\n<\/p>\n
Rent or buy it on most major platforms.<\/a><\/p>\n For most of its two-hour run time, Antonio M\u00e9ndez Esparza\u2019s slow-burn thriller<\/a> doesn\u2019t feel like a horror movie. There\u2019s no gore, evil spirits or gorgons. Yet, as it follows a middle-aged woman who loses her grip on reality, the film chillingly embodies Sartre\u2019s observation that hell is other people.<\/p>\n Life isn\u2019t going well for Lucia (Malena Alterio), a big-hearted but na\u00efve and sometimes prickly woman who lives with her ailing father in Madrid. She has few friends. She lost her job at a dental company and money is tight. She\u2019s heartbroken when her crush \u2014 a handsome neighbor who said his name was Calaf, like the prince in Puccini\u2019s \u201cTurandot\u201d\u2014 moves away unexpectedly.<\/p>\n To help cure her woes and feel more connected to the world, Lucia starts driving a taxi. Her life brightens after she strikes up a friendship with one of her riders, Roberta (Aitana S\u00e1nchez-Gij\u00f3n), a sophisticated theater producer who takes an interest in Lucia\u2019s troubled past. When a betrayal comes \u2014 and there are many in this tender but despairing film \u2014 the horror becomes unbearable, for Lucia and, almost, for the viewer, straight through to a horrific ending. Alterio gives a fearless and gripping performance that deservedly won her a Goya Award, Spain\u2019s version of the Oscars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Assume nothing: That\u2019s my advice before watching JT Mollner\u2019s dazzling and ingeniously-constructed thriller.<\/p>\n The film opens as a gun-toting, wild-eyed young man (Kyle Gallner) pursues a bloodied young woman (Willa Fitzgerald), in a truck down a deserted road in the Oregon wilderness. So far, we\u2019re talking standard stalker-slasher film stuff, right? Dead wrong. Because who these people are and how they got to this terrifying moment are the dastardly twists that drive this film, a horror highlight of 2024<\/a>. I won\u2019t say more because the less you know, the better. But understand this: Its six delirious chapters are scrambled for good reason.<\/p>\n Across the board, the acting is formidable. Fitzgerald is sly, menacing and feral. As in the \u201cSmile\u201d films, Gallner is equal parts vulnerability, menace and sex. As apocalypse preppers, Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey go low-key nuts. And Giovanni Ribisi shines in his debut as a feature film cinematographer \u2014 the guy knows how to make a night at a cheap hotel room look like a date at the devil\u2019s playground.<\/p>\n Stream it on Netflix.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I almost scrolled past this film when Netflix added it to my recommended queue. The mysterious nautical title suggested I might be in store for a G-rated, Scooby Doo-inspired family adventure film. I\u2019m glad I took a chance on it, because what the Indonesian director Tommy Dewo delivers is a bizarre but entertaining possession film that punctuates its unevenness with seriously sick-in-the-head slaughters.<\/p>\n The story is steeped in Indonesian folklore and gets convoluted, but it boils down to this: Sucipto (Christian Sugiono) is desperate to protect his family from a generational curse in which relatives, including his son Ardi (Ari Irham), see demons. As the living and undead battle it out at the family home and on the streets, Dewo kills off characters in outrageously shocking ways. I lost count of how many times barbed wire plunged through skin and came out trailing blood-slick body parts. (One decapitation doused the camera lens.) The most adorable little boy gets the<\/em> most gruesome death.<\/p>\n C.G.I. snobs will scoff at the unpolished digital effects, but I found them, and the gnarly, homemade-looking costumes and gross-out prosthetics, to have real VHS-era charm.<\/p>\n Stream it on Shudder.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Swipe after swipe, hookup after hookup, Alex (Blu Hunt) is having no luck dating men in Los Angeles. When she meets Kyle (Ben Smith-Petersen), he seems too good to be true. He\u2019s handsome, kind hearted and enjoys listening to her. The sex is out of this world. But when he ghosts her \u2014 literally, in the film\u2019s first of many supernatural twists \u2014 his disappearance, or possibly reappearance, sets Alex off on a quest to figure out why, and how, this good guy got away.<\/p>\n Elric Kane\u2019s assured film seamlessly blends elements of science fiction and psychological thriller to thoughtfully examine the human fear of death, using the foibles of modern dating, strangely, to underscore its points. (Some of the script\u2019s woo-woo talk about the human condition left me cold.) Even though the setting is in the now, the film has softer yet still chilly qualities of a grindhouse thriller from the \u201870s, down to Michael Krassner and Robin Vining\u2019s atmospheric score \u2014 long live flute solos! \u2014 and Ioana Vasile\u2019s shadowy cinematography.<\/p>\n Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Earlier this year, I recommended<\/a> \u201cThe Calendar Killer,\u201d a German psychological thriller that\u2019s best enjoyed for its camp, not its terrors. This month, we travel to Brazil for a serving of similarly trashy luridness.<\/p>\n Based on a true case from the \u201990s, the film is about Francisco (Silvero Pereira), a pasty-faced serial killer who the media nicknames the Park Maniac, as he terrorizes young women in S\u00e3o Paulo. The director Mauricio E\u00e7a films Francisco\u2019s brutal assaults in close-up, giving us ghastly views of what the creep sees through bulging eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On the madman\u2019s tail is Elena (Giovanna Grigio), an ambitious young journalist who wants to make a name for herself in her boys-club newsroom by finding the psychopath before the cops do. As Elena becomes hellbent on understanding the Park Maniac, he becomes obsessed with his infamy.<\/p>\n Does the plot make sense? Sometimes. Does it matter? Not really, when Pereira (and his curly locks) gives such a consistently creepy performance. Bonus: The film makes hits of the \u201990s, from C & C Music Factory\u2019s \u201cGonna Make You Sweat\u201d<\/a> to Sepultura\u2019s \u201cTerritory,\u201d<\/a> somehow sound macabre.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Curse of the Seven Seas\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018The Dead Thing\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018The Park Maniac\u2019<\/h2>\n