Horror

Image Courtesy of Raven Banner

Review by David Baldwin

I am still somewhat aghast when it comes to The Sadness. I watched it more than two weeks ago and no amount of cold showers can wash away the shockingly vicious images that have seared into my mind. I know that sounds like hyperbole and that just about every other super gory horror movie has struck a similar nerve in the film going community over the past decade or two. I am a fan of many of those films and watched many others strictly because I pride myself on my tolerance for films that more squeamish people would run away screaming from. Yet despite some of those titles being substantially more mortifying than The Sadness, the film still has a way of leaving you shaken and uneasy. Have you ever watched a movie and breathed a sigh of relief when it does not go as far as you thought it would? Well, The Sadness does the opposite – it goes well past the threshold of “too far” and into a realm of depravity few films have ever journeyed into.

And just so you know Writer/Director Rob Jabbaz (originally from Mississauga!) is not playing around, he makes that depraved journey multiple times. And each time is more fucked up than the last.

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Review by David Baldwin

Based on some of the tweets I have been seeing on Film Twitter this past week, I feel confident saying a whole lot of people are going to proclaim this newest incarnation of Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the worst movie of the year. Maybe even the decade. Perhaps even of the entire franchise that has spanned six decades and counting. After that first trailer hit a few weeks ago, it is an easy target. The film revolves around a group of Gen Z entrepreneurs descending into a deserted, rundown Texas town they may or may not own all of the property deeds to, and selling each building to young investors looking to invest their money in an untapped real estate market. It all feels a little too on the nose and their running into Leatherface (Mark Burnham) feels all too well choreographed — and a not so subtle take on the implications of gentrification. Not one of these characters is well characterized, no matter how much time they have on-screen. With the exception of one minor individual, the rest spend the movie as lambs acting and reacting to their being led to slaughter.

So if you are hoping for more nuance, depth or a reason for this “requel” to exist…you likely will not find any of that here and should probably just skip it.

On the other hand, if you are looking to quench a bloodthirsty itch for young people getting destroyed by chainsaws and sledgehammers, well then you are in luck! Because Texas Chainsaw Massacre is extremely pleased to deliver on those fronts, by the bucket load.

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Review by David Baldwin

Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman) is a queer college freshman looking to make a name for herself. She overdoes it on her studies — frequently writing tests twice or three times in the time it takes everyone to do it once — and is obsessed with being the top of the pack. She joins the university’s rowing team in order to prove how much better she is than the rest of her teammates, and begins to push herself to physical and mental extremes in order to succeed. And she does not care who gets in her way of doing it.

In her debut feature, Writer/Director Lauren Hadaway has created a singular and hypnotic vision of the lengths one young woman takes to succeed. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was just nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Hadaway. I watched the film a few weeks ago on a whim, and found myself unable to look away from the intensely wild ride Hadaway has created. While it would be incredibly easy to compare it to Damien Chazelle’s unforgettable Oscar-winner Whiplash (and believe me when I say people have already started to), The Novice feel like it is so much more than that.

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Image Courtesy of Vortex Media

Review by David Baldwin

A hot shot young Hollywood agent named Jordan (Jim Cummings) is in the middle of planning his wedding to Caroline (Virginia Newcomb) when he receives an anonymous letter in the mail. He opens the letter and discovers an invitation to a hotel for a sexual encounter. He disregards it immediately, but comes back to it and ends up going through with it. Racked with guilt and curiosity, Jordan begins looking into the why and how he was targeted — and quickly becomes ensnared in something so much bigger than he ever could have imagined.

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Review by David Baldwin

After an extended prologue, we flashback to Elias (Carl Anton Koch) checking himself and his mother Nadja (Peri Baumeister) in for an overnight flight from Frankfurt to New York. She is sick and not with him; instead taking heavy drugs in her hotel room and prepping for an experimental treatment in the US. Shortly after getting in the air, terrorists seize control of the plane and start making demands and taking hostages. Nadja gets caught in some crossfire and is believed dead — that is, until she reveals herself to be a vampire hellbent on protecting her son from harm.

Yes, you read that right. Nadja is a vampire and she is stuck on a transatlantic flight filled with mostly innocent passengers turned hostages and a batch of deadly terrorists, including the enigmatic Eightball (Alexander Scheer), who seems to have it out for her. What could possibly go wrong?

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Review by David Baldwin

As Fear Street Part Three: 1666 opens, Deena (Kiana Madeira) has flashed back to 1666 and inhabits the body of the infamous Sarah Fier (also played by Elizabeth Scopel). As Deena learns some long hidden truths about Fier and the curse she placed on Shadyside, she must also race against time in 1994 to save her girlfriend Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) before it is too late.

The end of Fear Street is here. All the secrets are laid bare, all the puzzle pieces have come together and Co-Writer/Director Leigh Janiak has completed her film trilogy based on R.L. Stine’s book series. As I have mentioned in a past review, I was excited at the prospect of a three-film series of interconnected films being released over three weeks in the middle of what is traditionally the summer blockbuster season. While I had my reservations about the structure and plotting, I watched each film enthusiastically – or as enthusiastic as possible – and have no idea how I would have survived if the films were released in theatres months apart from each other. It truly is the kind of franchise I would have adored as a teenager and young adult.

All of that to say, Part Three is my favourite of the films and left me very bloody satisfied.

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Review by David Baldwin

It is the summer of 1978 at Camp Nightwing. The Shadysiders and the Sunnyvalers are at odds with each other as usual and are just about to start their annual Paint War tournament. As the campers are out having fun, the witch Sarah Fier has unwittingly possessed one of the camp counsellors. As bodies start to pile up, everyone must do what they can to survive the night.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that Fear Street Part Two: 1978 owes a lot to the Friday the 13th film series and countless other 1970s/1980s era slasher films. From the look and feel, to the ominous atmosphere and chilling soundtrack, right down to the horny and drug-obsessed counsellors, there is no stereotypical character or moment left unaddressed here. Well…maybe some midnight skinny-dipping. Beyond that, it will be incredibly challenging to miss checking off everything else you can think of from this immortal genre. Part Two wears all of its references and homages like a badge of honour and delights in putting the cast through hell as they avoid the killer’s ax. It knows what it is and does its very best to look radically different from its predecessor.

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Review by David Baldwin

It is 1994 and another murder spree has occurred in Shadyside. This latest massacre does not necessarily scare anyone in the town – they are used to multiple people dying at a time – but certain elements of what happened bear a striking similarity to a number of other murder cases from the past. Once a group of teenagers begins connecting the dots, they quickly realize they may have become the target of the source of a sinister evil that has plagued the town for over 300 years.

I worshipped at the altar of Goosebumps when I was younger. My parents were not a big fan of horror, but they indulged my interest in the series and its many spinoffs. I collected and read as many as I could, and I bet the majority of them are still lying around in a box just waiting to be rediscovered. R.L. Stine’s books were quick reads and were quite likely my gateway to the horror genre. All of this to say…I read a whole lot of those books and never really gravitated to his Fear Street series. So why am I so excited about the film series? Well, the idea of a connected trilogy premiering weekly felt like an inspired idea that had not really been done before – especially one based on a substantially less childish book series.

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Review by David Baldwin

Oliver (Azhy Robertson) is 8-years-old, friendless and on the autism spectrum. He is non-verbal, so he communicates by writing and typing on his phone and tablet. One night, he awakens to a children’s story on his phone called “Misunderstood Monsters”. The story revolves around a monster named Larry, who longs to be loved and have a friend to play with. As Oliver reads the story, weird things start happening in his room. He thinks nothing of it, but Larry is desperate to make a new friend and will stop at nothing to make sure it’s Oliver.

Prior to this year, I never put a whole lot of thought into the “kids in peril” genre, specifically as it relates to horror movies. The films were either good or bad, and the decisions made by the characters usually landed somewhere between asinine and completely outrageous. Of course I saw myself in the kid characters, but I never really saw myself as one of the parents. But now that I have a child of my own, all I could see when I watched Come Play was how much I related to the parent characters and their struggle to keep their child safe. It was something I could suddenly empathize with, and something I actually understood versus something I merely had an understanding of.

And when I think of it that way, Come Play becomes the kind of visceral, eye-opening experience that I am not sure I will be able to ever watch again while my son is growing up.

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Review by David Baldwin

I have been kicking myself for missing In Fabric when it screened during TIFF well over a year ago. I had scheduled it in for the second day of the festival and lined up diligently 40 minutes prior to showtime. It was my first year being a serious member of the press and I had quickly discovered that to maintain my schedule, it would involve a lot of running around between theatres and screens. Having already sat through 8 films by that point, I thought I had it all figured out. But I had not factored in the size of the screen and the number of seats for that particular screening, and stupidly thought that I would not have any issues entering despite the obscene number of people in line. My confidence took a bit of a hit when they cut off the line with ten people ahead of me. Somehow I held out hope that eleven magical seats would show up if I waited around, missing other potential screenings I could have ran into instead. But it was not to be for me, the few people ahead and the 100+ behind me.

TIFF made up for this by scheduling multiple additional screenings of the film to meet the audience demand. As it would turn out, I had other much more pressing movies to see literally every single time they showed it. I was disappointed I missed out, but the consolation was seeing literally everything else. A24 picked up the film for release in the US soon after the festival (Mongrel Media picked it up for Canada), so I assumed I would not have to wait all that long to see it. That was September 2018.

Cut to December 2019. It is very cold outside, Christmas is coming, a whole other TIFF has come and gone, and I am just now finally seeing In Fabric. Some would call it a Christmas movie, so thematically the timing makes sense. But to say my expectations were super high would be an understatement.

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