J*A*S*M

Congratulations to the filmmakers for finding a meaningful reason to make the thousandth exorcism horror film with the potential for epic expansion into sequels. However, I won’t congratulate them for not being scared of their own idea, and without flinching, follow a template we’ve seen a thousand times before. A template entertaining and well executed enough to be worth watching, but a template nonetheless. Russell Crowe is very good, some of the visual effects and the generic demonic voice not so.

A film as generic as its poster. At least we can thank the marketing people for not lying to the audience.

I'm not gonna lie, I wish Aster had stayed on the ground and his new film was more connected to reality. Beau Is Afraid is a bizarre mindfuck, but, on the other hand, I appreciate that it is the kind of mindfuck that you SOMEHOW understand intuitively without having to read a lot of scholarly treatises about it. The beginning is brilliant, the second quarter is very good, in the third quarter the pace drops a bit, and the final quarter is downright confusing. Hereditary and Midsommar struck me as perfectly coherent works, where each piece fits into the puzzle, but I don't have that feeling with Beau is Afraid. On the contrary, I can imagine that certain sequences could have been missing altogether, the final quarter could have been replaced by something completely different, without fundamentally changing the tone or the impression of the work as a whole. Still, a film like no other that has to be seen.

The visuals are shamelessly lavish and the action sequences are impressive, but unfortunately, the film is very poor when it comes to acting and conversational scenes. At times I found it almost a little funny in terms of what the protagonist survives, and the indestructibility of the blind anti-hero was glaring – I just didn't really believe it. So I have a number of problems with this film, for example, I'm still not entirely comfortable with the fact that it pretends to be groundbreaking cinema when it's basically an action B-movie, and the world isn't built in a completely bulletproof way – I wonder, for example, how the hero apparently moves around the world more or less seamlessly when he manages to change so many destinations. But can I give it three stars when I gave the same rating to much worse action flicks from Netflix? No, I can’t.

It’s still good horror entertainment between three and four stars. In the end, I’m giving it the lower rating to make clear that the fourth and fifth instalments were much better for me. Plot-wise, it is a compilation of familiar stuff, with similar twists and turns and denouements to what we have already seen in the series, maybe just a bit more absurd. I'm a bit disappointed that the creators didn't take it to another level and offer something more ambitious. For example, to show the cards so that the viewer knows from the beginning who is hiding under the mask (and only guesses the motive), or to make the villain directly out of the main character, especially since both options are implied in this new sequel. Unfortunately, this promise never comes to fruition, so the final form ends up looking rather familiar. But the more significant problem for me is the downright dead meta plane. In the year since the premiere of the previous installment, logically "nothing fundamental has happened" in the horror genre, so there is nothing to respond to, nothing to comment on, nothing to paraphrase (on the contrary, the fourth and fifth installments benefited mightily from longer delays). And "franchise" as the referent to which the latest installment refers is too elusive to base any meaningful meta-games on. I wouldn’t be against another sequel, but I would wait at least five years.

Terribly ordinary, the story follows exactly the paths you would expect from such a premise, without the slightest surprise. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the film had a significantly shorter running time – the craftsmanship is proficient and the performances are good. But to ask the viewer for two hours of their time, without any surprise, and without making it particularly horrifying, I simply can't appreciate it.

There aren't many good werewolf movies, this Norwegian attempt is at least watchable, but I can't speak about any significant satisfaction with myself. Although there are some pretty cruel things happening in the second half, the impact on me was minimal. On top of that, the hairy monster looks very CGI. If I have to look back at recent werewolf films, last year's Eight for Silver was much better.

In the details, perhaps a slightly more satisfying genre film than the last few by Balaguero (there are a few fine scenes), but as a whole, unfortunately not so much. I would have liked a lot less boring gangster stuff and a lot more fat henchmen and cosmic horror. By the way, for the second time in less than a month in a new horror film, a character solves a slit stomach by clamping it shut, popping pills and cheerfully going into action. Fuck that shit, man. The very end – meaning the exit from the apartment building – was so out of place that it almost knocked the film down a star. 5/10

As someone who didn't hate the last two widely criticized Shyamalan films, I have to say that M. Night pissed me off with Knock at the Cabin. While Glass and Old were leaky and unconvincing in some ways, I found their concepts interesting and thought-provoking. In comparison, the concept of Knock at the Cabin is very stupid. I'd probably enjoy a believable movie with a premise of people trying to convince other people of complete bullshit, and how those people are willing to believe said bullshit under certain conditions, but the problem is that I would NOT describe Knock at the Cabin as a film with that premise. That's because the finale – apparently unlike some other viewers – doesn't strike me as ambiguous, it strikes me as unambiguously, unequivocally idiotic. PS: This film doesn't have a typical Shyamalan twist, or the twist is that the four freaks are ***** ****** **********? I really laughed at that.

A harmless, well-made popcorn horror flick for young cinema-goers, enjoyable and designed to be a success. I had fun too, but higher ratings should go to films that try to do something; something slightly bolder, more daring, more surprising or less comfortable for the audience. I was kind of expecting at least a more exciting ending – the film raises the expectation for a bigger, off the rails carnage considering what the plot is leading to. But in the end it was nothing; I felt betrayed.