Regression (2015)

Wanting on one hand to be a horror thriller full of red-eyed demon cat jump scares, rattling barn doors and Rosemary's Baby gothicism but on the other hand wanting to provide journalistic insight into satanic ritual abuse allegations (starting and finishing intertitles, scant on concrete detail, recall the embarrassing "Michelle Remembers" literary hoax of the 1980s that Oprah made into something once), this dopey movie has the "Michelle", Emma Watson acting like she's a character in a hard-hitting historical exposé of the Spotlight variety (her raised eyebrow and clenched jaw suggest she finds satanic ritual abuse about as exciting as a game of quidditch) while Ethan Hawke as the detective on her case carries on like he's still on the set of Sinister.

★☆☆☆☆

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

It is a bit hard to review the first half of a ninth instalment of a movie series when you've only ever seen number one 15 years earlier but that said, this made zero sense to me despite my nephew's constant, slightly impatient commentary (That's a mudblood! Beeecause he's a muggle! He's the real leader of Griffindor, durbrain! He just is!) and really for about an hour and a half, Harry, Hermoine and Ron walk around in circles in a woods doing nothing much at all, only occasionally encountering mumbling characters, all incoherent lest they are completely silent as in one case, some adding to the confused boredom by suddenly changing into other characters or snakes or forms I also didn't understand the significance of.

★☆☆☆☆

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