…and by “horrors,” I am referring to the pleasant glut of movies that were released throughout last year, as opposed to the punishing series of events that transpired.  While, so far, 2025 has started out strong and some excellent developments have already unfolded, 2024 seemed to specialize in teeth-rattling events both personal and public, and I’m uninterested in re-living them in any detailed format; I wouldn’t even know where to start or finish, frankly.  Just off the top of my noggin: I had to fight endlessly for a little bit of payment for a lot of writing I had done for a stupid site; I had a steady stream of petulant, rude little man-boys from my past come out of the woodwork (a lot of this thanks to my joining–and ultimately abandoning–Facebook) who made faces at me and called me names because I didn’t have time for their puerile nonsense; my ex of eight measly months wrapped up Year Two of online harassment, abuse, and stalking; the country’s economy, housing crisis, social woes, and rampant political corruption hit an all-time low, creating a sense of hopelessness among nearly every sector of the population; my physical and mental health (waves of startling depression, ongoing colds and flus) were compromised in ways that I have never, ever experienced since before having to get the hasty COVID vaccine, and if you don’t think there’s a connection, I’m not going to say much more, or do you the courtesy of linking to the solid research and evidence correlating the federally-enforced jab and the enormous public-health fallout.  

See that header pic? That’s what 2024 did to me (via an aging app, of course…I still don’t look a day over 45).

Therefore, it was terrific to see that a number of horror movies were released in 2024, and I did my best to see a pile of them both in the cinema and in the comfort of my apartment.  Horror is my favourite film genre and always has been; and like any contributions to specific categories of artistic expression, there are brilliant creations, there are abysmal attempts, and there is the vast remaining majority, which is simply somewhere in between.  Horror is a most underappreciated and overlooked type of film–although in East Asia, it is beautifully held in cinematic reverence–and if you’re a squeamish, jumpy sort of person who can’t understand why anyone would want to watch Sleepaway Camp for the dozenth time (oh, that ending!!), I think this guy is in the best position to explain our tendency to indulge in that which is terrifying, or which terrifies us directly.   

While writing this might have made more sense to some if I had tackled it in late December or early January, I also wonder why that is; I can write about whatever I wish, whenever I want to do so.  Also, I’ve been very occupied with various, uh, growth spurts in my life, and am trying to fit in blog entries when I have the opportunity to do so.  However, posting here kept me very much afloat and anchored last year, which is why I was doing so on an almost weekly basis (if not more), and this blog will always be my labour of love and most cheerful hobby.  

Now.  Having said all of that, let’s take a look at some 2024 horror movies I watched, and I’m gonna rate them with the very unoriginal scores of Thumb (yes, a singular thumb, it’s only me here) Up 👍 , Thumb Down 👎, and Thumb-and-Forefinger-Means-It’s-A-Wee-Bit-Okay-But-Really-You-Can-Skip-It 🤏.  I’ll do my best not to spoil them as best as I can, but I’m not making any promises. You see, one of the innumerable lessons I learned from the exhausting, infuriating Year of the Dragon was to grind my people-pleasing tendencies into a very fine, chalky powder and let it all blow away into the ether.  Everyone else does this, so why shouldn’t I follow suit?  What a relief to let go of such a dumb, self-sabotaging trait!  

Okay, let’s go, kids:

Longlegs – 🤏

This one got lots and lots of attention, the majority of it very positive.  I’m not sure if it’s because the people crowing about it had never actually seen a proper horror movie before; or because Nicolas Cage, International Treasure, played the killer; or because Osgood Perkins, son of Anthony “Norman Bates” Perkins, was responsible for writing and directing it.  Let’s put it this way: when Paul Stanley of KISS fame was chosen to play The Phantom thirty years ago in the Toronto production of the operatic musical, he admitted it was “stunt casting” that would bring in audiences, although he did get favourable reviews.  Osgood Perkins is the celluloid equivalent of that, allowed to write and direct a horror film simply because dear ol’ Dad played a charismatic mental case in “Psycho” (as well as its surprisingly excellent sequel and campy third installment).  Osgood, look here: I’m sure you’re a smashing chap, but just because your father played one horror-movie character flawlessly, it does not make you a master of that genre.  

We have absolutely no backstory to the maniacal killer played by Nicolas Cage, nor any explanation as to why he’s even called Longlegs.  He’s not in the movie very much, but when he is, Cage doesn’t just chew the scenery: he devours it, masticates it with enormous chomps.  All I saw was Nicolas Cage being some version of his hyperbolic movie-star self, wearing prosthetics and makeup and scream-singing in his car and not even remotely unnerving.  In fact, he was one of the producers of the film, meaning he should have had the good sense to bring in an unknown to play this role for maximum effect instead of claiming it for his own in order to play yet another weirdo in classic Cage fashion.  For example: Ted Levine may have worked steadily in films before “Silence of the Lambs” (which Longlegs attempts to emulate–even rip off–in several ways), but nobody had a clue who he was until he portrayed Buffalo Bill, a performance that was inarguably flawless and downright frightening.  I legitimately like Nicolas Cage in every single thing I’ve seen him in except for this movie; he has no business being in a horror film, let alone one in which he’s supposed to be terrifying, because he cannot let go of that intrinsically kooky Cageian quality he brings to every single character he inhabits.  

The film is poorly-lit throughout, it’s sluggishly-paced, the lead actress (Maika Monroe, who has been in quite a few horror films I’ve seen) appears to have been directed by Osgood to act like she was soused on a bottomless Nembutal and Diazepam cocktail, but ultimately, the most exasperating part of Longlegs was blaming everything on old-school Satan worship; this is one of the most unimaginative horror-movie cop-outs I can think of, short of hauling in some zombies, vampires, angry paranormal entities, or all of the above.  I truly loathe it when a horror film takes the cheap, supernatural way out of scaring its audience.  If you’re going to introduce a human monster–the most dreadful creature of them all–you can’t deny moviegoers an origin story for the lunatic’s motivation and simply point the finger at him or her worshipping the infamous pitchfork-wielding red dude.  Someone online, I can’t recall who, mentioned that “Longlegs” appeared to be a hasty gluing-together of various unconnected ideas spewed out in a writer’s room, and I think it’s a great description of the overall project.

Also, this was filmed all around Metro Vancouver, so another point off for my being able to immediately point out Coquitlam architecture in one of the first scenes.  See it if you wish, satisfy your curiosity, but this was entirely overhyped.  I saw it in the cinema and made it to the end, but didn’t think about it whatsoever afterwards…until now, I suppose.

Strange Darling – 👍

This one really seemed to fall under the radar; the only reason I stumbled across it is because I was flicking and clicking and clicking and flicking (as always) through Amazon Prime trying to find something in the horror genre that sounded watchable.  As we know, this can be a Herculean task requiring a great deal of patience and flexibility, but when something works out, it’s all worth it; for every twenty abominable “Horror in the High Desert”s, you will find one “Strange Darling,” and the satisfaction of having located something so eminently watchable and original can linger for days, even weeks.  

This is also the product of a writer-director, someone named JT Mollner, and is a terrific example of how, sometimes, only the writer of a film can best bring their project to life cinematically, because they’ve likely visualized the entire thing as they’ve been scribbling out the screenplay.  Unlike Osgood Perkins, Mollner isn’t relying on cliches, hoary tropes, or Satan himself in order to sell his wares and scares, but instead, uses engaging writing, a compelling and non-linear storytelling technique, and of course, magnetic actors to create a successful work of art.  In fact, I’m not sure you could call this a horror movie in the typical sense, but many aspects of it are indeed fairly horrifying.  

Without giving too much of it away, “Strange Darling” is about a serial killer running around scenic Oregon.  It has some intensely pleasurable hairpin plot twists, and I don’t mean the sort of M. Night Shamalayan curveballs that end up being eye-rolling, groan-inducing gimmicks [note: I will mention M. Night’s 2024 effort “Trap” somewhere below].   The real treat in this movie, however, is Willa Fitzgerald’s performance as The Lady (the two lead characters are only known as The Lady and The Demon).  I only recognized her as Madeleine Usher in the fantastic Netflix horror miniseries “Fall of the House of Usher,” a role that required her to be ice-cold, unruffled, sociopathic, and ultimately very effective.  This gig, however, allows her to really show her range, one that extends from the Great Lakes to Alice Springs (if we’re going to be silly enough to use geographical metaphors, which I am).  Casting Fitzgerald as the female lead was completely inspired; I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Were it not for the iron-solid performances, I probably wouldn’t have cared that much about this film, but because of them, I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I thought about this film for a while afterwards, and decided to watch it again a few months later, just because.

Speak No Evil – 👎

I knew this was going to be garbage before I even wasted my time on it, and wasn’t disappointed (or does that mean I was disappointed?).  I watched the original European film a couple of years ago and was shaken; as the movie progressed, I was steadily, uncomfortably taken over by a sense of growing anxiety that was so pervasive, I had to switch it off partway through and resume viewing it a day or two later.  I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but something terrible indeed was creeping along and growing like a hot, ugly, unstoppable rash.  The final ten or fifteen minutes was nearly unwatchable; not because it was bad, but because it was the true embodiment of horror, of human monstrosity.  This movie did not need to be remade for 2024, especially since it had just been made in 2022, but taking someone else’s good ideas from overseas and fucking them up for American audiences is a hallmark of the Hollywood hack system (see “Martyrs” for just one example).  

A brief summary of the plot: One well-meaning, unassertive couple with a kid meets an unusual, gregarious couple with a kid at an Italian vacation resort.  Gregarious couple invites the pushovers to visit them for a week.  Things go absolutely sideways.  Things aren’t what they seem.  Turns out children are the intended targets of the weird couple, and the parents are disposable.  

Admittedly, I didn’t make it until the end of this movie.  It was just so sub-mediocre, so lacking in tension, with characters you didn’t care one driblet about whether they were considered “good” or “bad.”  Everyone in this movie was pure crap, sir.  The original Danish-Dutch film had an ending that caused me to Google everything I could online to see how others interpreted the entire spectacle.  In this dumb remake, however, Wikipedia tells me there is a “happy” ending in which the good guys prevail, because…America, dammit.  Christ almighty, what’s the point, then?  

I mentioned in my preamble to these reviews that I am through with people-pleasing, and the 2022 “Speak No Evil” provides us with a very valuable, nail-gobbling lesson in why it’s just never a good idea.  2024 “Speak No Evil” teaches us no such thing–teaches us nothing, actually–but does reinforce that twelve-year olds who are unhealthily attached to stuffed toys probably had some bad parenting.  Also (and you’re going to have to just deal with this hard truth), casting Mackenzie Davis as the female lead didn’t work for me due to her overexaggerated facial expressions and her…well, her unattractiveness.  She was just hard on the eyes, alright?  I know she’s a Vancouver native and maybe I should cut her some slack, but so is Grimes, and she was dense enough to procreate with Elon Musk, so I don’t have blind devotion to my fellow Terminal City residents.  I enjoyed Mackenzie in the bawl-my-eyes-out episode of Black Mirror called “San Junipero,” but she did not make this bogus drek any easier to watch; she was all wrong for the role, from her poorly-interpreted direction to her physical appearance.  It’s like the old story I once heard about why some brilliant writer broke up with his actress wife: “I loved her, but god forgive me, she had no tits.”  Everyone’s shallow…including me.

Skip this rubbish.  Watch the original.       

Trap – 👎

Oy. I didn’t even watch this one; I didn’t have to.  Not only have I hated every last one of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies–at least, the three of four I’ve somehow managed to choke down over the years–but all I had to do was watch the CinemaSins review of “Trap” to firmly cement my opinion on his output.  I saw the trailer before I watched “Longlegs” last summer, and it already seemed suspect; getting the whole picture from CinemaSins, though, was more than enough.  M. Night must have all sorts of compromising blackmail-worthy information on Hollywood bigwigs to be able to continually get funding for the overflowing Port-A-Potty he calls material.  

Did you see this?  Did you like it?  You probably need a CAT scan, if not a full-on MRI.

Oddity – 👍

Now, this I liked a whole, whole lot.  

A couple of years ago I came across a little-known film called “Caveat” that truly impressed me with its cinematography, compelling acting, atmospheric tension, and overall originality.  Sure, it had some moments where it stretched credulity like a piece of saltwater taffy, but what movie doesn’t?  So when I heard a bit about “Oddity” and discovered that it was the same writer/ director who had made “Caveat” (Damian McCarthy), I was genuinely excited in the way I used to be when I was young and a band I liked put out a new record.  Since I don’t really listen to much new music anymore–and have absolutely no idea what bands are out there; I watched The Grammys a few weeks ago and scratched my head the entire time, as it was nothing but prefab popstars whom I had never heard of–it’s small thrills like this I have to hold close to my blackening heart.

This is yet another example of a writer bringing his artistic imagination to the screen in a way that only he can do (Osgood “Longlegs” Perkins, please take note of how it’s done, because a recognizable surname is not the way).  Despite only having made two effective motion pictures, McCarthy has already seemed to establish his very own identifiable cinematic style, which is not an easy thing to do as a movie maker; much like how films are now described as “Kubrickian” or “Fellini-esque” due to a movie’s aesthetics, themes, and tone resembling that of those directors, I wonder if Damian is going to eventually become his own adjective.  

While this movie, like “Caveat,” does introduce an element of the supernatural, it does not interfere with the main storyline, which goes like this: After a woman is killed in her new home, her blind twin sister–who is also a medium–comes to visit her widower husband a year later to pay homage and get to the bottom of what really went on.  She brings along the creepiest wooden mannequin anyone has ever seen, and the husband’s new girlfriend eventually gets spooked out by absolutely everything taking place: the mannequin, the psychic blind twin, the video camera, all of it.  We eventually find out what really went on, the hows and the whys, and the ending gives us one of the most satisfying final shots I’ve seen in a very long time (alongside the death scene in “Strange Darling”…did I mention that in my review above?). 

This was a spooky film, a unique piece of work with wonderful old-school horror sensibility, absolutely no gratuitous gore, only one or two jump scares that made complete sense in context, and a lead performance by Carolyn Bracken–who plays both twin sisters–that is one for the ages.  Why don’t actors in horror movies get proper industry accolades?  I guess because awards don’t really mean much. After all, Brad Pitt won an Oscar for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” a few years ago by doing nothing except taking off his shirt and revealing a stunning 56-year old torso, prompting all of the ladies (and more than a few men) in the cinema to gaspingly rummage around for some kind of smelling salts.

Give him all the awards! This is a masterclass in thespianism!

In A Violent Nature – 🤏

I heard only a little bit about this movie last year, mostly that it was a gory slasher flick that pretty much takes the point of view of the psychotic killer.  Sounds like a fairly original premise, but it’s one that grows fairly tiresome the longer the movie carries on.

The plot, if you want to call it that: Some kids decide to camp out in the Ontario woods somewhere (this movie is Canadian, by the way, for those of you wanting to ban all things American as we’re currently attempting to do here in Leafland).  Two of them find a dangling locket hanging from an abandoned fire tower, and decide to take it.  This awakens the buried body of a crazed lunatic–is there any other kind?–named John who claws his way out of the ground and goes on a killing spree, mostly consisting of those hapless kids who have decided to crash out in the boonies.  It sounds ridiculous, but what kinda / sorta makes it work is that there isn’t a single musical note in this film: no soundtrack, no score, no incidental music between scenes, no manipulative minor chords bashed out on a synth; just steady, paced-out action.  

The violent murders in this film are so over-the-top and extreme, they make the creative death scenes in “Saw” seem like “My Dinner With Andre.”  In fact, the more I watched this–and I’ll admit, for the first half-hour or so I was feeling quite uneasy and freaked-out, which is exactly the goal of a properly-made horror movie–the more I believed that it was a parody of slasher films.  There was definitely some kind of self-awareness on the part of the filmmakers, as opposed to the sort of earnest arrogance afflicting M. Night Shyamalan, and it became more and more ludicrous as the suspension of disbelief required a few industrial cranes.  

It was an okay watch, just fine, but nothing I’d fervently recommend.  I don’t regret watching it, but I certainly wouldn’t give it a second viewing.  Also, the acting chops of the Final Girl really need some honing; I’m not sure if she was cast because she was so patently awful, but she was distractingly horrible.  

…I’m going to wrap it up here for now, as I’ve been banging away on this laptop for a few hours now, and Family Day is about to come to a close.  Did I mention today was a stat holiday?  It’s a fairly new one, too: a handful of years ago, it appears that Canada was fed up with not having a statutory holiday in February (“We just endured the worst month of the year, give us a day off!”), so the country just made one up and called it Family Day.  Nobody’s complaining.  Now if only Easter Friday would get its act together and be consistent with either March or April, because this year, it’s not coming round until April.  That gives us one entire thirty-one-day-long month with the clocks springing forward to suffer through.  GREAT.

Until next time, when I make time, I hope you remembered that Valentine’s Day was not the only allotted day of the year to show your love.

Love,

Nadya.