2015 is like so
last year already! But for my own benefit more than anything else,
here's all my mini-reviews I published on my Twitter account for films
released last year handily gathered together in one place. This is by no
means every film I saw, but just the titles which I felt
compelled to post a succinct '140 characters or less' verdict upon. For my latest Twitter reviews you can follow me here: @M_R_Movie
In Alphabetical Order:
Aaaaaaaah!: Unique British spin on Planet Of The Apes. Anarchic, absurd, a one note animal instincts joke unlike anything ever seen before.
A Christmas Horror Story: Multiple concurrent narrative takes some keeping abreast of, but it's great grisly fun full of Xmas (mean) spirit.
Age Of
Kill: Raises zeitgeist issues of racial tension & terrorism in a thriller
format, but is neither thrilling & as a polemic it's vacant.
A Girl
Walks Home Alone At Night: Hypnotic, narcotic, darkly romantic. Striking monochrome
visuals & a haunting, ageless dreamlike quality. Special.
American Sniper: Excels at raw, visceral, tense action, but at the expense of the human drama or any political or ideological standpoint.
American Sniper: Excels at raw, visceral, tense action, but at the expense of the human drama or any political or ideological standpoint.
American
Ultra: Mis-sold as stoner comedy it's more a violent action / romance. Leads have
real chemistry but film is discordant & unengaging.
A Most
Violent Year: Steeped in gritty '70s cinema heritage, uniquely a crime film
about resisting the lure of gangster morality. Impressive.
Amy: Candid, tragic, warts n' all portrait
of a tortured soul girl. Supremely talented, but a walking contradiction. Life
as a losing game.
Ant-Man:
More comedic & yes...smaller scale than usual Marvel fare. Rudd is inspired
casting & Douglas adds gravitas in a charming, fun romp.
Area 51: The movie equivalent of an alien anal probe - a horrible, confusing
experience & thoroughly painful to endure.
Awaiting:
Strong performances & a tragic edge in a gritty n' grisly slice of rural
Britsploitation taking its cues from Misery & The Loved Ones.
Backcountry:
Languid build-up full of suggested menace shifts into graphic horror, all the
more gruelling due to earlier character investment.
Bait:
Dwells on punishment prior to payback.A brutal, bloody revenge thriller with
blackly comedic streak which extends to the post credits animation.
Beasts
Of No Nation: The loss of innocence, the cruel cost of conflict. A harsh,
haunting depiction of the evil that men (& boys) do.
Big
Eyes: A more low-key, reserved & reflective diversion from Tim Burton's
usual output. Adams is terrific, Waltz is terrifically hammy.
Big
Game: Enjoyable nonsense. High concept, stunning location & winning
chemistry between leads helps mask just how utterly ludicrous it is.
Big Hero
6: This Disney / Marvel dream team brings the best of both worlds. Great action,
charming characters & stunning animation / design.
Birdman:
Illusion, delusion, ego & art. Theatre as pure cinema, a savagely satirical
fantasy & a stunning directorial tour de force.
Black
Mass: Meh-fellas. Solid cast on a well-trodden gangster movie path. A one
dimensional Depp evokes Pesci's "funny how?" act throughout.
Blackwood:
Decent, atmospheric, if somewhat venerable ghost story. Has a refinement &
rustic charm absent from its Hollywood counterparts.
Bone
Tomahawk: The Searchers meets Cannibal Holocaust. Classic Western scenario
mutated into uncompromising, shocking & visceral horror.
Bridge
Of Spies: Assured, enthralling, dry wit & drama by masters of their craft
who make this look effortless. Spielberg's best in a decade.
Burying
The Ex: Playful zom-rom-com with affable cast & trademark Joe Dante
genre-referencing japes, including the customary Dick Miller cameo.
Chappie:
As tonally conflicted & uneven as some of its haircuts. Feels like two
completely different films haphazardly crow-barred together.
Cobain
Montage Of Heck: An intimate, haphazard scrapbook of a life - as chaotic,
unfocused & fractured as its gifted but conflicted subject.
Cooties:
The kids aren't alright in reasonable paedophobic horror / comedy with some
decent one liners, grisly setpieces & amiable cast.
Cop
Car: Very much in Coen's territory with dark humour, flawed protagonists &
twitchy tension. Bacon is ace, the kids even better. Terrific.
Creep:
Lo-fi, low budget shoe-gaze psychological shocker which is all stalk & no
slash. Found footage, lame jump scares, utter tedium.
Cub:
A twisted rites of passage fable which shifts tone from breezy boys own
adventure into dark & disturbing horror mythology. Impressive.
Dead
Within: Cabin fever in a crisis. A slow-burn psychological meltdown in a study
of harrowing isolation, anguish & disorientation.
Deathgasm:
Deranged & demonic. In your face splatter & metal up yer ass. The new
wave of New Zealand genre cinema delivers another winner.
Demonic: CSI meets Most Haunted via flashback, found footage & jump scares aplenty. Bit disjointed & formulaic but not without its moments.
Demonic: CSI meets Most Haunted via flashback, found footage & jump scares aplenty. Bit disjointed & formulaic but not without its moments.
Digging
Up The Marrow: Meta creature feature in mock-doc form. Wickedly inventive &
cleverly executed, an open love letter to monster movies.
Dismembering
Christmas: Strictly amateur hour seasonal slasher trash. Fleeting gore scenes
& performances of the level of a school nativity.
Everly: Owes a debt to hard-hitting Asian
cinema, with style & sadism of Oldboy. Virtually plotless, but dishes out
brutality by bucket load.
Ex
Machina: A new world of Gods & Monsters, a cerebral, unpredictable three-hander
thriller of perception, deception & manipulation. Superb.
Extinction:
An unusual spin on the zombie genre. Downbeat & drawn out, snowbound &
slow moving. An austere, intimate apocalyptic drama.
Fantastic
Four: All build-up & no payoff. You can see what Trank was aiming for but
the result is clearly severely compromised & truncated.
Fear
Clinic: Good looking low budget horror. Promising concept rather
under-explored. A film of fears & phobias which isn't very frightening.
Final
Girl: As much Hanna as horror. A smart tables-turning meta slasher, Breslin ace
as Little Red Riding Hood who chews up big bad wolves.
Foxcatcher:
Three career best performances in a film laden with dread which wrestles with
themes of power & control but it failed to grip me.
Fractured:
Memento meets Jacob's Ladder. Disturbing nightmarish visions & graphic
violence abound in a rather confused & confusing film.
German
Angst: Urban underground anthology of hardcore horror. Misery, suffering, Nazi
cruelty, guinea pigs & the year's messiest demon sex.
GirlHouse:
A contemporary slasher mix of Big Brother & Babestation. Certainly delivers
on eye candy, sleaze & frequently nasty violence.
Good
Kill: Personal & ethical conflict over an impersonal & voyeuristic
military conflict. More provocative & balanced than American Sniper.
Goodnight
Mommy: Genuinely twisted & unnerving. A dysfunctional family nightmare
peppered with disturbing imagery. Final twist is a stunner.
Hard To
Be A God: Somewhere between visionary masterpiece & endurance test. An
allegory of oppression / regression majoring in misery & squalor.
Hellions:
Teen pregnancy cautionary tale in guise of blood moon-hued Halloween horror.
Trick R Treat meets Inside with a pink filter fetish.
Howl: A few obvious
cliches & plot contrivances aside, this is solid pulpy B movie fun with a
great basic premise & well crafted atmosphere.
Human
Centipede 3: Like a wailing, attention-seeking child desperate to offend
& antagonise, insufferable, puerile trash for morons.
Inanimate:
Good to have a new slime & spittle-dripping creature feature, though this
drags initially & is little more than The Thing on a boat.
Inherent
Vice: Shaggy, baggy, borderline incomprehensible rambling paranoid stoner noir.
It's a garbled & sprawling patience-tester.
Inside
Out: Intelligent, imaginative concept beautifully executed & stunningly
animated. Not Pixar's very best, but puts them back on track.
In
The Heart Of The Sea: Old fashioned matinee adventure yarn in scope, updated with
state of art FX. Entertaining, but I was firmly #TeamWhale
It
Follows: Night Of The Demon reworked as an STD. Has a nice line in
disorientating dream logic, but crucially not the slightest bit scary.
John
Wick: Threadbare plot, massive body count, cool cars, sharp suits, oozes neon
style. Plays like the video game adaptation you longed for.
Jupiter
Ascending: A deranged DNA splice of The Matrix & Dune. Visually opulent,
largely incoherent, madder than David Icke on crystal meth.
Jurassic
World: Lacks wow factor of original & characterisation is minimal, but has
great setpieces & tries new ideas with a limited format.
Kill
The Messenger: Fine cast & a fascinating true story, but doesn't dig too deep
beneath surface. Very much All The President's Men lite.
Kingsman:
Thankfully more like Kick Ass than Kick Ass 2. Tonally all over place, but it's
a lot of irreverent, energetic, ultra-violent fun.
Krampus:
Less Rare Exports, more a Charles Band Demonic Toys with a budget. Not quite
Gremlins levels of twisted Xmas spirit, but good fun.
Last
Shift: Supremely spooky ghost story in unusual setting. Brilliantly builds
dread & unease. Genuinely creeped me out more than once.
Lost
River: Somewhere over the rainbow to Lynch / Refn territory. Visually arresting,
abstract, devoid of identity. A directorial dog's dinner.
Mad Max
Fury Road: Like injecting a speed ball directly to your brain, a visually stunning
feast of vehicular carnage played out at amp-blowing levels. Astonishing.
Maggie:
An intimate, emotional apocalypse. Bleak, brooding - a slow rot wallowing in
doom & despair. Arnie emotes, but it's Breslin's film.
Mississippi
Grind: Evocative slice of 70's tinged Americana. Has the smokey bourbon aroma
of sleazy back road bars. Both leads on top form.
Monster Hunter: With its winter palette
& convincing depiction of isolated community, this is a superior slow-burn,
solemn creature feature.
Ouija:
Not great, but no worse than all the other mainstream 15-rated horrors. Tame
& predictable, it's just extraordinarily ordinary.
Out Of
The Dark: Odd hybrid of paedophobic horror & environmental conspiracy
thriller. A few effectively eerie moments, but nothing special.
Phoenix
Incident: Like Battle LA in a desert, a found footage alien / war film with a
shoestring budget, nosebleed editing & migraine visuals.
Pod: For
much of its duration all paranoia, angst & hysteria & a bit of a slog,
rescued by a macabre final act with added Larry Fessenden.
Poltergeist:
Lacks the spectacle & rollercoaster quality of original. Not entirely
worthless but incredibly generic & instantly forgettable.
Preservation:
Deliverance for the smart phone era. Dull hunters get hunted set-up redeemed by
unexpected assailants & gritty final girl action.
[REC]4:
Doesn't reinvent the ship's wheel, but high seas setting is used well with a
nice line in maritime weaponry. A few nods to Braindead too.
Red
Machine: Erratic pacing aside a decent & frequently nasty wilderness romp
with a strong cast getting eaten by a really pissed off bear.
Rendlesham
UFO Incident: Mostly it's generic found footage wandering around in woods
tedium, but scenes on the airbase have an eerie quality.
Selma:
Dignity in the face of bigotry, bravery over brutality. A powerful portrait of
historical events rather than a comprehensive biopic.
Seventh
Son: Entertaining tosh with over-qualified cast. Less po-faced than other
recent fantasy romps. Bridges on top scenery-chewing form.
Sicario:
A morality minefield as the rules of engagement are twisted. Blunt is ethical
beat in heart of darkness, but it's Del Toro's film.
Slow
West: Hugely enjoyable revisionist Western assembled via colourful characters
& quirky setpieces. Bittersweet, brutal, blackly comedic.
Son Of A
Gun: Solid unpretentious B movie. Not much depth to it, but as part prison
drama / part heist caper it delivers enough gritty action.
Spectre:
Retains the maturity of Skyfall but crucially remembers Bond is about escapism
too. A mix of old & new, my fave Craig era entry.
Spring:
A Lovecraftian love story. Poetic & potent, a haunting, heartbreaking
meditation on the bliss, beauty & brutality of nature. Superb.
Star
Wars:The Force Awakens: Perfect symmetry between past & present. Passing
the torch to new generation with maturity, spectacle & wit. Magnificent.
Stonehearst
Asylum: Classy production values, stellar cast & rich Gothic atmosphere. A
venerable drama which explores a twisted conundrum.
Straight Outta Compton:
Overlong & oversimplified. The first half captures vibrancy & danger of
the music, second half descends into soap opera.
Stung: Enjoyably trashy creepy-crawly
creature feature. More '80s infused than SyFy schlock, this is gooey, gory &
slimier than a Tory MP.
Suburban
Gothic: A scattershot Scooby Doo inspired spooky spoof. Quirky &
quick-witted with great character work, it's a lot of madcap fun.
Taken 3:
Utter nonsense obviously & edited to the point of incoherence, with sanitised
violence, but as an undemanding action romp it's about passable.
Ted 2:
The deafening sound of silence through lack of laughs audible over the noise of
a barrel being scraped. Charmless, witless, TED-ious.
Terminator
Genisys: Part reboot, part reworking, subverts previous timelines to point of
incoherence. Has its moments but incredibly messy.
The
Asylum: Grungey, gory, populated with largely unlikable characters. It's Night
Of The Demons with grim aesthetic of the Evil Dead reboot.
The
Avengers Age Of Ultron: Overlong, spins too many plates & Whedon's
individual stamp feels absent, but in terms of global scale, scope &
spectacle a triumph.
The
Atticus Institute: Above average mock-doc, overdoes obvious jump scares, yet
cultivates growing sense of events spiralling out of control.
The Dead
2 - India: Sparsely plotted but captures the chaos, carnage & confusion of
an outbreak against an impoverished backdrop. Decent.
The
Demon's Rook: Feels like it was buried alive in the '80s & has just clawed its
way out. Bursting with retro rubbery FX & surplus splatter. Ace.
The
Diabolical: What initially appears a generic paranormal chiller deviates into
sci-fi territory & becomes far more intriguing & original.
The
Editor: Part tribute, part irreverent giallo spoof. It's Berberian Sound Studio
as pure exploitation with the emphasis on blood, boobs & butts.
The
Entity: Peruvian found footage horror possibly loses much in translation. It's
confusing & covers familiar ground, but has a decent twist.
The
Falling: Amorphous, enigmatic mystery / fringe horror creates dreamlike
off-killter aura via subliminal imagery & unsettling ambiguity. Terrific.
The
Final Girls: The smartest, sharpest, wittiest meta slasher since Tucker &
Dale. Inspired genre subversion via film within film format.
The
Hallow: Outsiders encounter rural superstition & fear in part
fairytale / part supernatural Straw Dogs. An eerie, assured creature feature.
The
Interview: Scatological, wildly misjudged lowbrow drivel desperately lacking in
satirical bite. Freedom of speech has a lot to answer for!
The
Invitation: Slowburning & sinister. Relentlessly builds paranoia &
tension towards its shocking & savage endgame. Stunning final shot.
The
Lazarus Effect: Slick & spooky in places, if nonsensical mainstream chiller.
Not bad, although essentially a mad science spin on Pet Semetary.
The Martian: A '50s B movie plot with
blockbuster credentials. The science of survival, visually arresting, emotionally
gripping, great fun.
The
Mirror: Found footage variant on the haunted mirror horror standard. Takes a
while to find its feet, before its macabre & grisly payoff.
The
Salvation: Traditional western with timeless themes of vengeance &
redemption, but a contemporary flavour. Brutal, visceral, impressive.
The
Samurai: On the edge of a dark forest & the periphery of sanity a modern
twisted fairytale dripping with surreal psychosexual symbolism.
The
Theory Of Everything: A biopic of a life & love rather than a career.
Skirts close to soap opera at times but performances are flawless.
The
Treatment: Complex police procedural. Tackles its controversial subject without
compromise. Gruelling, gripping, but a VERY tough watch.
The
Tribe: A brave, brutal trip into the human abyss played out in sign language
& subtext. Stylistically & thematically a tough proposition.
The
Visit: Pointless use of hand-held video footage. Intensely annoying child
stars. Obvious twist. Still M Night's best film in a decade!!!
The Voices:
Deliciously demented fusion of Psycho & Dr Dolittle - tonally rotating
humour, pathos & genuine darkness. Reynolds is revelatory.
The Walk: The climactic walk is pure white
knuckle spectacle, pity the rest of film is Allo Allo comedy French accents
& dodgy CGI seagulls.
The
Witch: Fading light, blighted land, an ancient evil lurking in the shadows.
Overwhelming dread & utterly unnerving. Believe the hype.
These
Final Hours: Solid, stylish, bittersweet apocalyptic odyssey, but lacks gritty
impact of The Road or emotional punch of Miracle Mile.
Turbo
Kid: Genre-blending splice of VHS-era cultdom. Just about gets away with a
curious mix of sweet-natured sentiment & explicit splatter.
Vendetta:
What the Soska's prison-based revenge drama lacks in believability it makes up
for in bone-crunching violence. Dumb, brutal fun.
Wax:
Cheap, clunky ode to sleazy euro gothic horror. Graphic torture, gratuitous
nudity, cannibal surgeons & Paul Naschy. Watchable trash.
We Are
Still Here: Genre veterans add touch of class to eerie indie which nails a
retro vibe, faithfully riffing on Fulci, Romero & Raimi.
Werewolf
Rising: A turkey in wolf's clothing. Low budget lycanthrope tedium which could
easily pass as one of those schlocky Howling sequels.
We Still
Kill The Old Way: A film where psychotic old time gangsters are the good guys
'cos......erm......no, I've no idea! Utter bilge.
When
Animals Dream: Solemn, portentous & angst-riddled. The drama mirrors its
bleak backdrop, but hits its horror stride for the final reel.
Whiplash:
Blood sweat & tears in a musical bootcamp. Jazz as a white-knuckle warzone.
Simmons superb as tyrannical ball of seething rage.
Wild:
What could’ve been an overly sentimental journey to redemption is grittier &
underpinned by grief & trauma. Witherspoon really goes for it.
Wild
Card: Low-key mix of downbeat drama & bone-crunching brutality capturing an
austere '70's infused vibe thanks to William Goldman's involvement.
Wolves:
Far less Twilight-y than I feared. Decent action, strong supporting cast &
stylish direction. A minor, but watchable werewolf entry.
Wyrmwood:
Anarchic Australian splatterpunk zombie romp. Ferociously full-on, frantic
paced, frequently insane & relentlessly gory. A blast.
Young
Ones: A desolate, downbeat, dystopian drama in three acts. Has the serious tone
& austerity of pre-Star Wars '70's science-fiction.
