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The First Omen (2024)
From the eternal sea he rises...
Imagine you took the original Omen movie and mashed it up with Rosemary's Baby, then sprinkled in a bit of The Exorcist and added a touch of Alien Resurrection and Prometheus as a garnish. Bake for approximately two hours, and you'll have a rough approximation of The First Omen experience. There's plenty of Omenesque atmosphere, chanting in Latin... the usual, and you'll also be entertained by a handful of gruesome deaths, though nothing overly imaginative. There's some rather graphic clinical sequences, which the more squeamish might not appreciate... and then there's "THE Scene" (well more like a few seconds of footage) which everyone is chatting about and almost earned the film an NC-17 rating. It was worth a chuckle.
The underlying premise of why the Catholic clergy and nuns involved in the creation of Damien is rather contrived and a bit silly. Alas, audiences are also jaded these days, so there was no fainting or barfing, as what happened when The Exorcist premiered. Regardless, The First Omen is a refreshing horror romp which certainly delivers (in more ways than one).
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
...and may the odds be ever in your favor.
Unlike so many movies of late, I found this Hunger Games prequel to be engaging, immersive, yet quite disturbing. I had not read the book deliberately, because I wanted to experience the film in its own right, rather than how faithfully it reproduced a written work. Regardless, it effectively chronicles the pivotal events in the nascent corruption of Coriolanus Snow.
The horror of the actual Games is far more primitive, gritty and raw than before... much more like Thunderdome from the Mad Max franchise: "Get to the weapons. Use them any way you can. I know you won't break the rules. There aren't any." The sickness of this society is encapsulated by the fact that one of the Tributes is a young girl who appears to have Down's Syndrome. Try to wrap your head around that idea...
I found the characters to be sufficiently developed for the purposes of the film's narrative. Folk music is interwoven into the movie, perfectly to effect: one of the main protagonists is a folk singer who expresses her emotions and defiance through song.
The "look and feel" of this era of Panem is brilliant: a bizarrely familiar reimagining of mid-century modern motifs grotesquely blended with elements of the totalitarian architecture of the Third Reich. For those who know the actual photographic record of the latter, you will see numerous things in this film which echo that visual vocabulary, and not simply the sets.
I'd recommend seeing this film: given the times we live in, it certainly is a thought-provoking journey.
The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
The Power of Christ Couldn't Save This Movie
Watching this movie is like undergoing a two-hour exorcism through boredom. What started out as mildly intriguing albeit unimaginative premise devolves into a silly, hollow variation on the original. Throw in a generous serving of detritus and effluvia, a touch of CGI, and a disorganized multi-faith ritual, and you're done! I started looking at my watch after about thirty minutes to calculate how much more tedium remained.
Even the demon Pazuzu was nowhere nearly as entertaining as the original. Yes, there is the requisite foul language, but Pazuzu was also snide and sarcastic... there's nothing like "Your mother's in here with us, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it." I was patiently waiting for some equally as clever and rude demonic quips, but there were none to be had.
The Exorcist is a masterpiece of cinema, horror or otherwise. It's been done. Move on.
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Evil Dead on Arrival
Evil Dead Rise misses the mark by a light-year. What makes the Evil Dead franchise so entertaining is the campy, over-the-top, irreverent, and absurdly grotesque horror motifs that are so revolting that you'll laugh and scream at the same time.
Alas, you will find none of that here. Rather, you'll be treated to murky visuals, a tiresome and predictable storyline, one-dimensional characters, i.e., essentially a waste of 96 minutes of your life. ChatGPT could have written a more imaginative and entertaining script.
At least I watched Evil Dead Rise in installments while doing cardio, so it wasn't a total loss.