Movie Nights: Week in review 11.15-11.21
This week we watched some familiar favorites to wrap up the last Movie Nights of the year!
Crawl (2019)
Crawl is such a fantastic creature feature! The back story is a little whiny (family drama) but it works. It makes you care just the right amount for the characters. Essentially a swimmer heads to check on her father during a hurricane and they find themselves being hunted by alligators in their crawl space. The CGI is amazing, and the alligators are incredibly realistic looking. Directed by Alexandre Aja and produced by Sam Raimi, this killer creature feature was Quinten Tarantino’s favorite 2019 release. It’s shot very well, smartly written and is entertaining throughout. The sets are insanely impressive, they built 7 huge tanks to flood for the film. The gas station, the house, the whole block they are on is actually in a giant water tank that cycled through about 5 million liters of water a day while filming those scenes. The film is carried well by Kaya Scodelario who trained with professional swimmers in Serbia (including an Olympic athlete) to prepare for this role. Highly recommend if looking for a fun human survival story with a higher caliber visual effects.
Photo Credit IMDB
Sinister (2012)
Sinister is better every time we watch it . It is about a true crime writer who moves into a house with a nasty past in hopes of writing a new book about what happened there. Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) finds some videos on Super 8 film in a box left in the attic and things get progressively worse from there. We love the beginning especially and how disturbing the premise is. There is very little blood or swearing and no sex in this movie because they were aiming for a PG-13 rating but it still ended up getting an R. We love the film aspect, it adds to the creep factor when stuff gets weird. Ethan Hawke does a fantastic job throughout and feels very relatable at times. We also feel like the storyline is really intriguing, even though we’d seen it before we were on the edge of our seat and uncomfortable the whole time. There are one or two jump scares but for this type of movie that’s really not much and it doesn’t ruin the vibe.
STREAMING ON HBO MAX
Photo Credit © 2012 - Summit Entertainment
The Strangers (208)
The Strangers is one of our favorites. It is eerie and suspenseful plus you get some good violence at the end. It was shot entirely with hand-held cameras or steady cams so it has a very uneasy feel to it. The Strangers was also shot in chronological order which we think is cool. Aletha doesn’t like Liv Tyler and despite this the movie is still enjoyable. (Maybe because we get to see her be terrorized the whole time) The score and soundtrack set a very creepy tone and the overall dreary vibe of the movie makes it even better. A couple staying in a remote house are harassed by a group of masked killers. It is pretty slow paced and most of the frightening parts are in the background. There is one jump scare but that’s about it really. A great slow burn to watch in the dark and uninterrupted.
STREAMING ON HBO MAX
Photo Credit © 2008 - Universal Studios
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
This one is so much fun, it is well written, satirical with original characters some LGBTQ representations which is always nice. It is very well acted they all feel like real people. Pete Davidson, Rachel Sennott, Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova especially kill it. The name of the movie and the game they play are based on a game called Body Body (or Murder In The Dark) where players run around in a dark room while the murderer "kills" players by tapping them. We had never heard of this game but it is a fun concept. The plot has some fun dark twists and turns that keep you on your toes. Pete Davidson being a rich kid douchebag was pretty hilarious to watch. Great if you’re in the mood for something humorous but intense.
STREAMING ON HBO MAX
Photo Credit IMDB
Wrong Turn (2003)
Wrong Turn is super nostalgic for us because we used to watch this one over and over. It follows a group of very attractive young people (Jeremy Sisto, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Desmond Harrington) being tracked down and chased through the woods by a hillbilly cannibal family. This one is so much fun and has that classic gritty early 2000’s horror vibe that we love. The tension is great and we really like how gross and creepy the attackers are. A must see for horror lovers!
(Side note the 2021 remake is trash)
Photo by Rafy - © 2003 - Twentieth Century Fox and Regency Enterprises - All Rights Reserved
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