Stanislaus

An enjoyable and warm tribute to an icon of American country music, the owner of unmissable assets and distinctive humour: Dolly Parton. The stage featured singers rather unfamiliar to me, but at least I was able to know a bit more of Dolly's repertoire. The final and endearingly ticklish word from Dolly was a funny icing on the cake.

During the Storm plays with the motif of the butterfly effect, mixing elements of crime drama and science fiction about playing with time, and manages to hold the viewer's attention for almost the entire running time. The final third was perhaps a little wilder script-wise, yet I rate the film as a whole very positively, with the detective plot and the gradual uncovering of the truth, trapped in the turbulent snares of time, playing a large part. I could complain about the main character Vera, who was a bit too (typically Spanish) hysterical at times – they could have toned down the talking, as it detracted a bit from the believability.

If you watch the trailer of Abigail before the screening, you'll be revealed on one major plot twist, but the film still has a few more surprising aces up their sleeve, especially in the final third. The central motif of an ambiguous cat-and-mouse game bears a strong resemblance to previous pieces by the creative duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, but this time the bloody murder mystery is given a supernatural twist. I haven't seen Ready or Not, but I really enjoyed the last two Scream films, especially for breaking the boundaries of the genre, flirting with them and playing with audience expectations. Abigail rides a similar wave, featuring more than one good allusion to the genre or pop culture, yet the film as a whole failed to engage and entertain me as much as the fifth and sixth Scream did. The big stumbling block for me was some of the largely unlikeable characters and their theatrical badass acting. Alisha Weir, on the other hand, was bloody charming and I'm curious to see what direction her career will take.