Nutcrackers (2024)

I'll admit it, if I'd noticed that Nutcrackers was directed by David Gordon Green then I might not have made time for it during this holiday season. He's been on the "naughty list" for a while now, all thanks to his work on a couple of big horror franchises, and I wouldn't necessarily trust him to deliver a traditional Christmas movie. Nutcrackers isn't a traditional Christmas movie, and it doesn't entirely work, but it does have the spirit of the season buried in the middle of it. I'll admit that I was hit by an emotional punch in the final scenes.

Ben Stiller plays Michael, a very busy man who has to temporarily take care of his four nephews after the sudden death of his sister and her husband. Michael is ill-equipped for the situation, trying to prep for the big business deal of his life, and just wants things resolved and the boys rehomed as soon as possible. Gretchen Rice (Linda Cardellini) is the best person to help him in that regard, but it's tough to find a foster parent willing and read to take on all four siblings. Tying in with the movie title, a home-made ballet production looms large in the third act.

Written by Leland Douglas, who has more shorts than features making up his filmography so far, this is both a Christmas film and a concept film, with that concept being "unruly kids who can also do ballet". That works . . . eventually, but both Douglas and Green spend a bit too much time making things feel grimy and downbeat on the way to the expected Christmas cheer before the end credits roll. It's low-key and very grounded, in line with many other films made by Green, but that doesn't necessarily make for the most rewarding viewing experience when things are also working to a familiar template.

Stiller is good in the main role, doing the kind of uptight and slightly awkward guy that he's been able to do in his sleep for decades, and Cardellini is a ray of sunshine whenever she appears onscreen, but the young siblings, played by real brothers (Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Arlo Janson, and Atlas Janson) are a mixed bag, perhaps picked for reasons other than their acting skills. They're not terrible, but they feel a bit too rough around the edges, and they're given a bit too much leeway from Green, who clearly thought their personalities would win over viewers (sadly . . . not the case). At least you also get some decent supporting turns from Toby Huss and Edi Patterson.

I did manage to enjoy this, don't get me wrong, but it felt as if I had to work hard to meet it halfway. There were a lot of little improvements that could have been made. Fixing the tone would have helped, Green doesn't seem to find the right balance between the yule and the yuck, and having a more convincing bit of character development for Stiller, considering how suddenly everything seems to click into place when everyone remembers that the end credits are about to play. I also think the film would have benefited enormously from having more established actors portraying the four brothers.

5/10

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The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

I don't want to seem too dramatic, but David Gordon Green has become a monster who must be stopped. I had worries about The Exorcist: Believer as soon as I saw the trailer (which basically sold the film as "if you thought it was scary to watch a young girl be possessed and endangered then wait until you see our film with TWO young girls being possessed and endangered). Those worries grew and grew as I watched what is now a new low point in a horror franchise that contains Exorcist II: The Heretic.

Here's as much of a plot summary as I can be bothered to give. Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) is a widow, and a father to teenaged Angela (Lidya Jewett). Angela heads off into some woods with a friend, Katherine (Olivia O'Neill), and the two girls end up missing for three days. Once they're back home, Angela and Katherine start acting rather strangely. Victor is unable to explain the change in his daughter, as are Miranda and Tony (Katherine's parents, played by Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz, respectively). It's not long until we have Ellen Burstyn being pushed onscreen, bringing her character of Chris MacNeil into a tawdry mess that doesn't deserve the sense of legitimacy that her involvement gives it.

I am not exaggerating when I say that there is almost nothing here that will impress horror fans. In fact, most of the script, in terms of both dialogue (don’t get me started on that line about the patriarchy) and plotting, is laughably bad, and the material isn’t helped by visuals that are ugly and underlit. One moment focuses on a battle between elements that made me feel as if someone had spliced in a cut scene from a Mortal Kombat game. The blame lies with Green, but also co-writer Peter Sattler.

Odom Jr. is the best thing here, and there’s also a solid supporting turn from Ann Dowd, but they are the only people worth mentioning. I don’t blame anyone else for their performances, especially the younger cast members who admirably twist and throw themselves around in the more physical moments, but I wish there had been a cast of characters worth rooting for. There isn’t. This is a brand name in search of a worthy film, and that search may continue for a long time yet.

Considering what he did with another iconic horror property, I am worried that Green has some plan to link things together and ret-con past glories into his new creation. That would not be good. The only way this film is effective is in showing everyone how Green completely misunderstands the original classic.

Almost aggressively dumb and unsubtle throughout, aside from an opening sequence that I admit gave me hope that I might be in for something decent, this is a film made by someone who was told all about The Exorcist, but didn’t actually watch the film. It’s a film that somehow feels both overlong and yet also rushing to get to the lengthy exorcism sequence we all know is coming in the third act. And as for the score, and the “cheeky” music cue interwoven throughout a couple of key scenes . . . sometimes you just have to end a review with something simple and crude to express your opinion, so I say “f**k off”. That goes for so many aspects of the film that the makers thought would be cute and/or clever. And it goes for David Green.

Excuse me, I am setting up a crowdfunding campaign to help me hire a young priest and an old priest to keep Green away from any more classic horror movies.

2/10

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Halloween Ends (2022)

If you loved Halloween Ends then you should probably just skip this review entirely. I really disliked it, although my hopes weren’t that high after also disliking Halloween Kills, and I will specify my reasons here. But before I do that, as divisive as this film has proven to be, let me say that a) I don’t dislike a film for doing something different, and b) I don’t judge any Halloween film based on the screentime for Michael Myers. A lot of people have already labelled detractors of this movie as typical genre fanboys who cannot accept change (there have been a lot of tiresome exclamations of “5cream was so right”). I am sure some viewers have their mindset stuck in that rut, but others may have valid criticisms of a film that seems to undo whatever this trilogy, and it is hard to even call it a trilogy at this point, was aiming for.

Things start well. The shadow of Michael Myers still looms large, and young Corey (Rohan Campbell) is a babysitter who finds his evening ending in the worst possible way. Skip forward by a few years, Corey is trying to get on with his life. His reputation precedes him though, sadly. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, as if you need reminding) had meanwhile somehow found a state of peace, helped by the fact that she is now writing down her story. Her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), lives with her, and hangs about until she starts to become interested in Corey. Resentment burns through the young couple, a fire so strong that they wouldn’t mind seeing Haddonfield turned to ash, and Corey may be unable to contain his rage. And then there’s Michael Myers, coming perilously close to living the last of his days out as a Chris Farley character, ready to regain his energy enough for another showdown with Laurie. Because we were all shown it in the trailer, and those involved in these films pretend to be daring only until they revert to the fan-pleasing scenes they inevitably squeeze into each instalment.

The biggest problem here is a script that seems to want viewers to forget everything that we saw in the last movie. Remember the mob mentality that was immensely damaging to a town unable to heal its wounds? That’s gone. The grit and awareness of Laurie, someone who lived their life ever-ready for a battle they knew was always upcoming? Gone. Individuals defined by their encounters with the boogeyman? Yes, the leads still have that aspect, but everyone else seems to have moved on in a way that totally dismisses the past few years. Paul Brad Logan and Chris Bernier both join Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green in the writing department for this finale, but it’s difficult to pin any blame on them. This franchise “reinvigoration” has been in the hands of McBride and Green since it first started to take shape (no pun intended), and this fumbled ending shows that they never really considered how to make something consistent and cohesive.

There are some interesting choices made here, not least of which is the focus on Corey, but Green and co. are unable to commit to those choices. They don’t do right by the interesting idea at the heart of this, which should have been a study of a community making a whole new boogeyman, and subsequently waste the opportunity to also give Curtis more to do, while her character could have been the only one to see, and perhaps try to heal, the potential damage that she could see happening to someone not already beyond saving. This may have also helped to maintain a sense of the menacing presence of Myers, a character who can cause almost as much terror and tension by being offscreen as he can when on the rampage, instead of sidelining him and having his infrequent appearances feel ever so slightly patronizing.

The things that work are the things that work in every Halloween movie. Curtis, the music, and the quiet streets of Haddonfield. And I have to say that Campbell was a great choice to play Corey. Oh, and the opening title sequence is superb, and would have been even better if certain elements had been used more effectively (see last paragraph), which I do think was their initial aim. Sadly, nothing else feels good enough. There are only one or two impressive “bodycount” moments, the wild plot tangents aren’t taken far enough, and the predictable and inevitable ending is, by this point, just sadly laughable and pathetic. Poor Andi Matichak is also a negative, her flat performance not helped in the slightest by a script that asks her to do nothing more than fall very quickly for a boy who never really gives her a good enough reason to stick around and put faith in him. Which can happen in real life, I know, but it doesn’t help this movie.

Being divisive isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and many artists would prefer that you love or hate something they have done, as opposed to just sitting right in the middle, so I am still pleased to see that this has created so much discussion and passion. I have heard, and understood, people who really liked the decisions made here. I just strongly disagree, and I think this review clearly explains why I feel the way I do.

I will never bring myself to absolutely hate any Halloween movie, it is my favourite horror movie franchise (despite so few of the films being great), but this sits alongside Halloween Kills, for me, as the worst of the lot. I am glad this “era” is over, and I hope whoever has the next crack at it will take a bit more care, or at least be willing to move much further away from the comfort zone collage of nods, winks, and fan-service that we had here.

4/10

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Halloween Kills (2021)

Here's a bit of a shocker. I wasn't a big fan of Halloween (2018). Despite my problems with it, however, it was impossible for me to deny that it was an attempt to set right a franchise that had so often gone off into choppy waters, to put it mildly. Halloween Kills is worse than the film that preceded it. The big surprise is that I think it is arguably worse than every film that preceded it. 

Following on immediately from the end of the previous film, Halloween Kills is the tale of Michael Myers getting out of a burning house and killing a whole load of people on his way to wherever he may want to be heading. Is that wherever Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is? Is it his childhood home? Is it somewhere he can face off against an angry mob who rally around the chant that "evil dies tonight"? Wherever it is, events are interrupted by numerous flashbacks to scenes that show the aftermath of that fateful night all those years ago. The night he came home.

David Gordon Green is back in the director's chair again, and he co-wrote the script with Danny McBride and Scott Teems (the former also returning to the same role he had on the last film). So let me start by saying what this film gets right. Entertaining scenes of mayhem and death. This feels like the Halloween movie with the biggest bodycount yet, and the kills have a decent mix of variety and brutality. Michael Myers is as unstoppable as ever when he's all revved up for a major killing spree. 

The other thing the film gets right is the score, making plenty use of classic music cues in the right places.

That's it. That's all this movie gets right, and that's why it manages to do what I thought was impossible, become a new low point for the series.

Now let's go through the many things that the film gets wrong. 

The cast. They're either not that good (Andi Matichak still fails to make much of an impression as young Allyson, granddaughter of the legend that is Laurie Strode), unceremoniously sidelined because they need to be held back for the next - final - instalment (Jamie Lee Curtis), or forced to make one bad decision after another on the way to an ending that treats them as badly as any minor supporting character. This applies to Judy Greer, Robert Longstreet, and Anthony Michael Hall, among others. The fact that Hall is playing Tommy Doyle, joined here by Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards reprising her role), makes the misuse of his character arguably more egregious than the misuse of any other characters.

The many nods to other movies that everyone wants to pretend doesn't exist in this timeline. This has been a pet peeve of mine before, but it's even worse this time when so many details seem to have been included for fans to point out as nods to previous visits to Haddonfield.

Leading on from the previous point, there is almost no scene in Halloween Kills that doesn't highlight either some dialogue, character, or scene from the 1978 movie. It makes up what feels like the majority of the runtime, and it's bloody infuriating. This is a film that shows a flashback of Michael Myers clambering over a car just to allow the film-makers to feel smug when they show a near-identical shot of Michael Myers clambering over a car. There is a big difference between dropping in references to please fans and making your film little more than a collage of those references.

The many scenes that are supposed to show the events of Haddonfield in the 1970s generally look well, but they are a) totally unnecessary, and b) full of choices made by people who wanted to recreate certain moments and characters without considering whether or not they should. This leads to intrusive camerawork and some terrible audio that can take viewers out of the movie.

Any commentary on trauma and mob mentality is undermined by the weak script. Why bring so many characters back if you’re only going to use them to make the same mistakes that everyone makes in these movies? They even mistake someone else for Michael Myers, which I think it the third or fourth time that idea has been used in these movies. There are individual moments that have characters showing how affected they have been by the night that terrified the entire town, but they are disappointingly brief. And none of the mob mentality stuff works, with no real feeling of “angry villagers with torches” ever coming close to actually causing a problem for the monster they want to drive away.

Halloween Kills has worked for a hell of a lot of people, and it seems to have been a big hit at the box office already, so you may end up at the opposite end of the spectrum from me. Some people have heard the film criticised and wondered what viewers were expecting. I’ll tell you. All this had to do was be true to the characters, true to the idea of making it a worthwhile story branching directly from the events of the original movie, and full of good kills. At least the kills are good. 

Sadly, any other film in the series manages to do what it sets out to do better than this, which even keeps our favourite scream queen so far away from most main scenes that it’s akin to watching a cut of Aliens re-edited to keep Ripley in stasis for most of the runtime.

Worst. Halloween. Ever. (so far)

4/10

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Mubi Monday: Prince Avalanche (2012)

Written and directed by David Gordon Green, based on an earlier film by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigur∂sson (and, yes, it took me a good ten minutes to figure out how to type that out on my standard keyboard), Prince Avalanche is very much in line with a number of his other low-key comedy dramas, especially his earlier works.

Paul Rudd is Alvin, a road worker who is painting yellow lines and placing roadside posts with Lance (Emile Hirsch), a young man who is also the brother of his girlfriend. These two individuals in the middle of nowhere find the isolation affecting them in different ways. Alvin likes the peace, Lance misses some of the relative hustle and bustle of small-town life. Their time is occasionally interrupted by a local truck driver (Lance LeGault), and Alvin also has an encounter with a woman (Joyce Payne) who shares a sad tale of loss that helps to underline what is worth holding dear in life.

Your enjoyment of Prince Avalanche will depend on a couple of main factors. First of all, how you feel about Rudd and Hirsch in the lead roles. I don't know of anyone who dislikes Rudd (and if anyone reading this hates the man then I just don't understand how you go through life with such darkness in your soul), but Hirsch has definitely lost a bit of goodwill over the years. I've always liked him onscreen though, even if he's rarely the best choice for any role, and he works well here, often annoying Rudd by doing nothing more than being a standard "kid" who struggles with what could be meditative time in nature.

The other main factor here is the direction from Green. After three comedies that were more brash and broad than his usual style, Prince Avalanche feels very much like an attempt to ground himself once more, to prove that he could go back to the quieter, more naturalistic, style of film-making that brought him to the attention of film fans at the turn of the century. It works, but I am sure it would be a bit disappointing to anyone hoping that they would be getting more stoner gags and silliness.

All of the main performances are very good, with the bulk of the runtime seeing the film carried by Rudd and Hirsch. LeGault and Payne may not have much screentime, but the script, and their performances, allows them to provide another angle of reflection for the leads. The same goes for the main work being done, the painting of the yellow lines and the other work making a quiet road into a safer route to travel. It's monotonous, quite thankless, and ultimately quite important to those who will get the benefit of it. Much like many other tasks in life.

Although the characters spend some time walking around, journeying through the quiet landscape around them, this could easily have been a stage play, and that's perhaps the best way to view it. It's a two-hander, for the most part, with a background of trees, quiet road, and lives temporarily left behind that will need to be faced up to again in the near future.

7/10

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Halloween (2018)

Horror fans. At heart, we're easily pleased, according to some anyway. And we're an optimistic lot, at least when it comes to films that aren't cynical remakes. Time and time again, we have been given assurances about remakes and reboots. This time they're going to get things right. It's going back to the spirit of the original. This will be a film for the fans. And that's what we were told with Halloween. Indeed, early word on the film was fantastic, and a lot of fans are very happy with it. I am just not too sure what they have seen in it that I have missed.

Here's the plot. When a couple of true-crime podcasters get to visit Michael Myers in the sanitarium that has been his home for forty years they do their best to get a reaction from him, seemingly to no avail. The podcasters then go to visit Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis returning to her iconic role), now living a sheltered existence, staying locked inside her own home, to the detriment of her relationship with her daughter (Karen, played by Judy Greer) and her granddaughter (Allyson, played by Andi Matichak). And it's only a short while from then until Michael *gasp* escapes and *shock* heads to find Laurie once again.

Okay, there's something off about Halloween that I can't put my finger on. Something to do with the way that those involved insisted it would work as a sequel to the original film, while ignoring all of the other movies that came along after it, yet not quite nailing a consistent tone throughout, not seeming to handle the manners of Michael correctly, and not managing to give fans a finale worthy of the wait. What should have been a potential last hurrah ends up instead being a bit of an eye-roll and a shrug.

Director David Gordon Green doesn't do a bad job when he allows himself time away from the main characters and plotting. That one tracking shot, shown in preview clips that were used to advertise the movie, is pretty great, allowing us to watch Michael mingle with unwitting trick or treaters as he wanders around and commits a couple of impressively short 'n' sharp kills. And there's a decent sequence that features a scared child and a babysitter who assumes that it's all down to imaginary terrors. Unfortunately, Green does worse with a number of scenes that seem to warp the characters for the sake of a fresh start in the series. The script, co-written by the director with Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride, has just as many silly moments as many of the other sequels it is so desperate to erase from the canon, and, worst of all, it doesn't do justice to the characters that deserve better treatment. Those characters would fare a lot worse if they weren't played by such good actors. And did I mention that everything is kicked off this time by true-crime podcasters? Yes, it may lack Busta Rhymes and webcams, but let's not pretend that this isn't as gimmicky and mistakingly attempting to be trendy in the same way as, oh, Halloween: Resurrection was. Things lift up when scenes don't feel like they're either reacting to trends or dishing up fan-service but, sadly, most of the film seems to be stuck in those two camps.

The cast help immensely, and it goes without saying that Curtis gives another great performance. Greer is good, although playing the overly-tense character that she's been stuck with many times before, and Matichak is a likeable younger potential final girl who could easily carry on the Strode legacy, as far as I'm concerned. The wonderful Will Patton is . . . wonderful, if sorely underused, in the role of Officer Hawkins, and Haluk Bilginer tries to fill a Loomis-shaped gap, but is let down by the writing in the second half. Virginia Gardner, Dylan Arnold, Miles Robbins, and Drew Scheid all do well as teens who may find themselves in peril, and Jefferson Hall and Rhian Rees are those pesky podcasters.

Is this a bad horror movie? No. There are some good kills, and an attempt to craft some iconic Myers moments. It just isn't a masterpiece, not in comparison to many other horror movies and not even in comparison to the preceding films that those involved view as lesser instalments in the series. A lot of the characters here do typically dumb stuff to get themselves in a position to be picked off, a number of moments feel like they bring the luggage of the other movies that have been ignored/discarded, and the ending doesn't feel true to the characters.

But that doesn't matter whenever Michael grasps hat knife handle and starts walking towards his next victim while that classic music plays. Because us horror fans, well, we're easily pleased sometimes. I know I am.

6/10

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The Sitter (2011)

Jonah Hill plays the worst babysitter ever in this comedy that's a lot lower on laughs than it should be, and certainly pales in comparison to the '80s greatness of Adventures In Babysitting. The script, by Alessandro Tanaka and Brian Gatewood, sets things up well enough, but then derails within the first 15-20 minutes, leaving director David Gordon Green hoping that the cast can salvage something from the situation. They can't.

As a favour for his mother, Noah Griffith (Hill) agrees to babysit three youngsters for an evening. There's young Blithe (Landry Bender), a girl who keeps trying to make herself appear much older than she is. There's Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), an angry young man who lies to let out that anger by blowing things up with cherry bombs. Last, but not least, there's Slater (Max Records), who has anxiety and identity issues. As if looking after the three kids wouldn't be enough of a problem on its own, Noah is called by his selfish girlfriend, Marisa (Ari Graynor), and asked if he could kindly pick up some drugs for her and meet her at a cool party. Being the irresponsible sort that he is, Noah takes the kids along while he meets drug dealer Karl (Sam Rockwell) and his right hand man, Julio (J. B. Smoove). And things start to go wrong.

If The Sitter was a completely laugh-free zone, with no potential to be entertaining, then it would be an easier film to dislike and completely dismiss (which is, I'm sure, how some people feel about it anyway), but the irritating thing about it is the uneven tone. Things start off amusingly enough, and it all looks promising as Hill meets the kids and tries to establish his take-no-shit stance from the outset, but then it all just becomes too dark once the kids are dragged along to a "simple" drug deal. From then on, the movie moves from one confrontation to the next, with things getting progressively darker and more violent. This may have been the intention of the writers, and director, but it's not the best outcome for a film marketed as a comedy.

Hill ticks the boxes here, in terms of his comedy style, while the kids are just a bit too angst-ridden and rebellious to be likable, although Bender just about manages to stay sweet while also being a smartass. Graynor is okay, but stuck playing a loathesome character, Rockwell is wonderful as Karl, Smoove is stuck with some of the most unpleasant lines from the script, and Kylie Bunbury brightens up the screen, thanks to the fact that she's allowed to play one of the nicest characters in the movie.

Ultimately, this is a film that's too flippant to be enjoyed as a comedy thriller and too dark to be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . enjoyed as a comedy thriller. There are some moments to enjoy, but they're few and far between.

5/10

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