Jess and Hannah, at 13 years old, made a pact to have the perfect prom. However, 24 hours before the big event, everything is ruined when they break-up with their dates. Now they have one night to find new dates and make the fantasy comes true.
Prom Dates is directed by Kim O. Nguyen which is her directorial debut.
Prom Dates is basically if you took Booksmart (2019) and watered it down quite a bit, although there’s some genuine attempts to differentiate itself the movie can’t seem to avoid the shadow of Booksmart (2019).
With that said not everything is terrible here, the performances from Julia Lester and Antonia Gentry are solid enough to deliver some funny lines. The two work well together and do have some comedic timing that is worth praise, the friendship of the two is genuinely touching at times even if some of the development is lacking you can still buy their friendship.
Unfortunately the heavy reliance on cliched situations really stops this movie in it’s tracks, a lot of the resolutions to the conflicts is very by the numbers and quite predictable. Which is unfortunate because the movie does talk about complexities of real world friendships and those moments in particular are very intriguing, how the movie goes about solving the resolutions is incredibly frustrating and takes a lot away from the story that was being told.
Tashi, a tennis player turned coach, has transformed her husband from a mediocre player into a world-famous grand slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a challenger event — close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour. Tensions soon run high when he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt-out Patrick, his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.
Challengers is directed by Luca Guadagnino director of A Bigger Splash (2015), Call Me By Your Name (2017), Suspiria (2018), Bones and All (2022) and a few others.
One thing that I truly love in film is when you see a film you knew was going to be really good and it ends up surpassing your expectations by a lot. That’s the case with Challengers. Luca Guadagnino takes the sport of tennis and what seems like a straightforward premise and flips it on it’s head. Thrilling, captivating and erotic are just some of the words to describe the film.
Starting with performances since Challengers is a very performance heavy as well as a character heavy film. Zendaya gives a career best performance, her performance as Tashi Duncan is truly exciting to watch and truly captures the film’s atmosphere. Just by looking into the eyes of Tashi the viewer is able to get a good idea of her, Zendaya truly masters the subtle and careful character moments with body language and some speech patterns that are truly investing. Her performance is one of the best so far this year and quite honestly one of the most fun performances of the year as well.
Similarly Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist are both brilliant as well, it’s some of the best pairing I’ve seen in a film so far this year. Each and every time the two share a screen together they have this natural connection that makes the scene in question all the more interesting. The dialogue the two share to each other is raw and really brings the viewer into the film’s world. What’s great is we get a ton of information about the two Art Donaldson (played by Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (played by Josh O’Connor) have a lot of their information told through some flashbacks which the film does a excellent job of jumping back and forth. It also helps build the film’s world as well.
Together all three have this chemistry that is just oozing with style and powerful development that is shown throughout the film, the more we learn about each of the three the more you get put into the film. It’s truly remarkable how natural and easily the script by Justin Kuritzkes brings in the viewer to a wild ride.
One thing that is often brought up in a ton of reviews is the score, which let me tell you right now it’s for a good reason. I was not expecting the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to take this electronic direction that it did. Tennis is the last sport you would think of to associate with electronic music and yet it fits perfectly, especially combined with the cinematography and many camera angles during the tennis matches it creates some quite electrifying and stylized moments that really make the film standout.
I do not want to say much else because Challengers is definitely a film you have to experience for yourself, it’s a truly brilliant film that I can’t recommend enough!
In a dystopian future America, a team of military-embedded journalists races against time to reach Washington, D.C., before rebel factions descend upon the White House.
Civil War is directed by Alex Garland who previously directed Ex Machina (2015), Annihilation (2018) and Men (2022).
Part of the reason my review is so late is because I honestly had no idea what to exactly think of Civil War. There is an incredible amount that I really love about the film, even if the politics can get muddy I do get the point the film was making and in some instances it kind of works.
I’ll start with the performances because they are ultimately what really makes the film, starting with Kristen Dunst she gives a phenomenal performance. She plays a war photographer named Lee Smith who mainly focuses on the job and nothing else at all, there are tons of character moments from her. The ones that stood out were her slowly realizing that doing absolutely nothing while chaos is going on other than getting that one excellent shot is not worth it at all. Dunst gives such a raw performance and her interactions with the rest of the cast is truly investing.
Cailee Spaeny is also quite excellent here, she plays Jessie Cullen an aspiring young photographer who kind of just joins in on Lee and Joel’s (played by Wagner Moura) journey. Her depiction of someone being someone who hasn’t been in this much chaos before is absolutely top notch and at times quite scary, the scenes with her Dunst or her and Moura just having conversations are among some of the film’s best moment.
Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley are both excellent here, they work incredibly well with Spaeny and Dunst the chemistry between the four is top notch. Moura acting as this second in command figure with Dunst who tries to keep the group together is investing to watch. While McKinley’s character doesn’t get a lot of development, McKinley’s performance itself is more than enough to make up for it as it is pretty charming in some areas.
The atmosphere of the film is truly masterful, throughout the whole film and the journey we are sent on with Lee, Joel, Jessie and Sammy the suspenseful atmosphere is felt. Anything could happen at any given moment it’s investing the whole through but there’s one particular moment that really shines. I purposely left out Jesse Plemons’s performance until right now because while he does only get one scene, the scene is a masterclass of suspense. Combine that with his acting, the lines of dialogue that are used and the camera focusing on each of the character’s reactions and you have yourself a wild ride of a scene.
The film’s world itself is quite investing as well, I do like that the film shows the relics of the Civil War taking place. Buildings left abandoned, some completely intact and others completely ruined. Heck sometimes during the journey we encounter towns that flat out pretend the war does not exist. This might be a bit biased since I’ve always had a fascination with abandoned buildings and areas, but I do think the film does a really great job of showing the horrifying feel of these certain areas.
Overall Civil War is a quite fantastic film, it’s filled with suspense, excellent performances and investing dialogue that really grabs the viewer’s attention incredibly quickly!
April is over and now we are headed into the summer movie season. April was quite a fantastic month for film, between Challengers, Abigail, The First Omen, Hundreds Of Beavers, Sasquatch Sunset and Civil War there was so much to really love. I still have two more reviews from April (Challengers and Civil War) to post which will be posted either today or tomorrow so keep an eye out.
May looks like another really solid month, while I don’t think it’s as filled to the brim with releases as April. It makes up for it with having some of the most anticipated films of the year such as Furiosa, I Saw The TV Glow and Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes.
Before we get into the list we have a film that I saw at Sundance last year that’s finally coming out which is…
Slow directed by Marija Kavtaradzé: it’s a beautiful showcase of intimacy and why it’s important, the performances are excellent, the film discusses and explores asexuality in a very honest and beautiful way. I said in my review that it’s the most raw and tender approach to the topic I’ve ever seen in a film and that remains true a year and four months later. So be sure to check it out when it releases in theaters May 3rd!
Now on to the list
11. Jim Henson Idea Man – May 31st (Disney+)
10. The Idea Of You – May 2nd (Amazon Prime Video)
9. Ezra – May 31st (Theaters)
8. Wildcat – May 2nd (Theaters)
7. Babes – May 17th (Theaters)
6. Robot Dreams – May 31st (Theaters)
5. The Strangers: Chapter 1 – May 17th (Theaters)
4. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes – May 10th (Theaters)
3. In A Violent Nature – May 31st (Theaters)
2. I Saw The TV Glow – May 3rd (Limited Theaters) and May 17th (Expand Theaters)
1. Furiosa – May 24th (Theaters)
And that’s the list! Let’s have another excellent month for film!! Cheers!!
In the misty forests of North America, a family of Sasquatches find themselves on a collision course with the ever-changing world around them.
Sasquatch Sunset is directed by David Zellner and Nathan Zellner who have previously directed Kid-Thing (2012) (David Zellner), Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014) (David Zellner) and Damsel (2018) (David and Nathan Zellner).
Sasquatch Sunset is a film that should not work at all, a film that has no dialogue only grunting from the Sasquatches, bodily fluid jokes such as pissing, pooping and ejaculating….however the movie strangely works. Underneath all of this there is something strangely heartfelt about the film and while yes the raunchy humor is there, there is this interesting focus on the location and the Sasquatches themselves.
For starters the makeup and costumes are absolutely well done, they feel incredibly real and display a ton of emotions as well. Even through all the grunting and noises being made you can tell when one of the Sasquatches feels mad, sad, happy ect. Riley Keough I definitely think is the standout here mainly due to her having the most to work with for her character. Plus she’s quite unrecognizable and almost instantly captures the spirit of her character who’s simply known as “the female”. Jesse Eisenberg, Christophe Zajac-Denek and Nathan Zellner are all quite solid here as well, each bring their own different take on the Sasquatches they play. It’s fun seeing them interact and actually leads to some genuinely funny scenes that aren’t bodily fluid humor (the two mountain lion scenes are hilarious especially the lion’s reactions.)
The cinematography is quite beautiful, you get tons of nature shots that go for this nature documentary type style that work incredibly well, combine that with a surprisingly excellent score and you have some really well put together scenes that are actually quite emotional. The Foragers by The Octopus Project is definitely the highlight in the score, it was used in the trailer and it works incredibly well here. The scenes it’s used really help move the adventure along quite well and actually make you feel for the Sasquatches.
Speaking of which the film does actually get the viewer to feel for these creatures, while it does take a bit for that to exactly happen. The longer you stay on the journey with these creatures the more you actually start to care for them, it’s actually quite impressive to see this all unfold and actually leaves a decently effective impact.
Sasquatch Sunset is a stupid movie there’s absolutely no denying that, however I think it’s the type of stupid that can actually make sense and be quite effective if you like this sort of thing. The film is not going to be for everyone, but this is the type of film where I’m glad it exists simply because of how bizarre it really is. If this sounds like your sort of film i definitely think you will have a fun time watching it.
Maya and her young daughter, Zora, are forced to live underground when Earth is left uninhabitable due to a lack of oxygen. When a mysterious couple arrive and claim to know the fate of Maya’s husband, she tentatively agrees to let them into the bunker. However, mother and daughter soon find themselves in a fight for survival when the truth about the strangers comes to light.
Breathe is directed by Stefon Bristol director of See You Yesterday (2019).
My only question after watching Breathe is how in god’s name were they able to get this much talent in this movie? Jennifer Hudson? Common? Quvenzhané Wallis? What exactly is going on here? The script reads like someone had no brainstorming going on and just decided to write it without any sort of outlining or any plan at all.
Milla Jovovich and Sam Worthington are also here which doesn’t help the movie all that much, the characters in general are just horribly written with very little personality outside of cliche character traits. The acting is abysmal, it’s very baffling to see some of these very talented people give performances that could be strongly considered as some of the worst performances so far this year. Jennifer Hudson is given so little to work with from the script despite being the lead, in fact that can be said for everyone involved. The script is so predictable, so terribly written and a huge waste that none of the people involved can pull off a somewhat decent performance.
The movie also spends a pretty decent amount of time with simply trying to open a door, it might have been one thing if the dialogue was at least interesting or there was some sort of mind game going on or maybe an investing back and forth. But unfortunately that’s not what you get here, instead you get some incredibly bad dialogue that makes you want to turn this movie off.
What else can I really say? Breathe is one of the worst movies so far this year, it fails on every single level. How they got so many recognizable names to sign on to this movie is going to remain life’s biggest questions.
A young paramedic gets a crash course in lifesaving techniques while working with a grizzled New York City veteran.
Asphalt City is directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire who previously directed Johnny Mad Dog (2008), Heat Wave (2011), Welcome to New York (2014), Bizarre (2015) and A Prayer Before Dawn (2017).
Asphalt City is one of those situations where I absolutely see what was trying to be said and what it was trying to do the movie itself just didn’t come together all that well.
Despite that however there are some positives, Tyler Sheridan gives a solid performance especially during the third act where he really goes all out on his acting ability. The cinematography is pretty sharp and has this grounded feel to it that really strikes the viewer early on, especially when the movie does end up getting gross. The main idea here is showing paramedics doing their job on a chaotic night, which is a premise that sounds interesting on paper and there are indeed some quite investing moments.
But unfortunately the writing and its characters are really what hold this movie back, the characters have no real development it goes for a more experimental approach but forgets to make what is actually happening investing. There’s a handful of scenes here that really should have had a much stronger impact but unfortunately due to how limited the writing is and how blandly written the characters are you don’t get that full impact.
At the very least I can say Asphalt City is well made, well acted and there was definitely some level of attempt to try and make it work.
Suffering from memory loss, a former homicide detective tries to solve a brutal murder that he can’t recall. As he pieces together evidence from a decade-old investigation, he soon uncovers a sinister web of buried secrets tied to his forgotten past.
Sleeping Dogs is directed by Adam Cooper which is his directorial debut.
It really seems like Russell Crowe has reached the point in his career similar to how Liam Neeson has. Where they will just accept any given role that’s offered to them and a majority of the time they are usually better than the actual material itself. With Russell Crowe that’s absolutely the case here with Sleeping Dogs.
Sleeping Dogs is interesting for about 15-20 minutes before it throws every cliche at the wall to see what sticks, the mystery of the movie is constantly watered down as it goes on leaving very little for the viewer to sink their teeth into.
Russell Crowe gives a solid performance, Karen Gillan although not given a lot to work with does the best she can and the movie itself is competently made.
A group of would-be criminals kidnaps the 12-year-old daughter of a powerful underworld figure. Holding her for ransom in an isolated mansion, their plan starts to unravel when they discover their young captive is actually a bloodthirsty vampire.
Abigail is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett or as some people know them as Radio Silence. They previously directed Devil’s Due (2014), Ready Or Not (2017), Scream (2022), Scream VI (2023) and various segments from some of the V/H/S films.
2024 is looking to be a repeat of 2022 in terms of fantastic horror films, it was a bit of a rough start but we have already gotten a bunch of memorable and quite excellent horror films this year such as Immaculate, The First Omen, Late Night With The Devil, Lisa Frankenstein and a few others. Abigail adds to that list and quite honestly ends up being one of the most fun releases so far this year.
Starting from the cast, we have another case where everyone just works incredibly well together. Nobody turns in any bad performances mainly due to the material that is worked with here. Melissa Barrera and Kathryn Newton continue to show that they are scream queens here to stay, both of them give excellent and fun performances that absolutely blends well with Radio Silence’s atmosphere and style. Dan Stevens continues to show he can bring so much fun and intrigue to almost any role he does, that especially applies here with his performance as Frank who much like Barrera and Newton matches the tone and atmosphere Radio Silence is going for.
Alisha Weir gives one of the best child performances I’ve seen in awhile, her as a vampire was just such an excellent casting choice, one that she naturally fits into without any issue. The humor that’s thrown into the mix also makes her character Abigail incredibly fun. Kevin Durand and the late Angus Cloud both give fun performances as well, there might not be much to their characters but the fact they are instantly fun characters makes up for that.
Abigail is another instance where Radio Silence does a lot of attention to detail especially with the makeup and sets. It’s very reminiscent of Ready Or Not where the attention to detail to the sets was instantly recognizable and made the film all the more natural and investing to watch. The same can be applied here with Abigail the many different rooms, the lighting and such really compliments the thrilling and humorous atmosphere that all blends together to make an incredibly fun film.
Abigail really felt like the natural next step of Radio Silence, it shares a lot of similarities to Ready Or Not but it does it’s own thing. It uses a lot of what made the film so investing to audiences and applies here, Abigail really does feel like the film that Radio Silence’s last couple films have been building up to. One key part in all of this is the gore which Abigail has…a ton of it, which is where a lot of the fun elements come into play. The kills have that signature brutal but absolutely fun feel that Radio Silence loves and I would argue that it works best here simply due to the characters and how quickly they match the tone.
Overall Abigail is another excellent film by Radio Silence, they continue to be some of the most exciting and one of most notable eyes for attention detail when it comes to horror film directors. I truly can’t wait to see what they do next.
In 1977 a live television broadcast goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.
Late Night With The Devil is directed by Cameron Carines and Colin Cairnes both of which previously directed 100 Bloody Acres (2012) and Scare Campaign (2016).
Late Night With The Devil was a film that I was incredibly excited to see, from the concept alone it sounded fantastic and luckily that was the case. Before that however I will mention the AI usage in this film, even though I absolutely loved this movie the bits of AI used on the “Please Stand By” messages is very pointless since you could have easily gotten actual artists to do that. Luckily it was nowhere near enough to hurt the movie itself but the fact it was used at all is disappointing.
Outside of that Late Night With The Devil is an incredibly creative horror film, the film captures the spirit of a 70s late night show down from the narration at the beginning to the actions of the characters as well as the completely off the walls script. Right from the beginning the film resembles a late night show and even one of those random TV news documentary type of segments in this case one being about the film’s main character Jack Delroy who is played by David Dastmalchian.
David Dastmalchian is the key part of what makes Late Night With The Devil work so incredibly well, yes you have the look of a 70s late night show down. But if you don’t have someone who mirrors a late night show host as authentically as possibly then that could lead into a mess. Luckily Dastmalchian completely masters the performance right from when he appears on screen to the very end, he captures the mannerisms, speech, the humor and the personality of a late night show host. It’s mesmerizing to see and instantly draws you in, he gives by far one of the best performances so far this year and truly delivers on every single level.
The rest of the film is truly fantastic, while the show goes on you get this sense in the back of your mind that a lot doesn’t seem right, Late Night With The Devil accomplishes bringing the viewer along for the ride and rewards them with an incredibly bizarre final act that truly leaves you frightened and fascinated, it absolutely does remind me of some of the films from the V/H/S franchise. Only that the execution is much better here and makes for a far more interesting experience as well.
A slight criticism is the use of black and white filming, while I sort of get the attention I don’t think it completely matches with the rest of the film. I kind of like that these moments appear when they cut to commercial break, these moments do have some great and natural dialogue between Jack, his guests and his crew but when you compare these moments with when the late night show goes on they sort of pale in comparison. Having that said I don’t hate these moments just the use of black and white is very unfitting and doesn’t exactly add to the film’s already fantastic charm.
Finally we have the third act which I won’t spoil but will say that the build up to it is incredibly well done and really matches the build up to a 70s talk show. What is also great is the film captures the late night tv energy, what I mean by this is seeing bizarre commercials or bumpers (think Adult Swim on Cartoon Network) a lot of the third act has that sort of energy going on and it really works incredibly well.
Overall Late Night With The Devil is an incredibly creative horror film that is filled with humor, terror and bizarre moments that will have you wondering what’s going to happen next.
Late Night With The Devil is available on Shudder.
Jerome Reviews... 