Parasite (2019): As part of our Floor Plan Croissant/Ceau Cinema event in Timișoara last week, we screened Parasite on the big big screen. It was a nice connection with the artwork, but also allowed a revisiting of one of the best movies to have come out in recent years. I reckon this is the movie that kick-started the “eat the rich” theme, which has become so prevalent in Hollywood recently, but it stands tall above all the others movies to have tackled this. Up to the “epilogue, Parasite is pitch-perfect, it weaves a fantastic web of ambition and deceit, with characters that are somehow all likeable to some degree. I am not so sure about the epilogue, whether it adds more than it substracts to the experience, but this doesn’t take much away from the exceptional work of Bong Joon-ho. 9
Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022): Not your usual “not every woman is made for motherhood” kind of horror, Michelle Garza Cervera debut provides some solid scares and an uncompromising story. Valeria is pregnant and seemingly looking forward to be a mother, but as her pregnancy progresses, manifestations of her subconscious begin to terrorise her – is this really the life she is meant to lead, or rather conformism to familial and societal expectations? The themes and inflections of the story are familiar, but if anything undermines the movie, it is its own (religious) conformism to genre tropes – the one-dimensional, seemingly-supportive, but not trusting partner, the judgemental mother-in-law, the overbearing family, the mystical witches. Still – I rather enjoyed it, especially for a debut, a stylish and effective tale of horrors. 7
Island of Lost Souls (1932): Mad doctors were all the rave in the 1930s, but seem to have gone out of fashion, as our fascination with the extremes of science have been too harshly tested by reality. In Island of Lost Souls, the adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel, Charles Laughton is a fiendishly entertaining mad scientist, who tries to transition animals into human beings. The movie also stars Richard Arlen (Wings) and Bela Lugosi (Dracula) and is interesting enough, both visually and as a story, to keep you engaged to this day. Probably not as a piece of horror, but as a piece of cinema history. 7
Zombie for Sale (2019): A different kind of Parasite, with a family of grifters who happen upon a loose zombie and turn him into a money making machine. The movie looks pretty cool and is closer to a comedy than anything horrific, in that very distinctive Korean manner. I find it manages to walk this very thin comedy/horror line rather well and offers a fresh twist on the genre, but it is too stretched out for its own good. 7
East Bay (2022): This small independent film of actor/writer/director Daniel Yoon is a tale of multiple crises: mid-life, faith and identity. We follow a forty year old guy as his life is seemingly coming apart at the seams on all fronts and he struggles to reframe it into something meaningful and worth living. The movie often has “home movie” aesthetics and fools around with various techniques in creating this quaint, little portrait of an unsatisfying “normal” life. I don’t think it manages to stand out, but it is not without merits and inspired moments. 6
tributary stu 