The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

“The Conjuring” is a series I hope studios keep re-visiting (with some caveats—ahem—“Annabelle”), since there’s so much they can do with the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. At this point the movie has taken many of their actual cases and expanded them in to wonderful horror films and “The Devil Made Me Do It” is no exception. True it’s not as good as the first two films, but the third part in the core movie series really does help to emphasize the heroism of Ed and Lorraine.

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You Have to See This! Midsommar (2019)

I’m not too sure why I didn’t review “Midsommar” back in 2019. Maybe I was just too busy, but suffice to say it made my top ten of 2019, easily. Ari Aster is a man who has managed to really delve deep in to some truly bizarre horror, and “Midsommar” is a pitch perfect example. Aster’s film is always placed in the same vein as “The Wicker Man,” but while it certainly can be appreciated with the aforementioned, “Midsommar” is its own twisted animal.

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George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park (1972)

George A Romero was never one to apply subtly to his cinematic art. He was always interested in transplanting his feelings about deep and still very relevant social issues in to the horror genre. His ideas about the military industrial complex, gross consumerism and class warfare still ring loudly in modern society, and “The Amusement Park” fits right in to that stark tableau. Although not horror in the strictest sense, “The Amusement Park” is very much a Romero brand horror movie. It’s about the ravages of growing old, and how society treats the elderly.

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Army of the Dead (2021)

It’s no big secret how I felt and continue to feel about Zack Snyder’s previous zombie outing, and it’s not going to be a big surprise when I say that “Army of the Dead” stinks. A movie like this is virtually critic proof as it wears its silliness on its sleeves and flaunts it unabashedly to the very end. This is the zombie movie for the audience that grew up with “Left 4 Dead” or “Dead Rising 2” as their original introduction to the walking dead, and Snyder knows his audience. He even introduces our core cast like player profiles, even giving them signature weapons.

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The Woman in the Window (2021)

Joe Wright’s “The Woman in the Window” wears much of its influence and inspiration on its sleeve. Before we meet the character Anna, the camera pans past a still shot of Jimmy Stewart from “Rear Window.” This sets the stage for a movie clearly influenced by Hitchcock’s masterpiece that completely misses the mark on every level. Wright’s film is a long troubled production that could have managed more editing here and there, as it’s a sloppy, droning, and genre confused mess.

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The Retreat (2021)

A couple finds their way to the countryside after being invited to a retreat by a couple of friends. As these LGBTQ+ couples leave the safety of the large city, they soon find out that the countryside, this one in particular, is not very friendly to people who do not fit the locals’ ideas of what should be acceptable. 

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