Brett Garten, Movie Extraordinare
Cinematic Sommelier
7.2
I personally prefer “Happy Death Day” or “Freaky” from this “fun-horror” genre… but this one was solid! Exactly what I wanted out of it. A tight, hour and a half horror movie that was incredibly fun, made me laugh, and made me feel nostalgic, a la “Stranger Things.” Also, I’m a sucker for time travel movies, so I knew this wasn’t going to sit in the watchlist for long…
6.9
One thing about this franchise – it’s always such a fun ride! This entry in the saga definitely had one of my favorite connected pair of short films and a really interesting underlying narrative piece that came back to tie up the third act. I wouldn’t say the best of the franchise, but it’s a close race with most of these, as they all have such great respective strengths. A fun ride.
6.6
Well, that explains why she and her family were vegetarian.
Well worth bearing with the subtitles.
I can say that I had suspicions of where this was leading, but even I didn’t think it would go as far as it did. There was a nice underlying feeling of discomfort throughout this one that really set the tone and helped drive the narrative home, and made what you see on screen not feel so out of place.
An all consuming narrative.
6.8
Not as bad as the critics are making it out to be.
Is it as good as the original? No.
Did it need to be a part of the “Exorcist” franchise? Also no.
There were some really great sequences and scares here, but it gets bogged down by clunky pacing and misplaced focus at times. It also felt a tad too long. The exorcist lore seemed kind of forced.
That being said, there were some nice twists in the story and a few daring variations from the typical exorcism movie formula that really landed. I wasn’t blown away, but I also didn’t leave mad. The cast act their asses off.
7.3
Definitely the best film, technically speaking, since the first installment. They take their time to delve into John Kramer as a person far more than any other installment, and I felt like that was a welcomed change of pace and added a nice emotional weight to the film outside of the gore. The crusade felt much more justified this time around.
The traps weren’t anything to write home about, but got the job done. The homages to the other films elicited cheers from the audience when they realized what we were looking at taking shape before our eyes. The signature Saw twist ending was as strong as ever, and such a comfort to return to. A welcomed return to form for Jigsaw.
Brett Garten, Movie Extraordinare 