leebutler Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Review

Haunted Mansion (2023) – Rich

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: 31st August
Seen: 21st September

Haunted Mansion Info

The Haunted Mansion is probably one of the most famous theme park attractions of all time. It’s so well known that even people who have never actually visited the park it’s built in at least know a few of its iconic visuals, like the ballroom full of ghosts or the elongating rooms. It’s such an iconic ride that it was inevitable that it’d inspire a movie and in 2003 it ended up doing so with The Haunted Mansion, a film that was certainly financially successful but was critically panned and not looked back on fondly by most (though it does have a cult following). The property would remain untouched in cinematic form for years until 2021 when the Muppets took a crack at it and, while their version only lasted a little under an hour, it was still well received by a lot of people and maybe gave Disney confidence they needed to really believe in another cinematic version of Haunted Mansion… and it’s a good thing they did because the new version is surprisingly good.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Elevator Game (2023) – Going Down!

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 September
Seen: 20th September

One of the most strangely fascinating subgenres of horror is one where a weird thing on the internet turns out to not only be real but deadly. Films like Slender Man, Grimcutty and Countdown all took modern technology and twisted it to become something strange and deadly, a kind of modern-day campfire story that takes a technology we’ve all become used to and turns it into something truly terrifying… or at least, that’s what it’s supposed to do. You might notice the trio of examples mentioned earlier are some of the worst horror films released in the last five years and sadly, Elevator Game joins them in that group of horror movies that takes a potentially interesting modern story and just does nothing with it.

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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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