Thriller - Movie Meister Reviews

September 20, 2020 leebutler Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Spiral (2020) – Spinning Right Round Baby

Released: 17th September
Seen: 20th September

When it comes to queer characters as the leads in horror films, I have to admit I can’t come up with many. Nightmare on Elm Street 2 may have put all the gayness into the subtext but it was still there, genuinely groundbreaking for that time (and the subject of a fascinating documentary that I may have reviewed a while ago). Hellbent was a slasher film that made the bold choice to have all the victims and even the main villain be gay men in West Hollywood. Cursed had a gay supporting character, Scream 4 had one character who claimed they were gay (It might’ve been an attempt to not get stabbed, which didn’t work) and that’s where I run out of films (I know there’s more, damned if I can name them). They’re certainly never really pushed by any big companies or made mainstream, so for Shudder to make a horror movie about a gay couple and link the story explicitly to the gay experience is pretty awesome and the film is… good.

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September 19, 2020 leebutler Thriller, Crime, Drama

The Devil All the Time (2020) – The Devil Went Down To Ohio

Released: 11th September
Seen: 18th September

In 2011, the novel The Devil All the Time was released and was instantly showered with awards and praise. Written by Donald Ray Pollock as a follow up to his book Knockemstiff, it was a big enough hit that, inevitably, the rights to the book were bought and a film adaptation was announced way back in 2018. Well, now we are here two years later and what did they make? They made… a film. A film with two great performances that is a film, it’s not much more than that.

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September 16, 2020 leebutler Action, Drama, Horror, Thriller

Becky (2020) – Oh My God

Released: 10th September
Seen: 15th September

Home invasion movies are a staple of many genres, have been for years but I think we can all agree that they really hit their pinnacle with a little comedy film called Home Alone (sidebar, you know there’s 4 sequels to that movie? AND a reboot that was filming until *gestures at the apocalypse*) that showed us the fun side of what would happen if a pair of criminals broke into the house of a kid who just discovered who Rube Goldberg was. Of course this idea is a big staple of the Horror genre, films like Hush and You’re Next pit a home invader against an intelligent home owner who will defend themselves to the death… and now someone has gone “OK, let’s take the young kid from Home Alone and blend him with the badass women from Hush and You’re Next” and turns out you can get something kind of interesting out of that.

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September 1, 2020 leebutler Drama, Biography, History, Thriller

Dark Waters (2020) – Drink It Up

Released: 5th March
Seen: 30th August

In 2005, chemical company DuPont was fined $16.5 million by the EPA for, essentially, poisoning the water supply of a town with Perfluorooctanoic Acid, a chemical used to create teflon. They were forced to pay this, along with several other settlements with people who they poisoned, thanks to a civil suit filed by Robert Bilott way back in 1999. The full scope of the poisoning and what it did to the people affected by it wouldn’t be known for years and the entire story is one of negligence and capitalism run rampant in a story we’ve heard time and time again, told in the film Dark Waters with a passion that cannot be denied.

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August 31, 2020August 31, 2020 leebutler Thriller, Action, Drama, Mystery

The Rhythm Section (2020) – Out Of Sync

Released: 31st January
Seen: 30th August

The revenge film is a very popular and versatile film to make with one of the simpler basic plots to work with. Start with a cruel act that ends in someone dead, give that dead person a loved one who is traumatised by the cruel act, that loved one trains themselves to fight in some way and then goes after the person who hurt them. This very basic structure has led to classics like the John Wick trilogy or most of Liam Neeson’s career since the Taken movies. When done right they can be exciting thrillers that make the audience sit on the edge of their seat in genuine terror, when done wrong you get films like Peppermint or today’s selection The Rhythm Section.

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August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 leebutler Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller

Project Power (2020) – Power From The Outside

Over on Soda & Telepaths I took a look at the only superhero movie we’re getting for a while, that being Project Power on Netflix. Go there and read it to make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

August 12, 2020 leebutler Thriller, Action, Drama

7500 (2020) – Just Plane Awesome

Released: 18th June
Seen: 10th August

You know what’s hard? Starting reviews on movies about difficult subjects, like 7500, because I have to try and give a brief catchy way to clue you into the movie. This opening paragraph is designed, in part, to catch your eye while you’re scrolling through my site and maybe make you curious about the content of the review and normally can involve backstory or a comparison or even an anecdote that relates to the media at hand… well, 7500 is about a bunch of people hijacking a plane so how exactly do I ease into that? Guess what I just did might be the best I’ll be able to do.

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August 9, 2020 leebutler Horror, Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Underwater (2020) – Watered Down Alien

Released: 23rd January
Seen: 8th August

Alien knockoffs seem to be making a huge comeback as of late and I gotta admit, I’m weirdly enjoying seeing just what people do as part of their homage to the classic space horror. Just since starting this blog I’ve run into Life, which was Alien without the female protagonist and an ending that might be one of my favourite surprise endings in recent years.

Then there was Cloverfield Paradox which is Alien if it was the ship trying to kill them all instead of an Alien creature (and I was certainly a little too nice to it back then, I was early in my reviewing life). Well, the new entry into “Alien, except…” is Underwater, which is Alien except it takes place at the bottom of the ocean.

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July 31, 2020 leebutler Thriller

Unhinged (2020) – Delightful and Devilish

Released: 30th July
Seen: 30th July

Everyone who has ever driven a car has, at some point, felt a twinge of road rage. Admit it, you’ve been behind the wheel of a car and seen someone make a turn they weren’t supposed to make or beep their horn for no real reason and you’ve felt a swell of anger growing deep inside. It’s a familiar feeling that we’ve all had and so, taking that familiar real world scenario and turning it up to 11 could make for a pretty unnerving thriller. Enter Unhinged which comes along, does exactly that and throws in one of Russell Crowe’s best performances just for good measure.

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July 28, 2020July 29, 2020 leebutler Drama, Thriller

Fatal Affair (2020) – Dead Boring

Released: 16th July
Seen: 27th July

From the writer director who brought us Secret Obsession and no less than 19 movies with the title The Wrong (Noun) comes the newest Netflix movie to make me worry about that company’s idea of quality control. Every time there’s some weird looking Netflix original that was clearly rejected by everyone else, I just wonder why Netflix is doing this. It’s not like they don’t know what good movies look like, they funded The Irishman when no one else would and took chances on great films like Roma, Klaus and The Two Popes. They have the ability to be picky and only buy the good projects, instead of buying another dud like Fatal Affair.

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