Barbarism and Detroit, but I repeat myself! Zing!
BQB here with a review of what may be the year’s best horror film.
Generally, I’m not a big horror movie fan. I have enough horror going on in my own life to invite more.
However, once in awhile there’s one that gets good buzz and you watch it and discover it is crafted well enough with enough mystery and intrigue that you have to tell the 3.5 readers of your blog about it.
So let me tell you about it, 3.5 readers.
Actually, I can’t tell you much. Like many horror movies, there’s a house with a scary basement. When a visitor makes the dumb decision to venture into said scary basement, even scarier things happen. If I were to tell you what scary things are lurking down there, it would give the whole movie away.
However, most horror movies aren’t just about the monsters, killers, or creatures that kill with reckless abandon. They are allegories for something deeper. Halloween was about an America where it was becoming less safe to leave your doors unlocked. Scream was about 1990s angsty teenagers with no purpose finding evil purpose in murder. Saw in a macabre way was about appreciating life, and if you’d be willing to murder others if trapped in a sadistic puzzle box just to save your precious life, then why don’t you, you know, do the good things every day to preserve your life like eating your veggies and working out and making good decisions for yourself and those you love?
Here, the twin horrors are “toxic masculinity” and the urban decay that allows bad things to go unnoticed by the police and government.
Georgina Campbell stars as Tess Marshall, a documentary researcher who has rented an Air BNB while in town for a job interview. Alas, the property has been double booked, for when she arrives, she finds the house already occupied by Keith (Bill Skarsgard). Amplifying how women have to worry more than men about certain situations, Tess finds herself having to make the difficult choice between going back out into a dangerous neighborhood or staying in the same house as a complete stranger.
Blah, blah, blah, shenanigans ensue and as it turns out, there are stranger, worse doings afoot in the basement. Justin Long rounds out the cast as AJ, a pervy Hollywood director and the rare horror movie victim you might actually cheer for when he gets got.
STATUS: Shelfworthy, but just remember, you might want to go into this one on an empty stomach. Catch it on HBO MAX.
Bookshelf Battle 