From the visionary director that brought us Pan's Labyrinth comes another creepy and yet heartwarming film.  The Shape of Water is a lovely portrayal of a forbidden love between a creature and a human.  The plotline is spectacular, balancing the heavy-hitting politics of communist Russia and the United States in the 1960s and the science-fiction creature that drives the love story forward.  The tone is classy, with a jazz-inspired score that brings the audience back to the 60s.  The story is relatable to any time period, but the 60s backdrop makes it even more interesting.

Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim) never ceases to create beautiful effects for his visionary films.  The imagery throughout The Shape of Water is consistently fluid and spectacular.  There is one scene where we get to see two raindrops dance around on a bus window, acting as a metaphor for the story unfolding on screen.  There is blood and gore involved, but only the necessary amount for us to enter the world that the screenwriters have created.  This is not a film for children, but for a mature audience that can handle the darkness of a spy thriller and the nudity that comes with a full love story.  To gently push the audience through the film, Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech, Argo, The Queen, Philomena) contributes a smooth score that juggles between intensity and charm.  The orchestral score fits with every single scene, settling and unsettling the audience at certain times.

I would go amiss without acknowledging the cast members that bring the story to life.  Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) easily gives the best performance of the year with her portrayal of a mute janitor.  While she cannot talk, there is emotion behind every sign that she gives.  Alongside Hawkins, Doug Jones (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) plays a fantastic sea monster.  Rounding out the cast, Michael Shannon (Midnight Special) is a scarily bigoted villain.  This is the big bad role that Shannon has perfected throughout his career.  Finally, the support for the main roles are brought to the screen by three well-seasoned actors.  Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station), Richard Jenkins (Step Brothers), and Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me by Your Name​) are all great additions to the film.  Overall, this is a top-notch cast brought together to create a top-notch film.

The Bottom Line: The Shape of Water certainly deserves all of the Oscar-buzz that it is receiving because of its tender and yet unsettling approach at a love story.

Score: 9.7/10

Image credit: ​By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54631984

I went into Happy Death Day with some low expectations, even though the reviews have been mostly positive for the film.  Happy Death Day mixes one of my least favorite genres of film with a formulaic storyline that I have always struggled to enjoy.  As a horror film director, Christopher Landon (Disturbia) uses a whole lot of jump scares to try and get the audience out of their seats.  Yet, almost all of the jumpscares are easily predictable and often not scary at all. 

Another issue I have with this film is that I've always struggled to enjoy the use of a constantly repeating storyline, which is one of the main premises of Happy Death Day.  Once you've seen the plot recur three or four times, it starts to drag the film down more and more.  A runtime of one hour and thirty-six minutes feel more like a two hour film because of the repetitive filmmaking.  Furthermore, this convention has been done a lot in film, from Groundhog Day to Edge of Tomorrow.  I'm not sure if it has been used for horror before this film, but it still seems like it's been overused.

Happy Death Day also tries to entertain audiences with a comedic script, but the jokes fall flat with immaturity.  Nothing is too clever, but rather plays on sexual innuendos and valley girl-esque speeches.  As the lead actress, Jessica Rothe (La La Land​) is good enough to handle the eye-rolls and head nods necessary for the role.  There is no real emotion in any of the characters with a completely surface-level development for some of them.  They act their own parts, but there really isn't anything worthy of a rewatch.  

The Bottom Line: Happy Death Day plays well for younger audiences that don't require much depth for a late night feature.

Score: 4/10

In Gerald's Game, what starts off as a relaxing get-away for a middle-aged couple turns into something completely unexpected.  The trailer for this film had me intrigued for the new Stephen King (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Shining, Pet Sematary) adaptation.  I cannot relate to the book since I have not read it, but either King's writing is crazy or Mike Flanagan's (Oculus) adaptation is weird as heck.  For most of the film, I was on board with what was going on.  However, there are some parts that are a bit too fake to be scary.  In fact, I found a lot of the horror aspects to be funny.  Gerald's Game is very similar to Misery, but with more paranormality and a less believable storyline.

There are two main characters in this story, Gerald and Jessie.  As Gerald, Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek) creates an interesting character that is hard to judge at times and has some depth throughout the whole film.  As Jessie, I found that Carla Gugino's (Night at the Museum, Watchmen, Sin City) performance was too exaggerated.  In the situations that she is put through, I don't think that anyone would have reacted in the same way that her character does.  Certain parts of her role are believable, but the first half of the film feels overacted.

Overall, Gerald's Game has ideas that are hard to figure out at first.  The ending has twists that are not easily resolved through a first viewing.  I'm glad with some of the choices that Flanagan executed in his direction, but there is some CGI that is inexplicably bad.  I understand that the film would be a complete bore without some of the horror conventions used, but I wish that more of the budget was spent on them.  This is the first Mike Flanagan film that I've seen and I believe he still has some potential for growth as a horror filmmaker.

The Bottom Line:  Don't expect to be jumping out of your chair throughout the film, but there are some ideas that might keep you awake at night pondering.

Score: 6.5/10

Image credit: ​By "Pinguino" - "Pinguino's" flickr account, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1774637

Quite a while ago I saw Pat Healy in the film Cheap Thrills and I knew that this was an actor with potential.  In Carnage Park, Healy returns to the big screen as a psychopath who entertains himself by shooting people in his territory with a sniper rifle.  The story is more complex than the previous sentence, but that's the basic idea.  Healy does a good job as a the maniacal shooter, but unfortunately the film comes off as boring, repetitive, and oddly-toned.

According to the film, this is a true story that occurred.  Honestly, the story is really weird and messed up but the movie lacks any sort of uniqueness.  The film relies heavily on jump-scares and again I will reiterate that this convention is the main reason I hate modern horror films.  I mean come on, there are so many better ways to create a horror film that don't rely on the audience always having to be ready for a loud noise and a flash of action.  Yet even when Carnage Park moves away from using jump scares, which it very briefly does, the horror aspects are less scary as they are just weird and annoying.  

My final criticism for the film is the tone.  Clearly this is a midnight film which relies on a cult tone, but scenes that could have been comedic fall flat in the film.  Oddly, the first half of Carnage Park goes for a Tarantino-esque style of story-telling.  The problem is that Tarantino films have their style for a reason whereas Carnage Park has no reason for telling the story the way that it does.  If you want a comedy horror film, actually add some humor to the mix and actually make the film enjoyable.

The Bottom Line: This one is pretty much a repetitive bore which can only pride itself in casting Pat Healy using him as an extremely boring character.

Score:  4/10

Now that Christmas is over, you probably think that you already have all your gifts.  You thought wrong, here is my review of Krampus:

On December 25, 2015 I had the pleasure of watching this film in theaters.  I must say that it is and isn't what I expected.  I expected the odd CGI that was involved, but I did not expect the sort of quality that the film had.  Also, I expected to be bored of the film within twenty minutes, but the film felt as short as twenty minutes.  As you all know I am not the biggest horror fan around, but horror comedy is a different story.  Krampus had a few jump scares here and there, but overall the film knew what it was trying to be.  Odd interjections of comedy in the fashion of Troll 2 created a laughable, but also creepy product.  Nonetheless, I did like the film for what it was.

Also, the cast was fun to watch with Adam Scott as a father, Toni Collette as a mother, that one creepy actress who played the grandmother, and David Koechner as every other character he usually is.  To be honest, it seems to me that Koechner always plays the same exact role.  This is a shame because he is such a great actor.  I hope he eventually ends up in a situation similar to Steve Carell, where he can get some serious drama roles and show everyone just how talented he really is.  With that little rant on David Koechner, I will leave you guys to watch the film yourselves.  Let me know what you think in the comments below if you want to. 

The Bottom Line: This is a fun horror comedy that could easily have a cult following if it were just a bit lower budgeted in production.

​Score: 6/10

In the 1980s, Wes Craven created one of the most iconic horror characters ever.  Freddy Kreuger is shrouded with mystery as a character who disturbs his victims in the dream world.  Craven was certainly a genius horror film maker whose legacy has lived on through time.  Unlike most modern horror films, A Nightmare on Elm Street moves beyond the basic jump-scare horror convention.  Rather, the film creates a mesh between reality and dream.  For me, this is a film that is more fun to watch than many other horror films.

This film stands out as a classic, but clearly has some dated aspects to it.  A lot of the effects are based on creating a creepy character.  Kreuger is made to be a repulsive creature with burn marks and other oddities.  Certainly I was disgusted by much of the character model, but some of it just seemed out right creepy.  Often, Kreuger seemed more like a pedophile than he did a killer.

I think I am going to finish up this review with a short rant on why horror films do not appeal to me very much.  The last horror film I saw in theaters was The Babadook and I loved it, but I just cannot help but notice that contemporary horror films are not made with quite as much attention to detail as other genres often are.  Most of them just go on jump-scare tangents that get boring to me after a while.  In film history, there have been many horror films that I have enjoyed because they reach a broader approach.  For example, The Shining is a brilliant horror film because it brings in a brilliant soundtrack, engaging cast, and Kubrick's amazing direction.  I just wish that the genre would turn back to its roots and strive to create better films than Paranormal Activity and Annabelle.

The Bottom Line: Wes Craven creates a memorable character that lives on in the horror genre.

Score: 7/10

In the October update, I claimed that I am not a fan of the horror genre.  However, certain horror films do pull me further into the genre, making me want to explore it more.  The Host is a film that transcends the use of constant jump-scares by using many different horror conventions.  This film struck me with its mixture of different techniques used to creep out the audience, but also to help them connect to the characters.  The main characters work very well together to form a dysfunctional family that must unite to save one of its members.  The difference in characters gives the film a comedic value at times, while staying in the horror genre.  Personally, I thought that the use of comedy and drama created a more well-rounded horror film.

Like most horror films, the soundtrack created a lot of the tension, while adding a dramatized storyline.  The music shifts from themes that could be heard in a Hitchcock film to dense string melodies.  The tenser music helps the director to create the creepy monster, while helping add to the audience's fear.  Yet, the string melodies add the emotion for the film.  Overall, Byung-woo Lee adds the right kind of music at the exact right times.

A lot of the camerawork gives the audience a view of a more terrifying world in which monsters and viruses are on the loose.  In one scene, the camera angle is tilted to the side, creating an unstable and uncomfortable feeling.  Also, slow motion is used often to create more tensity as the audience tries to catch up with the quick sea-monster.  The one thing I didn't like about the film is the actual monster.  To me, the model seemed really fake and lame.  I expected to see a bigger creature terrorizing the giant crowd of people at the beginning.  Maybe I am just too used to modern special effects though.

The Bottom Line: This film uses an odd grouping of characters, differing music selections, and creative camerawork in order to keep the story going at a good pace.

​Score: 8.5/10