Black Gate

It was July 18, 1986 in the movie Aliens (where the year was 2122), when Ellen Ripley told Corporal Dwayne Hicks to “show her everything.” Ripley was actually referring to the totally badass M41-A pulse rifle, standard issue for the Colonial Marine Corp who is defending space at that time. Ripley ultimately weaponed up and used an M41-A to wreak alien carnage in what has become one of the most iconic combat scenes in cinema history.

Fast backward 101 years minus a month, to August 2021, where we just passed the 35^th anniversary of Aliens’ theatrical release. Here, the Earth is overrun with a different bug for you to hunt, and now you’ve just been given the best belated gift ever…

Behold… the Hasbro Nerf M41-A pulse rifle.

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Admittedly I approached A Quiet Place II with skepticism. I thought the first installment of the film, A Quiet Place released in 2018, was a genius take on the alien invasion story which has been explored dozens, if not hundreds, of times in Hollywood. Without dropping any spoilers, the story follows a family and their struggle to survive a post-apocalyptic alien invasion. We enter the story after nearly a year of horrific death and destruction has already occurred, perpetuated by alien creatures who are sightless, but hone in and destroy anything or anyone making the slightest sound, thanks to their ultrasensitive hearing. The result is a film that was almost totally silent (the script contained a total of 25 lines of dialog for a 3-hour, 36-minute run time), driving the visuals into even sharper focus. And the intense quiet made the jump scares more intense. In short, A Quiet Place worked because it was so unique.

Now, three years later, A Quiet Place II hit theaters, once again helmed by the husband-and-wife team of John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. Both star in the follow up, and Krasinski is back to assume writing and directing duties as well. This alone seemed to point to another entertaining outing, but could the elements that made A Quiet Place a standout take on a horror movie trope work twice?

I am pleased to report the answer is “yes.”

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Given my favorite genre, watching anything that results in hysterical laughter is a rarity. It isn’t that I don’t have a sense of humor. You couldn’t work here without one. It’s just that the opportunities to partake in hilarity doesn’t often arise in the horror industry; but when it does, the source is usually something very special.

Such is the case with the FX series What We Do in the Shadows. The two-season series is a look into the daily lives of four vampires who’ve been together for hundreds of years, and their “familiar,” the young Guillermo, whose dearest wish is to be turned into a vampire in payment for his years of faithful service. This show, which is also available to stream on Hulu and Amazon Prime, is just plain wrong, which is what makes it so darn funny. No subject is off limits, and though some might characterize the humor as of the “potty” variety, personally that is precisely what I need in the all-too-serious times we live in.

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Honestly, I wasn’t sure this was possible.

I mean there are literally hundreds of vampire movies, so to come up with a unique way to portray them is really something to be excited about. And I am.

The last time anyone came close to this was when John Ajvide Lindqvist first penned his novel, then the screenplay of Let the Right One In back in 2008. The movie was Swedish with English subtitles, which somehow made it seem bleaker than it otherwise would have been. Though a couple years later an English version was filmed, it wasn’t as dark nor as artful as the original. I won’t spoil it for you here, but if you haven’t seen the story of a child vampire and her human companion, you won’t be sorry.

This week a trailer dropped for a new German-language Netflix movie. Netflix has ten foreign language films scheduled for 2021, which is a huge change from just a few years ago, when most major movie studios wouldn’t have considered releasing a non-English-language feature in the United States.

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With regards to movies, my mantra has always been that if you tell me a good story, I’ll willingly suspend my disbelief. I’m not one to pick apart details or demand every plot hole be plugged if, overall, the story is entertaining. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Wonder Woman 1984, even though critics were all over it for a number of plot-related reasons. However, even I have my limits, such as Godzilla vs. Kong. Since when is King Kong as big as the buildings he used to scale? That said, I was ready to go all in for Army of the Dead, especially as I really love a good zombie movie. I probably did have a bit of lingering doubt as I did not rush out to see this one during its theaters-only first week of release. Instead, I avoided all reviews and spoilers until I could watch it on Netflix where it debuted on May 14^th.

The verdict? A firm split decision.

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