Damiana_Dimock Reviews

Into the Abyss (2022)

Into The Abysmal Warehouse On The Edge Of Town

[8/10 · 9 May 2024]

"Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The film is a vibe: A Quiet Place (2018) meets Annihilation (2018) meets The Night Eats The World (2018) meets Monsters (2010) meets The Battery (2012,) and so on.

It is a film that could have been made for five dollars or five million dollars. A beautifully shot film that drops you into the world lets you choose to keep up. It is a film deceptively paced, though it seems like a slow burn it actually moves quite quickly-There's just a focus on dialogue at times, characters are by themselves frequently so there is more silence than a modern audience might be used to. The film is as meditative as it is full of dread.

This film is just more evidence for me that some of the best Horror Films of the last 5-ish years have come out of Latin America, specifically Argentina. My only problem with the version I saw is that it was dubbed, and the ADR is not great (but not so bad it's unwatchable)-You get a real sense that the dialogue flows better in the original language.

As much as I wanted more, I feel like that need should probably be filled via rewatch.

The Munsters (2022)

Rob Zombie's The Munsters is good, actually.

[8/10 · 18 February 2024]

Good, not great.

Yes, I too was hesitant about the film when I first saw the trailer. Now, having seen the film, that may not have been the best trailer. This film does a fantastic job of capturing the spirit of the original The Munsters and modernizing it for today. It is silly, self-aware, and serious about both.

Jeff Daniel Phillips, Sheri Moon Zombie, & Daniel Roebuck did a great job presenting the core group of characters we loved so much from the original show. They did not so much reinterpret those characters as much as they embodied them. I have never been as impressed with Sheri Moon Zombie's acting as I was with this role, as Lily Munster. The comedic performances of Phillips & Roebuck are a cornerstone of this film, the entire franchise is dependent on that chemistry.

At times, it does feel a bit cheaper than I was expecting. This film really ought to have been a TV pilot for a reboot of the series. Give Zombie a few more bucks, cut the fat a bit, and l'm totally on board for more Rob Zombie's The Munsters. But, this film felt overlong. It felt like they went back into the cutting room and dug around on the floor looking for stuff to add. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't see Spot or Igor return at the end, (perhaps I just missed them.)

Nonetheless, I absolutely recommend throwing this on during the Halloween season, as it expertly captures the made-for-TV, Halloween Special many of us grew up with. Unfortunately, it does not have a better produced-cleaner, tighter, more streamlined-series to accompany it as many of those specials did.

I was shocked to see it came out in 2022, I thought it was released more recently, but odds are it came out around the time we were dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane. Still, after power was restored the first thing I watched was 2022's Hellraiser, so the confusion about the films release might be the difference between how much effort Netflix & Hulu want to put into promoting their films-Hulu, willing to do a lot more promotion than Netflix, (Netflix, seemingly willing to put absolutely no effort into promoting what is on their service.)

I would enjoy seeing more of this franchise, with this cast, and with Rob Zombie at the helm, (a choice that seems to have been both apt and paid off-In quality, if not in cash.)

Vendetta (2015)

A Motion-Comic With Wasted Potential

[5/10 · 8 December 2023]

Every shot in this film looks like a panel from a comic, and once I got into that vibe I was able to enjoy it; however, I had to get past the first act for that vibe to kick in-I cringed for nearly a full 40 minutes. The first act is jam-packed with clichés, boring plot, & bad acting, (I assume the film was shot in order because the acting gets better in some ways.) If you're looking for "passed-on CW pilot turned motion-comic feature film" energy, this is the film for you.

I know WWE whatever is the studio behind this film, and that's fine (I liked some of their films, Oculus (2013) in particular,) but if I wanted to watch pro-wrestling-style fight scenes I would just watch pro-wrestling.

Paul Wight, who plays the antagonist, Victor Abbott, is under-utilized. Everytime I saw that man I thought, "Yes, give me some of that Vincent D'Onofrio-Kingpin!," and everytime I was let down. The way Wight fights in this film evoked the weak-sauce, muted violence of the in-ring pro-wrestling matches so much that it was hard to not picture him in an André The Giant leotard while he snarls into the camera. It really took me out of the film to watch such a powerhouse merely push his victims to the side-I couldn't take it seriously, the stakes were nonexistent.

I will give the Soska Sisters credit for not forcing us to endure the violence against one of the few women characters in this film, however, the smash cut from such an obviously missed opportunity to homage The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) to the such a gruesome finale to that confrontation was jarring and left me a bit confused. I was also a bit disappointed that she had to be fridged.

I do not like The Punisher, as a character, I never have. Dean Cain, who plays Mason Danvers, was able to keep my interest in the film by never going full-Punisher. (I don't know why but I got more of a Cyclops vibe and I like that for him, l've always been more of an X-Men gal anyway.) Something snapped inside the mind of Frank Castle, and that makes The Punisher who he is; however, Mason Danvers comes off as calculated and intentional, something other characters in the film seem to pick up on. Dean Cain did a really good job.

Michael Eklund, who plays a stereotypical, string-pulling prison warden, is in a totally different and much better film.

Even though the soundtrack was not my cup of tea, I did appreciate the use of music in the film.

Most of the dialogue was cliched nonsense and exposition. I wish I could have seen what motivated these characters, instead I was told. Even then those motivations were often ambiguous concepts rather than specific, character-defining motives.

Despite the resolution of the film being at the end of an all-out, chaotic prison-yard-brawl, it was anticlimactic enough that I out-loud ask, "that's it?!"

The Apology (II) (2022)

A Fantastic, Challenging Film

[10/10 · 16 November 2023]

I recently saw a clip of Patti LuPone lamenting that America's stupidity is evident even on Broadway, as the most prestigious stage in the nation has given way to works which do not challenge the audience, rather every production is something safe, a story that the theater-goer already knows through some other form of popular culture.

Too few are the stories that truly challenge us, and The Apology is one of those stories. The Apology can be at times bleak & brazen, but overall it is bold. It took myself sometime to formulate how I felt about it, as the emotional narrative swings like the Caped Crusader through light and shadow, keeping me a little off-guard.

The acting is incredible. The writing is phenomenal.

Perhaps a few more dollars could have been thrown toward a snow budget, but aside from that, the only real criticism I can muster is that the cinematography is not as daring as the story itself, "Why is this a film and not a stage play?," I find myself asking. À la Misery (1990,) The Apology could easily be adapted for the theater.

This film is human to its core, and that is what makes it great.