Weekly visions - week 9, 2026

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard, co-written with Shem Bitterman and Michael Jacobs, US, 1989 - ⭐½

After (re)watching Halloween 4, I proceeded, still on Plex, to watch the next chapter in the series. What an absolute mess. The capable Final Girl of the previous chapter, Rachel (Ellie Cornell), spends her time giggling on the phone (probably she’s still worrying, inside, but has decided to embrace carelessness for her own mental health); Jamie-the-child (Danielle Harris) is still troubled, but in a different way from where we left her: she is a psychic now, and has terrible visions about all the people she loves being in danger. But then, when major characters are killed off, she (and anybody else) doesn’t even notice, because now she’s all focused on new character Tina (Wendy Kaplan), a real teenager that wants to have fun (and sex), and is annoying more often than not.
Dr. Loomis is even more deranged and scary than Michael Myers. I’m worried, he needs someone to take care of him.
This Halloween sequel felt much more like a Friday the 13th rip-off.

Scream 7, directed by Kevin Williamson, co-written with Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐

Speaking of returning Final Girls, after endless production controversies this new chapter of the Scream saga puts Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott back at the centre of the story, orchestrated by the series’ original screenwriter Kevin Williamson.
My position on horror sequels is always the same: people like Sidney, who suffered and survived already multiple times, should be allowed to enjoy a happy life with Mark and the kids.
That’s not what franchises are for, unfortunately, so the scripts need to find new ways to justify bringing them back into the fight.
So, just when she thought she was out, Dawson’s Creek creator Williamson pulls her back in, even exploiting her absence from ‘New York’ (the previous chapter) to make her feel guilty she wasn’t there (and to please some fans). And with her, also the sources of her normal life, Mark (not that one) and one of the kids, Tatum (Isabel May), need to be put under the spotlight to perpetuate the franchise.
Randy’s niece and nephew, Mindy and Chad - the only characters who really bring some life to this movie (but beware: every reviewer hates them) - put it in milder terms, but the theme of this instance of Scream is that: the punishment of legacy characters that dare escaping their fate to pursue a better life.
Ostentatiously, the past is burnt to the ground in the excellent prologue (that unfortunately has little consequence on the rest of the film): Williamson shows no interest in following the rules of the Scream franchise, but on the other hand, he goes back to mining his own first two chapters for inspiration (and repetition): the spirit of Rose McGowan’s Tatum gives the emotional weight and the ghost-face of Matthew Lillard’s Stu provides the threat.
What we are left with is a nostalgia operation that, despite its DNA, is the issue of the series that’s least faithful to its original concept.
Maybe Williamson thinks that Scream has nothing more to offer. To this film, even the most longtime fans will prefer The Babadook.

Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, written by Gillian Flynn, based on her novel, US, 2014 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I had not rewatched Fincher’s last good film (sorry if you liked Mank or The Killer) since it came out in cinemas, mostly because of a disturbing scene involving Neil Patrick Harris (well, all the scenes featuring him in this film feels very disturbing). I think this second watch gave me the same impression as the first one: an interesting start, and a second part that begins surprising and intriguing but then gets more and more forced as it goes on.

Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, co-written with Greg Kwedar, based on Denis Johnson’s novella, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I know this is one of those films that is supposed to elicit stronger emotions than it actually did for me. Which doesn’t mean that it left me cold, but I was affected in a way that felt, all the time, mediated by the intellectual layer of an arthouse film.
It gave me so much time to think, while watching it, that I wondered whether I could write a film based on my own life (it would be boring as hell).