The Foxy Film Fan

The following review is spoiler-free! The new sci-fi horror film Possessor  is unlike anything I've ever seen. Borrowing elements from popular science fiction releases like Inception , Brandon Cronenberg's new movie twists the assassin/heist sci-fi plot into something revolting. Like a car crash, once you start watching you can't look away from every bit of gore and terror on screen.  IndieWire called Possessor  a "gory techno-thriller" and I couldn't agree more.  Possessor operates within strict rules and logic which establish an unwavering sense of realism. Its slow pacing and meticulous depiction of the daily grind of the average worker makes its universe feel lived in and real. The future Cronenberg shows us isn't sleek and chrome, its either pastel apartment complexes through a muddy gray lens or horrifically bright red. Despite its promotional imagery the horror of the movie is rarely visual. Instead Possessor  grabs hold of Stephen King's defini...

Director Rupert Goold is perhaps most notable for his phenomenal Macbeth  film, which is singlehandedly responsible for sparking my interest in the play (and Patrick Stewart played no small role in swaying my heart, of course). Unfortunately his 2019 biopic, Judy,  is bland and tasteless. As one critic states, Judy  shows the lows, but it carefully avoids navigating the highs of Judy Garland's life. As many know, Judy Garland's life was one full of abuse, addiction, and terrible trauma. She acted and sang under prying eyes for most of her life, was sexually abused by disgusting men in the film industry who were too big to worry about consequences for their actions, and struggled to have the relationship with her children she yearned for. Goold's film, Judy, observes these tragedies within her life through a cold and callous lens. We watch her perform, indulge in her addiction, and get some incredibly painful flashbacks to some of her childhood abuse. There's never ...

I, like so many others, was skeptical when I heard news of the new M. Night Shyamalan film. For years he’s been disappointing film goers of all kinds, and with the release of the likes of The Last Airbender it became questionable who his target audience even was anymore. It almost began to seem as though he had lost sight of who he was, as though he wasn’t even the same director responsible for classics like The Sixth Sense . The announcement of Split failed to excite me, and though the premise seemed fascinating I refused to get my hopes up, especially with a trailer that provided enough room for one to imagine the film hastily devolving into another laughably bad mess like The Visit did. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. In fact, Split was so good that there were many instances in which I had to remind myself that I was in fact watching a film by the same man who made After Earth and The Happening . The premise to Split is simple and not unlike that of an episode of...

In a genre filled with quick cuts and constant jump scares, The Babadook offers the exact opposite. Focusing on a grieving widow who is struggling to raise her son alone after the loss of her husband, The Babadook  gives a more sincere and heartfelt look into the horror genre than most other films. In fact, one might even say that it offers love and empathy and is straining to comfort its viewers despite the horrific themes and occurrences which take place in its one hour and thirty-five minute runtime. Of course, that isn't to say that the film isn't absolutely terrifying in the instances that it needs to be, while viewers watch the son and mother duo screech and dodge attacks from the terrifying Babadook, a twitching eerie tophat wearing monster lifted from the pages of a horrific children's book which has decided to latch on to and torture this particular family. The film is decent, and I'll admit that the main reason I am so attached to it and adore it so muc...

Starring the always fantastic  (and often eerie) Tilda Swinton, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a phenomenal film based on an equally fantastic novel which presents the difficulty of raising an out of hand child from the perspective of the mother, who sees a terrifying darkness and lack of empathy within her own son which she fears she cannot do anything about. Ezra Miller is wonderful in his portrayal of a teenager brimming with rage and hatred toward the world around him, though one must suspend their disbelief at the notion of him being the son of Tilda Swinton and John C. Riley. Questionable genetics aside, his brooding and angsty performance is almost too good, and it's expertly paired with the sort of haughty arrogance found in most troubled teens. Though the film is a slow burn and stumbles awkwardly through its pacing at time, the movie's narrative is greatly assisted in its frequent usage of flashbacks and flash forwards, which meld together to create ...

Embers (2015) Taking place in a post apocalyptic world in which a disease which makes creating and maintaining memories impossible, Embers  offers a glimpse into the lives of several different people who have their own ways of grappling with the harsh world in which they have no way of knowing who the people around them are. Interspersed between these glimpses into the lives of those too poor to afford a way to escape the disease, we are offered a look at the empty life of a young woman who lives in a shelter with her father, untouched by the disease but horribly bored with nothing to do but test her memory time and time again. With its fascinating premise, beautiful and meticulous camera shots, and slow atmospheric soundtrack, I really wanted to like Embers . Unfortunately, Embers  failed to hold my attention throughout the course of the film, as it wavered awkwardly from scenario to scenario and fell into the trap of repetition as married couples forget one another an...

Starry Eyes (2014) The subject of fame is one often tackled in cinema, partially due to the fact that filmmakers and screenwriters are encouraged to write about subjects which they feel they have a decent understanding of. This leads to a wide variety of films all tackling the subject of fame in some way, but rarely do they aim to do so in a horror setting. Typically, audiences are rooting for someone's quest for fame in a comedy, romance, or drama. In the case of Starry Eyes, audience members are left conflicted as our protagonist goes to increasingly dangerous and drastic lengths as the promise of stardom is dangled in front of her face, forever pushing her to go further and further beyond her moral limits in some vain effort at achieving her dreams. Its a premise we've seen time and time again, typically under the guise of romantic comedies or a heart wrenching drama. Unfortunately for our protagonist, she's not in a comedy where she'll meet up with her future ...

Horror is a genre I hold near and dear to my heart. It's a genre of filmmaking which I believe is extraordinarily deep and explores parts of the human psyche which other genres of art refuse to delve into. Fear is one of humanity's most primitive and instinctual responses, and horror aims to tap into that sensation. However, keeping that in mind I cannot simply neglect to even acknowledge the ugly aspects of horror which people tend to think of when the genre is mentioned; the Hostels, Saw Vs, and Human Centipedes of the genre. After all, there's no smoke without fire, and if the hideous "torture porn" subgenre of horror can't be described as a raging dumpster fire, then I'm not sure what can be. I would, however, like to briefly condemn the use of phrases such as "torture porn." While there are quite a few movies in the horror genre which spend a sickening amount of time focusing on gore and torture, to compare them to pornography demean...

People often lapse into claims that horror has been reduced to a bloody and disgusting genre which lacks the depth and beauty of classics like those which were made by Alfred Hitchcock. However, this is hardly the case, and I encourage those of you who feel this way about horror to simply will yourself to dig a little deeper into the genre and truly explore how poignant and beautiful horror can be. Bearing that in mind, here are five modern horror movies which should inspire you to understand that horror is still so much more than blood and guts. 5. The Others A beautiful mood-driven film in which Nicole Kidman lives in an enormous home with her two children, who are both ill and will be harmed if allowed into the sunlight. Slowly, the claustrophobia of being locked away in the darkness begins to weigh on her, though the film refrains from any sort of outlandish responses and instead continues to slowly unravel as we witness a loving mother gradually lose her sanity while still...

Patriots Day (2016) Patriots Day  is a new release starring Mark Wahlberg, J.K. Simmons, John Goodman, and Kevin Bacon. It centers around the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013, and frankly, it's a film which I will be avoiding this year. Before you roll your eyes and accuse me of censoring art or of being too sensitive, allow me to elaborate on why I won't be viewing Patriots Day  and why I avoid other similar films. While there are certain disaster films which explore tragedies in human history from a historical standpoint (such as the abundance of fantastic films centering around the holocaust), these films often focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, they make themselves about the heroes who helped and about the victory over those who caused such horrendous events. Films about events such as September 11th on the other hand seem to do nothing but monetize off of a horrible event without attempting to offer much else in terms of content. They expect people...

Why Him? (2016) Perhaps my first mistake with the new comedy Why Him? was going into it with any sort of expectations at all. I've been a fan of Bryan Cranston ever since seeing him as the goofy father in Malcolm in the Middle  and I've always admired his abilities as a serious actor and as a comedic one. Bearing that in mind, I suppose I unintentionally found myself with moderately high expectations when going into this movie. Not necessarily high expectations, but certainly not expectations that were as low as they probably should have been. First and foremost, allow me to offer this piece of advice: if you laughed during the trailer you will probably laugh during the movie, most likely at the scenes you laughed at during the trailer, because those are essentially all of the big comedic moments of the film. If you didn't laugh during the trailer, then you're simply going to find yourself bored and wondering why you thought seeing this movie was a good idea. T...

Fences (2016) Featuring phenomenal performances from Viola Davis and Denzel Washington, Fences  is a beautiful and oftentimes frighteningly realistic depiction of a man forever unhappy with himself. Through the poignant and deep script, adapted from the play of the same name written by August Wilson, Fences  shows how the selfish and cruel actions of one man can tear apart his life as well as the lives of those around him, including those who he claims to love. Admittedly, Fences  is not an easy film to watch, there is almost no music at all and its dialogue driven nature can sometimes make one feel as though they have been forced to sit in silence and watch a family tear itself apart from the inside out - all because of the emotionally and psychologically abusive head of the household. The writing of the film is phenomenal, effectively transferring the fantastic dialogue of the play to the big screen, however dialogue is mostly all that the film has to offer. In...

Would You Rather (2012) Often times the most effective method of writing a story is to keep it simple, and Would You Rather  is perhaps the most simple yet effective horror movie I have seen in quite some time. As explained from the title, Would You Rather  centers around a group of people playing the popular game, in which they are made to choose between two unpleasant and difficult decisions in a brutal and horrific competition to win the fortune that will help them out of their own individual struggles. The film balances our sympathies between its protagonist, who is struggling to raise her younger brother who is dying of cancer, and the other competitors in the game who all have their own heartache and challenges which the money would help them overcome. Of course, only one person can win the game, and as it carries on it becomes doubtful that many people will leave the home in one piece. Typically when one imagines a horror movie centered around a game which can be...

Hush (2016) The slasher subgenre of horror has been around for ages, popularized by the release of revolutionary films such as Halloween , The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , and Friday the 13th . Since the popularization of the slasher subgenre one can sometimes feel as though the same tropes have been repeated time and time again, in which the characters who engage in acts stereotyped as "bad" (smoking, drinking, foul language, sexual promiscuity) are killed off one by one while a female survivor who is depicted as morally wholesome (at least, in comparison to her friends) lives to fulfill her destiny as "the final girl." Despite the seemingly never-ending loop of this old trope it seems as though the majority of slasher films have found a way to at least make themselves moderately interesting, by carrying the same formula with new and innovative ideas. Hush is, however, the most groundbreaking and unique slasher film to come out in a very long time. Centering ...