Dead of Winter (2025)

I'm sure the first two encounters the widow (Emma Thompson) has with the crims in this snowbound thriller are shown out-of-order - as it is, the first encounter is redundant, and the second, in light of the first, is, on the part of the crims, idiotic - and this continuity problem hangs over the first hour, calling into doubt all of the zigzagging the players do back and forth and back and forth between a cabin in the woods and an icy lake, but eventually, the action crescendos to something that allows you to surrender your reservations, and it is nice to see these Harry Brown-style thrillers in which an older person violently takes down deserving crims.

★★★☆☆

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Carrie (2013)

The two problems with this 2013 remake of Carrie, the 1976 movie based on the Stephen King book are, one, the wildly inconsistent state of mind of the title character who one minute sobs and screams inconsolably, the next calmly employs expert conflict resolution skills in negotiations with her neurotic bible-bashing mother about how unfairly she is being treated only to immediately revert back to hysterical, incessant screaming; and two, the horror movie wants us to sympathise with Carrie and who really has sympathy for a school massacrist, bullied and telekinetic or not?

★★☆☆☆

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