cartercrisp

Growing up, the movies I loved were The Lion King, Back to the Future, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and pretty much any horror movie I could get my hands on. Especially slashers. My dad introduced me to Halloween and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I used to catch unfortunately-edited TV marathons of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street films all the time, and when I turned 10, a little movie called Scream was released. Obviously, I wasn't a sheltered child. So it wasn't difficult to finally have a theatre experience with my favorite genre, and I really cut my teeth on the postmodern wave, debating with my friends the superiority of Scream versus I Know What You Did Last Summer. Now, the smugness of these gets hated on today. But I knew the conventions and clichés, and it made sense to me that the characters would be equally informed, acting accordingly when being chased down. Eventually the tide of horror shifted though, to Japanese pseudoghosts and zombie everything and splatter flicks, and the slashers were resigned to remakes/reboots that upped the gore but brought nothing new to the table. It is here that the low-budget gem Midnight Movie (The Killer Cut) really shines. It brings back the meta, taking place in a rundown theatre showing a 70s cult slasher film that manages to overlap with the primary reality. Armed with an over-sized corkscrew, the killer fetches his victims from the audience. The premise is both inventive and evocative. As are the kills, which don't rely on gore for impact. As far as scares are concerned, it's pretty tame by my standards, but there were definitely some covered eyes around me. This is a B-movie without question, but across the board the effort is solid and never ceases to be entertaining. The characters are varied and acted out believably, and you'll find delight, concern, and surprise in the fates that befall them. After all, who gets killed and how is what a slasher is all about. There's even room for a sequel, but this isn't shoved down your throat. In my somewhat jaded perspective, I expected another laughably bad modern horror entry here, but was pleasantly surprised to just sit back and feel like a kid again.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. But to how many webs do we belong? How many decisions were made outside our comprehension that changed the course of life forever? How many of those decisions became regrets? It doesn't really matter because yesterday happened, but it is interesting to consider the interconnected backstage of existence. And then tremble at the great unknown that is your parent's past. There's just so much we'll never know. And that's mostly OK. Bride Flight is a film that I admired because its leading characters were not only exquisitely defined, but their stories felt distinct and complete, almost separate within a greater whole. These people kept things from one another, and yet they were all so pivotal to each other. The dramatic irony fires on all cylinders. And the ensemble has absolutely excellent chemistry to pull it off. You never doubt the natural unfolding of events because every glance they give or catch is so engaging. New Zealand serves as a breathtakingly epic backdrop to this romance that jumps back and forth on a timeline much more gracefully than so many other examples. When it does jump back you start to become very happy certain rigid social customs have been left behind, and that's a testament to how fully yet subtly its realized. This was a pleasant surprise to watch.