A Minecraft Movie

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2

A Minecraft Movie

Rated: PG

Directed by: Jared Hess

Screenplay Written by: Chris Bowman & Hubbel Palmer and Neil Widener & Gavin James and Chris Galletta

Story Written by: Allison Schroeder and Chris Bowman & Hubbel Palmer

Based on: the Minecraft video game.

Produced by: Cale Boyter, Mary Parent, Torfi Frans Olafsson, Jason Momoa, Jared Hess

Starring: Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jennifer Coolidge.

‘Make the real world your Overworld.’

Opening on a fast-paced backstory of how, my-name-is-Steve (Jack Black) found himself creating a portal to another world (‘I yearned for the mines’), A Minecraft Movie plays on the idea that the world is a giant sandbox – you just need to get creative with it.

But first, Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Momoa), Henry (Hansen), Natalie (Myers) and Dawn (Brooks) must survive their time in a world, ‘that doesn’t make sense.’

That’s full of cubed sheep, zombies, llamas and killer pigs.

Where the overlord of Nether wants to destroy everything creative and where Steve revels in the Overworld because he can make anything he wants alongside his companion, Denis the wolf.

The way Steve says he knew they were to be fast friends when he heard, ‘the howl of companionship’, is hilarious and sets the tone of the movie.

I was also tickled by Henry starting a new school and how the teachers were brutally honest about their current life situations from financial difficulties to recently being divorced after holding on for too long, Vice Principal Marlene (Jennifer Coolidge) stating, ‘but we stuck it out for the dogs.’

Then there’s Garrett – when he’s served an eviction notice, he first believes it’s a fan because of his 80s fame as an arcade player – ‘No autographs.’

To then spend money on a storage unit (with cameo appearance of Jemaine Clement as the storage facility manager, Daryl – gold) that includes unisex turquoise blouses.

And I know I’m going on about all the funny bits, but there’s just so many this is just a taste of how funny the film is.

I didn’t really take to the Nether world so much.  Not because it’s dark, but because it just didn’t have the same humour.

My nephew pointed out the giant pigs don’t exist in the game.  Not that it really mattered because we had a blast and as creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson states, ‘The very individuality of each player’s experience made it obvious that the film had to be one take on the game. “We couldn’t say this is the Minecraft movie and make it the definitive movie that then acts as some sort of canon for Minecraft lore,” says Olafsson. “Rather it’s one Minecraft movie. A story set in the Minecraft universe, one of billions.”

Overall, A Minecraft Movie is silly and funny, has aggressive chickens, a pink leather jacket with fringe, ‘finished? No I think he’s Swedish’ moments that had me still laughing on the way home.

‘Flint and Steel!’

The Alto Knights

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★The Alto Knights

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: Barry Levinson

Written by:  Nicholas Pileggi

Produced by: Irwin Winkler, Barry Levinson, Jason Sosonoff, Charles Winkler, David Winkler

Starring: Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli.

‘You can’t have it both ways.  You’re either in, or out.’

Based on true events.

Opening in 1957, The Alto Knights is the story of famed Frank Costello (Robert De Niro) and his childhood friend, Vito Genovese (also Robert De Niro) and the organised crime that rose during the prohibition.

It was illegal to sell alcohol in America, but not to drink it.

Vito and Frank saw a great way to make a lot of money under the table (not unlike the tobacco wars currently raging in Australia, cigarettes not illegal to sell but high tax creating a lucrative black market).

But Vito’s wild, bringing heat from law enforcement when he crosses the line and is charged with a double homicide.

Forced to leave New York and return to Italy, Vito hands the criminal syndicate to his friend, Frank, knowing he can trust him to hand back the leadership when he returns.

Then World War II erupts.

Vito couldn’t return to America for 15 years.

During those 15 years, Frank was able to grow the business quietly, using politics, like creating the ‘Donkey Vote’ and greasing palms.

He’s known as a professional gambler, is respected, donating to charities while politicians, judges clap and Frank bows in honour.

Meanwhile, Vito has made his money in drugs.  He brings the drug racket to America to make his money.  To be Boss again.

But the world has changed.

The Alto Knights is a story about two Bosses with very different styles – Vito fighting to be Boss again by any means, Frank trying to keep his reputation.

The story all told with a tinge of nostalgia as Frank narrates the story over flashbacks introduced with black and white photos used to depict mafia family history, like the reel of an old film the family slowly spirals out of the shadows where business can be done without the attention of the law and into the light for all to see because of a man trying to recapture what he’s been forced to let go; the change, the need to be back on top making him paranoid, unreasonable, unrelenting in both his work and love life.

Meet, Anna Genovese (Katherine Narducci).

‘It’s like he’s marrying himself,’ says Franks wife, Bobbie (Debra Messing).

After calling Bobbie ten times a day when Vito pushes Anna too far in his usual style of taking and doing what he wants, Bobbie exclaims to Frank, ‘She’s a moron, he’s a maniac and you’re on the front page of the newspaper.’

In comparison, Frank and Bobbie live a quiet life with their two dogs described as their children.

But Vito’s disintegrating marriage is splashing onto the business, tarnishing Franks reputation by association.

The foundation of the film is the difference between the two men.  Frank and Vito sitting across a table from one another, one trying to reason, the other wanting to blow everything up.

It’s about the nuances of conversation, the circular talk, the yelling, the calming, the, ‘you’re an idiot’.

I enjoyed the wry humour and subtitles of these interactions between the ‘family’.

But it’s a little like a history lesson, the drama is the swing of the camera around the conversation of two men, talking life and death like they’re talking about roses in the garden.

There’s a calm in the telling making The Alto Knights not so much a gangster film but a reminiscing Boss talking about the old days.

 

The Rule of Jenny Pen

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★The Rule of Jenny Pen

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: James Ashcroft

Based on the Short Story Written by: Owen Marshall

Screenplay Written by: James Ashcroft, Eli Kent

Produced by: Catherine Fitzgerald, Olando Stewart

Starring:  John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush, Nathaniel Lees.

‘Stefan, are you with us?’

An ant crawls across a table as Stefan (Geoffrey Rush) observes.

Stefan folds a tissue to squash the insect, a metaphor for how, working as a judge, he towers over people, how he sees people.

He sits in judgement – a hard stance.

Before suffering a stroke.

Tough, unflinching, Stefan’s admitted into the Royal Pine Mews Care Home.

He meets his fellow resident and roommate, Sonny (Nathaniel Lees).

Previously a famous rugby player for New Zealand, Sonny tries to be friendly with Stefan, but he’s having none of it.  He’ll recover.  Go home.  He just needs time

Enter Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), first introduced as a blue eye watching through the cracked opening of a door, watching as Stefan uses a bottle to pee.

Dave Crealy always has a puppet doll with him, Jenny Pen.

He’s one of the ‘nutters’.

But Dave Crealy is strong.  He uses his strength to bully the other residents.  Each taunt becoming cruel.  Brutal.  An added dimension to the nightmare Stefan finds himself living.

Rehab sees Stefan reaching for a cup, a nurse encouraging him to reach out, to use his fingers while Dave Crealy laughs maniacally in the background watching predators on TV, but really, he’s like the predators, he laughs at his prey, struggling to hold a cup.

There’s a play of perspective as the film is seen from Stefan’s point of view, with Jenny Pen looming large, a silhouette dancing behind a red curtain; a giant to represent fear growing as Dave Crealy dominants the care home.

But I didn’t find the doll particularly scary.  It’s what the doll represents that’s the horror of the film, the loss of control, power; the not being believed.

The main setting of the film is within the care home, shown in a realistic view, that dry tone a backdrop to the performances of heavy hitters, John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush and Nathaniel Lees.

The nightmarish quality of Stefan’s illness is shown with gaps of time, the swing from a neuropsychological test showing what Stefan sees – a clock with all the numbers in order to what the clinician sees, the lateral damage of Stefan’s brain shown in numbers run askew.

The isolation of his illness is amplified by this quietly absorbing battle between the sadistic Dave Crealy and the grumpy, bitter judge slowly losing his faculties living in a world no one sees or pretends not to see so the torture is like a terrible secret hidden in plain sight.

There’s a good story here, based on the short story written by Owen Marshall, with strong performances and thought put into the perspective of the residents to take the audience into that secret world of feeling powerless.

Worth a watch.

 

Flow

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★Flow

Rated: TBC

Director: Gints Zilbalodis

Scenario: Gints Zilbalodis, Matīss Kaža

Production: Dream Well Studio (Latvia), Sacrebleu Productions (France), Take Five (Belgium)

Script Adaptation: Ron Dyens

Producers: Matīss Kaža, Gints Zilbalodis, Ron Dyens, Gregory Zalcman

Composers: Gints Zilbalodis, Rihards Zaļupe

Sound Design:  Gurwal Coïc-Gallas

Director of Animation: Léo Silly-Pélissier.

A cat, Flow, sees itself in a reflection of a puddle.

Rain falls.

Dogs are running and barking.

Deer stampede.

Flow darts towards a meadow filled with lifting butterflies.  The light is golden as Flow wanders through cat statues leading to a cabin.

Flow makes her way through a broken window to then stretch and sleep as the rain continues to fall.

A flood rises, catching animals in the waters’ wake.

Flow meows as the flood waters threaten to rise above the cabin.

Then a sailboat comes by, shepherded by a capybara, heralding safety.

Flow jumps aboard.

The first thing I noticed about this gentle yet powerfully moving animation was the realistic clear water.

So clear and clean and a feature through-out the film with the rain, the puddles, the flooded forest, to the huge waves of an ocean.

The imagery of the animation is like a moving painting of watercolours yet defined and flowing.

It’s an animation set in a forest, where Flow and the capybara find other animals that need saving, each species carefully studied so the mannerisms of each animal are delightfully accurate, provoking an added smile of enjoyment.

The cat, Flow, is seen stretching and scratching, demure, scared, the pupil of the eyes depicting the mood to a soundtrack of meows that call for help or growl in distaste.

All the animal sounds in the film are real.  And there’s no dialogue.  Just the emersion into the personalities of each animal aboard the small sailboat:

The yellow lab that follows Flow pees on one of the cat statues.

The Lema collects.

The bird navigates.

Each species is different and wary of the other, yet there’s also a kindness that evolves, started by the rescuing capybara who remains steady and friendly to all in the boat.

A thoughtfulness rises with the flooding waters that sees a bird acting against its nature to give a cat a fish.

The film is sweet and funny and magical to watch like a circling perspective around a giant cat statue as Flow sits on top.

The view ducks underwater to see colourful fish and a friendly whale that follows the unlikely group.

And the soundtrack is the animal sounds that communicate the question of, Friend or foe?  Accented with an orchestral build, a crescendo for those poignant moments that enhance, not overtake, the gentle story about these animals who come together and grow to help each other while continuing to be who they are.

A genuine pleasure to watch.

Mickey 17

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★

Rated: M

Directed by: Bong Joon Ho

Screenplay Written by: Bong Joon Ho

Based on: ‘Mickey7’ by Edward Ashton

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo.

‘Hey Mickey, what’s it feel like to die?’

Based on the novel written by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 is an absurd sci-fi set in 2054, where people are lining up to leave earth to follow a failed politician, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) to a new planet, Niflheim.

If they ration food over the four-year journey, and don’t waste calories on exertion, like sex, they can ‘go forth and multiply’ when they reach their new home.

Mickey (Robert Pattinson) and his mate Berto (Steven Yeun) on the run from gangsters sign up.

Mickey signs up to be an expendable.

He didn’t read all the paperwork.

Yes, the movie is filled with idiots.

Mickey, not the worst of them.

The leader is a Trump cross Jimmy Swaggart character with a Frances on his shoulder, the wife here, Gwen, played by Toni Collette.

As well as religion, or religious posturing, Gwen is obsessed with food.

Specifically, making, ‘special sauce.’

All the while, Mickey gets to experience death over and over again.

Mickey dies, then his body gets reprinted in a 3D body printing machine and his memories saved in an actual brick to be reinstalled in the new body.

He also, against the rules, has sex with a special forces soldier, Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who takes a shine to Mickey.  As does Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei).

Stupid and reprintable are a plus on the space ship to Niflheim.

And it turns out Mickey 17 is a gentle soul as opposed to the next Mickey who exhibits psychopathic tendencies.  Each Mickey has a different personality.

It’s… silly.

And filled with dumb cruelty.

Mickey out in space while the scientists document his death from exposure to radiation:

‘Tell us, When does your skin burn?

When do you go blind?

And when do you die?

That’s the nut.’

All narrated with Mickey’s self-deprecation, his, That’s-what-I-get for-being-an-idiot attitude.

The most interesting part of the film was the natives on the new planet, bug-like creatures that have intelligence, described by Gwen as, ‘A croissant dipped in shit.’

Mostly, I was annoyed and cringing at the possibility of killing out of idiocy.

Which could be seen as a reflection of what happens when one nation invades another.

But the attempt at satire in this film fell flat.

There wasn’t any humour that hit the mark.

Mickey 17 is a different style of movie, I’ll say that.  But not in a good way.

The Monkey

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2The Monkey

Rated: TBA

Directed by: Osgood Perkins

Written by: Osgood Perkins

Based on the Short Story by: Stephen King

Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery.

‘Looks like God’s bowling strikes today.’

Based on a short story written by Stephen King (Gallery magazine (1980), then revised and published in King’s short story collection, Skeleton Crew (1985)), The Monkey (movie) leans into the absurd making the horror of a monkey that makes terrible, freaky, accidental deaths occur when someone turn its key, funny.

The Monkey isn’t so much a horror, splatter movie, but a satire.

Twins, Hal (Theo James) and Bill (also Theo James) live with their mum, Lois (Tatiana Maslany) who has no filter when talking to her boys about the realities of life and death.

Bill was born before Hal making him the elder twin and Bill never lets Hal forget it.

Bill’s the type of guy when you go to shake hands, he sykes and runs his fingers through his hair instead.

The boys’ dad (Adam Scott) was a pilot that went for a pack of cigarettes then never came back, is what their mum says.  Because their father never did come home.

But he did leave keepsakes from his travels, including an Organ Grinder Monkey with, ‘Like Life’, inscribed on the back, with freaky human-like teeth and staring eyes with the whites all around like a psychopath, glinting in the dark.

The Monkey is definitely not a toy.

When people start dying in weird and wonderful ways, the boys realise it’s the monkey and decide to get rid of it.

But the monkey never really disappears.

Fast forward 25 years sees the twin brothers estranged with Hal’s son Petey (Colin O’Brien) in the picture, but only one week every year.

It’s that time of year.

And the monkey has made a reappearance.

The bloody deaths, including fishing hooks in the face followed by the rubbing alcohol used to treat the cuts catching fire, then the flaming person running headlong into a post that empales their head, prove it.

The deaths are creative.

And like Lois their mother says, ‘Don’t think about it too much.’

Because the movie isn’t so much the deaths but the deadpan reaction of Hal to the deaths.  And, ‘I’m his next of skin,’ brother hell-bent on being a douche.

Some of the humour is cheap, it’s a laugh-a-minute kind of movie.  But there are genuinely hilarious moments.

Like a decapitation referred to in a coin toss of, heads or tails.  But let’s not mention the heads because of, you know.  The missing head.

The timing of some of the shots still have me grinning.

The movie is a heavy lean into the dark humour of the idea of this killer monkey, and most of the time, I liked it.

FYI, Oz Perkins plays Uncle Chip.  Gold.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy

Rated: M

Directed by: Michael Morris

Screenplay by: Helen Fielding with contributions by Abi Morgan and Dan Mazer

Based the Novel Written by: Helen Fielding

Produced by: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jo Wallett

Starring: Renée Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Isla Fisher, with Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

‘It’s not enough to survive; you’ve got to live.’

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy shows Mrs. Darcy (Renée Zellweger) at home with her two children, nine-year-old Billy (Casper Knopf) and four-year-old Mabel (Mila Jankovic).

Bridget is now a widow, coping with the chaos of raising two kids on her own.

In classic style, Bridget struggles with her zipper, the kids need their dinner and the house is about to catch fire.

Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) to the rescue.  To babysit the kids.

There’s still the same gang:  Shazzer (Sally Phillips), Jude (Shirley Henderson), Tom (James Callis) and Miranda (Sarah Solemani) to help remember Mark (Colin Firth) on the anniversary of his death.

Her friends help Bridget through, Jude weirdly licking the slice of orange on the side of her drink, all giving advice or saving her from advice or warning her about the dangers of labial adhesion from lack of use.

It’s time for Bridget to start again.

So when Miranda loads Bridget’s profile on Tinder, Bridget realises flirting is fun.  Particularly when a toyboy, enter Roxster (Leo Woodall), saves her kids from a tree.  And Bridget from her grief.

It’s all romance and funny moments; constantly giving the science teacher, Mr. Wallker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) the wrong impression like buying an assortment of condoms because who know what to buy after all this time, so why not a variety?

What I didn’t see coming were all the tearjerking moments.

Director Michael Morris states: “How do you make a movie that is quintessentially Bridget Jones, but which also engages with issues and emotions that these movies haven’t engaged with before? I latched onto the question of how Bridget, or how any of us, overcome something that feels unimaginable. I had this notion of creating a ‘comedy of grief.’ This is a film that wants to honor an experience that all of us are inevitably touched by.”

The film’s a roller coaster of emotions with notes of nostalgia.

The characters have grown older so there’s change, there’s life with children; there’s the unpacking of what’s important, still being naughty while being a mother, working, grieving and new beginnings.

The humour felt heavy handed at times, but that was the beginning, that opening of forced jovial moments with the kids.

But I was won over with Daniel’s naughty nun comments.

And although the humour was still there, (fuck, I mean fuck-catia…  Did you eat all the focaccia?) this instalment of Bridget Jones was more about the change in Bridget’s life.  There’s antics, but it’s the emotional change that was the overriding feeling.

 

PRESENCE

GoMovieReview Rating: ★★★Presence

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Written by: David Koepp

Produced by: Julie M. Anderson, Ken Meyer

Starring: Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Julia Fox, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland.

‘What was it like, do you think?’

Filmed from the point of view of the presence, there’s a perspective of looking out a window to then turn inside a house, to wander the empty rooms.

A family of husband and wife, and two teenaged children arrive.

The mother, Rebekah (Lucy Liu) is the decision maker of the family.  She makes an offer on the house.

The daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang) asks, ‘Does anyone else get a vote?’

Chloe looks towards the screen, the camera, towards the presence, knowing something is in the house.

She calls out, ‘Nadia?’ Wondering if her recently deceased best friend has returned.

The family don’t believe Chloe, her brother Tyler (Eddy Maday) angry, not wanting Chloe to ruin his cool at school with Ryan (West Mulholland) now his friend.

And then Chloe’s boyfriend.

Talking about her best friend dying, Eddy asks, ‘What was it like, do you think?’

‘I have no idea.’

The beginning of the film is silent.

The dialogue the soundtrack so it feels like a stage production.

The presence attached to the house means the film is entirely filmed in the house so the storyline is the interactions between the family, that’s slowly falling apart.

‘It’s OK to go too far for the people you love,’ says Rebekah to her favourite, her son Tyler.

The father, Chris (Chris Sullivan), tries to keep an eye on Chloe as she grieves.

But it’s the presence who sees everything.

This is a stark film that took a while to become something creepy, not because of the ghost aspect, but the quiet build of something not right.

It’s a unique device, using a subjective camera as point of view for the presence, director Steven Soderbergh states: ‘We want to see the reaction of the character that we’re supposed to invest in. And I’ve been convinced you don’t have a movie if you don’t have that — if you can’t see what the character’s feeling emotionally, you don’t have a movie. But here I am literally tearing down the structure that I’ve built. And my only justification is: Here, if you did a reverse, there wouldn’t be anything to see.’

There’s success with this unusual perspective because the strong performance from each character makes the presence believable.

Using the subjective camera within one location is the foundation of the film.  Writer Koepp states,’ I love a restriction. “It’s 24 hours.” Or “it’s one long road trip.” Or, in this case, “It’s all in the same house,” It’s a sort of creative Hays Code that restricts your thinking and therefore opens up your thinking.’

It’s just not a vastly entertaining film.  I’d even go as far as saying the first half of the film was boring.  But then it becomes something else like an underlying need for control.  It creeps up.

Worth a watch.

Companion

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★ Companion

Rated: TBA

Directed by: Drew Hancock

Written by: Drew Hancock

Produced by: Zach Cregger, Raphael Margules, J. D. Lifshitz, Roy Lee

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén and Rupert Friend.

‘Smile.  Act happy.’

Josh (Jack Quaid) and Iris (Sophie Thatcher) are the perfect couple.

They meet in a grocery store where Josh fumbles his way into Irises heart.

It’s a sweet, meet cute.

‘I just want you to be happy, Josh,’ Iris tells him.

Then the relationship begins to fray.

The love a little needy.

Josh, despondent to Irises attention.

When Josh and Iris drive out to an isolated lake house to spend time with Josh’s friends, Cat (Megan Suri) and her rich Russian boyfriend, Sergey (Rupert Friend) and Eli (Harvey Guillen) with partner Patrick (Lukas Gage), Iris is afraid she’ll embarrass Josh.

Josh tells her to smile, act happy.

She does her best.

The innocent Iris who couldn’t lie, even if she wanted to, is someone to feel sorry for.

Until the doll made to serve turns up covered in someone else’s blood.

There’s twists and turns in Companion, with moments of violence amongst the tongue and cheek; comments like, ‘I know it must be a lot to process.’

Companion feels a little like a Barbie version of, Ex Machina with the subtitles of manipulation replaced with overtones of domestic violence.

Yet the tone of the film is light, holding back on the ridiculous so it’s a watchable film but made more for entertainment than depth.

Or if there was depth, it wasn’t a message that resonated.  Maybe something like, Beware of treating your partner like a doll because they might grow a brain and turn on you.

So, I guess there’s something in that.

 

Wolf Man

GoMovieReview Rating: ★★★1/2 Wolf Man

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: Leigh Whannell

Written by: Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck

Produced by: Jason Blum p.g.a

Starring: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Sam Jaeger, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie, Ben Prendergast, Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly and Milo Cawthorne.

‘It’s my job to protect you.’

There’s a build to Leigh Whannell’s reimagined Wolf Man.

Set in rural Oregan, Blake (Christopher Abbott) is living a farm life with his father.

There’s a, ‘No Trespassing, there’s nothing here worth dying for,’ sign on the gate.

It’s 1995.

At 07:00, father and son go hunting only to find themselves stalked by a creature just out of sight.  Only a movement, a glimpse through the crosshairs of a shotgun.  A growl.

Hiding, father and son see the condensation of breath rising above a door with scratch marks left as a warning.

It’s a frightening existence, a young boy growing up with a survivalist father communicating with a neighbour via radio about the sighting of the creature seen just out of sight like an apparition.

As soon as he’s old enough, Blake leaves the land to move to the city where 30 years later he lives with his successful journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth).

Currently ‘in between’ jobs, Blake dedicates his life to looking after his daughter.

After his missing father is presumed dead, the house in Oregan is left to Blake.

To try and close the distance growing between husband and wife, Blake convinces Charlotte that going to the farm would help bring the family closer together.

Until a single scratch makes a once loving dad and husband become a monster.

Returning with another universal classic monster character after the success of his previous monster film, ‘The Invisible Man,’ Whannell states, ‘These classic monsters have endured for a reason […] Something about them is just too fascinating, creepy and mysterious to go away.’

There’s a clever device used here, to show the infection taking hold of Blake, with the light focusing on the monster he’s about to become.

He’s dying but doesn’t know it yet.

Words become jumbled but sounds are amplified so even the crawl of spider legs across a wall beat a heavy drum.

Even the perspective of a car accident is at an angle so the audience can feel the characters’ upturned world.

Working with cinematographer Stefan Duscio, the evolution of the infection is shown by adjusting the lighting using different lenses, so Blake’s night vision is seen in contrast to how his family sees the world, sees him, changing.

So the audience can see both sides of the evolution, Whannell stating, ‘One would live in the human world, and one in the animal one.’

The idea of a werewolf remake wasn’t very exciting to me, and the family drama felt heavy handed at times, but I was won over by Whannell’s focus on the evolution of infection rather than a monster baying at a full moon.

Whannell’s signature jump scares, and what I appreciated the most, the  perspective of change as the family becomes more terrified of their once loving husband and father makes, Wolf Man worth a watch.

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