Ant-Man (2015)

Marvel has a pretty good reputation for dependable action movies these days – in fact, they're addicted to making them. Hell, I think they'd go into a coma if enough people didn't re-tweet them on Twitter about each new movie that came out. But they did have one movie that was pretty weak, and it should be obvious what I am talking about by now, unless for some reason you didn't pay any attention to the title of this review.

I'll give you a hint though: If you've ever said the words 'my favorite movie is Ant-Man,' then you may not like this one.

Director: Peyton Reed

Starring: Paul Rudd, Corey Stoll, Michael Douglas

IMDb

Co-written with Tony.

Ant Man is the kind of movie I think they'd produce if they asked the most generic human being alive to produce a movie that is acceptable – not great, not even particularly good, just acceptable. And then you took that and gave it to a robot who had never seen or talked to a human before to recreate it from memory. That's this movie. It's as unfunny, weird and awkward as you'd expect, while simultaneously also being pretty dull and ordinary.

This thing starts with Michael Douglas's scientist character punching another guy in the face for a disagreement at work – you know, one of those heated scientist disagreements that so often results in a physical altercation. Oh those rowdy scientists. Apparently Douglas is mad because they stole his formula to make people tiny. What, how does he know it's HIS formula? I mean, that's pretty self centered of him. What an attention whore.

Don't worry, he can't hurt you. He's all bad CGI to make him look younger.

Then we fast forward about 20 years to the middle of a Fight Club outtake starring Paul Rudd, who is less an actor and more of an alchemic combination of bad comedy tropes cobbled into something resembling a man. He's playing Scott, a Thief With a Heart of Gold™ who got arrested for stealing some stuff from a rich con man and giving it back to the people he conned. Don't worry – there's a scene about 20 minutes in that spoonfeeds you this information with all the nuance of a guy trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by just destroying the whole thing with a jackhammer. Exposition!

This movie represents prison like you would if you talked about a second cousin you don't see that often - vague and noncommittal. I know it's not the point of the movie, but could we have ANY effort at character development? Like at all?

But this only lasts a few minutes, because we have really important shit to focus on like the pretty racist caricatures of everyone else who isn't Paul Rudd. Like, the guy who picks him up from prison is the most stereotypical Hispanic character ever, like you'd think Donald Trump's idea of any Spanish speaking person is. His thing is that he talks in a really stereotypical way and goes on long, unfunny tangents when he's trying to convey information. Wow, what a great character idea. I'm sure glad someone's paying you to write this.

And who else do we get? A black guy whose only purpose in the movie is to steal a cop car? A European guy of vague descent who talks in a ridiculous accent and talks about his reverence for superstition in one scene while also being an expert at computers like a Die Hard villain the next scene? Wow. I guess it's progressive if you consider 'progression' to be having them in the movie at all?

Oh good, the local awful Improv troupe is here...

I just think it takes a lot of balls to write characters that most pornos wouldn't consider writing because they're too stupid and shallow. “Hmm, well, you've got a good start, but how much MORE racist can you get without getting protesters on our asses? Can you implement at least some of the stereotypes from 1950s conservative drug propaganda films before your time is up?” It's asinine exactly how bad this is – like, what, just because the KKK would still be like 'nah, that's weaksauce,' it's okay?

I guess Paul Rudd can't hold down a job at Baskin Robbins, which is a bad joke that the movie milks like hell with even worse jokes on top of it, like the manager at Baskin Robbins chewing scenery and talking in unrealistic dialogue about how cool it is that Scott stole things, but also saying they have to fire him. Yeah, convicts can't get jobs! Hilarious! A gut buster!

Ugh, ANOTHER movie in the pocket of Big Ice Cream, shoving its message down our throats...

Oh, and he tries to see his daughter at a birthday party only to get harassed by his ex-wife's new husband, a cop who seems to be so unrealistically douchey that I am pretty sure he literally has a stick rammed up his ass. Can we get a Kickstarter fund going to remove it and end this man's pain? He really is just such a douche to Scott that it comes off as hacky. Because ya know... a convict not being able to spend time with his kid, just more of that hilarity that is Ant Man.

The rest of the plot focuses around Corey Stoll's character Darren performing experiments on goats to try and turn them tiny, which doesn't work and only turns them into formless goop. I'm sure glad all this money is going toward this noble fucking cause.

We really learned a lot from this...

I guess this is what Michael Douglas's old scientist character perfected years ago, which he didn't release to the world and now Stoll's character wants to make a whole army of tiny soldiers to go and do evil shit like assassinate world leaders. They have a whole video presentation about this, like it's some sort of weird school presentation, which is kinda funny. It should really just say “WE'RE GONNA DO REALLY EVIL SHIT” across every picture in boldface lettering. Like, who the fuck was actually in charge of making a goddamn video presentation about assassinating world leaders and doing military coups?

Douglas, I guess, has the one suit he used locked up in a safe which Scott goes to burgle. He breaks into the safe and tries on the suit for no real reason except shits 'n' giggles – like, he broke in already, so why not, I guess? Then it shrinks him down to the size of an ant and we get a pretty decent action scene of him being tiny and running around and stuff. Though I am not sure why this mansion Michael Douglas lives in is apparently in the same building as a fucking night club...

I guess Douglas just likes a good time.

Also, how does he not die when he gets sucked up by the vacuum cleaner? I mean, I guess I've never really TRIED to do that. So maybe I can't criticize the movie on this part.

This is not the movie for you if you're afraid of vacuum cleaners at all.

Then we get a bunch of lame scenes of Scott waking up in Douglas's mansion, where he and his hot daughter live. They also have an army of ants in there that Douglas can apparently control, so he has them guard the bed Scott is in so it's almost like he's a prisoner there – if he steps off the bed, they'll sting him I guess. Except then that turns out to be pointless as he gets out and there is really no threat to him – so, whoop-de-do I guess.

Then there's a bunch of training scenes with him and the daughter, who is the most boring and lame type of female character – the super stoic, badass chick who says everything in a deadpan monotone because THAT shows strength, right? The only type of strong woman is the kind who never experiences emotion because she was probably created in a laboratory as a domesticated robot to deliver quips. I mean, what kind of woman ever has emotions, or a personality, am I right? Oh, she fires back blandly sarcastic quips to literally everything Rudd says? Yes, exactly how real people talk. And in this movie about a guy who shrinks down to the size of an ant, THAT is what I am most worried about for realism, yes.

Her wanting to cause Paul Rudd pain is the only believable part of her character.

Oh, what's that? You didn't think we had enough scenes of forced, dull fucking family drama with the daughter and Douglas shouting about how they didn't really love one another and a whole bunch of other stuff that makes me fall asleep? The movie has you covered.

Then there's a lot more bad jokes, stiff and unrealistic dialogue and lame stereotype characters as the climax clunks along. They stage some plan to break into the lab and I guess Stoll is so far gone by this point that he just ends up dressing up in the suit and going full on supervillain like, immediately. Wow. I dunno why THAT was his first choice, but one thing is clear, and that's that this lab really should do better background checks and mental health analyses on these people before hiring them.

Who, aside from gun sellers in the US, could look at this and go 'yes, this is a mentally OK man'?

Because this is still so cliché that it borders on parody, Stoll goes straight to the house of Scott's kid and threatens his family. How would we have any conflict if we didn't make it super personal right away? I mean, there's NO other sources of things a villain can do that are evil.

But to be fair, this is actually a good scene, and one of the only ones in the whole movie that actually works – I like the silly stuff they can do with the shrinking fight scene, like when they knock stuff over, it falls over with the weight of a mountain in their eyes. But then they show it just looked like some little thing falling over in the regular world:

It's really just one of the only scenes that actually works for the movie's sense of humor – why couldn't they have put this kind of effort into the characters and dialogue? Visually, it's good. Though I think the world could have done without this giant Thomas the Tank Engine and the mutant giant ant... I mean, is this like what the 1950s-era horror films predicted would happen? Jesus.

I guess there really is no price too high to give kids nightmares in this movie's universe.

That is pretty much the end really – we get a few more scenes of things winding down in a happy way, and I don't really care. That's Ant Man!

I guess a lot of people like this, and that's fine – sometimes that many people ARE just wrong. I dunno. I just find it really dull and bland – the writing is bad and the characters are weak when they're not outwardly idiotic stereotypes that come off as vaguely racist. The plot is dime-a-dozen origin story stuff and there's really nothing of interest about any of this except for the wacky scenes where he shrinks down to ant-size. So I guess I'm saying, if the movie was just a 10 minute short film with only those scenes, it'd be okayish, so long as they cut out literally everything else in the movie.

Oh well, at least it's better than Batman vs Superman or Suicide Squad; because those are good standards to have!

Images copyright of their original owners; we own none of them.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Most Christmas movies try to replicate some feeling of the holidays in some way. Well, this movie is like the stale feeling of the day after Christmas when you have to stand in line at the mall to return some shitty toy your kid decided he didn't want, and then going home to eat leftover Christmas dinner that just isn't as good.

Director: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan

Starring: William Shatner, George Buza

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This is an anthology series, Trick 'R Treat style with the stories all intercut within each other so the movie is constantly going back and forth between all of them, but that's really about the only similarity with Trick 'R' Treat. That movie was actually fun and had a good sense of wit, and this one... well, neither of those things describes this movie. The best I can say about it is 'you could do worse.'

We start this off with Game Of Thrones Santa here hearing some weird noises from behind a door... and then it just kind of cuts away without properly starting a story. Uh, I think you guys were sleeping through the part of class where they taught how to start a fucking movie.

Then we get a bunch of other stories, like this one about a radio host played by William Shatner of all people, who just yammers on and on to no one, babbling about things that make no sense, until this one other guy in the studio with him just has enough:

Strangely this is what happens every time William Shatner tries to tell anyone anything - they respond with 'Fuck Christmas.' It's an oddly specific trigger for some reason.

Then there's the family going to visit their grandma who lives in, apparently, a mansion from a CLUE game or something. The father, who is apparently cast as a discount Chevy Chase from National Lampoon, is only really going to shake his aunt down for some of that sweet, sweet inheritance money! Merry Christmas!

"The only thing more powerful than the Christmas spirit is my relentless, disgusting greed."

Fortunately (for me; unfortunately for him) his idiotic son breaks a Krampus figurine on the grandma's shelf, which prompts her to throw them all out immediately. Oh how I can just feel the Yuletide spirit flowing through this movie's veins. I like how the rest of their story involves them being hunted by the Krampus... what, just because they broke that stupid figurine? Really? Who knew the Krampus was such a whiny baby.

Then the Krampus went and told on the idiotic son to the teacher, who put the boy in time out for this heinous offense.

I guess it's revealed later on that they've all done some horrible things to warrant the Krampus coming after them, like the daughter has stolen a few things and the little boy has killed a bunch of animals in the neighborhood. Wait, hold on, woah – that's a fucking insane thing to just drop out of nowhere. How is this just a footnote in this movie? Shouldn't the whole story be about the little serial killer in the making? This kindergartener version of fucking Dexter? I really think that would've been more entertaining of a story.

In the end, only the mother survives, and she goes back to the grandma's house, where she learns that the Krampus is actually sort of a weird werewolf-type creature in this story, who someone with a lot of rage and anger can just turn into at the holiday times. This is such a dumb story that I am amazed anyone wrote this crap with a straight face. It's not even played like a comedy – it's totally fucking serious. There are a lot of people angry at the holidays. Do all of them turn into the retarded cousin of the Abominable Snowman on Christmas?

Anyway, the wife then turns into the Krampus herself, seemingly understanding exactly how it works despite it being a totally alien concept. She kills the grandma, because violence against old people is always cool.

In another story, a family is out getting a Christmas tree at, I guess, a location they're not supposed to be in. The little kid gets sucked into the tree from Stranger Things and when his family finds him, he's acting strange and different.

"Hey, our kid came out of a tree-hole, better not ask him if he's okay and instead just go back to normal life! Whoop-de-do!"

Like, later on he just will not quit eating spaghetti – I know, the horror, right? He's so in love with spaghetti that he stabs his own father with a fork for trying to take it away from him! Ouch! That's gotta hurt!

He also does other weird things like stand in the bathroom and watch his mom take a shower. I'm just blown away at the creativity and imagination of this movie's evil kid actions – eating too much spaghetti and watching his mom shower. The most evil and diabolical shit ever, truly.

If by now you're thinking that this kid must warrant some type of disciplinary action, well, the father has all your domestic violence needs covered as he starts shouting at the kid and asking what's wrong with him. The kid responds by upping the ante on violence and killing his father, like it's some kind of fucking contest. Jeez, kid! Bit of an overreaction!

Just, tone it down a little, ya know.

Continuing in the mold of child abuse, the mother, recognizing that there's some kind of demon inside her son, beats him up with a baseball bat until he's unconscious. You know, I'm starting to doubt that there's any demon in this story. This family is just fucking violent and fucked up.

But there IS a demon, I guess, so the mom has to take him back out into the woods at the behest of this weird fat guy who says he's the guardian of the dwarves or some bullshit.

… you know, when I write that out, it sounds pretty fucking stupid.

What follows is an extremely half-assed “climax” to this story where she accidentally shoots the fat guy somehow (whoopsy-daisy! This accidental murder is never mentioned again!), so I guess there's a moment of thinking there's no way to get the kid back. The thing she THOUGHT was her son turns into a weird dwarf creature that looks like your 85-year-old neighbor run over with a truck and then put too long in the dryer.

Looks like Gollum with leukemia.

Fortunately, despite its hostility before, now it just wants to help: she looks into its eyes and asks for its help, and it just goes into the Stranger Things hole in the tree and gets her kid back for her, no further trouble at all. Wow is that underwhelming. What's next, a story about this thing helping an old woman across the street? Is this the PBS Kids Horror Hour now?

The other story is about three idiots breaking into this abandoned mental asylum or school or something like that to film a documentary. This one is pretty boring and mostly consists of them just wandering around like morons, even settling in to sleep there once they find themselves locked in, I guess. That's good for the one girl, though, as she coaxes this nerdy guy to come with her and have sex.

Then it's discovered that there's some convoluted plot about a ghost girl or something who tried to have a child but died in childbirth I guess. So now the ghost just tries again and again to have a baby through a human girl by possessing them to have sex. I guess it works this time, too, as she gets pregnant and kills the guy, presumably then going off to have her baby and live in the dank, abandoned mental asylum or something. This is the worst porno setup ever; zero out of five stars.

What did this have to do with Christmas, anyway? Because there's a crucifixion pose in it? That is a pretty thin point of connection.

Meanwhile in the wraparound story about Santa, he ends up fighting all of his elves as they turn into bloodthirsty zombies. It's not too bad of a sequence, with some fun violence and carnage. But it's pretty hard to find it badass when he keeps shouting out the elves' names as he's killing them – hearing anybody shout 'Not you, too, Sparkles!' before chopping off an elf's head is pretty confused and jumbled. It's mostly just silly.

Then he fights the Krampus in the manner of a stale ripoff of a bad superhero flick, with him saying a bunch of stuff like 'Krampus, my mortal enemy.' It's all pretty lame. Like if the kid from Jingle All The Way wrote a horror story.

Then it's actually revealed that none of the Santa shit was real, and he was actually just some nutjob that went on a rampage in a local mall, butchering and killing a bunch of innocent people. Wow, that's horrifically unpleasant – maybe it'd be a good twist if this was a whole movie's worth of a story, but as is, it's just tonally confused and kind of ugly and depressing. Merry Christmas!

This is a pretty weak anthology. I guess you could do way worse – nothing here is outright awful or anything. But the stories are not really that well written, with have extremely weak endings and a lack of any kind of point. I said the final story was tonally confused, and really, the whole thing is; the movie doesn't seem to have anything it particularly wants you to take away after you finish it.

In addition, the way the stories are all jumbled up just doesn't work, and further removes any kind of tension or scares this might have had because they're not really cut up in an engaging manner. It feels like this was all just thrown together at the last minute, like a really shitty, lazy last minute Christmas present.

And who likes those? It's usually better for everyone if said gift is just never given at all.

Images copyright of those who own them, we do not own anything here.

The Hollow (2015)

I am aware that Cinema Freaks hasn't been active as of late. This was due to the 2016 election and a hurricane, and no, I don't feel like elaborating on those things much. It isn't fun. Let's instead talk about something slightly less depressing – like this depressingly drab, cliché pile of shit The Hollow. 

Actually, never mind; I regret picking it for a review or doing this at all.

Director: Sheldon Wilson

Starring: Stephanie Hunt, Sarah Dugdale

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This is a made for TV movie, which I believe doesn't have to be a bad thing. But stuff this poorly written and put together isn't doing the genre many favors!

We start off with a woman and her dog that won't shut up driving in a car. They stop by some area in the trees and what looks like a firework explodes in the lady's face. If that seems weird and nonsensical to you, well, then you haven't seen as many bad horror movies as me. All of them have stupid shit like this in them.

This was the 'too gory' version of the anti-fireworks PSA your demented neighborhood council wanted to put out. The sadists...

Then we cut to something totally different and unique – a group of OTHER people driving in a car, in the same boring foresty road setting! Wow. These three are a group of sisters, I guess, whose parents have recently died in a car fire. We know this because of the extremely forced, awkward exposition they engage in. It's seriously really shitty writing – like the one girl, Marley, goes “You KNOW she's been traumatized ever since our parents burned to death in that car!”

Oh, really??? Well thank you for telling me that! Sure am glad you reminded me! I almost forgot!!

There are a bunch of really fucking terrible jump scares in this, too – like, when the two older sisters are looking for Emma, the youngest one, after she ran off into the forest randomly for no reason, a bird scares Sarah and then this guy comes out from behind a tree:

"I know I look like Brock Turner and I'm cornering young girls in the woods alone, but I promise, I'm the good guy..."

Wow! Two jump scares for the price of one! But yeah, this guy's purpose is warning her of going to this town on the island they're all traveling to, saying something bad might happen there. Heavens, me – something BAD happening in this HORROR MOVIE? Say it ain't so! Prep the bomb shelters! I never thought something bad would happen in a movie with a giant tree-fire monster on the cover!

The little girl, Emma, is apparently psychic or something – she has dreams that sort of foretell the future, and has recently had one where all three of them die. Well with THAT attitude... but seriously, though, they never even bother trying to explain what the deal is with these powers. It barely ever comes up again. There's honestly no point in it except to have some weak foreshadowing to what's going to come later. I would have forgotten about it if we hadn't expected it to be a main part of the plot, and then it just... wasn't.

They get to the island, where they're going to live with their aunt after their parents died in that accident that they clearly don't care about, as they don't bring it up ever again.

However, when they get there, they find the island completely abandoned, which is weird, but doesn't seem to ring any strange bells for the girls. I get the feeling these three together had maybe a 75 IQ score. But what's weirder is they get to their aunt's house and find her dead inside her car! Oh man, just another classic good time at auntie's house.

Almost as good as The Visit by M. Night Shyamalan for twisty-turny stories about visiting relatives!

They go through an extremely confusing segment next in which they help this wounded lady into the house who's been attacked by the monster from the beginning. Inside, a storm hits and the two older sisters, Marley and Sarah, argue about how Sarah won't let her do anything. This is really boring, so I don't care about expounding any further – but I will say Marley, played by Sarah Dugdale, constantly looks like she's on drugs through this whole thing:

Are you cosplaying as Midget Elvira this year for Halloween?

Seriously, somebody on set needs to get her into a detox program and keep any needles or pill bottles away from her.

I don't get why their cell phones don't work. I mean, sure, out in the country, maybe. But once they get to the main part of town, it makes no sense unless this is some weird Amish coven with no cell towers. They should be able to just call that guy at the pier on the mainland and get him to send help – and then boom, movie over. But I guess there is a God and he hates us, so that doesn't happen and the movie continues.

They eventually get into town, though, and they split up somehow. Marley finds this shop where the monster kills a guy in front of her, throwing his body on top of her. He doesn't touch her though, or Emma who was standing BEHIND them inside the store the whole time. This is sadly one of the movie's most annoyingly bad elements – the monster constantly has a chance to kill them all very easily but doesn't do it because... uh, I got nothing. Because it... doesn't want to?

"Nah... I got a lot of chores to do today! See ya!"

Later on, they find another group of people hiding in this store, and the monster doesn't even kill them THEN. There's no reason why it can't just burst through the door and instantly kill them! The rest of the fucking island is deserted and dead at this point, so I guess the monster is just off downloading bootlegged Game of Thrones episodes in-between maimings and murders.

If you really give a fuck, here is the backstory we get – some witches were killed in this town a hundred years ago, and now a monster exists because of that and will come back every hundred years for no fucking reason and kill people again. Really? That's the best you could think of? If I turned that into a third grade writing homework assignment, my teacher would flunk me out of the class. You should be ashamed.

I love the fact that these witches cast a spell to 'come back' from the dead as something far worse, and the monster in this movie is the best they could get - a shitty bundle of sticks with a flaming head that moves like a drunk praying mantis. Girls, I think somebody at the magic shop ripped you off.

Also, that guy with a gun from earlier in the movie, who warned them about the island? He's apparently some kind of internet writer who doesn't even believe in the legend of the island, and is just going there to be a cynical ass about it. Because why have any aspect of this plot make any sense, right? If he didn't believe in the legend, why did he tell them it was so serious?

So, honestly, this is the point of the movie where it really fell off a cliff for us. There's nothing wrong with a slow-building plot, which we figured this might be. But nope! It just had no plot, period! Everything we thought was going to be revealed was completely off-base, because the movie just ignored any kind of plot threads and turned into a generic chase scene. I'll give you some of our guesses that turned out to be complete moot points:

-Was the monster not killing the three sisters because they were all important for some reason? Like, were they reincarnations of these three witches that got killed there years ago, or something? NOPE!

-Were the other people they ran into in town going to be evil and conspiring against them or lying to them in some way? NOPE!

-Was the monster dragging off certain bodies for some ultimate endgame that we couldn't guess? Nope, just for no reason at all!

It's just awfully, confusingly bad plotting. How can so little actually happen? Don't you have any sense of drama?

What DOES happen is about 20 minutes of really, really boring running around in a forest from the monster, with most of the characters having to limp now after being injured – because not being able to run properly just makes action that much more exciting, remember. The monster sure does show its face a lot! What a narcissistic, full-of-himself piece of shit.

"My mother always told me I looked like Cary Grant!"

They end up down in an old bunker, because when in doubt, make it harder for yourselves to escape – brilliant plan, General Patton's spawn! They mostly do nothing of consequence there, just more hiding from the monster. Sarah locks herself in this room with the monster, intending to trap it there, and it kills her – a noble sacrifice, for sure. But why didn't she just lock the monster in and save herself? My theory is that she just wanted to end it all now and get out of the misery that is this fucking movie.

"Finally, the sweet embrace of death! Woohoo!"

Then they go outside and the monster follows them, nearly killing Marley before a burst of sunlight through the trees kills the monster instead, because this thing is such a pussy piece of shit monster, sunlight kills it. And not in a cool way like with vampires, either.

But wait a second. Didn't the movie establish that this monster comes back every hundred years? It leaves at the end of Halloween, they said, and doesn't come back for 100 years. So basically nothing they even did mattered! That's bullshit. And this movie is bullshit.

I don't even know what else to add. Bad storyline, with nothing explained or elaborated on, and a bunch of dumb moments where the monster could've killed them but didn't for no reason. Lots of lazy jump scares. No good characters or drama at all, and even though they try early on, they drop it later on and never bring it up again. How much more do you need?

Nothing about this was entertaining at all. Like I said, this wasn't even a good choice for a Cinema Freaks review, and I am sorry I did it. If I had a physical copy of this movie, I'd put it in the Trick or Treat bags of whichever kid annoyed me the most on Halloween night.

Images copyright of their original owners, we own none of them.

Some loose thoughts on The Invitation (2015)

I saw the movie The Invitation last night at about 1 a.m., which really is the best time to watch a horror film – when everything is dark and the noises go bump in the stillness of the night. Naturally, at that unique time of day and with a movie this strange and eerie, some thoughts were borne out of the experience which I wanted to write down as quick as possible. So I did. Here they are. I'm basically just going to ramble about it for a few paragraphs, just a bunch of loose thoughts. Let's talk about The Invitation. There'll be some spoilers, I guess, but I'm not going through this scene-by-scene like in my normal reviews.

Director: Karyn Kusama

Starring: Logan Marshall Green, Tammy Blanchard

IMDb

The story is about this guy named Will coming back for this reunion with his ex-wife and a bunch of their friends. Apparently Will and his wife's son died two years ago, and after that his wife joined this religious group out in Mexico, which is always a good sign by the way. The group's philosophy is that apparently, letting go and dying shouldn't be this scary concept. Which seems like an awfully long way to go to make a religion – why not just get some pills and cash out now? Why wait? But it's a religion for them, I guess, and it starts to make for what could charitably be called an awkward house party. There's a sense of unease immediately, with the crowded camera shots full of all these characters and the almost toxic, claustrophobic sense of politeness – you can just tell there's something “off,” and the movie never skimps on that feeling. I was uncomfortable all throughout this thing.

The movie's first two acts especially are so exquisitely creepy. This is masterfully headfucked, bizarre, trippy stuff, like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining – that was really the prevalent influence I kept being reminded of through the whole movie. There are all these weird, head-trip moments where you don't know what's going on and what's just in someone's head. Will, the lead, seems composed at first, but the memory of his lost son slowly starts to show that maybe he isn't a reliable narrator either – you wonder a few times what exactly is just his warped perspective and what isn't. The ending of the movie is much more straightforward, and doesn't have that kind of ambiguity, but I liked the way they built it up anyway. At some moments before the climax, the movie has these surreal scenes that sort of dive down a rabbit hole of fucked-up-ness, but then cut back to normalcy and you wonder if that scene even really happened. It doesn't end up mattering if it really happened, though, because the effect is still so macabre.

The climax turns into an all-out bloodbath. It becomes something similar to the movie End of the Line, which I panned way back in 2014, but the execution is what matters – the 'cult end of days killers' theme is done so well in this film. As I mentioned, the ambiguity and the surreality of the early parts of the film were excellent, but I am not one to turn my nose at a good dose of violence, either. This climax is full of great stark, surprising, bloody moments, and it works. The final twist at the end is one I've seen done before, and maybe it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I was rolling with it the way this movie told it. I had no great complaints.

I think beyond everything else, it was the little touches that made this movie so good to me. The villains in this film are part of this cult that wants to enact mass suicide. But when they die, they don't seem like they're at peace as they said they'd be. When these cult members die, they don't reach some kind of perfect bliss like they blather on about all throughout the first two acts – they're in pain, screaming and they don't want to go. I think that's a kind of insight that puts this movie way above most other horror movies.

It's a nuance that shows an understanding of people's psyches where, even as far gone as these villains are, we're all the same when we're dying. The reactions of the main characters, the good guys, killing them are appropriately horrified, too; another thing most movies do not get right. I think when you can feel the deaths at a more visceral level, see the pain, then a horror movie is even more “real.” That's why The Invitation succeeds.

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 2015

The hallowed time that the prophecies foretold has come again, for us to delve into our critical brains, and analyze what the best and worst entertainment of the last year were. That's important to do because life can't go on without me doing this. Because I don't want time to freeze for all eternity and leave everyone's soul with the missing and nagging feeling that you don't know what Cinema Freaks thinks are the best and worst, I guess I have to bite the bullet and write this list, of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in terms of 2015's movies. Let's start off with the good.

Best of 2015, or, The Good

13. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

This was probably the surprise of the year for me. I expected a pretty safe and generic cash-in, but I got a highly passionate, well made love letter to the fans of the original. The new characters are excellently acted and written, the action heart-pounding exciting and the story is told with sweep and emotional crests to spare. It's a heartfelt action movie with craftsmanship and style behind it. I'm actually excited to be a Star Wars fan again.

12. Blind

An artful and creatively directed film about a woman who goes blind and starts to suspect that her husband isn't being faithful to her. It's funny and stylish, and tells a pretty emotional story in a unique way. Like a mirror showing you a dark part of yourself, Blind will make you laugh while also getting you to question some of what you're seeing and your perception in general. It's intelligent, enjoyable filmmaking. Recommended.

11. What We Do in the Shadows

A mockumentary about a bunch of vampires being roommates. It plays with horror tropes and conventions, and the characters all being different vampire cliches from different time periods just ramps up the hilarity. They're also well acted and written, and you get to like them as characters while still laughing at the jokes. This is so silly, but there's a lot of legitimately hilarious things going on. Tons of fun.

10. Ex Machina

Genuinely great science fiction. This story about an inventor who's built a sentient android raises some great questions about where the line is between man and machine and what makes us human. Add in some feminist sprinklings about how we view and treat women in society, and great acting and directing, and Ex Machina is a first rate movie. Go see it if you haven't.

9. Paper Towns

A Young Adult movie, but it's John Green, which makes it great by default. This is a story with great characters - especially them being in high school is cool, as so few movies write good high school aged characters. The story is about how we tend to idolize those we're in love with. That's an important lesson. The fact that the movie tells that story with both energetic comedy and sobering drama, with memorable characters, dialogue and scenes aplenty, makes it well worth seeing multiple times over.

8. Room

A drama about one of the little-seen facets of crime/kidnapping stories: what happens to the victim afterwards. This is hard to watch from the onset, with Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay playing a woman and her son who have been locked in a room by a sick pervert for seven years - the entirety of her son's life, in fact. The fact that they escape isn't much of a spoiler, because where less intelligent films would focus on the sensationalistic things like a trial or the cops investigating the case, this movie goes for something different by telling us what happens to Larson and Tremblay's characters afterward, showing us the emotional repercussions and healing process. It's beautifully honest, naked emotion bared on screen. An incredibly powerful film.

7. Sicario

Crime movie of the year. This follows a woman in the DEA assigned to a drug case to work with a couple shady FBI agents south of the border. Slowly she learns she has very little control of the situation and she's in over her head. It's exciting, visceral, take-no-prisoners stuff. The commentary on how women are treated in workplace jobs is understated but very brilliant as the film gets murkier and murkier and things keep ramping up in intensity. Emily Blunt is fabulous, and director Denis Villenueve is a gem with this being his third or fourth dead-on hit of a movie in a row (he also did Prisoners and Enemy within the last few years).

6. The Revenant

Alejandro González Iñárritu returns from Birdman with this slow-burn, searing atmospheric Western survival story. DiCaprio and Tom Hardy are fantastic. And despite the bleak and desolate nature of it, this is far from one of those gimmick films that relies on silences and empty pauses to give the illusion of depth (see: Melancholia, The American, Only God Forgives). A lot happens in this movie and it's actually a very human, emotional story of man's desires and fallability, as well as a great revenge tale. The scenery is used as a set-piece to help tell the story in a way that's so simple it's almost obvious - but the craftsmanship and artistry make it ingenious.

5. It Follows

My favorite horror movie of the year, and of the last few years. It's scary but also meaningful and kind of poignant, and maybe a bit funny in its own wry way, too. The scenes of that monster creeping up from far away, barely noticeable at first, and the way it plays with your expectations so you don't always know when it's coming are great. But what was even better was the message about young love and adulthood and leaving the past behind. Growing up is scary, confusing and doesn't make sense. You're thrown into a world you don't know and you make the best of it. That's It Follows.

4. Spotlight

An outstanding film that just tells a great story. This is about the discovery of the Catholic Church molestation scandal by a team of journalists, and it's a near flawless film with great characters, writing and pacing. I was never bored with this. It's rare to find a movie that's completely no nonsense and just keeps its eye on the ball, without any kind of gimmickry or pontification or trying to force some moral message. This movie knew what story it wanted to tell and it told that story, with gusto and drama. Gripping, intelligent, mature filmmaking. We need more movies like this.

3. Beasts of No Nation

Beasts of No Nation is a stunning war epic about African child soldiers. Every shot is gorgeous and every moment of the film is harrowing and heartbreaking. Idris Elba is great, and the child star, Abraham Attah, delivers a show-stealing performance. It's a long film but every second is worth seeing. This is a stand out film from any angle, and I think it will be remembered as a classic in the future.

2. Inside Out

Probably the best animated film I've ever seen. By now, you probably know the story is about emotions inside a young girl's head personified. The way this movie tells dual stories, both the emotions in their quest to help the girl be happy again, AND the girl's life herself, is staggeringly good for a kid's movie - in fact, it's so good that it's just great by any standard. The movie has a lot to say about growing up too, just like It Follows and Paper Towns - I guess that was a theme of 2015. The way it talks about emotions and memories is insanely complex but also told in a way that anyone can get into it on some level. And in today's nostalgia culture where we love remembering the past, Inside Out is even more important - the fact that it's about a kid leaving the past behind is especially poignant and I shouldn't have to explain why.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

With all the meaningful and insightful films on my list, my number one pick is still the gnarly, badass, explosion-filled action movie with cars racing through the desert. I loved Fury Road because it was extremely entertaining and well made, and didn't pander to the audience or dumb down its story with cliche. It was just a great action movie, and the level of fine-tuning. craftsmanship and detail made it a legit work of art. But I also loved this because it's a symbol of the blockbuster, that long-dead-horse flogged for years, being reborn like a phoenix from the ashes. This is the best summer movie in I don't even know how long; since The Dark Knight at least, and it's probably better than even that movie. Finally we have a great, balls-out, fucking metallic screaming ball of fury of an action movie that isn't bogged down by the sad-sack cliche and dumb writing and dumbing down that other Hollywood garbage has. This movie is a fuck-you to all that. It's a middle finger in the face of Hollywood's lifeless corpse. It's an ironclad vice-grip hand around the throat of everything we hate about Hollywood.

Is that all extremely dramatic as a way to explain my point? Yes. But that's how the movie makes me feel, and why Fury Road is the best of the year.

Now that that's done with, let's move onto the bad! Oh yeah, I can feel the hairs on my arm tingling like the fur of a cat in heat before a lightning storm!

Worst/Disappointments of 2015, or, The Bad

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Not a bad movie per se, more just a disappointment. This is a very bloated and oft-tired-feeling film that lacks severely in the pacing department. The acting, production values and action are all well done, but it's so corporately controlled and overstuffed that it loses any humanity or character development that director Joss Whedon could have brought to it. There are a few good scenes and some pretty cool fights and all that, but after two and a half hours, do we need to see any more cities blow up?

The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight is three hours long, except it really only has like an hour and a half of actual good material. The rest is artificially stretched out with long silences, long pauses and lots of repeated, awkwardly extended dialogue exchanges between characters - basically Tarantino's style exaggerated to nauseating levels. The humor is just bad. While the story maybe had potential, any of that is snuffed out quick by the overlong runtime. Tarantino is like your awkward 55-year-old uncle trying to be cool by digging out his old Harley Davidson and bomber jacket with the Motorhead and AC/DC patches, but instead it's just like go home, you're embarrassing yourself.

Ant-Man

The characters in Ant-Man don't act like real people, and there's nothing in the film that diverts from cliche you've seen a thousand times over. I hated Paul Rudd, I hated the awful comedy from him and his three friends (who are all ridiculous racial/cultural stereotypes with zero character) and I hated Evangeline Lily's super generic stoic/tough chick character, like having an actual personality or showing any emotion was too much to ask, but how can it be sexist when she knows how to fight, right? This is just a waste of time. It feels like the thought behind this was 'it's Ant Man, we don't have to try that hard.'

Taken 3

A woeful experience full of some of the worst writing of the year. The entire plot could be solved if Liam Neeson would just sit down with the cops and go, hey, I didn't kill a guy like you think I did. But then they wouldn't have a movie. And a world without this gutter-trash bullshit movie was just too much to bear for some Hollywood exec in need of a paycheck somewhere.

Exeter

This is a step below even the most generic horror movies out there with terrible everything about it. Just such fraud, such absolute shit. I hated this movie, and you should too. Everything wrong with horror here.

Insidious: Chapter 3

Jump scare after jump scare after jump scare, zero thought or atmosphere put into the very rote story, nothing redeemable or even close. I will say those Islamic societies that outlaw movies have at least one positive if the oppressed citizens don't have to watch any Insidious or James Wan movies.

The Visit

Director M. Night Shyamalan, at times during The Visit, seems to be deliberately making his own story worse, as the problems in the narrative are easy fixes and it comes off like he left them there on purpose. It's either shockingly amateurish or annoyingly in-your-face bad on purpose, and neither option is attractive. Every second of this movie is just unwatchable. It was a given as soon as I started watching this that I'd put it as the worst of 2015, and in fact it's a contender for worst of the entire decade.

Phew. Well that was fun. Let's just go onto the last part now, where I talk about the other movies I liked this year.

The Other Pretty Good Movies of 2015 Not on the Best List, or, The Ugly

Krampus

A really good, fun horror film about a Pagan Christmas creature called the Krampus. It grooves and bounces along pretty well, and actually does manage to be funny and scary in the same film. It didn't go quite for the throat like it maybe should have, but I was never bored.

The Walk

A classic Zemeckis film in his usual uplifting, family-friendly style. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fantastic and the visuals are great. The story about overcoming odds and achieving whatever bat shit, weird-ass dream you want is a lot of fun. What more do you need?

The End of the Tour

Parts of this were good enough to be on the regular Best Of list, but like a lot of true-story movies, I just didn't think this semi-biopic of author David Foster Wallace went as far as it should have. It ended right when I was really getting invested. But even so, Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg are great and their chemistry is great. This is a very entertaining movie.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

Epic, sweeping and dark, the final Hunger Games installment delivers one of its best chapters as the last one. This was extremely detailed and well articulated, and the story had a real raw, dark power to it. I wanted to give other movies the spotlight more than this big name, but it's definitely worth seeing so far as blockbusters go.

Black Mass

Kick ass crime movie in the classic Scorsese mold. I thought this was pretty awesome, gritty fun, with a fast pace and lots of badass scenes. Johnny Depp is inimitable and this is his best role in ages.

Goodnight Mommy

Nothing makes me happier than to have so many good horror movies on one year's Best Of list. This is a killer movie that just has no nonsense about it. Its creeping unease in the first act turns into outright screaming terror, followed by an ending that is perfect for what the film was going for. It's the kind of all-business genre film, taken seriously and done with care, that the genre needs.

Bone Tomahawk

And another good horror movie. This was super old-school Western desert horror with a cannibal legion hiding in a cave and a bunch of ten-gallon-hat-clad dudes with 5 o'clock shadow hunting them. That's so badass I barely need to say anything else. Not perfect but the dedication to old school horror is admirable, and it's done with a modern touch that accentuates the cool parts. Really awesome flick.

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