The Dead Don't Die (2019)

The Dead Don’t Die is a strange film. Sometimes strange films can be good and sometimes they can be bad. In the Walking Dead era, interest in Zombies and the undead have increased. Not knowing much about this film, I was intrigued largely in part by the cast. This film has a great cast. I cant remember the last time a film that wasn’t a Marvel film had such a good line up. Sadly the cast is the best part of the film.

Bill Murray is great as Cliff, I don’t think that he was acting really as it seemed like he was being himself but was still great. Adam Driver had his moments as Ronnie and his delivery was one of the highlights. The reaction for most people is fairly non-existent. Driver in particular acts like he’s taking about a normal crime instead of the dead walking around. Chloe Sevigny was ok as Mindy Morrison. The character was fairly poor in terms of realisation and Sevigny did the best she could with what she was given but her problems were summed up by the fact that she decides to sacrifice herself because a relative is up and about.

There were a couple of moments where they broke the fourth wall and said that the music being on the radio was the theme song and that Ronnie was given the script and I don’t know what to make of this. Normally this would be funny but to be honest the film was so strange that it the jokes didn’t land. Tilda Swinton was the female human version of Shrek. She does a rather OTT Scottish accent and then out of nowhere is revealed to be an alien.

Aside from the cast, the way its filmed is worthy of comment. It looks really nice and would fit in easily with the Walking Dead. I was never bored at any time through the film because even the strangeness was a bit confusing at time, the cast did enough to maintain my interest and the Bill Murray/Adam Driver double act is entertaining. As I said at the beginning, this is a strange film but not in a good way. If this film didn’t have such a great cast then I would have rated this 5 out of 10 but purely based on who is in it, I think that it deserves a 6.

IT: Chapter Two (2019)

IT Chapter 2 takes place 27 years after the events of the first movie. This doesn’t mean like I thought that it would just feature the losers as adults but there would be a mixture of the two. It’s a strange start to the film because within 10 minutes we have had a homophobic attack and a domestic violence attack. 

There are problems with this film and its largely narrative. Its 35 minutes longer than chapter one and yet there is very little reason for it. Overall these films run to 5 hours and 4 minutes which is about two hours longer than the 1990 version. Ok the 1990 is meant to be terrible (minus Tim Curry) but we spend five hours doing what could have been done in three. We have to spend an age seeing the losers as adults and they all react differently. It felt at times like they were padding things out to hold off the final act for as long as possible. There are a couple of moments where someone wants to leave and gets talked out of it.

It really doesn’t get going until they arrive at the chinese restaurant. Then what happens from that moment are a series of moments which are done well but then there is a gag that undermines it a little bit. Its first noticeable in the restaurant and then happens a few times. I’m not sure whether they felt it needed a bit of humour but I found it distracting. Also there a moment where young Eddie is covered in black goo and play Angel in the Morning for no reason. There are also a couple of moments which caused laughter in the screening I was in and I cant say that I was surprised or bothered. It was hard to take them seriously at times.

There are good things and they are largely the cast. I thought that all the people in this are on top for and I believe they are the same character that they were in the first film. I’m not the biggest James McAvoy fan and yet actually found him to be quite good. Jessica Chastain was equally as good as the grown up the Beverly. However everyone is overshadowed by Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. I thought that he was really good in the first one and is equally as good in this one. Some people have commented that when he is out in daylight then he loses his menace but I disagree. I thought that every time that he was on screen he was scary and chilling.

The jump scares were quite good. The one scare with the giant statue man with the axe did make pretty much everyone in the screening I was in jump (including myself). Normally they are quite forgettable two seconds after they appear, but on this occasion they are well done. Also the fact that they have managed to degage the younger cast was done quite well. For a while I thought they must have filmed it during the first one but then I thought they can make people look younger like they did in the Avengers film and most of the time the de-aging effect is well done. There are a few moments where its quite obvious but overall its done well.

I don’t think that Chapter 2 is as good as the first. But its not terrible and bearing in mind I was worried that this film was going to disappoint me, thankfully it didn’t and that was a relief. 

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Annabelle Comes home is the third Annabelle film and the seventh in the Conjuring Series. I refuse to use the word universe. I haven’t seen many films in this series, I saw The Nun (sadly) and I saw the previous Annabelle film which I quite liked but that’s about it. This film picks up after the first Conjuring film and sees Ed and Lorraine bring the doll back to their house. No sooner have they arrived then they disappear. I would sort of call it a cameo.

The idea that the film largely takes place in the house is a good one and one that is used quite effectively. Also the relatively small cast works quite well. There is enough rooms in the house to be able to move the action. There are also a couple of goods shots. First one is when Judy is looking under the chair and the camera then moves up and does a 180. Another one is when Mary Ellen is running into Judy’s room and it’s an ariel shot and follows along It’s a four hander and that means that they get a decent amount of screentime.

One of the things that the film does quite well is it doesn’t resort to the jump scare. There are a couple of faux scares but as the film enters the final act, it gives up on that and there are several jump scares which are lazy. It is as if they thought they would have to stick some jump scares or people would complain. The other thing that slightly bothers me is that they are clearly trying to create monsters that could make good money grabbing films. I can see some of the ghosts being part of the Conjuring series and a small part of me would be interested to see how they crowbar them into stories and try and make the timeline of all these characters make sense.

Daniela is the most annoying character that I have seen in quite sometime. She invites herself over to the Warren’s house and then proceeds to be very nosy and touch everything in the evil room. Everything she does bugs me. She is the one that gets the doll out of the blessed case and so everything is pretty much her fault. Also I found Bob to be just as irritating. There is a romance thing going on between him and Mary Ellen and it never really goes anywhere.

Annabelle Comes Home is not a scary movie. There are some good moments but ultimately it does do what it should do. There have been much worse horror films and it wont be until I have seen the other films in the series before I can properly judge this film but on its own merits, this film is average