Movie Review The Good Nurse

The Good Nurse (2022) 

Directed by Tobias Lindstrom 

Written by Krysty Wilson Cairns 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne 

Release Date October 19th, 2022 

Published October 16th, 2022

The Good Nurse is a brilliantly moody and thoughtful dramatic mystery. With Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne at the height of their acting powers, and director Tobias Lindstrom smartly giving them space to find and inhabit these characters, The Good Nurse engulfs you in its story. Why is it so rare for a modern mystery to let their characters be smart? The Good Nurse does a wonderful job of letting these characters be properly intuitive and not duped simply because the plot requires them to be. 

The Good Nurse tells the story of a nurse who was followed by death wherever he went. Charlie (Eddie Redmayne) has worked for 9 different hospitals in his relatively short career. Why? He claims it has to do with an ex-wife who moves a lot and his effort to stay near his children. He's not a charmer per se, but a seemingly kind and simple man, helpful and thoughtful. That's certainly the experience of him that Amy Loughran (Jessica Chainstain) has had as his co-worker. 

Amy is a struggling single mother suffering from a heart condition. She needs to remain employed at this hospital for a year before she can get health insurance which will allow here to get the kind of care she needs. Until then, she's risking her life just to work. When she's given Charlie as her new co-worker on the late shift, he's a god send. He helps cover up her physical problems and having a lesser burden at work makes Amy's life at home a little easier. 

Charlie and Amy aren't romantic, they have a platonic relationship even as Charlie becomes enmeshed with her family, hanging out with her and her two young daughters. It appears that Amy will be able to get by the final months until her health insurance benefits kick in and Charlie appears to be a wonderful influence on her daughters. She has no reason to believe anything is wrong with Charlie but there are things happening at the hospital that are unusual. 

Since Charlie started, there has been an uptick in unexpected deaths, even among patients who should have been able to recover. One such death requires the Police to be called. Detectives Baldwin (Namdi Asomugha) and Braun (Noah Emmerich), are smart and observant detectives. When they find the hospital stonewalling them, the red flags become clear and they use good old fashion instinct and determination to uncover why this case is so very strange. 

While Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne are doing incredible work as the two leads, I want to shout out former NFL star Namdi Asomugha and veteran character actor Noah Emmerich. The two have terrific chemistry and detective partners and the smart script by Krysty Wilson Cairns, never betrays the detectives for the sake of creating forced tension or mystery. So many similar movies have characters like these be ignorant in order to force the attention on the main character. Here, the detectives are given believable roadblocks and have to work around them with their wits and intelligence. This is communicated in smartly constructed scenes. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Classic Movie Review Halloween (1978)

Halloween (1978) 

Directed by John Carpenter 

Written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance 

Release Date October 25th, 1978 

Halloween Franchise 

Is it possible that horror fans just like the musical score for Halloween 1978 and tolerate the movie that goes with it? I realize that this is a great offense to fans of the Halloween franchise but I just don't get the appeal of John Carpenter's original Halloween. The film is remarkably dull by the standards of the great horror movies I have seen in my now more than 20 years as a film critic. Halloween is outright boring aside from that remarkable score which is incredible at creating the tension that the characters and the slack scenes fail to establish. 

Halloween 1978 centers on Michael Myers who, as a child, murdered his sister in cold blood. Taken into a mental institution, Michael was locked away until the age of 21 under the treatment of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance). In treating Michael, Dr. Loomis has come to see his patient as the closest thing to pure evil he's ever witnessed. Dr. Loomis has dedicated his career to making sure Michael Myers never gets out of custody. Unfortunately, on the night that Loomis is set to take Michael to an even more secure facility for rest of his natural life, Loomis finds that Michael has escaped. 

Driven by an unspecified motivation, Michael returns to Haddonfield, Illinois, his childhood hometown. There he sets his sights on several people he wants to kill. Among the likely victims is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), a teenager with plans to babysit on this Halloween night. Halloween is when Michael killed his sister and it is this night that he hopes to return to killing. Another potential victim that catches Michael's eye is young Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews), who happens to be the child that Laurie will be babysitting that night. 

It's quite a coincidence that Michael follows first Laurie and then Tommy as he would have no idea that Laurie is Tommy's babysitter but we are supposed to forget about such things. We are also supposed to not care that someone must have taken the time to teach the most dangerous inmate in a mental institution how to drive a car with such care that he can stealthily follow not one but two different, seemingly unrelated children. Halloween fans want us to pretend these inconsistencies don't exist but the movie does little to hide its own flaws. 

The other thing we are asked to ignore is how silly Michael Myers looks each time we see him. My favorite is a moment where Michael is stalking Laurie as she walks home from school. Laurie looks over her shoulder and sees Michael's hulking masked figure standing still and staring at her. She turns away and he's gone. Laurie's friend goes to see who might be messing with her friend and when she arrives at the hedgerow that Michael would seem to be hiding behind, he's gone. The clear indication here, aside from unspecified supernatural powers, is that Michael Myers, the cheeky prankster that he is, appeared in front of Laurie and then quickly ran away so as not to be caught. 

The mental image of a hulking mental patient in a Halloween mask running to hide from a pair of teenagers is hilarious. But then, ask yourself this, why? Why is Michael toying with Laurie? What does a mental patient get out of hiding in the hedges or hiding in Laurie's backyard or appearing to her outside her school? What does this have to do with anything Michael Myers has planned? I'm told that his lack of motivation is part of what makes Michael Myers so scary but then why is the rest of the franchise so dedicated to giving Michael a motivation? 

Halloween fans have hand-waved all of these weird inconsistencies for years. Things like why Michael stole his sister's headstone from her grave only to set it up in a random house where he has elaborately stored several of the bodies of various victims unrelated to his original murder? Nowhere during the original Halloween is it mentioned that Laurie and Michael are secret siblings, that's a retcon from Halloween 2. The fact that we ever found out that Laurie is Michael's sister reveals the cynicism of this franchise continuing beyond the ragingly mediocre original. 

The film was successful and marketers, seeing success, capitalized with a sequel. Fans of the aesthetic of Michael Myers, and John Carpenter's first rate score then dedicated themselves to lore building for the franchise to justify their enjoyment of such a nakedly commercial franchise. It's the calculated, capitalistic cynicism that bothers me about Halloween. John Carpenter made one of his most mediocre movies in 1978 and was roped to that movie by its unlikely success. 

Find my full length review of Halloween 1978 at Horror.Media

Classic Movie Review Halloween 2

Halloween 2 (1981) 

Directed by Rick Rosenthal 

Written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Dick Warlock 

Release Date October 30th, 1981 

Published October 13th, 2022 

So, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) are siblings. So now what? Apparently, the answer to so now what was let's do what we did the first time to ever diminishing returns. Halloween 2 is set on the same night as the original, October 31st, 1978. Michael Myers has been shot by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), but has managed to escape. Laurie is hurt and deeply traumatized. She's taken to a hospital where they plan to treat her cuts and bruises and give her a good night's sleep with some good drugs. 

Unfortunately for everyone at the hospital, Michael Myers is not one to give up. Even with several bullet wounds, he plans on finding his heretofore unknown sister and killing her for some nebulous reason. But, before he can get to her, he needs to mess about killing randos. this means finding a couple having sex in the hospital therapy tub, ewwwwwww, and nearly melting their skin off before knifing them but good. Yes, sure, death to those who have sex in therapy pools, but this seems like an unnecessary detour for Michael Myers. 

If the end goal is killing Laurie Strode then why is Michael constantly achieving side quests like he's playing GTA? When he gets to the hospital Michael takes the time to sabotage every vehicle in the parking lot. And, in case someone tries to call the authorities whose bullets can't stop him, Michael rips out the phone line. Then he wastes time searching for Laurie Strode by murdering random hospital employees and posing them for best horror effect. This is a Michael Myers trope that always boggles my mind, why does Myers feel the need to pose his victims? 

When you think about it, for a guys whose aesthetic is stoic, stalking, methodical maniac, Michael is rather flamboyant in how he poses his kills. For instance, he murders a nurse by having all of her blood drain out of her in a perfect pool while she sleeps the sleep of death. He stabs another doctor in the eye with a needle and leaves him perfectly posed with the needle in his eye for best horror effect. If you want to have fun, just imagine the effort and time it must take Michael to take and crumple the bodies of victims he doesn't pose into the various hiding places he pushes them into. 

Click here for my full length review of Halloween 2 at Horror.Media. 

Movie Review Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

Halloween 3 Season of the Witch (1982) 

Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill 

Starring Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy 

Release Date October 22nd, 1982 

Published October 14th, 2022 

A Halloween movie without Michael Myers was long the vision of creator John Carpenter. For Carpenter, Michael's story ended in Halloween 2 with a massive ball of fire. So convinced of the death of his creation was Carpenter that he reconceived the entire Halloween franchise to eliminate Michael Myers. But, typical of the character, he could not be killed, only briefly detained. Michael Myers may be limited to a stock footage cameo in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, but the lack of Michael looms over the whole enterprise. 

Actor Tom Atkins takes up the starring role in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch as drunken doctor, Dr. Dan Chellis. Dan has a bit of a drinking problem and a whole lot of ex-wife problems. Michael, late as usual for a visit with his son and daughter, only to find that his gift of Halloween masks was too little too late. Mom, fearing Dad would forget about his kids at Halloween, took the initiative to buy the hottest Halloween costume of the season, the all new Silver Shamrock series of masks featuring Pumpkins, Witches, and Skeletons. 

After getting paged back to the hospital for some drunken doctoring, Dr. Chellis is accosted by a nearly comatose patient. The patient, thought to be dying wakes up after hearing the Silver Shamrock jingle that plays at various intervals at extraordinary volume, on a nearby television. The patient warns Chellis that the bad guys are coming but he dies before he can elaborate further on the matter. The man's death came at the hands of a cold blooded and powerful assassin. Catching a glimpse of the killer, Dr. Chellis is forced to watch as the murderer douses himself in gasoline, killing himself in a subsequent explosion. 

Following the twin tragedies of the death of his patient and the seeming suicide of his patient's killer, Dr. Chellis needs a drink. He retires for the night to a nearby bar where he is met by Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin). Ellie has come to identify her father and she wants answers as to how and why he was killed. She believes that the answer has something to do with the shady company behind the season's most popular Halloween masks, the aforementioned Silver Shamrock. 

From there we are treated to a bizarre and not particularly scary series of events in a company town run by a former joke factory. Dan O'Herlihy plays Conal Cochrane, the man behind the masks of the season and a man dangerous enough to build killer robots in order to protect his plan to kill America's child population with his new line of bestselling masks. And, boy, is this a silly premise for a horror movie. What was anyone who participated in making Halloween 3 Season of the Witch even thinking? 

It's clear that someone, be it John Carpenter, Debra Hill, or director Tommy Lee Wallace were watching far too many Twilight Zone episodes but failing to recall what made The Twilight Zone any good. The Twilight Zone was clever and compact. In a mere 30 minutes, Rod Serling could develop characters we care about give them a strange and intriguing plot for us to puzzle about and get out before the premise ever loses steam. The makers of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch have no such luxury. 

Find my full length review of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch at Horror.Media.

Movie Review Halloween Ends

Halloween Ends (2022) 

Directed by David Gordon Green 

Written by Paul Brad Logan, Danny McBride, Chris Bernier, David Gordon Green 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney 

Release Date October 14th, 2022 

Published October 14th, 2022 

It's called Halloween Ends and I do believe Jamie Lee Curtis when she says this is the last one for her. That said, if Halloween Ends makes money, it won't be long before The Shape, Michael Myers, is haunting theaters again. That reason based cynicism has colored my viewing experience of every Halloween movie. No matter how illogical or unnecessary, the owners of the Halloween Intellectual Property will try and wring more cash out of it. Try as they might to make Halloween Ends appear like an endeavor that isn't merely about cash, the makers of Halloween Ends fail as every Halloween movie fails to escape the cynical calculations of Hollywood branding and marketing. 

Halloween Ends picks up four years after the last time that Michael Myers ran amok in Haddonfield, Illinois. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is now living with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). Though she remains alert, Laurie has grown comfortable with Michael having been gone for so long. Now, Laurie is working on her memoirs while patiently waiting for the day Michael may return to her life. That she isn't constantly paranoid is a testament to her toughness. 

Meanwhile, in a bizarre and unnecessary other movie, Rohan Campbell plays Corey Cunningham. Corey is a teenage babysitter who, while watching the child of a rich couple, accidentally kills the child. Labelled as a child killer, even though the kid's death was an accident, Corey is blamed by many and he's become a loner and an outcast, preferring to stay home under the watchful eyes of his parents. When Corey does go out he's harassed by teenagers until Laurie rescues him. Because he's a main character, Laurie takes him to meet her granddaughter and the two form a romance. 

Unfortunately, Corey's haunted past keeps getting in his way until he finally snaps. On the run from his tormentors, Corey stumbles over Michael Myers near death and living in the sewer. For reasons that only the FOUR screenwriters might understand, Michael doesn't kill Corey. Instead, the two briefly become partners in killing. Corey begins luring victims to Michael and then they graduate to Corey and Michael as a killing duo. All the while, Allyson is fooled and charmed by Corey into thinking he's just a haunted bad boy and not a murderous psychopath. 

The addition of the character of Corey is an attempt to refresh the franchise one last time but it doesn't work. Rohan Campbell's whiny performance only leaves you to wonder why a character like Allyson would be attracted to this guy. Corey doesn't drive the plot, the plot pushes him along, uses him as a device and discards him when they are ready to move back to Michael as the main villain. Any time spent with the character of Corey feels like a gigantic waste of time. Instead of refreshing the franchise, the character seems to trip the movie, stall its progress and test our patience. 

Find my full length review of Halloween Ends at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Hellraiser

Hellraiser (2022) 

Directed by David Bruckner 

Written by Ben Collins, Luke Piotrowski 

Starring Odessa A'zion, Jamie Clayton, Brandon Flynn, Goran Visnjic 

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Streaming on Hulu 

Following the twin successes of Prey and Hellraiser I want Hulu to take over all of the 80s horror genre. Prey, a prequel to the Predator franchise was a badass action-sci-fi movie with incredible fight scenes and tremendous effects underlined by perfect casting and excellent performances. Now comes Hellraiser, an equally well accomplished reimagining of a franchise that has inconceivably become a pop culture touchstone. I am no fan of the previous Hellraiser movies but I am a fan of this Hellraiser movie. 

Hellraiser 2022 stars Odessa A'zion as Riley, a recovering addict. Riley lives with her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn), but their relationship is strained. It's clear in just a minimum of dialogue that Matt is concerned about his sister relapsing after being sober for 6 months. His concerns stems from Riley's new relationship with a fellow former addict, Trevor (Drew Starkey). Matt's concerns turn out to be valid as Trevor leads Riley back into her addiction and draws her into a criminal effort to get money to feed that addiction. 

This criminal act involves robbing a seemingly unguarded safe hidden in a shipping container. Inside the safe is something Trevor claims they can sell for a lot of money. The item in the safe is an ancient and ornate puzzle box. When Riley examines it, a sharp knife pops out and cuts her. Her blood is taken inside the box and soon Riley is visited by ancient beings known as Cenobites and here is were Hellraiser really gets good. The costumes and practical effects used to bring to life the horrors of the Cenobites is absolutely spectacular as is the mayhem that ensues from their appearance. 

How the puzzle box came to Trevor and by extension to Riley, is part of a conspiracy involving a billionaire named Roland Voight (Goran Visjnic), but to say more would be too much of a spoiler. It's pretty easy to predict part of that plot but there is plenty of fun unexpected thrills that I don't want to ruin for you. Surprisingly, I am here to recommend Hellraiser (2022) and not to bury it. Admittedly, I went into Hellraiser (2022) expecting to be annoyed and disappointed. That's how I have felt about every other piece of Hellraiser media I have experienced. 

Much credit must go to director David Bruckner. Known for his brilliantly moody horror mystery, The Night House, Bruckner brings his talent for atmosphere and creeping dread to a franchise that had relied only on shock and gore for what little thrills it had elicited. Bruckner establishes a discomfort in the air from the opening moments of Hellraiser and deepens that discomfort into dread and horror as the movie spins toward an exciting conclusion. 

The stand out element of Hellraiser are still the Cenobites, led by the legendary form of Pinhead. Well, Pinhead has always been what fans have called the character. The actual name of the character in this Hellraiser is The Hell Priest, great name, way better than Pinhead. The Hell Priest has the look of David Bradley's Hellraiser character, the original Pinhead if you will, but here is played with eerie cold cool by Jamie Clayton. 

Clayton is a standout choice as her performance is an immediate upgrade over the past Hellraiser movies. Nothing against David Bradley, he did the best he could with an underwritten, under-developed role, that was more about his iconic image than performance, but Clayton with just a few lines of dialogue and improved functionality in her costume, mimicking the original and improving upon it, improves the whole idea. Clayton has a striking presence and a well stated purpose behind her villainy. 

Click here for my full length review of Hellraiser 2022

Movie Review Hocus Pocus 2

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 

Directed by Anne Fletcher 

Written by Jen D'Angelo 

Starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimi, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Richardson

Release Date September 30th, 2022 

Disney Plus Sequel to Hocus Pocus 

The cult of The Sanderson Sisters is far more vast and wide than I ever would have imagined. For me, 1993's Hocus Pocus was a completely forgettable experience. It wasn't that the movie was bad, it merely wasn't for me. Watching it again as I got older I was never very impressed by the over top acting of Midler, Najimi and Parker or the wooden blocks posing as human supporting characters. The story was rather mundane, family friendly Disney stuff that to this day holds no interest for me. 

What shocks me however is the impact the film had on so many women, my age and younger. Something about the high camp aesthetic reached an audience that immediately become loyal and dedicated to the preservation of Hocus Pocus in popular culture. The cult of The Sanderson Sisters has grown over the past 29 years to such a degree that the fans have willed a sequel into existence nearly three decades later. It's a sequel that is just as camp and formulaic as the original but perhaps a little more energetic thanks to a supporting cast that can actually keep up with Midler, Najimi and Parker. 

Returning to Salem at Halloween The Sanderson Sisters are still the talk of the town. The legend of the Sanderson Sisters has become something of a tourist attraction thanks in part to the work of Gilbert (Sam Richardson), who has taken over the former cabin of the Sanderson Sisters and turned it into a magic shop. He also happens to be in possession of Book, the enchanted spell book that made the Sisters into a powerful witches coven. The book is under lock and key but, secretly Gilbert has plans to let the book free. He wants to bring the Sanderson Sisters back, unaware that the legends about them eating children and generally being evil are true. 

His plan is coming to fruition on this Halloween night because a teenager named Becca (Whitney Peak) is about to turn 16 and with her dalliance with magic as part of a trio of witch loving friends including lovable Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) and Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), Gilbert believes she is the key to raising the Sandersons. As a birthday gift, Gilbert gives Becca a black flame candle. What she doesn't know is that this is the same black flame candle, returned to life by Gilbert, that brought the Sanders son sisters back to life nearly 30 years ago. 

The improvements over the original Hocus Pocus are many, as far as I am concerned. It starts with the look of the film. Hocus Pocus 2 is filled with crisp bright colors even as it remains loyal to a classically fall color palette. The costumes pop, the locations are lovely and the detail on the production design demonstrates the higher budget that clearly has been dedicated for this sequel. That budget in part coming from product placement for Walgreens that, though it is immensely tacky, it does get used for several quite good gags and an important plot device. If you're going to do such naked advertising in your movie, at least make it appear necessary. Hocus Pocus 2 does that at least. 

Click here for my full length review of Hocus Pocus 2 at Geeks.Media.