After taking August off to focus on other things, I’m finally back in the swing of posting reviews. There is one film missing from what I had planned this week however. On Monday, there was a new edition of Screen Unseen that was pretty much confirmed to be The Threesome. If you follow me on Letterboxd, you may have noticed I had already put it on the diary, and I even got a head start on it’s review in this post. So, I head to the AMC and get there in time that I missed the bulk of the Noovie nonsense. That left us with the AMC Theaters suite, and the trailers. The trick for Screen Unseen is that the final trailer will give away what the mystery movie is, as the studio is always the same. That meant when the final trailer this time was from Vertical, it confirmed The Threesome was the film. How a Screen Unseen plays out is right after Nicole tells us how movies are magic, we get a short telling us to get ready for a never before seen feature film. Well we got that, and once it ended and faded to black, the house lights came back on. This is a problem.
After about 10 minutes, one of the managers of the theater came in and told us all that they were working on the problem, and passed out re-admittance passes. About another 10 minutes go by when someone in the theater called out that The Threesome was film. A lady to my right asked what that film was about, which I then told her. When the original fella then said “Yep. That is the movie” I responded with “maybe” jokingly. Not 90 seconds later, the other manager walked in and told us the theater didn’t actually have the film to play. So, the night ended early since my only other option was Freakier Friday.
I tell this story for two reasons: 1) It’s fun, and 2) It is yet another reason for me to think my local AMC is on its deathbed. That will be rough for me as the other AMCs around me are much further away. That is a future problem though. This week, I did manage to actually watch a few others, so lets get into it. On to the Reviews!
This film is one that can be found on Hulu, and is about Edie (Samara Weaving), a former teenage getaway driver, having to go back to her past to help her ex-boyfriend (Karl Glusman) when he finds himself in a bad side of a crime boss (Andy Garcia) they both know. The plot is pretty simple, and Weaving has to do a lot of the emotional work, and for most of the time, she does. The film itself was just ok. I could have liked another 10 minutes at the end of the film to just explain a little more than it does. It isn’t great and it isn’t bad. It just kind of happened. 
The Conjuring franchise has never really been for me. Yes, I’m not a horror fan, but that isn’t the reasoning. Either the films in the franchise have been forgettable to me, or the best scares have been placed in the trailers. For example, the clapping sequence in the first film’s trailer should have been saved for the movie. So, what do I think of this (supposedly) final entry in the series? It’s a mixed bag. This entry is really two storylines. One is the case of the Smurl haunting, the reportedly final case of Ed and Lorraine Warren. The other story is about the Warren’s daughter Judy, as she is on the verge of a wedding and seeing spirits like her mother. These two storylines converge in the final act, but through the film leading up to that, its unevenness is an issue. The story could have used more of the haunting story in my opinion, especially a little more on the antagonist spirits. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are still great as the Warrens, but it is Mia Tomlinson and Ben Hardy as Judy and her boyfriend Tony that get more to do in this one. This is the final film for the Warrens, and I think that might be good thing. At least for me that is.
This was a film that premiered at Sundance back in January and I chose a different film to virtual screen that week other than this. As the Templar Knight in Last Crusade would say, I chose poorly. Lurker is an uncomfortable film to watch in many points, and that isn’t a bad thing. This film is about a young man named Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) who infiltrates the inner circle of Oliver (Archie Madekwe), an up and coming pop star. Watching this film, I couldn’t help but think of the last film I saw Madekwe in, 2023’s Saltburn. The comparison isn’t perfect, but the pieces are there. This is about what happens when someone who wants attention so bad, that when he loses it, he will go to great lengths to get it back. In this, when he does get back into the inner circle after getting booted (for good reason), the film turns into a sort of hostage film, where only Matthew is having fun. I thought most of this film really worked, and Alex Russell, the writer/director, crafts a pretty good story. It’s just that he doesn’t really do a good job wrapping things up. The film just kind of abruptly ends. Still, this was a good watch. Just not a real fun one.
Four movies this week, and two of them I saw this weekend, so only two to watch later this week. Those two are The Long Walk and Spinal Tap II, so it should be a good week. Tomorrow though I am posting my list of the films I’m hoping that in Chicago next month at the film festival. So, that is something. 
Mitten Film Nerd 
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