Old (2021)

No, director M. Night Shyamalan doesn't have an excuse for yet another lame ending because although this time his movie, a beach-based Picnic At Hanging Rock (a group of people lug picnic baskets to a beach only to discover they are trapped and inexplicably ageing there) is based on Sandcastle, a graphic novel by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Shyamalan actually changes the ending of the kooky Lost-like events, so the lame ending is his again, but up to that late point when the story turns rusty, he delivers a captivating fantasy horror thriller full of great acting, weird and wonderful ideas, a beautiful confined location like the stage of a theatre production, and of course his trademark cameo and camerawork, sweeping and overhead and long-take.

★★★☆☆

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Hereditary (2018)

Obviously influenced by last year's mother!, this horror misfire establishes from its very first frame that nothing that happens - not a Donnie Darko high school fantasy nor an Evil Dead gorefest nor a United States of Tara family drama - is going to mean anything more than, say, a Madame Tussaud's display of French Revolution grotesquery or a Wes Andersen theatre model box, and indeed what plays out - a personality-free, uneven, charmless series of make-it-up-as-we-go decapitations, seances, Amityville Horror bug infestations, etc.. - is equal parts gruelling, boring, and laughable.

★☆☆☆☆

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