Director: Luca Guadagnino Starring: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny Certificate: 15 Run Time: 139 mins
After The Hunt is the new Luca Guadagnino film, who has been rather prolific with Bones And All, Challengers and Queer all releasing over the last three years. His latest is a psychological thriller starring Julia Roberts as Alma, a Yale University professor who lives with her psychiatrist husband, Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg). The film opens as they’re hosting a dinner party and in attendance are Alma’s colleague, Hank (Andrew Garfield) and Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), her top PhD student. Soon after, Alma finds herself trickily caught in between a sexual abuse accusation involving the two.
After The Hunt is another stylish work from Luca Guadagnino, but there’s no denying its script and story are very flawed. Debut screenwriter Nora Garrett’s script is very wordy and expository, with characters speaking unnaturally – it’s a rewrite short of success. There are also some contrivances to the story, but I was able to overlook these because the film is always entertaining. Your patience may vary though because of the film’s unsubtle provocative themes and I totally see why it’s getting mixed reviews.
Julia Roberts makes for an engaging lead as the college professor, fighting to stay on top of her worsening health problems, her university tenure and the awkward question of who to side with within the accusation. Ayo Edebiri is more than a match for Roberts as the PhD student who’s come from a family of riches. I’m not sure whether I’d say they’re good, but Andrew Garfield and Michael Stuhlbarg both certainly make an impression as Hank and Frederik. A scene with Garfield chowing down on an Indian meal is particularly memorable as he gives his account to Alma, while Stuhlbarg’s performance as the husband is uncharacteristically overripe.
The film’s very handsomely shot by Malik Hassan Sayeed, his first cinematographer credit since 1998 and there’s a fittingly prickly score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Although overripe, their score does quite a lot of the heavy lifting in ensuring there’s tension – but I’d say the film loses some of its steam as it heads into its final act and an overly indulgent coda.
While After The Hunt isn’t Luca Guadagnino’s best work, there’s no denying it’s a film that only he could have made with its provocative messages and sexually-charged execution. The script is this film’s biggest issue and I think it’d be just as effective if it were 20 minutes shorter, too, but still there’s plenty to like and I was never bored.
Director: Scott Derrickson Starring: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, Demián Bichir, Ethan Hawke Certificate: 18 Run Time: 114 mins
Black Phone 2 is a sequel to the 2021 Ethan Hawke-starring original – my best film of 2022, but one that wasn’t screaming for a sequel with its coherent and well-contained story. Horror maestro Scott Derrickson returns to direct – the first time he’s done so, after he’d left Sinister 2 and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for others to take the helm – and writer C. Robert Cargill is back too.
Despite Ethan Hawke’s serial killer villain meeting a very definitive end at the end of The Black Phone, this sequel picks up four years after the original. Finney Blake (Mason Thames) is struggling to adjust to normal life, turning to fighting and abuse to repress his trauma. His younger sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) begins having dreams where she sees murders that happened at Alpine Lake Camp 25 years prior and receives a call from her mother in one of them. She convinces Finney and her friend Ernesto to travel to the camp to investigate, and as you might expect, all hell breaks loose once they arrive.
Black Phone 2 is a mixed bag – Derrickson is to be commended for making a sequel that doesn’t simply retread the original’s beats, but it lacks the simplicity that made the first a horror classic. The second half fares much better than the first and it’s stylishly directed by Derrickson. The decision to shoot Gwen’s dream sequences in 16mm home-video is an excellent choice, the grainy aesthetics adding an unsettling quality, which Derrickon is no stranger to given he used a similar technique in Sinister. Cinematographer Pär M. Ekberg beautifully captures the menacing mountains and foreboding frozen lake too, and there’s a chilling synth-based score by Atticus Derrickson, the director’s son.
While the script isn’t terrible, I don’t think Derrickson and Cargill quite cracked how to tell the film’s story in as simple a way as the original. The first half is surprisingly incoherent at times and there’s some contrivances you have to get around too. While Derrickson crafts an unsettling atmosphere, I struggled to fully immerse myself in the film because the story just doesn’t flow very well. Things improve in the second half once the film reveals its hand of where it’s going, and it then rattles along at a good pace towards the finale. But I can’t say I was ever frightened and I didn’t
Mason Thames gives yet another compelling performance, but this is really Madeline McGraw’s film because her character is central to proceedings. While she was the undoubtedly highlight of the first film, her performance doesn’t quite capture lightning in a bottle in the same way because there’s less at stake this time round. Ethan Hawke is reliably excellent, but he also gets less to work with this time round. Series newcomersDemián Bichir and Arianna Rivas are both excellent though, Bichir as the supervisor of the Alpine Lake camp in a role with many similarities to his performance in The Hateful Eight, and Rivas plays his daughter, Mustang.
While Black Phone 2 deserves praise for not being a straightforward rehash and there’s no denying it’s well-directed by Scott Derrickson, it’s a shame this film doesn’t have the same calibre of storytelling. The Black Phone was such a success because of how confidently it told a simple story, and this sequel trips over itself a bit, especially in the first half. But enough’s enough now – Black Phone 2 isn’t a failure to the point it stains my opinion of the original, but it’s certainly a step down.
Director: Derek Cianfrance Starring: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Ben Mendelsohn, Lakeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Peter Dinklage Certificate: 15 Run Time: 126 mins
Roofman is the new film by Derek Cianfrance, best known for directing Blue Valentine and the excellent The Place Beyond The Pines. His first film since the decidedly average The Light Between Oceans all the way back in 2016, Roofman is a crime comedy about real-life robber Jeffrey Manchester, who hid in a Toys “R” Us after escaping prison. He survived on kids’ snacks and baby food, exercising during the night when the store was closed by riding a bike through the aisles – yes, really! Channing Tatum plays the divorced US Army Veteran turned outrageous robber and the film marks a change of pace for Cianfrance, given his previous films have been very serious.
Roofman is a real romp of a time that deftly balances the sheer absurdity of Manchester’s antics with a minor-key sadness and excellent character development. Channing Tatum brings plenty of charisma as the intelligent robber who has a knack for noticing the smallest details and I found myself really rooting for him with his warm personality. His burgeoning relationship with Kirsten Dunst’s (also excellent) Toys “R” Us employee, Leigh, is particularly well-developed, with well-earned cringeworthy moments as he starts to integrate himself into her dysfunctional household and get himself deeper and deeper into a doomed situation. Peter Dinklage is another highlight as Mitch, the Toys “R” Us shop manager and a stickler for the rules.
The film’s missing some of the grit that Cianfrance is best known fork, the director opting for a fuzzily warm tone instead but I wouldn’t say it’s schmaltzy. While that’s fitting for the film, if I hadn’t have known who was in the director’s chair, I wouldn’t have guessed it was Cianfrance if I was watching this blind. Still, Roofman is an easy film to like with its stranger than fiction story and a selection of compelling performances.
Director: Guillermo del Toro Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, Christoph Waltz Certificate: 15 Run Time: 150 mins
Frankenstein is visionary director Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited passion project that he’s been trying to get off the ground since 2007 when he first started crafting concept art. Adapting Mary Shelley’s highly influential 1818 novel certainly plays to the director’s strengths, who has made a career for himself with his grotesque-looking monsters and Gothic imagery. But Del Toro’s last two films have seen the director step away from his comfort zone – Nightmare Alley saw him explore the neo-noir psychological thriller genre and he then teamed up with the late Mark Gustafson for an animated Pinocchio for Netflix. While I liked both films, neither represented Del Toro at his best – Nightmare Alley was rather languorous and I found some of the musical elements of Pinocchio challenging.
Del Toro has once again joined forces with Netflix for Frankenstein and although Doug Jones and Andrew Garfield (and Benedict Cumberbatch was courted at one point) were previously attached to play the monstrous creation, it’s Saltburn‘s Jacob Elordi who undergoes the transformation. Oscar Isaac plays the titular surgeon, who we see being chased by his creation in the opening scenes where he then gets rescued by the Horisont Royal Danish Navy ship that’s trapped in the ice. After the prelude, the film is split between Victor’s and The Creature’s perspectives. Was Del Toro’s passion project worth the lengthy wait?
To a large extent, yes. Frankenstein is a sumptuous Gothic feast with a standout performance from an unrecognisable Jacob Elordi. From a technical perspective, it’s a beautiful-looking film, gracefully shot by Del Toro’s preferred cinematographer Dan Laustsen and I loved the use of symbolic colours, especially the red Frankenstein’s ill-fated mother is bathed in. There’s also a handful of excellent set-pieces, such as the opening chase to the ship, the monster’s creation and a melancholic extended section in a blind man’s home. Alexandre Desplat’s romping score often stands out too, but it’s a shame there isn’t an overarching main theme to latch onto. This is definitely a film to experience on the biggest screen you can find (as I was lucky to do so), and it’s a shame that most will be watching Del Toro’s passion project via the streaming giant.
Although the film’s always entertaining, it never quite soars. Like Nightmare Alley, it’s overlong and the film would have benefitted from having a good 20 to 30 minutes chopped. What became more apparent on the second viewing on the small screen was just how wordy Del Toro’s script is, and some of the dialogue stilts the film.
While Oscar Isaac has turned in some monumental performances in the past, he only does a reasonable job as Frankenstein. This might be because the character’s not particularly likeable, although Del Toro does a great job of portraying his troublesome childhood which kickstarts his scientist’s ambition. Lots of the other characters get short-changed – there’s not much meat to the bone with Mia Goth’s Lady Elizabeth Harlander for whom Victor has feelings, and Christoph Waltz’s wealthy arms manufacturer who gives Victor the tools to make his creation doesn’t receive much development either. As well as Elordi, the always brilliant David Bradley stands out as a blind old man who befriends the creature with a measuredly delicate performance.
While Frankenstein doesn’t rank among Guillermo Del Toro’s best work, there’s plenty to admire here, especially the director’s personal approach to the material. It’s a shame it doesn’t quite soar as many of Del Toro’s other films though, but the film particularly impresses from a technical viewpoint and Jacob Elordi’s brilliant central performance.
Director: Kirk Jones Starring: Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson, Peter Mullan, Scott Ellis Watson Certificate: 15 Run Time: 120 mins
I Swear is a biographical drama that’s based on the true story of John Davidson, who was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome when the disorder wasn’t widely recognised. Davidson lives in Galashiels in Scotland in a working class family and the film follows his unconventional childhood at school through to how he navigates adult life. It’s directed by Kirk Jones, best known for making Waking Ned and Nanny McPhee.
Like Jones’s previous films, I Swear has the same feel-good and infectiously upbeat spirit about it – it may tread familiar biopic territory but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t riveted from start to finish. Jones’s script is full of energy and there’s plenty of laughs to be had – but they are crucially always with the characters rather than at them. The director also doesn’t neglect to include some wince-inducing moments of some of the difficult situations Davidson faces to keep his story grounded – this film really gets you in the feels with its three-dimensional characters.
Robert Aramayo is sensational as the Tourette’s sufferer, who is otherwise a down-to-earth young man who just wants to fit in – this is a far cry from his Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power days. Maxine Peake is also brilliant as Dottie, the mother of one of John’s friends and a former mental health nurse, who takes him under her wing. Shirley Henderson’s reliably excellent as Davidson’s mother, who is clearly stressed out by John’s situation and Peter Mullan shines as Tommy, a caretaker who gives John a job at a local community centre.
Although some may say the film sticks to a somewhat conventional biopic formula, I loved I Swear. It gets the tone just right – compassionate, but never pandering – and the performances are across the board. This is a film that reminds you that people can be good and I guarantee you’ll be leaving the cinema with a smile plastered on your face.
Director: Benny Safdie Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk Certificate: 15 Run Time: 123 mins
The Smashing Machine is a biographical sports drama directed by Benny Safdie, his first time behind the camera without his brother Josh – the duo received acclaim for their collaborations with films such as Heaven Knows What, Good Time and Uncut Gems. Dwayne Johnson stars as former amateur wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, with the film taking place between 1997 and 2000. At the start, he’s yet to lose a match and is being coached by fellow MMA fighter and best friend Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader) while stumbling in and out of drug use before competing against the fearsome Igor Vovchanchyn (Oleksandry Usyk). He also has a complicated relationship with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt).
The Smashing Machine is a fascinating sports biopic with some terrific performances, and hats off to Safdie for deviating from the conventional biopic formula. The film has a cinéma vérité quality to it (not dissimilar from Darren Aronofsky‘s The Wrestler or Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher) and Safdie isn’t afraid to really dive deep into the complicated psyche of the heavyweight star – I was gripped throughout. The fight sequences are authentically brutal and there’s an interesting jazz-infused score by Nala Sinephro.
This is easily the best performance of Dwayne Johnson’s career. He excels as Kerr, and I found it fascinating how he’s often incredibly sweet and polite from the outside, but you know there’s a screw loose that could snap at any moment. He gets Kerr’s mannerisms spot on and I really felt for the character as the odds begin to stack against him, Johnson playing him with a tinge of sadness and regret.But it’s not just Johnson’s film. Emily Blunt is excellent too as his high-maintenance girlfriend who also has her demons, but Ryan Bader stands out as Coleman, who has to balance his own career while trying to keep Kerr under check too.
I suspect The Smashing Machine will largely be shrugged as a film and will be remembered more for Dwayne Johnson’s performance. But that’s a real shame because there’s a lot more going for it and Safdie really succeeds with diving into the inner psyche of the troubled fighter. Some have labelled the story as unremarkable, but that’s exactly the point – this is a film that’s about a fall from greatness and how a complicated individual such as Kerr navigates relationships and mental obstacles. This film really succeeds by looking past the sport’s shimmery gleam and how to accept and make the most of a mundane routine.
Director: Tim Mielants Starring: Cillian Murphy, Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, Simbi Ajikawo, Emily Watson Certificate: 15 Run Time: 108 mins
Steve is a drama that centres around a headteacher of a boarding school for troubled boys called Stanton Wood in 1995. The school is effectively a last chance saloon for the sweary and rowdy boys, instead of prison. The film’s directed by Tim Mielants, who reunites with Cillian Murphy after last year’s Small Things Like These, which I found very overrated. It’s an adaptation of a 2003 novella called Shy by Max Porter (who writes the script here), which was told from the perspective of one of the 16-year-old students, Shy (played here by Jay Lycurgo). For Steve, that shifts to Cillian Murphy’s headteacher. The film opens as we see the very run-down Steve heading to school, where a local news crew are there for the day to film a piece, framing the question whether the teachers are doing good work, or if these boys are a lost cause and the taxpayer shouldn’t be wasting their money on keeping the school going.
Steve is a poignant and engaging film with a standout Cillian Murphy performance, as the weary headteacher battling his own demons. There’s a complexity to how Mileants gets us to side with the teenagers and overstretched staff, and it’s fascinating to see how the film crew take advantage of the situation. This is enunciated by Robrecht Heyvaert’s kinetic cinematography, who disorientingly lenses the school. It’s easy to see straightaway the inevitable conclusion the film barrels towards, but the staff are desperate to make the best of it – if they can’t set these teenagers on the correct course, no-one can.
Outside of the terrific Cillian Murphy performance, Tracey Ullman, Simbi Ajikawo and Emily Watson are all excellent as other teachers – Ullman in particular in an uncharacteristically serious role as the school’s deputy head. There’s some impressionable performances among the teenagers too, with Jay Lycurgo standing out as Shy, with the character describing himself as “angry and bored” when asked to define himself by the news crew in three words. But it’s a shame the character doesn’t have a little more meat to the bone – yes, Mielants clearly portrays him as a complex but lost cause, an individual who recognises what he’s done wrong, but the film could have dug deeper.
Steve is very close to being an excellent film – this is a mature and moving piece with some top-notch performances. It’s great to see Cillian Murphy opting for the smaller types of roles he found his original success from off the back of his Best Actor Oscar win for Oppenheimer. I just wish Steve had a little more ferocity up its sleeve for it to really shine.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti Certificate: 15 Run Time: 162 mins
One Battle After Another is the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, a filmmaker who I have a hit-and-miss relationship with. There Will Be Blood is an undisputed masterpiece, I love both Punch Drunk Love and Phantom Thread, but Magnolia, The Master and Licorice Pizza all left me cold. Anderson’s latest is another adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel (Inherent Vice was his first), although the director has taken some liberties with the source material by incorporating some of his own stories into the narrative.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun, who we meet as a member of a revolutionary far-left group known as the French 75 with his partner Perdifia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). The group has a successful run, but it’s undone by Perfidia’s relationship with the fiersome Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). The film then jumps 16 years later where Pat (now living in hiding as Bob Ferguson) has become a paranoid drug addict who lives with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) off the grid in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross. But Lockjaw is still on their tail.
One Battle After Another is a Paul Thomas Anderson triumph – it’s a giddily exciting action epic with plenty of thrilling surprises up its sleeve. It’s fiersomely original, Anderson constantly subverts expectations in a refreshing way with some outrageous set-pieces too. There’s two heart-racing car chases, with the one in the final act particularly memorable for how simple it is – cinematographer Michael Bauman (who also lensed Licorice Pizza) intercuts between three drivers and a stunning desert vista. A 20-minute extended sequence mid-way through the film where DiCaprio’s character needs to evade the authorities is another wildly entertaining highlight. But under the surface of this riveting story, Anderson has plenty to ruminate on the current state of American affairs but in a playful way with plenty of intelligent humour.
Leonardo DiCaprio is fantastic in the lead, dabbling his hand at comedy once again after his last turn in the underrated Don’t Look Up. Once a sharp and intelligent explosives expert, Anderson gets a lot of mileage out of the character who fries his brain with drugs after 16 years and DiCaprio nails it. Is this one of his best roles? It’s hard to say because the actor is so good in almost everything he’s in.
If there’s an actor who’s a dead-lock for an acting Oscar nomination, it’s going to be Sean Penn, who quite possibly puts in career-best work as the bigoted Colonel Lockjaw. He is utterly ridiculous as the racist military officer, a parody of male machismo with a particularly memorable walk, with Penn deftly balancing physical comedy with a tragicomic storyline for the character. He’s magnificent and would be deserving of a Best Supporting Actor win.
Benicio Del Toro is another standout as a chilled-as-a-cucumber karate teacher, who happens to also be a community leader and he gets many memorable lines – “I’ve had a few small beers” will undoubtedly be a line the actor is going to be remembered for after this film. Finally, Chase Infiniti as Perfidia’s daughter is a terrific find and she’ll find instant stardom after this film.
The film is beautifully shot on VistaVision by Michael Bauman (the second film this year after The Brutalist) – there are so many memorable shots here, and he too would be deserving of awards attention. Jonny Greenwood turns in a sensational score, which is very unconventional but fitting and memorable. The score felt rather alien the first time I watched One Battle After Another, but on a second viewing, it just fits in so seamlessly and it’s straight up there as one of his best works.
One Battle After Another is a near-masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson and it’s certainly his best film since There Will Be Blood. This is a bold, infectiously entertaining epic thriller with a litany of top-quality performances and inventive set-pieces. I’m positive it’s going to be a film that appears on decade-end lists and will be talked about for years to come, and it’ll be hard to resist switching off if it comes on television with its outstanding pacing.
Is One Battle After Another perfect? Not quite. After two viewings, I don’t think the opening 30 minutes quite matches the energy of the rest of the film (but there’s still so many positives, especially a grisly car chase). When the film jumps to 16 years later, the rest of the 162-minute film is just perfectly paced. This is a film where you’ll pick up on subtle character cues or themes every time you rewatch it – it is bursting in spirit and substance. One Battle After Another is worth racing to the cinema for as soon as you can and goes straight up there as one of the best films I’ve seen this year.
Director: Francis Lawrence Starring: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tu Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davies, Joshua Odjick, Judy Greer, Mark Hamill Certificate: 15 Run Time: 108 mins
The Long Walk is an adaptation of the 1979 Stephen King novel (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman) and is set in a future United States under a totalitarian military regime where fifty men compete in an annually televised competition, meant to inspire viewers. There’s a man representing each state and they must walk at a speed of at least three miles per hour – if they fall below and receive three warnings, they’re shot on the spot, with the winner being the final survivor.
Francis Lawrence directs – and you couldn’t ask for a more fitting name at the helm, given he’s directed all of The Hunger Games films (bar the first), where people must also fight to the death. Cooper Hoffman plays Raymond ‘Ray’ Garraty, and the film opens as we see his mother Ginnie (Judy Greer) begging him to back out, but he’s insistent on participating (for reasons we find out later on) and he starts to get to know the other players, forming a close bond Peter ‘Pete’ McVries (David Jonsson).
The Long Walk is an excellent adaptation and Lawrence deftly sustains a chilling and grim tone, but balanced with a humanity in the well-developed characters. The film really makes the most of its simple premise and there’s a sustained sense of dread throughout – if a character wants to tie a shoelace or stop to relieve themselves, they’re naturally going to be doing that at less than three miles an hour. Naturally, the characters move through emotional states as the walk progresses and it’s exciting to see what were adversaries become friends, and vice versa. The film does a great job in forcing you to think that any relationships formed are doomed, given the inevitable’s going to happen. It’s also testament to how strong a story this is when most of the film is just a tracking shot of some characters walking along a road – Lawrence doesn’t use many flashbacks.
Cooper Hoffman makes for an excellent lead, especially once he reveals his motivations and David Jonsson gives a soulful performance as Pete, a character with plenty of meat on the bone too. Charlie Plummer is another standout, who typically plays meek and quiet characters in films such as All The Money In The World and Lean On Pete, but here he plays against type. An almost unrecognisable Mark Hamill is deliciously evil here as The Major, who’s clearly relishing the role as a horrible villain that symbolises everything that’s wrong with society.
Unlike The Hunger Games films where the commentary behind the games is just as compelling as the contest, Lawrence trims the fat from The Long Walk and makes it lean and mean instead. The film doesn’t waste any time in getting started and never wanders into eye-rolling schmaltz, which is an easy trap for a film like this to run into. What’s more, there’s an excellent score by Jeremiah Fraites, who crafts several memorable themes and the film’s well shot by Lawrence’s regular cinematographer Jo Willems, who conveys the expanse and monotonous of the never-ending roads the characters must travel on.
The Long Walk is an excellent Stephen King adaptation in a strong year of them, considering we’ve also had The Monkey, The Life of Chuck and Edgar Wright’s The Running Man remake will be releasing shortly. Lawrence directs this with real flair and the sombre tone and well-rounded characters meant I was fully invested throughout. The Long Walk might be too grim for some, but that’s to its benefit – it makes for powerful viewing.
When director James Wan‘s deeply effective The Conjuring released in 2013, little did anyone think a standalone horror film depicting one of Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cases would spawn into a fully-fledged cinematic universe. Despite a handful of misfires, the series has proven mostly solid spinning an entertaining yarn on the paranormal investigators and the rogue’s gallery of supernatural demons and entities they’ve faced.
With The Conjuring: Last Rites now in cinemas, and supposedly the final outing for Ed and Lorraine Warren, here is my ranking of all the films in The ConjuringUniverse to date. Note I’m including The Curse of La Llorona, which was considered part of the series when it released but then wasn’t in 2021 when director Michael Chaves said it was only intended as “a wink and a nod” to the franchise.
10) Annabelle
Annabelle is unquestionably the worst of the series and has virtually no redeeming qualities to it. Riding off the success of The Conjuring a year before, John R. Leonetti’s spin-off is a blatantly unoriginal, preposterous cash grab that save for one very well orchestrated scare and beautiful cinematography, is a dud. Annabelle lacks any of the sense of dread The Conjuring has and the jump scares are obvious and uninspiring. The cast are uniformly terrible, in particular Ward Horton and the script is cringeworthy. Its ending is particularly offensive where characters make irrational and stupid decisions and I laughed multiple times. It’s a film that looks like it should have gone straight-to-DVD and represented a complete U-turn in quality for the series.
⭐⭐
Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
9) The Nun
The Nun is an absolute trainwreck – the film is edited extremely badly, its overreliance on jump scares mean it isn’t scary and the story is borderline incoherent. However, unlike Annabelle, there are some redeeming qualities to The Nun.
Director Corin Hardy is clearly a horror aficionado which shows in the film’s cineliteracy (there are allusions to some of the Hammer horror films for instance) and the film is quite atmospheric and establishes a chilling setting. For instance, there are some breathtaking shots of the exteriors of the monastery which really portray the grandeur and influence it has on its characters. This is by far, the most frightening aspect of the film and leaves a lot to audience interpretation. It’s strange then that Hardy resorts to jump scares, which are all poor and there is not a single memorable one in the film. It’s also strange that Hardy chooses to punish the characters in the worst possible way towards the beginning of the film. There is an extended sequence where a character is stuck in a grave, which is a horrifying scenario but anything that happens to this character afterwards is never as bad. Surely, this sequence would have worked better towards the end of the film? Despite these fatal mis-steps, all of Hardy’s good work in the film’s atmosphere is undone and squandered by how the film has been edited. Every scene films too brief and this really hinders in creating a creepy atmosphere. Somewhere here is a good enough film, but the way it has been edited completely undermines this and this results in The Nun ultimately being very disappointing.
The Nun 2 represents an improvement over the original with better storytelling and coherent editing but still suffers from its fair share of problems. Director Michael Chaves makes a stronger effort to give the characters an arc, it’s slickly shot and edited and the second half is entertaining in places. However, the jump scares aren’t particularly effective and the first hour is quite tedious, as Sisters Irene and Debra (Taissa Farmiga and Storm Reid) try to catch up with the fact Valak (Bonnie Aaron) has possessed Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) which we learnt at the end of the previous film. The script is quite clunky and there’s some inexcusable exposition, a seemingly all-knowing librarian the nuns meet in their investigation who conveniently happens to know all the particulars of a Macguffin device they need and exactly how to defeat the demon is incredibly lazy. A revelatory line in the film’s climax relating to a mother’s eyes is also unintentionally laughable. It’s also a shame Storm Reid’s character is underdeveloped following a potentially interesting introduction and Anna Popplewell’s unconvincing Irish accent is distracting.
While The Conjuring: Last Rites isn’t a bad film, it’s a disappointing ending to the mainline series. Director Michael Chaves veers between an overly schmaltzy tone in how the relationship between a now grown-up Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and Tony (Ben Hardy) develops, and also the relationship between Ed and Lorraine Warren, with sub-par horror. The decision to revert back to the haunted house formula is a bad one, with Chaves lacking James Wan’s mastery in the scares department. While there’s semblances of tension here and there, he doesn’t create a palpable atmosphere of dread like Wan does. There’s a couple of good scares – one involving pausing a videotape and another in a room of mirrors, but the rest are rather underwhelming. Nothing here is on the scale of the tremendous scene from the first film of two children frozen in fear of something that may or may not be behind a door. Chaves unfortuantely also succumbs to many bouts of fan service and in an age of legacy sequels, he leaves the door open by setting Judy and Tony as successors to their parents – Ben Hardy’s Tony essentially performs the same function as Shia La Boeuf’s Mutt in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While The Conjuring: Last Rites is supposedly the end for Ed and Lorraine Warren for now, nothing’s really the end but I hope whatever’s next in store for the series has some more thought and care put into it.
The third film in the Annabelle trilogy isn’t as effective as the second but writer Gary Dauberman’s directorial debut has a lot going for it. Dauberman’s film is the first spin-off to feature the Warren’s and is effectively a horror-spin on Night At The Museum as Judy Warren (Mckenna Grace) and her babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) inadvertently release Annabelle’s spirit in the artifacts room. The storyline is solid, but the film’s not particularly scary and rather empty in feeling.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
5) The Curse of La Llorona
Only loosely tied to The Conjuring Universe, Michael Chaves’ directorial debut is based on the Latin American folklore of La Llorona, a vengeful ghost who roams near bodies of water mourning her children who she drowned in a jealous rage after discovering her husband was cheating on her. Although Chaves doesn’t make the most of the absorbing background story, the film is still an entertaining watch with a handful of effective scares. He does a good job of establishing Anna (Linda Cardellini) and her children and the film is crisply shot by Michael Burgess.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
4)The Conjuring 2
The Conjuring 2 isn’t as strong as the first film – it is overlong which severely impacts the pacing and just isn’t quite as interesting a story as the first one was. However, horror-maestro James Wan delivers in spades on the scare-front and the film has some truly frightening sequences and there are also some great performances from the cast. Only Wan could have made or been given permission to make this film as 134 minutes for a horror film is uncommonly long and whilst there is a lot of character development (and self-indulgence), 20 minutes could fairly easily have been chopped off and the film would almost be as strong as the original. This is definitely its main problem which is to its detriment. The film bears many similarities to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and there are a couple of moments where the film leaves a bit of a sour taste as it reiterates many of the clichéd elements of superior horror films. Coming off a near-perfect original, it’s a shame The Conjuring 2 isn’t a knock-out, but that was always going to be impossible and there is still a lot to like in this film.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It represents a welcome change of direction compared to the first two films in that it delves from the haunted house formula and is more of a police procedural crime thriller. The story the film is based on is riveting, even if some creative liberties have been taken with it for it to fit the horror genre. The performances are all excellent, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the Warren’s again are the centrepiece of the franchise and the film expands and revolves around their strong relationship. James Wan is not behind the camera this time around, with The Curse of La Llorona’s Michael Chaves inheriting the mantle. Chaves’ direction attempts to ape Wan’s from the use of title cards and a prologue sequence at the beginning to the general tone of the film. However, when it comes to the horror aspect of the film, Chaves just does not craft the scares in as sophisticated a fashion as Wan. I was riveted from start to finish but there is always the question of what if this film had been directed by James Wan and I think if had, the result here would have been extraordinary. If the film doubled down on its scares or chose to eliminate them completely and spent longer developing its characters and establishing the stakes, this could have been a masterpiece.
Annabelle: Creation is a marked improvement over its predecessor and is suitably scary, features good character development and is shot beautifully by cinematographer Maxime Alexandre. It also ties itself nicely into the wider universe but not enough to detract from the film – director David F. Sandberg still manages to satisfy on a standalone level. One must applaud Sandberg for having a go at crafting many different types of scares and seeing what sticks and there are several sequences which are superbly crafted. Unfortunately, the film does stick to convention at times and there are a few sections bordering on comedy but it is so, so much better than its predecessor in every level. When the film works, it’s superb and it’s nice and tightly paced. It’s astounding how much of a shift in quality this is from the first film which had no hope.
The Conjuring is by far and away the best film in the series and also represents a career best for director James Wan, which this film really helped to propel his career. The film is suitably scary, very atmospheric and has a fascinating narrative. Wan develops the characters superbly, in particular Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, who are great as The Warren’s. Although the scares aren’t the most original, it’s in the execution which allows this film to really deliver and some of the set pieces in this film are mesmerising. The Conjuring is a film that is even better on rewatches and when we come back to look on the horror genre in the 2010’s, this film will definitely be remembered.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
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The Film Meister 