Flanagan’s “Fall of the House of Usher” is a Taut, Harmoniously Demented Horror Tale (Review)

I can’t believe I even considered doubting Mike Flanagan. He’s been my favorite horror director for years, mastering the genre both in film and on television, surpassing my expectations in following up The Shining with 2019’s Doctor Sleep and revolutionizing single-location cringe-inducing body horror with Gerald’s Game.

His new endeavor, The Fall of the House of Usher, is a miniseries of eight stellar episodes that chart the steadily building saga of a dynasty stained by blood, betrayal, and fear, combining the stories of Edgar Allan Poe into a wonderfully genre-mashed horror tale. Based on the opening, I wasn’t initially sold on the series, but it very quickly won me over, rapidly becoming my favorite limited series of the year.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Fall of the House of Usher doesn’t just adapt Edgar Allan Poe’s titular short story; it incorporates a multitude of his works, spanning stories, poems, and novels, wrapping them up into one grand story to conclude Flanagan’s five-year deal with Netflix that has produced critically-acclaimed hit series like The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass. I recognized some and learned about others from post-series research, and it only gave me more respect for Flanagan’s skill. There are scenes where characters simply quote Poe’s poems, and they never feel out of place; in a gothic world of unnatural happenings, they’re right at home.

Nostalgia Crossing and Horror Cinematic Universes: Revisiting My Unabashed Love of “The Nun”

It’s not an exaggeration to say that movies we watch as children define us and stick with us in ways that are impossible to replicate. There are others that I wish I had seen earlier, but in the end, it’s the childhood favorites that remain among my favorites to this day, oftentimes due to the nostalgia factor…more on that in a moment.

For what felt like years, I bugged my parents for years about letting me watch R-rated movies, until I had to take my fate into my own hands and find my own way to see what I wanted to see. When I hit high school, I was finally allowed to go to the theater alone and watch whatever I wanted, and I took full advantage of that. One of those films that I saw early on in high school was The Nun.

Despite my best efforts, nobody wanted to see it with me, and I don’t blame them. It was a horror movie, for starters, and connected to a cinematic universe that not many people my age (and certainly not my friends) had any interest in seeing. So I sat in an empty theater on September 7, 2018 — I still have the movie ticket — and found myself cowering behind my own hands as I sat through 97 minutes of gothic terror. And I loved every second of it.

“Renfield” is a Fun, Tonally Uneven Gore-Fest (Review)

Universal hasn’t been doing well with their monster-related cinematic universes since the 1950s, when the overlapping and screen-sharing came primarily in Abbott and Costello crossover movies. The “Dark Universe,” which was supposed to kick off with 2017’s The Mummy (a favorite of both critics and fans), was a catastrophic failure. It’s astounding when you think about it — you’d think that a studio that owns the rights to such iconic characters and stories would know how to handle them, and give them the films they deserve.

The solution? Begin again, of course — but not overtly. Start off with a film that establishes the world in a unique and exciting way, but could function as a one-off if it all goes south. Throw in Chris McKay, director of The LEGO Batman Movie, and Rick and Morty writer Ryan Ridley and you have a certifiably bonkers movie on your hands.

Cult Hit “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” Ruins Childhoods with Murderous Glee (Review)

“Oh, bother.”

Unfortunately, Winnie the Pooh does not speak in this horror-themed reimagining of the classic Disney character, but if he did, I imagine he’d say his iconic catchphrase more than once — because this is a film which certainly deserves it.

Masterminded by English director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was announced in May 2022 and instantly gained notoriety and garnered significant controversy, but also stamped a permanent place in the minds of hardcore movie-goers such as myself. I wouldn’t say I was particularly excited, but I was intrigued, and sometimes, that’s enough.

In the world of Blood and Honey, Pooh Bear is no longer the cuddly teddy of Christopher Robin’s childhood — after the boy left Pooh and his pals in the Hundred-Acre Wood to go off to college, the friendly animals were left to their own devices and, naturally, descended into cannibalistic insanity. Now, Pooh (played in Blood and Honey by Craig David Dowsett) and Piglet (Chris Cordell) have become silent slasher killers — akin to Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers — a transformation I desperately do not wish for most iconic characters of my youth. While I didn’t necessarily grow up with Winnie-the-Pooh (that’s true, I had no childhood), his cultural impact is impossible to deny, and it’s infinitely jarring to see him depicted as a masked murderer.

Taut Horror “Knock at the Cabin” is a Return to Form for Shyamalan (Review)

M. Night Shyamalan seems to be settling into a groove of perfect COVID-era movies. Mostly set in one location with a defined set of characters, this trend kicked off with 2021’s Old, and continues with Knock at the Cabin, his latest psychological thriller that seeks to drive its characters to the very brink of their sanity by presenting them with an impossible situation.

Our leads are Eric and Andrew, a married couple who are vacationing in a remote Pennsylvania cabin with their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui, making her feature film debut). Eric and Andrew are played by Jonathan Groff (he of Hamilton and Mindhunter fame) and Ben Aldridge (who recently starred opposite Jim Parsons in the under-the-radar rom-com Spoiler Alert), and they’re the perfect grounding force for a film that very quickly strays into the psychological extreme.

The hulking Leonard (naturally played by Dave Bautista) leads a foursome of mysterious invaders who intrude on the family’s picturesque vacation. Although they seem to be remorseful when it comes to their mission, the group is unwavering, and resolute in what they came there to do.

Chilling Thriller “1899” Presents a Compelling, Layered Mystery (Review)

I’ve only seen a few episodes of Lost, but its massive pop culture presence that has resounded for almost two decades tells me almost everything I need to know. The very act of continuing a mystery-based TV series on a season-by-season basis, constantly introducing new factors while under pressure to both solve smaller quandaries and hinting towards a satisfying resolution to the overarching questions is not as sustainable as one might think. The conclusion of Lost (as much as I've heard) does not do six seasons of buildup the justice it deserved, and I feel like it taught valuable lessons to the television writing community on how to structure a story like this.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Enter 1899, an ambitious new series from Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar (the creators of Dark) that comes to us as part of their overall deal with Netflix. It establishes a compelling mystery right off the bat, as the migrant passengers of a steamship headed towards New York City encounter the ship’s abandoned sister vessel, thought to be lost at sea.

“Halloween Ends” the Franchise, One Way or Another (Review)

By all rights, it shouldn’t be difficult making more movies about a masked serial killer murdering debaucherous individuals in progressively intense ways, but at a certain point, why stick with the formula? At this point, it’s tired and worn out, and could do with an upgrade.

Slasher films in general aren’t necessarily known for their creativity, which is why Halloween Ends is one of the most interesting horror movies that has come out this year. I don’t use that descriptor because of what the movie contains, but primarily the ideas it presents, and the methods it uses to subvert all the tropes it possibly can. I also use “interesting” because it’s a word that can go either way, positively or negatively. My feelings are complicated on this one.

Soulless King Adaptation “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is Not a Call Worth Taking (Review)

There are things we learn to expect from certain genres of film. Science-fiction will put a futuristic twist on modern technology; fantasy will transport us to faraway worlds; and comedies will be funny (or at the very least, absurd). Not to mention that the one constant for horror movies is that they should be scary.

Image courtesy of Netflix

But what does being “scary” mean? Does it mean slow-paced scene after scene, featuring increasingly bizarre imagery and occurrences that are mean to jar and unsettle the audience, before being punctuated by a loud noise and the appearance of a brand-new factor that is supposed to scare the living daylights out of you?

No, wait, sorry, that’s the baseline for modern horror. Most modern horror, that is — we’ll make exceptions for the Get Outs and Midsommars of the bunch that endeavor to try new things — but there will always be the outliers that choose to stick to the status quo. And then, just slightly below that, are the films which take no risks whatsoever, to the extent that the “scare factor” has been all but eliminated.

“Chucky” Breathes New Life into Horror Television (Season 1 Review)

Note: This review was originally published on SiftPop in December 2021. Also, read my review of the Chucky series premiere here.

Add Child’s Play to the list of franchises that still manage to be fresh, original and fun over thirty years after their inception. And while we’re at it, add Brad Dourif to the list of voice actors I will never get tired of; as much as I like Mark Hamill, Chucky should be played by no one else but Dourif.

Directly following the events of 2017’s Cult of Chucky, the new eight-episode series picks up in Hackensack, New Jersey, an unassuming town known in this world as the birthplace of Charles Lee Ray…also known as Chucky, everyone’s favorite killer doll. The first half of the season features an all-new cast, which is a refreshing change of pace for the series, which has mostly had Chucky as its lead character in recent entries.

Pre-Halloween Horror “Barbarian” is a Delightful Surprise (Review)

At a certain point, every film has been (and will be) derivative of others. Whether or not you subscribe to Georges Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations or another adjoining theory, much of what we see in theaters and on streaming feels like something we’ve been before.

“Pearl” Struggles as a Prequel, but Thrives on its Own (Review)

Comparatively, few horror properties get a chance at a franchise, but in recent years, the name of the game seems to be ordering a trilogy right off the bat. The Fear Street series found success with this plan in the streaming realm, and it was recently confirmed that remake and sequel trilogies of The Strangers and The Exorcist, respectively, are on the way to theaters. These are all based on pre-existing multimedia franchises, so it only makes sense that an original horror film would, at some point, get a similar treatment.

After the credits rolled on writer/director Ti West’s taboo-shattering flick X (released just six months ago), audiences were treated to the surprise reveal of a prequel, set sixty years earlier, centered around the early life of X’s primary antagonist: the embittered, elderly and lonely Pearl, who kills a group of pornography-producing youngsters on her farm in the 1970s with her husband Howard.

Paranoid Thriller “Watcher” is a Strong Directorial Debut (Review)

Being a stranger in a strange land is far from an ideal situation. Not having the personal connections you rely on at home, combined with an irreversible sense of loneliness, is more terrifying than what you’ll find in several horror movies.

Watcher, the debut feature from director Chloe Okuno, takes that feeling and dials it up to eleven. Maika Monroe plays Julia, an American, who moves to Bucharest after her husband Francis (Devs’ Karl Glusman) accepts a job there. Due to his upbringing, Francis is fluent in Romanian, but Julia is not, further isolating her in her new home, which she’s already uncomfortable in. To make matters worse, a man who lives across the street seems to be watching her, and Julia begins to theorize that he is the serial killer, called “the Spider” by the local media, who has been decapitating Romanian women.

The “Predator” Franchise Isn’t Messing Around with its “Prey” (Review)

There were several hurdles facing Prey even before its release. First (and perhaps most glaringly) was that the Predator franchise had infamously tired itself out, with Shane Black’s 2018 entry seemingly ending the series after a poor box office performance. The once-epic and macho-driven franchise seemed to be running out of ideas, despite lots of unresolved promise in recent installments.

So what did Prey do? It does what any effective prequel does and brings everything back to the basics. In fact, it’s so dedicated to being a prequel that it’s set over 250 years before the original Predator, and it works as a decoupled prologue to the series without interfering with any canon or lore — this is in comparison with Shane Black’s film, which tried far to hard to establish the opposite.

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Set in 1719, Prey (the best title this film could have chosen) follows a young Comanche woman, Naru (a perfectly-cast Amber Midthunder), who was trained as a healer but longs to become a hunter like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). Naru is already a capable warrior, but in order to prove her skill to her tribe, she pursues the arrival of a mysterious figure — and we all know where this is going. What Naru believes to be a mystical Thunderbird is actually a spaceship dropping off a Yautja warrior, known colloquially as a Predator of a Hunter. Still, she takes this as a sign, and it ends up being very beneficial for her; she soon finds herself going head-to-head with one of the fiercest beings in the known universe.

Netflix Restores Life to “Resident Evil” (Review)

I’ve stated numerous times before that I don’t usually play video games. That’s why I’m definitely not qualified to comment on the accuracy when translating video games to films or television mediums, but I think that’s also a positive — it eliminates any frustration I might have with the lack of faithfulness in the source material, because I’m not anywhere close to familiar with said source material.

The same is true for Resident Evil, which Netflix has adapted for long-form television. This is the story about a pandemic that ravages the world and drastically reduces the sane and living population — and that makes it feel a little too real. The dystopian setting naturally lends itself to the horror genre, but it’s less traditional jump scare-focused horror and more along the lines of something you could genuinely see happening; perhaps not to this extreme, but it’s all become much more tangible after the events of the last two years. It’s more relatable, and therefore scarier.

“The Black Phone” is a Call Worth Taking (Review)

Seeing The Black Phone got me thinking about prevalent pop culture elements like the Hunger Games, which is centered around child murder, and how people would feel about them depending on your status as a parent. I’m not a parent, but I do plan to be one day, and I’m interested to see if my outlook on these types of stories will change, and if I will develop an aversion to them.

Objectively, the acts depicted in these types of films and novels are terrible things to witness and comprehend, but it’s only proof that the death and abuse of children have been harnessed and overused by pop culture as a method of enhancing shock factor and drawing in an audience — which, of course, is ironic, given the amounts of people (namely parents) that this type of story immediately repulses.

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures

But you didn’t come here for a societal discussion, you came for a review of The Black Phone, the latest low-budget gem from horror giant Blumhouse. It re-teams writer/director duo Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill with accomplished performer Ethan Hawke, in a rather disturbing tale in which Hawke plays a child abductor known only as the Grabber. One of his victims is Finney Shaw (Mason Thames), who awakens in the Grabber’s lair to find an unplugged black phone. Soon, the phone begins to ring, revealing the departed voices of all those who’ve come before him.

Phil Tippett’s “Mad God” Exceeds the Limits of Imagination (Review)

Despite the prevalence of CGI in the modern film landscape, there’s a certain magic about stop-motion animation that is impossible to beat. Its organic nature and seamless feeling — when done right — is the perfect symbol of pure imagination brought practically to life. And while there aren’t many films released these days that are entirely stop-motion animated, Mad God, a film by legendary visual effects master Phil Tippett, has joined their ranks.

Tippett’s is a name you may not have heard, but you’ve seen his work. From Star Wars to Jurassic Park, his fingerprints are present on many iconic (and forgotten) franchises and science-fiction projects dating all the way back to the 1970s. But since the late 20th century, he’s been working on a film that I’m sure will come to define his career.

The Lenient Critic Podcast: Happy Friday the 13th!

Heath is back to discuss one of the most iconic film franchises of all time, and this time he’s brought Jonathan Watkins of CinemaSins with him! Heath, Jonathan and Rowan break down the first six films in the franchise, discuss what works and what doesn’t, and the humor that comes to define Friday the 13th by movie four.

“The Baby” Presents a Twisted View of Motherhood (Review)

Image courtesy of HBO

When someone refers to an infant as a “little monster,” they never mean it literally. The Baby, a limited series co-produced by HBO and Sky Atlantic, takes a concept so innocent and corrupts it into a violent, disturbing and oddly hilarious fantasy about motherhood.

Even a Taste of “Morbius” is Bitter (Review)

Morbius is the most expensive April Fool’s joke of all time.

Set in one of the now-infinite Marvel film universes, Morbius is an ill-fated venture of a film that gives Jared Leto a chance to redeem himself and his Oscar-winning acting abilities. It’s not even able to accomplish that, though, and somehow becomes one of the worst superhero movies I’ve ever seen — in a world where Thor: The Dark World and Dark Phoenix exist!

Leto plays the titular Dr. Michael Morbius, a man who’s suffered from a rare blood disease his entire life. His experiments, in hopes of finding a cure, leave him mutated and with an unquenchable thirst for human blood, with the FBI on his tail and his surrogate brother (Doctor Who’s Matt Smith) idolizing what Morbius has become.

A Selection of South by Southwest Film Festival 2022 Reviews

I was once again given the chance to attend a virtual film festival this past week as South by Southwest (commonly styled as SXSW) held its latest film, music and technology convention in-person in Austin, Texas, with a virtual component so those who were unable to make it were still able to publicize the festival and its films.

I covered the festival for The Invention of Dreams, so I will not be able to print my full reviews here but I will instead redirect you to my reviews on the aforementioned site. Many of the films, including the headliners (Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Lost City, X, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and more) were only shown in-person, but those will all be reviewed in some respect on The Lenient Critic in the future. I was able to see five film premieres, with a wide range of subjects, stars and genres. Without further ado, here are a selection of my reviews from the 2022 SXSW Film Festival.