The Girl with the Needle (2024)

Nominated for Best International Feature    Content warning:  facial disfigurement, PTSD, drug use, attempted abortion with a knitting needle, infanticide, child abuse

I am so serious about these warnings.  

Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) works as a seamstress making war uniforms but not making enough to cover her rent.  She applies for a widow's stipend since she hasn't heard from her husband (Besir Zeciri) in over a year, but there's no record of him.  She has an affair with her wealthy boss (Joachim Fjelstrup) and thinks the resulting pregnancy is her ticket out of poverty but surprise!  It's not.  Desperate and poor, Karoline tries to self-abort in the baths but is prevented by Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a candy shop owner, who offers to take the baby and find a foster home if Karoline carries to term.  Since Karoline also needs a job after being fired by her Baby Daddy, she goes to work for Dagmar as a wet nurse, caring for the abandoned infants until they can be placed.  Things seem to be on the upward swing until she discovers what Dagmar is actually doing.

The Academy decided to embrace Women's Horror this year.  I'm still sad they didn't pick The Devil's Bath, which is almost the exact same movie, but I can guess why this one made the cut instead.  **DEEPLY CYNICAL SPECULATION AND ALSO MAYBE SPOILERS**  GwtN has an ostensibly happy ending (because she reconciles with her husband and adopts Erena, creating a stereotypical heteronormative family) and TDB does not.  Karoline shows remorse but lets Dagmar take the fall alone and faces zero consequences for her part while Agnes confesses and is executed.  Both are deeply tragic but GwtN pushes the horror onto a scapegoat and that one step away creates enough emotional distance for Academy voters to feel virtuous, instead of forcing them to confront the ways society has historically failed and punished women for existing, where TDB keeps the focus on Agnes, refusing to look away.  Also, the Academy fucking loves war and war-adjacent movies and dramatic uses of black-and-white film.  **END SPECULATION AND SPOILERS**

Every year, there's at least one film that is such a depressing slog it wrecks my timeline for watching.  This movie cost me three solid days.  It is unrelentingly bleak and I cannot stress the content warnings enough.  Do not put your mental health at risk for this.  It's streaming on Mubi, a stupidly named niche arthouse service, exclusively for now.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)

Nominated for Best International Feature   Content warning:  protest violence, blood

Najmeh (Sohelia Golestani) is trying to keep her family from falling apart after her husband (Missagh Zareh) gets promoted to Investigator for the theocratic Court in Tehran.  The position requires complete anonymity because of the fear of reprisal, so Najmeh cautions her two daughters against anything that would identify them or cause suspicion.  But Rezvan (Masha Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) are tired of the propaganda they've been fed their whole lives, and want to be involved with the on-going protests for women's rights.  When their father's gun goes missing, Najmeh must decide which is more important:  protecting her daughters or appeasing her husband.

The story itself is pretty basic --youth rebelling against authority-- and only elevated by the inclusion of actual protest footage that made it past the social media bans in Iran.  That is a hard watch but necessary.  Framing it in a fictional story probably had the added benefit of giving real-life authorities fewer people to target.  

The performances were good, especially Rostami, who acts as a moral compass for the film.  Pacing lags a bit, especially between setting changes, but that's a pretty minor complaint.  You might be able to catch this in theaters if you live near an arthouse one, but most likely you'll have to clicky-click that VPN if you want to watch it at home before the Oscars.

Anora (2024)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing    Content warning:  homophobic slurs

Ani (Mikey Madison) is a stripper/sex worker who thinks she's hit the lottery when she meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch.  Ivan spends money like water, loving the freedom that comes from being young, rich, and 8000 miles away from his parents.  He knows it's his last trip to America before joining his dad's company and wants to make the most of it.  So he flies Ani to Vegas and marries her.  And then posts it on social media because he's an idiot.  His mother (Darya Ekamasova) immediately dispatches Toros (Karran Karagulian), who was supposed to be supervising Ivan, to have the marriage annulled.  Ivan bolts, leaving Ani to deal with the fallout.  

There is nothing original here and I have no idea why this got six nominations when Hustlers --a film about strippers directed and written by women starring a woman of color and based on a true story-- didn't get a single one.  I mean, I have an idea why, obviously, a film about a stripper written and directed by a man starring a white woman got nominated, but it's not polite.

Sean Baker is a rising star whose previous films have focused on marginalized people.  That is good and I fully support that.  Anora feels regressive and more like a story that would have been made in the early 2000s.  Madison doesn't bring anything really noteworthy to the character, other than being young, beautiful, and willing to be traumatized on screen (always Academy catnip).  Ani grimly clings to a fantasy so hard it moves past naïveté and into delusion, all while being completely unsympathetic.  Points for realism, I guess, because everyone knows a girl like this, but most people have the good sense to cut ties with them pretty quickly.  

But by far the most egregious nomination is for film editing.  This movie is two hours and 18 minutes long and it could have been cut by a third.  So many scenes were repetitive and added nothing we didn't already know.  Baker probably could have hired out for this instead of trying to do it himself.

Yuriy Borisov is a literal angel and deserves this nomination.  #TeamIgor You deserved so much better, my darling.

Conclave (2024)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design    Man, I love movies about popes.  This is not to say that I love the Roman Catholic Church as an institution or organized religion in general, but every story about a papal conclave is so full of drama and intrigue.  It's like the world's highest-budget Real Housewives of Jesus.

As Dean of the College of Cardinals, it is Father Lawrence's (Ralph Fiennes) job to convene a conclave to choose the next pope.  It is a hugely political affair with rival factions behind the hardline traditionalists led by Father Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the moderates behind Father Tremblay (John Lithgow), and the reformists represented by Father Bellini (Stanley Tucci).  Moments before the doors are closed to sequester the priests away, a newly created cardinal, Father Benitez (Carlos Diehz), is admitted.  Dean Lawrence must keep the cardinals from being influenced by the outside world, but soon discovers that corruption may have already been spread.

There's at least one major spoiler.  I thought it was pretty obvious but that doesn't mean I'm going to ruin it for others.  Fiennes has always been great and he's very good here.  I don't know if he's going to win because I haven't seen anyone else in the category yet, but an excellent performance regardless.  Isabella Rossellini's nom feels like one of the Academy's belated Lifetime Achievement awards.  She doesn't have a lot to do here.  Tucci steals every scene.  The man does more with a look than most people do in their entire careers.

So far this is my favorite.  It's currently streaming on Peacock.

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

  This was one of the Oscar nominees I didn't get to last year and I missed it again when it came up in Movie Club, so this has been kind of a catch-up week for me.  (Also, I completely missed the nominations for both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards so my TBW list has jumped up like 100 slots.  Thank God the Oscars don't drop until the 17th.)  

Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) chickened out of being a kamikaze pilot at the end of WWII, landing instead on a small island for "repairs" and inadvertently witnessing a local monster, Godzilla, which rampaged over the island and killed all the maintenance workers.  Shikishima returned to a war-torn Tokyo to find that his family is dead and his neighbor (Sakura Andô) hates him.  He takes in refugee Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and orphaned Akiko (Sae Nagatani) but refuses to allow himself to care for them.  And then Godzilla returns, angry over nuclear testing and even larger than before.  Shikishima needs to come up with a plan to stop the giant lizard before it ruins his life even further.

Maybe this was just overhyped to me, but I didn't think it was nearly as good as Shin Godzilla.  It felt more cynical, more depressed, and more like a Jaws riff than a Godzilla movie.  Maybe because Shikishima is not a sympathetic protagonist?  Nothing about this worked for me.  

It has a ton of critical acclaim and won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects so clearly other people like it.  It's streaming on Netflix.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

  Merry Solstice, everyone!  Thus begins our round of Christmas movie offerings, courtesy of Movie Club, and it is getting Festive AF in here.  Content warning:  homophobic slurs, violence, attempted suicide, child endangerment

An unlikely trio of homeless people: Gin (Tôru Emori), an alcoholic, Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki), a transwoman, and Miyuki (Aya Okamoto), a teenage runaway, find a baby abandoned in the trash on Christmas Eve and begin a journey to find the parents.  Along the way, truths are revealed, burdens are shared, and people learn what true family means.

This is considered a modern classic especially for Christmas but it was just okay for me.  I liked the characters and I thought the animation was really well done but the longer it went on, the less interest I had.  There were so many coincidences and random events that turned out to be really significant to the characters' pasts and it got really old for me.  But as always, your mileage may vary.  It's for damn sure better than Triplets of Belleville.  

Would I watch it again?  No.  Would I recommend it to people?  Yes. It's streaming for free on Tubi, the Roku Channel, and Amazon's ad-supported tier FreeVee.  Tubi is better about not making jarring cuts to commercial.

Kwaidan (1965)

  Some bonus post-Halloween ghost content for your All-Souls Day.  

This is an anthology of four traditional Japanese ghost stories.

The Black Hair - a samurai (Rentarô Mikuni) regrets the choices he made in service of ambition.

The Woman in the Snow - a woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) has a terrifying run-in with a snow demon (Keiko Kishi).

Hoichi the Earless - a blind monk (Katsuo Nakamura) is summoned to perform a historical epic for its victims.

In a Cup of Tea - a samurai (Kan'emon Nakamura) is tormented by a ghostly presence reflected in his teacup.

I don't throw the word "masterpiece" around very often so trust me when I say it.  Kwaidan is a masterpiece of Japanese cinema.  The scare factor of this is very low while the art factor is extremely high.  Every scene is basically a painting that moves.  It is a stunning film.  The performances feel a little wooden, a little stage-y, but it just adds to the vibe.  It does run a little over three hours but I did not feel it.  

It's streaming on the Criterion Channel and also (sigh) Max.  Treat your eyeballs.

31 Days of 2024 Horror - Day 20 - Hell Hole (2024)

  This movie is just okay until about the one hour mark where it suddenly morphs into pure hilarity.  Content warning: heavy gore, dead animal (horse), attempted suicide (gun)

An American fracking company in Serbia has been frustrated by both inclement weather washing out the road so they can't get their equipment to the site and by bureaucracy in the form of a pair of scientists making sure they don't disturb an endangered species.  They are finally given the okay to drill and immediately discover something organic beneath the soil, something that has been lying in wait since the previous century.

The CGI is janky, the dialogue isn't great, and the performances are pretty mid for about two-thirds of the movie.  I completely understand if that is too much time to spend before it gets good.  At no point is it unwatchable, but it is definitely C-list material until the third act. 

Readers, I laughed so hard I threw my back out.  Wild, shrieking, uncontrollable, bog-witch-in-the-night howls of laughter.  I encourage you to go in blind, like I did, but if you need more convincing, **SPOILERS FOLLOW** it's basically "what if unwanted pregnancy, but a man?" and post-Roe, it is very funny to see men react to the arguments women have heard for years.  **END SPOILERS**  It will definitely not be for everyone but if you like your horror monsters on the foam rubber side, gratuitous splatter gore, and an explicit reason why you never go ass-to-mouth, give Hell Hole a shot.  It's currently streaming on Shudder.

31 Days of 2024 Horror - Day 16 - Exhuma (2024)

  This is a really good year for ghost stories!  Content warning:  dead animals, blood, some gore, infant in distress

A wealthy Korean ex-pat (Kim Jae-cheol) believes his family line is cursed so he hires a shaman (Kim Go-eun) and her team to cremate his grandfather's remains.  The team geomancer (Choi Min-sik) is deeply disturbed by the gravesite, which is nameless and alone atop a mountain, and the more the team digs into both the literal and metaphorical dirt surrounding the family, the more danger they find.

I love seeing the intersection of folklore and funerary rites.  I think it's fascinating.  So this movie felt tailor-made for me and I cannot be reasonable in my enjoyment of it.  Also, it's always great to see Choi Min-sik in stuff.  

There is a lot of Korean history wrapped up in this that may or may not send you down a rabbit hole of research, depending on your familiarity.  I have a very shallow background in Asian history but I didn't find it hard to follow.  It just made me want to learn more and isn't that all you can ask for from your horror movies?

Anyway, it's so so good and I highly recommend checking it out.  It's streaming exclusively on Shudder but I'm planning on buying this one.

31 Days of 2024 Horror - Day 14 - Handling the Undead (2024)

  Here's your obligatory zombie movie.  Wish it was a better one.  Content warning:  dead child, animal killed on-screen (rabbit), suicide attempt

A strange power surge in Oslo causes the dead to re-animate, throwing three families into chaos as they try to cope with the return of a loved one that's not quite right.

This is based on a novel by the same guy who wrote Let the Right One In and there are moments that have the same feel, but overall this is a very weak film.  It doesn't say or do anything new with the genre and the overall message of letting go of grief is facile and frankly, condescending.

Can't even give it props for performances.  Everybody acts like they're on anti-depressants already and I don't know if that's just because they're Norwegian or what.  It's boring, it's sad, and it's insulting.  It's streaming on Hulu.

31 Days of 2024 Horror - Day 7 - Out of Darkness (2022)

  I say again, the past sucks.  1750?  Shitty year.  43,000 BCE?  Worse.  Content warning:  some gore, cannibalism

Adem (Chuku Modu) leads a splinter of his tribe across the sea to a new land in search of better prospects.    Instead, they find a wasteland and something snatches Adem's son, Heron (Luna Mwezi), in the dark.  The elder (Arno Lüning) thinks they have angered a demon that must be appeased.  Adem believes it's a beast that can be tracked and killed.  

The neatest thing about this movie is that every line of dialogue is in a made-up language created for the film.  It adds an otherness where it's almost something you could recognize (based on Arabic and Basque, according to the director) but isn't.  Otherwise, this isn't really a novel take on survival horror.  There are long stretches where the camera just pans over each character in a way that's meant to increase tension but just ends up being boring.  

The cinematography is great when it's gliding over the Scottish highlands but it devolves into shaky cam during action and you know I hate that.  (I'm pretty sure I recognized the same ridge from Braveheart but I could be wrong.)  The "twist" at the end isn't particularly well done and the message isn't as clever as it thinks.  It is based in actual historical evidence, however, so that's nice.  All in all, not super worth your attention.  It's streaming on Paramount+ with the Showtime option.  Which I think is just included now?  Whatever.  Paramount+.

If you're wondering, it was released in festivals in 2022 but didn't get a wide release, i.e. to the States, until 2024 so it counts as being from this year.

31 Days of 2024 Horror - Day 6 - The Devil's Bath (2024)

  This is a genre I like to call Women's Horror because it presents life just being a woman and voila!  Horror.  Content warning:  infanticide, suicide, open wounds, rotting flesh, maggots, decapitation, dead animals (goat, fish)

Agnes (Anja Plaschg) was looking forward to being married and having a house and family of her own.  But her husband (David Scheid) doesn't touch her, her mother-in-law (Maria Hofstätter) is overbearing, and the chores expected of her are drudging misery.  What's an emotionally sensitive girl to do when the most attractive option means you won't get into heaven?  She looks for a loophole.

Love that the premise is "what if you were a peasant in 1750" and that's it.  The past fucking sucks.  The movie does a good job showing that no one is really at fault here.  Agnes' husband does love her but it is heavily implied that he prefers men, so he can't give her what she wants --a baby-- but he also can't really tell her why.  And there's no divorce.  So Agnes is left shouldering the burden of being childless, trying to learn a lifetime's worth of skilled labor in a couple of weeks, feeling judged and found wanting at every turn.  In modern times, she would probably be vegan but that's also not an option, so she feels guilty and surrounded by death with every meal she makes.  And up until around 1970, that was the reality for literally millions of women.  

There's a super depressing end title card detailing the court statistics that inform this movie, just in case you thought it was me being a rabid feminist again.  But if you like rural folk horror like Hagazussa, this might be one for you.  It's currently streaming on Shudder.

Monkey Man (2024)

  This was the Movie Club pick for this week and I'm glad because it would have probably slipped through the cracks for me.  Content warning:  violence, blood

An unnamed bare-knuckle fighter (Dev Patel) slowly works toward access to an elite member's-only club, the leaders of which destroyed his village, in order to exact revenge.

It's a very striking movie, good visuals, solid grounding in reality.  Very much influenced by John Woo, Luc Besson, and specifically name-drops John Wick but manages to weave in its own culture and not just be a knockoff, generic action movie.  This is the directorial debut for Patel, who also wrote and co-produced, and for a first effort, it's incredible.  It's not breaking any new ground story-wise, but it is a self-assured, confident outing.

The major theme is corruption, specifically using religion to cover a multitude of evils, which again is bog-standard but still really relevant in Indian society where there is a massive divide between the Haves and Have-Nots.  Patel has been exploring that divide basically his entire career and this feels like a natural progression for him.  But also big shout-out for bringing in marginalized religious practitioners like the hijra, a trans femme subset of devotees that periodically face crack-downs from oppressors.

It's currently streaming on Peacock.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

  This movie is great because it suckers you in with Hot French Lesbians but then it's like, "Boom, women's rights and bodily autonomy, bitches!"  Content warning: abortion

Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is hired to paint a noblewoman's wedding portrait in secret because Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) objects to the match and won't pose for one.  She thinks Marianne is just a walking companion her mother (Valeria Golino) hired so she won't kill herself like her sister did.  But when Mom leaves to meet the fiancé, Héloïse and Marianne begin to bond in earnest.

There was so much hype about this movie in 2019.  Huge critical darling, plus the director caused some drama when she protested the inclusion of Roman Polanski at an awards show (too lazy to look up but I think it was the Césars) and called him a pedophile, and it was filled with Hot Girls doing Hot Girl Shit.  

Happy to say it lives up to all the praise.  Plus, every scene looks like its own painting.  Gorgeously shot, great lighting.  Merlant looks like an alabaster bust come to life.  The attention to detail is fantastic.  

This is a movie that celebrates being a woman with other women.  Yes, lesbians, but also just the unspoken help and support that comes from an innate understanding.  Fabulous.  Beautiful.  Can't praise it enough.  It's streaming on Hulu.

Watu Wote (2017)

  This Oscar-nominated short is based on a true story in case you were having too good a day today and needed to be reminded that horrible people exist.  Content warning:  terrorism

A woman (Adelyne Wairimu) confronts her prejudices when she is stuck on a bus being threatened by a terrorist group.

It's not a fun watch but it is only 21 minutes long so at least it's fast.  It's streaming on Kanopy.

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (2009)

  Since no-fault divorce is back in the news, let's revisit exactly why it's a great idea that should never be rescinded by looking at what happens when you don't have it.

Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) wants a divorce from Elisha (Simon Abkarian) after 20 years of marriage.  But they live in Israel which means their court is a tribunal of rabbis and the entire thing hinges on Elisha giving permission.  Viviane has no grounds with which to compel Elisha.  He doesn't beat her or sleep around.  He simply quietly terrorizes her with his silences and his petty malice.  She just wants to be free and even though he doesn't want her, he can't stand the thought of her being with someone else.

This would actually make a good double-feature with Possession.   Like seeing one divorce through the perspectives of the husband and the wife.  Of course, as a woman, this movie is infuriating to the point of physical illness.  I started wondering if the song "Goodbye Earl" did numbers over there or what.  Because you know what you get when you force women into marriages they can't leave?  Dead women. Suicides, murder, and intimate parter violence all go down when women have legal alternatives.  The only reason you don't care about those stats is if you don't think of women as people, just things to be owned and used.

This is streaming on Kanopy.  Vote in your local elections.  It matters.

In the Fade (2017)

  After a string of disappointments this weekend, here's a movie to knock your socks off.  Content warning:  terrorist attack, suicide bomb, death of a child (off-screen but described), and attempted suicide

Katja (Diane Kruger) finds it difficult to continue on after her husband (Numan Acar) and son (Rafael Santana) are killed in an explosion.  The cops keep pushing her to say that her husband had gone back to dealing drugs, but she believes he was targeted by Neo-Nazis.  She had seen a woman (Hanna Hilsdorf) parking a bicycle in front of the shop, minutes before the explosion.  But her quest for justice takes her down dark paths.

Kruger is completely spellbinding.  If you've only seen her in, like, National Treasure, you will not be prepared.  For me, the trial portion in the middle dragged on but she kept it from being boring by sheer force of personality.  Katja is going through some shit and Kruger makes sure you feel it.

This was made seven years ago but shines a spotlight on the growing wave of fascism sweeping across Europe and the U.S. in a way that feels disturbingly current.  Germans.  I guess they Know a Thing or Two Because They've Seen a Thing or Two.  Fatih Akin has made several films about the Turkic-German experience in a way that recalls Ranier Warner Fassbinder.  

This is streaming for free on Kanopy in case you needed a reminder that it's always moral to punch Nazis.

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

  Mother's Day was just last week but Father's Day is coming up and this is one of the most Dad Movies ever made.  Content Warning:  war violence, suicide, animal death (horse (shown), dog (off-screen but audible))

The small island of Iwo Jima becomes the last bastion of defense between the encroaching American forces and the Japanese homeland.  Under the command of General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), Imperial forces dig in, fortifying the island's defenses.  But as the battle approaches inevitability, the lack of resources and support turns a valiant effort into a suicide mission.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of WWII or a passing familiarity with U.S. Marines knows what happened at Iwo Jima.  So the whole movie felt like a foregone conclusion, which was super depressing.  

Clint Eastwood directed this as a companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers, which tells the story from the U.S. side.  It's an interesting idea but I just couldn't get into it.  The cinematography is washed out and hazy and I found the CGI distracting.  The performances are fine, the script is fine, I even thought the framing narrative was fine.  It's a perfectly serviceable war film.  Just wasn't for me.  It's streaming on Tubi.

The Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Happy Mother's Day!  Show your mom you appreciate her by not exploiting her labor.  Cut her a check today.  This is the Cinema Club pick for this week, paired with Showgirls, a film I already said I would never watch again.  Between that and last week's Eurovision, feeling very attacked by Movie Club's choices.  And then there's this piece of shit!  I thought, "oh, thank God, a Japanese film.  That can't possibly send blood shooting out of my ears like a cartoon oil rig."  WRONG.  Content warning:  domestic violence, attempted sexual assault, ectopic pregnancy

An entomologist (Eiji Okada) is out bug-hunting in the dunes of the Japanese coast.  He gets so into his search that he misses his train but the friendly local villagers offer him a place to stay.  It's a little weird that he has to climb down a rope ladder to a little house practically buried in the sand but the lady (Kyôko Kishida) inside is super hospitable.  The next morning, of course, the ladder is gone and he is dumbfounded to realize that he is now the metaphorical bug in a jar.  See, the villagers ran a cost-benefit analysis and found that slave labor is way cheaper than paying for countermeasures against erosion.  And the eponymous woman is no help in escaping.  She's been fully indoctrinated and is just thrilled to be given a new man after her last one died.

My first problem is that this movie is two and a half hours long when Rod Serling would have smoked two packs of cigarettes and knocked this same concept out in 23 minutes.  It's a good concept.  It's made well.  The hits keep coming every time you've absorbed one.  All well and good.  But too long.

My second problem is that the protagonist is an asshole.  I get it.  Unlawful confinement, forced labor, the impersonal cruelty of one's captors.  It's hard to maintain a cherub-like demeanor.  But he not only despises this woman for being a stooge for her slavers, he also demands her unpaid labor for himself.  When she works all night, comes in, and he makes her cook dinner and bathe him?  I screeched like a newly hatched cicada.

This is considered a landmark in Japanese and art-house cinema and if I overlook the baked-in misogyny, I can see it.  It's streaming on the Criterion Channel and so is Showgirls, for probably the same reason.

Funny Games (1997)

  Leave it to the Germans to weaponize politeness.  Content warning:  child death (off-screen), animal death (off-screen), mild gore, bullshit deus ex machina shenanigans

A family looking forward to a week at their lake house are terrorized by a pair of unnamed psychos.

This is supposed to be one of the Big Bads of French/German horror.  You will find glowing reviews calling it "blood-curdling", "terrifying", and suchlike.  But not here, baby!  

Don't get me wrong.  It starts off okay, ramping up the tension as the family slowly realizes that they are in serious trouble.  But then it stalls out for like 40 of the most boring minutes in the history of film.  And the last ten minutes are a smug, condescending, cheap cop-out.  I'm not going to spoil the twist, but know that I hated it.

This isn't as good as You're Next or even The Strangers.  But a lot of people who aren't me liked it a whole bunch so maybe you will too.  It's streaming on (sigh) Max and the Criterion Channel.  There's a shot-for-shot American remake if you don't feel like reading subtitles.