Bleed With Me, No One Will Save You, I Saw The Devil, The Babysitter, Cassandro

- Bleed With Me [2020] - 44

Writer/ director Amelia Moses released two films in 2020: Bleed With Me, and Bloodthirsty. The score speaks for itself here, though I didn’t dislike Bleed With Me enough to not be intrigued by her other film. Maybe I just watched the worse of the two first… we shall see. Either way, Bleed With Me is a horror that forgets other horrors exist in the same space and do the same thing but with more tact. While the film does have an interesting underlying plot, it’s delivered so bluntly and with so little meaningful development that it just ends up being entirely forgettable. While not horrendous, the film is just entirely boring despite its insistence that there’s something intriguing going on behind the scenes.

- No One Will Save You [2023] - 58

Similar to the above film, how I feel about this one is pretty apparent in its score. The story to this one is interesting… when it’s there. The creatures are a lot of fun and have a cool, classic design… though they don’t often make sense or follow any kind of logic. The subtex is great… even though the film’s schtick makes it a little annoying to be a part of. I already said a lot about this in my full review, but the short of it is, this is a fun creature-thriller if that’s your thing. If you want more, there are smarter, less annoying, and better looking movies out there.

- I Saw the Devil [2010] - 65

This week was kind of a rough one in the early stages. I Saw the Devil is a Korean action/ drama/ crime/ revenge/ gore film that garners some pretty decent genre acclaim. Overall this was a strange experience that I mostly didn’t like. While the action scenes are great [I’ll be checking out the director’s other works that focus on action], everything else was too long, too empty, and too slow. I’m all for the slow-burn thriller, but this one just dragged on and on and on, never really justifying it’s 2.5-hour runtime. This is a film punctuated by striking moments [to include the ending], but padded out with forgettable scenes, incomprehensible plot points, and boring dialogue. It’s one of those movies that sort of exists to be violent and nothing else. Pass.

- Holy Spider [2022] - 86

As most weeks go, the end is finally the good part. Holy Spider is a docu-drama about a female journalist investigating an Iranian serial killer in the early 00’s. He kills prostitutes, calling them “corrupt women”, and calls the authorities to tell them where he’s left the bodies; promising to continue cleaning up the streets. The authorities, predictably, do nothing about it. This is a great film that is intelligently written, very well shot and performed, and extremely spicy. Calling this an “easy recommend” is a little tough only because the film is pretty graphic [though not unnecessarily so as with the one above], and the outcome of things is very damming, upsetting, and difficult to see depicted. Sometimes there are things you know to be true, but seeing them spoken aloud really makes them hit differently.

- The Babysitter [2017] - 77

An earlier film by the same writer as No One Will Save You. What makes this one work is that Duffield didn’t direct, instead handing the reigns over to McG [real IMDB name credit], who’s got a stylish flair that carries the absurdity of the script. This film is a ton of fun and a super easy recommend — had I seen it sooner, it would have made the October watchlist I just made. That said, this is one of those movies that exists entirely on the knife’s edge of commitment. It’s absurd, entirely absurd, and it leans into that with onscreen text, goofy dialogue, and silly extensions of reality. However, unlike No One Will Save You, it doesn’t overcommit and turn into something that’s almost satirical of itself… often. There is a little of that, but the movie is still fun/ funny enough to let it go. All in all, The Babysitter is a great horror/ comedy with a wonderful sense of style that is well worth your time.

- Cassandro [2023] - 85

As we well know by now, I have a hard time with biopics — I just want to know the truth, not a theatric interpretation of the truth. That said, this one is very touching. Following the story of Saúl Armendáriz, an amateur luchador, we see how the bravery of a single person can touch the lives of so many others. When Saúl eschews his mask to become the exotico, “Cassandro”, and embrace more of his true self within the ring, he will change not only the traditional world of macho, slur-spewing wrestlers, but the way he views and values himself. The film cheats a little by being shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio — which always elicits a more intimate and emotional sense from stories — but the cinematography is fantastic, the performances are moving, and the wrestling scenes are surprisingly well shot. In a film like this I’d have expected those parts to feature lots of bad editing, but they’re actually handled better than most action movies. Anyway, this is great and very sweet.