Tag Archives: digital retribution

Thanksgiving (2023)

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THANKSGIVING (2023)

We all though it was silly throw away trailer thrown into the middle of the two features in the Rodriguez/ Tarantino two-for-one film Grindhouse from 2007, but in actual fact, Thanksgiving has been a simmering and festering idea hidden within the brain of Eli Roth and his friend from school, Jeff Rendell like a tasty walnut stuffing since they were kids.

Today, I am giving thanks to the fact that in 2023 it became a full feature, with the scenes from the trailer intact albeit refilmed with the new cast.

A year after a horrifying Black Friday sales that went horribly wrong that saw a local championship baseball hopeful, Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks) having his pitching arm injured and the store manager’s wife, Amanda (Gina Gershon) brutally killed by shoppers rioting to get the best deals, a killer emerges.

Whilst the owner of the shop, Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman), got of scott-free due to the security cameras conveniently not working, a killer dressed as a pilgrim has decided to take out those who committed crimes on that night and didn’t pay, and via social media, is tagging his potential victims at a dinner table being set for a thanksgiving dinner that slowly is being filled with their victims.

This of course puts a group of young friends who were there that night on edge, mainly because they were already in the store due to one of them, Jessica (Nell Verlaque), being the daughter of the store owner, and this incensed the crowd out the front who saw them inside.

Local sheriff, Eric Newton (Patrick Dempsey) is on the case with his new deputy, but as the body count rises, so too does the suspect list… who is the pilgrim serial killer?

I’ve always been a fan of Eli Roth. I liked Cabin Fever and Hostel, even though I’m not one of those ‘horror bros’ that his fans are accused of being… well, I don’t think I am… and for me, this trailer was the best one of the Grindhouse ones.

The story of this film is as ridiculous as the 80s slashers it emulates, and there’s a couple of nice tidbits of homages that show some respect to the history of horror that Roth love throwing into his films.

The violence and gore is surprising as one would expect in a Roth film also, but occasionally its quite shocking and as much as I hate to admit it, it occasionally has a sense of fun and silliness which takes the edge of just how extreme it is.

The look of the serial killers outfit is iconic as well. Sure its a traditional pilgrim look but it has a stark look on it face that makes it terrifying. Also, the film takes the idea of a mass market Halloween mask, like Michael Myers for example, and puts it on everyone in the town so the killer can hide in plain site, and what is even better, during a thanksgiving parade scene, it completely turns that idea on its head which I can’t describe here without a massive spoiler.

The reveal at the end is fun and upon a second viewing, like a decent giallo even, it does show you on several occasions who is the killer with blatant hints, which is great.

The film also doesn’t not ignore the fact that mobile phones exist, and even plays on the gross trans of influencers and the dumb stuff done for clout and likes.

All in all i really enjoyed this film. The gore effects were silly and effective, the story was surprisingly engaging, some of the stars were surprising (Patrick Dempsey… really?!?) and it all made for an all over fun watch.

Disc: There is a great bunch of extras on this disc.

The first one is Behind the Screams, which is the usual blah blah blah self love masturbatory short where the cast and crew can rub each other’s rhubarbs. This is no different; its just a few brief comments from the gang that worked on the film squeezed together in a 4 minute MTV collection of sound bytes.

Gobble Gobble Gore Galore looks at special effects artist Adrian Morot’s work on the film… his sickeningly realistic work on the film!! It’s just another short piece but i like special effects so i like it.

Outtakes are what it says on the box. As usual, I am sure they are far more funny to the cast and crew in them rather than us.

There is a Commentary with Eli Roth and Jeff Rendell which is almost wholesome in the affection that these two lifelong friends have not just for the horror genre but also for each other. It is as much a commentary on their lives as it is on the film.

Deleted, extended and alternate scenes has about 35 minutes worth of footage that the film didnt need, and I probably didn’t need to watch.

Massachusetts Movies: Eli and Jeff’s Early Films can be watched with or without commentary by Roth and Rendell, and is some films they made at school which don’t have much for we, the viewer, in them, but there certainly are some fond memories with the commentary.

Film: 7/10

Disc: 7/10

Rewatch : 8/10

Imaginary (2024)

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IMAGINARY (2024)

The cover to the Australia DVD release.

I think most people had an imaginary friend when they were children. I know I had one, though apparently mine was a different experience to most. I had my imaginary friend from the ages of 13 to 16, and instead of being an elf or a teddy bear, mine was a 27 year old blonde Bulgarian single mother of two with a voracious sexual appetite.

… but enough about me and teenage fantastical and onto the fantasies of writer and director of Imaginary, Jeff Wadlow, the director who also gave us the perfectly average but forgettable Truth or Dare from 2018 and a slasher from 2005 called cry_wolf, mostly forgotten except for the fact it starred Jon Bon Jovi as an educator.

It also had my then-horror movie crush Lindy Booth.

DeWanda Wise as Jessica

Imaginary starts with children’s author Jessica Barnes (DeWanda Wise) having a nightmare about a giant spider perusing her through a house, ironically in a scene similar to a children’s book she has written called Molly Millipede and the Blue Door.

She awakes with her partner, Max (Tom Payne) and they make the decision to move a few days early back to her childhood house, with his two daughters, Taylor (Taegan Burns) and Alice (Pyper Braun), the house now vacated after her father was admitted to an aged care facility.

Chauncey

Max’s life has had some tragedy as well as his former partner has been removed from society for some mental issues, including hurting the younger daughter.

Of course, being a new parent to the girls, Jessica has trouble connecting with teenage Taylor, who also won’t let her break down the walls with the her little sister, try though she might.

Soon after moving in, Alice and Jessica engage in a game of hide and seek, during which, Alice finds a teddy bear abandoned in a hidden room in the basement, which she quickly adopts.

Jess’s Dad, Ben (Samuel Salary)

Alice and the bear, who according to Alice calls himself ‘Chauncey’, become fast friends, as any child with a plush toy would, but very soon Chauncey gives Alice a list of things to do, a list of very specific things that have to be done… but why? What are these tasks in aid of… and why are some of them destructive, even self-destructive?

Unfortunately Imaginary is a great name for this film, as its entertainment value, its acting quality, its character’s likability… all imaginary. I love a film that has an imaginary friend cause some kind of terror to the family, even though each of these films has the same stuff in it like childhood trauma, a blended family, a new house, a young child who feels disenfranchised for what ever reason, and this film just sat down with a checklist and marked them off, one by one.

I will credit it with it taking the murderous demon/ ghost/ imaginary friend, and tweaking it a little to make the payoff somewhat different, though it does feel like it’s riffing a little on Steven King’s It, but because the rest of it is so mediocre, the payoff doesn’t feel like a reward, and instead feels just like a relief that it’s all over.

The menu to the DVD

Disc: Nothing

Film: 2/10

Extras: N/A

Re-Watchability: 0/10

Now THAT’s a spider.

This review was done with the Australian release DVD purchased from JB Hifi

NIGHT SWIM (2024)

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The Australian BD release of Night Swim

NIGHT SWIM (2024)

Even though I am quite regularly critical of both Blumhouse Pictures and James Wan, I still like to give their new products a go. Just like Marvel and DC and Star Wars movies, I know the product is going to be generic claptrap with little imagination involved, but I’m still prepared and wait in hope that either of them might actually make something that is actual horror, and not just nonsensical pablum based in some kind of weird and archaic fear of the occult.

I mean come on people, are you REALLY afraid of The Conjuring and Insidious films?!?

Anyway, this film is the directorial debut of Bryce McGuire who based this on a short film he made 10 years earlier with his writing partner, Rod Blackhurst. Ill give one thing to McGuire, from the extras on this disc he is an enthusiastic filmmaker and hopefully will be given another chance in the future to actually make something good.

Oh, did I just bury the lead?

Ray (Wyatt Russell) and Eve (Kerry Condon)

Night Swim tells the tale of Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), a former pro-baseball player who has had to retire from playing due to an illness. He and his wife, Eve (Kerry Condon), and children Izzy (Amelie Hoeferie) and Elliot (Gavin Warren) are house hunting and find a place that is a little rundown but has a pool that is potentially a great option for Ray as hydrotherapy could really help him out…

… and help him out it does! Over a very short period, Ray seems to be improving rapidly, even down to a deep cut on his hand miraculously disappearing after the family cat goes missing… coincidence? Maybe…

As Ray gets better though, his behaviour starts to change and the rest of the family all have strange occurrences with the pool happen to them individually which makes them all start to fear the back yard entertainment area.

At a pool party, the real estate agent tells Eve that she found out that in 1992 and young girl drowned in the pool, and after some research, she discovers a series of events that put the pool in a dark light… and after meeting the parent of the drowning victim, she decides she needs to get the family out asap before something bad happens to them…

The original natural spring from where the pool comes.

This is an interesting film insomuch as whilst watching the film all this sounds feasible but when you recount the tale to another person (or in a review) it sounds fucking ridiculous. There’s been some pretty obtuse ideas of haunted items and while this isn’t necessarily haunted per se, it does have a freaky backstory that doesn’t sound slightly feasible outside the confines of its universe.

I guess thats what most films are like but this seemed really more apparent than a lot of other horror films.

The performances of the cast was mostly fine, with Condon and Russell really being the foundations of the whole thing, though there were a few characters that didn’t really hold up in the greater scheme of things as they almost seemed like parody, especially the mother of the drowned girl who came across more like a joke version of a j-horror character from a Scary Movie film.

There’s something or someONE in the skimmer box

I do have to give the director some credit for the underwater scenes which were mostly shot very well and really had a decent selection of scares to them. Some really nice combinations of knowing something is there and then it disappearing to a clever effect. Actually for the most part the entire film was shot really well.

One other thing, and this is me being a bit picky, but I built pools for a few years and my step-dad owned a pool company for about 25 years and in all that time I had never heard of the type of pool that they talk about in this film; this freshwater pool. Sure it’s a piece of fiction but it just stuck out as weird for me. If anyone had heard of pools with this design and filtration, I’d be happy to hear about it.

I do have to say that i found it interesting that the local school was named ‘Harold Holt’ – not a name you would expect in an American film, especially one to have a school in his name, but certainly a name you would expect to find in a story about drowning.

This is one of those films that are a good idea stretched into an overlong space. I feel that scenes of ‘killer pools’ in things like Burnt Offerings or even Poltergeist’s corpse filled hole are really effective but I’m not sure it translates to a full feature.

The menu screen for the Australian BD release

Disc: The are a bunch of extras on this disc:

Masters of Fear sees members of the cast and crew suckling from the teat of James Wan and Jason Blum. It is full of the usual ‘foundations of modern horror’ crap that these sorts of ego rubs are full of when in actual fact these blockbuster horrors are no different from the stuff Disney is producing: safe and digestible horror movies.

Demon from the Depths looks at the costumes of the things that ‘live’ in the pool, which are pretty amazing.

Into The Deep explores filming in a water environment.

Marco Polo looked at the ‘Marco Polo’ scene and how the filmmakers idea was to ‘spoil’ the household swimming pool just like Jaws spoilt the beach.

There is also a very enthusiastic commentary by the director which is a fascinating insight into his methods of direction.

There’s something worse than an ear infection in this pool!

This film was purchased from JB Hi-Fi.