Aliens with Knives (2018) - Sci-fi Horror Comedy Film Review

Aliens with Knives (co-directed by Nicole Steeves and Struan Sutherland) is a Canadian comedy sci-fi horror that features some very weird surreal humour rather than the more traditional silliness associated with comedy films. This more random style always works for me and while I never found this to be anything much more than inoffensive it did have moments of genius peppered throughout.

Dan (Bill Corkum who also co-wrote this along with Steeves and Sutherland) and his heavily pregnant wife Neila (Holly Stevens) have gone to live in the countryside until the baby is born, on the advice of Neila's doctor (Sharleen Kalayil). Before too long they find their house surrounded by alien creatures and so along with local oddball Scagnetti (Mark Palermo) must try and survive the siege until help arrives.

I found everything about Aliens with Knives to be low key. It was low on thrills, low on character development for the most part, and low on plot but rather than take this as a complaint it actually made this really easy to watch. The violence was kept to a minimum, there's no swearing, and there isn't really any horror to speak off but made this quite peaceful to have on. Aside from the many aliens there are only a handful of characters the best three being Neila, Dan and Scagnetti. The couple never seemed to have any chemistry between them, this seemed purposeful as many scenes are set up to show their division and does set up later plot twists. Both actors in the couple are great at delivering their stupid lines with the straightest of faces. Palermo is also great as the local oddball, he had such a weird role, helped by the facial expressions and mannerisms he brought to it.

The Trouble with Terkel (2010) - Animated Comedy Film Review

The Trouble with Terkel is a Danish made animated film that was directed by Thorbjorn Christoffersen and Stefen Fjeldmark. Now this shares a lot of its style of humour from Sausage Party, that was a film I could barely stand due to its focus on trying to be as offensive as possible. As such the type of humour to be found in this movie is the absolute polar opposite of what I enjoy, there wasn't a single joke here that amused me and so that could not help but make me dislike what I saw.

Terkel (Mike Olsen) is a typical teenager in what appears to be an alternate dimension in which it is normal for everyone to be foul mouthed and nasty to each other. One day he starts getting death threats from a person unknown and he starts to fear for his safety. It all comes to a head on a school camping trip organised by his teacher Mr. Balsac (Shark Firestone).

This is pretty mediocre stuff, but thankfully at least the animation is fine enough. It is nowhere as near as good as Pixar but I have seen far far worse. The animation is functional even if characters look unfinished, and they have a kind of unique look to them in that they resemble muppets in how they move. While I thought the actual script was awful the voice actors all do actually pretty good jobs, there was no one at all who I felt were bad at their lines, and it was great to see (well, hear) Chad Ridgely (Massacre on Aisle 12, 6.66 PM) as the voice of Uncle Stewart. This has English dubbed over the original language and no attempt is made to lip sync so is a lot of flapping mouths with no sound coming out. There are quite a few song and dance numbers throughout this, none of them were any good, and one rap played out in the original Danish with not even subtitles to help make sense of what was being said. The one concession was a header saying something like 'this next part will make no sense', stuff like this just added to the unpolished feel.

Mother! (2017) - Horror Film Review

I had heard good things about Mother! so despite knowing literally nothing about it I made an effort to catch one of its last performances at my local cinema. To be honest I kind of wished I hadn't bothered, this was hot trash wrapped up in an artsy bow and while it did plenty of surprising things I was more baffled and confused than being able to enjoy it.

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Mother, the younger wife to Him (Javier Bardem) who is a famous poet struggling with extreme writers block. While he spends his days attempting to write Mother spends the time renovating the family home of his that they both live in. The arrival of a strange man (Ed Harris) brings with him untold hardships and trials which threaten to bring an end to the peace and tranquillity the remote homestead used to offer.

You can say I didn't 'get' this film and maybe you are right, yet this was a tough slog to get through, several people left throughout the film and while I don't condone leaving before the end of a movie I couldn't really blame them. This is so deep in symbolism and analogy that the plot becomes extremely bare bones. What starts off simply enough with Mother horrified at the end to her and her husbands peaceful existence then becomes something that plays out like a two hour dream sequence of random nightmare events bringing hell to Mother. Along the way we see extreme violence and murder, we see hero worship, riots, executions and even get to see a newborn baby ripped apart and eaten. If you're looking for some context you will be hard pressed to find some, instead this seems like an attempt to bring famous biblical stories together in an unholy mesh of insanity. You have analogies for the garden of Eden, Jesus Christ, Cain and Able, Revelations and many more, it is all dizzying but not in an enjoyable way. Initially I emphasised with the horror Mother feels at her precious home being invaded by faceless masses, especially as her husband has no problem with all this intrusion, instead it inspires him and so he welcomes it despite Mother's pleas. I myself sometimes suffer social anxiety and so her attempts to find solitude away from the chaos was something I could relate to. Director and writer of this; Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) has stated that Lawrence represents mother nature, and from that we can infer that the home is symbolic of planet Earth.