A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it had been a box-office success, I thought I might as well check it out. Originally, Scott Derrickson was supposed to direct ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ but, since Marvel wouldn’t let him make it a horror movie (such a missed opportunity, by the way), he dropped out and made this one instead which did fairly well after all. Eventually, even if it was nothing really original, I thought it was a solid horror flick, at least it was better than ‘Sinister’, another collaboration involving Derrickson and Ethan Hawke which turned out to be rather underwhelming, at least, as far as I was concerned. I was actually surprised that the action was taking place in the 70’s and, even though it usually annoys me when a movie is set in the past without a good reason, it actually worked here, even if I was not sure why. Eventually, the strongest aspect was also the main issue here. Basically, the Grabber remained an enigma, even at the end (they didn’t even tell us his name) which was a bit frustrating but it also did add a layer of mystery without actually doing anything. In the similar way, the whole mask thing was hardly original but its random aspect and the fact that it was never explained at all made it automatically more intriguing than it probably actually deserved. Concerning the black phone thing, it was pretty much a gimmick and I’m not sure if I really cared for it but, again, it mostly worked because they never tried to rationalize it in any way. Concerning the actors involved, Ethan Hawke as usual didn’t disappoint. Casting such a seemingly sweet and nice dude to play such a creepy child molester/killer was a bold move that clearly paid off. To be honest, he wasn’t given much to do after all and the fact that his face was half-covered most of the time probably didn’t help but it displayed how good the guy actually was/is to be able to convincingly act in such limited circumstances. Mason Thames was also solid (I completely forgot that he had played in the live-action version of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’), even if his character could have been more developed. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t the most memorable horror movie I have seen lately, it was definitely a decent watch though.