Review – Prey

I was reluctant to watch this movie at first because of all the animal violence described in its DoesTheDogDie entry. But I’m glad my desire to see every entry in the Predator series prompted me to see it anyway. Yes, there’s a lot of animal death in this, which isn’t particularly surprising for a movie about hunting. But the story draws distinctions between the Comanche protagonists hunting for food as part of their culture, the Predator hunting for trophies and European immigrants hunting for the love of slaughter. Set 300 years before the first episode in the set, this manages to equal and perhaps even surpass the original for storytelling quality. Worth seeing

Review – Mary

Gary Oldman must have bet a lot of money on the Patriots in the 2018 Super Bowl. I can’t imagine any other reason why he’d agree to star in a movie this terrible. A financially struggling family sinks all their resources into a used boat that turns out to be haunted. Unlike the Lutzes in The Amityville Horror, our unfortunate protagonists can’t merely get out when the evil possessions commence far out at sea with no ports at hand. This had a mildly intriguing concept: the boat is evil because it was built with salvaged parts from an older evil boat. It just doesn’t go anywhere interesting from there. See if desperate

Review – The Requin

The quotes section of this movie’s IMDb page includes only two entries, one of which is “Jaelyn: [fending off a shark] That’s right motherfucker.” That bit of Shakespearian wit is sadly indicative of the quality of the production as a whole. An American couple on a beach vacation in Southeast Asia find themselves adrift when their hut – which floats for some reason – gets swept out to sea in a storm. The title is literally French for “shark,” and yet the thing’s two thirds done before any killer fish put in an appearance. Which is good, because when they do show up they take the form of old stock footage and tragically terrible CGI. The closest this ever comes to entertaining is one character’s remark that he’s “gonna expect a discount on the room.” If memory serves, that’s also borrowed from the Bard of Avon, the last thing Duncan says before Macbeth stabs him. See if desperate

Review – Spencer

Sometimes a work of art can entertain primarily based on the amount of work that went into creating it. Kristen Stewart is banking on that here. She clearly exerts a lot of effort to perfect her portrayal of Princess Diana, from the protagonist’s larger-than-life struggles with her neurodivergence and her in-laws right down to her personal tics. The result is professionally assembled and sympathetic to its lead character. But it’s also, well, effortful. Mildly amusing

Review – Intersect

One of the many problems with telling a story backwards is that it disrupts the flow conventions we’re all comfortable with. As a result, this seemed like it was going to end considerably before it did. On the other hand, some of the twists in this time travel tale wouldn’t have worked as well if events were presented in chronological order. I liked the quasi-Lovecraftian subplot about how disruptions in the spacetime continuum somehow attract extra dimensional monsters. Sadly, that was only a small part of a larger soap opera about dislikable characters often operating from unclear motives (even given that effect tended to precede cause). See if desperate

Review – The Cursed

Though slickly produced, this grim tale doesn’t do anything innovative with plot elements as old as The Wolf Man (if not older). In 19th century France, villagers abuse a group of itinerant people and buy themselves a lycanthrope curse, turning some of them into beasts that prey on the rest. Mildly amusing