An actress facing agism decides to give a black-market drug a try to see what her other self could allow her to do.
Tag Archives: Dark Comedy
Trap (2024)
M. Night Shyamalan sets the stage for a thriller that surprisingly is about as straight forward as you can imagine. He hooks audiences in mainly for the concept of “Trap” where a serial killer has been snagged in his most vulnerable spot and has to look for a way out. Any other time, a movie like “Trap” could not have worked too well, but Shyamalan pulls it off well thanks to the leading performance from Josh Hartnett. Star Hartnett as Cooper Adams is the primary reason to see “Trap” as he not only creates this conniving, clever, and vindictive villain, but he seems to have a lot of fun portraying him.
Flatters (2024)
Having had its world premiere at the LA Shorts International Film Festival, Dennis Flippin and Doug Wyckoff’s short comedy is a bizarre tale of being careful what you wish for. “Flatters” excels a lot at weird, absurdist comedy that lampoons the whole system of conspiracy theorists, while also putting its main character in to a hole that he might not be able to escape any time soon.
Like Me (2024) [Chattanooga Film Festival 2024]
Watch These Films (WTF) Shorts Block
There are a growing number of short films surrounding the concept of social media and Ashley Thomas runs wild with the concept. “Like Me” doesn’t have a narrative or much of a whole structure behind it, but it at least makes up for it with a punch of a final scene emphasized with some excellent make up.
Nu (2022) [Film Maudit 2.0]
I imagine Olivier Labonté Lemoyne’s is going to lend itself to all kinds of interpretations. Maybe it’s just abstract for the sake of being abstract? Who knows? In either case, “Nu” succeeds in being as oddly creepy as it does in being kind of silly, exploring the idea of fear vulnerability. The whole concept of beings that look like nudists plays on the whole nature of voyeurism and the reluctance by many to engage in it.
Gunfighter Paradise (2024)
Recently selected to the 2024 RiverRun Film Festival.
Like a Southern fried “Donnie Darko,” writer/director Jethro Waters’s darkly comic dissection of America and masculinity is truly one of the most unique and bizarre dark comedies to come out of the independent circuit. I don’t think audiences are ready for what someone like Waters has in store, placing America’s current social climate up to a big lens and lending some insight in to the lunacy of it all, and how the lunacy has become the new norm.
Sting (2024)
Opens Wide in North American Theaters on April 12th.
I’m glad that monster movies seem to be making more and more of a comeback in the last few years, and among them are director Kiah Roache-Turner’s “Sting.” Roache-Turner is an individual that’s delivered on very gritty, grindhouse flavored zombie films over the years (Any other “Wyrmwood” fans in the house?), and “Sting” is a big departure from what he typically offers the horror crowd. That’s a great thing because he proves that he can do more simplistic, stripped down and classic movie fare. “Sting” has a different aesthetic, one that’s darker, and more human based and relies a lot on the human characters to deliver on spooks and gruesome gore.