Spooky season is here so time to bust out the horror films and rejoice in the scares to come! As always you all know that we do a horror month here at The Nerd Corps every October. Brad won the coin toss so this week we start this themed month with Jordan Peele’s Us. This is Brad’s first time watching this film and Raul’s second time. Listen to find out what both of them thought about the film!
IMDb Synopsis: “A family’s serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them.”
It is time for another Saturday Morning Review and these nerds are ready to talk some horror today! Raul and Brad discuss the newest film from Nia DaCosta, Candyman. Candyman is the sequel to the original film of the same name from the 90’s and we talk all about it! How did this live up to the hype? Listen and find out all about what the nerds thought about it on this episode!
IMDb Synopsis: “A sequel to the horror film Candyman (1992) that returns to the now-gentrified Chicago neighborhood where the legend began.”
The nerds are joined for another Saturday Morning Review as we look at the newest James Wan horror film, Malignant. Fellow writer for The Nerd Corps, Luis Angel Garcia, joins us for the review as we talk about this film. I have no idea how to tell y’all that you should listen to this but this was quite the film. Listen to find out about our thoughts on the film along with what people on Letterboxd are saying. Go check this one out!
IMDb Synopsis: “Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities.”
From dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, to now seeing the Purge release it’s fifth and final installment we have a world of trouble filling up our plates. With the newest purge, one’s life just stays getting involved with some sort of danger. On one hand you die from a deadly disease that’s rampaging through the world, on the other you may die or at the very least get hurt, from dealing from a deadly white supremacist .
That’s what Everardo Valerio Gouts’ newest purge, The Forever Purge, deals with. Taking a depiction of what immigrants, Mexican immigrants as its focus, deals with with white supremacists and purists in this country [United States of America] while also having the film’s trope of anarchy and legal use of force against innocents based on pure hatred, superiority complex, and so forth. Although The Purge and it’s other films have spoken on political subjects and overall paint a picture of how governments could cause problems, not to mention how having certain laws can bring unprecedented consequences, this one hits close to home having the Latinx culture and discrimination being the underlining center of topic in an AMERICAN FILM.
You read it that last sentence right folks, this isn’t just a “Mexican Movie” because the director is of Mexican heritage and the main actors are Mexican actors, this is an AMERICAN movie that just so happens to have a Mexican director and actors.
Overview
Now having a movie with a budget of only 18 million, it’s going to have its fair share of problems, specifically dealing with editing. By that, I mean that certain scenes that have large areas of destruction didn’t look very realistic, or sound design not matching up to what’s happening in the scene. But with that aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It may come from seeing Mexican leads kicking ass or that the overall story, it’s really just enjoyable to watch. With a run time of ~90 minutes of without the extra ~30 of credits, it felt incredibly short, which to me meant that I was enjoying it so much that time passed a little too quick. The actors were great and the scripts, although having its rough patches here and there did a good job at telling its story from its first act to the third. But if you don’t believe me check out the movie still in theaters or on VOD, or at least the trailer down below and tell me what you think.
Review
To start, The Forever Purge is the last installment of The Purge franchise and what a way to end its run none other than addressing immigration, discrimination, white supremacy, and extreme puritans. Starring Ana de la Reguera (pictured above) as Adela, Tenoch Huerta as Juan, a couple that crossed the border in hopes of finding a better and safer life than in Mexico who also happened to cross months before the annual purge commences making it their first purge ever. We’ve seen Ana carry herself in many other films such as the recent Army of the Dead, Nacho Libre, Narcos and so many others both in Mexican entertainment and American made items. Tenoch Huerta has also been known to carry himself well in the films he’s been in, although made for Spanish speakers, hits like Sin Nombre and Narcos Mexico are great roles, not to mention having him cast as Namor in the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Marvel film!
His work seems to be growing in the realm of American filmmaking, which is without a doubt a win for the Mexican and Latin community. If you haven’t checked out his work because of language barrier I urge you to check it out and have the subtitles put on, you won’t regret it.
Aside from these two incredible actress/actor, we have to include the other major dialogue characters. One other character that is a close friend of both characters above is T.T played by Alejandro Edda who’s had his fair share of amazing roles, such as in Narcos Mexico, Fear the Walking Dead, American Made and others. Although The Forever Purge can’t talk about supremacist and people balancing on the line of puritan or ally we are then introduced to Dylan Tucker played by Josh Lucas, Emma Kate played by Cassidy Freeman, and Harper Tucker played by Leven Rambin.
Now although both Cassidy’s character and Levin’s are accepting of their immigrant and Mexican employees/friends, Josh’s isn’t necessarily inclined to let the unknown culture in. Since the start of the film we can see his distaste for accepting either the help of Mexicans or of their culture even stating in a scene that he doesn’t necessarily hate them more so believes they should stay separated. Although, after the purge ends people are continuing the rampage, he and his family get in trouble and get saved by Juan and T.T and continue getting helped by them, it is then we begin to see a change and can easily tell the characters development throughout the remainder of the film.
With that, it honestly gives hope to certain people who aren’t yet completely blinded by prejudices, racism, etc. When you have a bit of prejudice against certain people and they are the only hope you have for survival, the only logical thing to do is overcome it and learn to trust them.
Juan played by Tenoch far left, Adela played by Ana middle, T.T played by Alejandro far right
Overall this film takes an interesting approach to how immigrants are discriminated against in the US, although there isn’t a nation wide white supremacist uprising like The Forever Purge (YET) there is still violence that happens towards us all in the name of being a “true patriot” of this country.
I very much enjoyed this film even with its CGI problems and weird sound design, but that’s not a problem with actors or directorial guidance more so on the budget of the film and since this is only a 18 million dollar project one can’t compare to 50 or even 100 million dollar projects. Although the highest budget from the franchise, the charges on certain items add up like location costs, and it being near the border I imagine it isn’t cheap if filmed legally and properly, it’s not surprising that certain effects couldn’t hold up.
It’s not the best film ever made but it’s great in the fact that it touches on aspects to taboo for other English films and not to mention that it does it in an entertaining manner. But if you don’t believe me you’ll just have to go see it for yourself and let me know what you think, until next time peace.
The newest M. Night Shyamalan film crashes and burns with its interesting concept of the horrors of aging at a beach stuck in accelerated time.
CREDIT: Universal Pictures
M. Night is back with another film since his 2019 effort, Glass. This time he is back in theaters with his new thriller, Old. The film stars an ensemble cast of Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Kreips, Rufus Sewel, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, and Emun Elliott. There are quite some familiar faces in here and quite the range of actors within the film. One would think that this means that M. Night is about to lead us into a wild ride of a film especially after watching that trailer. You are not wrong if that is what you were hoping, but this wild ride is nothing to write home about.
The film looks at various families who leave on a tropical vacation, and while there are invited into a secluded beach where time seems to be accelerating throughout the day. This is a really interesting concept but its execution just lacks overall throughout the film. The presentation is interesting but the cinematography is so jarring that it makes it really hard to follow what is going on at times. While some performances are better than others overall it feels like direction is being met. Some performances feel very forced or just fall flat. The problems of this film really feel as if it falls on the script and direction. Of course, the film features another irresponsible portrayal of mental illness by M. Night that seems to be his norm by now that needs to stop already. It is really hard to pull something out of this that is not the thematic conversation being had by an interesting concept thought up by M. Night.
The film excels at bringing up these feelings of anxiety and panic because of situations that our characters are put in that are out of their control. We see many characters react certain ways towards each other or themselves. Our characters are stuck and just cannot move back because they are being forced to move forward without some solutions or comfort about their current situation. Of course, it feels all too reminiscent of our lives since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For that, I commend M. Night on having that conversation throughout the film that gave it its emotional backbone.
Old is playing theaters at the moment and has no VOD release date at the moment.
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