Halloween’s coming and you may be in the market for something different than the usual typical holiday fare. In that vein, here’s a quick recommendation list of 12 films released over the last few years that you may not have seen yet and could make for a fun watch.
Destroy All Neighbors
If you’re looking to add a little mayhem to your new year, Destroy All Neighbors delivers on all it promises, utilizing a game group of comics and comically-inclined cast members to entertain you as we observe William’s enlightenment occur through bloodletting. This film does embrace pure insanity, added by the fact that the film never truly addresses whose perception of things is true. Personally, it’s more fun to think that what we share with William is the truth, if only because every first great tale deserves its own Electric Boogaloo.
Available on Shudder.
Faceless After Dark
In the age of digital media, developing parasocial relationships occurs before most even realize it. So easily do people have access to others that the notion that some comments or interactions cross a line of propriety doesn’t even occur in the moment. With such easy access to actors, artists, poets, and athletes, the reality that these are people and not some toy to be brought out to entertain you when you’re bored somehow gets lost in translation. As a result, people post whatever they want, whenever they want, unconcerned with the reality that their shitposting or random one-off is directed at a living, breathing person. Screening during Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) 2024 ahead of its theatrical/digital release is the new slasher from director Raymond Wood (1st Summoning), co-written by lead actor Jenna Kanell (Terrifier series/Renfield) and Todd Jacobs (Trap Door in the Sun), Faceless After Dark, which turns its bloodied edge toward the audience, twisting the slasher genre so that the blade lacerates the audience in a meta exercise that entertains as much as it shames.
Available on VOD and digital.
Final Cut
In a different way from One Cut of the Dead, Final Cut, too, is an incredible surprise. There’s an intentionality and specificity within each frame that serves to both honor the source material and satirize an industry that perpetually mines itself for “new ideas.” Certainly for every Little Shop there is also a Rollerball (2002) or Flatliners (2017), but what enables Final Cut to side-step this is that it’s not just copying the total narrative, it applies a local view to the central family story within the façade of the source material. Doing this, alongside mining comedy out of the adaptation process, makes Final Cut unique as a remake in that it’s more of a spiritual sequel that can be watched either alongside of or absent the first incarnation. Personally, I say bring on more remakes of One Cut just as long as this turns into a Russian doll-esque experience, wherein each new film is an adaptation of the one before it, enabling the films to take on more than just the technical execution and narrative needs of One Cut. The possibilities of what could be all begin with Hazanavicius’s idea and that, itself, is worth the exploration.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
The First Omen
Prequels seem like a good idea on paper as they often seek to answer questions impossible to explore in initial outings. Through prequel stories, we can discover how Han Solo (Harrison Ford) came to own the Millennium Falcon (Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)), how a killer was born (Pearl (2022)), and even create the opportunity to reinterpret fabled tales (X-Men: First Class (2011)). The good ones are difficult to recognize as a prequel as they hold no barring whatsoever on the original story (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)), while the bad ones are little more than intertextual moment after another (Solo: A Star Wars Story). The prequel tale The First Omen walks the line between referential and unique as it strives to create its own story while still tethered to the 1976 original, something which feeds into the very themes of filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson’s (Brand New Cherry Flavor) narrative. The resultant work doesn’t require foreknowledge to understand and manages to create its own horrific atmosphere to tell an evocative tale that still works within the known mythology.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, digital, and Hulu.
Glorious
Sometimes the right place at the right time can look like the wrong place at the wrong time. Stories of all kinds are built on this premise. Typically there’s some kind of terrible event that, if not for being there, would either go unresolved or unhalted. Captain Steve Hiller (Will Smith) and David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) in Independence Day just so happen to get together and, because of that, prevent alien domination of Earth. If not for John McClane (Bruce Willis) in Die Hard, not only would Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) get away with the money, but all the people at the holiday party would’ve died. If not for Gary King (Simon Pegg) tricking his friends into tackling the golden mile in The World’s End, humanity’s free will may have been gone for good. Each of these are terrible situations that could only be solved the way they are because the right person was there to handle it. It’s an upside that makes the tragedies within the stories feel worth the ride. The darkly comic Lovecraftian tale Glorious may be the latest film to tackle this narrative approach, reducing the fate of all life into the space of a disregarded rest stop bathroom. Weird, gross, beautifully transgressive, and altogether unexpected, Glorious is imbued with purpose that both raises complex questions while sticking the landing on all it seeks to achieve.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Shudder.
Humanist Vampire Seeking
Consenting Suicidal Person
Rules most certainly exist in storytelling, but when it comes to vampires, who cares as long as they’re consistent and compelling. For the most part, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person meets both of these criteria, making rules without overly explaining them, thereby creating wiggle room for a shift in interpretation or adaptation. Within this space exists opportunity that Ariane Louis-Seize takes full advantage of, offering a tale that’s light on the bloodletting (as far as vampire films go) but heavy on weight, empowering any flow of crimson to matter. Complete with a quiet-yet-disarming performance from Montpetit, Humanist Vampire is a surprise horror tale that delights far more than it terrifies, and that’s a rule within the genre worth adapting when the story warrants it.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
It’s a Wonderful Knife
Horror films and holiday films overlap in that their narratives often involve facing something that they avoid, as well as a sense of renewal or closure through the confrontation. Films like Freaks (1932) illustrate that it’s not the so-called “circus freaks” who are the monsters in society, but those who would act as sheep when they are a wolf, while films like Halloween (1978) confront the danger that lurks within the presumed safety of suburbia. In 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream changed things by adding meta-elements, a horror film that acknowledges other horror films, utilizing the very rules of the films in order to pick off one victim after another before the final confrontation between killers and final girl, upon which the nefarious reasoning is unveiled. Since then, audiences have been treated to films like 2017’s Tragedy Girls (directed by Tyler MacIntyre) and 2020’s Freaky (written by Michael Kennedy), films that subvert expectations through the smart utilization of meta-narrative, framing, and social concepts. Now, these two creatives join forces in the Christmas-themed It’s a Wonderful Knife, gleefully stating the mechanism of the film that propels the protagonist so that the real surprise can be how it’s all executed. Time to put on “Carol of the Bells” as it’s time for a new-fashioned holiday slay-ride!
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
Lisa Frankenstein
Between Newton’s persistently winning charm no matter whether she’s playing a time loop-stuck depressive (Map of Tiny Perfect Things) or body-switched psychotic (Freaky), and Sprouse’s surprising commanding energy in a virtually dialogue-free role, Lisa Frankenstein may not be the teen horror comedy you think you want, but it’ll surprise you in ways that will reveal what you need. It’s not afraid to get real with what’s on the minds of teens, highlight the obtuseness of adults, and the reality that love begins from within. Brought together by a director who doesn’t hesitate to lean into cinema history in order to bridge the gap between the weird and wild and normies, you’ve got a viewing experience that is specific, original, and impactful.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
Suitable Flesh
For all the nasty, horrible parts of author H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy, there’s no denying the lasting impression his stories have made on tales of occult and horror. Using the unknown elements of the natural and spiritual worlds, colliding them together to titillate and terrify, continues to inspire creatives of all kinds with their dark delights. The latest such project is director Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh, having its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2023, written by Re-Animator scribe Dennis Paoli and adapted from Lovecraft’s 1933 short story The Thing on the Doorstep. Adjusted for the modern era, Lynch’s film mixes psychological terror and body horror with a dab of eroticism, asking questions about identity, desire, and the vulnerabilities of the flesh.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Shudder.
Things Will Be Different
There’s the world we know — the one we can see, hear, smell, and touch — and there is the world in between. It exists around us, within the spaces within spaces. Overlapping and overlapping, like a Venn diagram wherein who we are is defined by what takes up space from the cross-sections. If we were to identify these spaces, could we then somehow take control of ourselves? Of the world we engage with? In his feature length directorial debut, filmmaker Michael Felker (Would You Like to Try Again?) explores what happens we when try to take control of the chaos within these spaces in his supernatural thriller Things Will Be Different, having its world premiere at SXSW 2024. Not only does its apparent simplicity belie a more complex and philosophical nature, it’s a most audacious and edge-of-your-seat thriller that lingers.
In theaters and on VOD.
Unicorn Wars
Though released widely in 2023, Unicorn Wars sits in the #25 spot of favorites films (out of 64) from 2022. Its beautiful animation and lovely score are merely set dressing for the depth of the narrative, which is rarely far from my mind given the news of late. Alberto Vázquez’s Unicorn Wars is an intensely rich film, absolutely lacking in subtext sure, but powerful nonetheless. As he states in the on-disc interview, Unicorn Wars draws from war films like Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), and Full Metal Jacket (1987), which should tell you everything you need to know about why this film generates conversation and shouldn’t be shown to children, no matter how they might like the sweet cuddly faces of Azulin and Gordi. More importantly, for those who are open to its message, they may just reconsider why blind faith is dangerous, why pain deserves attention, and why history shouldn’t be ignored.
Available on Blu-ray, VOD, and digital.
What You Wish For
There’s an idea that one should never compare their daily struggles with someone else’s highlight reel. I forget where it popped up on social media or who wrote it, but it’s a smart thought. As we toil away at our own lives, the muck of things can pile up, thereby making it seem that the things we see online, on the street, and among friends, are somehow better than what we have. After roughly 13 years, writer/director Nicholas Tomnay (The Perfect Host) brings a new project to Fantastic Fest 2023, What You Wish For, utilizing the lies we tell ourselves about others in darkly comedic fashion, wherein one’s desires always come at a cost and they’re often held right out of frame.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Recommendation
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