IonicBreezeMachine

Set in a crime ridden metropolis, disillusioned and soon-to-be-retired homicide detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is assigned a new partner in the more optimistic but impulsive David Mills (Brad Pitt). When the two take on a particularly gruesome case of an obese man who was forced to eat himself to death, tensions start to mount between the two with the two assigned to different cases. However, when Mills' investigation of a murdered attorney, this leads the two to discover shared aspects among the crime scenes that suggests a serial killer is committing murders based on the Seven Deadly Sins and will take both Somerset and Mills to the darkest corners of humanity.

Seven is a 1995 crime thriller that was the sophomore feature directing effort of music video director David Fincher. The script by Andrew Kevin Walker was written in the mid 80s and inspired by his experiences living in New York City during the height of crime and drug issues and crafted the elements of cops hunting a serial killer inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins as it was a high concept hook that Walker believed would attract studio interest. Following stalled development with an Italian company, producer Arnold Kopelson acquired the script which managed to secure Fincher as director as well as Pitt and Freeman for the cast and despite executives attempting to soften the film's dark tone, Fincher, the cast, and New Line head Michael de Lcua successfully fought for the ending despite middling test scores. The film became a massive hit becoming the seventh highest grossing film of 1995 earning a little over $300 million worldwide and helped shape subsequent serial killer films and television series going forward. While some of the novelty of Seven's style and intensity has been diluted by scores of imitators, the film remains an engaging and bleak journey through urban and moral rot.

Fincher and cinematographer Darius Khondji create an intriguing portrait of an urban hellscape ripe with rot both literal and figurative as the unnamed metropolis presented in the film is rife with the festering ills of society even down to Somerset and Mills' homes filled with the sounds of argumentative neighbors or rattles of the subway. The dynamic between Mills and Somerset is excellently presented by Pitt and Freeman respectively with Pitt portraying a character who's driven and well meaning but also lacking in nuance and cultural literacy (as evidenced by the film showcasing his usage of casual slurs and his reliance on the cliff notes versions of literary texts that become important to the investigation), while Freeman's portrayal is one of intelligence but absent of drive and replaced with a cold cynicism from seeing years of effort leaving little if any actual impact. The journey the two of them take is something of an analogue for The Divine Comedy with Mills and Somerset very much a Virgil and Dante and even the killer whom they follow is portrayed less as a villain to be taken down and more as a twisted tour guide through the Seven Deadly Sins and the de facto king of the urban hell. The final act has been cited as one of the most brutal and shocking endings of its time and even today knowing all the elements that were so carefully hidden in the marketing at the time it's no less shocking today thanks to the build-up and performances from all involved.

Seven is undeniable in its craft, style, themes, and influence and you can see why it struck such a chord with audiences at the time even with just the surface level details (that admittedly were aped by scores of imitators and Network TV procedurals, but them's the breaks). Seven stands as one of the most beautifully unpleasant films of its time and the solid reintroduction of a powerful director.

In the New England college town of Westerly, Assistant College Dean Andy Safian (Bill Pullman) and his wife Tracy (Nicole Kidman) are happily married and trying to have children as Tracy deals with unexplained abdominal pain and Andy deals with a serial rapist who has been attacking female students. In the aftermath of one of these attacks, Andy is reacquainted with Dr. Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin), a high school colleague who saves one of the attack survivors and whose brilliance is only outweighed by his arrogance. With Andy and Tracy experiencing funding shortfalls due to plumbing failures in their house, Andy lets Jed rent a floor much to Tracy's reluctance. When Tracy's pains worsen to the point of medical emergency, Jed is assigned to her surgery and with Andy's consent must perform an operation that will lead to unimaginable fallout.

Malice is a 1993 thriller directed by Harold Becker and is notable for being one of the earliest writing efforts of playwright turned screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. The film's origins begin back in 1987 when screenwriter Jonas McCord pitched an idea to Rob Reiner's recently established production company Castle Rock Entertainment titled Damages based on a rumor he'd heard through the Beverly Hills grapevine. Loving the concept, Castle Rock bought the pitch and put McCord to work on the initial draft of the script until he was let go after his drafts failed to please executives. Attempts were then made to assign William Goldman to write the new script, but after stating he was too busy he suggested Castle Rock hire an untested young writer whom he would mentor which led to the hiring of Aaron Sorkin to write based off of executives positive response to his play A Few Good Men. After writing a few drafts before being reassigned to work on the film adaptation of A Few Good Men, Scott Frank was hired to do additional work on the script (reportedly response for more of the "thriller" elements) before a final touchup by Sorkin after he finished A Few Good Men was responsible for getting the name heavy cast signed. Upon release, the film was a modest performer at the box office earning three times its production budget and received mixed reviews with critics appreciative of the direction and dialogue while also calling the film overstuffed and ridiculous in certain plot mechanisms. Sorkin himself has not spoken fondly of Malice calling the final film "a mess". Malice when you look at it shows clear signs of being the product of years in development hell but is made watchable by the fact it has good people tying together a very messy and tangled set of pieces.

In terms of exactly what Malice is, the marketing would have you believe with the focus on the sinister nature of Alec Baldwin's characters that this is an entry in the "blank from hell" thrillers that were all the rage in the late 80s/early 90s Fatal Attraction (affair from hell), Sleeping with the Enemy (husband from hell), etc. While there's a certain element of that as the movie begins, that's really more setup and misdirection which I can't really dive too much further into because to do so would reveal pretty heavy spoilers. What seemingly starts out as a story about the after effects from a clash of egos ultimately goes off the rails into a deranged direction of reversals and reveals that would rival a soap opera for the number of secrets and lies are involved. There are some absolutely fantastic dialogue exchanges like Jed's "I am God" monologue that's the most notable thing taken from this movie or the "welcome to the Game" exchange involving a cameo by Anne Bancroft, but the way the movie switches gears by its second half isn't entirely successful especially when you consider the only way it was able to do so was by having a subplot with a serial murderer/rapist that's somehow not the main driving point.

Malice is a very odd movie. I can't say it's good because it's got too many bonkers plot directions and tangled strands to really make a cohesive whole, but it's also so well acted and so well written in parts that it keeps you engaged even if what's going on defies logic and reasoning. Malice may not be good, but it's incredibly entertaining and engaging while not being good.

Mia Brennan-Walker (Camille Sullivan) is the sister of Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn), a paranormal investigative YouTuber who along with her friends David Reynolds (Eric Francis Melaragni), Peter Bailey (Anthony Baldasare), and Laura Tucker (Caisey Cole) formed the popular investigative team of Paranormal Paranoids until they disappeared while investigating the ghost town of Shelby Oaks, Ohio with David, Peter, and Laura found brutally murdered and Riley no where to be seen with only one of the two cameras found. 17 years later, Mia still believes that Riley is out there having poured her life into trying to find her which has caused tension with her husband Robert Walker (Brendan Sexton III) that was already strained due to her inability to have children. When a stranger (Charlie Talbert) at her door and shoots himself in the head while clutching a mini-DV tape, this sets Mia on the hunt to find out what happened to her sister.

Shelby Oaks is the directorial feature debut of YouTuber and critic Chris Stuckmann. The project began in 2019 with Stuckmann partnering with producer Aaron B. Koontz on a script he wrote with Sutckmann's wife that combined his knowledge and experience of YouTube with the experiences of his sister being shunned by the Jehovah's Witnesses church in which they were both raised before leaving. In order to raise awareness and hype for the project, Stuckmann created a series of videos based around the Paranormal Paranoids as if they were a real YouTube channel and parlayed the success of the videos and his own online presence into a Kickstarter campaign that acquired over $1 million for production in 2021. Filming was completed back in 2022, but due to industry guild strikes this delayed the post-production process but did allow the opportunity for prominent horror talent Mike Flanagan to come on board as a producer where some reshoots and editing was done prior to its acquisition by Neon. Sutckmann certainly shows promise in the atmosphere, performances, and initial hook, even if by the second half it goes into very standard territory that doesn't stumble over itself or anything, but it does feel like an inadequate payoff for what was initially quite intriguing buildup.

With the opening mockumentary sequence, Stuckmann and company do an impressive job of introducing you to the characters and world of Paranormal Paranoids/Shelby Oaks. While there are certainly details you can get some added appreciation from seeing the original YouTube shorts, the movie does a good enough job that you don't need to have seen those shorts in order to understand what's going on. Camille Sullivan is really good playing Mia who was previously an unseen character in the shorts and she makes a great proxy for the audience as we see her dive down these rabbit holes looking through the footage and tracing Paranormal Paranoids' tracks hoping to find something, anything, that can tell her what happened to her sister.

This brings us to where things start unraveling and as many have noted, it has to do with the second half of the film. While the film starts with the mockumentary setup, it gradually becomes a more conventional narrative but also includes some found footage elements with Mia watching both the YouTube shorts as well as exclusive footage made specifically for the movie (think something like 2012's Sinister). Once we get past the first half, a lot of elements set up in the beginning of the movie like the documentary crew and Mia's husband Robert are just kind of dropped as we become anchored to a more traditional narrative. While transitioning to a more traditional narrative isn't necessarily a bad thing, the route they choose to go is something of the Satanic/Demonic variety and owes a great debt to a certain 1960s horror classic. The reveal that something is Satanic in nature as the big reveal is often a major hurdle for me because it's such a cheap and easy route, even if you can get something good from it occasionally like Hereditary, and it's a similar problem that I had with another Neon movie Longlegs. Now I don't want it to feel like I'm branding this movie a failure, because it's not, because for the movie's faults in the second half it has a good hook and solid grasp of atmosphere.

Shelby Oaks is an okay horror movie that flirts with some great ideas without really fully delivering on them. It does it's job adequately and I didn't feel like the film embarrassed itself or fell face first, but it did feel like it settled. It's a showcase that Stuckmann has promise as a director, but maybe his writing could use an outside opinion.