Hello, and welcome to this week’s film roundup! Every Thursday we take you through the latest cinema releases and why you should be looking forward to them. This week: robots in disguise (but not really), a vampire in Maine, Alice Lowe in love, and a clown in a killing frenzy.
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these films. All of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Transformers One
The Transformers franchise’s cinematic efforts have been a bit of a mixed bag. The 1986 animation that arose out of the cartoon series is still remembered with a fond nostalgia and the 2007 opener to Michael Bay’s live action series was flawed but pretty entertaining. The following entries got progressively sillier until Travis Knight and Hailee Steinfeld arrived like a breath of fresh air with Bumblebee in 2018, lowering the stakes and focusing on actual character development. The latest film, last year’s Rise of the Beasts, was somewhere in the middle quality-wise (despite finally bringing the Maximals from Beast Wars to the big screen – a franchise that I personally have a lot more nostalgia for).
Transformers One acts as a bit of a hard reset, giving a new origin story to Optimus, Megatron and Bumblebee. Not directly connected to the Michael Bay universe but functioning as a prequel to whichever version of the franchise you want it to, this is set several million years before the Cybertronians ever came to Earth. The young Optimus is here known as Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth), and works as a miner alongside his best friend and future Megatron, D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry). At this point in the timeline they are unable to transform, and are treated as second class citizens by those who can. But a chance encounter with an ancient being changes that, and threatens to upend Cybertronian society in the process.
The switch to full animation inevitably skews this more towards children than the Michael Bay films did, but there should be a lot for the grown-ups to enjoy too. For those of us who grew up with Transformers there are plenty of nods to the franchise, from familiar characters (the most intriguing of which is Starscream, voiced here by Steve Buscemi), classic quotes, and even a touch of Stan Bush. For anyone less familiar with robots in disguise, there’s a plot built around a political class revolution that sounds a lot more mature than the average cartoon.
With a cast that also includes Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm, and directed by Josh Violet (Toy Story 4), this has the potential to be more than meets the eye.
- Transformers One on IMDB
- Transformers One on Rotten Tomatoes
Salem’s Lot
It’s nearly Halloween and so ’tis the season for horror and gore at the cinema, and we have two films setting up their blood-soaked tents early this year. First up we have the latest attempt at adapting Stephen King’s 1975 novel, in which an author returns to his home town to research for his book, only to find that it’s being terrorised by a vampire.
There are lots of nice little horror touches in the trailer – subtle details that sit just in the background, or a reflection, or at the edge of the frame for a second before it cuts away. Whether they’ve just been edited in like that for the trailer and are more overt in the full film I don’t know, but either way it’s a good sign that this is the kind of horror that builds an atmosphere instead of relying on jump scares. That’s something that Stephen King has always been good at and often carries through to the adaptations of his novels. The tone also reminds me a lot of the Mike Flanagan series on Netflix, especially the brilliant Midnight Mass.
The cast is led by Lewis (son of Bill) Pullman, who is probably best known for playing Bob in Top Gun: Maverick. It also includes Mackenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, Alfre Woodard and Pilou Asbæk. The reviews have not generally been great (it’s currently at 48% on Rotten Tomatoes), but if you like horror movies and like Stephen King, there are probably worse ways to spend a couple of hours.
- Salem’s Lot on IMDB
- Salem’s Lot on Rotten Tomatoes
Timestalker
Alice Lowe writes, directs and stars in this comedy about Agnes – a woman who keeps falling in love with the same man each time they are reincarnated, only to find that he has a lot less interest in her and that she is destined to die horribly shortly afterwards. Can she figure out how to break the cycle?
Agnes’s recurring lover is played by Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm from Game of Thrones), and she also seems to frequently encounter Nick Frost, playing against type as an angry, abusive monster (it looks like he often ends up married to Agnes). Lowe herself looks to be having a great time with it, dressing in all sorts of period costumes from giant pink powdered wigs to ’80s spandex and perm, and her death scenes look inventively grim too.
This looks original, silly and surreal, and is clearly something that Alice Lowe has poured a lot of passion into. If you fancy a grown-up comedy then this is the film for you this week.
- Timestalker on IMDB
- Timestalker on Rotten Tomatoes
Terrifier 3
The first two Terrifier films, and the anthology film All Hallows’ Eve which preceded them, have gained something of a cult status among horror fans. They are well-known for their low budget but effective use of particularly gruesome special effects, over-the-top death and torture scenes, and the instantly memorable monster that is Art the Clown. It’s a franchise that I have never dipped into, but I’ve heard that it’s a must-see for anyone who likes their horror schlocky and shocking.
The concept is fairly straightforward for the slasher genre – Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) terrorises a group of hapless teens, torturing and murdering his merry way through them until someone finally takes him out, only to find that it wasn’t quite as final as they thought. In this third instalment, his main target is Sienna and her brother Jonathan (Lauren LaVera and Elliott Fullam) – the two survivors of Terrifier 2. And just to give it a nice festive twist, it takes place at Christmas and Art seems to spend most of it dressed as Santa, with blood congealing in his fake beard. There’s a scene in the trailer where a mob of (presumably partially-sighted) kids run excitedly up to him in a shopping mall thinking he’s about to hand out presents, just as he gets an axe out of his sack – if there’s one film franchise that is going to go to that place, it’s probably this one.
If you know and love the first two Terrifier films, you’re going to love this – it seems to be very much in the same spurting vein and, despite presumably a much higher budget than the original, looks like it’s staying true to its indie status and practical effects. If you’re not a fan of horror films, gore or clowns then you’ll want to avoid this one like the plague.
- Terrifier 3 on IMDB
- Terrifier 3 on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Timestalker and Salem’s Lot are getting mixed reviews, and Terrifier is such an acquired taste that I don’t think I can recommend it to anyone who wasn’t already planning on seeing it, so my film of the week is Transformers One.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Joker: Folie a Deux
- The Substance
- Speak No Evil
Trailer of the week
My trailer of the week last week was a biopic of Robbie Williams in which he’s portrayed as a CGI chimp, so this week it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity to go for a biopic about an actually good musician. A Complete Unknown tells the story of Bob Dylan, played here by Timothée Chalamet, as he changes his music stylings from acoustic to electric.
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