Category: Horror & Suspense

I wasn’t exactly gunning to watch a film set in our current pandemic-riddled times, where a young woman is dealing with the “hashtag relatable” struggle of extreme paranoia, anxiety, and panic attacks. However, putting all that aside, Steven Soderbergh’s Kimi was pretty legit. 

Again though, much like the film Minari, I just felt the ending was too abrupt. As soon as the arc of the story unfolded and all the action came to an exciting conclusion – BAM – it’s over. Why not tie up more of the loose ends? The 2ish minute sequence that followed was, I suppose, meant to show us that the main character is happy now and living her best life, but I still felt cheated somehow. 

Kimi (2022) stars Zoë Kravitz as Angela Childs, a young woman working for a tech company comparable to Amazon. After seeing Kravitz’s performance here, I’m really looking forward to watching her kick ass in the new Batman movie this Spring. She was edgy, powerful, and whip smart. The perfect choice to star in this thriller-mystery-suspense film. 

Angela works from home (per Covid) debugging code for Kimi, a smart speaker eerily similar to Amazon’s Alexa device. Her job is to listen to recordings from Kimi users and fix instances where the speaker doesn’t register the correct response.

Aside from working, exercising, and occasionally hooking up with her neighbor across the street, Angela’s life is pretty isolated. Although she’s seeing a therapist, she still has trouble coping with her fears, and it’s so bad that she’s unable to leave her apartment. It’s also noted that she was sexually assaulted, which only contributes to her condition. She takes medication, but as debilitating panic attacks continue to plague her, Angela remains secluded and immersed in her work. 

One evening while reviewing her streams, Angela comes across a very noisy recording. She can tell something is wrong, so she works feverishly to isolate the voices in the background and make out what is being said. 

Meanwhile, we see a random dude in the building across the street who’s been watching her, and we’re left to wonder what his deal is. Is he just a creep? Is he a spy? Or just another socially anxious introvert holed up in his apartment and bored (but also still creepy for watching her lol)?

Once Angela can clearly discern the voices, she is convinced what she is hearing is a violent murder. Who are these people? Why did this happen? As the plot unfolds, Angela learns some terrifying truths about the crime.

Meanwhile, concerned with her discovery, she decides she must take action. Now, the thrill and suspense abound as Angela is physically and metaphorically forced to step outside her comfort zone and seek justice for this heinous act. 

One of the things that pleased me most about this movie was that I didn’t feel Angela was making “stupid” mistakes. Her actions were intelligent, and I felt they realistically reflected the thought process someone might have. What would you do first? Call a trusted coworker? Would you make a copy of the recording? Several copies? Would you bring it to your employer? If your employer didn’t react the way you expected or you felt your life was in danger, would you still return home?

Instead of shouting angrily at my tv screen, I rejoiced in Angela’s quick thinking and courageous actions. This movie is a nerve-wracking but satisfying thriller whose success is due mainly to the dynamic acting of Zoë Kravitz, some artistic camera work, and realistic plot development. It’s thoroughly enjoyable, even with its mildly unsatisfying ending.

Well, this one was interesting. Overlord (2018) is a mixture of several genres (war, action, fantasy, horror) wrapped into one mentally unstable movie. The film is about a group of  American military paratroopers sent to France on the eve of D-Day. This small task force is charged with a crucial mission: take out a Nazi radio transmitter behind the walls of a fortified church. They cannot fail. The success of the D-Day invasion relies on them. 

The action/war-horror starts right from the get-go as the men take on heavy fire near their drop zone. This heart-pounding scene is white knuckle and feels eerily realistic. Our main protagonist, Boyce (Jovan Adepo) manages to get out and plummets from the fiery plane into shallow water. He then starts searching for the rest of his team, most of whom are already dead. Fortunately, Boyce is able to reunite with the few remaining troops to continue the mission. As they trudge through the forest, the men come across a strange dead creature. This is the first foreshadowing of what lies ahead for them.

Boyce doesn’t come across as your typical soldier type. He’s thoughtful, sensitive, and hesitant to kill. I can relate to Boyce because I think I’d be the same way in that situation; you want to do your job but you’re also not sure not if you’re emotionally prepared for what it will bring – and BOY does it bring the characters in Overlord some surprises. 

As Boyce and the other soldiers navigate towards their desired coordinates, they find themselves sidetracked in an occupied French village. There, they are forced to hide in a young woman’s home. Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier) lives in the home with her 8 year old brother and sick Aunt. What her Aunt is “sick” with, we don’t quite know, but we’ll soon find out.

After Boyce gets a first hand look at this “sickness”, and after a series of events that intertwines the squad further into the problem, it soon becomes apparent that the Nazis are experimenting on the villagers. Their goal? Figure out how to make unstoppable super soldiers. (Hint: it’s not going well for them so far…).  What’s heartwrenching about this aspect of the plot is knowing that the Nazis actually did experiment on people during WWII. But, Overlord takes that historical reality and weaves it into a reimagined fiction/horror. 

Boyce, although less willing to kill than his teammates, is vocal about the importance of helping these people, especially since the disgusting Nazi captain/villain Wafner (Pilou Asbaek) kidnapped Chloe’s brother. The more traditional soldier-type and designated group leader, Ford (Wyatt Russell), disagrees with Boyce and wants to focus on the mission, so Boyce and the rest of the group must stand strong to convince him.  Now the team must race to save the child, take down the sinister operation, and still complete their original mission to destroy the radio transmitter. It won’t be easy with mutant-zombie super soldiers trying to murder them, but they’re going to give it all they’ve got.

This movie found me cycling through bouts of gripping the couch, furrowing my eyebrows, and cringing in disgust at meat hooks. However, even as a gore hater, I found the violence “tolerable” as it pertained to the story. To be honest, I’m still digesting Overlord. It’s got something really edgy and interesting, but I also feel like it’s missing something I can’t put my finger on. For now, I’ll just work on exorcising this image from my unconscious.