even moreso when he introduced scifi-horror-pulp into those ruminations on the body-politic, and onboard when he returned to the former in his austere later work. But the acting from a bunch of esteemed greats and dialogue that clanked with clunkiness somehow missed Cronenberg’s ability to turn the presentation of ideas and provocation into edgy cinema. It is the first Cronenberg I have been disappointed by, despite the typical excellence and unease of the concept.

Edgard Wright’s ‘The Running Man’ was a no more nor less than expected as a reimaging of the Schwarzenegger corny-camp bafflingly beloved original. It seems there was a lot of pining for 80s cheese. Not stupid enough?

Kim Byung-woo ‘The Great Flood’ looked like it was going to be a straight-ahead disaster film but took a decidedly different turn into high concept sci-fi. Any overwrought melodrama had a point in itself as the plot took twists and stopped being about straightforward peril to become a more jumbled time-twister with far-reaching contexts. Often visually striking, increasingly spiralling outwards and rewarding if you went along with its ambition.