Event Horizon (1998)

To say that Event Horizon is the best Paul W.S. Anderson is the textbook definition of damning with faint praise. The film sees a bunch of astronauts investigate the titular Event Horizon spaceship which disappeared several years before. The film stars Alan Grant and Morpheus with the former turning out to be the creator of the machine that will help people go from a to z in no time at all.

The film has a great sense of atmosphere. Yes the science part doesn't make much sense in the second half of the film but for the most part the film manages to make science at least seem credible. There are clearly moments which seem to have been inspired by The Shining which isn't a smart thing to do but at least these are relatively subtle for Anderson.

Sam Neill is very good as Weir. He is the ‘expert’ and if he had just been that then I would have still liked his performance but the moment he starts to change takes the performance up a notch and becomes the physical antagonist of the film and seems to enjoying himself. Laurence Fishburne gives a typical Fishburne performance. He plays the leader type role rather well and gives what I think is an unintentionally hilarious delivery of ‘we’re leaving’ after seeing the horrific video diary. The film has other supporting actors with Joely Richardson ok as Starck, Jack Nosewrothy ok as Justin, Sean Pertwee delivering a great performance as Smith and Jason Isaacs being the best of the rest as D.J.

This film has a good two thirds but falls apart in the final third. A lot of it hasn’t dated very well but it is one of the few schlock movies that is actually quite fun to watch. It helps having the late Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne giving it their all and I think that the directing is somewhat standard which for a Paul W.S. Anderson film is still pretty good. He shows in this film that he is interested in how things come together and creating atmosphere and some impressive horrific moments unlike the latter Resident Evil movies. 

Event Horizon is the sort of film to watch and enjoy with your mates. At 96 minutes the film manages to pace things rather well and i dont think that it outstayed its welcome and the special effects have generally aged well although some have not so for a late 90’s film this should definitely be watched which shows that Anderson could actually direct.

Evil Dead Burn (2026)

If you would have said to me 10 years ago that not only would I have seen the Evil Dead films and enjoyed them, but that I would be going to see the latest film in the series (and looking forward to it), then I would have said you were mad but here we are. The great thing about these latest films is that they don't really have any connection to what’s gone before them. I did watch Evil Dead Rise the night previously but if I hadn’t then I genuinely wouldn’t have missed anything. 

Whereas Lee Cronin directed the last one, Sébastien Vaniček is sitting in the directors chair and Cronin decided to do his lighter version of an Evil Dead film in his Mummy film. The set up of the film is that Joseph and Will (George Pullar) are brothers with Will married to Alice (Souheila Yacoub) and Joseph (Hunter Doohan from Wednesday) is in a relationship with Thya (Luciane Buchanan) but when Will dies after the events of the beginning of the film which like the last film seem completely separate but are connected. Alice attends Will’s funeral and that is when things start to go wrong.

This film takes place largely inside one house which seems to have been borrowed from a James Wan film because it seems quite big and appropriately run down. I think that adds to the great atmosphere the film has because if it had been a nice new lovely decorated house then it wouldn’t have had the vibe that the film needs. It would have just come across as a generic Blumhouse film. The fact also that there is the subject of loss is something that hangs over the film and makes things feel awkward because it's clear that Alice and Will had problems so it remains a valid question as to why she stayed. 

The gore is something that is always something that I am wary of because I don't mind a little bit but I won't watch anything that has the Terrifier level of gore. This film manages to stay on the right side of what I can deal with. Don't get me wrong there is plenty in this film and its nice that its proper blood and not CGI that a lot of films tend to use these days. Using proper blood just makes it feel real and that's another way the film effectively uses atmosphere in the film.

The performances are pretty good. I think that Souheila Yacoub does a great job as the the final girl and even though they dont give her much character depth beyond being a widow with some marital issues that are at best surface level. Tandy Wright also does well as the mother having lost her son and caring for her elderly mother I found myself still sympathising with her even after she becomes infected. In the trailer it seems like Joseph is the lead for the film and maybe thats because of the Wednesday connection but his importance in the film is superseded by Alice. 

The cool moments include Thya drinking candle wax and Joseph falling onto a sea of knives and forks before being forced down onto them by Thya. The problem is that these were shown in the trailer thus making their impact lessened. There was a trailer for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil and it doesn't give anything away. There was a way of making the trailer for this film worth seeing without those two moments. There are plenty of comedic moments which mainly surround the grandmother. Even when she becomes a deadite she still has comedy timing such as when she is tied to the stairlift chair and it slowly goes downstairs and she has a shard of glass in her eye. She manages to make it to the end of the film which seems like she might pop up in future films.

There is an end title scene which sees the return of Alyssa Sutherland’s Ellie from the first film even though she met quite the clear cut ending in the previous film. She returns to kill the Funeral Director’s daughter which might seem like a dark thing to do but bearing in mind an hour earlier they killed a dog then all bets are off as far as the franchise is concerned. It does raise questions about why they did this but if there are answers in a future film then it will make more sense (potentially). 

I prefer Rise to this one. They are very different types of film with Rise being a more atmospheric one and this is a much more visceral horror film. I did think that it took slightly too long to get going but once it did then it didn’t let up. The film is 110 minutes and i think that a perfect runtime for a horror film is 90-100 minutes so this could have lost about 10-15 minutes and would have been a much snappier film. Despite that minor issue, I thought that this was a very good horror film that definitely delivers on the gore and very much looking forward to Evil Dead Wrath which is due to come out in 2027.

Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026)

This was another mystery screening at my cinema and this was one of those rare occasions that I had absolutely no idea what it could be. I knew of the film and saw the trailer months ago but I forgot it was even coming out. Part of the Traumatic Childhood Universe (cause that is a thing apparently). The story sees Geppetto make a doll to be a friend to his grandson James but when talking to his ‘Wood Mother’ Pinocchio starts killing people who have hurt James and removing body parts so he will be a real boy. That is about the extent of the plot but you don't watch these films for the plot. 

It is the kills that you watch them for an the film does well with the kills. I must confess that I did look away because whilst I dont mind a bit of gore I dont like too much and the film did go a bit too far. The dentist's death in particular was quite horrible and I looked away whilst the dentist had her teeth smashed in. 

There were things that didn’t make sense. Firstly when Pinocchio goes to the gym and sees the two teachers die. Not only did the death make me feel like I was watching a scene from Final Destination, but the deaths are never mentioned at any point during the film so it is like they never happened. Also at the end, the house is burning and we don't see the fire brigade or the police but just hear a siren so there is no real fallout from the situation. The film just ends.

To be fair to the film the puppet is rather good. Considering how poor the masks and effects were in the first Winnie the Pooh film, it's impressive how far they have come. It’s easily the most expensive thing in the entire film. Whilst the film lacks any star power (the second Winnie the Pooh film at least had Simon Callow), the film has the voice of Freddy Kruger himself Robert Englund as the voice of Cricket. 

There absolutely no way I would have gone to see this in the cinema had I had the choice. There were two walkouts which is the first time that has happened for a while and normally I would think to myself that they left too soon, I completely understood why they walked out of this because unless you were aware of the other films then you would think this was the worst thing you had seen. As I have seen the other films then I thought that this was the best film in the series although that is a very low bar to clear. The Pinocchio puppet was very good and some of the deaths were good but the acting was generally poor but these films are fun enough to get through and it is quite amusing to see a cinematic universe made out of beloved children’s characters that have been turned into horrific monsters.