Skip to content

Venom: The Last Dance (2024) – Review

October 24, 2024

Quick Thoughts – Grade – B – If you are a fan of the Venom franchise because you love it when a sweaty Tom Hardy walks around and talks to himself – you won’t be disappointed here. Venom: The Last Dance is a breezy and enjoyable romp that features some solid action beats and another fun performance from Tom Hardy.

This may sound insane, but one of my favorite things to come out of the 21st century (in regards to movies) is that Venom (2018) made $856 million at the box office. Watching a 100% committed Tom Hardy jump into lobster tanks and talk to himself during strolls through San Francisco makes me very happy. It was also nice seeing Venom: Let There Be Carnage collect over $500 million and guarantee we’d get to see Eddie Brock (Hardy) and Venom bicker their way through a 90-minute movie again. 

At a breezy 110 minutes (95 without credits), Venom: The Last Dance is a beautifully chaotic sendoff for a franchise that has always been chaotic. This time around, Eddie Brock (Hardy) is hiding out in Mexico where he occasionally eats criminals and spends too much time drinking at local bars. When he sees his face on the local news, he realizes that it’s time to get back into the world and clear his name. He comes across some problems when he’s attacked by pureblooded Klyntar (a creature that can kill symbiotes with ease) that’s sent by an ancient symbiotic god named Knull – who is pissed that his symbiote creations trapped him for eternity on a swamp planet. Knull wants to escape his eternal prison and it turns out that the bond between Eddie and Venom is the key to unleashing him. Knull isn’t the only person looking for Eddie, there are some high-ranking scientists and soldiers led by Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who are studying the symbiotes near Area 51, and desperately want to snag Eddie so they can contain the symbiotic spread. This leads to various action scenes involving symbiote horses, whitewater rapid brawls, and a battle on top of a passenger plane that is highly impractical. 

Directed by and written by Kelly Marcel (who wrote the first two films), the film is a wonderful mess that not only has to give Eddie and Venom’s story some finality, but it also introduces or re-introduces characters played by Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifans, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, Clark Backo (Letterkenny!) and Peggy Lu. Despite all the characters and shenanigans, Marcel and Hardy do a nice job on focusing on the relationship between Eddie and Venom. The middle section of the film is dedicated to Eddie catching a ride with a family of alien lovers and almost taking part in an impromptu Space Oddity singalong started by hippie dad Martin Moon (Rhys Ifans). It’s during this time that Eddie takes stock of his life and it allows him and Venom to truly bond as they deal with their lives together. It’s rare for a major blockbuster to slow down a film by stuffing a lead character into a Volkswagen Bus for 15 minutes, but I’m glad they did it  because I always enjoy downtime with the lethal protectors. 

Adding to the neat character moments are the frantic action sequences that use every cent of the $120 million budget to create some eye-popping visuals that made me very happy. Whether it’s seeing Tom Hardy hanging on to a speeding Venom horse, or watching a Klyntar turn soldiers into bloody human mulch (they are like a big wood chipper), there’s a lot to like here and there are even some fun surprises that I won’t spoil here. The action scenes are a big improvement from the first two films and there are some interesting stakes that make the action feel final and dangerous. 


As a fan of the scrappy Venom franchise, I think Venom; The Last Dance is a cluttered, manic, and suitable sendoff for Tom Hardy, and I think it’s going to pull in lots of money around the world because it understands the spirit of the franchise (despite straying FAR from the comic source material) and isn’t afraid to halt its momentum so Venom can gamble and dance in Las Vegas.

John’s Horror Corner: Storm Warning (2007), a mean, Australian “domestic survival” horror.

October 21, 2024

MY CALL: 60 minutes of utter boredom followed by 30 minutes of sick, mean, perverse, brutal, and downright cruel horror. If this is for you, you know who you are. MORE MOVIES LIKE Storm Warning: A couple similar-ish movies include You’re Next (2013) and Lowlifes (2024).

Okay. Full disclosure. This is another one of those movies that I pretty much never heard of until I saw some brutal gory screen grabs someone shared on social media. Yes, I indeed often watch movies based on that alone, ignoring all reviews. Sometimes they’re delightful (e.g., The Hills Run Red), and sometimes they’re not (e.g., Hellhole, Inbred). Storm Warning falls somewhere in the middle ground.

Pia (Nadia Farès) and Rob (Robert Taylor; The Meg, Blood Vessel) depart on a fishing-boating outing for the day and get lost during low tide on their way back. Stranded in the wilderness, they manage to avoid some unsavory types on the road and wander upon a farmhouse by nightfall. Now who guessed that’s where the unsavory folks lived…?

The writing and acting are pretty stale, almost like an early 90s episode of Baywatch, meeting the people who would get rescued later. This is like a soap opera with the odd episode out on the water, so the outdoor and water sets are of the lowest quality the production assistants could find to save money.

Like the Ides of Wrong Turn (2003), they hike past long-abandoned cars overgrown in weeds. When they reach the disheveled house, it seems no one is home. So, of course, they go in nose around to find an absolute pigsty decorated with blow up dolls, nudie magazine centerfolds, and a marijuana grow-house operation. Before they can decide to leave and take their chances in the bush, the residents arrive home and are none too happy with their uninvited guests.

The couple becomes acquainted at gunpoint by the brothers who live there, out far from any main road or town or shop. And with a storm upon them, they agree to stay the night before being driven to civilization the next day. They really don’t want to stay. But they hardly have any choice. Predictably, things go from awkwardly hospitable, to manipulative, to threats and forced captivity… and then we wander into the zone of inevitable sexual assault.

This movie takes a long time to get to the point. Nothing remotely interesting happens for at least an hour. And while that’s not so unusual for the genre, the first our is such a slog that it feels like punishment. I’m hoping director Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend, Valentine) just did this for the paycheck.

Desperate to escape, Pia sets some clever traps for her captors. There is a bruuuutal “Jesus wept” Hellraiser (1987) trap that hooks and yanks chunks of flesh with incredibly visceral imagery; some grade-A gory head hammering and wound work; a mean but deserved vagina dentata gore gag; a wild scene with a dog ending in disembowelment; and a giant propeller death. These visuals are pretty great, so now we see where every dollar of the budget went. Not rewrites, not sets, not higher caliber actors… just the gooey, chunky, lacerated skin flappy gore.

So was it worth it? Well, I won’t lie. The first hour was really rough. But the last 30 minutes had a lot of gore and violence and perverted hillbilly mania to offer. So if you enjoy sick, mean, brutal, and downright cruel horror, then this is probably for you.

John’s Horror Corner: Species II (1998), more sex, more gore, more tentacles, more Henstridge, more SPECIES!!!

October 20, 2024

MY CALL: This is basically Species (1995) on cocaine and steroids—which is the movie’s greatest strength as long as you’re in the mood for something senselessly wild. It’s another super entertaining, high-budget Sci-Horror done right! Just don’t come into this expecting much in the way of plot. MORE MOVIES LIKE Species II: Other than the first Species (1995), I might consider Decoys (2004) a good double feature. Splice (2009) also follows a similar vein.

The 90s enjoyed a wave of movies (e.g., Arrival, Sphere, Contact) producing some ideas of what would happen if aliens were to respond to our messages sent out into deep space from the project SETI: Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. This trend included Species (1995). Then the late 90s and 2000s began to focus of Mission to Mars movies (e.g., Mission to Mars, Red Planet, The Last Days on Mars)… and what would go wrong. Species II capitalizes on this trend in fine form, while preserving everything Species fans loved about the first movie.

Like the original, some of the then-ambitious CGI doesn’t look quite so stellar today as we open with a visuals-rich Mars mission landing. The first man to set foot on Mars, Patrick (Justin Lazard) takes core soil samples of red silt that entomb an oozy, alien, slime-mold-like lifeform which escapes its containment unit and infects the entire crew.

Upon returning to Earth, our Mars astronauts are on sexual quarantine for 10 days. If only they followed this rule… smh. Director Peter Medak’s (The Changeling) sequel is more sultry and sexualized than its predecessor. The sex scenes are more frequent, with more people, and more nudity. But there’s also more effects and gore earlier in the film. Within the first 30 minutes a threesome results in a grotesque emergence of slimy tentacles and a very graphic, horrifyingly painful birth scene as a monstrous infant head erupts from a woman’s distended abdomen only minutes post-coitus. With the crime scene splattered with some all-too familiar alien DNA, the authorities knew exactly whom to call.

Overseeing a genetic clone of Sil, Dr. Baker (Marg Helgenberger; After Midnight, Species) has genetically engineered Eve (Natasha Henstridge; Species I-III, Maximum Risk, Ghosts of Mars) in order to study the alien threat introduced in part 1—should that threat ever return. Well, as luck would have it… that day has come. The Pentagon assigns Preston (Michael Madsen; House) and Dr. Baker to hunt down this new threat, since they’ve hunted one down before.

As Baker, Preston and uninfected astronaut Gamble (Mykelti Williamson; The Final Destination) try to hunt down Patrick, he leaves hollowed out human mothers in his wake as he mows through strip clubs and prostitutes, amassing a farmhouse of his alien offspring. But he wasn’t the only one infected.

Additional gore and effects scenes do not disappoint. Immediately after conception, an astronaut’s (Myriam Cyr; Gothic) stomach expands and ruptures a chaotic bloom of tentacles. As she shrieks in pain and terror, a long worm-like monster emerges and harpoons her husband’s face across the room against the wall. The scene is incredibly gross and wildly unnerving. There are also scenes with monstrously gross autopsy, graphic suicide and regeneration, more women with hollowed out bodies from traumatic insta-birth, and Patrick’s kids metamorphosing into slimy gooey pulsating cocoons.

When Patrick and Eve learn of each other, they are powerfully drawn to each other. Their union is a sight that would make H. R. Giger proud. Their mating is like a cyborg-xenomorph hentai tentacle scene that turns into a sexualized monster battle between monsters akin to a hybrid between a gangly predalien and a xenomorph fembot. The finale is insane, a bit perverse, and loaded with cool effects. And thankfully, not so much in the way of CGI nonsense.

The closing scene screams at us to expect another sequel. And with how this one turned out, I’m 1000% on board. Unfortunately, that might be when these movies shift to direct-to-video releases. Oh well.

The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Bonus Episode! – The Best Deaths From the Final Destination Franchise

October 19, 2024

You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).

If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.

Norbert joined me to talk about our favorite kill scenes from the Final Destination franchise! The Final Destination series is packed full of creative kills and we had a great time talking about the franchise and its legacy. Enjoy!

If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!

You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.

Smile 2 (2024) – Review

October 17, 2024

Quick Thoughts – Grade – A – Director Parker Finn’s follow up the ultra-successful Smile (2022) is a confident horror sequel that features an excellent performance from Naomi Scott. 

Starting with the 2021 short film Laura Hasn’t Slept, and continuing on with Smile and Smile 2, director Parker Finn has gotten an impressive amount of mileage out of the devilish Smile Entity that plagues the protagonists in the Smile franchise. On the surface, the idea of an investigative horror film featuring a demon who takes over bodies and smiles creepily at its victims is a homerun. What’s more impressive is that Finn has taken a good idea and not rested on its creepy strength. Instead, he’s built something truly frightening and improved upon each effort. Smile 2 is one of 2024’s best horror films and it’s fun watching Finn become more confident and artistic as the series continues. As expected, the cinematography by Charlie Sarroff (Relic, Night Swim) is excellent as the 2:00 to 1 aspect ratio makes the smiling faces look amazing. Also, Naomi Scott puts in one of the most physical and devoted performances of 2024 as a popstar who is going through one of the worst weeks ever. 

The film opens up with a shootout inside an abandoned house between a guy named Joel (Kyle Gallner – returning from the first film – also watch Strange Darling!) and the drug dealers who use it for their operations. Joel has clearly been afflicted by the smile entity and his plan to kill it goes awry and it’s passed to a small-time dealer named Lewis (Lukas Gage) who is in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Soon after the shootout, Lewis passes the Smile Entity on to a world famous popstar named Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) when she shows up to his apartment to grab some painkillers. From there, the movie focuses on Skye as she deals with an evil entity, addiction problems, mental illness, bodily injuries, water bottles. and past trauma. 

What makes Smile 2 so good is that it uses its 131-minute running time to bury the audience into the ground. The film is confidently designed to put you in a headlock as Skye is haunted by the jerkiest of demons while dealing with the rigors of a comeback world tour and dump trucks of trauma. When we’re introduced to Skye during an appearance on the Drew Barrymore Show as she talks about her year-long hiatus after a car crash killed her actor boyfriend (Ray Nicholson – great smile) and left her in constant pain. On top of this, she’s an addict who has been sober for a year and can’t take any pain medications stronger than Tylenol. This isn’t great because training for a dance-heavy world tour is intense and not great for people with back pain. Her constant pain (and stress) leads her to Lewis’s apartment where he promptly kills himself in front of her – and leaves her cursed. From there, things just get terrible for her and it wouldn’t be cool to spoil anything else.

What makes Smile 2 so good is Naomi Scott. She comes across as a real-deal popstar and she handles the dancing, singing (She’s great in Aladdin) and physicality with an effortless grace. Her interactions with Rosemarie DeWitt, Dylan Gelula, Raúl Castillo, Peter Jacobson and Miles Gutierrez (the supporting cast is excellent) carry emotional weight and nothing about her journey into insanity (via a demon) feels superficial. The show must go on for Skye, and it hurts watching her flail her way towards her demise. It was a smart move by Finn to make the Skye character famous because it creates instant drama when she’s signing autographs, speaking at swanky dinners or rehearsing with her dancers because any of them can become the Smile Entity at the worst possible time. Also, her past issues with addiction make her frightened outbursts seem less-important to the people around her who are used to her drug-fueled antics and wild explosions. At one point, her mom yells ““Think about the tour, Sky!” during one of Skye’s frightened outbursts, and you really just want someone to hug the poor twenty-something popstar who is completely misunderstood and being hunted by a demon. 


Final Thoughts Smile 2 doesn’t pull its punches and it will hurt your soul. However, the filmmaking, performances, sound design, costuming and cinematography will put a smile on your face.

The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 586: After Hours, Martin Scorsese, and SoHo

October 16, 2024

You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).

If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.

Mark and Joey Lewandowski (@soulpopped on X) discuss the 1985 comedy thriller After Hours. Directed by Martin Scorses, and starring Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr and some papier-mâché, the movie focuses on a guy having a really bad night in New York City. In this episode, they also talk about terrible nights, mohawks, and Scorsese’s filmography. Enjoy!

Make sure to listen to the 2 Fast 2 Forever podcast (@2Fast2Forever on X). It’s wonderful.

If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!

You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.

John’s Horror Corner: Imaginary (2024), the crossroads of The Further, demonic toys, and evil imaginary friends.

October 16, 2024

MY CALL: If you need a good warm-up movie before your quality evening feature, this is a decent enough popcorn flick that some of the kids can watch before you put them to bed for Terrifier 3 (2024). Nothing special; but decently produced and easily good enough. MORE MOVIES LIKE Imaginary: Maybe something like Hide and Seek (2005) or Z (2019).

A struggling stepmom moving her new family into her childhood home, Jessica (DeWanda Wise) finds much nostalgia and reminders of things long forgotten in her father’s old home videos and kiddish drawings on her old bedroom walls. Her husband Max (Tom Payne; The Walking Dead) and her younger stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) are comforts. Whereas the older stepdaughter Taylor (Taegen Burns) is a teen ball of resistance.

Not a day in the house and young Alice is “called” to a small secret door in the basement where she finds an old Teddy Bear named Chauncy. She talks to Chauncy and finds good company with her new “friend.” At first, it seems sweet. But we quickly learn that Chauncy is quite haunted and ambulatory.

Keeping the audience even more on our toes is a creepy old lady neighbor, the mentally ill biological mother of the girls, some boogeyman imagery, and the provocative things Chauncy apparently says to Alice. Eventually, Chauncy suggests some destructive behavior, begins making threats, and displays some really cool monstrous imagery.

Perhaps following Insidious’ lead, we end up in an “other side” something like The Further. The final act does suffer from some painful over-exposition as a key character explains away things the scenes couldn’t so easily explain, and it reaches over-the-top fanaticism. But then it thankfully shifts to dark and feisty in their efforts to escape this evil Wonderland of imagination and what ends up looking like a comically discount brand Bughuul (Sinister).

Director Jeff Wadlow (Fantasy Island, Truth or Dare) has composed a rather effective PG-13 horror film—his best yet in my opinion. The family tensions felt palpably credible, and the atmosphere was (at times) strong. Moreover, the writing, acting, and production value felt above my typical expectations of sub-R horror, or even unfettered R-horror. This really was well composed. No glowing recommendations here. But this was entertaining.

Bad Movie Tuesday: Amityville: A New Generation (1993; aka, The Image of Evil), this 7th Amityville Horror movie is easily the most ambitious sequel in the entire franchise… but it’s no better for it.

October 15, 2024

MY CALL: With extra hokey death scenes and some passable gore make-up, this most ambitious sequel of the franchise is still just worthy of a giggly Bad Movie Night. MORE MOVIES LIKE Amityville 1992: Uhhhhhh, when it comes to Amityville sequels, I’d stick to Amityville II: The Possession (1982) and otherwise tread carefully into the depths of the extended franchise. Part II has all the dumb fun you’re looking for with great pacing, but Amityville 3-D (1983) and Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes (1989) are both boring slogs. Definitely skip The Amityville Curse (1990), the worst of the first five Amityville movies. Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992) is marginally better than Curse. Amityville Dollhouse (1996) is a solidly fun bad movie, but it truly has nothing to do with Amityville (it is neither sequel nor spin-off, it just has a similar theme and uses “Amityville” in the title for literally no good reason).

More EVIL MIRROR movies: For more evil mirror movies try Mirrors (2008), Mirrors 2 (2010), Oculus (2014), Into the Mirror (2003) or Mirror Mirror 1-2 (1990, 1994). But I’d skip Mirror (2014).

I’m pretending that The Amityville Curse (1990) didn’t happen. So, after the slaughter of now two different families, a botched paranormal investigation and exorcism in the house, and a cursed yard sale lamp and clock (brought across the country to two different houses) to raise Hell, we now have… wait for it… yet another cursed object from the original house! This time a mirror!

The very first images to curse the screen in this movie is of the mirror’s sculpted demonic frame… which could have been made by a middle school art student. It’s farcically bad. I didn’t know an evil spirit would be willing to inhabit something so mediocre.

A homeless man gives Keyes (Ross Partridge) this cursed mirror in exchange for his charity. With his girlfriend Lanie (Lala Sloatman; Watchers) not so impressed with the mirror, they give it to their neighbor Suki (Julia Nickson). This comes just in time as Keyes and his artist conclave neighbors (incl. Richard Roundtree) plan to assemble an art show with their landlord’s (David Naughton; An American Werewolf in London) permission. So, in the interest of a low budget, the movie takes place in this apartment building.

The first death scene is not promising. Suki’s troublesome boyfriend (Robert Rusler; A Nightmare on Elm Street part II, Vamp, Sometimes They Come Back) sees his reflection in the mirror being mutilated, and then he panics and crashes his head through a window… which cuts his throat and face in as unspectacular manner as one could imagine. I want to be clear here, we watched him break a window to his head, fall to the ground, and die instantly from the cuts. This was less fun than watching footage of someone slip and fall on Instagram.

Meanwhile Keyes has nightmares of the original Amityville house, a detective (Terry O’Quinn; The Stepfather 1-2Silver Bullet) starts looking into the recent deaths in the building, Suki becomes fascinated with the mirror and starts painting demons, and some rotoscoped bad-FX demon escapes from one of her paintings. The second death scene claims Suki in, again, an extremely uninspired (truly dull) death scene involving a noose. You could even see her pulse even after she was supposed to be long dead. I’m reminded of my friends’ homemade films from high school. Sigh…

Oh, but there’s a twist! Apparently, the homeless man who gave Keyes the mirror was THE killer in The Amityville Horror (1979) house from Keyes’ nightmares aaaaand that he was Keyes’ father! This should be cool. But it falls completely flat. I couldn’t have cared less. Funny, though, how we learn (from Lin Shaye; Abbatoir, The Grudge, CrittersInsidious 1-5A Nightmare on Elm Street) that the Amityville house contents went to auction, as if to elegantly connect the 1979 original, this sequel, and the 5th and 6th Amityville movies together… you could call this anthology The Amityville Yard Sale. Some of the flashbacks’ Amityville family mythology-building smacked of A Nightmare on Elm Street parts 4-5, even if of far lower quality.

The death scenes are not all worthless, though. Some gunshots to the face and chest (re-enacting the original Amityville mass murder) were quite graphic. Some additional mutilated make-up work peppered in more acceptable effects as well. There’s also an incredibly ridiculous and satirical scene involving what art critics considered to be outstanding performance art. Just another dumb scene; but worthy of a chuckle and an eyeroll.

Director John Murlowski juuust might have bitten off more than he could chew. This movie had distinctly weak writing behind a wonderfully big idea to connect many Amityville films together more than any of the other sequels ever dared to consider. And that is admirable. However, the result was no fine film at all, but a bad movie. A delightfully bad movie!

John’s Horror Corner: A Dark Song (2016), a riveting exploration of the inner workings of ritual magic.

October 13, 2024

MY CALL: While not in the typical vein of British folk horror, I think fans of the subgenre would love this beautifully written film which deconstructs the process of a ritual down to its nuance. Exemplary filmmaking and acting, atop the thoughtful writing, make this a true hidden gem, overlooked by mainstream genre fans. MORE MOVIES LIKE A Dark Song: I’d compare this most closely to The Skeleton Key (2005). Spell (2020) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) also provide interesting approaches to the occult in horror. For fans of slow and steady, creepy, atmospheric horror, I’m inclined to suggest patient yet dire atmospheric revelations like The House of the Devil (2009), The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015), Midsommar (2019), The Witch (2016), Hereditary (2017) and The Dark and the Wicked (2020).

A woman of mysterious motives, Sophia (Catherine Walker; Cursed, Rig 45) rents a house in Wales under secretive circumstances. She hires occultist Joseph (Steve Oram; Kill List, Altar, The Cabal) to perform a ritual for her, for which she has been preparing for half a year with abstinence, soul cleansing, and dietary practices. He talks to her as if being hired as a business consultant; very to the point, results-oriented, brass tacks. The poignancy of their dialogue is that of a well-written one-act play, wherein the set could hardly matter. We’re only focused on them and their words.

We quickly come to learn that the occult process they intend to endeavor is long, committed and taxing. It may take the better part of a year. The ritual seems tedious, unsensational, and grounded. No swirling ectoplasm, ghostly voices, seances or slamming doors; just drinking some blood let peacefully into a drinking glass, extensive readings and vigils, some elaborate chalk-drawn circles and glyphs on the floors, and a lot of interpersonal trust and control dynamics. Sophia has early doubts about the progress of the ritual, and Joseph assures her it’s working. He is always in control as the ritual master, and she must do as he says to ensure the ritual’s successful completion. Over the course of months, a relationship dynamic forms through a filter of cabin fever, disbelief versus gaslighting, and codependence.

However, quite different in this film is the progress of this long-term ritual and the subtlety of the black magic. Its design, incremental goals, and clearly defined objectives (e.g., working on sealing the 7th chamber over time) feel as discrete as an engineering schematic for the infrastructure of a building. Weeks and months into the ritual, they continue to draw and write on pages and the floor, working out progress as well as problems desperately reading dark esoteric scripture, as if actively architecting this ritual schematic in real time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ritual told on film with such attention to time, patience, endurance and tedium. In that respect, this may be among the very most interesting “occult ritual-based” films I’ve ever seen. In many ways I’m reminded of The Skeleton Key (2005), which gives the process-long perspective of the object of a ritual, instead of the perspective of its evokers; the typical horror perspective.

Also intriguing is the strong emphasis on intention. The ritual will not be seen through—or not with the desired result—if the intention of the ritual is not honest and clearly known to both the occultist driving the magic and the appointee, whose soul must be pure when engaging in this black magic.

In terms of horror, this film is quite understated. The dread and scares are deliberately minimal. However, the atmosphere is inescapably constant. That’s what this film is all about, though. Atmosphere from the filmmaking perspective, and an exploration of conducting rituals from the content perspective. Truly, the third act “horrors” could have been omitted entirely. I might have even preferred it as such. Because, for its content, this is one of the most interesting horror films I’ve seen in a long time and a riveting viewing experience. Moreover, these two actors grace us with outstanding performances, delivering a great deal of gravity in the subtlety of their line delivery and a broad range of strong emotions. That was critical for this film to work at all. Without my investment in them, this could have become a boring slog. And now let’s turn to the creator, writer and director Liam Gavin (The Haunting of Bly Manor). Wow. Just wow. Sign me up for anything else he does—and why on Earth hasn’t he done more?

Everyone involved in this film seems to have given it everything with the purest intentions. Oddly enough, that’s what likewise evokes the successful ritual of film.

The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – The Kitchen Fight Michelin Star Guide – Halloween Ends (2022)

October 12, 2024

You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).

If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.

Mark and Nick talk about the legacy of the Halloween franchise and ponder whether or not the kitchen fight from Halloween Ends is Michelin Star worthy. Enjoy!

If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!

You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.