THE BOY

Starring: Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans

Writer: Stacey Menear

Director: William Brent Bell

Fleeting from an abusive relationship, American nanny Greta (Cohan) arrives in England to take on a job at a predictably grand and - horror flick trope ahoy! - predictably secluded house in the country. Less predictable (well, if you haven't seen the trailer or read a synopsis of the plot) is that Brahms, the child Greta has been tasked with looking after, is a life-sized doll which has come to represent the son of her employers as the result of a past tragedy. Left with a set of rules as to the way she must take care of Brahms, Greta immediately dispenses with those rules. Of course, that's exactly when weird and spooky things begin to happen...

Okay, it's not a game-changer in terms of horror movies but I was pleasantly surprised and entertained by The Boy. Yes, it does have a couple of jump scares that don't even turn out to be real (it's those pesky dream sequences again) but in general director William Brent Bell pays a lot of attention to the eerie atmosphere of the piece rather than just load up the movie with those haunted house "BOO!" moments of which I tire more and more quickly these days. Not that you won't be waiting for things to leap out whenever our heroine is wandering yet another dimly-lit corridor, mind.

To be honest I don't mind jump scares so much when they're woven into a reasonably intriguing story and there's a pretty decent little thriller at the heart of this as Greta attempts to make sense of the supernatural events taking place with the help of local grocery shopkeeper Malcolm (Evans). The Walking Dead's Cohan makes for an engaging heroine, both afraid of and fascinated by the mystery in which she's found herself and her amateur sleuthing keeps the plot ticking along nicely. The whole thing is paced well and drip feeds the viewer with just enough clues to keep the guessing game interesting until the ultimate reveal which, although easy to pick holes in if you so wish, works within the confines of the plot and makes for at least one winningly creepy moment.

Considering one of William Brent Bell's previous movies, The Devil Inside, seemed to delight in winding up the unnecessary, shrieking hysteria to 11 far too often for my liking, The Boy is much more measured and resists the temptation to over-egg the pudding. For many people the very sight of a doll sitting in a chair and looking in their direction is scary enough and the film-makers are canny enough to understand this. If you're an out-and-out gorehound you'll need to look elsewhere for your fix but if you prefer not to swim in blood and guts this should fit the bill quite nicely.

THE WITCH

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie
Writer: Robert Eggers
Director: Robert Eggers

Banished from a plantation as a result of accusing his fellow settlers of being false Christians, the puritanical William (Ineson) travels out into the wilderness with his wife (Dickie) and five children. Setting up a farm, the family hopes to live off the land and uphold their devout Christian values but a nightmarish chain of events will test not only their faith but their trust in each other. And does eldest daughter Thomasin (Taylor-Joy) know more than she's letting on?

Robert Eggers' period piece may not be for those whose love of horror begins and ends with unstoppable killers appearing out of nowhere to hack up dim-witted victims. This is a slow-burner, replacing the "hand on the shoulder" shocks with an air of unrelenting unease throughout. It drips with atmosphere and the choice to use the dialogue of the time, replete with its use of "thee", "thy" and "thou", helps in transporting the viewer to a time and place where superstitions were rife and the fear of evil was all-consuming.

The Witch doesn't believe in spelling (sorry about the pun) everything out to its audience either. There's plenty of ambiguity here and ample opportunity to make up your own mind about exactly what's going on. Of course, this is going to delight or frustrate depending on how much explanation of the story you need in order to stay with it. Personally, I loved the fact that I wasn't clear as to who or what was behind the terrible happenings and found myself having genuinely no idea what was going to happen next.

The terror doesn't just spring from the fear of what might be out there, Eggers serving up some disturbing imagery including one particularly revolting moment that I have to admit took a horror fan such as myself aback (it involves one of our feathered friends but that's all I'm saying). When The Witch needs to show you it shows you but it knows that it doesn't need to rub your face in gore for it to succeed.

Ralph Ineson is terrific as the father, frustrated in his efforts to build a better life for his family but driven by a pride that may be the undoing of both himself and those in his care. Kate Dickie lends fine support as his wife, her character developing more in the movie's second half as the plot attempts to unravel the tightly-knit family unit by putting them (and the audience) through the psychological wringer.

As superb as both Ineson and Dickie are, the movie wouldn't work anything like as well if it didn't boast such marvellous work from Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, at whom the finger is pointed for the supernatural wrongdoings. Her performance is incredibly subtle, even the most innocuous of lines delivered in such a way that you'll be driven to distraction attempting to work out whether or not she's a victim or a villain.

This movie is almost certainly going to prove divisive. It's a love or hate thing from start to finish and even if you're loving it at the beginning you might find yourself hating the ending. Without giving anything away, the climax of the movie takes quite a brave turn and could very easily have descended into the ridiculous but for me it worked terrifically well and the final shot was perfect. I'm pretty sure that there will be others out there who will think the final couple of minutes ruins what's gone before and I can understand why.

So, is this the scariest film ever? How can it be and why does it have to be the scariest ever? You can't go into this thinking you're going to be scared to death because you'll be expecting something that no movie can deliver, not just this one.

A lot of people will think The Witch is not scary enough because they gauge how scary a film by the number of times they jump. Well, there are very few jump scares in The Witch (if you ask me there's really just the one, it's a doozy though) but in my opinion being startled by a sudden noise or a hand shooting into frame to grab someone doesn't compare to the almost constant feeling of dread hanging over the proceedings here. This one got under my skin and left me thinking about it long after I'd left the cinema. I've seen it a second time and, if anything, I'm thinking about it even more now. That's what I'd call a scary movie.



More reviews? Follow me on Twitter: @darren_gaskell

GRIMSBY

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Isla Fisher

Writers: Sacha Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston,Peter Baynham

Director: Louis Leterrier

When top MI6 agent Sebastian Butcher (Strong) is wrongly identified as the person who carried out an assassination at a high profile charity event fate sends him into hiding with Nobby (SBC), the brother he hasn't seen for 28 years. Nobby, on the face of it, isn't exactly the sort of bloke to assist a secret agent - he likes football, drinking, looking after his ever-increasing number of kids and basking in the glory of being shacked up with the most gorgeous girl in Grimsby (Rebel Wilson). However, he's always been looking forward to the day when he and his brother would be reunited and he's going to help Sebastian out whether he likes it or not...

Grimsby is not going to be to everyone's taste. Subtlety is not on the menu, a lot of the jokes are centred on matters below the waist and those that aren't poke fun at HIV infection, religion, the disabled....you get the general idea. Having said that, the gags are almost always so over the top they come across as silly rather than offensive - although if you're actively looking to be offended there's plenty here to get irate about. Okay, I found the running joke about HIV extremely tasteless and not especially amusing but it's not like I went into this expecting something along the lines of A Room With A View.

So it's crass, vulgar, idiotic...and it made me laugh. Quite a lot. Yes, it does take the mickey out of the lifestyles of working class people but I come from a background that isn't the poshest in the world and to be honest I think this section of society can take it. Personally, I think the film's insistence on hammering home the point that these people are just as good as everyone else was unnecessary, it could have just left the audience to conclude, quite easily, that Nobby and his mates are a bit rough and ready but they're essentially decent.

From his previous movies and TV work it's obvious that Sacha Baron Cohen has no qualms about putting himself in the most embarrassing and disgusting situations possible to get a laugh and this holds true in Grimsby - just wait for the bit with the elephants. Strong proves equally game, throwing himself into the proceedings with gusto - just wait for the bit with the elephants. Sebastian's deadpan reactions are just as chucklesome as Nobby's clowning around and as a comedy pairing they're very good.

In fact, the film is so focused on Nobby and Sebastian that the supporting characters are there merely as dressing. Isla Fisher frets on the sidelines as Seb's MI6 contact and Ian McShane has a small role as the agent's boss but it's the comedic talent that's given the shortest shrift here. Rebel Wilson is hilarious as Lindsey but after the opening scenes she all but disappears until very close to the end. Worse still, the brilliant Johnny Vegas is squandered in a bewilderingly inconsequential role. Oh, and for the Euro crowd, the lovely Penelope Cruz is there too. Does she get anything to do? Not really.

Whilst it's not my favourite Sacha Baron Cohen movie (Borat, please step forward) and its targets may be a little too obvious this is still solidly amusing across its 83-minute running time and boasts some impressive action sequences (director Leterrier helmed The Transporter). It isn't sophisticated entertainment but I suspect it will make a lot of people smile.

THE FOREST

Starring: Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa

Writers: Ben Ketai, Sarah Cornwell, Nick Antosca

Director: Jason Zada

When Jess (Dormer) goes missing in the Aokigahara Forest, twin sister Sara (Dormer) flies out to Japan to search for her. Most of the locals don’t hold out too much hope for Jess as she has ventured into what is known as the Suicide Forest, so chances are she had gone there to take her own life. Sara, however, is sure that Jess is alive and heads into the forest with local guide Michi (Ozawa) and “guy she met in the hotel who wants to help” Aiden (Kinney)…

 

With its spooky setting, and the plentiful warnings in the screenplay about how the forest makes people see and do very bad things indeed, I was rubbing my hands as the prospect of a genuinely chilling experience. By the hour mark, unfortunately, I was rubbing my eyes and trying not to yawn. There’s nothing wrong with giving the audience a deliberate dose of character development and a gradual reveal of the plot’s twists and turns but this really felt like a good idea for a short - or Twilight Zone episode - stretched unwisely to feature length.

 

Not that there are many twists and turns to the plot, which seems more concerned with setting up a succession of cheap, choreographed (not to mention telegraphed) jump scares following the now well-worn and incredibly tiresome quiet-quiet-BANG template. When the movie’s opening jolt is someone thumping the window of a car for a laugh the only way is up and to be fair there are a couple of effective scenes but in general most of the attempts to create a nightmarish atmosphere are lost in a swamp of lower league J-horror creatures springing up close to our heroine when she (but not the audience) least expects them to.

 

That said, this isn’t all bad. It’s certainly competently made and has an excellent lead in Natalie Dormer who manages to hold some level of interest despite the threadbare story. The effects are not overly used and some of the apparitions are reasonably creepy. My main issue is that it took an awfully long time to get where it was going and when it finally did get there I was left thinking “So what?”.

Kinney does what he can with a role that hints at ambiguity in his motivations to assist Sara but just comes across as underwritten. Ozawa's character is the voice of reason so obviously he has to be sidelined so that Sara and Aiden can go places they really shouldn't go and suspect each other of doing things they may or may not have done.

For an undemanding audience, or new viewers to the genre, The Forest may just about deliver in terms of scares but seasoned horror veterans may quickly become bored with its programmed shocks and will struggle to find any legitimately horrifying moments. Both Dormer and Zada deserve better.

Yes! Got through the whole review without mentioning how slow Sara is to "twig" what's going on, or about how Natalie Dormer has "branched out" into other genres...

POINT BREAK

*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS INCLUDING ONE THAT'S PRETTY BIG ***

Starring: Édgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone
Writer: Kurt Wimmer
Director: Ericson Core

In 1991, director Kathryn Bigelow took an unrelentingly dumb story of surfers pulling bank jobs and spun it into action thiller gold, pushing Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's bromance to the forefront and somehow making a virtue of the laughable dialogue to create something of a minor classic. A lot of people out there remember Point Break with a great deal of fondness and now they have a new, shiny and expanded take on the original to enjoy or grumble about.

Expanded? Well, this time out, surfing is only part of the story. Yes, there's still a young FBI agent called Johnny Utah, only this time he's a tattooed ex-motocross rider (played by Bracey) who joined the Bureau after a tragic accident killed a friend and fellow rider. Yes, there's still a spiritual thrill-seeker called Bodhi (played by Ramírez), only this time he's chasing the ultimate rush on land and air in addition to sea. Yes, Utah still has a partner, yes he's still called Pappas only this time it's not the barely-controlled, endlessly entertaining lunacy of Gary Busey, it's the grizzled, growling Brit stylings of Ray Winstone.

In the 2016 version it's not just banks being robbed either. Aircraft and convoys travelling mountain roads are also targets, providing a ready-made excuse for skydiving sequences and car/bike/truck chases. There's so much action crammed into Point Break, how could it possibly be boring?

That's what I'm asking. How could it possibly be boring? Because it is.

Even without making comparisons to the original, this has so many problems it's difficult to know where to begin. Chiefly, I didn't give a toss about any of the characters in the movie. Utah is a sulky, uninteresting dolt and has about as much of a dangerous edge as a tennis ball. Bodhi straightfacedly spouts the sort of mystical-tinged bollocks you'd happily cross the street in fast-moving traffic to avoid. Pappas is....actually, what function does Pappas have other than show up every twenty minutes to criticise Utah's handling of the case and to tell us the odds on Wayne Rooney scoring the next goal? Sorry, that joke won't travel outside the UK but I was compelled to make it.

The rest of Bodhi's crew fares no better. They're a charisma-free bunch of extreme sports bores, one of whom doesn't even manage to shock the audience by snowboarding off a cliff and plunging thousands of feet to his doom. When that happens and you're thinking "What an idiot" rather than mourning his tragic demise then you know you're not sufficiently wrapped up in the characters to think it's anything other than uninvolving fiction.

As the 2016 iteration of Lori Petty, Teresa Palmer initially looked like she was going to strike a blow for Point Break in terms of a new feminist angle, her introduction signalled by means of some righteous surfing action. Unfortunately, it's not long before she's making dinner for the other blokes and giving Utah a potential love interest.

Oh, in a move that will surprise almost no one, she gets summarily bumped off in the movie's second half trying to escape from a sub-Heat heist on a Euro bank which features some surprisingly obliging cops who lean out from cover just far enough to get shot. Again, rather than be taken aback by the reveal that the deceased robber is in fact Samsara (she has a hippy name, she grew up off the grid and she wants to stick it to The Man! Yeah!) there's more of a feeling that it's karmic payback for the endless drippy nonsense she craps on about whenever she's on screen.

The film is so forehead-slappingly inept that it even manages to flub its "Point Break" reference. No more is it about long-lasting waves, it's now a reference to the point at which someone breaks. Er, not really wanting to point (break) this out, guys, but isn't that "breaking point"? Have you ever heard someone say "I've just about reached my point break"? Only if you're talking arse of your out, I'm thinking.

Even as a mindless action movie, this doesn't cut the mustard as it's seriously lacking excitement save for a decent, moderately suspenseful free climbing sequence towards the end. Comparing this to the original makes things so much worse and the only thing this underpowered flick will probably succeed in doing is driving most of its viewers to savour the superior 90s vintage.

ZOOLANDER 2

Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Penelope Cruz

Writers: Justin Theroux, Ben Stiller, Nicholas Stoller, John Hamburg

Director: Ben Stiller

The sequel to Ben Stiller's 2001 original begins in Rome, where Justin Bieber is shot to pieces by an unknown assassin but still has the time to take a decent selfie before breathing his last. Turns out he's the sixth pop star to be killed of late and every one of them had posted the same facial expression to social media before expiring. Interpol Fashion Division Agent Valentina (Cruz) is on the case and believes that the key to the whole mystery is ex-World's greatest male model Derek Zoolander, who is now "out of fashion" and in hiding.

The years since the first movie haven't been particularly kind to Mr Z. First, the building which housed The Derek Zoolander Centre For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too collapsed, killing his wife and disfiguring fellow model Hansel (Wilson) in the process.

Failing to come to terms with his newfound responsibility as a single parent, his son was taken from him and now he lives alone in the wilderness. At this point in the proceedings Billy Zane (played by, er, Billy Zane) shows up with an invitation for Zoolander to model for everyone's new favourite designer Don Atari at a show in, where else, Rome...

This sequel employs the "if ain't broke, don't fix it" strategy of so many follow-ups and so once again most of the humour is focused on just how jaw-droppingly stupid Derek Zoolander is. It's a fairly safe target for laughs and to be fair there are a few inspired moments or lines of dialogue but this does feel like a sequel that was made because it was time to make one, taking the story and its characters in no new directions whatsoever.

The subplot involving D-Zo (as Hansel refers to him at one juncture) and his attempts to be a proper father to his son is hardly the stuff of breathtaking originality although I will concede that it did provide the biggest laugh in my case - if you want to know it's the bit with the sports car and yes, I know it's the third most unsubtle moment in the film, only eclipsed by Zoolander's reaction to seeing Valentina's boobs and Zoolander's reaction to he?/she? supermodel All (brilliantly played by Benedict Cumberbatch).

Even though the jokes are far from the greatest, they're given at least some polish and even occasional pizazz by the cast. Stiller and Wilson are enjoyable as the modelling world's dumbest double act and Cruz keeps up with them admirably, displaying a fine sense of comic timing.

A difficult to recognise Kristen Wiig will either amuse or annoy as botox-frozen and collagen-plumped fashion mogul Alexanya Atoz, mangling every word in an accent indescribable other than it's Eastern European (which part of Eastern Europe it's supposed to be is a mystery to me - and everyone else, I suspect). And of course there's Will Ferrell, returning as Zoolander's nemesis Mugatu, raising chuckles where there would be none in other hands.

As comedy sequels go, Zoolander 2 isn't the worst example of its type but it's a long way from the best. It's fitfully amusing but real belly laughs are in very short supply and the plot is guilty of throwing way too many elements in, hoping to see what sticks. The plentiful celebrity cameos are generally fun - or, in the case of Kiefer Sutherland, utterly bizarre - but the lampooning of the fashion industry was carried off with far more panache in the original and this follow-up will probably be forgotten next season.

DIRTY GRANDPA

Starring: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Zoey Deutch
Writer: John Phillips
Director: Dan Mazer

At the funeral of his wife, Dick Kelly (De Niro) asks grandson - and corporate lawyer - Jason (Efron) to drive him to Florida as a favour. Jason's none too keen on the idea because he's wrapped up not only in his work but also in last-minute preparations for his wedding to Meredith (Julianne Hough). Meredith is spoiled, materialistic, bossy and annoying so it's obvious why Jason would be falling over himself to marry such a woman. I wonder if he'll have second thoughts during the movie? Hmm.

I digress. Dick can't drive himself as he's recently lost his licence and he also sees it as a chance for some grandpa/grandson bonding time so Jason agrees reluctantly to help out his grieving grandad, a decision he soon regrets as Dick's true motives for the Florida trip become abundantly clear...

Right, let's get Dirty Grandpa's only useful message out of the way - men and women of advancing years don't stop wanting to have fun and, yes, that includes wanting to have sex. I'm fine with that. It's a great thing for a movie to say. Society shouldn't ignore someone just because they're deemed to be "old".

Okay, now let's deal with the rest of it.

It's horrible.

On the face of it, Dirty Grandpa's dirty sense of humour should have been right up my street and the concept of uptight youngster Efron being given valuable life lessons from freewheeling pensioner De Niro had more than a little comedy potential but there's nothing smart or snappy here, just a relentlessly tiresome series of depressingly crude and tasteless gags whose opening gambit is the thoroughly unedifying sight of De Niro knocking one out. Yes, that's Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro right there, strangling the Womble in glorious widescreen.

Efron is called upon to look embarrassed for most of the movie which can't have been much of a stretch considering the various indignities the plot piles on him for hopefully comic effect. During the proceedings, his character accidentallly smokes crack, accidentally ends up in jail and is accidentally mistaken for a paedophile. You may accidentally laugh. I did not.

Yes, you read that correctly - there's a scene in which a nearly-naked (then totally naked) Efron is mistaken for a paedophile. There is no depth to which this film will not stoop. At that point it had already made me not laugh about such subjects as cancer, drug abuse and homosexuality so the bar was being set lower with each passing minute. Actually, come to think of it, when one moment involves De Niro resting his tackle next to Efron's face you realise there was never a bar in the first place.

Actually, if there's one person that looks more embarrassed than Efron it's Dermot Mulroney, lumbered with the thankless role of Efron's dad, whose main purpose is to look disapprovingly at De Niro's septuagenarian shenanigans. Oh, and to have several dicks drawn on his face too. It's making me miserable typing this so I'm not even going to start on the decision to cast Aubrey Plaza and then waste her talent in the most criminal manner possible.

Well, okay, I'm going to have to talk about Aubrey Plaza. Aubrey Plaza is great in everything she appears in. Or rather she was until she appeared in this. It's not even Ms Plaza's fault. She gives her role the best shot she could have done but her character's one of many duds. Not as much of a dud as Jason's wacky cousin - I was hoping for him to be kidnapped early on in the proceedings and never rescued - but a dud nonetheless.

Plaza's character, for want of a better expression, likes to do old guys. The clever subtext here though is....oh, come on, there is no clever subtext here, she just likes to do old guys. And talk about doing old guys in the same grubby way De Niro talks about things such as...no, I can't carry on with this. Even the attempt to add a little sweetness into the mix with a subplot charting the burgeoning friendship between Jason and eco-minded Shadia (Deutch) is obliterated by the script's drive to be cheerfully offensive at every turn. It isn't cheerful, it certainly isn't anywhere near offensive, it's stunningly dull and unforgivably unfunny.

What is with you, Zac Efron? You've managed to follow up We Are Your Friends with something equally horrid. How? As for Robert De Niro, I'm kind of hoping that the film makers cast someone who looks and sounds exactly like him but isn't actually him. For me, the low spot of 2016 so far. And that's including Point Break. You have been warned.