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Effective ‘A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE’ Expands Franchise Through Renewed Intimacy

If you’re going to have a movie that’s basically 90% a silent film, you can’t do much better than casting the venerable Lupita Nyong’o in the starring role. The Academy Award nominee has the ability to absolutely command the screen with her physicality, combining her incredibly expressive eyes and ticcy body language, and her strengths prove a perfect fit for the very particular demands of the Quiet Place universe. The Academy has often overlooked horror performances, but awards recognition or not, Nyong’o is offering next-level genre work in the dramatically effective and true-to-its-roots prequel A Quiet Place: Day One. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘HEREDITARY’ 

Every once in a blue moon, there comes a horror movie that’s legitimately capital-T terrifying. One that’ll cause your eyes to dart around the dark stillness of the theater at the smallest creak. One that’ll hitchhike a ride home with you to invade your dreams; an unabortable mental pregnancy. One whose delirious imagery will burn into your cranium as if doused in paint thinner and struck by a match. I am happy to report that A24’s Hereditary, dear readers, is just that kind of movie. It’ll take your damn head off. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘PATRIOT’S DAY’

Michael Bay catches a lot of flack for his bombastic tendencies behind the camera. The portmanteau Bayhem refers to the distinctly American director’s excessive inclinations behind the camera; his impulsive need to aggrandize nothingness through dynamic camera movement and, of course, ‘splosions. It makes for busy filmmaking the equivalent of a massively oversized pair of fake breasts bouncing up and down in front of your face, whacking you in the nose with each rise and fall. There’s so much happening at any given moment and from one scene to the next that there is little to no contrast. Just a constant thwacking of the noggin. Everything is turned up to 11 so that even the legitimately intense moments are overshadowed by other elevated humdrum. Read More