Ranking (new) movies I've seen in theaters this year:
1. Obsession - so far best movie of the year for me. Scary, funny, and gave me lots to chew on thematically. I haven't stopped thinking about it, and I am this 🤏🏼 close to writing tragic OG!Nikki/Wish!Nikki semi-selfcest
2. undertone - fucking scared the shit out of me. The horror of watching your parent slowly die and the inherent horror of your childhood home hit me right in the gut. I know it's divisive but I found it truly haunting.
3 (tie). Hokum - the most heartwarming, coziest horror movie I've seen in a minute. Not very scary, but yes very fun and sweet. The framing device alone is worth the price of admission. 1408 meets an Irish folk tale. I kind of wish we got a bit more time with the antagonists, though.
3 (tie). Send Help - couldn't decide which of these I liked better. This was just such a blast, so funny and over the top, and did exactly what I wanted it to. I don't have much to say about it, but it was so fucking fun.
4. Backrooms - flawed script but overall a very fun and ambitious movie. I appreciated that it had the patience to really let you sit in the space, the sets were fucking fantastic, and some of the scares were well-crafted. However, it feels like it's missing a second act, and the characters felt underbaked.
5. Wuthering Heights - "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Gorgeous to look at, but can only gesture in the vague direction of actual themes and ideas. Weirdly enough manages to emphasize the colourism MORE through the fucking insane casting, but isn't smart enough to do anything with that. It insists SO hard that it's sexy and adult that it somehow loops back around to feeling sterile and childish. Banger score and soundtrack though.
6. Five Nights at Freddie's 2 - genuinely one of the worst screenplays I've ever seen in a finished, big budget movie. Borderline incomprehensible. Gets points for the animatronics still being sick as fuck, and for the bad script being really funny. Loses points because Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard don't even fucking interact and unless you know the lore you won't even know why they did that stunt casting because the movie doesn't fucking explain it, and I only know it because my partner likes the MatPat FNAF theories
7. Lee Cronin's The Mummy - technically a better movie than FNAF 2 but it's not funny-bad so I hate it more. There wasn't even a fucking mummy.
