quirkeywriter

Ryan Coogler's theme of a music so powerful it can tear the veil between life and death is an interesting central idea. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for a satisfying and engrossing movie. He tries to patch in his favorite themes of slavery, exploitation, racial violence, evil white people, freedom and whatnot. But these ideas seem tacked on to a thin story. In fact, the story is the weakest link in the movie, which is saved primarily by its music (esp that party scene where past and present musicians come together). The basic premise of the twins coming to their town and setting up a juke joint which gets attacked by vampires is all but told in the trailer itself. This means that when you watch the movie there's very little left to reveal further. The first half is brothers putting together a team and setting up the joint, the second is it getting attacked by vampires, followed by a battle. As you can tell, there isn't a third act or anything more to hold your interest or surprise you. In fact, after a point the whole "battle" sequence and drawn out death scenes felt a little naive. There's a final shootout scene with some white (Klan) folks but by then you couldn't care less about the goings on. The end credit scene feels like a desperate attempt to bring some gravitas into the movie with a line about freedom, but its too little too late and too tacked on. The movie doesn't quite encompass the poignancy it keeps hoping to grab. The actors are better than the characters written for them. The central character of Sammie works as a musician but not as a son breaking free of shackles and following his passion. Coogler really needs to get out of his own head and reassess his themes, stories and ways of telling them. While Sinners excels in music and technical departments, what it desperately needed was far better writing and storytelling. Sinners had the ideas, audacity, and the potential of being an all time classic, but what it actually is a overhyped movie that will be remembered for some great musical sequences and a tired vampire angle in a toothless second half.

Khauf is a well-made horror show and a welcome change from the cringe algorithm-driven stuff that passes for web series in today's times. The show is created by a woman and she tells the story from a female gaze. I mention this because every male character here is problematic, lecherous, creepy, condescending, misogynistic and whatnot. If this were the case for a show from a male director, it would be considered problematic. But that's a minor aside. The show is engaging, has good actors and is technically quite well made. You could find it a bit long-drawn towards the end and predictable at times, but it is written and performed with a lot of heart. The most interesting storyline is that of Monika Panwar who is sexual assault survivor who believes she has finally identified her masked assaulter. This forms the most thoughtful and well sketched out storyline of the show. Two other strands play out - one involving a hakim with black magic abilities and another involving the scared hostel girls who cannot leave the premises. This bit too is interesting but loses steam after a while. The bit involving the mother/constable searching for her lost son forms the connecting tissue for the stories and seems at times like a unwanted diversion. Of course it all comes together at the end, and the finale might leave you both thrilled and perplexed. Why only one of the dead from the hostel turned into a vengeful ghost while another person from the hostel who also died didn't is a question you don't want to ask. Why did all the people killed by the hakim not turn into vengeful ghosts? Again, don't ask. The finale is apparently about ghost wanting control over the woman and she fighting back. Why that desire specifically? And by the end, when the revenge is completed, is she now controlling the frightening ghost? Such questions can spoil the engagement so its best not to ask them.

TLDR - Lame and pretentious. For horror fans, I'd recommend Oddity (2024).

The kind of movie where the setting is a bleak cold land where characters talk in hushed tones and make platitudes sound like ominous proclamations. The titled offbeat camera angles, the long winding shots of characters walking in and out of places, and the focus on the mundane all in the hope of conjuring up dread and tension but amounting to nothing much in the end. The placement of a gifted haunted female FBI agent and her exceptional ability in hunting down a serial killer is all very Silence of the Lambs in its ambition but not in the execution. The characters are hollow, the horror sequences have a manufactured feel that is hard to shake off even when gore fills the screen. The reveal and the final act may have appeared interesting on paper to the makers but someone, heck anyone, on the outside could have told them that it delivers precious little in terms of horror or terror. The editing cuts, the montage, and the whispery voiceover don't have the desired effect and deliver dullness, leaving you wanting and hoping that perhaps there's more up the filmmakers sleeve. Overall, a thoroughly mundane movie that's too pretentious to be taken seriously.