Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Anybody keen to be served up a sequel to Ready Or Not is going to be kept happy enough with this, a film helped by the fact that everyone returns to their main roles, both in front of and behind the camera, and by the fact that it seems to be even more gleefully sadistic.

Things pick up immediately from the end point of the first movie. Grace (Samara Weaving) is taken to hospital, soon to be visited by an unhappy estranged sister (Faith, played by Kathryn Newton), who only ends up there because Grace forgot to change her main emergency contact. Nobody believes Grace about the shocking events of the past day, but the worst part of it all is that her ordeal isn't over. Grace AND Faith are snatched, terms are explained by a lawyer (Elijah Wood), and it's time for a whole new bunch of rich and entitled psychopaths to hunt some human prey. They're headed up by Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus Danforth (Shawn Hatosy), and they are happy to use Faith as leverage to keep Grace in line.

It's clear that Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett returned to this premise because they figured they could have more fun with it. That's exactly what they do, adapting a story about two sisters into something that writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy could easily fit into the Ready Or Not world. It's a classic case of "here's what you enjoyed, but a little bit more of it", for the most part, and the direction keeps the focus on fun in a way that makes the slightly longer runtime (this is 108 minutes compared to the 95 minutes of the first film) feel just right.

Weaving slips back into her (iconic?) character with ease, and believably becomes more badass and dangerous as she becomes more desperate to stay alive, and keep her sister in the same condition. Newton is a great addition, entertainingly unhappy with her sister, but also soon showing how much they are cut from the same cloth when things start getting bloody and deadly. Gellar and Hatosy have a lot of fun in their roles, and the former always seems very aware of, and respectful of, the genre baggage she will forever carry into any project. Wood is fun, a calm presence in the middle of a lot of madness, and there are good moments for Dan Beirne, Olivia Cheng, Nestor Carbonell, Kevin Durand, Varun Saranga, Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Antony Hall, and even a cameoing David Cronenberg.

Much like the first film, there are no scares here, and there's very little actual tension, but you get some inventive kills and a whole lot of bloodshed. One or two sequences are drawn out into a showcase of violence and pain, many others are all about the hilarity of how quickly some people can be killed when they're not hidden away in a protective bubble. Everything is very enjoyable for those who were eager to rejoin Weaving in another bit of deadly gameplay.

And special recognition has to go to costume designer Avery Plewes on the outstanding dress that makes an important appearance in the very last scenes. You'll know what I'm on about when you see it. It's a stunning look, but also nicely in line with the journey that the main character has been on.

7/10

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Crimes Of The Future (2022)

It's comforting to know that David Cronenberg has managed to remain resolutely David Cronenberg for the past four or five decades now. Crimes Of The Future reminded me of two things. One, I have yet to watch the much earlier film from him that shares the same title (although everyone has pointed out that the two films are otherwise unconnected). Two, despite his filmography seeming to take him further away, at times, from his very specific mindset and worldview, he has never let go of firm beliefs that have helped to shape so many parts of his oeuvre.

Crimes Of The Future is set, to the surprise of nobody, in the future. People tend to interface even more directly with machines and computers, often using the kind of furniture and equipment that looks like a cross between something ergonomically designed and something created as a torture device. Humans don't really suffer from disease any more, and physical pain is largely a thing of the past. That leads to people seeking more and more ways to feel . . . something. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is one half of a performance art couple, partnered with Caprice (Léa Seydoux), and his special skill involves displaying his body while new organs grown inside him are removed. This is important, for the order of things that it threatens to unbalance, but it's also secondary to a plot that revolves around the potential next steps in human evolution, the ways in which people feel sexual thrills, and a mission to perform an autopsy on a dead child as a shocking work of performance art.

While full of great actors doing great work, Crimes Of The Future feels like Cronenberg being allowed to display and celebrate ideas that weren't allowed to be front and centre in his work years ago, despite always being there. He finally gets to craft something in which there's a beauty contest for the insides of the participants, something Cronenberg had a character state a longing for in the superb Dead Ringers, and there are ideas and images here that rank up there with the best of his work, although the movie, as a whole, suffers slightly if you compare it to his very best. But the very best films from Cronenberg are a very high bar to be measured against.

As well as Mortensen and Seydoux, who are both excellent in their roles, there's yet another great turn from Kristen Stewart, playing a nervy bureaucrat who seems star-struck by Mortensen's character, Tanaya Beatty and Nadia Litz make a strong impression in the few scenes they have, and you get solid performances from Don McKellar, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, and Lihi Kornowski, the latter three all connected to that aforementioned dead child.

I think it's obvious from the plot description here that you shouldn't choose to watch Crimes Of The Future if you're after something light and fun. Mind you, that applies to almost every David Cronenberg movie (as well as anything by his son, Brandon). This deserves your time though, and I encourage people to get themselves in the right headspace for it. It's thought-provoking, disturbing, smart, and sometimes confusing. In other words, bearing in mind that you also get another impressive music score from Howard Shore, it nicely slots into the Cronenberg canon, and it shows that he's lost none of his brilliance.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Disappearance At Clifton Hill (2019)

A young girl meets a young boy, he has one bleeding eye bandaged over. The boy is clearly trying to stay hidden from someone. A car drives by. The boy runs. The car reverses, and an adult grabs the boy and bundles him into the back of the car. The young girl returns to the rest of her family, told to pose for a photo as she cannot stop looking at the car now driving past them. That's how Disappearance At Clifton Hill starts. It's a good start, and it then moves into interesting territory when we meet Abby (Tuppence Middleton), the grown-up incarnation of that young girl. Abby is back in her hometown, Niagara Falls, after the death of her mother. She wants to see if she can make a go of her mother's business, the Rainbow Inn, before having to sell it to developers. She has six weeks, even if her sister, Laure (Hannah Gross), would just like it all done and over with already. Abby finds a photo from that memorable day that has haunted her for years, which starts her on an investigation into the potential kidnapping/murder of a young boy. But it's hard to get anyone to believe her after so much time has passed, especially as she has a habit of not being able to tell the truth to anyone.

Some friends of mine had recommended Disappearance At Clifton Hall over the past couple of months, which meant I was excited to finally make time for it. Unfortunately, this is one time when my friends and I disagree. Quite strongly.

A feature debut for both director Albert Shin and writer James Schultz, Disappearance At Clifton Hill is a horrible mess for most of the runtime. It also has music from Alex Sowinski and Leland Whitty that ranks as some of the worst I have ever heard. Obviously aiming for an unnerving and strange atmosphere throughout, it almost constantly moves from standard strangeness to sound that replicates cassette tape being chewed around some tape heads. Why would you want that? Maybe if your film was as strange, in terms of visuals and plotting, as that soundtrack then it might work. But Shin and Schultz don't have that level of strangeness here. They have a rather traditional mystery tale, with an obvious villain and one enduring clear recollection guiding the amateur investigator, and then try to add layers of distracting oddness. It doesn't work. Perhaps aiming for something like Inherent Vice or Under The Silver Lake, or any number of noirs that have managed to work with strange quirks bolted to the main story thread, neither of the men succeed in their aim. The third act is exceptionally dull in the way it tries to tie everything up neatly, and then becomes tiresome with a final grace note that may or may not be a real underlining of the pointlessness of everything you've just watched.

Middleton is very good in the lead role, a clearly troubled young woman who becomes exasperated as she tries to prove that her other mistakes don't mean she is wrong with her attempts here to discover the fate of a young boy. Gross is equally good as the understandably tense sister, having been hurt and betrayed in the past, but willing to forgive and love and move forward, if possible, and Noah Reid is very likeable as her supportive husband. David Cronenberg is a lot of fun as a local historian and podcaster also trying to get to the truth of things, Andy McQueen is decent as a young cop who is new in town, and Eric Johnson is Charlie Lake, the local businessman who basically owns the town. There are other characters who come to the fore, including the potential kidnappers and a cheesy stage magic act, but the performances aren't that good, mainly thanks to the lack of any consistent tone, and the unsure notion of whether we are seeing people or seeing Abby's version of people. Although only in one or two scenes, Elizabeth Saunders stands out in her role, a suspect named Bev Mole, but that's the only other performance worth praising.

I was hoping for something really good here. Even as things started to falter, I held out hope that it would get back on track. That didn't happen. The opening scenes work well, but then it's a slow and steady downward slide towards real awfulness. Which is a shame, because there are elements here that work. They're just drowned by so many things that don't.

4/10

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Mubi Monday: Naked Lunch (1991)

When I first saw Naked Lunch I had no idea of exactly WHAT I had just watched. It was a film full of startling imagery, a wonderful lead performance from Peter Weller, and some impressively organic special effects that often looked like genitalia. I was probably in my early twenties when I saw the film, which explains why I came away so confused.

Now, at the grand old age of *cough, cough*, I can safely say that a rewatch of the film has led me to now have a clear opinion of it. And that clear opinion is that I still have no idea of what exactly I just watched. It remains a bizarre and bewildering experience, but I now know that it is all planned out that way.

The plot concerns William Lee (Weller), an exterminator who also likes to get high on his own supply of bug powder. As does his wife (Judy Davis). Mr Lee is also a writer, although his main typewriter of choice appears to him as a insect-like creature that starts to talk to him. I could say more but you would just think I hallucinated the whole thing.

That is the big plus of Naked Lunch, yet it's also the big minus. Writer-director David Cronenberg, adapting an "unfilmable" novel by William S. Burroughs, has decided to take the bones of a standard narrative and loop it numerous times through a drug-coated mesh, pulling everything tight at either end and leaving the middle section bulging and mis-shapen. He makes a number of bold choices, but they all pay off when it comes to delivering a movie experience like few others I can think of.

As well as the druggy haze, Naked Lunch deals in the kind of paranoia, conspiracy, and twists and turns that will be familiar to Cronenberg fans who have enjoyed Videodrome (made years before this one) and eXistenZ (which came along some time after). And there are so many films from him that feature characters losing their sense of identity that you could say it is one of his main preoccupations.

Weller gives arguably his best performance here, despite the fact that he has a couple of other roles in his filmography that fans will often put ahead of this one, and he's ably supported by Davis, Ian Holm, Roy Scheider, and Julian Sands, among others. Everyone involved gives a performance that feels a little bit off. Whether it's their sense of humour, their acceptance of odd events, or something else, they feel just like characters being viewed through the eyes of a drug addict who cannot trust his own senses.

Don't ever ask me to tell you what is going on in every scene and how it all connects. I am not about to rewatch the film with the intention of taking down notes and creating venn diagrams. And I am not offering my opinion of the movie as any kind of testimony to my own insight. I just know that I love the experience of it, even during the more gross sequences, and that it is another Cronenberg work that feels like it couldn't have been made by anyone else.

8/10

There's a disc you can buy here.
Americans can get a nicer disc here.

Nightbreed (1990)

"Everything is true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live"

Nightbreed is a typically ambitious piece of work from horror maestro Clive Barker. It's full of strange monsters, moments of impressive bloodshed, and a mythos that is quickly set up and invested in, to an impressive degree. I wish I had seen it a long time ago, because it's a new favourite of mine.

Craig Sheffer plays a troubled young man named Aaron Boone. Aaron has been seeing a doctor (David Cronenberg) for some time, due to his dreams about monsters and a place named Midian, but has finally started to feel better. Unfortunately, a bunch of ugly murders have occurred that seem to match Aaron's fantasies. The doctor claims to want to help Aaron, but it soon becomes apparent that he may have another agenda. And then things start to get REALLY interesting after Aaron finds out that he's not as mad as he thought.

Setting things up quickly, and rarely flagging as the plot unfolds, Nightbreed is a film I can't find too many faults with, much to my surprise. Yes, you have to buy into the main premise, but it's never a bad move to trust Barker when he's attempting to provide horror fans with smart, unique, adult entertainment. If you think that monsters are things to be imagined, and feared, by children then you should be thinking again after the first few scenes of this movie. Not only does it present the main monsters as outcasts from society, not necessarily meaning harm to others, yet willing to stand up and fight back when it's called for, but it also takes great pains to show different types of monsters, with a couple being in the more usual human guise.

I know that fans of this movie can recall all of the different names of the monstrous characters, and know who played who, but I'm not going to pretend that I was always able to keep track of such details. Give me one or two repeat viewings, and this is a film I plan to rewatch a number of times, and I'll retain more of the details, but for the time being I'll just admit that a lot of the wonderful creatures all blended together into one impressive group for me. That's not to say that they didn't have individual personalities and characteristics. They really did. I was just overwhelmed by so many wonderful details catching my eye in almost every scene.

Sheffer is fine in the lead role, although he's never been my favourite actor (sorry, I just couldn't ever really get over his fine turn as a major asshole in Some Kind Of Wonderful), and Anne Bobby is cute and sweet as the woman who cares for him. Cronenberg is a bit of a strange casting choice, so you may think, and his early scenes feel slightly frustrating and out of place, but that's all forgotten when he hits his stride after the first 15-20 minutes. Hugh Quarshie is yet another authority figure, a role he seems to have played for the majority of his career, but he's good at it, and Charles Haid is entertainingly over the top as a Police Captain. Catherine Chevalier and Hugh Ross are two main monsters I enjoyed watching onscreen (see, I did manage to keep track of some of them), and pretty much everyone onscreen, whether or not they end up covered in prosthetics, does a great job helping to realise the world and characters envisioned by Barker.

It's not often that work adapted from Barker's material ends up falling flat (who said Rawhead Rex? Hold your tongue) and Nightbreed holds up as a fine reminder that when the man is allowed to translate his vision from mental imagery to page to screen . . . . . . . . . . we horror fans are in for a major treat.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Nightbreed-Directors-Bluray-Combo-Blu-ray/dp/B00LMBUR6S/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1413707229&sr=1-1&keywords=nightbreed

Shivers (1975)

While this may not be the first feature film from writer-director David Cronenberg, it's very much the film that put him on the map as a major talent in the field of horror. Not everyone was impressed with Shivers when it was released, there was some famous outrage from one or two noted critics of the time, and it's easy to see what some found so offensive about it. But it's also easy to see just how assured Cronenberg always is when it comes to mixing the cerebral with the visceral.

The basic plot concerns an invasion/infection of parasites in an apartment block that turns the residents into unabashed, lusty, animalistic beings. This doesn't sit well with anyone uninfected, but it's far from the worst thing that a parasite can do to you, which allows it to spread quite quickly, as more and more people are seduced by those acting under the spell of the parasite. One man (Roger St. Luc, played by Paul Hampton) discovers the full reality of the situation, and tries his best to save the residents before it's too late.

With a heady mix of sex, death, and body horror, this is classic Cronenberg, in terms of the ideas being explored. While not as polished and intriguing as the many movies he would go on to helm, it's a fascinating premise, mainly thanks to the fact that the people infected in the movie seem to go on to have quite a good time of things. I mean . . . . . . . . it's a parasite that basically boosts your sex life, if you find enough other carriers.

Hampton isn't too bad in the lead role, but Cronenberg always seemed to be more concerned with his ideas than the actual acting in a number of his early movies. Allan Kolman and Susan Petrie are both pretty good as a husband and wife, with the former showing the transformative effect of the parasite while the latter worries about just how best to help her ill partner. Joe Silver is another level head amongst the madness, and Barbara Steele has a small, but memorable, role that should please her fans. But it's Lynn Lowry who makes the biggest impression, with this being one of a few movies from this era that really allowed her to shine in the horror genre. She plays a nurse here, helping Hampton to try and gain control of the situation, and she's allowed to take turns at playing cute, strong, scared, and sexy.

Not the best parasite movie. Not the best Cronenberg movie. Not the best horror set in an apartment block. But Shivers remains a unique, and creepy, experience, perhaps due to the fact that Cronenberg identifies more closely with the infected than anyone else onscreen. Well worth adding to your viewing schedule and your collection.

8/10

Get this Arrow release (Region B only) ASAP - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shivers-Dual-Format-DVD-Blu-ray/dp/B00KHSM936/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1412886620&sr=1-1&keywords=shivers

Eastern Promises (2007)

David Cronenberg followed up the magnificent A History Of Violence by reteaming with leading man Viggo Mortensen and creating something that works as both a companion piece and also a flipside to their preceding movie. A here and now of violence, if you will.

Events are set in motion by a young girl who gives birth to a child, but dies in the process. Naomi Watts plays a nurse named Anna, present at the birth and worried about the future of the newborn child. She takes a diary that belonged to the deceased girl, finds out that it's in Russian and sets out to get it translated, in an effort to find a family for the baby. Unfortunately, in her attempt to do a good deed she finds herself mixing with some bad people. Bad Russian gangster types. The big boss is Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), messy situations are created by his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and everything gets cleaned up by Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who constantly refers to him as just a driver. As Anna gets more involved with these people she puts herself, and others, in a very dangerous situation.

Unhurried, unfussy and completely unglamorous, Eastern Promises is a typically cool look at some unpleasantness by Cronenberg, working from a fantastic script by Steven Knight. Set in London, he matches his usual style with the great cinematography by Peter Suschitzky with outstanding results. London isn't the collection of buildings scattered around Big Ben and Notting Hill that it so often is in other movies. It's simply a big city, a place full of areas and buildings that you could pass by every day without a suspicion of what has gone on there.

But it's the acting that really lifts this up to a fantastic viewing experience. Naomi Watts is very good in her role, believably strong in her eagerness to do the right thing while also visibly unnerved. Armin Mueller-Stahl is great as the typical, cold gangster boss and Vincent Cassel is always entertaining as Kirill, the son who can never seem to do any right for doing wrong. The film belongs to Viggo Mortensen, however, and his performance is almost perfect. Okay, there may be problems with the accent to those who have a better ear than I do, but it's not too bad. Not too bad at all. His dialogue is also backed up by a physical performance arguably better than the one he delivered in A History Of Violence. Able support also comes from Sinead Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski and even Tamer Hassan, in a small role that still allows him to feature in the most memorable sequence in the entire film.

Although the movie has quite a few moments of violence in it, none of them are flippant, "easy" movie deaths. This is a film about every bloodletting sending a message, about every body telling a story (be it through tattoos or fatal wounds) and about how much some people will risk in order to make a difference for the better. It's all that, PLUS it's a fantastic gangster movie AND it has one of the best and boldest fight scenes set in a bathhouse since . . . . . . . . . . . well, since ever.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eastern-Promises-Blu-ray/dp/B0010VXMQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370799643&sr=8-2&keywords=eastern+promises

Cosmopolis (2012)

Robert Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a man who wants to get a haircut. He's an extremely rich man (a multi-billionaire, in fact) and could just get someone to visit him at his office, but instead he insists on being driven around town in his stretch limo amidst the chaos that is a Presidential visit, an ongoing protest against capitalism and serious threats on his life. During his trip, he tries to convince his new wife (Sarah Gadon) that they should have some sex, he speaks to various members of his staff, engages in some energetic infidelity and views the turbulent events unfolding around him with a mixture of morbid fascination and cool disinterest.

Written and directed by David Cronenberg, based on the novel by Don DeLillo, this is a movie perhaps best described as Videodrome meets Wall Street with a white version of Driving Miss Daisy. Yes, I know that mixture sounds quite ridiculous, but it's appropriate. It's certainly not a film to watch if you need some great set-pieces and a bit of energy in each scene. This is almost completely cerebral, for better or worse, and demands patience from viewers. Patience that isn't really rewarded in the obvious fashion.

Pattinson is pretty good in the main role, there's a hint of Patrick Bateman about his character but also quite a Charles Foster Kane vibe. Details about how he amassed his personal wealth are teased out during conversations, but not enough to put together a complete picture. He seems like a potential philanthropist one minute and a complete sociopath the next, and Pattinson conveys every facet of his personality while also keeping hold of himself in a very stiff and controlled manner, most of the time. The other people that move in and out of the movie are strangely disconnected in a variety of ways, whether it's through their fleeting appearance and disappearance or the actual nature of the character (Gadon seems to move through the film without letting any of the world around her get within touching distance). Jay Baruchel, Juliette Binoche, Kevin Durand, Samantha Morton, Mathieu Amalric and Patricia McKenzie, plus quite a few others, all do well with their roles, even if they do often feel like characters taken directly from the Packer's overactive subconscious. Paul Giamatti gets to play someone more connected to the actual reality of everyday life than any of the other characters, and he puts in another fantastic performance.

Cronenberg seems to do what he can in this film to push people away. He certainly doesn't make it an easy film to enjoy, but it IS enjoyable. It's a lesser Cronenberg film, that's for sure, but it's still worth a watch if you're a fan of his work. The best, and most unexpected, thing about the film is the humour throughout, often subtle and sly but sometimes completely over the top and surreal. That humour hardwired to the intelligence running through the script allows Cosmopolis to become a bit of a paradox - a film that is hard enough to get through once but may well leave observant viewers wanting to rewatch it.

Equal parts amusing and irritating, this may be a film that you end up absolutely hating. It could also be one that you end up enjoying much more than I did.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cosmopolis-Blu-ray-Robert-Pattinson/dp/B008HDQPTC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1365598758&sr=8-2&keywords=cosmopolis