Here are three movie reviews for Silent Night, Thanksgiving, and Godzilla Minus One by Danny Micheal Vaillancourt who watched them carefully and gives us his thoughts on those horror screenings!
Malevolence. Murder. Monsters. Oh My.
Here are three chosen movie reviews of what’s currently playing in theatres, from slashers to revenge stories to kaiju monsters.
The Movie Review For Silent Night
Directed by John Woo.
Directed by John Woo in his directorial return to Hollywood, Silent Night is a revenge thriller starring Joel Kinnaman as Brian Godlock, a father who sets out to seek revenge against a gang of criminals after his son is killed in a crossfire drive-by shooting.
The movie is unique in its approach because the film’s name takes on a literal meaning regarding aesthetics and sound in how it presents itself on-screen.
The movie has little to no spoken dialogue, and it won’t be necessary here since action speaks louder than words, both literally and figuratively speaking—or non-spoken in this case?
It’s a silent movie with sound, and the technical aspects of this approach work, making it the cinematic lovechild of both the John Wick franchise (2014-2023) and Drive (2011).
However, as a return to form from one of cinema’s greatest action visionaries, it lacks the visceral bite that one would expect from John Woo. His filmography speaks for itself, creating some of the genre’s greatest action flicks: Hard Boiled (1992) ranks at the #6 spot on my ‘Greatest Films Of All Time’ list, whereas The Killer (1989) ranks at #14. Woo’s Hong Kong works are nothing short of masterful, with enough unique finesse in how he presents the bloodshed and powerful emotional resonance within his films.
On the other hand, his American works in Hollywood are a mixed bag: From genre greats such as Face/Off (1997) to low points like Paycheck (2003), Silent Night veers somewhere in between a middle road among his Hollywood fares.
It takes a unique approach by eliminating the words, but it’s all very Hollywood in how it all plays out. The film’s score, while as good as it may be, isn’t quite powerful enough to compensate for it, and neither does it match the increasing tension happening on-screen. There are no surprises to be had here, and it is unlikely to finish with a standing ovation from its audience, but for a night out to the cinema, it’s worth enough to pay the price of admission.
Overall: 6.5 / 10.
The Movie Review For Thanksgiving
Directed by Eli Roth.
What started out as a fake trailer for the 2007 double feature film Grindhouse—a two-film bill consisting of Planet Terror by director Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof—has, in its own way, become part of a B-movie cinematic universe.
Most of the faux trailers in this double feature have spun off and become feature-length motion pictures. The faux trailer of Machete (2010) has gotten its own movie, a sequel in Machete Kills (2013), and even the faux trailer Hobo With A Shotgun has its own cinematic offspring. Thanksgiving was next to get the trailer-to-film treatment.
The Grindhouse movies are known for going over the top, for their intentionally aged aesthetic, and for not taking themselves too seriously. They’re dumb, they’re fun, and that’s the whole point.
Thanksgiving was helmed by the very same director who made stomachs churn with films such as The Green Inferno (2013) and Hostel, Hostel: Part II (2005 and 2007, respectively), and yet somehow, the end result feels surprisingly restrained.
Sure, there are some gnarly kills and darkly comedic moments, but gone is its intentional B-movie aesthetic, and unfortunately, it lacks the manic fun of its counterparts.
I’m not insinuating that it’s a bore by any means, but it doesn’t have much that elevates it higher than the average Scream film sequel. This is because the film’s structure is set up in a way that’s nearly identical to one of those films, and that’s not a bad thing in its own right, but it does make expectations falter for what one might expect.
It’s still fun popcorn fare and is likely to strike a positive note with moviegoers, but whether the idea was to embrace the common tropes or not, there’s a part of me that wishes it did more with its material rather than succumb to the clichés of the films it’s paying homage to.
Overall: 5 / 10.
The Movie Review For Godzilla Minus One
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki.
Produced by Toho Studios, it is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise (as well as the 33rd Japanese Godzilla film and the 5th of the franchise’s Reiwa era). Okay, did you get all of that? If not, you can sigh in relief because revisiting all previous entries won’t be necessary to understand this entry.
This film can stand alone as a narrative piece while also standing out within the film’s franchise as one of the greatest Godzilla movies to ever tear through the big screen.
This is the Godzilla film fans have been yearning for.
It’s unusual that a film made on a modest budget of less than 15 million dollars would get an IMAX release, but what is even more unusual and, quite frankly, gobsmacking is that no multi-hundred-million-dollar budget is attached to it. It’s a rare feat to witness special effects done for so little that can match and rival the technical features of your average Marvel movie.
The writing is undeniably exquisite, and for the first time in a franchise filled with senseless chaos and, at other times, chaotic nonsense, there is a genuine emotional sensibility to be found. And I’m not even talking about some sappier Hollywood-type emotions; we are genuinely engaged here. You learn about these characters, you care for them, and you worry about their fates.
Between the humans getting ready to fight the monster and the humans fighting their own inner monsters in the backdrop of postwar Japan, I never imagined I’d have a Godzilla movie rank among my ‘Top 10 Best Movies Of The Year’ list, but it’s almost 2024 and yet here we are.
Believe the hype and universal critical acclaim because this film is massively epic for just about all the right reasons.
Overall: 9 / 10.
Gothic Bite Magazine 