Three Films Make A Post: No soul is safe.

The Offering (2022): Oliver Park’s attempt at using Jewish Orthodox mythology productively for horror is a rather frustrating outing. If treated right, this tale of a rather horrible demonic entity, familial guilt and pregnancy could have been quit the thing, subtly exploring human and inhuman depths, as a sort of somewhat higher budget sibling to the brilliant The Vigil. Alas, the film wastes most of its potential on trying to be some kind of low-rent Conjuring affair (as if those weren’t already trite enough), so expect a film that appears to believe that horror is the genre all about making sudden loud noises. The jump scares are often nearly comically badly placed, turning moments that should be creepy or meaningful or sad into nothing but an idiot shouting boo at the wrong moment.

I’m also not exactly fond of Nick Blood’s central performance that too often feels like he’s out of his depth with the emotions he’s supposed to portray. Of course, the rest of the movie offers no help whatsoever to him.

Departures aka Okuribito (2008): Somewhat puzzlingly, this drama/comedy by veteran director Yojiro Takita won the Oscar for the best foreign movie when it came out. Well, it’s not too difficult to see why the film’s mixture of earnest but superficial pondering of death and a guy growing into a new life did go over great there, what with the award’s propensity for films that treat serious themes, but never so deeply they might actually hurt, but usually eschewing honest entertainment. This doesn’t make the film at hand good, though. Rather, it’s a movie that never goes to places you won’t expect, can never quite hit the emotional notes it goes for honestly, and when in doubt, will add another scene of our cellist turned funeral man scratching away at his instrument emotionally. Particularly the latter scenes did raise the question if this perhaps started as a parody of the kind of films it shares its half-empty head with.

Carnifex (2022): In the realm of the misguided and the awards-baiting, this perfectly serviceable nature-in-form-of-a-cryptid strikes back movie is king, at least of this particular post. Sean Lahiff’s movie takes a degree of care with the characterization and makes the comparatively slow pacing work okay, while the actors are likeable enough and the monster at least something we haven’t quite seen this way before.

Alas, there’s something lacking in the movie, a bigger spark of life, enthusiasm or simply excitement, so this is more the sort of thing you’ll watch once on a rainy evening and forget soon after, never to think of it again.