J*A*S*M

Decent as a thriller, but doesn’t work at all as horror. The effect of having two directors is markedly clear and I think the result is weaker than either a fully slow or fully fast treatment would have been. Kidman and Craig deliver good but not great or memorable performances. Spoiler: the criticism about the real human population is interesting, but it could have been worked better, for instance, that people remembered their healing and weren’t grateful to their “rescuers” – that would have been a lot more striking. End of spoiler. Interlacing dialogues with flash forwards of events to come is such a weird idea that I’m grateful they didn’t use it more than a couple of times in the entire film… 60%

A pervert has a girl locked in a cellar and subjects her to phycological and physical abuse. And since this film is basically about nothing else, everything depends on the actors and how well they handle their roles of victim and tormentor. Awfully. It could have been an exceptionally depressive and chilling thriller with great atmosphere, but it’s only a cringe-worthy dud that can’t satisfy anyone. On top of that, the screenwriter must have been drunk when he wrote the ending, you’ll understand when you see it – both the heroine and the villain behave like morons. The last scene left me shaking my head in disbelief, wondering whether I hadn’t dreamt it.

I’m not even sure why I’m giving it one star. We are forced to watch an hour and a half of a tiger wandering about a birch forest (not the most gratifying spectacle), eating someone every now and again and being hunted by a bunch of comic figures led by the sleek Sheriff Barnes. The only good thing is the tiger, it’s the best actor of the lot and I’m glad they didn’t replace it with some digital monstrosity.

I surprisingly liked Whisper. The story is not very original, but it’s interesting nonetheless; it keeps the tension until the end, the performances are more than decent for the standards of “unambitious horror”, little David is demonic enough, though he speaks and explains a bit too much at times… The reveal 20 minutes before the end was something I didn’t expect, which also counts. The entire film is permeated by a mysterious atmosphere, I didn’t notice any major weak spots; basically well above-par and a pleasant surprise.

Unless you expect a horror gem, it shouldn’t disappoint you. Rather than terrifying, the ghosts look mysterious, the heroine is pretty likeable, the main twist is not surprising (it’s been used in many other films), but it does the job. If only I wasn’t sick and tired of the exhausted premise “after coming across the instrument of a curse, the heroine sets out on a journey to either find its maker or to destroy it” I would be more satisfied.

This film is exactly on the border between good and bad horror. The pros: several truly scary scenes, a fairly good and original idea and an effective atmosphere (mainly in the first half). The cons: the characters (except Lance, he was alright), in particular the child protagonist, who figures out everything and saves everyone, and the ending that looks like something out of adventure fantasy rather than horror. A film that you can watch if you have nothing better to do.

Unexceptional and average (not only) ghost horror with a derivative script. But the characters are pretty likeable, the story takes place in the attractive setting of the American south and the climax, though quite messy at first, was a bit tense in the end. Average comparable to The Messengers and strong two stars.

A riveting film with a pretty realistic portrayal of our near future. The world in 2027: misery, filth, people living in unsustainable social conditions; not that different from our present. If you multiply today’s problems in Europe, you will get something unpleasantly similar to Children of Men. This socio-political insight gives the film an uncompromising undertone, while the main storyline provides a sufficiently solid base for the viewer to consider it real and factually important. The camera for the most part is a couple of paces behind the protagonist and in several scenes it pulls you directly into the events taking place on screen, making you go through a brutal shoot-out, a bus full of hiding wretches and a semi-demolished building. Everything feels incredibly alive but depressive at the same time, and the glimmer of hope in the form of a baby by the end works the way it should.

Young Emma wonders around in a house for an hour and a half sporting a terrified/curious expression and sees a ghost that looks exactly like her. Add it to the fact that Emma is not particularly pretty, and quite unlikeable, too, and the result is two words: awfully boring. The story and its climax are generic, the jump-scares are ineffective and the girl-heroine sometimes feels more unpleasant than the girl-ghost. Better look at the poster, it’s the best thing of the film.

A tedious battle between science and faith set in a courtroom. It’s a pretty long film – by the end I was looking at my watch – the events in the courtroom are quite boring because they are very predictable (you can figure out exactly how the case will develop and what the verdict will be). What is a little bit better are the flashbacks showing a still alive Emily. The entire film has three mildly scary scenes, very little for an almost two-hour runtime, which is a real shame because they are very effective and intense. Formally speaking, there’s not much to reproach: the actors handle their roles perfectly, the characters don’t do anything stupid and the direction is good enough. 70%