leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Jagged Mind (2023) – Loopy

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 15th June
Seen: 3rd September

Jagged Mind Info

Before we begin, a warning that this film deals with the very heavy subject of spousal abuse, in particular gaslighting and abuse of those with a medical condition which might be a triggering topic for some. If that applies to you then you might want to skip this movie entirely, though you also might’ve skipped it already, because it seemed to get very little promotion which makes a depressing amount of sense when you realise it’s a queer horror film about spousal abuse which doesn’t tend to be a marketable film. If that isn’t a trigger for you though, keep going on (also if you got viscerally angry at the idea of being given a trigger warning… grass, go find some and touch it)

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leebutler Horror, Review

Skinamarink (2023) – Night Night

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 2nd February
Seen: 2nd September

Skinamarink Info

Fun fact about me, I didn’t see Psycho for YEARS after I started watching horror movies. Years, like I maybe saw it in full for the first time last year. Now the reasoning for this is one that might actually make sense to some of you reading this, I didn’t see it because the film is so widely regarded as one of the best of all time that I didn’t want to risk not liking it so I just kept pushing back seeing it. This is a thing that I’m sure many people do with some classic films, A kind of hype sets in around the film and seeing it becomes a landmine because you might not like it as much as everyone else which can be kind of awkward. This can also happen a lot with modern films, a film gets so many rave reviews to the point of it becoming a meme that it pushes some people away from it. This is what happened when Skinamarink first came out, due to a combo of a general slowness that took up the early half of 2022 and just a general concern that it might not be as good as everyone proclaimed it this film was avoided by me for quite some time.

…so anyway, Skinamarink is bad and you all owe me an explanation of what the fuck happened when it came out to make everyone claim it was so great.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Perpetrator (2023) – School’s Out!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 1st September
Seen: 2nd September

Horror as a genre is an ever-evolving beast but one thing it’s always great at is metaphor, using the story of the film to touch on heavy topics that might be harder to do in other genres. Sometimes it can work well, the problem of racism, specifically the more insidious subtle racism done by people who believe they aren’t racists, was handled wonderfully in Get Out. Sometimes it fails pretty spectacularly, like the gallant attempt to explore sexism and specifically the crisis of rape on college campuses which was the focus of the last Black Christmas film and ended up just not working (because it was a bad film, not because it was doing politics). Perpetrator is more on the upper end of that spectrum in terms of quality and idea, but its execution is just a little underdone.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Horror, Review

Beau Is Afraid (2023) – Creepy and Kooky

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 20th April
Seen: 27th August

Ari Aster is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the horror genre today, one of the people who rode the wave of the recent trend of “Elevate horror” with his fascinating films Hereditary and Midsommar. His films are known for being strange, dark, twisted nightmares with leading performances that get horrifically snubbed whenever award season comes around (The fact that Toni Collette didn’t get an Oscar for Hereditary is a crime that will be dealt with by the Hague when the time comes). With two hit films under his belt and being somewhat of a darling at A24, it stands to reason that Ari has built up more than enough clout to get away with a film that would normally never get made because it was too weird, even for A24. Ari seems to have used that clout to get Beau Is Afraid made and no matter what you might think about it, the fact it got made at all is something special.

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leebutler Fantasy, Horror, Review

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023) – Ship Shape

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 10th August
Seen: 23rd August

In the 1897 novel Dracula, chapter 7 spends most of its time presenting pages from a log from a ship known as the Demeter. The pages from the log show the events that took place on a ship carrying a large quantity of goods from Varna, Bulgaria all the way to Whitby, England. As the journal goes on it becomes apparent that the trip was hijacked by the titular Dracula who slowly picked off the crew. It’s a single chapter, barely even 3000 words long and basically just meant to explain how the titular vampire managed to make it from his home in Bulgaria to England in a time when the only way to do so would’ve been by boat. It’s the kind of thing that most adaptations might make into a quick 2-minute scene, maybe not even fully delve into all the details but the people behind The Last Voyage Of The Demeter looked at that 3000 words and realised that could make for a pretty fun horror flick and thus, we got this enjoyable little treat.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Talk To Me (2023) – Give Them A Hand

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 27th July
Seen: 5th August

It’s a sad truth that Australian cinema isn’t as popular as it used to be. Sure we had our heyday with films like Priscilla, Strictly Ballroom and Razorback but lately it feels like we’re mostly just a cheap backlot for American films with very few serious hits of our own. So when an Australian film not only manages to score a great opening week at the box office (especially against juggernauts like Barbie) but gets rave reviews that’s cause for celebration, especially because Talk To Me manages to live up to the insane hype that surrounds it.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) – Holy Hell

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 6th April
Seen: 24th July

It’s almost a cliche at this point to bring up The Exorcist when talking about a movie featuring exorcism but it’s kind of impossible, some movies are just such a massive part of the cinematic landscape that anyone else touching that subgenre is inevitably going to be compared to them. Horror in particular has this problem a lot, all slasher movies tend to be leaning into templates made by Halloween or Friday the 13th, all Zombie movies are just riffing on Dawn of the Dead and all exorcism movies are basically just The Exorcist with a fresh coat of paint. You can absolutely do new interesting things with the genre, films like The Exorcism of Emily Rose throwing the genre into the courtroom create an interesting take on the genre… or you can just go “Oh but here’s a real person who actually did this job” and then do another version of The Exorcist but without the brilliance that made the 1977 film an absolute legend.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Influencer (2023) – Under The Influence

Released: 26th May
Seen: 29th May

The age of digital media has created a plethora of new terminology that we have been quick to accept, from “Doomscrolling” to “Going Viral” we’ve just taken on these terms as a part of our regular lexicon. One of the most fascinating terms that’s been really jump started by the digital media age is “Influencer” where someone basically spruiks goods and services using an online persona for their audience. 

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Knock At The Cabin (2023) – Choices

Released: 17th May
Seen: 23rd May

There is a trope in fiction known as “Bury Your Gays” which has become somewhat of a problem in certain pieces of media. The idea is depressingly simple, the idea being that there is a disproportionate number of gay characters dying, normally as a way to expand a straight character’s storyline. Now this doesn’t mean that you can never kill off a gay character, far from it. However, if you do, it should be at the same proportion as straight characters and, preferably, not be completely pointless. Knock at the Cabin is a case study in how to do this correctly while also indulging in more than a few of M Night Shyamalan’s worst tendencies as a writer/director.

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