DON’T LISTEN (2020)

 

(a.k.a. VOCES; streaming/Netflix movie; director/co-story source: Àngel Gómez Hernández. Co-screenwriter: Santiago Díaz. Co-story source: Victor Gado.)

Review

LISTEN is an overlong and mostly by-the-numbers Spanish spook house-possession film. A couple (Daniel and Ruth), with their nine-year-old son Eric, move into a house to renovate and sell it. When Eric starts hearing voices and drawing disturbing pictures, his parents become concerned. They hire a child psychologist, kicking off a number of unnatural deaths. This prompts Daniel and Ruth to hire two paranormal specialists, an old man (Germán) and his daughter (Sara) who have their own tragic pasts they’re dealing with.

LISTEN is a decent flick if you’re not looking for anything original, with laid-on-thick drama, spooky camera shots, solid acting, bold-not-shocking-deaths, and one effective twist near the end that may floor those not paying attention to what’s going on. It also helps if you don’t mind a film with lots of lag scenes, story-effective pacing sacrificed for the sake of atmosphere. If you’re not sick of this movie by its finish, stick around to the end of its credits for the crappy-looking sequel it leaves an opening for.

NOBODY SLEEPS IN THE WOODS TONIGHT (2020)

(Director/co-screenwriter: Bartosz M. Kowalski. . Co-screenwriters: Jan Kwiecinski and Mirella Zaradkiewicz.)

Storyline

Adolescents, assigned to a survival camp, try to fend off two hideous cannibals.

Review

This Polish slasher flick, a Netflix Original film, is paced like a drama with some stalk-and-slay scenes (one of them referencing an iconic kill scene from FRIDAY THE 13^TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD, 1988). There is little suspense in NOBODY, the killers are shown early and often. The production value of the movie is good, considering its low budget, but─viewed as a horror film─it’s a “meh” effort, best watched (if it must be watched) as one is drifting off to sleep—that way, you won’t miss anything memorable.

#ALIVE (2020)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Il Cho, billed as Cho II. Co-screenwriter: Matt Naylor.)

Storyline

A mysterious infection plunges a city into chaos while a solitary young man holes up in his  apartment.

 

Review

This Netflix Original film follows Oh Joon-woo, a teenager alone in a third-story high-rise apartment while cannibalistic, crazed humans who were once his neighbors run wild attacking, killing and eating people. Mostly smart─especially considering his adolescent mindset─he uses social media (what little is left) to let the outside world that not everyone in this violent, diseased situation.

#ALIVE is a solid work, with a few intense attacked-by-the-infected scenes. My only nit about the film is how Joon-woo can assess certain situations and realities, but other should-be-obvious decisions seem to elude him. But that’s more a personal quirk on my part, probably, a generational-divide thing. Well-acted, -written and -directed, this easily-a-set-up-for-sequels flick is better than a lot of crazed humans/zombie flicks I’ve seen in the last few years.