Dan Says its Alright

Backrooms was never likely to struggle financially. The last couple of years have taught us that if you can turn Gen Z out, box office success tends to follow. Given the viral subject matter (more on that later) a younger audience were always likely to show up in more than enough numbers to turn a profit on a moderately budgeted horror film. The question facing studio A24 and 20 year old (yes that's right, 20 year old) director Kane Parsons was what to do with the free hit. Do you double down on the premise in order to satiate the TikTok crowd? Or do you layer on the themes and character in order to create an "elevated" horror more in keeping with the A24 brand? It seems they were never quite able to commit to one approach or the other and the final product falls unsatisfyingly in between. For those unaware of the Backrooms phenomenon, it began life as a creepypasta, modern folklore where people share an unsettling picture online and create stories around it. The idea wi...

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is perhaps the purest distillation of a problem the franchise has had ever since the end of the original trilogy. The inability to expand the scope of its story. Commercially, it became a world devouring behemoth, but in terms of narrative it has never moved past (on the big screen anyway) those first films. George Lucas delivered a prequel trilogy that showed us how we got to his 1977 original. Disney's new trio of movies ended up amounting to little more than bringing the gang back and adding some new faces to the hamster wheel. They also gave us a couple of spin-off films dedicated to filling in unimportant details of the classic adventures. Eventually, a sprawling galaxy far, far away starts to look pretty small. Now their return to cinemas after a (much needed) seven year break is a lengthened episode of a TV show that exists because one of the characters in the original films looked pretty cool.  With a laboured structure (there are three...

Passenger  director Andrè Øverdal has some impressive credits under his belt, including his Norwegian language breakout hit Trollhunter and chilling haunted corpse movie The Autopsy of Jane Doe. That explains why this mediocre horror has a couple of well crafted set-piece scares, but he is saddled with a bland script that is content to tick familiar genre boxes. Things start promisingly with the titular "Passenger" (a highway stalking demonic entity) dispatching a pair of nighttime travellers. We are then introduced to young couple Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) who are about to abandon the city for a life on the road in their swanky van. Tyler is all in (to an obnoxious degree) but Maddie is hiding some reservations and things get spooky when they are marked by the walking metaphor for the dangers of travel. The first issue the movie runs into is the confusing nature of the entity itself. Why does it mess around with our leads for days when it kills everyone ...

In addition to already being the name of a dozen or so movies,  Obsession is a horrendously dull film title. It conjures up images of dated romantic thrillers or bargain basement serial killer flicks. This is a long-winded way of saying this darkly humorous relationship nightmare deserves a better name, as it's anything but stale. Barron "Bear" Bailey (Michael Johnston), Nikki (Inde Navarrette), Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) are longtime friends and work colleagues. Bear has long harboured feelings for Nikki and is determined to confess his love, despite warnings from Ian to bide his time and the fact Sarah might be the one who is actually interested in a romantic relationship. After chickening out of an ideal opportunity to tell Nikki how he feels he uses a cheap novelty collectible called a "One Wish Willow" to wish his crush was hopelessly in love with him. Turns out the tacky toy is legit and ties him into a "The Substance" styl...

Tuner lead character Nikki (Leo Woodall) hasn't had much luck. His parents aren't around and  H yperacusis (an extreme sensitivity to noise) put an end to his piano  playing days. Now he puts his enhanced sense to use as a piano tuner, working for mentor and father figure Harry (Dustin Hoffman). When Harry falls ill and into debt, Nikki takes on a sideline in safe cracking for shady security boss Uri (Lori Raz). All is well at first, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly hard for Nikki to juggle his day job, lucrative but dangerous side hustle and a blossoming romance with musical student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu). The set up may make you think you are in for a slick crime caper, but that's not really what this film is. Director Daniel Roher made his name in documentaries and Tuner has a very naturalistic feel. The city is vibrant and busy while close up shots show the intricacy of the pianos and locks Nikki has mastery over. We are following characters (mainly Nikki)...

Mortal Kombat II is, unsurprisingly, a sequel to 2021's Mortal Kombat and the latest attempt to adapt the long running fighting game franchise for the big screen. There has been a bit of a shift in Hollywood over the five years since the last instalment and this film has a very different attitude. Gone is the attempt to "serious-up" the material as MKII fully embraces its dumb video game roots. It still isn't exactly good, but at least this time round it's bad in an enjoyable way. For those unfamiliar with the games, they are based around a fighting tournament that decides if an evil empire from another dimension, or "realm",  gets to take over Earth. Think "Enter the Dragon" with superpowers and a hefty dose of inspiration from "Big Trouble in Little China".  In terms of this movie, eight people from Earth take turns fighting eight people from "Outworld". Sounds simple enough but the script makes no attempt to create any s...