davispittman

Let's travel back in time.... way back to the time of the settlers. Things were very different back then. Religion had a much stronger presence in society. Along with that, you had rampant paranoia of witchcraft. These two historical facts play a big role in the core plot of The Witch.

The plot focuses on a family that has just been banned from a village. With nowhere else to go, they travel outside of the village and try to make it on their own. They start growing their own harvest, each member of the family doing their part in the work. They rely heavily on their very intense Christian faith. Unfortunately for them, weird things start to happen.... starting with the children.

Soon it becomes clear that supernatural forces are at work around them. The only question is.... who is to blame? Paranoia plays a role here, so much so that it eventually leads everything to a breaking point.

The acting in this film is some of the finest you'll see. The performances given scream talent, you can really tell that this cast was passionate about their roles. Anya Taylor-Joy blew me away as Thomasin, she really captured the emotion and depth necessary to play the role. Kate Dickie is also great here, she plays Katherine, the distraught mother. Dickie throws herself into this role and delivers a truly captivating performance. Lastly, is Ralph Ineson, who plays the extremely devout Christian father. I loved him in this role! He totally nailed it as William, portraying a confused, angry father trying desperately to understand what's happening to his family.

I absolutely adore the score in this film. It's so unsettling and sets the perfect tone. That along with environment and visuals create a very chilling watching experience. What I love about films released by A24, is that they are all so raw and disturbingly realistic. If you want real horror and it's an A24 horror film, you're almost guaranteed quality. The ending is another great asset this film carries, it ends in the most chilling and unsettling way. I refuse to spoil anything, you'll just have to see for yourself.

9/10 for The With.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) is a good action film, I don't think anyone can deny that, but I don't love it. I know a lot of people are claiming this is the best one in the entire franchise, but I don't agree.

I loved both Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation. I liked Rogue Nation the best, and for good reasons, but I just didn't get that same feeling of complete satisfaction after seeing this one. I feel like everyone is praising this film for it's really great action and giving it 10's just for that. I give it a lot of points for it's cool effects and action, because it does those things really well. But I feel like it suffered in other areas. I don't think the performances were quite as strong here as they were in the previous films, with the exception of Cruise. Not saying that the acting was bad because it wasn't, but I just didn't feel as invested as I did in the others. I also don't think the pacing was as good. And I felt like the other films had more content wise, I felt like I had been on a wild fun adventure afterwards. I did not get the same feeling here, I felt like parts of it were exciting and fun, but as a whole I don't think it was nearly as strong.

7/10 for Mission: impossible - Fallout.

The Devil's Rejects (2005) is a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses (2003). This sequel features the same characters, but with a very different kind of plot. In this film, the sadistic serial killer family is running the show, the victims aren't the stars here, the killers are. The family is on the run throughout the entire film, with the police and a sheriff with his own agenda after them.

There are several different reasons as to why I'm not giving this film nearly as high of a rating as it's predecessor. One, is that it's not nearly as creepy. I feel like all the scariness was sucked out but they piled on the sadism and crudeness. In my opinion, that is a big mistake. I liked the first so much because it wasn't just pointless nasty violence, it was actually creepy and had a unique plot. Here, not so much. Two, there wasn't enough interesting details here to keep me engaged. This film felt very run of the mill and lacked the creativity of 1000 Corpses.

The writing was also pretty messy, I feel like they just cursed for the sake of cursing. I am no prude and I have no issue with cursing, but when it's literally every two seconds, it comes across as lazy.

Overall, this is not a good horror film and it's predecessor is much better. 4/10.