Ready or Not (2019)

★★★
Ready or Not is the kind of horror movie for which the creators probably had a blast brainstorming different ideas and compounding those ideas with more to arrive at a final draft that is simply fun to make and fun to watch once filmed. It can be produced at a reasonable cost and marketed purely on an idea, and if that idea is sufficiently intriguing, it can act as a hook that can reel in curious viewers and reward them with a good show. The movie isn't scary in the sense that it's terrifying. It isn't scary all that much, but it is inventive. If a horror movie doesn't deliver on the usual expectations by design but has a different agenda, then it can still be deemed a success. Yes, there is blood, violence, screaming and suspense, but they are the foundation for the clever and sometimes humorous unraveling of a story that starts simple enough before leading to surprising places.

Werewolves (2024)

★★
Capsule Review

Werewolves is a relentlessly mediocre werewolf movie that has a neat concept but executes it with little flair. It's basically another disaster movie in which the main character must navigate a treacherous landscape to make it back to his family. I've seen a bunch of these. The year before, a supermoon turned all humans who were exposed to it into werewolves. Worldwide chaos ensued. A year later, the same event will happen again. A team of scientists is working frantically to develop a serum to make humans immune to the moon's effects. When the lab facility is compromised, Wesley Marshall (Frank Grillo) and Amy Chen (Katrina Law) are the only survivors. They make their way across a city infested with werewolves. Back home, Wesley's family is housed inside a fortified home, but the werewolves outside won't give up. This all sounds good, but there's little excitement and fewer scares. The special effects are effective, though.

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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

★★★
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series was doing so well that reports of rebooting the story and starting over a mere ten years after the first installment was crazy talk when it was announced. That was my impression anyway. Could a new crew continue the momentum Raimi had established? The Amazing Spider-Man mostly succeeds. The first half parallels the original film's origin story, but there are subtle changes to ensure that this is not a duplicate. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) visits Oscorp and gets bitten by an experimental spider that grants him superpowers. There is the period of discovery during which Peter embarrasses himself when he can't control his new skills. Like Toby Maguire's Peter Parker trajectory, Garfield's wears improvised disguises before developing his permanent costume. He eventually learns to control his powers and becomes a plucky young crime fighter who appears to have fun teasing criminals while punishing them for breaking the law.

Spring Breakers (2013)

★★★½
Did Harmony Korine ever attend spring break? I wondered that as I watched Spring Breakers, a movie that could be seen either as an exaggerated account from someone who absorbed the imagery of spring break through years of watching spring break movies or an accurate on-location report from a real spring break gathering but amped up to highlight the hedonistic nature of the annual event. Someone could come away with either interpretation or maybe another that I haven't considered yet. Korine is a cinematic wild child who doesn't shy away from excess, so the spring break setting is the perfect place for him to indulge in his tendencies. He walks a tight rope here, and this time he pulls it off. I've seen Gummo, which featured a fragmented narrative about the residents of a poor town, though it was unsatisfactory because his camera was more fascinated with behavior than providing any insight into that behavior. The unreliable narrator seemed to distance him and us from his subjects.

Abandon (2002)

★★
With all the recent films featuring twist endings, Abandon comes across as pretty bland. Part of the fun of watching this kind of film is to replay the movie in our minds to connect the dots and see if the story played fair. Movies like Angel Heart, The Sixth Sense and Memento engage our thought processes and are impressive for their execution. Abandon doesn't inspire any kind of mental rewinding. The movie is presented in a straightforward manner before arriving at a conclusion that is weak and barely requires a double take.