AdamCinelioglu

I scoffed at the first Knives Out.

It was poorly structured with dumb scripting and awkward reveals. Sadly this meant the wonderful cinematography and performances got overshadowed.

However, with the second outing - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery - it seems Rian Johnson has learned from his mistakes, as we are given a much tighter script and story, with well paced reveals and switcheroos.

The writing was steadier, more consistent and far more engaging, this time around complementing the creative strengths of Rian Johnson's vision.

A very quirky outing indeed, with well paced, almost takes-the-p*ss-out-itself comedic timing, that knew when to set the comedy aside for those long reveals.

Unique in it's premise? Not at all. A fun take on an Agatha Christie style outing? Absolutely. I look forward to Mr. Blanc's next mystery!

This film underpromised and overdelivered.

I read the scathing reviews and almost gave this movie a miss.

Until I got some free cinema tickets and decided to go and see this with my partner one night for the hell of it (no pun intended).

Let it be said, I'm both a cinephile and a huge horror fan - but almost to a fault.

I hate corny overuse of jump scares, I hate films that lack substance and just rely on tacky cheap thrills to get by.

You know, the kind of films like this year's box office smash hit Smile - which serve as a staple halloween flick for the average layman to get their yearly dose of scares.

I don't see how cr*p like Smile received such raving reviews for being utterly devoid of any originality, whilst this film actually dared to develop character and weave a solid story only to get review bombed as a result.

Prey For The Devil not only shook up the genre, establishing a unique story with a likeable protagonist, but it did well to space out it's scares and develop a story laden with spine tingling creep.

Honestly I do not say this much with horror cinema trips, but I came out of this experience feeling so respected by the writers.

I can see how the average layman would automatically give this a thumbs down even though I don't understand why people HAVE to make horror mutually exclusive from a well paced, patient script that goes for the long pay off.

A good horror film needs depth, it needs stakes, it needs a solid foundation of a story and a strong setting. Prey For The Devil has all of this, and paces itself evenly, making for fantastic pay off when the utterly disturbing scenes get underway (and under your skin).

I'm feeling restored after the absolute time waster that was Smile last month, and I have Prey For The Devil to thank for that.

If you're a true horror fan and love the sub-genre of possession films, you will be pleasantly satisfied by this film.

We're seeing the same thing now with this new Ana De Armas movie about Marilyn Monroe.

Patronising movie making pandering to the masses, relying on public's ignorance of cinematic knowledge to wow and dazzle, with very little substance beneath the surface.

"Oh it's so sad! What an amazing movie!" is unfortunately a dominating opinion for biopics such as this which in turn allows the generic, lazy storytelling, shallow characterisations, cookie cutter writing and eye-rolling choices in cinematography to go largely unnoticed.

Watch The Imitation Game and you'll see that bar the subject being Alan Turing as opposed to Stephen Hawking, you're getting the same tropes over and over again.

Same dialogue structure, same bland piano and strings soundtrack that apparently denotes all biopics of the early to mid 1900's, same one dimensional Oxbridge men talking about sex in between PhD discussions, as if that juxtaposition hasn't been done a thousand times before.

A solid roster of actors that unfortunately went under used, as their thespian ability got traded off for awkward stares, sweet nothings and hooky lines.

All this supplementing a directionless movie that couldn't decide if it wanted to conflict Hawking's deterioration with his scientific achievements or his personal relationships.

And don't get me started on that god awful cheese scene at the end. I'm not surprised Jane made complaints about this film.