Alien: Resurrection (1997)

At least the Alien-human hybrid is creepy.

Alien: Resurrection (1997): written by Joss Whedon; directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet; starring Sigourney Weaver (Ripley 8), Winona Ryder (Call), Ron Perlman (Johner), Gary Dourdan (Christie), Michael Wincott (Elgyn), Brad Dourif (Gediman), Raymond Cruz (DiStephano), Dominique Pinon (Vriess), and Dan Hedaya (General Perez):

Sigourney Weaver resisted post-Alien 3 attempts to get her into another Alien movie until Fox offered her enough money (reportedly $11 million) to change her mind. That Fox hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct seemed like a good idea at the time, though his most acclaimed movie, romantic comedy Amelie, was still years away. 

Alas, hiring a French director working in a second language may have led to some of the problems that caused screenwriter Joss Whedon to later explain in 2005 "It wasn't a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong they could possibly do. That's actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking. Because everything they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from it. And people assume that if I hated it then they'd changed the script...but it wasn't so much they changed it, they executed it in such a ghastly fashion they rendered it unwatchable."

Pretty much true. The most interesting thing about Alien: Resurrection is wondering if Joss Whedon read the first four Frank Herbert Dune novels. Ellen Ripley died at the end of the dull but stylish Alien 3. Here, she's been resurrected as a clone, her DNA blended with the alien she was hosting throughout Alien 3 until she threw herself into some molten metal at the end of the movie. So she's a super-strong, super-fast, somewhat predatory Ripley who remembers her past life because the alien DNA stores memories of the host. Or something. And she's got acid for blood!

This is similar to a lot of material in Dune and its sequels. Duncan Idaho gets resurrected again and again as a clone because Leto II in God Emperor of Dune believes Idaho to be the only being who can figure out how to kill him (I'm not explaining that!). Ancestral memories are a recurring theme in the Dune series. So, yeah, that's interesting.

Everything else, not so much. The crew in this movie do seem like a bit of a dry run for Firefly, at least in terms of What Not To Do. Winona Ryder is comically miscast as a hardass member of the pirate transport Betty. Dan Hedaya is comically miscast as the General in charge of the secret alien breeding program on the spaceship Auriga. Sigourney Weaver does her best. Brad Dourif is a delight as always, one of the five or six most reliable character actors in the history of the universe.

The story is dumb. On the bright side, FTL travel in the Alien universe has gotten a lot faster in the 200 years since Alien 3. Gun technology has regressed to about 1915. Everything is stupid. I like the design of the final Alien/human hybrid. Well, its head is hellacreepy. Whatever. Still not as stupid and pointless as Alien: Covenant, though. Not recommended.

Der Farbe/ The Colour [Out Of Space] (2010)

Der Farbe/ The Colour [Out Of Space] (2010): written and directed by Huan Vu; adapted from the story by H.P. Lovecraft; starring Ingo Heise (Jonathan Davis), Marco Leibnitz (Armin Pierske - young) and Michael Kausch (Armin Pierske - old): Deliberately paced, excellent German adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's pivotal 1920's tale of cosmic horror and bodily degeneration "The Colour Out Of Space."

The film-makers relocate much of the action to pre-WWII Germany, with an American prologue in and around Lovecraft's demon-haunted Arkham, Massachusetts. 

This transplant is a good idea because the German actors do occasionally have problems with a convincing American accent. On the other hand, Benedict Cumberbatch delivers a much worse American accent than any of the Germans in his portrayal of Dr. Strange, so perhaps throwing brickbats at the German amateurs here is a bit wanky on the part of the cranky wankers of Internet nitpickery.

Another good idea was to film everything in black and white except for the titular colour. This makes for a creepy contrast that rises above the very limited visual effects. The film-makers also compensate for a lack of funds by suggesting and implying rather than showing. This makes the horror more horrific when it comes. Would that all horror movies took such care regardless of budget!

I really liked the increasingly haunted and hollow look of the actors in the Pre-War section. They face a contamination from Outside that no one could be prepared for. Ants in a meaningless cosmos, some of them believe they are being punished by the Judeo-Christian God. Ha ha! As if you're that lucky you poor bastards!

The DVD, procured from our friends at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (HPLHS), has the most interesting (and necessary) sub-titling mode I've encountered -- English sub-titles on only when people speak German. Unless you're fluent in German, use it. 

In all, this is an impressive piece of horror movie-making regardless of the budget. It's not intentionally 'retro' as the two movies actually produced by the HPLHS are, but the black and white certainly makes it feel partially retro, though the performances are pretty modern. A movie like this or the HPLHS Joints should show aspiring film-makers what can be done without a budget. Highly recommended.

Ghost Storm (2011)

Ghost Storm (2011): written and directed by Paul Ziller; starring Carlos Bernard (Sheriff Miller), Chrystal Allen (Ashley Barrett), Cindy Busby (Daisy Barrett), Steve Bacic (Carl), and Aaron Douglas (Greg Goropolis): Straight-to-cable horror film isn't terrible. 

A storm cloud made of ghosts threatens a small island off the coast of Washington state, I assume, though it's really British Columbia. Tony of 24's Carlos Bernard is suitably stoic as the town sheriff tasked with stopping the Ghost Storm. The plot borrows a lot from Storm of the Century and John Carpenter's The Fog. Certainly an adequate time-waster with a surprisingly high body count and a Police Squad ending. Also bears some resemblance to the 2009 novel Ghost Monster by Simon Clark. Very lightly recommended.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Bone Tomahawk (2015): written and directed by S. Craig Zahler; starring Kurt Russell (Sheriff Hunt), Patrick Wilson (Arthur O'Dwyer), Matthew Fox (Brooder), Richard Jenkins (Chicory), Lili Simmons (Dr. Samantha O'Dwyer), Evan Jonigkeit (Deputy Nick), and David Arquette (The Fugitive): Made for just about $2 million, Bone Tomahawk is a fine movie by first-time director and writer S. Craig Zahler, who had previously made his Hollywood living by selling over 20 screenplays that never got produced. 

Which is how the vast majority of writers in Hollywood make their money -- selling screenplays that never become movies. Zehler and his manager finally got fed up and decided to do a movie themselves, selling the project to pros like Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins with the sharpness of the writing and the chance to be in a Western.

And Bone Tomahawk is a fine Western, and a fine horror-Western, and an interesting blend of the realistic, the grotesque, and the idealistic. It's a movie that has heroes, flawed, and flawed men who try to be heroes, and awful men, and a plot that never becomes formulaic or cliched. 

A tribe of... something... kills one citizen of Western town Bright Hope and kidnaps two others. A Native American scholar identifies them as a cave-dwelling, cannibalistic clan to whom normal Native Americans give wide berth -- as he notes, they don't even look Native American, in part because their cave-dwelling has made them really pale. All that cave-dwelling allows Bone Tomahawk to set a record for most uses of the word "troglodyte" in a Western.

In having the Native American distinguish the troglodytes from all other Native Americans, Zahler also defangs the sting of genocide that might accompany the film. Well, with that and the unspeakable cruelty of the cave-dwellers to both outsiders and their own women.They're an American version of the story of Sawney Bean, only worse.

Sheriff Kurt Russell puts together a rescue party comprising town dandy and legendary Indian Killer Matthew Fox, acting deputy Richard Jenkins, husband of the kidnapped doctor Patrick Wilson (on a crutch with a broken leg!), and himself. Their journey to the region of the troglodytes will take nearly a week, covering an hour in film time as they encounter various obstacles and hardships. And then the final confrontation.

The acting is sharp, the dialogue flavourful and pithy, the cinematography top-notch (I especially like the bleached-out night scenes), and the action both realistic and horrifying when it comes. It's not for the squeamish, but the violence isn't exploitative. It's actually hard to look at. And it's a Western! And better than most major releases in any given year! Highly recommended.

The Pretence (2013) by Ramsey Campbell

The Pretence (2013) by Ramsey Campbell: According to a New Age cult dubbed 'The Finalists,' tonight is the last night of the world. But that won't stop Paul Slater from flying home from his ailing mother's rest home to see wife Melanie and children Amy and Tom. And the world isn't going to end just because a cult says it is. And Paul does make it home.

While the philosophical backbone of this novella is the nature of belief, it's the increasingly fragile and desperate hold Paul Slater has on his family life that supplies the emotional engine of the whole thing. There are explanations for what happens as the story proceeds, but none of them could be considered authoritative. 

The enigmatic nature of the narrative echoes some of Robert Aickman's more mysterious stories, though with some decidedly contemporary imagery. Cell phones and texting assume a great amount of importance as the novella proceeds; so too do Slater's musings on the nature of digital information as a reduction of the mediated universe to a fragile and infinitely malleable storm of bits. Love may keep a person grounded, but what happens when the idea of ground gives way? Recommended.

'Salem's Lot: The Miniseries (1979)

'Salem's Lot: adapted from the Stephen King novel by Paul Monash; directed by Tobe Hooper; starring David Soul (Ben Mears), James Mason (Straker), Lance Kerwin (Mark Petrie), Bonnie Bedelia (Susan Norton), Ed Flanders (Dr. Norton), Lew Ayres (Jason Burke), and Reggie Nalder (Barlow):

The first miniseries adaptation of a novel by Stephen King, and still among the two or three best. There are necessary condensations and eliminations from King's giant cast of small-town Maine residents whose town is about to get vampirized. The reduced role of Father Callahan is probably the most keenly felt -- he's got two scenes and then he's gone. Oh, well.

David Soul is solid as writer Ben Mears, returning to the home of his childhood and discovering it both unaltered and about to be severely altered. Bonnie Bedelia and Lance Kerwin do nice work as well. James Mason dominates the miniseries. Not as the vampire Barlow, though, but as his majordomo Straker.

This is really the major change from the novel: Barlow the vampire doesn't speak at all, though he does hiss a lot. Straker speaks a lot, to the extent that one starts to wonder why the screenwriters didn't just have James Mason play the vampire. Barlow's make-up and prosthetics make him an homage to the vampire in F.W. Murnau's seminal vampire movie Nosferatu (1922) much different a creature than the smooth-talking Dracula figure of King's novel.

Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) directs ably. The horror effects of vampires floating outside the windows of their prey is surprisingly spooky. Hooper also has a solid touch with the actors. His experience with Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of implying but not actually showing horrible images comes in handy on a project that must pass the network censors. All this and Fred Willard in his underwear being threatened with a shotgun! Recommended.

The Ballad Of Black Tom (2016) by Victor LaValle

The Ballad Of Black Tom (2016) by Victor LaValle: There's an ongoing battle in horror circles over just how much emphasis should be placed on H.P. Lovecraft's well-documented racism. 

It's well-documented mainly because he documented it himself in his thousands upon thousands of letters. The Ballad Of Black Tom arrived in 2016 as the argument began to pick up steam among HPL's supporters and detractors and all those caught in-between.

Victor LaValle has written a very good novella here, perhaps somewhat overpraised because it's a revisionist Cthulhu Mythos work by an African-American writer. Perhaps somewhat overdamned from the other side, too. It's pretty good. It's not the blistering, lacerating work of greatness I expected from some reviews nor the unmitigated cock-up I feared from other reviews.

LaValle retells Lovecraft's early 1920's New York-set story "The Horror At Red Hook" while adding one major new character to it, our protagonist, dubbed Black Tom once he sets certain supernatural events into motion but born and raised Thomas Tester. LaValle portrays the plight of African-Americans in 1920's New York with a clinical matter-of-factness that turns to passionate horror as non-supernatural horrors push Thomas into the role of Black Tom in order to gain both personal and racial vengeance on the white power structure.

Do you need to be familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos to fully enjoy the story? Oh, probably. The cosmic horror of the story is almost entirely a matter of this prior knowledge. The more visceral horrors, supernatural and natural, are described; the cosmic are told too much and not shown in particularly horrifying terms. 

This may be intentional -- LaValle foregrounds the horrors of racism here, in part by pushing the cosmic to the background. It does mute the ending, however, which seems as if it's supposed to cause some final culmination of horror and instead seems pretty obvious and frankly just a bit lame.

Obviously, the major revision to "The Horror At Red Hook" is the addition of a whole new character to it, right? Well, maybe not. For one, "The Horror At Red Hook" never specifically refers to anything in the then-amorphous Cthulhu Mythos. It isn't a Mythos tale. The Ballad of Black Tom is a Mythos tale, chosen by LaValle, I assume, because it's HPL's most racist, non-ghost-written major story*, obsessively detailing how New York went to Hell when all those swarthy foreigners arrived. And Italians! HPL had it in for the Italians.

LaValle drastically recasts the conclusion of "The Horror At Red Hook." He pretty much has to, as a brief foray through a magical doorway grants Thomas magical superpowers that allow him to do anything the plot requires. Is this a Mary Sue moment? Oh, probably. Adding a bit more nuance to Thomas' powers and abilities would ground the work more. As is, it all seems a bit fanboyish. Actually, very fanboyish, which I'm pretty sure is not what LaValle was aiming for.

Still and all, this is a worthy addition to the Cthulhu Mythos, which has been criticizing and self-evaluating itself for decades in the works of its finest writers. The text even manages to get subverted by an attempt at subversion and criticism. LaValle alters Malone's physical appearance from HPL's source text so as to make him resemble HPL himself. He also introduces a horrifyingly racist character who's clearly a parody of HPL pen pal and Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard (the first clue is that the character is named Mr. Howard; the second is that he's from Texas). 

But HPL and his pen-friends were introducing characters based on one another in their Mythos work from the late 1920's onwards, generally to kill them off in horrible ways. The fates of Howard and Malone seem somewhat tame compared to how, say, HPL killed off his version of Robert Bloch (in "The Haunter Of the Dark"), how Bloch killed off HPL (in "The Shambler From the Stars"), how Frank Belknap Long killed off HPL (in "The Space-Eaters"), and so on, and so forth. Basically, as friends, Lovecraft and his circle were way better at killing one another off than LaValle is at killing them off. Oh, well. Recommended.

* "Medusa's Coil" is HPL's most racist story. It's a heavily ghost-rewritten version of Zealia Bishop's story.

The Exorcist (1971) by William Peter Blatty

The Exorcist (1971) by William Peter Blatty: The best-seller that spawned a movie mega-hit (adjusting for inflation, its domestic box office would today be in the $400-$500 million range. That's domestic B.O. only!). It holds up well today, though a lot will be familiar if you've seen the movie -- William Peter Blatty adapted his own novel for the screen. Blatty was a screenwriter, so this makes a lot of sense.

Indeed, his most famous screen-writing assignment prior to The Exorcist was on the second Inspector Clouseau movie. Some of the movie-comedy stuff appears in The Exorcist novel, quippy exchanges and some lengthy comic riffs that didn't make the movie. Blatty liked a couple of them enough that he would use them 19 years later in The Exorcist III, which he wrote and directed. Apparently he didn't want the world to miss his 'Lemon Drop' and 'There's a carp in the bathtub' comedy stylings.

Do I need to recite the plot? The daughter of a Hollywood star falls ill while she and her mother are in Washington, D.C. filming a movie. Really ill. Possession-level ill! 

Most of the novel builds up to the climactic exorcism, which takes place with great brevity in the last 30 pages or so of the novel. Father Damien Karras, so hauntingly portrayed by Jason Miller in the movie, works to determine whether the possession is a possession or not. So, too, doctors. 

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Kinderman investigates the death of a Hollywood director who fell to his death on those crazy stairs beside the Hollywood star's rental. Fell. During a time when he was alone in the house with the daughter. Hmm. And his head was twisted all the way around.

Blatty keeps things humming along to the violent climax. The theological discussions are a bit half-baked, but this is a popular horror novel, so we'll give it that. As in the movie, Karras towers over everything as a tortured, sympathetic hero. Lieutenant Kinderman is a much larger presence here than in the film (played there by Lee J. Cobb and in The Exorcist III by an incandescent George C. Scott), which is too bad because he's really, really, really annoying. So annoying. He's half comic relief, half dogged detective, and all annoying.

But The Exorcist holds up, and popular novels generally don't. Hell, critically praised novels generally don't. Well worth a read, if only to discover the name of the demon afflicting Regan. Recommended.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002): written and directed by Don Coscarelli; adapted from the story by Joe R. Lansdale; starring Bruce Campbell (Elvis Presley/ Sebastian Happ) and Ossie Davis (John F. "Jack" Kennedy): Texas horror, Western, and suspense legend Joe R. Lansdale's classic story gets a solid adaptation from writer/director Don "Phantasm" Coscarelli. It's fun, raunchy, melancholy, meditative stuff. 

In an East Texas nursing home, Elvis Presley lies in bed most of the time thanks to a hip badly broken in a stage tumble. That tumble happened some time after Presley switched places with the world's best Elvis impersonality in the mid-1970's. Or is "Elvis" just deluded or demented? In any case, he spent years in a coma and now languishes in bed for the most part, feeling sorry for himself.

In that same nursing home resides President John F. Kennedy, as portrayed by Ossie Davis, who is African-American. The assassination was staged to depose Kennedy, who was then.... dyed? that's what JFK thinks, anyway, along with having part of his brain removed and replaced with a bag of sand .... and placed in a nursing home to live out his life in some terrible purgatory. Or is "JFK" just deluded or demented? He sure does have a swell room to himself and a disabled-person scooter that will be a pivotal part of The War To Come.

There will be a call to arms for Elvis and JFK because an ancient Egyptian soul-sucker Mummy has begun eating the souls of the nursing-home residents, and only Elvis and JFK can stop it!

There's a certain amount of the Evil-Dead-style rock'em, sock'em action-horror that made Bruce Campbell's reputation in the original three Evil Dead movies. There's also humour both low and clever. And moments of unexplained silliness. The Mummy "disguises" itself by wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. It's a jarring, funny visual.

But there are moments of rumination on the inequities and sadness of old age, especially old age for those abandoned by the world. But if Elvis has been abandoned (partially because no one believes he's Elvis and still alive), perhaps he can still summon the gumption needed to take a stand against the forces of darkness.

Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis are superb as Elvis and JFK -- funny, winning, and poignant. By the end, their sanity is irrelevant -- it could only be hoped that the last stand of JFK and Elvis could be this heroic, if it were the last stand, which it may not be. Though the promised sequel, Bubba Nosferatu: Curse Of the She-Vampires, has yet to materialize. Come on, guys! Highly recommended.

Hellboy, Hellboy, Hellboy

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1952 (2014-2015): written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi; illustrated by Alex Maleev and Dave Stewart: Mike Mignola's Hellboy goes on his first mission in this graphic novel, accompanied by a team from the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.). Weird things are happening in a small town in Brazil. Evil monster monkeys. Disappearances. That sort of thing. 

It's an enjoyable story, scripted by perennial B.P.R.D. writer John Arcudi and illustrated in a mostly realistic style by Alex Maleev. You know, and monkeys. There's a bit of continuity stuff that I'll be damned if I remember what it's about. I probably need to read all of Hellboy again and all the volumes of B.P.R.D. I haven't read. That's like a job! I don't think this would work for someone without at least some familiarity with Hellboy. It is an enjoyable diversion with a number of nicely choreographed battles. Recommended.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1954 (2016-2018): containing: 

Black Sun: written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson; illustrated by Stephen Green and Dave Stewart: An assignment to the Arctic to investigate a mysterious monster plunges Hellboy into a battle with... flying saucers? Looks that way! A nice diversion.

The Unreasoning Beast: written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson; illustrated by Patric Reynolds and Dave Stewart: Almost an X-Files episode, if Hellboy worked for the FBI. Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. investigate a vengeful ghost monkey in suburban America. Enjoyable stuff, though illustrator Patric Reynolds is maybe a bit too realistic to maintain supernatural dread.

Ghost Moon; written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson; illustrated by Brian Churilla and Dave Stewart: Hellboy gets dropped into a John LeCarre spy scenario by way of some sort of soul-eater and a bunch of traditional Chinese demons who are perhaps not the problem but part of the solution. Brian Churilla's pleasantly cartoony style reminds me of the animated Hellboy movies.

The Mirror; written by Mike Mignola; illustrated by Richard Corben and Dave Stewart: A short from Hellboy creator Mignola and horror-comic legend Richard Corben involves a magic mirror and a lesson to Hellboy on how to deal with the supernatural. Slight but beautifully illustrated.

Overall: Recommended.

Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea (2017): written by Mike Mignola; illustrated by Gary Gianni with Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart: Beautifully illustrated in an almost classically fine 19th-century style by Gary Gianni, Into the Silent Sea occurs during Hellboy's time spent walking the Earth and especially the oceans of the Earth somewhere back around midway through Hellboy's main arc. What we have here are ghost ships and crazy monsters from the haunted deep. It doesn't take long to read, but one can profitably linger upon or return to Gianni's fine linework. Recommended.

Flight 7500 (2014)

Flight 7500 (2014): written by Craig Rosenberg; directed by Takashi Simizu; starring Ryan Kwanten (Brad Martin), Amy Smart (Pia Martin), Leslie Bibb (Laura Baxter), Jamie Chung (Suzy Lee), Scout Taylor-Compton (Jacinta Bloch), Rick Kelly (Lance Morrell), and Johnathon Schaech (Captain Haining): Writer Craig Rosenberg seems to have some familiarity with written horror, as at least three characters (Bloch, Haining, and Morrell) share last names with prominent figures in horror and suspense fiction. Director Simizu is a major figure in Japanese film horror. 

The result for this straight-to-DVD horror movie set entirely on an airplane en route from Tokyo to California isn't stunning, but it does provide a certain number of non-gory chills. The final twist, while familiar, is cleverly deployed. The actors are all competent in their roles, and slightly better known than normal for this sort of movie, at least when it comes to Leslie Bibb, Amy Smart, and Johnathon Schaech. A nod to the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is gratifying. Recommended.

Contagion (2011)

Contagion (2011): written by Scott Z. Burns; directed by Steven Soderbergh; starring about a million people: A superior modern outbreak story that spares us people chasing a monkey around. Instead, director Soderbergh and writer Burns show us the complete spectrum of human crisis response, from riots to scientists working away desperately in labs and on the ground.

A mutated flu strain erupts in Hong Kong and soon spreads by airline to America and other places. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) mobilize, but they're in a time crunch: the new virus has a high kill rate. And it may already be mutating.

The movie follows the outbreak on various fronts, from the personal front of Matt Damon and his daughter to the professional front of scientists Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Jennifer Ehle. Marion Cottilard leads the WHO in the field. Eliot Gould strives to map the virus at his private laboratory. Jude Law tries to make money as a muck-raking blogger who starts by questioning authority and ends by trying to make money off fake cures while also convincing the gullible to avoid any official cures. 

Contagion hurtles along, paying more attention to science and medicine than almost any movie I can remember. The scientists may be fallible, but Contagion stresses that they're also the only hope in a crisis such as this. The final revelation of the virus' origin point takes a final jab at the corporate world and, I suppose, factory farming. In any case, one of a handful of Soderbergh's best movies. Highly recommended.

The Final Girls (2015)

The Final Girls (2015): written by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller; directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson; starring Taissa Farmiga (Max Cartwright), Malin Akerman (Nancy/ Amanda Cartwright), Alexander Ludwig (Chris), Nina Dobrev (Vicki), Alia Shawkat (Gertie), Thomas Middleditch (Duncan), Adam Devine (Kurt), and Angela Trimbur (Tina): 

Writer Joshua John Miller is the son of Jason Miller (Damien Karras in The Exorcist and playwright of That Championship Season) and the younger half-brother of actor Jason Patric. He wrote The Final Girls to help process his reaction to his father's death. Jason Miller was a troubled man whose most famous role would always be as Karras. Joshua John Miller maps this onto slasher films, which seems a bit odd, but OK.

The recently orphaned, teen-aged daughter (Taissa Farmiga) of a minor actress (Malin Akerman) best known for her role in a slasher movie called Camp Bloodbath gets pulled, along with several friends, into that same movie because of some vague supernatural shenanigans. Once there, they have to survive while also trying to figure out how to escape. And the daughter tries to reconnect by proxy with her mother through the character in the movie.

I suppose The Final Girls is about as enjoyable as a parody of slasher films can be when that parody is PG-rated. There's little gore and no nudity. There is a lot of metacommentary on horror movies in the tradition of the Scream franchise. And there is a dynamite cast, which helps keeps things moving even when the movie pauses for sentiment and soul-searching. Recommended.

Razorback (1984)

Razorback (1984): adapted by Everett De Roche from the novel by Peter Brennan; directed by Russell Mulcahy; starring Gregory Harrison (Carl Winters), Arkie Whiteley (Sarah), Judy Morris (Beth Winters), Bill Kerr (Jake), Chris Haywood (Benny Baker), and David Argue (Dicko Baker): Absolutely bonkers Australian horror movie from director Russell Mulcahy, best known for the first Highlander movie.

Australian Gregory Harrison plays a grieving Canadian husband who travels to Australia to discover what happened to his American eco-activist wife. She disappeared in the Outback. Why? Well, it's really no spoiler to say that there's a giant boar (the Razorback of the title) rampaging around, killing people and smashing things. How big? Minivan big.

The movie's first scene sets the bar pretty high for crazy events and fast-paced action. The rest of the movie isn't that good, but it's pretty good. Harrison even has a surreal vision sequence while he's wandering the Outback. While it's set in the present, Razorback portrays rural Australia as one big Mad Max wonderland. It's marvelous, giant-monster fun. Recommended.

Cargo (2017)

Cargo (2017): written by Yolanda Ramke; directed by Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling; starring Martin Freeman (Andy), Anthony Hayes (Vic), and Simone Landers (Thoomi): One of those Netflix movies whose lack of a theatrical appearance baffles the viewer. It's a zombie-plague movie set in Australia with fine performances from Martin Freeman and Simone Landers. Landers is especially good as Thoomi, the 11-year-old aboriginal girl whom Freeman meets in the countryside at a dire moment. 

The plague has been around long enough that "countdown watches" are available to those recently bitten, giving a 48-hour count to the point at which a person will zombify. Freeman has been bitten as the movie begins. But in the depopulated countryside of Australia, he needs to find someone to take charge of his young daughter Rosie, the cutest 1-year-old girl ever to appear in a zombie movie.

Thoomi has her own trauma to deal with. The film-makers handle the growing friendship between the two delicately. It helps that Freeman's default acting mode is a sort of baffled, affable humanity. Thoomi is understandably cautious around him, but Rosie The World's Cutest Baby eventually wins her over.

There isn't a ton of violence in Cargo, though there is some zombie-fighting action (and human vs. human action, these catastrophic zombie events never bringing out the best in humanity). Cargo does hold out hope, though, in the manner of some of George Romero's genre-defining zombie classics. I shed a manly tear or two at the end. Recommended.