Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

EXHUMA (2024)

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Korean film has a real knack for horror, offering seriously creepy stories populated by terrific characters you care about. The latest I caught was EXHUMA (2024), about a shaman and a geomancer who team up to relieve a family of a curse, only to discover something far more evil buried beneath the earth. I really enjoyed this one.

In this story, Korean shaman Hwa-rim and her protege are hired by a rich businessman to identify the cause of a strange illness affecting both him and his newborn son, which turns out to be a haunting by a vengeful ancestor. In Korea, they team up with a geomancer (specialist in cosmic energy flowing between people and their environments) and his own partner. Together, they must exhume the grave of an ancestor located in a horrible grave site in an area where the very ground appears to be diseased.

That’s when things of course go very wrong, as they contend not only with the vengeful ancestor but a far larger evil.

This movie is great horror, really folklore or religious horror, deeply steeped in realistically portrayed shamanism, geomancy, and Korean and Japanese mythology. The characters are very likeable, even though we don’t get to know them very well, and the shaman is unfortunately a bit underdeveloped; it’s in the spiritualist procedural aspects where this film really shines. Their cosmic battle against evil forces is compelling and different, with its nearest equivalent on this side of the Pacific maybe being THE EXORCIST. Plenty of twists kept me engaged, though some viewers may find it jarring how the story appears to wrap up halfway through the film, only for the real adversary to reveal itself. In its dark tone evoking dread, the movie reminded me a lot of THE WAILING, which had a similar tone. (That movie also had a very dark ending, distinguishing another great thing about Korean horror cinema, which is you really need to check your expectations at the door.) The ending to EXHUMA surprised me in a great way, and I loved how it came in for a landing.

Overall, I loved EXHUMA and look forward to what Korea comes up with next in horror.

THE SUBSTANCE (2024)

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From its ominous, reverberating house-music score to its crazy logic to it going from partial Cronenberg to full Cronenberg, THE SUBSTANCE (2024) is an an over-the-top ride into obsession with glamor and the price this imposes. Starring Demi Moore giving it her all and then some, with Margaret Qualley killing it as her counterpart, this movie was a lot of fun to watch and a breath of fresh air for moviegoers looking for something new and different in a theater experience.

In this story, Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) is an aging actress currently hosting an aerobics workout show. The head of the network (Dennis Quaid laying it on thick as a smarmy and piggish Hollywood type) wants someone younger and more attractive to take over the show, and fires her on her fiftieth birthday. This sends Elisabeth into a downward spiral of feeling old, irrelevant, and washed up, but there is hope: A young medical intern tells her about The Substance, a black-market drug that allows you to create a younger version of herself. It works, but of course there’s a rule, which is both women must remember they are the same person and live in balance, and of course if the rule is broken there is a cost.

Thematically, the message is obvious: Hollywood and the glamor industry create an idealized image of beauty with pressure to achieve it at any cost to remain alive and relevant. Otherwise, the film explores the antagonism between those whose youth is fading and the young who want to make their own mark on the world. The way this is told is part sci-fi, part urban fantasy, and part horror, with a heavy lean on the horror, particularly the body horror type. The story is powered by its over-the-top, overstimulating visuals and snappy pace, making Elisabeth for me someone I sympathized with but had a hard time empathizing with, which I guess is the point, as she’s a walking caution sign and blind to the cost of what she’s doing. By the end, as I said, the body horror enters the grotesque and gross-out realm of the Cronenberg with a last act that dragged a little for me but it utterly gonzo, wrapping with a nice horrifying final image. The film has a punchy, angry, raw, unsettling, and unapologetic feel.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with THE SUBSTANCE and would happily recommend it. Whether you wind up liking it or not, I think you’ll find it a pretty wild ride.

FURIOSA (2024)

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In FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024), we get a prequel to the FURY ROAD film that I’d be very surprised if anyone actually demanded but honestly stands out for me as the best in the franchise since THE ROAD WARRIOR. I liked this movie a lot, far better than FURY ROAD, with the biggest downer being that aside from a glimpse or two, Mad Max isn’t in it.

In this film, we get the backstory for Furiosa, one of Immortan Joe’s Praetorians, who played a significant role in FURY ROAD. As a child, she lives in the “Green Place,” but it’s been discovered by raiders, and when she tries to interfere with them leaving to tell others this sanctuary’s location, she winds up captured by the Horde led by the warlord Dementus (played balls to the wall by Chris Hemsworth) and growing up in the wasteland. From there, she becomes increasingly mixed up in the political machinations between three players–Dementus, who captures the sole working oil refinery, Immortan Joe, who controls the Citadel with its food and water supply, and the Bullet Farm, which manufactures ammunition. All she wants to do is escape back to the Green Place, but the wasteland has other plans for her, setting her on a path not of escape but revenge.

Anya Taylor-Joy does a great job in the role that was previously well-played by Charlize Theron in FURY ROAD, embodying the role with a fierce sense of determination and making the action scenes look believable instead of staged. In my view, Hemsworth steals the show as Dementus, though, who is a great character, a product of the wasteland, a man who wishes things could be different and better but knows this can never be–that he in fact must help make it worse. Part charlatan and part emperor with no clothes, he is a pure agent of chaos, undermining and attacking his rivals because it’s all he knows how to do, and he appears to thrive on things falling apart, as if determined to make the world as horrible as his internal landscape.

Anyway, the characters are good, the politics simple and fun, the action scenes the usual riveting ROAD WARRIOR fare. There are a few moments that particularly stretch suspension of disbelief, such as Furiosa freeing herself from a tough situation and getting her robot arm, but whatever, it’s a Mad Max movie. Overall, I found FURIOSA a great addition to the Mad Max world and again one of the best in the franchise, though, I’d love to see something this fun with Mad Max back as the main.

KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024)

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In KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024), people confuse love and control in varying extremes, ironically sacrificing themselves in whole or part to complete themselves. It’s powerfully provocative, though as with other films by Yorgos Yanthimos (THE LOBSTER, POOR THINGS, etc.), emotional distance permeates the whole, whether intentional or not, that always denies me real empathy for the characters. Overall, I liked it a lot, for its bold originality and outright rejection of catering to expectations if for nothing else.

The movie is made up of three stories, each with different roles played by the same stellar cast that includes Willem Defoe, Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and other great actors. Each story takes on the theme of love and the need to be loved, taken to extremes of debasement. I advise knowing as little as possible before you watch, so I’ll just give a quick plot description for my favorite of the three, which is about a woman who left her family to join a sex cult and is now searching for an unknown spiritual leader who can raise the dead. Each premise is killer stuff.

The things people do to each other and allow being done or do to themselves for connection is provocative and often depraved, both sad and absurdly funny at the same time. When I write horror fiction, I’m often drawn to exploring themes inverting good into evil by showing it in its extreme. Yanthimos does this really well in this film; again, it is boldly original. At the same time, his movies often strike me as overly artsy and cold, and while my brain often ends up extremely tickled, my heart doesn’t get very invested. A part of this is the dialogue, which is deliberately stilted, full of niceties and polite phrasing. This appears intended to contrast the forms of kindness to the dark potential of its content, but I had a hard time empathizing with anyone–a tall order, I know, when a character wants to do something horrible to please a horrible person who is controlling them, but that’s what good stories do, they put you right in their shoes. The film itself comes across as tightly controlled, making me think it might have been interesting to see it less so, more like its off-the-hook trailer.

Anyway, I liked KINDS OF KINDNESS a lot for its originality, ideas, and edgy psychological horror, and I’d heartily recommend to you if you value any of those things in a film and want to see something you haven’t seen many times before. While I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Yanthimos’s work, I guess I am enough of one to be certain to catch his next movie. His work is absolutely fearless.

ABIGAIL (2024)

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Part heist movie, part vampire horror, ABIGAIL (2024) is a movie about a team of criminals recruited to kidnap a young girl for ransom, only to find out they kidnapped the last kid they should be messing with. It was overall pretty fun, though the filmmakers, as if they didn’t trust themselves or the audience, lean on the tropes so hard the whole thing feels a little tedious. Let me explain.

The movie starts with a team of criminals who don’t know each other and have been recruited by a mysterious figure to kidnap a rich man’s daughter for ransom and keep her in an old mansion until they receive further instructions. We don’t know their true names and little about their backgrounds, and they follow the heist movie tropes of being overly tough and constantly bickering and getting on each other’s nerves. The main protagonist is “Joey,” a military veteran and former drug addict trying to do right so she can get her son back. Melissa Barrera puts her heart into trying to make the audience care about Joey, though it’s all fairly generic; where she shines is when she interacts with the team’s other would-be leader, “Frank” (Dan Stevens), a self-serving ex-cop, alternately as an enemy and an ally. When they play off each other, it’s a lot of fun.

Once the twist is revealed (which is given in the trailer as it’s always the main hook, and it’s a great hook) things start to get rolling, but there’s a problem: The vampire is so powerful that the movie should be over in five minutes, despite her liking to play with her food. As a result, the screen time is padded with tropes used over and over, like the monster wasting time howling at instead of simply killing them, our heroes attacking the vampire one by one, yelling a loud war cry when they attack to let the vampire know they’re right behind her, the villain dancing and being gleeful as a way of expressing evil, and the villain throwing the hero across the room repeatedly instead of simply killing them.

Don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with a good trope. They’re staples of storytelling, and Hollywood relies on them. Tropes become tropes because audiences like them, and then over time audiences expect them, and woe to storytellers who flaunt expectations a bit too much. The problem I had with ABIGAIL is these tropes were all packed in and used over and over to the point of being tedious. In the last act, a few more twists are thrown in that don’t accomplish must other than to make it all feel even longer.

All that bitchiness aside–I am a jaded horror viewer, after all–ABIGAIL overall is pretty fun and doesn’t demand anything really of its viewers other than they chill out, sit back, and have a good time. There’s a lot of action, a little campiness, a cool location in the dilapidated mansion, plenty of gore, some twists, and a plucky heroine, elevating it from the usual horror B movie while planting it firmly among the pack. It’s a great movie for those times you really need a simple chicken soup horror film to watch. So be sure to check it out for yourself.

I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024)

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In I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024), two teens form an unlikely kinship over their shared love of a dark late-night TV show, which offers them a dangerous but vivid reality more appealing than their own. As Maddy goes all the way, Owen is forced to choose the life he’ll live along with its regrets. This movie is weird, strangely hypnotic, and so ambiguous as to be frustrating. Overall, I’m glad I watched it, though I’m still not sure even now what I watched.

Owen (Justice Smith, whom I enjoyed in THE GET DOWN) is a young teen who ends up forming a bond with older teenager Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over a teen horror show called THE PINK OPAQUE, about two girls who discover they have powers enabling them to resist Mr. Melancholy, who wants to draw them into a dark midnight realm to drain their essence. Both are not satisfied with their lives. Owen is confused and possibly impaired by a brain development issue; Maddy suffers loneliness and abuse and desperately craves escape. As they get older and increasingly obsessed with the show, which somehow feels more real to them than their own confining lives, they must ultimately make a choice whether to truly accept the world of THE PINK OPAQUE as reality or accept the world they live in as it is and make the best of it.

The movie is kind of slow, the dialogue awkward, the acting fairly monotone, and yet it strangely works. I was oddly mesmerized by it, enjoying it purely for being confidently weird, and I was definitely curious about where it was all going. Thematically, the movie appears to be about identity and how we project ourselves into what we see on screens. Where it’s all going is so ambiguous, with what we’re given being kind of a downer, that the sum is more frustrating than its individual parts. This was a case of a movie where ambiguity goes way beyond intention, particularly in whether THE PINK OPAQUE as real or fantasy and what it meant either way.

Overall, I liked I SAW THE TV GLOW. I didn’t love it, but it’s weird and different, and there’s definitely something there, even if the landing didn’t quite work for me.