Three Films Make a Post: Turning eighteen is going to be hell.

Book of Monsters (2018): Calling a horror comedy inoffensive is not exactly the highest praise, but then, Stewart Sparke’s female-centric film is one of those horror comedies that seems terribly nice and friendly even though quite a few people get ripped to shreds in it. It’s just that the characters we are supposed to like all make it, so there’s a certain lack of tension running through the whole affair. The jokes are all over the place, some are exactly the ones you’ll expect going in, some are not quite as obvious. Generally, this is a likeable film though, using its clearly not terribly high budget as well as possible to provide its audience with a good time, and while I never got terribly excited watching this, I did enjoy myself with it more than I didn’t.

Bumblebee (2018): Given that it is comedic, YA-ish, likeable and female-centric, Travis Knight’s entry into the Michael-Bay-haunted Transformers franchise feels a bit like the big sister of Book of Monsters. Just that big sis has all the money in the world to make things as slick and streamlined as possible, where its low budget sibling has to fight for every scene to come together on a simple technical level.

While it isn’t exactly deep, unlike the other Transformers films, this one actually understands little things like character arcs, human feelings, and even has thoughts about what growing up means for a young woman still mourning the loss of her father. Knight is able to put all this into a slick and mainstream compatible movie featuring a very charming Hailee Steinfeld that also includes fun robot fights, explosions and some really rather cool chase sequences. Basically, this is the first Transformers movie that actually seems to be made by people with a degree of respect for their audience and their characters, who also happen to be really good craftsmen. It’s not a deep exploration of grief and loss, obviously, but it is a really entertaining film that’s not utterly brain dead in a franchise known for the exact opposite. Also, the robots have different colours.

Cold Skin (2017): Xavier Gens’s adaptation of Albert Sánchez Piñol’s novel must be an excellent one, seeing as it left me with pretty much the same feelings as the book did, the impression of having watched/read a very competently and eloquently realized story that never quite gets around to saying as much of interest about the human condition, colonialism or just the human heart as it seems to set out to. Curiously enough, for something taking place in 1914, the film (as the book) seems to be held back by too great a love for the narrative and philosophical habits of 19th (instead of 20th) century fiction, never really reaching the point where it should take a good long look at its own assumptions about how to speak about the things it is clearly most interested in.


As a horror adventure story, it is rather convincing, though, even though its fish people design is disappointingly derivative and conservative. It mostly disappoints because it seems so desperate to be something more.