The Conjuring
I like how the movie plays like a procedural and actually opens with a B case, in which they will quickly resolve before the end of the opening sequence.
★★★★
Mild Spoilers
Directed by James Wan
Written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes
Loosely based on real-life experts on the occult Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), who assist in authenticating cases before calling in the Vatican-sanctioned exorcists. The movie is about one of their most difficult assignments back in 1971, concerning the Perron family who encountered strange occurrences in their new home. It’s the one that also inspired the making of the Amityville movies.
No matter how much I see myself as a proponent of science, horror movies still scares me. A lot. Specifically, the supernatural ones. Science horrors like The Thing, Alien, The Fly I can take. But when it comes to the metaphysical, I’m a scaredy cat. I think Ringu might be the most frightening one for me. Goes without saying that I have a large stack of horror movie Blurays that are still left unwatched.
Back to The Conjuring. I like how the movie plays like a procedural and actually opens with a B case, in which they will quickly resolve before the end of the opening sequence. There is no doubt that the supernatural exists in the movie’s universe, but even so the Warrens’ investigations were methodical, sensible and even compelling. They didn’t just aimlessly flick holy water everywhere and call it a day.
Performances are strong across the board. I was surprised to see familiar faces like Joey King, Mackenzie Foy and Lili Taylor. Ron Livingston was the weakest link here, whom I thought didn’t sell his desperation convincingly enough. The standout was Farmiga, who exudes gravitas in everything she does. Wilson is good as the supporting and reliable husband and ghost-busting partner.
I noticed some influences from Asian horror cinema, e.g., women in white nightgowns, spirits latching on the backs of people, etc., probably coming from Australian director James Wan’s roots. (He grew up in Malaysia.) There are also nods to the classics like Poltergeist and The Exorcist. The Conjuring is really an amalgamation of several genres: a detective mystery, a haunted house story, and a possession flick rolled into one. It makes it unique from the never-ending slew of generic horror films, and I can see why a lot of people loved it.
It’s a good one; I’d recommend it. Now I just need to muster up enough courage to watch Part II, which some are already telling me is scarier than the first! Hopefully, I’d be done watching it before Halloween 2024!
Hardcore Henry
Unlike the movie adaptation of “Doom” starring Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban, Hardcore Henry fully commits to the game’s first-person-perspective from start till finish, and I find it fascinating that they were able to roll with that for 96 minutes and still manages to keep the story compelling.
★★★★
Presented entirely from the literal point-of-view of an amnesiac man named Henry, the movie begins with Henry waking up to find his wife Estelle (Haley Bennett) attaching a robotic leg onto his stump. They are in a high-tech lab, and a bad guy named Akan and his mercenaries are on their way to kill them both. Action ensues, Henry and his wife gets separated, and a mysterious person named Jimmy (Sharlto Copley, the star of District 9) appears out of nowhere to help Henry rescue his wife.
I know Hardcore Henry resembles very much like a first-person-shooter computer game (think Doom, Half-Life, Call of Duty, etc.) but I’ve got a feeling this was pitched to the studios with the popularity of found footage horror films in mind, but now it’s for the action genre. Unlike the movie adaptation of “Doom” starring Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban, Hardcore Henry fully commits to the game’s first-person-perspective from start till finish, and I find it fascinating that they were able to roll with that for 96 minutes and still manages to keep the story compelling. They were smart not to make the entire film one continuous take like Sam Mendes’ 1917, so there are cuts to make scenes move quicker, although I don’t remember there were any significant time jumps in any of the cuts. Hardcore Henry’s story is still, at its core, moving in real-time. Even though Copley’s Jimmy is Henry’s sidekick of sorts, Copley is actually the true lead actor of the film and has the most screen time. We never really see Henry’s face or even hear him speak. Copley also got to play multiple characters with a variety of accents, which adds a lot of fun and humour to the proceedings.
The POV approach helped make the generic action sequences looked fresh and exhilarating. We’ve seen action heroes jump off buildings, but when was the last time you saw it happening through their eyes pre-, mid- and post-jump in one single take? There are many sequences like this throughout the movie, but the best one for me was the one with Henry climbing the side of a building, and continuing to an incredible rooftop chase later.
The downside to the POV gimmick is that some of the action got repetitive really quick, especially in the finale. There are only so many imaginative kills you can create for a horde of henchmen, so there will be some repeated deaths for each henchman, but because you can’t cut away from Henry’s point of view, you will have to sit through every one of them. Also, if you get motion sickness easily, you’re going to have problems with this one as you would with movies that use handheld cameras extensively. There have been reports of audiences almost falling over balconies or throwing up during a show. Lastly, the main villain is also rather generic and uninteresting, save for an out-of-nowhere but cool power set that is never explained. And because Henry is without a face, or a voice, or even any character traits, the only compelling character(s) left are Copley’s.
Overall, this is still a fun and unique twist to the action genre, if you have the stomach for it. I’d also say that this is easily one of the best video game adaptations that is not based on any actual game. And I’d recommend this over the Doom adaptation any day.
Originally published on my Facebook page, here.
Overlord
Overlord is a good war movie. It takes itself pretty seriously on that front. If this had been based on true accounts of the experiences of paratroopers during the war, this would have been a very decent one. But since this was marketed as a horror movie, it’s no spoiler that our heroes will face off a few monstrosities conjured up by the aforementioned laboratory. The problem with this movie is that there were too little of the horror elements.
★★★★
No spoilers, but the movie doesn’t really have any twists
During World War II, a group of paratroopers are on a mission behind enemy lines to blow up a German radio tower, unbeknownst that the Nazis are conducting strange experiments in a secret lab below it.
Overlord is a good war movie. It takes itself pretty seriously on that front. If this had been based on true accounts of the experiences of paratroopers during the war, this would have been a very decent one. But since this was marketed as a horror movie, it’s no spoiler that our heroes will face off a few monstrosities conjured up by the aforementioned laboratory. The problem with this movie is that there were too little of the horror elements. This isn’t the Wolfenstein movie adaptation you were waiting for. If you removed that element entirely from the film, it still works perfectly as a war film. According to IMDb, the original script actually had more horror action, but they toned it down in the script rewrite.
Don’t get me wrong, the film is really well put together, even the horror parts. Nice VFX and practical effects. It is relentlessly thrilling and nerve-wrecking. There are a few really cool long takes that predates Sam Mendes’ 1917. The acting performances were pretty good, and you can tell that director Julius Avery knows what he’s doing. My big gripe was that the pay-off in the end wasn’t satisfying enough and felt too small-scale.
After the movie ended, I was wondering who the “overlord” was because he never appears or was mentioned about. Thanks to IMDb trivia, it’s actually the real-life code name for the Battle of Normandy. Sorry, spoilers if you haven’t seen world history.
Some familiar faces here. Wyatt Russell plays the co-lead and leader of the squad. You’ve seen him as John Walker in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Bokeem Woodbine is a character actor that you’ve seen in a lot of movies like The Rock and Spider-Man: Homecoming and he has a small role here. I was surprised to see Joseph “Eddie Munson” Quinn from Stranger Things 4, but don’t too excited as he only has a few lines. Pilou Asbæk, who is Batou in the live action Ghost in the Shell, is the big baddie. The protagonist is actually played by Jovan Adepo, who has been in Denzel Washington’s Fences, the Watchmen series and the recent mini series adaptation of The Stand. I read that there were other actors from Game of Thrones, but I haven’t seen that show, so I don’t know who they are.
Originally published on my Facebook page, here.