Saltburn (2023)

We've seen this psychological thriller before, and in much, much better movies, but to cite the obvious inspiration constitutes a spoiler, so I'll just say, and leave you to guess, this is about a college misfit who gets noticed by a cool kid and ends up stepping up over Summer break into this hip cat's lifestyle of the rich and famous, with suspense ratcheting up as holiday's end nears and our misfit starts to feel his grip on this world and his new best-buddy friendship slip, but it is hard to engage when the story here is delivered not in the light of an Italian coastlime surrounded by European art and architecture but in a cartoony Dark Shadows colour palette, with only deeply repugnant characters, all bored - a laugh-free Addams Family - and with a crescendo of dismaying gothic flourishes that hardly seduce.

★☆☆☆☆

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Curse of Chucky (2013)

Satisfying elements of mystery keep you watching this umpteenth episode of the serial killer doll franchise which, taking place in a gothic mansion where a wheelchair-bound woman mourns her mother's death, recalls the classic "lunatic on the loose outside a disabled woman's stronghold" movies of the The Cat And The Canary and The Spiral Staircase variety, at least until the is-this-really-happening, laughable Tommy Wisseau "The Room" reveal-all in flashback.

★★★☆☆

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