The Purge (2013)

The funny thing about The Purge, this original movie that gave rise to a series of sequels and a two-season tv series, is that the elaborate concept - that the US Government holds an annual event called "The Purge" in which a twelve-hour moratorium is placed upon all crimes (including the crime of hacking your neighbours to pieces) - has no great bearing on what is essentially a messy, repetitive b-grade home invasion thriller - like being told that in the world beyond the brownstone in David Fincher's Panic Room or outside the house in Haneke's Funny Games there is a politics.

★★☆☆☆

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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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Sinister (2012)

Desperate to repeat his past success, a true crime writer (Ethan Hawke) moves his wife and children into the home of a murdered family and starts documenting what he thinks is their unsolved serial killer case, going cuckoo in the process like Jack in The Shining but not only because he is exposed to the ghastly details of the crimes but also because just as much as viewers he must lament where this solid thriller set-up starts clumsily heading about halfway through.

★★☆☆☆

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