hanschsolo

First off, the based on a true story tagline is like that one friend who tells you that he met a extremely good looking girl and that she was extremely down for him the whole night, but in reality, these two just had a coffee and talked about the economy or smth the whole night, maybe she slightly striped her feet upon his knee or something but... that's it.

These film are overly-exaggerated pieces of HALFWAY real events, and I don't mean that by scenario or concept, I also mean that by performance and cinematography. When you look at a film like The Exorcist from 1973, it roughly cuts fast, it is very slow paced for today's standards, the camera holds itself long, not many effects or anything, the whole horror is made by build-up and performances... it's the simple things. Lightning and Sound-Design are top tier and makes you feel unease. Here, we have so much of it, and it still feels flat. Why? Because they don't know how to CREATE and USE tension. It is a tool to boost emotional development of the characters. It is also a tool to increase our feeling of unease for example. And to anyone who says, The Exorcist was the first film and is hella old, they can't just redo that all the time, you don't get the point.

Veronica, a Spanish horror film, made in I believe 2013, falls into this category of great reality-inspired horror. It is terrifying because it doesn't hold or loses its tension, it does neither of that. It just FLYS by, and what we care for, is her psychological well-being and the survival of his brother. We gotta care, and know that THESE characters aren't safe, these films don't play anymore with psychological fears of the human mind that are deeply rooted in our nature. Recently I watched and film from France, Spoorlos, or The Vanishing. Without context, there's a scene where a character lies in an tomb alive. That was scary and made me feel uneasy, it made me sick for minutes. Same with claustrophobic environments, they just want to scare us with LOUDNESS and unexpected things. And that is the main problem.

There are a few scenes where that feeling gets transported, for example when someone looks around and see's a demon in silent darkness, or when someone suddenly starts to throw up glass and blood, these scenes are great, especially the second one catched me, but that is made by the performances of her and everyone standing beside her.

Conjuring's Final isn't bad by any means, but It is so exaggerated in its simplicity of that makes sense. It's not bigger, it's not more intense, it's just overly-more exaggerated in the way it pays-off its scenario. The actual characters, especially the Main Cast, they deliver well and the chemistry of Lorraine and Ed is again what makes this film halfway good. I just think they're chemistry and love is perfect and felt through every scene of these films, especially in this one.

I enjoy it for what It is, but looking back, the first Conjuring was something that still gave you shivers weeks after watching only by thinking about it...

X-Men: The Last Stand is a film that stumbles upon its own feet. It got the energy and flow to be the perfect X-Men film, the action is pretty much perfect in its amount and energy, it's filmed pretty roughly with many cuts and cut-offs, it misses intensity, but that was the standart for the 2000s action and superhero flicks, it catches that energy perfectly, but it shouldn't have been the goal for this kind of film that wraps up an trilogy.

It's concept is great, healing the mutant DNA is am conflicted topic and nobody in the film shares the same opinion on it. The problem is the same as it has in it's action scenes, it misses intensity. Plots are wrapped up or closed fast, Cyclops just leaves the film, Dark Phoenix is developed ROUGHLY under LESS than five scenes, it goes from plot to plot in the span of minutes. The only scene where the film doesn't miss it's momentum is the End Scene with Logan and Jean and the Very Final scene of the film with Magneto, these two scenes are pretty much perfect, from it's tone to its momentum, it wraps up these arcs for these films perfectly, these are the only scenes that are acted out top tier, and especially in the scene with Logan and Jean, the music hits hard and reaches it's emotional peak BUT... it cuts so fast away and resolves so fast. The scene itself, an perfect emotional wrap-up, the scene afterwards is the problem.

It resolves fastly, it should've left more Plot points open to keep the tension high until the end, but instead, you can watch this film splitted up in parts, because before a new plot starts, almost the entire plot before is resolved.

Weapons plays with anticipation and reward like a good Horror Movie should do it. The tension doesn't fall flat, because of three components. It's the story, the subtext, and the tension. And this is all executed brilliantly thanks to the great filmmaking.

The films follows a non-chronological timeline, each split in character-driven parts. Justine's part starts of great already, according to the people of the film she should be held accountable for the disappearance of the children, which creates genius anticipation and tension. You never know what's coming next. That manifests in scenes like the knocking on her door. The first knocks are clear, while you may think the tension now is gone, someone knocks again, now the sound design is wide-ranged and vibrates with heavy bass, for a very short amount. No soundtrack or anything else, just the pure fear of what's coming next. And that fear translates not only to the viewer itself, we are in Justine's point of view, we feel for her, not for us. And this is what makes this a great Horrorfilm. It needs story, context, emotional-connection for us to not just anticipate what's coming because WE are scared, but because SHE is scared. Horrorfilms like these are based entirely on sympathy.

And every other part does that also so well. Whether if it's the police officer we follow or The grieving father which cannot accept his child is gone. It's a film about collective trauma and the consequences of it. A film about power, control and manipulation. A film about Ego. Everything about this, the soundtrack, the scaling in each scene, especially with doors, the performances, the mystery around solving what's truly happening... It's a film that's letting you feel the hopelessness of the characters, and it's not letting you control about situations where you would hope to do something. Especially in the beginning of the Last part, that hopelessness can be felt so deeply.

In all an genius script that was executed so brilliantly. Only thing I would have hoped more Is for keeping the mystical part a bit longer, I wanted to know or see more about the conflict of this curse. But in the end, it's not about that.