LET ME IN (2010) Blu-ray Review

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Let Me In (2010) d. Matt Reeves (UK/USA) (116 min) (2nd viewing)

When it was announced that an English-language remake of Tomas Alfredson’s acclaimed Swedish vampire flick, Let the Right One In, would be hitting screens a mere two years later, many (including this writer) rejected the notion purely on principle, fearing the enterprise was doomed to be yet another lame Hollywood redux for mainstream plebeians who refused to read subtitles, hellbent on sucking out everything unique and replacing it with vacuous magazine cover-ready actors and goddawful CGI.

THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017) movie review

The Shape of Water (2017) d. del Toro, Guillermo (USA)

This “adult fairy tale” sees Sally Hawkins’ mute cleaning woman falling in love with an unworldly beast after it is captured in the Amazon and spirited away to a generic top-secret research facility, with scientist Michael Stuhlbarg and government thug Michael Shannon vying for proprietary rights. What follows is a Visually Stunning Effort, with all creative collaborators working overtime to deliver a heightened urban landscape of the early 1960s (we hear references to JFK, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement), and the inimitable Doug Jones (Hellboy) donning arguably the most elegant rubber monster suit to grace the silver screen.

CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012) movie review

Cabin in the Woods, The (2012) (1st viewing) d. Goddard, Drew

I know, I know, every Cabin review starts off with “can’t say too much for fear of spoiling the surprises” and I will honor that agreement.  What I can say is that as an entertaining deconstruction of horror films, you’d be hard pressed to find a more compelling example of “intellectual popcorn.”  Director Goddard co-wrote the clever script with producer Joss Whedon as a response to the failure of American studios to yield anything but torture porn and torturous remakes (appropriating the intellectual properties of superior foreign efforts or capitalizing on name recognition from the 70s/80s genre pool) and the duo’s witty dialogue is the sharpest tool in their box.  Which is not to dismiss the pic’s florid production design or its capable cast of victims and antagonists or the plentiful splatter, all of which suit the turn admirably.  

But I cannot deny leaving the cinema feeling slightly unfulfilled and it may just be a matter of personal taste; while I certainly enjoyed the tweaking of genre conventions, especially by those clearly in the know, at the end of the day I wished for genuine terror, horror or revulsion.  Instead, Goddard and Whedon play at and around it, point up the ridiculousness of established tropes, but never deliver an game-changing twist of the knife themselves. 

It’s all good and fine to say there’s something wrong with the state of affairs, but this is not news to the proud and faithful genre fan.  What we want is to be shown the way to something new, something better… a desire that is left unquenched.  Not to say I wasn’t entertained, but like many a tasty Chinese meal, I was eyeballing the menu after the fortune cookies had come and gone, a place in my stomach still left wanting.