CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD’s MOVIE REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY JANUARY 23, 2026!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the sci fi action flick “Mercy,” the avian drama of “H is for Hawk” and the thriller “Honey Bunch.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Kate Dickie’
YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the sci fi action flick “Mercy,” the avian drama of “H is for Hawk” and the thriller “Honey Bunch.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
HONEY BUNCH: 3 STARS. “a strange story of love justifying everything.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Honey Bunch,” a new horror-thriller now playing in theatres, disturbing visions plague a woman recovering at an experimental trauma center after a brutal car accident. “Everything is gonna go back to normal… it might just take a little more time.”
CAST: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie, Jason Isaacs, Kate Dickie and India Brown. Directed and written by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli.
REVIEW: A gothic, unsettling study of devotion and sacrifice, “Honey Bunch” starts off odd and doubles down on its weirdness as it winds its way to the end credits.
Following her recovery from a coma that resulted in partial memory loss and physical challenges, Diana’s (Grace Glowicki) husband Homer (Ben Petrie), for reasons she doesn’t understand, enrolls her at an out-of-the-way trauma facility for experimental treatment to repair her memory and motor skills.
As the procedures intensify her fragmented memory begins to rebuild, like puzzle pieces falling into place.
Unfortunately, for another patient, Josephina (India Brown), accompanied by her father Joseph (“White Lotus’” Jason Isaacs), the unusual treatment leaves her suffering from terrible side effects.
While Joseph pushes for his daughter’s recovery, Diana’s shattered memories lead her to troubling truths about her marriage and husband’s true motives.
“Honey Bunch’s” first hour takes some time to get where its going. Directors Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer immerse the viewer in the remote facility to hammer home Diana’s isolation. By the time her memories—or are the hallucinations?—return an unsettling, unpredictable atmosphere attaches itself to the film like the buttons on a blouse.
The rhythms take some getting used to, but patience is rewarded with a bonkers second half that let’s go of building suspicion and in favor of body horror touched by tragedy and revenge. Some swing-for-the-fences story turns defy credulity but, because they are based in affection, ultimately become a look at the see saw of married life, and how blind devotion may not be a suitable relationship building block.
A throwback to the films of the 1970s, “Honey Bunch” utilizes crash zooms and other retro techniques, accentuated by Andrea Boccadoro’s eerie, irreverent score, to tell a strange story of love justifying everything.
THE WITCH: 3 ½ STARS. “no Freddys or Jasons in sight, just pure terror.”
“The Witch” is the kind of horror film that is not content to simply say “Boo!” There are few, if any, jump scares in the film. Instead, it’s the kind of puritanical folk tale that slowly burrows itself into your brain, leaving you queasy and uneasy.
Set in New England, 1630 the movie centers on Christian settlers William, Katherine (Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie, both of “Game of Thrones”) and their five children, a family banished from their church and community to eek out a life on the outskirts of town. Bordered by an ominous forest, their remote new home offers little in the way of comfort, spiritual uplift or sustenance.
Plagued by grinding poverty and crop failure, the devote family is rocked when their baby son baby son is stolen while under the care of eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). The disappearance is chalked up to something satanic—perhaps a witch from the woods—and a pall of distrust and fear envelops the family, tearing away at the very core of their lives—their faith.
“The Witch” is a slow burn (in hell). Screenwriter and first time director Robert Eggers takes his time building up to a bewitchingly strange climax, toggling between paranoia and illusory (or are they?) elements to allow the dread to mount.
He creates a compact but complete and complex world for his characters to inhabit, chock-a-block with interesting details. Much of the dialogue was borrowed from contemporary trial transcripts and journals and comes heavily laden with religious fervour and the wilderness provides a gloomy backdrop, providing with creepy sounds and the possibility of evil. Everything, every creaking tree branch, every image seems to take on meaning as the hysteria increases.
As William, Ineson is a stern, austere man ruled by his religion, even if it means denying his daughter. The real revelation here is Anya Taylor-Joy as the put-upon daughter whose tests the family’s ideas of faith, loyalty and love.
“The Witch” won’t be for everyone, and certainly not for casual horror fans. There’s no Freddys or Jasons in sight, just pure terror.
