Expelled Grey Matter

The Cabin in the Woods was deconstruction of a number of well-worn horror tropes while Scream started an entire trend of self-referential slasher films.  In between those two came a plucky horror comedy called Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.  Somehow this slipped by me.  Horror from the 2000s - in fact, up to about the early 2010s - is some of the worst ever produced.  It was a time filled with bloodless PG-13 fright films and a handful that tried to carry on the legacy of Scream and just ended up being annoying. Behind the Mask is a bit different. Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) is a budding supernatural killer.  The legend in the town of Glenn Echo is that Vernon was thought possessed by evil and, after killing his parents, was tossed from a cliff into a waterfall.  Since the body was never found it made the story ripe for urban legend.  The difference with Vernon, however, is that he has agreed to let a group of grad students led by Tayl...

It is always nice to see a series redeem itself and the  Predator franchise managed to do so with Prey .  Set in North America during the early years of the colonists' westward expansion it told the tale of a young Comanche woman encountering a Yautja on a hunting expedition to Earth.  It both explained where the gun came from in Predator 2 that was gifted to the cop after defeating the one hunting in Los Angeles as well as dragged the series out of the same quagmire the Alien franchise, which takes place in the same universe, was wallowing in.  There were some hints at where sequels would go at the end of the film, and they may someday be explored, but writer and director Dan Trachtenberg decided to go in a different direction.  Comic books and video games, as well as previous sequels, had explored the Yautja and hinted at their culture.  Up to this point, on film at least, all encounters had been from a human perspective.  This time around we get som...

Jaws must have struck some sort of nerve since low-budget studios kept trying to remake it throughout the 1970s even after ripping off Star Wars became more lucrative.  This trend even made its way to other countries, in this case Thailand.  Well, kind of South Korea as well.  Some scenes were reshot for the American market and, though made before Alligator , Crocodile was released in the U.S. a year later to cash in on that popular Jaws  homage.  Dr. Tony Akom (Nard Poowanai) has a good life with his wife Angela (Ni Tien) and daughter Anne. .  His friend John (Min Oo) is looking forward to getting married himself.  However, the world has different plans.  Atomic testing has led to violent storms and a giant crocodile terrorizing the rivers and lakes of Thailand.  After the crocodile kills his family Tony is distraught, but eventually plots revenge with the help of Tanaka (Kirk Warren), a mercenary type with a boat. Tony, John and Tanaka be...

In 2010 Stephen King released a novella collection called Full Dark, No Stars .  The stories it contained were much darker than most of his contemporary material, being less concerned about the supernatural and more about all the evil that human beings can do.  One of the novellas was called A Good Marriage , a rather memorable tale inspired by Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, who managed to convince everyone that he was just a normal guy involved in his community. Bob (Anthony LaPaglia) and Darcy Anderson (Joan Allen) are a couple that own a rare coin business, while Bob also makes money as an accountant.  They have two children, the oldest Petra (Kristen Connolly) about to get married.  They seem the ideal couple to their neighbors and friends, although Bob is a bit controlling when no one is around.  After they celebrate their 25th anniversary Bob goes off on his usual search for more coins.  This is while a serial killer named Beadie is murdering women in ...

Although technically Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was the last of the pre-James Gunn D.C. Cinematic Universe, The Flash is where things came to an end.  Both films suffered fan apathy as by this point everyone knew that the original DCCU run was finished.  The Snyderverse was dead, none of the myriad plot lines that directors were dreaming up were ever going to take shape and the nearly completed Batgirl was cancelled and used as a tax write-off.  Not to mention Ezra Miller, the star of The Flash , spent a good run up to the release of the film as a wanted fugitive that seemed to be expressing their inner Joker. With actors getting cancelled left and right there was pressure to replace them and the entire movie remade or written off.  Only a few things seemed to prevent that.  The main one is that Warner Bros. definitely didn't want to dump any more money into this project.  Another is that Miller uses "they/them" pronouns, which throws them into the ...

I guess I have been missing out on the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, who has become a bit of a popular art film director in recent years.  I remember hearing about The Lobster but never ended up seeing it although it sounds intriguing, as do many of his movies.  I almost gave Bugonia a pass as well.  I'm lukewarm on Emma Stone.  She is one of those celebrities that seems as if she was foisted upon the public by the media, not because of any inherent talent, although she has never been terrible in any role I've seen her in.  Also, I heard early on it was a remake of the Korean film Save the Green Planet! , which I also have not seen.  Hollywood doesn't have a great reputation when remaking foreign films.  Still, the rest of the cast was intriguing and, although I was sure I knew where the movie was going to go and how it was going to end - in many ways something I was quite right about - I thought it might be interesting to see how it got there. ...