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Winston ★★★˝
Solid mood piece by Aram Sarkisian on isolation, madness and paranoia.
Nice touch to make it an animated film as well.
The Camp Host 2024 ★★˝
Based on the cover and the synopsis, I expected more of a run of the mill slasher.
Now it's a bit better than that and the two main characters do get a bit of a character arc. But it contains enough bollocks to make it a fitting Tubi-original.
With a at times suitably campy performance by Brooke Johnson, and Rachel Colwell has a future in the genre.
Not bad for a Tubi-original.
The Fall Guy 2024 ★★★★
The Fall Guy was a very entertaining romance action flick with for me a vibe that felt a lot of its contemparies from the eighties. Romancing the stone and Jewel of the Nile being the first that come to mind.
First of all, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have great chemistry and both deliver excellent performances. Between the charming meet cutes and the silly action banter, they alone make it worth the price of admission.
The stunts are well done and at least feel more practical than CGI. *insert cheapish rant about CGI cheap and lazy and the work of Satan and yeah, there's some truth to it, but... good God* I also appreciated the overt ode to stunt people and how they are still ignored by the academy, even though they often literally put their life on the line for their craft.
Another thing I wanted to point out was the humour. A lot of rollercoaster action flicks of this kind tend to go for easy and lame jokes and groanworthy puns. This one did not give that impression. The jokes landed and even made for some laugh out loud-moments, like the whole Jean-Claude bit with the dog. Was that supposed to be a Van Damme-joke?
Only time I noticed this was a remake was at the end credits, when they played the original theme song and mentioned the cameo for Lee Majors. Otherwise, this movie stands on its own and it looks good at it.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 2024 ★★★
Easiest full circle review in a while: a solid mainstream production.
A few scares were well executed and Madeleine Petsch and what's his face make for good leads. The killers – aka Betty Boop, Burlap Sack Jason and Baby Shark (duh duuh – duh duhduh duuh) – look better than in the original and the editing and the cinematography work in the movie's favour. Kudos to Renny Harlin there. First scenes that come to mind are the cheeseburger bit and the scene in the crawlspace. Ending with a serious whoopsie Daisy moment.
Does that mean it's all great? Nah. It is after all mainstream horror. So for one thing, the quality of the connection depends pretty heavily on the mood of thre screenwriter. Of course, we get a pretty on the nose “he's too good for us”-line and some other mainstream horror silliness and ditto bollocks.
It is my understanding that this supposed to be part 1 of a trilogy with parts 2 and 3 coming either later this year or even next year. Turning this story into a three parter is certainly off a big chunk or possibly more than the makers can chew. But for now, they get the benefit of the doubt. Make this the more psychological “warm up”, take some time in part 2 to add some more characters, rack up a bit more of a body count and then three part 3 as the big climax. Where the latest Halloween-trilogy could have gone.
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