I was extremely excited for A Working Man. Last year’s The Beekeeper, a film made by many of the same people, was one of my favorite movies of the year, something very joyful and deliberate. A Working Man is, by comparison, just plain boring. It’s not really even interesting enough to be truly upset at. I’m thankful it’s not openly racist like the similar Rambo: Last Blood from a few years ago, but if the highest praise for a movie I have is “Hey, at least it doesn’t use human trafficking as an excuse to demonize Mexican people” you know the thing’s got some things seriously wrong with it.
If you take anything from this it’s that you should go watch The Beekeeper. I love The Beekeeper so, so very, very much.
Warfare is a bit of a kaleidoscopic Rorschach Test. To one of the film’s directors, veteran Ray Mendoza, it appears to be a very personal account of a real life event that was incredibly harrowing and defining in his life. To me, a civilian sitting in a movie theatre in Illinois, it is one of many films that have slowly justified the United States’ military’s violent acts throughout the world by showing our views of those conflicts through the eyes of only American servicepeople, rather than through the eyes of those affected by the US’s involvement in other countries’ conflicts.
I think it’s easy to dismiss Warfare if you have that latter view, the one that I have, but I want to caution against pure dismissal, because both things can be true. Ray Mendoza can have created a respectful testament to important people in his life and also have made a piece of very effective propaganda. He gets to have his cake and eat it too, in a way. That’s one of the virtues of making art, that after you put it out in the world it can mean something different to you than it does to others and their view doesn’t have to change yours.
The problem, truthfully, isn’t even really with Warfare, it’s with the wider film industry as a whole. Films like Warfare (American Sniper, 12 Strong, Black Hawk Down, etc) shouldn’t be our only widely spread filmic views into these conflicts. I might sound like someone with too high aspirations, but not too long ago Judas and the Black Messiah was a major studio release. To imagine a studio picture like that about the Black Panthers closer to their time (like we are closer in time to the events depicted in Warfare) would have seemed ridiculous, and yet a few years ago that film was a great success.
We need more stories told by more people. Warfare shouldn’t be problematic, it should be able to speak for itself. It can’t right now, but I hope in the future it can.
The Ballad of Wallis Island is, I think, best described as a break. It’s sweet without being saccharine, melancholy without being tear inducing, funny but not a true knee-slapper. It lets you take a break from the wider themes of identity, politics, and conflict that many films for adults explore and instead just presents you with a story to enjoy. You can of course read into Wallis Island more, if you like, you always can with any movie, but I don’t really think it wants you to. It wants you to join it around a fire, on a beach, and feel some peace.
Horror is a hard genre to speak about qualitatively sometimes, because everyone gets different things from it, more than in maybe any other genre. Some like them funny, some like them dead serious, some like a little bit of both. Until Dawn attempts to satisfy everyone at least a little bit. While that does basically prevent it from being great off the bat (it’s hard to excel at any one thing if you don’t have one thing to focus on), it does make for a very entertaining movie. It wonderfully recalls the old monster mashes of old, a House of Dracula for 2025.
I love slasher movies. I’ve seen more than I could count, hundreds and hundreds, from all years, budgets, and types. Clown in a Cornfield, in contrast to last year’s clown slasher film Terrifier 3, is a great way of illustrating how all slashers aren’t made for the same people, despite working off of the same generic framework.
Clown in a Cornfield is fun. It has jokes, goofy sound effects, and characters get to spend a lot of time just hanging out before the murdering starts. Terrifier 3 is fun in a way, but only in a jaded, more abstract fashion. That’s not an insult, I think Terrifier 3 is quite good, but none of the characters are getting off zingers in Terrifier 3. Many people die in both films, but the specificity and realism of that violence is drastically different. Clown in a Cornfield is bloody, but it saves its few moments of real gore for times it wants to make an impact, to really make you jump. Terrifier 3 revels in its violence. Nearly every death is elaborate, long, drawn out, and cruel. Clown in a Cornfield is light. Terrifier 3 is scary.
This difference of approach is a good illustration of how all slashers aren’t really going for the same audience. Clown in a Cornfield is made for teens and those who can put themselves in a teenage mindset. It pushes against the line, but makes sure not to cross it. Terrifier 3 is for adults. You have to train up to Terrifier 3, you have to watch a dozen Clown in a Cornfields and then go “these aren’t thrilling me anymore, what’s a step up?”. Terrifier 3 is absinthe. Pure, unsubtle, and definitional. Clown in a Cornfield is a novelty cocktail with a little umbrella in it. It’s got alcohol, sure, but it’s also got fun, charm, and at the end of the day you’re not going to get that singular rush all the way from it.
The lesson I’d take away from these two clown based murder romps is that slashers as a genre need both types and as a viewer you need to understand and respect your own desires. If you want goofy, go goofy. You don’t owe anyone a desire to watch the stronger stuff. And if you like the stronger stuff, don’t disrespect those who don't. To each their own, friendo.
