Dear friend,
let’s officially close 2025 today, with the films I watched in the last few weeks of the year.
Vash Level 2/વશ Level 2, written and directed by Krishnadev Yagnik, India, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½
The Colors of the Dark podcast claimed that this sequel is totally unrelated to the first film… well, I beg to differ: this is effectively the resolution of a story that started in the previous movie. What is true is that - past some confusion about returning characters - it can be equally effective: the initial sequence, where a number of young women in a school become magically subjugated to the will of an unseen man, is really tense. The second half, where it connects more to the first film, is less interesting, and there seems to be some gender disparity (men are the effective ones, women can only be active if they’re told to), but maybe highlighting it is the point of the story.
Juror #2, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Jonathan A. Abrams, US, 2024 - ⭐⭐⭐½
Ok, this is a good thriller, with an exceptional premise and great performances. But it would have been much better without the last fifteen minutes, which are unnecessary and only justified by didascalic reasons, at the cost of making smart characters look so dumb that I couldn’t believe what was happening. All in all, it ends up being a poor man’s 12 Angry Men.
Sweet Home/スウィートホーム, written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 1989 - ⭐⭐⭐
Today this would have been a full-fledged found footage mockumentary, but, as it is, it’s a standard film (can we say a third-person narration?) about a TV crew investigating the haunted house that used to be the residence of a cursed painter.
The first horror film by our beloved Kurosawa is not what one would expect, but that’s the fun part of seeing someone in the process of developing their own style. I hear this movie has gone through several reshoots and re-editing steps not involving the original director, so it’s all a bit confused, but by the time I’m writing this I’ve seen Bumpkin Soup - the previous film by Mr Kurosawa, and there’s definitely some common DNA and a professional progression.
The initial, comedic, scenes, for instance, fit quite well with the previous movie’s style. About halfway-through it becomes a practical-effect heavy, sometimes surreal, ’80s film, with an overall Evil Dead feel.
Today the movie is mostly remembered for its videogame tie-in, a survival horror that laid the ground for Resident Evil.
Bone Lake, directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan, written by Joshua Friedlander, US, 2024 - ⭐⭐⭐½
One gets hooked by the first two minutes, that made me gasp loudly. The prologue is followed by a fun-but-sometimes-annoying variation on ‘politeness horror’ à la Funny Games/Speak no Evil (but much less grim) with a Barbarian premise. Apparently one of the worst nightmares of current society is an AirBnb double-booking (me, I avoid AirBnB altogether, otherwise maybe it would be my nightmare as well). Some plot twists are obvious, some are absolutely unnecessary (the rest of the Internet thinks differently, I don’t see why).
I was a bit distracted by the fact that all the main actors reminded me of someone else: Maddie Hasson, who played Annabelle Wallis’ sister in Malignant, really looks like Florence Pugh here, and Andra Nechita constantly made me think of Annie Murphy/Alexis from Schitt’s Creek.
I will watch it again because buying it was less expensive than renting it.
Strange Harvest, written and directed by Stuart Ortiz, US, 2024 - ⭐⭐⭐
Ortiz is one of the directors of Grave Encounters, which for me started well but ended up a disappointment, so I wasn’t super confident about this new film despite the relatively good reviews.
Strange Harvest is a mockumentary that reminded me a lot of The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but with fewer disturbing intentions and a better story. It was satisfying to see it evolve slowly from a serial killer ’true crime’ story to something with a bigger scope.
Still, many events feel forced, and suspension of disbelief became a challenge.
I realise gave this the same rating as Grave Encounters, so maybe I didn’t totally dislike that one.
Sentimental Value/Affeksjonsverdi, directed by Joachim Trier, co-written with Eskil Vogt, Norway, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The last film I watched in 2025 didn’t engage me as much as the director’s previous work, and unfortunately I spent a lot of the long running time waiting for something to grip me and make me interested in the story of this family. There is a single scene/shot that shows what the rest of the film has explained until there, and that’s simple and powerful.
I can’t deny it’s a good movie, I was just hoping for something within me to be touched, and it didn’t happen.
I have no idea whether Stellan Skårsgard’s Norwegian has a Swedish accent, but I wondered whether at some point the screenplay would point that out, and I felt quite proud with myself when it did.