Tag: Gabriel Byrne

Another year, another A24 movie hailed as a masterpiece of horror. And yet, there is doubt.

Sometimes A24 overhypes their films. Understandable. And sometimes they advertise things a bit different and piss off a lot of people. Some people have not forgiven them over this. Other people think these highly acclaimed horror films are shit.

But here is something I think most people can agree with. 2017 was a strong year for Horror films. Probably the best in quite some time for the genre. And for Hereditary? Well, it is sure as hell my favorite horror film in at least the last decade.

As sure as hell that hell is often talked about in horror movies.

The Graham family has had some troubling times. And it all seems to funnel around Annie Graham (Toni Collette). Her mother just died. But like, they weren’t close at all. She was living her last days in their home, but that doesn’t really change their past relationship.

Annie is an artist, in that she designs small dollhouse like arrangements and has a show coming up this summer. She is extremely crafty and can make a lot of things. Her husband (Gabriel Byrne) is trying to keep her life as stress free as possible, but it is hard when there is so much angst in the household.

Angst? Heck yes angst. They have two kids. The oldest, the boy (Alex Wolff) doesn’t get along with the mom and vice versa. They have had an interesting past. The younger, the girl (Milly Shapiro), has an unfortunate look and aura to her. She was the only one close to the deceased. And she has a lot of issues on her own, dark drawings, antisocial, you name it.

But it turns out their family has a lot of secrets. Some that Annie is aware of, and some that are going to come crashing down on them whether she wants them to or not.

Also starring Ann Dowd and Mallory Bechtel.

“Unfortunate looking” is the nice way to talk about it.

Let’s just compare real quick. Get Out. It Comes At Night. It Follows. Stoker. The Babadook. The Witch.

All fine horror films, or thriller films depending on how you want to argue them. And yes, I think Hereditary beats the list, including The Witch, which is my favorite from that list.

It is so hard to describe the feelings that Hereditary brings up. Given the family nature of the film, my mind went several places I thought it might go, and it didn’t really touch them. It went down a relatively unique path that seemed natural, and plenty shocking. It is definitely a slow movie, until it decides to fully embrace the “regular” parts of the genre.

Because by all means, the end is full on horror movie. We don’t have jump scares to get us to that point. We have unsettling events. Some shocking moments of course, but nothing is cheap, it is all earned.

And acting wise, I will talk about Wolff first. This is probably the best he has ever done in a movie. He was seemingly typecasted in my eyes and this movie will hopefully get him out of those teenage romance dramas. But Collette? Holy fuck, Toni Collette. I have definitely never come close to watching all of her movies, but I can’t imagine her ever better. And she has been in a lot of bad things lately.

Bold statement – Collette deserves acting nominations by the end of the year. She helped carry this movie and elevate it to an amazing status. I cannot see this film not being in the top five by the end of the year.

The 2010 Chilean mining accident is a wonderful topic for a movie. I am surprised it took them five years in fact.

It was a national event, it lasted months, it involved dozens of people (33 to be exact), and it had a happy ending.

Imagine if they opened the hole and it was a few guys surrounded by corpses. That’d be terrifying. That would be a different sort of movie, not at all uplifting.

So I am going into The 33 with optimism. I hope they get buried within like, the first 10 minutes too. Let them build up that scare factor just a bit.

Besides, the last movie I saw set in Chile that involved a huge disaster and trying to survive was Aftershock. That wasn’t uplifting, well, besides the tectonic plates.

Seeing all those sweaty food deprived bodies could also be considered uplifting.

12,000 miners die every year. That is a big number. But, at least 9 million kids under 5 die every year, and that is only one portion of minors. So it is much more dangerous to be a minor than a miner. I assume.

Well, in this case, the miners were going down on a normal day, just to get the copper and gold. They use relatively small crews, I guess to not upset the mountain too much with the drills and other equipment. This particular mountain has been mined heavily and they are very deep into it. Mario Sepúlveda (Antonio Banderas) needs some extra money, so he is working too, despite not originally on the schedule. And guess what? Not long after they are down there and working, the mountain begins to move. Now, a super rock is blocking their only exit and they are trapped in a relatively small area. They have a hall way or two, and thankfully they are in The Refuge, a room with some food and supplies. But still, it is quite dangerous and scary down there.

The food supplies are not plentiful. The company lied about a few safety measures as well, making escape impossible. And the company isn’t even going to do anything about it! They are a private company, so they are doing the bare minimum, but they aren’t even letting the friends and family members enter the area, as they are blocked off by gates and people with guns.

Thankfully, María Segovia (Juliette Binoche) is not having any of their shit. She is the sister of one of the miners and she basically helps frenzy them into a riot, creating pressure on the government and company to attempt the rescue mission. This brings the Minister of Mining, Laurence Golborne (Rodrigo Santoro) down to the scene. He is moved by everyone’s committment and he promises to do everything he can to rescue the miners, no matter the cost.

Sure they only have 3 days of food for 3 people and it would take at least a week to get a small hole somewhere into their area. And they also have no idea how to get to the right spot, due to the density of the stone being unknown and their drills will curve. But damn it, they gotta try, right?

Obviously with so many minors, we have a huge cast. But most of the minors have no talking roles. But the people they do showcase have families worried about them or other unusual characteristics. And a lot of people helping, including Bob Gunton playing President Piñera. These people are played by Mario Casas, Juan Pablo Raba, Oscar Nuñez, Tenoch Huerta, Marco Treviño, Jacob Vargas, Lou Diamond Phillips, James Brolin, Adriana Barraza, Kate del Castillo, Elizabeth De Razzo, Cote de Pablo, and Gabriel Byrne.

Count them. They don’t even try to make the number of characters accurate.

Did I cry? Of course I cried. They had beautiful tense moments of rescue. They had people who hadn’t seen each other for 69 days, who had assumed their loved ones died, reconnecting. Someone had a baby girl, and you know how they affect me. But just because I cried doesn’t mean it is an excellent film.

First of all, when your title is The 33 and it is a well known fact that there are 33 people, you should probably have all the many extras around who don’t talk when the whole group is together. That dinner scene is unacceptable. Didn’t even have people standing to the side having their own conversation.

Second of all, there is geology in this movie. Not a lot, technically. But there was the big “eureka” moment with how they would get the drill to the correct area. And it was terrible. I cannot believe that is how it really happened, because it would mean all of the drilling crews were inept.

But there were some nice moments of course. Banderas gives an excellent speech or two that really get me going. The scene where they imagined food was super weird. And they really felt like coworkers and a family by the end.

Slightly inspirational without shoving it in your face, and a nice tail. Just those inaccuracies.

I am probably going into Vampire Academy with some biases. I am fucking tired of all these mother fucking vampire movies in my motherfucking queue. All of them, trying to modernize vampires, to make them the stars, to not make them evil, to make them just like us but blood sucking, to make them as normal teenagers or college students. Fucking tired of all of it. It is no longer original.

But this one is based on a book, so it gets a pass? Nah, the first of the six book series was made in 2007, so it was just riding the supernatural romance wave that Twilight had created, like all of the other similar books and stories.

“LOL we are totes unique right?”

Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) is a totally weird teenager. We know this, because she says so, and people who say they are weird are usually the weirdest people. (That is a joke). She is a Dhampir, which has small amounts of vampire associated with it. Not a full fledged blood sucker. No, those are the Moroi, and they are the best of the vampire types. They have royal bloodlines, and generally the Dhampirs serve as their protectors. Like her best friend, Lissa Dragomir (Lucy Fry), a vampire princess.

Both of these types are mortal. There is a third type, the Strigoi, who are undead and evil and immortal. They are much stronger and cause a lot of havoc, and can advance their species through their bites. They hate the Moroi. There you go, the plot in a nutshell.

The movie begins with them having escaped from the Vampire Academy for some reason. They felt unsafe there, and would rather live in the real world with the Strigoi. But then they get captured and brought back. Lame. High school. Cliques. Prom. Ugh!

Unfortunately, when they get back to school, everyone hates her, including one adulterous whore, Mia (Sami Gayle) who is hopefully behind the threats coming after Lissa at school, and not someone more sinister.

Starring Danila Kozlovsky as Dimitri, a powerful Dhampir bodyguard, Gabriel Bryne as Victor Dashkov, a royal, and Sarah Hyland plays his niece. Dominic Sherwood plays the dark and brooding love interest, Cameron Monaghan a friend vampire who never gets the girl, Olga Kurylenko as the headmistress, and Claire Foy as a missing teacher no one cares about.

Technically not prom, because they are their own school thing, we all fucking know it is just prom.

Vampire Academy, the movie, was directed by the man who directed Mean Girls. Fun fact! When I first saw Mean Girls, I knew it was an amazing movie, and it has held the test of time. This director does not mean instant success, although I guess there were some similar thematic moments between the two. In terms of how people react to people.

But the entire plot felt rushed. Everything happened so fast, time changed so quickly. The entire point of the movie was “Hey Vampires! They are just like people, being all catty and shit”. But, as I said already, it has been done to death before. The characters don’t feel unique. Our main gal Ruth is a fast talker, but she never really does enough early on to earn that cocky attitude. Who am I kidding, by the end, she really still doesn’t do enough to earn that attitude.

Certain plot lines began in the movie, and then they just kind of felt forgotten about by the end. I guess they are hoping this six book series becomes popular enough to turn into seven movies (because you will have to split the last one in half), and in books stuff like that happens. But is almost unforgiveable in a movie, in my opinion. The ending itself was a sort of cliff hanger, and it made me feel robbed of an actual story line. Clearly, the story line that was hinted at was way cooler than the one this movie actually gave us, where at no point did anything feel serious or threatening.

Let me just say, having the relationship between student and old dude was also super awkward. Why are you doing this movie? Why?

Maybe the movie was actually okay and I am a bitter old man. Or, or, hey hey, listen. Or maybe. Maybe it just sucks.