I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the return of Ghostface in “Scream 7,” the erotic thriller “56 Days” and the pirate action movie “The Bluff.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 37:46)
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the return of Ghostface in “Scream 7,” the music doc “Paul McCartneyt: Man on the Run,” the northern noir of “In Cold Light” and the zombie flick “This is Not a Test.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 14:21)
I join “CP24 Breakfast” host Nick Dixon to talk about the return of Ghostface in “Scream 7,” the music doc “Paul McCartneyt: Man on the Run” and the Paramount+ docuseries “Wild Boys: Strangers in Town.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the return of Sidney Prescott in “Scream 7,” the northern noir of “In Cold Light,” the zombie flick “This is Not a Test” and the music doc “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to scream seven times. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the return of Sidney Prescott in “Scream 7,” the northern noir of “In Cold Light” and the music doc “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Scream 7,” now playing in theatres, once again says “Hello, Sidney” as Neve Campbell returns to the thirty-year-old horror franchise as iconic “final girl” Sidney Prescott.
CAST: Neve Campbell, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Courteney Cox, Isabel May, Anna Camp, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Mckenna Grace, Asa Germann, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Mark Consuelos, Tim Simons, Joel McHale. Directed by Kevin Williamson.
REVIEW: The labyrinthine world of the “Scream” franchise continues in a bloody movie that delivers the gore but gets lost in a mishmash of nostalgia, legacy characters and tired tropes.
A story about past trauma revisiting the present, “Scream 7” begins with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) starting a new life in a new town. Settling in Pine Grove, Indiana, far from the suburban Northern California town of Woodsboro and the reach of serial killer Ghostface.
Or so she thought until her phone rang.
“I’m going to make everyone you love suffer,” says a familiar voice on the other end of the line. “Including your pretty daughter.”
Could it be her nemesis Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) or an elaborate deepfake?
Either way, determined to protect daughter Tatum (Isabel May) and husband Mark (Joel McHale), Sidney swings into action in a final showdown with her greatest adversary.
Directed by Kevin Williamson (who wrote the original “Scream”) “Scream 7” is a collision of old and new elements that end up feeling almost as lifeless as one of Ghostface’s victims.
What was once a clever meta commentary on slasher movies that deconstructed the tropes of 80s and 90s horror, and later, remakes, toxic fandom and franchise fatigue, now feels rudderless as it takes on deep fakes and AI. The previous “Scream” films would have taken time to formulate a comment on the dangers of technology or at least take a position on it. Instead, here it’s simply a plot device, nothing more or less.
That lack of curiosity extends throughout. Even though “Scream 7” contains the most gratuitous kill of the entire series—and, to be fair, one of the funniest as one unfortunate victim is turned into a human beer tap—it doesn’t invest much into making the new characters compelling or, most importantly, making the Ghostface unmasking shocking or at the very least interesting.
The result is a movie with enough bloody stuff to entertain slasher fans, but it feels like the kind of film the franchise has spent thirty years analyzing.
SYNOPSIS: In “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” a new horror film based on the popular videogame and now playing in theatres, eleven-year-old Abby (Piper Rubio) sneaks away from her protective brother Mike (Josh Hutcherson) to reunite with her pals, four Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza animatronic mascots who are possessed by the spirits of the children who disappeared during Fazbear’s glory days.
CAST: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, and Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace, and Teo Briones. Directed by Emma Tammi.
REVIEW: To begin, let’s start at the end. ”Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” wraps up with an obvious set-up for another film. No spoilers here, but it explains why the movie feels like a means to an end, literally. By that I mean the entire convoluted story feels like a trailer for the franchise’s next movie.
It’s a shame the film delivers little more than jump scares because it kicks off with an interesting premise.
The animatronic action begins in 1982 at a birthday party at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. As young Charlotte (Audrey Lynn-Marie) patiently waits for her favorite character to appear, she spots a little boy being dragged out of the party by yellow animatronic rabbit Spring Bonnie (Matthew Lillard). She prevents the kidnapping, but winds up a victim of The Marionette, a terrifying puppet with a white mask, a wide grin and painted on rosy, red cheeks.
Cut to 2002. It’s a year after Fazbear security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson) discovered the pizza joint’s animatronic mascots, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, are possessed by the spirits of the children who disappeared during Fazbear’s glory days and had their eyes on a new victim, Mike’s innocent sister Abby (Piper Rubio).
With the help of Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), a police officer (and daughter of serial killer William Afton, played by Matthew Lillard), Abby was spared, but now Abby feels a connection to the animatronic meanies and wants to reconnect. “She misses her friends,” says Mike. Trouble is, that makes her a target for The Marionette.
After a strong start, and the addition of the creepy Marionette, it’s a shame the rest of the movie relies on jump scares and toothless violence instead of the inventive horror of the first fifteen minutes.
The character design by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is top notch, hitting the right balance between kid friendly animatronics and threatening evil robots. They’re a blast. Take for instance Chica (Megan Fox), a large animatronic chicken with “Let’s Party” emblazoned on her t-shirt, who gleefully squeezes Wayne Knight’s head with the words, “Let’s see what’s going on inside your head. Just what I thought! Nothing in there at all!” It’s the kind of fun PG-13 horror that offers relief from the movie’s reliance on jump scares.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” devotees will find loads of fan service and Easter eggs, but audiences hoping for real horror will find the movie to be as stale as a decade old slice from Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
SYNOPSIS: In “Anniversary,” a new thriller now playing in theatres, Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler play Ellen and Paul, a liberal Georgetown University academic and chef celebrating twenty-five years of marriage. When Liz (Phoebe Dynevor), their son Josh’s (Dylan O’Brien) new girlfriend, writes a political screed titled “The Change: The New Social Contract,” its success sows the seeds of discontent within the family and the country.
CAST: Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, Madeline Brewer, Zoey Deutch, Phoebe Dynevor, Mckenna Grace, Daryl McCormack, and Dylan O’Brien. Directed by Jan Komasa.
REVIEW: One of the least subtle films of the year, “Anniversary” dives headfirst into a maelstrom of ideological extremism, buried secrets and societal polarization.
Featuring a large ensemble cast of veterans and newcomers, “Anniversary” begins at a lavish 25th anniversary celebration for Ellen and Paul (Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler). Son Josh’s (Dylan O’Brien) date is Liz (Phoebe Dynevor), a former student of Ellen’s, kicked out of school after Ellen denounced her radical views. She’s now the author of “The Change: The New Social Contract,” a political diatribe supporting the implication of a “no-party” system that aims to “put the ‘united’ back in these states of America.”
As the book becomes a national best-seller Ellen can’t hide her disapproval with its ideas of a singular, unified national belief system. “The book is a weapon,” she says amid her growing concerns for the fate of democracy as a spawning movement known as The Change, endorse pledging an oath to an alternate American flag.
Liz’s newfound popularity during the rise of The Change—“The greatest movement in the history of this nation.”—reveals fractures in Ellen and Paul’s family and in the country. “Everything around us is changing,” says daughter Birdie (Mckenna Grace). “Fear went mainstream.
A study of radicalism, “Anniversary” delivers its message with the force of a knee to the groin. Director Jan Komasa, working from a screenplay by Lori Rosene-Gambino, keeps the telling of the cautionary tale taut, creating a pressure-cooker of tension and menace.
The ideological conflict between the family—the “Non-Changers”—and The Change escalates quickly, but Komasa smartly keeps the focus on the individuals and the radical transformations in their lives. “You have obliterated us,” Ellen says to Liz. “What more do you want?”
O’Brien is chilling as he navigates Josh’s transformation from failed writer to intimidating demagogue. A contentious scene between Josh and Paul allows O’Brien and Chandler to explore the boundaries of the polarization that has gripped the family in a powerful fashion.
That edgy conflict drips with ice, but it is the helplessness Ellen and Paul, once a couple living their best lives, feels as their existence is completely upended by The Change that resonates. “You need to decide,” a census taker tells them, “whether you’re with us for against us.”
“Anniversary” is a provocative, timely drama that swings for the fences, and while the portrait it paints of extremism is vivid, and in many ways uncompromising, it is the personal toll of the characters that unnerves.
After a quick detour to Summerville, Oklahoma, the fifth movie in the Ghostbusters Universe sees the Spengler family back where the story began. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” now playing in theatres, grafts a proton blast of nostalgia to a new supernatural story of tiny Stay Puft Marshmallow Men, Spenglers and an iconic New York City firehouse.
In 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” OG (Original Ghostbuster) Egon Spengler’s daughter Callie (Carrie Coon), her two teenage kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), move to Egon’s abandoned Oklahoma farmhouse. When apocalyptic entity Gozer the Gozerian enters the scene, the family, along with mentor Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and some familiar faces—Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson)—team to keep the world safe.
The new film sees Callie, the kids and Grooberson, now Callie’s boyfriend, bustin’ ghosts in New York City. Using Egon’s tools, they zoom through the streets in the classic Ectomobile, and operate out of the firehouse made famous in the first film. Zeddemore now owns the building, which has become dangerously overstuffed with trapped ghosts.
On top of that, when the fast-talking Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) sells Stantz an ancient orb, it releases Garraka, an ice demon with the power to harness an army of escaped ghosts and trigger a new Ice Age. “The Death Chill,” says Stanz. “Your veins turn onto rivers of ice. Your bones crack. And the last thing you see is your own tear ducts freezing up.”
To stop this “unimaginable evil” the Ghostbusters, old and new, must once again band together.
Another face from the past also resurfaces. Forty years after their first run in, former EPA inspector Walter Peck (William Atherton), is now NYC’s mayor, and still holds a grudge. “The Ghostbusters are finished,” he says.
“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is busting at the seams, and not just with ghosts. A jumble of old and new characters, mythology and fan service, it’s overstuffed and yet feels lacking.
Aside from Mckenna, Aykroyd and Emily Alyn Lind as Melody, a lonely ghost who befriends Phoebe, none of the other characters make much of an impression, other than looking cool while posing with proton packs. It’s fun to see Hudson in an expanded role, but Murray doesn’t really appear, it’s more like he arrives, leaving a trail of Venkmanesque one-liners in his wake.
Rudd, Potts and most of the new proton pack slingers, however, all take a backseat to the busy story.
Fans will get a kick out of Slimer’s return, a haunted pizza is funny and the new Ice Demon, for the brief time they occupy the screen, is a creepy and cool addition to the Ghostbusters menagerie of meanies, but the script, penned by director Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman, doesn’t deliver the laughs. There are amusing moments, but the broadly comedic tone established by the classic “Ghostbusters” movies has been replaced by an earnest, nostalgic flavor.
“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” isn’t exactly a bust, but there isn’t as much life left in the franchise as die-hard fans may have hoped.
