The Grouchy Editor

The Night House

As I watch most modern horror movies, I activate my mental timer. How long before this film falls apart? Right off the bat? In the middle? Not until the end? I’m counting because almost all of them go bad, eventually.

There is good news about The Night House, starring Rebecca Hall as a widowed woman who experiences ghostly phenomena at her lake house. The story doesn’t collapse until the final act. Most of the film is creepy and — miracle of miracles — does not insult the intelligence. Also, Hall is quite good as the prickly, plucky widow enduring grief and strange visions.

The bad news is that the film’s denouement, praised or soft-pedaled by many critics, is annoying claptrap. It’s kitchen-sink nonsense in which the viewer is forced to reach his or her own conclusion. Was it ghosts? An alternate universe? A serial killer? Occult forces? All of the above?

I call the ending a cop-out. Or “nothing” much. Release: 2021 Grade: B-

**

Death on the Nile

This follow-up to Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express has a bigger budget and a longer run-time than its predecessor. Not a good thing, on either count.

Apparently, most of the budget went to special effects, rather than actual location filming in Egypt. Again, not a good thing. The movie often drags. Need I mention that’s not a good thing?

Branagh again plays Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, this time charged with solving murders on a steamer in the Nile near Egypt’s famed, ancient landmarks. But Branagh sacrifices something that exists in earlier screen versions of the Christie novel — a sense of fun — in service of a more somber tone and a modern obligation to address racism, sexism, classism, and any other “isms” I might be forgetting. Release: 2022 Grade: B-

Armie Hammer, left, with Gal Gadot and her ribs (sorry)

**

A Quiet Place Part II

You sit down to watch a horror movie. The director wants to scare you. You know he wants to scare you. The director knows that you know that he wants to scare you. All this knowledge … and yet he still manages to scare you. That’s the sign of a filmmaker who knows what he’s doing.

A Quiet Place Part II is that rarest of sequels, a follow-up that’s just as good as the original. Dad is dead in this one, so it’s up to Emily Blunt and her brood to battle the aliens. It’s just a continuation of the first movie, but who cares when it’s done this well? Release: 2021  Grade: B+

**

Scream

The good news: The “meta” aspect of the Scream franchise hasn’t grown stale in this fifth installment of the series. Also, it’s still amusing when the filmmakers wink at us by anticipating, and then subverting, our expectations. (There’s someone behind the refrigerator door! No, there isn’t! Yes, there is!)

The bad news: The actual killings and plots have gone stale. They simply aren’t very original or scary. Release: 2022 Grade: C+

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The Rental

Director Dave Franco’s The Rental is a flawed movie. It’s a “slow-burn” thriller, and slow-burn is often code for “boring until something finally happens.” The plot is predictable and the last act, in which something finally does happen, is not particularly original.

But all of that is nitpicking. The Rental, in which two couples encounter terror at a beach house, is more than anything else skillfully done. The “slow” scenes are absorbing, seductive, and creepy. There is at least one truly scary bit.

There’s a reason that suspense films — unlike, say, romantic comedies or many dramas — are considered a director’s medium. The acting and story can be serviceable, but if the movie works, it’s because the dude behind the camera knew what he was doing. Release: 2020  Grade: B+

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Nightmare Alley

Critics love movies like this one because they check so many boxes: impressive cinematography, big stars, somber tone, striking art direction, etc.

Let me add a few boxes of my own: Nightmare Alley is too long, there are very few, if any, relatable characters, and did I mention that it’s too damn long?

That’s a bit harsh. As always in any Guillermo del Toro film, the visuals are gorgeous. The subject matter does require a serious tone. And yet ….

I kept comparing the movie to Double Indemnity, another noir about a doomed con man (in Alley, the grifter is played by Bradley Cooper). Fred MacMurray’s insurance agent in Indemnity had a more wrenching downfall because — until he fell into the clutches of femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck — he was an average Joe. He was relatable. Cooper’s con artist is a bad egg from the start, so it’s hard to much care when things go sour for him. Release: 2021 Grade: B

**

Werewolves Within

A small group of local yokels are trapped in a snowbound country inn — and one of them is a surreptitious werewolf. What’s not to like about that setup?

Werewolves is silly and predictable and yes, you’ve seen it all before, but in the hands of director Josh Ruben, it feels fresh and fun. Release: 2021 Grade: B+

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Ingrid Goes West

Aubrey Plaza plays dour and damaged Ingrid, a loser from Pennsylvania who moves west to stalk her idol, an Instagram “influencer” named Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen). Ingrid uses deceit to successfully penetrate Taylor’s inner circle, and hilarity results. Uh, not really.

Ingrid Goes West aspires to be All About Eve for the social-media generation, but there’s a crucial difference. In Eve, the characters were snakes — but snakes with charm and wit. In Ingrid, the characters are snakes, but shallow and witless.

Only in the third act does the movie come to life, when Ingrid sheds her creepy stalker persona and reveals herself to be a genuine human being. Release: 2017  Grade: B

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