Skip to main content

The Djinn (contains spoilers)

This one isn't terrible or anything, but it was disappointing because I expected more. For one thing, why trot out the same medieval European woodcuts as in so many other horror movies? Djinns aren't even from Europe originally, so it would've been nice to see a different origin for a change. I liked the conceit of the djinn appearing as dead people but being itself in mirrors -- much better than showing its true form all the time. There's not much buildup of tension overall. The apparitions come one after the other with a break in between so it feels more like A Christmas Carol than building up to a showdown. The monkey's-paw catch at the ending works well, and the acting is good, especially with a child actor carrying the whole movie. Honestly I've not yet seen good djinn horror (shoutout to how bad Wishmaster is!).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The new Frankenstein (with spoilers)

This was... fine. Not worth the length for me. The costumes and scenery are lavish and beautiful as you'd expect from Guillermo del Toro, but much of the added backstory felt trite and predictable to me (the forbidden love interest, the mysterious benefactor, etc.). Interestingly, one of the parts that works best is one of the few parts actually closer to the book, where the monster is at the farm. What the movie also lacks is the moral complexity of Shelley's monster. Here, the monster is violent but always in self-defense or with some mitigating factor, whereas the monster in the book does straight-up evil things but eloquently justifies them with his own suffering (a little like Candyman). Would love to see a Frankenstein movie close to the book!

My Secret Santa (contains spoilers, I guess)

There are so few holiday romcoms I can take seriously this year, so I'm having to delve into the Netflix ones and hope I don't accidentally get one of their Hallmark imitations. Of course, sometimes one can be so hilariously bad it's fun to watch, like Hot Frosty last year. But anyway, My Secret Santa was fun to watch in a silly way. I was mostly in it for laughing-at once I heard that the female lead is not only disguised as Santa, but hardcore disguised with facial prosthetics, etc. Well, it's as silly as it seems but has its own little internal logic so you kind of get what you bargained for and it was in a way not as bad as I thought. I was a little put off by the male love interest being like in his 40s and never having had a job. But nothing giving a speech in front of a big Christmas tree can't fix, I guess.