Year: 2024

Two women visit a tech billionare’s luxury private island retreat but worry there might be something sinister beneath all the gourmet meals and free-flowing Champagne in Blink Twice.

Even if you didn’t know this is a horror movie, isn’t “tech billionaire” the giveaway that something sinister is afoot?

Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) work as waiters at a high-end function thrown by Slater King (Channing Tatum), the billionaire, who we see Frida Googling earlier, watching a video of him apologizing for unspecified bad behavior. After their work is done at the event, Frida and Jess change into fancy attire and sneak in, posing as guests. They meet Slater himself when he helps Frida up after she takes a tumble in her high heels and Frida and Jess end up hanging out with Slater’s crew. Eventually, this starstruck duo joins Slater’s group on a trip to Slater’s island, where he has chickens and lives simply or some billionaire nonsense.

When they get there, along with other women Sarah (Adria Arjona), Camilla (Liz Caribel) and Heather (Trew Mullen), Frida and Jess discover that nicely appointed rooms featuring white bikinis and flowy white beach wear have been prepared for them. There is also a group of dudes who are part of the proceedings, including Haley Joel Osment playing a bitter divorcee and Christian Slater playing what I can only call “the Christian Slater character” a.k.a. the other tell that this island has sinister elements.

The most spoiler-y thing I’ll say about how this story unfolds is that it features characters (women, naturally) being reminded several times to smile. Even in circumstances that are not strictly “horror”-y, this reminder isn’t exactly benign. In this way, Blink Twice could be part of a super depressing double feature with Woman of the Hour in the way it comments on how women use smiles and giggles in a not-always-successful attempt to not get murdered.

Blink Twice is a truly disturbing horror movie — worth a watch but not a spooky Halloween fun entry in the genre. With a thankful swirl of dark comedy, it sets up an extreme situation that gets to some very (unfortunately) relatable fears about dynamics between men and women and between the owns-an-island rich and everyone else. Solid performances all around — Channing Tatum, already well-documented as good at serving up goofballness — does a good job giving something much darker. Ackie and Arjona make their characters believable and believably skilled (and not) when it counts. And then there’s Geena Davis, who at some level is the personification of Gen Z-and-younger views of second and third wave feminism I think? The disturbing implications about her character are just one of many of this movie’s smart choices. B

Rated R for strong violent content, sexual assault, drug use and language throughout, and some sexual references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Zoë Kravitz and written by Zoë Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, Blink Twice is an hour and 42 minutes long, distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and available for rent or purchase.

Girl Haunts Boy (PG)

A 1920s adventure-seeking girl haunts a grief-enmeshed 2020s boy in the light-touch ghost-rom-com Girl Haunts Boy.

Teenager Bea (Peyton List, tough girl Tory of Cobra Kai) is hit by a car — and teaches us all the origins of the phrase “it’s a doozy” — after pocketing half of an ancient Egyptian ring-set she sees at a museum on a school trip in the 1920s. A hundred years later, teenager Cole (Michael Cimino, the Victor of Love, Victor) moves into Bea’s house with his recently widowed mother (Andrea Navedo) and finds Bea’s half of the ring. He puts it on and suddenly he can see and hear her and she has someone to talk to after decades alone.

Bea and Cole become friends with a side of Maybe Something More even though she can’t make physical contact with humans or leave the general vicinity of the ring. And bringing some extra helpings of com to this rom-com is Lydia (Phoebe Holden), also a high schooler, who has a YouTube channel about the supernatural and senses that Cole has something spooky happening with him.

Girl Haunts Boy feels very middle-of-the-road streaming-Christmas-movie in both its quality (of writing, of ghosty special effects) and its emotional depth — but that isn’t really a dig. This feels perfectly serviceable as teen romance programming and didn’t pain me, as a grown-up, to watch it either. This might be the best possible programming to watch with your young teen as it only requires maybe 30 percent tops of your attention to get the gist. You can goof around on your phone, they can goof around on their phone and technically you’re still doing an activity together. C

Rated PG for mild thematic elements and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Emily Ting with a story by Dustin Ellis, based on the book by Cesar Vitale, Girl Haunts Boy is an hour and 40 minutes long and is streaming on Netflix.

Wolfs (R)

George Clooney and Brad Pitt have delightful irritated-buddy chemistry that feels like the whole reason for being for Wolfs, a lightweight crime comedy thing.

When a man — legally speaking, but more of a boy really — jumps off the bed, crashes into a bar cart and lies in a puddle of blood in the swank hotel room of the district attorney (Amy Ryan), she calls for help. An unnamed man, listed as [ ] in her phone, calls her back. George Clooney, as [ ], arrives all leather jacket and deep reassuring voice, ready to make it so she was never in the hotel room and the kid (Austin Abrams) had nothing to do with her. He is about to start his work when there is a knock at the door and another cool, reassuring man walks in — Brad Pitt — ready to help the district attorney out of her situation, which was viewed by hotel security cameras in the room by Pam (Frances McDormand). Eventually, Pam calls and tells the two men to work together to clean up the situation, and with deep annoyance and distrust, they begin to do so — cleaning out the hotel, giving the district attorney an alibi and a change of clothes, loading up the body.

Except, about that body, some mix of the drugs he’s on and the chaos of the situation meant they never really did a complete check of his pulse and the body is still a living, if unwell, person. And he is in possession of four large bricks of some kind of drug that these reluctant partners realize somebody is going to come looking for. Eventually these two are driving the kid around the city, with various underworld stops as they try to clean up the original mess without creating bigger problems with criminal types such as “The Albanians,” “The Croatian” and whoever the kid’s friend Diego is working for.

But really, this movie is about Clooney and Pitt, affectionately bickering and lightly picking on either other. Pitt’s character ribs Clooney’s for being old, Clooney’s treats Pitt’s as kind of a know-nothing. It’s cute, occasionally fun and very light. I don’t understand the economics of this kind of movie — big-deal stars in a big-deal-seeming movie that is released on a streamer most people probably have because it came with their phone — but the home viewing element does do this movie the favor that the hangout nature of things is enough. Their nitpick-y banter is charming, or at least charming enough, and if you like either or both of these actors this movie is a fine venue to hang out with them. B

Rate R for language throughout and some violent content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Jon Watts, Wolfs is a breezy hour and 48 minutes long and is available on AppleTV+.

Caddo Lake (PG-13)

A swampy lake on the Texas-Louisiana border becomes a nexus of mystery in the twisty thriller Caddo Lake.

During drought, the Caddo Lake recedes to reveal more of the muddy marshy woods that surround it. Teenager Ellie (Eliza Scanlen) can still use the family’s motorboot to get around their small, lake-centered town, using it to get to a friend’s house to stay in the days after a fight with her mother (Lauren Ambrose). Though she and her mom aren’t on great terms, she still hangs out with Anna (Caroline Falk), her 8-year-old stepsister and the daughter of Ellie’s mom’s husband (Eric Lange), the family peacemaker.

Twenty-something Paris (Dylan O’Brien) works construction around the lake and seems to be a constant worry to his father (Sam Hemmings). Paris’ mother died in a car accident near the lake a few years earlier and Paris is obsessed with a mysterious medical condition she had that may have had something to do with the accident.

After a family gathering and another fight between Ellie and her mother, Ellie once again storms out of the family home. What she doesn’t realize is that Anna has followed her, taking a skiff, and the next day can’t be found anywhere. Meanwhile Paris is seeing and hearing odd things near the lake. Do the strange things he’s encountering have something to do with Anna’s disappearance?

The “what” of the “what’s going on” here isn’t terribly surprising but the movie unfolds its story with enough skill that I held on to the action. Paris and Ellie (and Scanlen and O’Brien) and their twin obsessive searches for the mystery of the lake make for compelling enough action. B-

Rated PG-13 for some disturbing/bloody images, thematic elements and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Logan George and Celine Held, Caddo Lake is an hour and 39 minutes long and distributed by New Line Cinema. It is streaming on Max.