If watching the trailer for first-time feature director Parker Finn’s
Smile evokes memories of a particularly disturbing videotape from an, at the time, unknown movie that had the casual horror filmgoing fan cowering their eyes behind their hands for the better part of two hours, it’s because it’s supposed to. I’m referring to, of course, the 2002 classic
The Ring, and the comparison I’m making is the phone call the watcher receives after watching the videotape that tells them they have seven days to live. Likewise, the trailer for
Smile informs us that when the viewer sees “it” (what “it” is, we are uncertain), they will soon die. While there are both similarities and differences between the two films, what is certain is that
The Ring generated $129 million domestically at the box office, which Finn would gladly like to duplicate.
Continue reading Smile (2022) →
While Netflix offered its Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a ten-part mini-series on, perhaps, America’s most notorious serial killer, the same company also brought to its streaming service, as well as to the big screen, a feature-lengthed film on lesser known, albeit more another prolific serial killer in Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse. This review will undoubtedly contain spoilers. If you have yet to see The Good Nurse, I recommend a viewing, though I’ll caution that it operates slower than what you both wish and expect. I am uncertain if I would have given as invested in The Good Nurse had I watched it at home rather than at the theater. This is all to say that it deserves the attention the director, the writers, and the actors put into it.’
The opening sequence of Jerrod Carmichael’s feature-length debut On the Count of Three shows a revolver being pointed inches from the face of Kevin (Christopher Abbott – It Comes At Night,
Don’t Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde’s (Booksmart) may have been the most talked about movie of the year. While the film garnered much buzz, it was the much-publicized dysfunction between some cast members (most notably Wilde and Florence Pugh) and different versions of why Shia Labeouf exited from his role (he said/she said story from he and Wilde) and how it played out in the reputable news outlets, as well as the tabloids and social media. There was much worry that Wilde’s second directorial effort would be known for the hoopla around the film rather than the film itself. With a production budget of $35 million (compared to just $6 million for Booksmart), I’m sure Wilde felt considerable pressure for her film to succeed. 
The most important advice from the various reviews I read about Barbarian, Zach Cregger’s (Miss March) first stab (pun intended) in the horror genre, was to know as little about the film as possible before watching it. As many of the reviewers I respect mention this in the early parts of their reviews, I will do the same. If you need some assurances before making a decision, watch the first part of the trailer. If you have enough data to decide, cut off the trailer.