Knives Out (2019)

Not as effective a homage to the Agatha Christie murder mystery as it is a homage to the parlour game thriller stage plays of the likes of Ira Levin and Anthony Shaffer, director Rian Johnson nods to Sleuth with his mystery novellist's mansion setting crammed full of unusual murder mystery objects (including a prominent Jolly Jack Tar figure) and Deathtrap is brought to mind watching this movie's twisting, changing thriller-, not mystery-, plot and, really, this mostly fun, mostly well-plotted movie is in fact at it worst in its messy third act and attempts at a detective dénouement - Agatha Christie was never so longwinded. 

★★★☆☆

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The Shape of Water (2017)

Director Guillermo del Toro works hard to defy genre conventions in his The Shape Of Water, a thirteen-times Oscar-nominated movie that the world went crazy for and, seriously, you are all bats**t crazy because the movie's moments of Quentin Tarantino-esque violence, Spielberg (E.T.) fantasy, cloying Amelie romance, Hidden Figures social commentary, and bad taste Peeping Tom voyeurism involving nudity, masturbation and interspecies sex are meaningless flourishes in what is, most consistently, a stultifying ham-fisted fairytale pantomime like a 'Walt Disney's Splash On Ice' that dramatically flatlines after ten minutes.

☆☆☆☆☆

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The Iceman (2012)

This account of the career of real-life crime figure Richard Kuklinski, a hitman-for-hire active in the 70s, is more concerned with the gory techniques he used for his murder-for-profit than with his psychology, and so there's little of interest beyond that very briefly generated by David Schwimmer's turn as the Iceman's killer colleague.

★★☆☆☆

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99 Homes (2014)

Set against America's foreclosure crisis, this thriller is extremely uncomfortable viewing - it starts with Dennis Nash and his mother and son being forcibly evicted from their home and then follows a desperate Dennis as he becomes embroiled in a corrupt realtor's work taking advantage of other victims of the crisis, and it is just a shame a movie about such a real and complex situation ends so patly.

★★★☆☆

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Nocturnal Animals (2016)

After 19 years apart from her first husband, an insomniac and deeply unhappy art dealer receives from him a draft novel, a devastating tale of loss she suspects conceals a sinister meaning, in this slow burn thriller with a, sadly only deceptively, arresting opening scene and first half.

★★★☆☆

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Midnight Special (2016)

Some sort of commune, the government and a mum and dad vie to get their hands on a young boy whose eyes and hands glow and who seems to have an otherworldly ability to cause destruction, in this morose scifi road chase movie stuck in low gear, that goes nowhere slowly with only glum monotone passengers.

★☆☆☆☆

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Take Shelter (2011)

In this tense but ultimately dissatisfying thriller, kind of like a movielength episode of TV's Doomsday Bunkers, a man presees disaster and despite the disbelief, concern and ridicule he experiences from all sides, not to mention the potential financial ruin he faces, he persists in constructing a stocked and comfortable underground shelter, the sort that would help at ground zero of a nuclear event.

★★★☆☆

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