DeaditeGaz92

Five years after he directed the fantastic The Conjuring 2, James Wan is back with what I believe to be his best film yet. Malignant was marketed to be something similar to Wan's very own Insidious, this film couldn't be any further from that description. Whilst people going into this film expecting what the trailer promised will no doubt be disappointed and it's certainly not a film that's going to be for everyone in general, this love letter to the horror genre as a whole immediately won me over and I truly believe this is a modern horror masterpiece that needs to be seen by all horror fans. It's always obvious when a horror film is made by a horror fan and that's very much the case here as Wan goes on to use the formula that Tarantino does with all of his films; he takes his influences and works them into something incredible and something that feels very original despite wearing its influences on its sleeve.

There are elements of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1 & 2) to be found here as well as various other camp 80s classics but the most noticeable influence that really shines through is Giallo. It's a bold move to release a mainstream modern Giallo film considering a lot of modern horror audiences won't get all the nods and the deliberately over the top and camp performances, and might dismiss this as being a bad film but it's far from it. There's a certain amount of humour surrounding so much that happens here to the point that it borders on satire and it worked so well, blending in with the more serious scenes brilliantly. What Wan has done here truly is a work of genius. Opera, Tenebrae, Blood and Black Lace, Suspiria, The Washing Machine, Phenomena, there's little homages to so many classic Giallos and as a fan of the Italian sub genre, this was incredible to see on the big screen at my local Odeon; it's really something I wasn't expecting.

Influences aside, as it's own film, it works perfectly, providing a mind blowing twist that I'm sure will go down as one of the most unpredictable twists in horror history. I didn't see it coming at all and I loved how over the top it was, such a ridiculous yet brilliant idea. The cast provide melodramatic performances that all look like they've been delivered straight from any of the films this is influenced by. Out of everyone, I'd say both Annabelle Wallis and Maddie Hasson provide the best performances which basically means they have more scenes that can be taken seriously than everyone else. Michole Briana White is another standout as Regina Moss, a character who I really hope returns for a sequel if one is ever made. Gabriel, played by Ray Chase, is one of the best horror antagonists we've had in such a long time.

Speaking like if Freddy Krueger was in a Giallo flick and looking absolutely horrific, this chilling villain comes completed with a gold dagger, black gloves and a big black coat, looking very menacing and creepy at all times. The kills are insanely gory, fully earning its 18 rating in the UK, starting out with some offscreen kills and graphic aftermaths before going all out for its third act in a scene that goes from being reminiscent of The Terminator to a fantastically choreographed action scene that is jarringly stylish. It's not all blood and guts, Wan's signature style shines through and we get more than a few scenes of slow building dread that had me on the edge of my seat. The cinematography is stunning, making excellent use of stylish lighting and shadows to create so much eerie atmosphere throughout. It's through the cinematography where we see the Dario Argento and Mario Bava influences are very visible. The soundtrack is used very effectively with a phenomenal score from regular Wan collaborator, Joseph Bishara who continuously heightens the tone and often provides little nods to classic scores by Goblin.

Anderson Falls is a thriller following Detective Jeff Anderson who, after his wife's suicide, becomes convinced that she has been murdered. Obsessed with his investigation, he finds out that his wife was the victim of a team of father-and-son serial killers and sets out to stop them.

I've officially found 2020's answer to The Room. Anderson Falls contains raspberry blowing, lots of snot, plenty of out of focus shots and gloriously awful acting; this is immediately trash royalty. Upon seeing the poster, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but I knew my expectations weren't very high and after the film had to be rearranged to the end of the day due to a corrupt file meaning it had to be streamed via a private link on Vimeo. All of the latter was shown on the main screen whilst they were trying to get it to work and the audience was in the room. The lack of professionalism lowered my expectations even more. The final nail in the coffin was director Julien Seri introducing the film with a very Tommy Wiseau-like speech and describing Lin Shaye as "gorgeous but she doesn't have a lot of energy". Little did I know, nothing could prepare me for the next 84 minute trashterpiece that was to follow. I watch a lot of bad movies, I love a so bad it's good film and every once in a while a film like this comes along that is just so terrible that it has countless rewatch value. This genuinely is up there with the likes of The Room, Troll 2 and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. Right from the get go, the script is so badly written to the point that no one actually talks like real human beings in this movie. This is also thanks to the horrendous line delivery by each actor in this film.

X-Men star, Shawn Ashmore is an absolute scene stealer as lead character Detective John Anderson but, of course, a scene stealer for all the wrong reasons. Ashmore quite frequently goes from providing a half hearted performance and looking like he doesn't want to be there to providing a performance so over the top to the point that it looked like his character was about to explode at any given second. My best example of the latter is a scene in which he pins loads of photos up to a wall in his old apartment, starts writing on them and starts screaming "I hate you" at them. This is then followed by a strange edit with multiple versions of Ashmore pulling stupid faces in black and white. Even his more subtle scenes, including him sitting in his car for five minutes whilst the background regularly changes or having a full conversation with his 8/9 year old son about the suspects of his wife's death and then telling his mother that he didn't know he was speaking to his son because he didn't check his caller ID, are an absolute blast to watch because of how awful the performance is. Poor Lin Shaye gets dragged into this disaster too as Jeff's mother. Shaye gives one of the better performances but it's moments like a terrible dub of her shouting "Yeah! Go on! Go get that boy!" at her grandson in the park that demonstrate she's also no exception when it comes to this movie's dreadful performances. Gary Cole and Richard Harmon play the movie's big bad guys and their performances are almost just as bad as Ashmore's performance. Neither are intimidating and that's hardly surprising considering their motives are dumb and a lot of the scenes of them "suiciding women" (yes, an actual term used in the movie) are just the same scenes being shown over and over again.

As much as a lot of the issues come from the acting and writing, there are also huge issues with the filmmaking skills. The opening credits use the most boring and basic font you could possibly use for a movie. The editing is so strange and ham fisted to the point it's quite jarring. The camera work is an absolute mess with some of it being so lazy that it contains extended sequences of the camera being left in just one place, making it feel like someone accidentally left it there during a shot rehearsal, and far too many out of focus shots to the point it started to look like no one on set knew how to focus a camera. A lot of the time, it comes across as though no one actually paid any attention to this film before saying it was okay to be released. It was the out of focus scenes, the random fart noise that may have been Ashmore blowing a raspberry or just a random fart that was left in and multiple scenes of big bits of snot flying from Ashmore's nose that had me questioning why on earth the director thought this was okay. Even Jeff's wife's paintings (that were described as dark) look like a child had painted them for a school project. Usually with bad movies, it's easy to tell if the director's heart is in the right places but with this movie, I'm not even sure. It's incredibly rushed and incredibly messy.

Overall, Anderson Falls was one of the worst yet most entertaining movies I watched at Glasgow FrightFest this year. Everything about it was so terrible yet I laughed more than I've laughed at any comedy movie in such a long time. Congratulations Julien Seri, this is a milestone in so bad it's good filmmaking.

I'm not usually one for writing IMDb reviews, I'm more of a Letterboxd kinda guy but I watched this movie today at the Starburst International Film Festival and noticed there are no other reviews on here yet so I thought I'd give my opinion.

The Little Wizard of Oz doesn't really have a plot in particular, we just get an hour and a half of kids reading their interpretations of The Wizard of Oz with a pointless side story of their teacher and her day to day life that doesn't really go anywhere.

This is by far the worst film I have ever seen in my life. There was absolutely nothing redeemable about it. The audio was embarrassingly bad, the CGI makes Playstation 2 game graphics look like the work of a James Cameron movie, the characters are extremely uninteresting and it doesn't help that the acting is awful but worst of all, the movie is completely pointless and makes no sense. We get a random montage of Italy complete with funky music, far too many repetitive scenes and a scene in which a character fails at doing a magic trick accompanied with tragically sad music.

I hate this movie with a passion and would rather watch Birdemic on repeat for 48 hours than have to sit through this disaster of a movie again. Avoid at all costs.