Trailer(s) of the Week - Dawn of the Dead

One thing I've been listening to over the last year has been the superb Evolution of Horror podcast.  A fine discussion of the genre, host Mike Muncer breaks the genre down to separate sub-genres, and discusses with various guests the main titles that have truly shaped that branch of horror.  So far there have been four seasons, with the subject for the fifth already announced as the evolution of Occult movies, focusing on tales of Witchcraft, Satanism, and the Devil.  It's well worth going back through the first few seasons too, on Slashers, Ghost Stories, and Folk Horror.  The latest season that just wrapped up is on the topic of the Zombie film, ending with the viewer's top ten.  I was thinking of doing my own top ten zombie films, thinking that it would be fairly easy given how damn ubiquitous the undead buggers are, but I genuinely couldn't make up my mind.  There are a tonne of crap zombie properties out there, but when the subgenre is good, it's really damn good!  So as a result, I thought what I'd do instead is have this week's trailer post be a look at several different promos for perhaps the film that shaped the subgenre the most, and one that would definitely fit somewhere into my personal top ten, 1978's Dawn of the Dead...

Indie Watch - In Fabric

So here's a new irregular little strand for this blog; this a discussion of indie titles or other smaller profile films that I've seen in previews or at festivals and such; now they are getting a proper release, I can give proper reviews for them.  Keep in mind that for some of these cases it might be close to a year since I last saw them, so let's hope my fuzzy memory is up to the task.  Fortunately, the first film I'll be discussing in this strand is one that you do not forget easily.  Coming this week to Curzon Cinemas and a few other places, it's Peter Strickland's In Fabric, which I saw at the London Film Festival last year.

Silly Movie Trailer of the Week - Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

So Child's Play came out on Friday, and there's a fun scene of Andy and his friends watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, which seems to give Chucky some very wrong ideas.  I thought as a result I might have that one on here, but I covered it on the Tumblr a while ago, and while that was an early brief article, I don't want to repeat myself just yet.  However, then I double checked and realised I hadn't done it's direct sequel, which is an interesting little tale of the film itself, but hoo boy the trailer... just watch!

Canary Duty - Child's Play

Before I get into the review, I should note that this film exists for somewhat nefarious reasons.  See, the original Child's Play was made by MGM/United Artists, but as Child's Play 2 started shooting, in 1990, they were bought out by the firm Quintex, who didn't want to make horror movies.  So the sequel, franchise, and character rights to Chucky were sold to Universal.  They did pretty well out of them over the years, with Bride of Chucky being one of the most fun of the post Scream slasher boom, and the last couple of straight-to-video ones being pretty damn good. As for Quintex... they went bust in 1991; deciding not to do a sequel to a film that earned a 400% profit margin shows the kind of thinking that lead to that.  But MGM did hang on to those rights to the original, so now we have this version (via the resurrected Orion Pictures), which I suspect purely happened so they can keep the name for another few decades.  It does irk a lot of people (including me) that this was done without series creator Don Mancini, or original Chucky voice Brad Dourif, who are still working on a new TV series to follow on from 2017's Cult of Chucky.  Still, despite the shady motives, what's the final product like?

Canary Duty - Brightburn

Now for those that many years ago read my Man of Steel rant and some of its follow-ups might guess, I have been very curious about this one for a while now.  I have a lot of fondness for the character of Superman, so you might think I'd be against a film that's all about the concept "what if Clark Kent was more like Michael Myers".  Actually, I like the idea immensely!  With a "dark reflection" story like this, you can have a proper examination of what it is that makes Superman... Superman.  Why did he become the hero rather than the villain?  What if the wholesome upbringing by Jonathan & Martha Kent, which to me far more shapes who Superman is than his Kryptonian heritage, had gone very wrong? A film like this has a lot of potential to explore that idea then, but does it achieve that goal?  What's more, whether or not it does, how well does it work as a horror film?

Silly Movie Trailer of the Week - The Banana Splits Movie

Originally I had something else planned for this post; in fact I was going to drop a whole "silly" movie trailer angle altogether just keep more general. But then this thing happened.

Canary Duty - Men in Black International

The original Men in Black is still a pretty good movie; hard to remember past the dumb retread of MIBII and the "OK but with issues" of III, but it was a bit of a game changer back in the day.  It was perhaps one of the first blockbusters since the original Ghostbusters to go for such a high-concept approach and making it work so well in action/comedy terms, at least not one based on an already well-known brand.  (Before anyone @s me, yes I know it was based on a comic, I typed "well known brand", it was one lessor Malibu title!)  I think the trouble the sequels had was a studio mistaking form for function; that every single ingredient had to be there for the audience to like it again, hence an immediate retreat to the J and K dynamic, when the first film gave a definitive end to that.  Now this one, operating Will-less shall we say, is doing what the sequels should have done; open things up a bit, explore more of the world of the MIB, give us some new faces with a slightly different dynamic.  So does it work?

Canary Duty - Ma

Hmm, it seems "kindly woman played by a noted character actress turns out to be psychotic" movies are like buses; you wait for ages, no sign of any, and then two come along at once.  Seriously, there's often a little cluster of these sorts of films all at once (Misery, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female), and then a while without them.  We recently had Greta, directed by Neil Jordan and with Isabelle Huppert in the title role, and now we have Ma, a Blumhouse project re-uniting Tate Taylor and Octavia Spencer, the director and star of The Help.  So, how does this one rate in this grand tradition?

Trailer of the Week - Dave Made a Maze

So a side project I've had has been my Silly Movie Trailer of the Day blog on Tumblr.  That's been a lot of fun, but it's something I've dropped in and out of so many times, and I've realised that one of the reasons why is that, though it has been good writing practice, doing those articles for daily release does mean eating up a lot of other writing time for things like my blog, fiction I'm working on, and freelance articles.  Besides, Tumblr's future is looking... interesting at the moment.  So with this in mind, I thought I'd split the difference, go for a weekly schedule, and co-ordinate most of my writing on here from now on.  Right then, let's have a trailer for something very thematically appropriate...

Why start with Dave Made a Maze?  Well, given that the titular character is a bumbling artistic type who's problem with never seeing various creative projects through to a proper conclusion, and in turn roping in quite a few friends to such matters... dunno, I can't see any significance, can you?

Canary Duty- X-Men Dark Phoenix

Hey, so yeah, fell out of touch on here a while ago, didn't I?  I know I keep doing this, so I've decided to try a new little strategy to stay regular; a change of identity.  Yep, I'm changing the names of the blog, doing a bit of a tidy up, and starting a new look for here as The Film Canary.  Plain and simple, I'm looking to be a bit of a film explorer, going into new releases or long running series to see if the way is safe for all, or if things get a bit toxic.  I have a Limitless cinema card, and I get a lot of my discs second hand, so it's low risk for me.  So with that in mind, for this inaugural post under the new format, let's take a look at today's big new release in the world of superhero movies... well, it's a release in the world of superhero movies, not sure big is the word...