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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 445719" data-attributes="member: 8">The Ladykillers (1955)[ATTACH=full]59791[/ATTACH]One of the most popular Ealing Studio classics that, most surprisingly, showed as "included with prime".  This was not the time to hesitate.It looks very pretty and also very Disney-esque, like a Jasper & Horace spin-off film (from my personal watching-chronology point of view).I can't say that I was constantly laughing out loud but the moments were there, and the plot is intriguing enough to make it a good story.The funny thing about heist/robbery films is that I usually want to see a physical payoff for their hard work and elaborate scheming so I was actually a little bit worried about the money going in unexpected directions.Another funny thing is that this made the charming Mrs. Wilberforce the villain of the piece. Knowing how it ended, well let's say there's going to be a very happy umbrella seller.It's a varied group of scoundrels: the big brute, the Colonel type, the sleek mafioso guy, Peter Sellers with rock&roll hair and <s>Alastair Sim</s> Alec Guinness as the gang's over-the-top sinister mastermind.Mrs. Wilberforce could be Mrs. Marple's cousin, the way she hangs out at the police station pestering the poor coppers with her funny stories.Anyway, good stuff!Hallow Road (2025)[ATTACH=full]59792[/ATTACH]This incredibly tense thriller makes we wonder why audio-horror hasn't become a sub-genre yet. Hallow Road basically combines two great films from 2013: Locke and In Fear, with a Halloweeny-folky twist. I will say that the journey is better than the arrival. I wouldn't call it "unsatisfying", but it's a bit of a puzzler.Mark Kermode strongly suggested to watch the end credits (annoyingly, prime is always super-eager to autoplay the next film as soon as the first end credit appears) but I'm not sure how  relevant that end credits reveal is.[ISPOILER]If the parents are also the Strange Couple, and combined with the mention of "pay the piper" and "the girls before this girl", then it seems to communicate the idea of a continuous loop purgatory à la Triangle from 2009. But even then I can't make perfect sense of it).[/ISPOILER]Ex-The Americans spy Matthew Rhys and ex-Bond girl Rosamund Pike are terrific in their minimalistic setting. The other character is not-seen but also frighteningly convincing.My verdict: don't miss it!Hokum (2026)[ATTACH=full]59793[/ATTACH]I think folk horror always requires a sense of community or a connection between the story's "spectacle" and the local traditions that play out in the present time. Hokum  is not that film, regardless of how it's labeled on IMDB.The story opens with a jumpscare, and it's a predictable one. I paused the film to give myself some time to lower my expectations.The protagonist travels to Ireland although it looks like a "coulda been anywhere" kind of Ireland. There's no fabulous airport scene, and no foreboding about being in unfamiliar territory (which usually works so well in the tourist-horror genre).He's an unpleasant character and there's nothing wrong with that but it needs to resonate one way or another. The genteel hotel staff refuses to be insulted therefore it feels as if the obnoxiousness is targeted at me. I watched it with raised eyebrows and flaring nostrils.The hotel's honeymoon suite is always locked (because, reason given by another character) so you know  that the main character needs to be in that room and meet whatever is waiting for him. Spoiler: more jumpscares.The story also includes a somewhat ineffective missing person-mystery that only serves as a plot device to investigate the inaccessible part of the hotel (it's amazing how far you'll get with a key).To be fair, a plot device doesn't need to be more than that.[ISPOILER]To me it looks like The Nun  in a hotel room, complete with tacked on guilt-ridden anguish.I'm sick and tired of traumacore and grief-porn in modern made horror films. Heaven forbid we're going to have a fun spooky story just for the heck of it.[/ISPOILER]On the upside, I found Hokum more watchable than their previous film, Oddity . Both films have found an audience and made a good profit so we probably haven't seen the last of it.</blockquote>

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