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[7/7/23]

The Blair Witch Project


i think nostalgia is a large factor in its popularity. i'm sure this was great for its time, but now that the genre is oversaturated with found footage films, it falls a bit short. it's not as scary as osmosis had me believe. entertaining if you like "atmospheric" slow burns with unsatisfying conclusions. this is the exact thing that makes it alluring, however. it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, it's raw. it's a lengthy build-up, becoming especially unsettling near the end, and it doesn't try to be anything more than that. even if it was a slog, i have to admire that. fun fact: after typing this review up, i found out that the film was originally made on a budget of 60,000 USD (250,000 after post-production edits) and managed to earn 248 million USD. that, in and of itself, is pretty rad.

[6/22/23]

Beau Is Afraid


overly ambitious but nevertheless entertaining. this movie establishes a thick feeling of dread early on, to the point where it feels entirely unnecessary most of the time. the interesting part about this is how it makes for situations that are either bizarrely humurous, very unsettling or both at once. it only got more confusing the longer it went on, with no effortless assumptions to be made about any of it. the chaotic nature of the plot became a bit too familair after a while, but the film remains so captivating and eldritch that it’s hard to not stay intrigued during the 3 hour runtime. the visuals are striking. Joaquin Phoenix performs well as always. while not being very consistent, i can’t help but admire what it manages to accomplish. i'll probably watch this again sometime.

[5/31/23]

Evil Dead


an okay reimagining of the first movie. overall it looks nice and its got copious of blood (hell yeah). there’s a lot of homages to the first movie. it’s kind of dumb in a lot of ways. the characters make a lot of dumb decisions. they do that stupid gaslighting trope (“it isn’t real you’re just seeing things”). i like the direction they took with it, giving it a more serious tone but injecting some humor into it. a whatever movie, but made better because of the source material and copious amounts of blood. did i mention there’s a lot of blood?

[5/27/23]

Army Of Darkness


so utterly goofy. some real tom and jerry shit. i laugh at the poor dweebs of the early 90s who waited 5 years for this. i was amused with the quantity of skeleton humor.

[5/13/23]

Evil Dead II


nothing could have prepared me for a parody/remake/sequel of the previous movie that only aged like wine. actually mind-boggling stuff. i was fully immersed the entire time. the way raimi and spiegel had campbell pantomime ash's character from the first movie is genius. really something you have to see. nothing really like it. i'm willng to bet this movie influenced a lot of the recent, post-ironic "horror movie protagonist who's extremely good at their job" tropes. (i'm high as fuck writing this)

[5/3/23]

The Evil Dead


it's unabashedly campy horror in it's purest form. an amazing directorial debut from sam reimi. i really liked this one.

[4/29/23]

Shin Godzilla


still just as awesome as the first time. good political satire and really fun action. i love how the shots in this film build tension. i like the subtle homages to the original movies. they make godzilla terrifying in this. my only qualm is that the humans lack character, but they are still above par as far as kaiju films go. excited to get around to anno's other "shin" films.