Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  The test of a horror mystery is to reflect on the events within it and trace the outcomes back to the perpetrator.   Bodies Bodies Bodies passes with distinction. Directed by Halina Reijn ( Instinct ) from a smart screenplay credited to Sarah Delappe and a story by Kristen Roupenian, the film features a quintet of mostly wealthy twenty-something women, and their male companions, who turn on each other after a hurricane party game of ‘bodies bodies bodies’ goes very awry. When one of the group ends up dead with a sword wound to the neck, their blood-smeared dressing-gowned body pressed against a window, the group seeks the killer, concluding that their activity has gone too far. One of their number is in bed, having retired early and earlier squared off against the victim. ‘The best defence is a good offence,’ says one guest. ‘What does that even mean?’ asks the victim. The guest simply repeats the phrase, as if no further explanation is required. Any game that begins with sl...

Pictured : 'What do you mean you can't manage three fillet, one hanger?' Ava ( Chase Sui Wonders ) does battle with the Fisherman in a Hellish Kitchen in a scene from the 2025 re-quel, ' I Know What You Did Last Summer ', a horror film with a hook, co-written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson , working with characters from the 1997 original. Photograph: Brooke Rushton . Still courtesy of Columbia Pictures. Contains spoilers By most objective measures, the 2025 reboot of the 1997 horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer , fails to deliver on expectations. There are ‘comfortable’ horror films, where the film works to a template – a serial killer of some type despatches cast members at regular intervals as a form of punishment. Tension is periodic. Social issues are rarely discussed. There are also ‘uncomfortable’ horror films, where trauma is felt in the mise-en-scene . The characters may be responsible for the horror we witness. The film is heavy with ex...