Dear friend,
after the back-to-back cinema screenings last week, I was left with nothing recent to watch in a theatre this week, and no relatively recent film I was interested in renting, so… I had to settle for what I found.
Tomorrowland, directed by Brad Bird, co-written with Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen, US, 2015 - ⭐⭐⭐
I’ve rewatched this film for May’s IndieWeb Movie Club, so there’s a whole post about it. In short: a view of a future supported by optimism in humanity and technology, which may have been valid a decade ago, but clashes with the world of today. Also, many ideas but not enough cohesion.
Reincarnation/輪廻, directed by Takashi Shimizu, co-written with Masaki Adachi, Japan, 2005 - ⭐⭐⭐½
I started watching a random J-horror film I didn’t know, and only halfway through I realised it was directed by Shimizu after he was (almost) done with Ju-On and Grudges. I actually watched it twice: the first round spanned several evenings, and by the end I couldn’t remember the story of each of the main characters, so my rating might be affected by some reinforcing of events and storylines.
All in all, I found it a bit disjointed in its first half, but the third act is creepily effective.
A lot of elements reminded me of the Hideo Nakata’s films I watched earlier this year (the co-writer of this film worked as an Assistant Director for both Ju-On - The Grudge and Dark Water). Since it’s about a haunted hotel, Shimizu himself knows he can’t escape comparisons with the Overlook, so there’s one funny moment when one of the characters tries to enter room 237, before finally settling down on room 227.
Watch out for a cameo by Takako Fuji (the original Kayako from Ju-On), and even one by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire, written and directed by Stephen Cognetti, US, 2019 - ⭐⭐⭐
Despite the debacle that was, for me, the second episode, I gave a chance to the third Hell House. The common understanding is that this is the worst chapter in the series, but I found it refreshing and much more interesting than its predecessor. It resorts a bit too often to footage from the first two films (I guess it might have been useful to viewers watching the films as they came out), but I liked its attempt to complete the story in a sort of trilogy. Plus I have a soft spot for Faust, so I may be biased.
Horror in the High Desert, written and directed by Dutch Marich, US, 2021 - ⭐⭐
Another found-footage series that will be tackled by the two horror podcasts I listen to most frequently.
Two stars for support because I feel generous to an aspiring filmmaker with no budget at all, but I now know what people complaining that nothing happens in The Blair Witch Project or Lake Mungo must feel.
This film clearly borrows from both of them for its script, but with even fewer events occurring during an already short running time. And the fact that it seems to have no idea of how blogs work is infuriating.
Fear Street: Prom Queen, directed by Matt Palmer, co-written with Donald McLeary, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐½
I will join the choir of people stating that the first three Fear Street films were much better, and bring back Leigh Janiak, etc.
But all in all, Prom Queen is not a bad film, it’s just… nothing special. It ticks all the boxes for a high-school-set slasher like so many were produced in the eighties, and it will probably be forgotten like so many of them.
Its main crime, for me, is to keep it almost completely separate from the lore of the trilogy that preceded it.
I would have preferred a better ending, though.