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The Empty Man (2020)
Lost it's way...
From the setup of the prologue and in other subsequent scenes, and hints of the tulpa, it seemed that The Empty Man would traverse familiar grounds of a legend that gains teeth and skin. Instead, we get the supposedly creepy mystery turned existential crisis that's also been done, and better in other films. As someone mentioned, we don't really care about the girl with the bad haircut who disappears. But then we see her friend getting killed seemingly by the Empty Man apparition. I find this scene particularly annoying as it really doesn't tie in with the rest of the theme and acts as a diversion to the movie it thought it might be. As far the protagonist goes, we piece together that he lost a wife and child, blames his infidelities on this, and for whatever reason, is no longer a policeman. His backstory is so thin that you're not that invested in him. There are some good scenes in there that are creepy as mentioned in other reviews, but the payoff at the end, the longish reveal of what was really happening, wasn't satisfying. Angel Heart, The 6th Sense, and Jacob's Ladder (which I feel like the final scenes of this movie was trying to emulate) all did a better job at drawing you in and then punching you in the gut.
Cassandro (2023)
Could've been better
I give it credit for making me aware of a person in a world I knew nothing about before -- lucha libre and more specifically, exoticos. Unfortunately the most interesting character in all this is Cassandro's mother -- protective, demanding, charitable, and clingy. The love interest and that story is barely a spark, and there's nothing about the chemistry between he and the married man that makes you think, "Oh this is why they're still together" outside of maybe they're the only ones around (there was a more interesting dynamic with the Bad Bunny character, which would've been more interesting but it just seemed like they always shied away from real conflict in this script). There was never this moment in the fights that made you think, "Aha this is why they're rooting for Cassandro." They just go from chanting "F*ggot" to being on his side. It's just odd. Even toward the end when he finally talks to his father who abandoned them so long ago, there's this lack of emotional connection in the scene. It's too bad. GGB is a good actor, and it seemed like the other actors in in it were pretty solid, The premise sounded interesting as well, but in the end it all kinda fell flat.
October Faction (2020)
Another middle of the road Netflix offering
I've gotten to the point, where I think Netflix just creates shows that are just okay. It feels like they more or less lifted a lot of this from the series Grimm without his special abilities, but the premise is more or less the same: there are monsters hiding among us, but are they really evil or is it the humans? People mentioned the annoying teens. Like some of the drama would be cleared up if they just said something at the most obvious time. But yeah, one minute, these kids are hard "I don't trust anybody types" to just making anyone they meet their ride-or-die. The characters are a bit ridiculous. Not to mention the casting. The dad is clearly like pushing 60 if not beyond, and yet, they're supposed to have started doing this work like in or right out of high school, and have been doing it for 25 years. So at most maybe 45 years old, but instead we get this feeble-ish looking 60 year old. I just didn't buy it. Really, the older women - the wife/mom, the (grand)mother, the warlock seeking revenge -- is what made the series watchable. They had more interesting characters and storylines. But if you're looking for monsters-living-among us kind of stuff, I think Grimm (especially after the 1st season) would be the better option.
Insidious (2010)
The title says it all
"Insidious," has been one of the few well-made horror films that have come out in the past several years, that kind of stays with you and gets under your skin. While other reviews have noted the obvious parallels to other horror movies - Poltergeist, Paranormal Activity, etc. - it adds a rather original take on the whole genre of haunting and possession. While I liked the movie overall, I couldn't help, but feel it suffered from an issue that seems to be a common pitfall for most horror films.
I'm often surprised how nonsensical the main characters act in horror movies which make me not sympathize with them. For instance, why would Renai be fine with just hanging out at home by herself, after all the craziness of the one night, where the front door is opened, and she sees that man by her baby's crib? Josh seems to be unfazed by the bloody hand/claw print Renai finds on Dalton's bedsheets. Yeah, just normal bloody claw prints on the bedsheets, see them all the time. And after Dalton's room gets destroyed by no apparent thing, he still says to the paranormal investigators, "You guys are just taking advantage of a bad situation"? Really? But what really got me was how Josh's mother, Lorraine, kind of just only appears when they move into their second house. With all that's happened to her grandson going into a coma, you would think she'd make an appearance at some point during the first part of the movie and impart her knowledge to Renai then. I mean was she traveling in Bali the whole time? Where was she until this point? It just felt so arbitrary that you really felt she was more of a place device than a character.
Still, I appreciated the fact, that the scary moments weren't the obvious "let something jump out when the music builds up" that you get with most other movies. Interestingly, the scariest moments were never really things having to do with the demon, but the little things. Like the child facing the wall in the laundry room, while Renai is walking through the house, and she doesn't see him there. But I really liked how the movie gave us little clues as to how Josh, was not or rather more than just Josh, and it's only until the end, that we realize Elise's efforts to rid Josh of the hag had failed, and he had been possessed this whole time. And it's that "Oh sh*t moment," that's what makes it so creepy in the end, because his seeming normalcy in the face of it all undermines those other movies of what possession would look like. Instead, it's something that's stealthy, and creeping. It's insidious.