“Cobweb”
Man, are horror melodramas great. It’s not exactly a popular subgenre – while the home is a popular setting for a lot of films, the heightened emotions of the melodrama often conflict with the cold emotional distance of modern horror. But when the pieces come together just right, horror and melodrama make for some of the best bedfellows of any decade. That’s probably where I sit with “Cobweb,” Samuel Bodin’s directorial debut and a former Blacklist title from screenwriter Chris Thomas Devlin. Ostensibly, the film tells the story of a boy who starts hearing the voice of a person who claims to be their sister in the wall, but in practice, the film is really about Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr playing two of the biggest weirdos of the year with unwavering commitment. Both Caplan and Alyssa Sutherland (“Evil Dead Rise”) deserve credit for the strength of their performances. While we will inevitably shower well-deserved accolades on performers like Natalie Portman in “May December” for their balance of artifice and emotion, Caplan captures a perfect kind of mania in “Cobweb” as the mother whose love of her child(ren) is grotesquely unwavering. – MA
“No One Will Save You”
It must be good to be Brian Duffield. For his directorial debut, Duffield made “Spontaneous,” one of the most heartfelt allegories for school shootings ever committed to film. And for his follow-up? Duffield directed “No One Will Save You,” a dialogue-free film that runs laps around legendary filmmaker John Woo’s “Silent Night” in its ability to string together action-driven set pieces devoid of conversation. “No One Will Save You” tells the story of a small-town designer who, owing to some unknown trauma from her child, prefers to create detailed dioramas of her community rather than face their hostility. This film was the darling of the fall, with horror fans and general audiences admiring the production design and commitment of rising star Kaitlyn Dever. And yes, Duffield deserves credit for making an alien invasion film that returns to the depiction of no-so-little green men that was one the bread and butter for shows like “The X-Files.” But without giving anything away, I think Duffield deserves even more love for building to such a gratifying final scene for his film. Horror that is willing to swing for the fences and ostracize one chunk of its audience in order to delight others is in short demand these days. – MA
“It’s a Wonderful Knife”
Horror comedy is such a tricky thing to get right. Few filmmakers are able to balance horror and comedy in equal measures for the duration of a feature film. In most cases, one genre wins out, resulting in comedies that aren’t scary or horror films that aren’t funny. But one of the big exceptions to that rule is filmmaker Tyler MacIntyre, whose work in “Tragedy Girls” and now “It’s a Wonderful Knife” recognize that well-rounded characters supersede both forms of genre. So let’s get this out of the way: yes, “It’s a Wonderful Knife” is definitely a parody of Frank Capra’s original film. Jane Widdop’s Winnie is shown a world where she didn’t stop a nefarious Christmas killer; it is only with the help of friends, new and old, that Winnie is able to return to her original timeline. But where other films might struggle to balance the slasher elements and the parodic beats, MacIntyre and screenwriter Michael Kennedy find real meaning in the relationship Winnie has with fellow loner Bernie (Jess McLeod). As “Tragedy Girls” proved, MacIntyre has a real gift for working with young actors, and the chemistry between Widdop and McLeod goes a long way towards making both the heartfelt and the bloody bits work. – MA
“Thanksgiving”
It’s become something of an annual tradition to declare the return of the slasher when one studio film punches above its weight at the box office. But one of the reasons slashers seem to always be on the edge of resurrection is their adherence to the familiar. Slashers came of age in the 1980s, and modern filmmakers – forever preoccupied with that decade in horror – are often incapable of moving beyond the home video production values that once allowed slashers to survive on the margins of the industry. This is not the case with Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving,” though. “Thanksgiving” is a film that embraces the conventions of the slasher while still breaking free of the aesthetic confines of the subgenre. There’s certainly a version of “Thanksgiving” that utilizes artificial film grain and non-actor performances in search of a kind of low-budget purity, but Roth’s film thoroughly modernizes the ‘80s slasher while still honoring the set pieces and mondo gore that make them special. If more filmmakers are willing to break from the low-budget tradition of their predecessors, maybe the slasher won’t need to make a comeback anymore. It can just enjoy its status as one of the staples of the genre. – MA
“A Haunting in Venice”
Did Kenneth Branagh give the Hercule Poirot franchise a well-needed shot in the arm by embracing the gothic conventions of the horror genre? Or is “A Haunting in Venice” just an exercise in how many Dutch angles a filmmaker can get away with when operating with an eight-figure budget? Maybe the answer is both, and maybe we’re not meant to care. After “Death on the Nile” gathered together one of the most cursed call sheets in modern film history, Branagh’s third Poirot film is something of a back-to-the-basics approach for the franchise. It definitely works. While featuring less on-paper star power, “A Haunting in Venice” leans into the onscreen charms of actors like Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh while also harkening back to the mode of classic murder mysteries where the line between the homicidal and the supernatural was often razor-thin. Forget the other films in the franchise; “A Haunting in Venice” is equal parts Edgar Allen Poe and “Tales From the Crypt,” a fun mashup of gothic locales that shows just how much flexibility the murder mystery can actually muster. I’m in for all future horror films Branagh decides to make. – MA
