It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

8.5/10
It Follows has that rare thing in horror movies these days, a truly great, original premise. It also (mostly) leaves the cheap jump-scares which have become so prolific lately at the door and generates its scares from nightmarish, surreal scenes of dread and general creepynees. That combined with its incredible score give it an appealing "old school horror" feel (not unlike the score of the last movie I reviewed, You're Next, but even better). Writer/director David Robert Mitchell directs with a lot of visual flare, there are numerous great shots that are mostly atypical of what we've come to expect from the genre. It is well acted by its young ensemble, and in particular by its star, Maika Monroe.
That said, the nature of the film's own "monster movie logic" means that the scares and creep-factor are diminished the longer the movie goes on (once we're used to "it" walking toward its heroine at a calm pace and accept the fact that our heroine will continue to escape, the tension lessens...not to mention that because of the fact that "it" is only targeting and can only be seen by our heroine, we know can let our guard down when the camera isn't fixed on her). Compounding that, I think the movie noticeably falters in its final act. Mitchell has built a great premise and executes it very well, but doesn't seem to know where to take it. A last-act confrontation (the swimming pool scene) feels clumsy and doesn't appear to serve the story in any real way, although I did like the end of the film.
Unfortunately, the nature of the "evil" in the movie makes it completely open to being sequel-fodder, and it's hard to imagine further installments being as effective as this one was, especially if Mitchell is not at the helm.

You're Next (Adam Wingard, 2011)

7.5/10
As a festival crowd pleaser, You're Next probably would have been great fun. Watched at home, its impact feels diminished, and the disconnect between its existence as both a violent home invasion horror and a borderline-goofy black comedy becomes more emphasized and feels weirdly jarring. It's hard to tell how seriously the movie takes itself, especially when it features an absurd exchange like the following, which may set new highs of brilliant stupidity (spoilers within):
-"You never want to do anything fun. Come on, fuck me on the bed next to your dead mother."
-"This discussion is over."
You're Next mostly comes out looking better than it should the strength of the direction and score, which are both completely on point. The score in particularly is perfectly evocative of some of John Carpenter's best, or the poppy Italian synth stuff that was smeared all over every horror in the late 70's and 80's. The acting is solid all-around too and it's difficult not to root for its central hero/heroine. The humor, when it crops up, is sharp too. But it's not really a scary movie at all and I feel like the ending was a missed opportunity to do something cooler. All in all not bad and does some things very well but not as great as I'd hoped.

White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932)

4/10
A Haitian zombie movie from the 30's starring Bela Lugosi, it mostly wastes its Haitian setting for a predictable love-story-with-zombies thing. I thought it was fairly boring and nothing really stood out in any way.

Neighbors (Nicholas Stoller, 2014)

3/10
It goes to rather ludicrous, unrealistic lengths to pit a whole fraternity against a young family (Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne and their 1ish year old) and once you accept this silly premise, it forgets to pepper the script with jokes. The movie mostly glides by inoffensively enough on the charm of its actors, who are all very good (can someone explain to me why I still like Dave Franco despite the fact that he always plays the same character?). But it revisits a central concern that was dealt with many years ago in Knocked Up - that whole Judd Apatow brand of, "partying and getting high all the time was awesome and now I feel constricted by this new familial role I'm expected to play!" shtick. And seeing the same actor, Rogen, doing it again made it feel especially tired.
I did enjoy Rose Byrne a lot and her character too, and I liked how they made a point of not making her out to be the nagging shrew chastising her oafish husband's harebrained schemes (with a pointed reference to every Kevin James movie ever). Her character very much gets her hands dirty and it feels like a breath of fresh air in an otherwise boring and generally uninteresting movie.

Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore, 2012)

6/10
The more I thought about this one the less I liked it. It started off with a clever, original idea, and I would say the first third is enjoyable, but then you realize just how much of a copy-paste job of better Pixar movies it is (only not as funny or moving) and it feels like more of a disappointment. Like they dreamed up this cool universe with all kinds of possibilities and then just did something pretty boring with it, or at least nothing you haven't already seen before. Meh.

Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

8/10
Short Ingmar Bergman movie about an ailing priest losing his faith and how it affects, in particular, a woman desperately in love with him and a suicidal fisherman seeking his advice. I really liked it, it actually reminded me a little of Winter Sleep (or vice versa, more like). The priest's dilemma is moving, as are the reactions of those around him. The movie doesn't ask easy questions or offer easy answers. It's probably a "minor" Bergman masterpiece in his legendary filmography but it's worth watching.

Un Chien Andalou (Luis Bunuel, 1929)

7/10
What can you say? I've known about the famous eyeball-slicing scene since forever, never actually watched the full short (some 16 minutes). The ants coming out of the hole in the guy's hand was another well done illusion that I hadn't seen before. As far as what anything in it meant, ??????.

The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)

6.5/10
A pretty good movie, maybe a bit of a disappointment as far as movies with Hitchcock's name on them go. I liked the initial staging in the snowed-in made-up town where you meet most of the characters. The premise starts out with a lot of promise: a lady disappears on a train and a young woman is the only one who seems to know of her existence. I like the initial mystery where it's not clear why other passengers (who have clearly seen the lady in question) are now denying her existence. As the plot unfolded it got more and more lame, culminating in a weirdly out-of-place shootout between train passengers and coppers and leading to a very abrupt, kind of corny ending.