Horror Movie Talk

Synopsis

Send Help stars Rachel McAdams as a frumpy but invaluable office worker over looked for promotion by her asshole entitled boss played by Dylan Obrien

When she is invited on a sausage fest work trip, the plane crashes and she and her boss are the only survivors on a tropical island

She quickly demonstrates her survival knowledge and the power dynamic between her and her boss shifts.

Review of Send Help

Send Help has been described as a mix between Misery and Cast Away. I’ll agree with that and add that it’s also a poor man’s version of The Triangle of Sadness. Any way you compare it, this is a crowd pleaser.

Sam Raimi returns to the horror genre for the first time since Drag Me to Hell. Though this is more on the thriller side of horror, he brings out a lot of the playful and over the top blood and gore that we are used to.

Rachel McAdams largely carries the film with her charisma and screen presence. I’ll admit, she’s largely the reason for me being excited about seeing the film. Dylan O’brien is serviceable, and properly over the top in portraying an entitled asshole.

The script by Damian Shannon and Mark Shift is simple, yet plays with the audience’s expectations. It is better than I would expect from the guys that worked together before on the Baywatch Movie, Freddy Vs. Jason, and 2009’s Friday the 13th reboot. The character development feels a little undercooked, but is there enough to make their motivations understood.

This felt like a movie straight out of the 90’s/early 2000s. This brand of mid-budget thriller was a dime a dozen back then, and for some reason has fallen by the wayside. I’m hoping that this film, along with films like The Housemaid will start a resurgence in mid budget date night thrillers.

Also something I haven’t seen since the 90s/early 2000s is this quality of CGI. It wasn’t completely terrible, but is was distracting how overused it was. Many shots of the island and it’s design felt like I was looking at an obviously designed video game island (X mountains and all). Also, after seeing PRimate successfully pull of great practical effects with a monkey suit, I wondered why they didn’t use a puppet for the boar. They could have achieved the same level of boar gore, but make it less cartoony.

The film doesn’t plumb the depths of the human psyche or explore every facet of the power dynamics in a survival situation, it prefers to keep it pretty surface level in service of moving quickly with the plot. And in my opinion, it works. I had a really good time, and laughed out loud several times at the humor as well as the exploitative gore that Raimi is the expert at bringing.

Score

8/10

Synopsis

When the young couple, Sage and Diego, walk into their Airbnb or Verbo or whatever, I dont really know, they can’t believe how beautiful it is. For the low, low price of I dont know, a million dollars, they get to stay in this amazing lakefront mansion for the weekend. But trouble is afoot. A second couple, Will and Cin, arrive, claiming they have also booked the property for the weekend. Instead of leaving and demanding a refund from the host as any normal person would, they decided to share the large house for the next few days. But things become more turbulent as Will and Cin show their wild side, and are increasingly inappropriate with Sage and Diego. Your social anxiety might try to tell you that they are just quirky and weird, but there may be more beneath the surface.

Review of Bone Lake

When Bone Lake came out in theaters, I was excited to watch it, but due to conflicting schedules and its limited release, we were unable to review it at that point. This was disappointing because I had heard it was really scary (mainly from my wife, who saw the trailer and said it creeped her out, which is usually a good sign for me). So when I saw it was streaming on netflix I immediately texted Bryce and told him we were reviewing it this week. Oh, how I wish I could turn back time. This movie is pretty boring and has been done before (and better). The whole time I kept thinking “they already did this with Speak no Evil, a movie which did so well that it was immediately remade with an American cast”. Bone lake does the same thing with a worse script and less tension. Thats not to say anything about Bone Lake is particularly bad. It’s fine. But the main stressor throughout the film is “Will these characters sleep with each other,” and that’s just kind of lame (unless you are super horned up). But even then its kind of a letdown. We’ve all had that one friend who makes the social situation a little more sexual than it needs to be, and while that is uncomfortable, it’s not scary. I’ll give it points for having some sort of funny, dark comedy kills in the beginning. But mostly I was waiting for it to be over.

Score 4/10

Synopsis

The Bone Temple, in addition to what I call my bedroom is the latest installment in the 28 days later franchise. It picks up almost directly after 28 Years Later leaves off. Spike (Alfie Williams) is forced to prove himself to join the Jimmies, a sadistic cult fashioned after the media personality Jimmy Savile, led by the leader Jimmy Crystal. Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) furthers his research into the rage virus and befriends Samson, the Alpha.

Review of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I found 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple enjoyable, but not particularly meaty compared to it’s predecessor. The humanity and reverence for death found in the last film are spare in this film, which mostly focuses on the chaos brought on by the jimmies, and Dr Kelson’s descent into hopelessness.

The Script by Alex Garland, is high quality, but unfortunately just feels like a retread of similar story lines in The Walking Dead.

Nia DaCosta’s Direction is respectful towards Danny Boyle’s style established in the previous films in the series, while showing her own style with stylistic flair. 

The standouts in the film are Jack O’connel, who played Sir Jimmy Crystal, and of course Ralph Fienes as Dr Kelson.

O’Connell balances the two sides of portraying a cult leader well. Maintaining a believable facade of delusion and inspiration, while also showing the con-man manipulator that lurks behind the curtains. O’connell takes the great dialogue and makes it come alive through his performance, and is as enjoyable to watch in this as he was in Sinners.

Ralph Fienes gets to play around a little more in this film. Instead of the stolid and enigmatic character from the last film, we get to see his humanity, practicality, and loneliness filled out and explored in this film. The best part of the film features him getting to display his own theatrics to the Jimmies, which left me laughing out loud.

If you didn’t like 28 Years Later because of the lack of zombies, you will be disappointed here as well, they play almost no part in this film with the exception of the tranquilized Samson.

Overall it was highly enjoyable, although slightly less so than the last film

Score

8/10

Synopsis

Primate is about a college student named Lucy who comes home to her family house in Hawiia, along with a few of her friends. But this is no ordinary house, for it is home to humans and apes alike. Lucy’s father owns a pet/member of the family named Ben who is a fully grown chimpanzee. Im sure without explaining anymore you can already tell where this is going. When her father leaves for an important book signing, Lucy and her friends are left alone as Ben starts to act weirder and weirder, showing signs of rabies. By the time her father comes home, their fate may already be sealed. 

Review of Primate

The set up for Primate is very basic and has been done time and time again using various animals. If you’ll recall movies like the Shallows, or Crawl, then you know all about Primate. But what separates this movie from the others is the many different ways chimpanzees can kill you. With a shark, you basically got one move. They bite. Chimps on the other hand bite, beat, rip and tear, and you can be sure to see all of that here. And it is every bit as horrifying as you can imagine. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie I was fully bought in, and honestly felt extremely tense throughout the entire film. Chimps are terrifying, but they also fit in this weird slot of uncanny valley where they can also be extremely cute and hilarious. I don’t think seeing a chimpanzee on screen with ever cease to amaze me, and I am totally here for it if they want to make a Primate 2 and 3. This movie had me genuinely scared. That being said, it is also super predictable. Its a paint by numbers movie where the main color is blood red. Which is fun, but not super thought provoking. 

Score 7/10

2025 Golden Talk Awards

Listen to the episode for our top five and bottom five horror movies we reviewed this year as well as the top and bottom five new horror movie new releases.