Cuckoo: Directed by Tillman Singer

After reluctantly moving to the German Alps with her father and his new family, Gretchen discovers that their new town hides sinister secrets, as she’s plagued by strange noises and frightening visions of a woman pursuing her.

Cuckoo calls you to the theater if you are willing to risk some hearing loss for a unique cinematic experience from Neon. The film is a fun time that perfectly fits into the mold of a midnight flick rather than a serious horror film. It is a unique mix of unsettling thrills and a silly premise with a very campy execution. The narrative is a bit of a mess as it lacks the substance to be regarded as a serious horror film. But I must respect writer/director Tillman Singer for trying something different, even though it fails at what it attempts to be. But with that stated it is still a fun time to watch.

Hunter Schafer makes a thrilling debut as a scream queen. She commands the screen with her strength and morbid curiosity, soaked in blood. However, the big standout performance was from Dan Stevens, one of the most underrated character actors in Hollywood, and he proved it again in Cuckoo. His performance is campy, yet intimidating. Making his performance an absolute delight to watch.

Overall, Cuckoo is a fun mess that will please most horror fans. However, if you have sensitive hearing you should wait for streaming as the sound design will leave your ears ringing for hours on end.

My Rating: B
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Infinite Summer. Directed by Miguel Llanso

On a summer break, Mia and her friends try a meditation app that’s somehow related to the operating system of the Tallinn Zoo, changing the body chemistry of its users into something between pollen and cosmic dust. Mia will need to choose between saving her friends or joining them.

Infinite Summer continues the trend of exploring nihilism and existentialism in cinema. In Infinite Summer, we follow a group of teenagers who become hooked on masks that administer aromatic drugs. While on the high, they find that these drugs are more than they bargained for. On paper, this is a fascinating concept to explore the early existential crisis. But in execution, Infinite Summer is messy and aimless.

Many plot lines are abandoned or randomly introduced. Thematically, it is vague as it doesn’t want to make any kind of statement. It wants to be high on its vibes, but it doesn’t know what kind of vibes it wants. Overall, I think that it is an interesting film that tries to make a statement, but it gets lost in its own existential crisis.

My Rating: B- ********************************************* Black Eyed Susan. Directed by Scooter McCrea

Desperate for work, Derek accepts a job replacing his recently deceased friend at a tech startup. Continuing to develop the company’s innovative project means working intimately with Susan, a bleeding-edge BDSM sex doll meant to receive and appreciate punishment as an integral part of her evolving AI. Derek will soon test the limits of his own desires and explore the nature of man and woman, pleasure and pain, and life and death in a morally uncertain future world.

Acclaimed genre director, Scooter McCrea, has finally returned to the big after over 20 years with Black Eye Susan. His return is almost like he has never left as Black Eye Susan is a fascinating film. It is a brutal deconstruction of AI and masculinity, as it explores the moral questions regarding sex robots. However, it is not a normal sex robot, but one that is meant to be abused for pleasure.

Throughout this film, we are presented with moral questions regarding the morality of purposefully building robots that are meant to be abused, as well as the consequences of someone using these robots. Director Scooter McCrea doesn’t hold back in exploring this moral question. The film is brutal with its violence and graphic with its sex. For many films, this profanity would have been too much, but for Black Eyed Susan, it works wonders as it perfectly unpacks its moral question.

As for the acting, it will either work or not work for you because of its unnatural nature. Yvonne Emilie Thalker is captivating to watch as she finds a perfect balance between humanity and artificial intelligence. Overall, Black Eyed Susan is a fascinating deconstruction of the morality of artificial intelligence and those that are made to be abused.

My Rating: B+

Sunburnt Unicorn. Directed by Nick Johnson

Lost in an endless desert, an injured teenager adopts the identity of a mythical unicorn to survive surreal encounters and rescue his father from the Cactus King.

From the opening moments, it became apparent that Nick Johnson’s Sunburnt Unicorn was trying to be an exploration of death from the point of view of a child exploring purgatory. While on his journey he comes of age and learns the power of kindness. On paper, this is not a relatively new story, but it can be told in a new light. Series such as Cartoon Networks, Over the Garden Wall (2014), tackled a similar story to so much success that it is regarded as one of the greatest animated series of all time. However, Sunburnt Unicorn lacks all the substance that made series like Over the Garden Wall great.

The narrative is woefully undercooked as it struggles to find its narrative grove. It knows the story that it wants to tell, but it is unsure how to tell it. This causes a repetitive story structure, as our main character, Frankie, repeats the same mistakes over and over again and learns nothing. It is frustrating to watch, and it makes it even more frustrating that Frankie is a childish, annoying, and selfish teenager. His character was an annoying protagonist, and when he finally learned his lesson during the final minutes, I didn’t care as I was bored by this protagonist.

The animation is relatively low budget as the character designs were simple and the landscapes were dull. However, this is a low-budget animated movie so I won’t hold it against it. The cinematography is colorful and vivid as we are swept away into this psychedelic desert. And the film soundtrack is so much better than it had any right to be. Overall, you can see the potential of Sunburnt Unicorn, but its terrible execution couldn't save it.

My Rating: C-

A father and teen daughter attend a pop concert, where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.

[image] trap

I must give some credit to M. Night Shyamalan. He has broken himself out of director jail by really pushing himself by throwing whatever concept he thinks of at the wall and seeing if it sticks. It worked for Split and missed with Old, and 2024s Trap lies somewhere in between. From the atrocious and unnatural dialogue to contrived storytelling, it contains all the worst characteristics of Shyamalan. Yet, it somewhat works with Trap as it fully embraces this bad storytelling. Which ultimately creates a campy movie that is undoubtedly a fun mess. Josh Hartnett owns the screen as this deranged serial killer stuck in a concert. The script is terrible, yet Hartnett makes it work in his own way. If it weren’t for Hartnett, this movie would have fallen flat on its face. Overall, it is a bad movie, but it is hard not to have fun with it.

My Rating: B-