This Week in Cinema, I Learned…Oct 20-26 2024
Written by Cameron Geiser
Welcome to This Week in Cinema, a yearlong film criticism project wherein I will be watching a new film that I haven't seen every single day.
This was another fascinating week in cinema. While the first three films of the week were middling to “fine” at best, the back four films were surprisingly stellar when it comes to the genre of Horror. While I wasn't particularly impressed with A Quiet Place: Day One, Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell was an entertaining and stylish Horror flick- but I'd place it on the lower half of his films overall. There was also a return to slashers this week with the unique 2024 flick In a Violent Nature where the audience follows the story from the killer's perspective. These were all well and good, but the remaining four films were truly spectacular.
For the majority of this year I was constantly asking friends, family, coworkers, anyone really; what movies they would recommend in various genres. With Horror in particular I knew I had a lot of gaps in my experience and film knowledge, so I went all out in fielding these questions. Namely, I would often ask, “What's the scariest movie you've ever seen? Which one actually scared you the most?” Which was how the Terrifier movies got on the list, but the film that was most often cited was Sinister. After watching it, I have to say, it was a good pick. It wasn't the scariest film I have seen, but it was a thoroughly unsettling film and I understand why this was most people's choice. The other film that several people mentioned and I knew I had to watch eventually was An American Werewolf in London. Wow, what an excellent film. It's now easily my favorite Werewolf movie by far, very intense. The other two films were a classic film that Spike Lee highly recommended, The Night of The Hunter and the most recommended Italian Giallo movie I could find with Deep Red. Both were fascinating picks and I will detail my interest further below for each.
Did I learn anything from these films this week though? Yes, definitely. What I garnered from what worked in these films was the emotional throughline for the films. The hardest hitters focused not on the intricate details of plotting, but rather the most deeply cutting emotions that led the lead characters from beat to beat and how they reacted to each new informational story beat helped to better define them in the audience's mind. This was most true of Deep Red, Sinister, and An American Werewolf in London, but it does apply to all of them in some way shape or form.
October 20th
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
2.5/5
Honestly this one was a bit of a disappointment for me. I have only seen the first A Quiet Place before this, and I enjoyed it. I thought John Krasinski did an excellent job in creating tension for that film, but that was about it- a quality genre flick. A Quiet Place: Day One has a truly excellent concept, but in my opinion the execution was fumbled in the scripting and filmmaking. The performances from Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn were perfectly competent, but everything else didn't quite match up. Lupita Nyong'o plays a character who is terminally ill at the outset of the alien invasion and when they get to New York City, she only has one goal. To get a slice of New York Pizza before she dies. Nice. Once things go to hell she eventually runs
into Joseph Quinn's character and together they try to get out alive. There were a few things that really downgraded this entry for me. One thing was the screaming during the storm, which, I get it was a callback to the waterfall scene from the first film but it felt out of place here. There were some serious inconsistencies with the levels of danger when it comes to the sound and how the aliens respond to it. I also thought it had some chunky pacing that only occasionally synced up to the moment. I also didn't care for the character sacrifice at the end, it didn't feel as impactful or logical as the film thought it did. Not a horrible film, but I thought it was a bit of a step down in quality, with the context that I did not see A Quiet Place 2.
October 21st
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
3/5
This Sam Raimi film has all the typical hallmarks of the director's tendencies, but it never quite reached the heights of his best work. Obviously the oldsmobile shows up, as with every movie of his, but really it's always the kinetic, insane, speed of the cinematography that I'm always looking for in his films. That indeed is in this film, but it's mostly just a fun, campy evil curse movie at its core. The story follows a loan officer played by Alison Lohman who decides to deny an extension on an elderly woman's mortgage in an attempt to prove to her Boss that she can make the tough decisions in order to get a promotion. Obviously, it doesn't go well for her. There were some really creative shots in the back half of the film and I was delighted at how disgusting the film got at times, but the ending wasn't exactly for me. Drag Me to Hell is a perfectly fine campy Horror flick as long as you keep your expectations in check.
October 22nd
In a Violent Nature (2024)
3/5
I quite enjoyed this little slasher flick. In a Violent Nature has a fun concept where instead of following all the character fodder around for the majority of the movie, we follow our undead killer as he plods around the forest in between all the murder. That's essentially the whole movie. Some teenagers, campers, idiots etc out in the woods take a golden necklace from an abandoned shack and this awakens our slasher whose sole goal is to get that necklace back. There's a few bits of overheard lore about the slasher when he waits in the background during a campfire scene, and it's all standard stuff but the best parts of the film were the surprisingly brutal kills. There are some pacing issues throughout the film in my opinion, but the last ten minutes entirely killed the tension for me. In a Violent Nature was a unique take on a slasher flick that I appreciated, but it could have been punched up in a few areas to really make it more memorable.
October 23rd
Sinister (2012)
4/5
As the most recommended scary movie for October, I found Sinister to be highly entertaining and yeah, decently scary. Ethan Hawke stars as a true crime writer who moves his family into the home where a whole family was brutally murdered together as inspiration for his new work. That's a good idea, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Nope. Nothing creepy about that at all. Well, throw in a demonic entity that can travel between realms through images of him alone, and yeah, you've got yourself a decently terrifying idea at the core of your movie. The dread and atmosphere of the film is excellent, and I highly recommend this one. Check it out.
October 24th
The Night of The Hunter (1955)
4/5
At some point in the first half of 2024 I saw a video where Spike Lee was talking about classic films and he brought up The Night of The Hunter as one to watch. He was inspired by this film and took the tattoos on the knuckles of Robert Mitchum's character, Hate on one hand, Love on the other- and transported that onto the brass knuckles of the character Radio Raheem in Do The Right Thing. That was enough for me to write it down and try to figure it in the schedule somewhere, and that time has come. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a self proclaimed Preacher, gets jailed for driving a stolen car and while imprisoned his cellmate reveals that he robbed a bank and successfully hid the stolen $10,000 and that only his children know where the money is. After the cellmate is hanged for his crimes, Powell heads to that man's hometown and charms the townsfolk, weds the man's widow, and desperately tries to get the location of the money out of the children. It all unravels spectacularly, but what I appreciated most, aside from the stellar acting from Robert Mitchum, was the expressionistic imagery inspired from silent films and the cinematography overall. It's a brilliant film when concerned with the blocking, framing, direction- it's all very well done. However I don't think it qualifies as Horror, but I will say that The Night of The Hunter is an exquisite Thriller that I highly recommend.
October 25th
Deep Red (1975)
4/5
I knew that some point in October I needed to watch at least one Italian Giallo movie. Dario Argento is always bandied about as the best of the best, or at least the most well known directors within this sub-genre of Horror. So, I decided to check his work out. I had seen enough chunks of his most famous movie, Suspiria, to know that I wasn't particularly interested in that one and the next most lauded one seemed to be this film, Deep Red. While the plotting of the film wasn't exactly the most complicated story, the murder mystery aspect of it all was truly entertaining. When a Jazz Pianist witnesses the murder of a psychic, he gets wrapped up in trying to solve the mystery of who the killer is. The cinematography, editing, and color choices were all outstanding and punchy but I was really invested in the dreamlike visuals and the intensity of the mystery as it quickened over the course of the film. I was also actually surprised by the identity of the killer. With some truly creepy imagery and good genre style everywhere, I highly recommend Deep Red.
October 26th
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
4.5/5
Directed by John Landis, An American Werewolf in London is now one of my all-time favorite Horror movies. It's certainly now my favorite Werewolf movie. Landis has made some of the best comedies of the 1980s like The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Three Amigos! and Coming to America- so color me surprised to discover this among his filmography. The story follows two American backpackers, David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne), as they travel through the moors in Yorkshire England and happen upon a monster of mythological proportions one night. After departing a small town's pub when they seem to upset the locals, they begin to wander through the night when they hear bone chilling howling in the distance. The following Werewolf attack was so perfectly composed, terrifying, brutal, and inherently sad. Jack is immediately killed by the beast but David is saved from death by the locals at the pub. They went out looking for the Americans after their guilt of knowledge regarding the beast. The remainder of the film is David's journey dealing with the repercussions of being wounded by the beast and marked by fate under the moon's unyielding watch.
The script is immaculate, and very darkly funny. Though I must note that I believe a trigger warning is necessary regarding talk of suicide. One part of the mythology of lycanthropy that the film utilises is that anyone killed by a Werewolf is doomed to walk the earth in limbo in perpetuity until the bloodline of the beast is severed. This brings Jack Goodman back as he appears (in horrifically grotesque and stunning special effects make-up) with his decaying wounds to inform David of his situation. Jack, and eventually others that are killed by David, are constantly trying to get him to kill himself so they can be set free from the curse. Griffin Dunne's performance once Jack has died is one of the strongest parts of the film as his entirely deadpan and unfazed attitude adds a comedic macabre tinge to the story that elevates the severity of David's situation perfectly. There are also several insane dream sequences leading up to his first transformation that were incredible, just flat out incredible. They were the definition of nightmare fuel, and I loved it. If you couldn't tell, I highly recommend this movie, it's an excellent addition to any October film list if you haven't seen it.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.