Netflix And Chill: Polaroid (2019)

Here we go again, it's another one of those teen horrors that almost seem so deliberately bad you would almost think it's either a) a parody of mainstream teen horror, or b) something churned out by film-makers who attended an online course entitled "How To Create And Sell Teen Horror 101", for a total course fee of $150, including $25 to get your framed certificate at the end of it all (email versions available for the much lower price of $5).

There's a Polaroid camera at the heart of this one, of course.You take photos with is, a shadowy figure appears in the photos, and then the people in the phoros end up dying. This is a pattern very easily spotted by quirky high school student Bird Fitcher (Kathryn Prescott, and, yes, someone decided that could actually be someone's name . . . apologies to the multitude of people named Bird Fitcher out there). In fact, she and her friends accept this strange scenario very quickly, investigating the history of the camera, who created it, and trying not to be viewed with too much suspicion by Sheriff Pembroke (Mitch Pileggi).

Directed by Lars Klevberg (who did better work on the sorely-misjudged remake/reworking of Child's Play), it's hard to view this as anything more than an unfocused and derivative mess of a horror film that doesn't have any good intentions. There ARE very occasional moments that stand out, I can think of two highlights in the third act that prove to be too little too late, but the direction is disappointingly mediocre throughout, and the script, by Blair Butler, is one of the worst I can think of in recent memory. None of the characters are worth giving a shit about, the dialogue meanders between the eye-rollingly inane and the horribly dull, and the way the plot unfolds is all the worse because Butler clearly thinks he has some good ideas to add to the mix (someone should have told him that he really doesn't).

I want to spend a decent amount of time also complaining about Prescott, who has all of the screen presence of a piece of plasterboard, but it's unfair to criticise her for being unable to do any more with a script that has all of the strength of wet toilet roll. The only two people who manage to polish the turd for a few minutes at a time are Pileggi, unsurprisingly, and also Grace Zabriskie (again, unsurprisingly so). These two veterans are given just enough screentime to lift this whole endeavour from the very bottom of the barrel, and they both do their usual good work with material that really doesn't deserve their effort. Tyler Young, Samantha Logan, Keenan Tracey, Priscilla Quintana, et al aren't so much a decent supporting cast as more of a collection of H & M models who were hanging around when the casting director realised it was the day before principal shooting was about to begin.

In case I have not made myself absolutely clear above, this is horrible. One to avoid, even if you're an undemanding teen horror fan. I've STILL seen much worse, but that doesn't excuse just how bad this is. Or, I guess you could say, how undeveloped.

3/10

If you hate yourself then you can buy the movie here.

Child's Play (2019)

Much like the killer doll at the centre of it all, there's something about Child's Play that is just a bit off from the very first scenes. I am never automatically against remakes, but this one just seemed like a pretty bad idea, and one that was being churned out for the wrong reasons. Whether you like them or not, the original movie series was still growing under the watchful eye of Don Mancini. All seems to be going ahead with the TV show idea, which I hope comes out soon enough for me to be able to forget all about this attempt to reboot a fresh money-maker.

As you may have already surmised, I didn't like Child's Play. It's a film that doesn't ever make the right decisions at any point, treating viewers as if they will all be situated perfectly within the teen age bracket that it is aiming for (and I know some teens who won't be impressed either).

It all starts with a disgruntled factory worker removing safety protocols from a toy doll before then committing suicide. One thing leads to another, and that doll (a Buddi who decides to name himself Chucky, voiced by Mark Hamill) ends up being owned by young Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman). Andy lives with his mother (Karen, played by Aubrey Plaza), it's a new home for them, there's a man on the scene, there's a police detective who is often in the building as he visits his mother, and a few other characters that are supposed to be worth watching. Chucky starts killing, all for the sake of his friendship with Andy, and his ability to be linked to various apps makes him a lot more dangerous.

I am not familiar with the previous film by director Lars Klevberg, or writer Tyler Burton Smith, but it seems, rightly or wrongly, that they were picked here as a couple of people who would toe the line and give the studio what was expected. I am assuming an awful lot here, and may be being very unfair, but it's hard to see anything here that represents a unique vision or talent. If that was the case, it would be easier to believe that Klevberg and/or Smith were chosen because someone had seen something prominent in their work that they thought could work well with the  Child's Play concept.

Here are the things that work in this movie. The music, another great bit of work by Bear McCreary (who has been on top form recently). The casting of Mark Hamill in the vital voice role of Chucky. The first major human murder scene.

Almost everything else fails. Take, for example, the fact that a character is slightly hearing-impaired. This is all well and good if it is for representation. It isn't though. It's mentioned once or twice in a way that makes us think it will be very important later in the movie, and then isn't used in any way that feels necessary. Take a scene in which Chucky uses an app to terrorise and kill someone. Except he doesn't. The big set-piece ends with our knife-wielding doll . . . wielding a knife. One death scene has a character jumping up to stand on a desk that has a bloody circular saw on it. The relationship between mother and son never feels real, unlike the original film, there aren't any actual scares (although, to be fair, the film does provide a couple of amusing moments, which prove that it occasionally works as the black comedy it is trying to be), and the third act staggers from one horribly ill-conceived moment to the next.

Bateman is okay as Andy, Plaza is as underused as she so often is in more mainstream fare, and Smith is the best character in the movie. Nobody stinks up the place, not even the other younger cast members who work alongside Bateman in the strand of the film that plays out a scenario building up the whole "the kids will save everyone" vibe, but there's also nobody good enough to help distract from the many shortcomings of the film.

Horror movies can be fun, they can be dumb, they can be sheer entertainment without having to be anything else. But there have to be certain things done right to allow film-makers to get away with that. It can be hard to put a finger on the things that have the opposite effect, sometimes it's just an overwhelming feeling of laziness, sometimes it's a lack of logic that breaks the rules set out within the movie universe, but this film has enough of them to spoil your enjoyment. Well, it has enough to spoil my enjoyment. Others have had fun with it.

4/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.