Adam Wingard
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It’s also here that the action-movie hero vibe that Wingard attempted to bring to Kong’s character really comes out in full force — there’s a direct quote to Bruce Willis in Die Hard in here, which the director has acknowledged as an influence on his behavior in the Ape’s behavior in these slugfests — and it’s genuinely a lot of fun to watch this unmoveable object meet up with this unstoppable force.
Amusingly, the ape has been written to be something of everyman here, like Die Hard ’s John McClane, to the point he even gets his own leaping-out-of-the-way-of-an-explosion moment.
There are scenes and images that recall everything from Flash Gordon (1980) to Die Hard (1988).
Between introducing all of these characters—and I see that I have neglected to mention both Apex’s shadowy tech genius (Shun Oguri) and Madison’s worried dad (Kyle Chandler)—it takes about 40 minutes or so for the first confrontation between the titular creatures (who have some ancient rivalry that is often whispered about but never exactly explained), a punch-up at sea that finds Kong busting out a couple of “Die Hard”-style moves before essentially ending in a draw.
Wingard also throws in references to the likes of Die Hard and the Lethal Weapon series, as well as countless Showa-era Godzilla efforts, most specifically those from the 1960s and ’70s.
(I’m told the creature’s movements were modeled on Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” and there’s even a “Lethal Weapon 2” reference for us elderly folks in the audience.)
Naturally, a sequel was made the following year, but Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 suffered from (a) audience fatigue, and (b) being a bit shit.
The final minutes of Adam Wingard’s “Blair Witch” meaningfully expound 1999’s bombshell blockbuster “The Blair Witch Project,” finally delivering some of the answers that 2000’s terrible, unintelligible “Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” passed over.
The awful official sequel, 2000's Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, disappeared without a trace.
Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
influenced The Guest (2014), You're Next (2013)
Music Characters Visuals
Inspiringly directed by Adam Wingard and cunningly penned by Simon Barrett (collaborators on the spooky jack-in-the-box "Phase I Clinical Trials" segment of 2013's " V/H/S/2 "), "You're Next" is the most exciting piece of work within the genre all year, a film that revitalizes the home-invasion thriller in unexpectedly vibrant ways while giving masterfully sly nods to vintage '70s and '80s Carpenter-esque synth scores and quintessential classics such as 1974's " The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ," 1978's " Halloween ," and 1984's " A Nightmare on Elm Street ."
Maybe in 20 years, they'll be praising this like older horror fans do "Halloween"--but for everyone else, this is absolutely juvenile, moronic filmmaking done by people who have seen way too many movies, but didn't bother to pay attention to what made them any good.
She's got a Jamie Lee Curtis-in-Halloween vibe going on, making Erin a resilient fighter who is nobody's victim.
I’ll leave you to discover just how all this leads to a climactic chase through a Halloween maze in a high school gym with dry-ice machines at full tilt, set to a nerve-jangling synth score that evokes John Carpenter’s Halloween (to which Wingard, whose previous features have been low-budget horror films, explicitly pays homage).
The film is a worthy heir to the horror traditions of “Halloween” auteur John Carpenter, whose work is referenced via a tense electronic score and the occasional shot of a jack-o’-lantern, and Joseph Ruben, whose 1987 “The Stepfather” provided the template for this story in which a figure who should be worthy of respect and trust insinuates his way into an all-American family under false pretenses and with deadly consequences.
The camera partakes of the gliding reframing in movies from John Carpenter’s 1970s Steadicam heyday, and while there is full-frontal homage to movies ranging from “Halloween” to “Carrie” to “The Stepfather,” “The Terminator” and “Taxi Driver,” the movie holds its own with gleeful élan.
Ready or Not (2019)
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
influenced by You're Next (2013), The Guest (2014)
Themes Plot Visuals
Not quite; its third act occasionally shuffles cards when it should be building to a crescendo, and its expansive cast of characters is so winningly performed that you almost wish you could get to know them a bit better amidst the breakneck pace (in both of these regards, it falls somewhat short of Adam Wingarde’s brilliant, thematically similar You’re Next).
Whilst comparisons to Adam Wingard’s under appreciated horror gem You’re Next are inevitable, Ready or Not ultimately punctures similarities by posing the question of what to believe when it comes to the supposed curse the family believe they are under.
Comparisons to Adam Wingard’s cult favorite You’re Next are hard to avoid.
In many ways, this one reminded me of Adam Wingard’s You’re Next , which I also had issues with.
Dirigida por Matt Bettinelli-Olpin y Tyler Gillett ( “Devil's Due”, segmento 10/31/98 de VHS ), Ready or Not recuerda algo a You're Next (Adam Wingard, 2011).
For a more sharper comparison, this movie could’ve been closer to the style of Adam Wingard’s You’re Next and felt like a remarkable moment for the genre.
Though ostensibly the film was a smash-'em-up monster movie, not unlike 1933's "King Kong," it has also come to be viewed as a response to that trauma.
Then there are nice little nods to the original, 1933 King Kong—as when he angrily flings the metal collar around his neck to the ground or pries Godzilla’s jaws open during another showdown.
In King Kong (1933), it can be argued that the giant ape terrorized New York City because he was kidnapped from his home island, a direct result of western colonialism.
If the original 1933 version of King Kong is still the best, it’s because it tempers the story’s inherent sentimentality with a legitimately nightmarish, borderline-surrealist sense of violence and irrepressible rage.
In 1933, “King Kong” changed filmmaking forever with stop-motion animation, the first original feature film score and iconic imagery atop the Empire State Building.
As they drive through remote countryside towards the English Tudor style mansion, Crispian's mom Aubrey (Barbara Crampton, "Re-Animator") is insisting her husband Paul (Rob Moran, "Hall Pass") investigate a noise she heard coming from upstairs in the just-opened (and found unlocked) house.
She brings a nice horror heritage to the movie, having starred in "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond."
It’s a testament to the skill Wingard and his actors (among them Crampton, of Re-Animator fame) evince that the oft-improvised dinner-party dialogue between Swanberg and West (director of The House of the Devil) fits so seamlessly with the overall narrative of a family reunion gone straight to hell.
And, as mother Aubrey, it is a treat to see Barbara Crampton (best-known for her work with Stuart Gordon in 1984's "Re-Animator" and 1986's "From Beyond") onscreen again, her shattering portrayal of motherly anguish at the sight of what she cares for the most falling apart a lingering force even after she's exited the scene.
They are ostensibly celebrating the parents' wedding anniversary (the parents are played by colorless character actor Rob Moran and, in a stroke of pure fucking genius, Barbara Crampton from "Re-Animator" and a particularly memorable 1986 Playboy pictorial).
Many of the cast members are either genre filmmakers (Larry Fessenden, Joe Swanberg , Ti West ), or horror icons (Crampton, from Re-Animator).
Godzilla (2014)
Directed by Gareth Edwards
influenced Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
But the more you settle into the latest entry in Warner Bros. and Legendary's “MonsterVerse” — the Americanized shared universe of Japanese-sourced kaiju movies that started with 2014's Godzilla — the more confounding this exercise becomes.
On the plus side, Wingard has arguably three of the best working actors in the game: Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry reprise their roles from “Godzilla vs. Kong,” and Wingard brings along the star of his 2014 thriller “The Guest,” Dan Stevens, who possesses a kind of glowing charisma that's almost too much to take in.
2014's Godzilla, 2017's Kong: Skull Island and 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters seesawed in their efforts (some admirably, some woefully).
The (final?) entry in Legendary’s carefully planned “MonsterVerse” - which started with Gareth Edward’s stylish “Godzilla,” continued in 2017’s vintage throwback “Kong: Skull Island” and flatlined last year thanks to “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” - “Godzilla vs. Kong” not only gets this series back on track, but it’s tons of fun that comes every bit as advertised: Two behemoths clobbering it out for total domination.
For those who missed the film’s predecessors (2014’s Godzilla, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters), the basic idea is that a couple of dozen giant beasties called “Titans” (presumably because Guillermo del Toro already claimed “Kaiju” for Pacific Rim) have crawled out of the earth’s crust all over the globe and are being monitored by a shadowy government organization called Monarch, and an equally shadowy corporation called Apex Cybernetics.
GvK can’t quite match that film’s tonal bullseye, but it easily lands as second best in the “Titan” Monsterverse that was reborn with 2014’s Godzilla .
Pacific Rim (2013)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
influenced Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
Visuals Plot Themes
It’s not Mar-a-Lago, the maskless hordes or hanging chads, but a firm called Apex Corp. that makes giant robots – think “Pacific Rim” (2013).
For those who missed the film’s predecessors (2014’s Godzilla, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters), the basic idea is that a couple of dozen giant beasties called “Titans” (presumably because Guillermo del Toro already claimed “Kaiju” for Pacific Rim) have crawled out of the earth’s crust all over the globe and are being monitored by a shadowy government organization called Monarch, and an equally shadowy corporation called Apex Cybernetics.
The visuals are a lot cleaner than King of the Monsters ‘ but ultimately less exciting, while the production aesthetics – variously recalling previous Monsterverse instalments as well as The Lost World, Tron and Pacific Rim – comes off as derivative and incoherent.
And yet, Wingard knows exactly what series of movies he’s working with, making a movie that not only shows honor to the later Toho films in the series, but also sprinkling in his own appreciation for science fiction, with a dash of Jurassic Park , a electric score by Junkie XL that reminded me of Vangelis’ work on Blade Runner , an adventure into the unknown that reminded me of The Goonies, and massive scale monster battles that look better than anything we saw in Pacific Rim .
On the downside, the robotics rip off major elements of Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” (2013), only this time Idris Elba is nowhere to be found.
( Pacific Rim , I love you, but I’m talking to you.)
A year earlier, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s low-budget indie film The Blair Witch Project frightened filmgoers with its “found footage” tale of teenagers investigating the legend of the Blair Witch in the Black Hills woods in Maryland.
In 1999, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez changed the face of horror with The Blair Witch Project, a film that has given birth to—I’m being approximate here—fifteen thousand found-footage movies over the last seventeen years.
“Blair Witch” is a sequel/reboot of the hand-held camera classic “The Blair Witch Project,” a film so close to the original that it’s no wonder the filmmakers don’t acknowledge the first film in the screenplay credits.
1999 was the year of The Blair Witch Project.
It wasn’t a smart script or great acting that made “The Blair Witch Project” a box-office sensation in 1999.
In 1999, “The Blair Witch Project” was a milestone of low-budget, found-footage horror.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Directed by Oren Peli
influenced Blair Witch (2016), You're Next (2013)
Visuals Themes
The Blair Witch juggernaut was over before it really got a chance to begin, and the found footage conceit languished until around 2007 when Paranormal Activity and REC proved that there was life left in the sub-genre yet.
Cheap frights — characters keep sneaking up on each other while they’re filming, with deafening sound effects accompanying them bumping into each other — and a selection of horror stunts borrowed from the “Son of Blair Witch,” aka the “Paranormal Activity” movies, deliver the only hair-raising moments.
Indeed, the movie as a whole finds itself caught between styles, evoking neither the amateur authenticity of The Blair Witch Project (and successors such as Paranormal Activity) nor the crafted sheen of a typical studio project.
Confidant and succinct, the preamble should remind viewers of “Paranormal Activity,” “Cloverfield” or any number of found footage films released post-“Blair Witch,” all of which hastily explain just how this footage could eventually be found.
But that doesn’t erase the 17 years in between, during which countless horror films (the [Rec] series, the Paranormal Activity series and Cloverfield, for example) have mined similar territory.
Underneath the low-budget simplicity of the concept, writer-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez created a nerve-rattling, painstakingly complex mythology encompassing an almost sci-fi approach to warps in time and space (borrowed by the makers of the more recent found-footage franchise Paranormal Activity).
“There is a sense that the less that humans meddle with stuff, the better, is a general theme,” Hall recently told the press — a statement that the Godzilla vs. Kong makes it impossible for anyone to disagree with, even if it is funny to see Eleven from Stranger Things getting chased through CGI hellscapes by scrapped dino concepts from Jurassic Park’s cutting room.
Instead of scoffing at the obvious manipulation, we’re meant to recognize and enjoy it: Kong’s containment in an artificial environment riskily entered by two romantically linked but bland scientists (Alexander Skarsgård and Rebecca Hall) recalls Jurassic Park .
And yet, Wingard knows exactly what series of movies he’s working with, making a movie that not only shows honor to the later Toho films in the series, but also sprinkling in his own appreciation for science fiction, with a dash of Jurassic Park , a electric score by Junkie XL that reminded me of Vangelis’ work on Blade Runner , an adventure into the unknown that reminded me of The Goonies, and massive scale monster battles that look better than anything we saw in Pacific Rim .
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Monarch linguist Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) watches over Kong, restlessly trapped in a Jurassic Park -like containment area.
In this corner: Godzilla, king of the monsters, once played by a man in a rubber suit, now a slickly computer-animated predator emulating the fluid, menacing movements of the T-Rex from "Jurassic Park."
Transformers (2007)
Directed by Michael Bay
influenced Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
Visuals Characters Plot
Unlike Michael Bay’s “Transformers” behemoths, the plot and editing are coherent, with elements of fun sci-fi fantasy worthy of H.G. Wells combined with some contemporary paranoia.
Taken as a whole, the 2014 reboot, the 2019 Godzilla: King of Monsters , and now Godzilla vs. Kong remind me of nothing so much as Michael Bay’s Transformers movies from the 2000s: big, personality-free blockbusters where all the attention is lavished on the CGI characters, while A-list actors are thrown willy-nilly without regard for whatever human qualities they bring to the project.
That’s a rare subtlety in a movie that makes the much-maligned Michael Bay’s Transformers flicks look comparatively restrained.
Instead, it’s because the latest (and possibly final) installment of Warner Brothers’ “Monsterverse” series bears more than a passing resemblance to Michael Bay’s oft-derided (but financially successful) Transformers franchise.
Without denigrating Henry’s work here, think Anthony Anderson’s Glen Whitmann in Transformers (2007) except not trying to be the comic relief.
Wingard’s film boasts the sort of multicharacter structure that was pioneered by Independence Day and duplicated by Godzilla (1998), Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, and its own franchise predecessors—save, that is, for Gareth Edwards’ superior 2014 Godzilla, which captured a ground-level-POV sense of mythic awe that’s since been replaced by extravagant rock ‘em sock ‘em mayhem (Edwards’ signature sight of figures, and missiles, plummeting thru space, trails of smoke behind them, remains).
Wingard, whose films “You’re Next” and “The Guest” show him to be a talented genre stylist, is purely in homage mode here; there’s even a touch of “The Descent” when he sends actress Callie Hernandez crawling into a very tight space.
Wingard has assembled a decent cast and he is certainly skilled enough to replicate the dynamics of Project, along the way replicating an unnervingly claustrophobic scene from The Descent.
Lisa follows and has an adventure with the underground tunnels in a sequence right out of "The Descent."
It’s panic attack-inducing — although less so than the very similar sequence in Neil Marshall’s cave monsters movie “The Descent,” which had the added element of the roof about to cave in, as well as the novelty of doing it first and even better.
Minor nods to The Descent and the horror manga of Junji Ito serve the film well, but just like everything else in the film, they go nowhere.
For example, there’s a chilling claustrophobia-inducing sequence that’s straight out of The Descent, while a particularly nasty injury offers a potential new source of horror before being abruptly dropped.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Directed by Michael Dougherty
influenced Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), You're Next (2013), Blair Witch (2016), The Guest (2014)
From there, the movie proceeds along parallel tracks, as Nathan and Ilene escort Kong to Hollow Earth, while Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown, reprising her role from Godzilla: King of the Monsters ) teams up with conspiracy podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) to figure out why Godzilla is acting erratically and attacking towns unprovoked.
So begins Godzilla vs. Kong , from director Adam Wingard ( Blair Witch ) , the fourth entry in Legendary Entertainment’s “MonsterVerse” series, which started with the 2014 Godzilla , continued with the 2017 Kong: Skull Island , and then added still more creatures to the mix with the 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters .
There is also Brian Tyree Henry as a podcaster who follows the conspiracy theories to help break down the Apex Corporation that runs the Monarch program (thankfully the story is a little more grounded this time around unlike the insane plan of Vera Farmiga’s character in Godzilla: King of the Monsters ).
And Kyle Chandler reprises the role he played in the 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters, that of Dr. Mark Russell, a soulful Godzilla stan who nevertheless understands that Godzilla in a bad mood is not a Godzilla you want to be around.
Meanwhile, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), who was saved by Godzilla in the previous film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and her friend Josh Valentine (Julian Dennison) connect with Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), a wild-eyed conspiracy-theorist podcaster, to investigate strange happenings at Apex Cybernetics and get to the bottom of why Godzilla has turned its back on humanity.
For those who missed the film’s predecessors (2014’s Godzilla, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters), the basic idea is that a couple of dozen giant beasties called “Titans” (presumably because Guillermo del Toro already claimed “Kaiju” for Pacific Rim) have crawled out of the earth’s crust all over the globe and are being monitored by a shadowy government organization called Monarch, and an equally shadowy corporation called Apex Cybernetics.
The film is a worthy heir to the horror traditions of “Halloween” auteur John Carpenter, whose work is referenced via a tense electronic score and the occasional shot of a jack-o’-lantern, and Joseph Ruben, whose 1987 “The Stepfather” provided the template for this story in which a figure who should be worthy of respect and trust insinuates his way into an all-American family under false pretenses and with deadly consequences.
But they also belong to Henry Fonda in 1968’s Once Upon A Time In The West, or Terry O’Quinn in 1987’s The Stepfather, to name two prominent antecedents.
Two other echoes: David telling each family member what their fallen kin had told him: “He wanted me to tell you that he loved you,” parallels Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” punchline and of course each shot of David imparting his machined poise to the mother, the father, the sister, the little brother, offers eddies of Pasolini’s “Teorema,” with Stevens acting as a latter-day Terence Stamp, who seduced house and home because it was his due.
While it's been hailed as a departure from the home-invasion genre, much as Wes Craven's Scream series redefined slasher films, Next is really little more than an excuse to have a hot Aussie pound her enemies' brains into gray jelly.
Indeed, it’s hard to think of something new to do with this genre, and certainly not every slasher can be as smart as “The Cabin in the Woods” or “Scream,” but if they weren’t going to at least try something new (or at least come up with a better mid-way reveal), then why bother at all?
What follows is an energetic mix of “Scream”-like dark comedy, senseless violence, satisfying surprises, and good old-fashioned mayhem.
The horror show here begins with a well-staged "Scream"-style murder, than skips ahead to a country estate where a millionaire couple — he was in armaments, she's been in therapy — prepare to welcome their four grown children, and partners, for a weekend.
This section of the film approaches “Scream” or “Cabin in the Woods” in its filmmakers’ awareness that their viewers have certain expectations of the movie at this point.
The filmmakers have crafted seriously derivative fun that plays like "Scream" molded with "Cabin Fever" in the twisted universe of "Final Destination."
Inspiringly directed by Adam Wingard and cunningly penned by Simon Barrett (collaborators on the spooky jack-in-the-box "Phase I Clinical Trials" segment of 2013's " V/H/S/2 "), "You're Next" is the most exciting piece of work within the genre all year, a film that revitalizes the home-invasion thriller in unexpectedly vibrant ways while giving masterfully sly nods to vintage '70s and '80s Carpenter-esque synth scores and quintessential classics such as 1974's " The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ," 1978's " Halloween ," and 1984's " A Nightmare on Elm Street ."
The music bares a striking resemblance to the synth-heavy John Carpenter-directed films of the 1980s, and the amateurish tone, along with deliberately odd camera angles and stilted acting, all give You're Next a pleasant grindhouse feeling tempting comparison to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
In "Death Note," Lakeith Stanfield portrays a master detective who wears a mask and goes by the code-name L to avoid getting written into a death note and killed.
After years of development hell , finally an American adaptation of Death Note has made it to… well, the small screen, technically, since it’s been picked up for distribution by Netflix.
Even messages about power corrupting otherwise decent people, and vigilantism as a negative force, can't raise Death Note from its unenviable position as a bottom feeder.
That’s the darkly intriguing premise of Death Note, the popular manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, which was turned into a 37-episode anime, and now has been condensed into an American movie.
It's a potent scenario, whether used for psychological explorations of manhood, as in Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971), or simply as a taut exercise in form and formula, like You're Next.
(Earlier examples of the sub-genre include Straw Dogs, Desperate Hours, Panic Room, and Funny Games.)
Whether that be this year's "The Purge," or the earlier "Straw Dogs," "The Strangers," "Funny Games" or the most popular if older one, "Panic Room" (with Jodie Foster and a young Kristen Stewart) they feature a variation of the old "Three Little Pigs" tale where the old wolf threatens, "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in" while trying to get to the title characters to eat them.
Just that one character transforms "You're Next" from a formulaic gore fest into a female version of "Straw Dogs," with maniacs trying to get into the house and a mild-mannered person inside, blossoming into a homicidal genius.
In fact, it all but wears its influences proudly on its sleeve (with nods to Scream and Straw Dogs, among others).