EvilPhoEniX

A solid horror film for the first time in a while, unrivalled in the slasher genre this year, and the best horror film of the haunted house and theme park kind. This is what Hell House LLC should have been like. A group of friends find a haunted house on the side of the road on Halloween and decide to spend the night there, but they soon find out that the nightmare is real and is going for their necks. Nothing original, but a nice diversion within the genre. The cast of teenagers is unexpectedly decent and no one is downright annoying, the haunted house itself is huge and decently scary, but the biggest plus are the villains, who are terrifying once they take off their already rather unpleasant masks. Their appearance is very disturbing. Fortunately there is a large body-count, so there is some decent gore. I had a great time and I recommend it. 75%.

Argentina serves up a fairly tense thriller with an unconventional plot. The protagonist and his wife try to have a baby and when they finally get lucky, the wife changes her behaviour significantly and the beautiful marriage turns out to be a psychological terror where you won't know who is the bigger lunatic. The first half is slower, but after that there's certainly no shortage of tension. But Argentina is not Spain, so instead of a dose of twists they leave the twists to the viewer's imagination, which I personally don't like, but because of the premise and the actors I can definitely recommend it to fans of European thrillers. 60%

Tarantino's worst film and one of the most tiring cinema experiences ever. There are only two things to praise about this film, namely the decent retro styling and the perfect performances of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, the rest is not even worth mentioning. Bruce Lee is in the film for two minutes and it's no wonder the daughter is upset for the travesty they put him on. Charles Manson is in the film for five seconds! (and it’s what the film was originally supposed to be about) And the alluring Margot Robbie is in the film for about eight minutes total. So more or less, it’s two and a half hours of bullshit about something that I don't give a shit about. But I don't care at all, and I could still get over the fact that Tarantino ditched the action, but to ditch the humour as well? Well, that deserves punishment. It's saved a little by the ending, which Pitt steals for himself, and at least in the last ten minutes Tarantino makes it clear that he's the director, but that’s not enough with a three-hour running time. My friends gave up on the film halfway through. This one passes me by. 40%

The anticipated It: Chapter Two didn't live up to the high expectations, according to the reviews, and didn't surpass the first part, but it is still an outstanding horror experience that comes out as a clear winner thanks to this year's weak competition. The film may be three hours long, but it passes by quite quickly, is entertaining enough, has drive and enough horror attractions to keep your attention, something that can't be said for the new Tarantino film, which has a similar running time, but only the last 10 minutes are interesting. Pennywise could have been in the scene more times, but I enjoyed other forms, and one there was one scare that gave me a heart attack. It's not that scary, but I felt uncomfortable with all the scenes. The best sequence is definitely when the group starts looking for their tokens. I had a great time with the film, it looks expensive, the humor works at times, the references are amusing and everyone involved plays it to the hilt. James McAvoy rules! 80%!

Too bad. Benny Chan's The White Storm is the best Hong Kong film of the last ten years, but the change of director to Herman Yau, who can only handle category 3 HK movies, does the film no favours. The drug dealer theme is quite interesting and almost never gets old, and Andy Lau together with Louis Koo also do a great job, but that's where the good ends for me. The technical aspect is rather average (high for Hong Kong standards, but still pretty artificial compared to South Korea), and the action is very unexciting and forgettable. Just average. I wish they had put Dante Lam in charge of this sequel, he would have made everything look much better in every way. 55%.

Fruit Chan should ditch directing and go sell fruit at the Chinese market because this was really bad. The talented Max Zhang has the worst performance of his career and his skills are only used in the final fight, which is the only one worth mentioning in the whole film. Anderson Silva didn't show much and the unnecessary slow motion really bothered me. The fights lack punch, hardness, dynamism and pizzazz. The crime line was pretty good, but given the expectations I can't even go for average. 40%

China is still not Korea, so that grandeur is missing, and visually it's not breathtaking either. The film focuses on the week-long defense of Baoshan against the Japanese, who outnumber them several times over, and it's pretty much action-packed, but those who have seen a thing or two won't be missing anything interesting. Everything was handled elsewhere and better. Average. 55%.

The talented Jim Jarmusch serves up a zombie comedy with a perfect cast, it feels like all the money was spent on the actors, but not much left for the film itself. It has rather ugly visuals, a very slow pace (slower than zombies), almost no gore, minimal tension and atmosphere, and the only thing that sort of works are the jokes, but even those don't wake you up from your micro-sleep. The director knew that a lot of people would be bored, so he snuck in at least a few movie references to keep the audience entertained. Didn’t like it. 40%

A battle royale with references to slashers of the last century, it pretty much delivers on the level it promised. I mean, perfect gore, excellent make-up effects, the creators won me over in this respect, but the rest falls flat. The actresses are unfortunately terrible, the visuals look cheap and the final twist is a rip-off to more famous horror movies. Thus, I recommend it only for gore fans, everyone else can ignore it. 60%

I’m not very familiar with Quentin Dupieux, so I didn't know what I was getting into, but Benoît Poelvoorde is more or less always a guarantee of quality and this time France pleasantly surprised me, not so much with humour, but with ideas, tension and interesting twists (the twist that comes in the 10th minute is perfect), and the finale is very unexpected. For a film that takes place 90% in one room, there are more than enough comic situations. Decent, short and entertaining. 75%