FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA Review

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Fury being the key word here. We all crave revenge though, just as Chris Hemsworth’s wicked Dementus would say, but while we may not be able to balance the scales of our suffering with such revenge - seeking after such does have the capacity to make for one hell of a story. Such is the tale of the titular Furiosa in George Miller’s nine-year-later follow-up to his bombastic Fury Road. While that film - itself a thirty-six-year-later follow-up to Miller’s dystopian trilogy that began simply as a story of another vengeful Australian who set out to stop a violent motorcycle gang - is now something of a cultural milestone and turning point for action filmmaking in and of itself it didn't necessarily blow me out of the water in the way so many of its fans praise it for doing (more on that later). Why Miller, who will be eighty in less than a year, chose to enter this world once again through the prism of a prequel to flesh out the details of a fascinating yet not necessarily unambiguous character whose destiny we are well aware of might at first feel a little puzzling as the film unfolds the filmmakers justifications are made clear: re-entering this world and continuing to flesh out not only the character of Furiosa but all of the characters at play in these wasteland fortresses along with the wasteland itself is what makes it worth the trip. Such a task is an admittedly impossible line to walk in not only in having to deliver on the expectations set by Fury Road, but also in attempting to deliver something that is inherently cut from the same cloth yet stands on its own merits. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, for all the context, history, and set-up that would seem to inform its creation is ultimately still an origin story - the beginning of a saga if part of one at all - and needs none of the circumstances surrounding it to be known in order to flourish for what it is. Where Fury Road, for all its audacity and inspiration, felt more like an art installation of a movie - meaning I was floored by its visual achievements but not necessarily moved by or invested in its experiment - Furiosa is full-fledged epic where the storytelling is as front and center as the action - much to the chagrin of the majority of movie-goers, I'm sure.

WINCHESTER Review

Though the directing duo of brothers Michael and Peter Spierig made one of the worst films of 2017 in what was the eighth Saw film it was hard not to hold out hope for what these guys might do outside the IP pool given Jigsaw was likely an opportunity they couldn't (financially) turn down. And so, in what feels like their true follow-up to their highly underrated and underseen 2014 time travel flick, Predestination, the brothers Spierig take on the real life mysteries likely still held within the walls of the winding Winchester mansion that is located in San Jose, California and was constantly under construction by the widowed Sarah Winchester for thirty-eight consecutive years until her death in 1922. Weird, right? Definitely. Couple this unique spin on the haunted house premise with the fact the Spierig's have somehow managed to attract the talents of rather pedigreed actors like Jason Clarke and the indelible Helen Mirren and one has to wonder what the attraction was. The Spierig's also reunite with Predestination star Sarah Snook here, but Snook is unfortunately underutilized as Mrs. Winchester's niece who has recently moved into the ever-growing mansion with her son after the death of her husband. This is all to say that Winchester has plenty of potential and while it never fully capitalizes on the ample opportunity it has to transcend the genre trappings and become something of a more self-conscious and timeless work it is a solid and sometimes even surprising haunted house tale that uses the audiences expectations to its advantage and takes certain elements in directions that feel fertile. The Spierig's screenplay, in collaboration with Tom Vaughan, relies too heavily on jump scares to garner the necessary reactions for being a member of the horror genre, but even still-they serve their purpose more often than not. Resorting to these easy, cheap scares feels a way of accounting for a requirement the Spierig's weren't really interested in though, as Winchester is seemingly more inclined to explore how cruelty, grief, and loss can affect people in different ways and to varying degrees. If the Spierig's had figured out a more inherently haunting way to convey their tone and the actions of those supposedly trapped souls in the rooms of the titular mansion this might have been a more convincing study on such topics, but as it is the film comes and goes with more simplicity than it does depth or scares.

First Trailer for INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY

While the subtitle of the latest Insidious film may have the word "final" in it there is seemingly no end in sight for this horror franchise as, while it is not a part of James Wan's ever-expanding Conjuring universe, it is part of his brand and therefore a key component in ushering in this new age of horror that has come about in the post-torture porn era. While that genre will attempt to make something of a comeback this fall with the release of Jigsaw other films such as this week's IT re-make (no doubt the reason this trailer is debuting now) and October's Happy Death Day are set to capitalize on pure terror and (hopefully) some intelligently positioned social satire. Though Insidious: The Last Key may not have a primed for quality release date with that first weekend in January this is a release date that has somewhat become synonymous with cheap, but profitable scary movies over the last few years with the likes of The Devil Inside and The Forest. While I'm hoping The Last Key will prove to be of better quality than those films I like having something in January to look forward to and if this first-look trailer is any indication it seems writer/star Leigh Whannell (who directed the third installment) and new director to the franchise Adam Robitel (a writer on Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension) have a real grasp on what they wanted to do with this film in terms of taking the series in a new, bold direction and, if nothing else, that's reason to be excited as I've been a fan of the Insidious series from the beginning despite the last installment feeling like something of a placeholder. While this fourth outing doesn't boast any "names" outside the return of Lin Shaye's Elise Rainer it is Elise that will seemingly take center stage here as she's been the connective tissue throughout much of the previous three films this time taking on her most fearsome and personal haunting yet in her own family home. Insidious: The Last Key also stars Angus Sampson, Josh Stewart, Caitlin Gerard, Kirk Acevedo, Javier Botet, Bruce Davison, Spencer Locke, Tessa Ferrer, Ava Kolker, Marcus Henderson, and opens on January 5th, 2018.

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3 Review

There is something to be said for a scary movie that can make you legitimately feel chills in the dead of summer. Granted, summer doesn't actually begin until June 21st, but as the third chapter in the Insidious saga somewhat oddly comes to us on the first weekend of June rather than in the midst of fall I was rather cautious as to if this release date was more a strategy to cover up the lack of quality with the excitement of summer or if it was simply time for Insidious to play with the boys of summer. Due to the fact director James Wan, who guided the first two films in the series to great success before taking on Furious 7, exited and both the scripting and directing duties were handed over to Wan's longtime collaborator, Leigh Whannell there was reason to be hesitant. It certainly seems Whannell has at least been paying attention and taking notes since the two first collaborated on Saw over a decade ago as Insidious: Chapter 3 is a sufficient if not significant piece of horror that does its job in terms of getting you to jump at the right time while adding depth to some of the more interesting characters in the previous two films. The downfalls aren't so much downfalls in that they make the movie any worse than it might have been, but more in the fact they simply allow the film to be adequate and exactly what one would expect without striving to be anything more. This makes for a rather pleasant viewing experience that fulfills expectations and plays into ones predictions for how things may go, but unlike Chapter 2 it doesn't delve narratively into new territory, but more recreates the first film with a new set of characters that just so happens to take place prior to the events that occurred in the Lambert household. Lin Shaye is your connective strand as psychic Elise Rainer tough she is hardly the central character. What is more disappointing than anything is that this third film doesn't take on the story that was hinted at in the end of Chapter 2 that might again deal with the red-faced demon from the original, but instead seems to be saving that for the fourth film inevitably making Chapter 3 feel like little more than a footnote.

First Trailer for INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3

While I always hope for folks to stop while they're ahead, when you're making as much money as the folks behind Insidious are and spending so little to make them, it is hard to argue their point. I enjoyed much of the first Insidious back in 2011 though I thought it fell apart somewhat in the last act while last years sequel was surprisingly coherent throughout and superior in both execution and scares in my opinion. I actually enjoyed Chapter 2 more than I did director James Wan's other horror feature last year, The Conjuring. All of that said, the conclusion of Chapter 2 certainly left the story open for more investigations and so Leigh Whannell, who wrote the screenplay for both the original and its follow-up, has taken the reigns here from Wan who went on to make the seventh Fast & Furious film. Whannell both wrote and makes his directorial debut with this third chapter and has set it around the haunting of a family that predates the events of the first two films surrounding the Lambert family. It will be interesting to see where Whannell takes things as he will no longer have to restrict his narrative to one particular case, but will seemingly branch out and delve into more of Lin Shaye's characters adventures. Along with Shaye and Whannell, Angus Sampson also returns for this third outing while new cast members include Dermot Mulroney and Stefanie Scott. Insidious: Chapter 3 is set to open May 29, 2015.

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 Review

Would it be farcical to say I found the second chapter of James Wan's Insidious films to be more frightening than his runaway summer hit, The Conjuring? Most people seem to have found that film to be the breakout horror flick they've been waiting for to rejuvenate the genre, but while it was a nice exercise in the standard set-ups of haunted house flicks Wan and his creative team have found a way to make a film that both legitimately continues the story from the first film while providing authentic scares that are hard to come by these days with Insidious: Chapter 2. It is important to know that I very much enjoyed the first film, but was somewhat disappointed in what direction it decided to go. I thought the first half was well staged and set up an interesting dynamic between Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne's husband and wife that had them going down a path they never saw their lives taking after their oldest son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), slips into a coma for no apparent reason. That these fears and unexpected turns were amplified by the fact there was clearly something creepy going on with their made for an eloquent yet horrific family haunting. The scares were blunt and startling, but they never took over the sense of care we developed for the family at least until the last half hour of the film when it went into overdrive and just piled on the people in mountains of make-up and gothic costumes to the point it was more humorous than scary. I didn't buy into the strangeness of "the further" as it seemed too great a tonal shift from the quieter, grey-hued family study I thought we were getting that would elicit fear from the presented scenario. With all of that in mind I went into this second chapter with none too high expectations, but a good amount of interest as at least the first film gave us a cliffhanger of an ending that we could hold out hope for something to justify the weirdness that the latter half of the first film introduced. For me, Chapter 2 did more than justify the need for explanation as it delivers both plenty of new elements while cleverly revealing reasoning for some of the questions left over from the first one. Not to mention being one of, if not the scariest theater experiences I've had in a long time.