Movies seen in 2025

[CaptainWacky]

Renfield (2023) - It's okay. Nicolas Cage has some good lines and funny faces. For some reason though the movie has this whole plot about the mob and the cop and her dead dad that takes up a lot of time and would have been better with more scenes of Renfield and Dracula together. Feels like a lot was cut from it. I can tell these things. There's some funny over the top gory action bits. It's fine. Could have been better.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Heretic (2024) - Horror/thriller (I don't know how they're classed) where two young Mormons missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) end up trapped in the house of a maniac determined to break their faith (a fantastic Hugh Grant in his best performance since Paddington 2.) I liked it a lot: the three leads are excellent together and it's extremely tense all the way through. Some really long scenes of just Hugh Grant being menacing with great reactions from the two girls, never felt like it dragged or went too long. You don't know quite where it's going and there's (possibly increasingly outlandish) twists as it goes. I guess the only complaint is how utterly crazy Grant's character's plan is and the insane level of planning that must have gone into it, but that's the kind of thing horror movie villains do, isn't it? I highly recommend it. Probably the only horror movie that will ever have Hugh Grant doing a Jar Jar Binks voice.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Companion (2025) - SPOILERS but I think the trailer gave away the twist but stop readding right now if you don't want to know, I guess. The main character (Sophie Thatcher, again!) is a "companion" robot (a fuckbot) who is being used for criminal purposes (as well as the sex) by her owner (actually renter) played by Jack Quaid. It's possibly better not to know this and there's probably enough clues in the first part that you could figure it out and it would be fun (his nickname for her is "Beep Boop", for example.) The movie is pretty good, there's some good funny bits and I laughed a few times. I think the trailer also made it look a lot more disturbing than it actually is though. The robot-torture parts really come near the end. There's a few deaths before that but it's not like a total horror or anything. I enjoyed the story and there's some nice twists and unexpected moments along the way, but I did wish it went a bit further in exploring the robot's psychology. Like maybe make her a bit less human, especially whens he finds out the truth. There's also a few bits where I think there may have been some slight plotholes (how was she able to harm her boyfriend before she got his phone?) but nothing movie-breaking. Randy Quaid does a good job as the villain but I think he felt pretty similar to his Scream character in places and it was maybe distracting. Sophie Thatcher is a very good robot (even if I wished the movie had went into her robotics a bit more.) It's good fun.