The Foxy Film Fan

The following review of Host  is spoiler free! As the coronavirus pandemic stretches on, filmmakers have found themselves struggling to find innovative ways to continue on in their craft. While movies like Searching  (which is fantastic, by the way) and Unfriended  attempted to provide stories via webcam footage and glimpses of a laptop interface, Host  does it out of necessity rather than due to a stylistic choice. Director Rob Savage uses the pandemic as a realistic backdrop for a relatively simple movie. Due to the technological limitations from actors being restrained to working from their webcams and Host's  devotion to realism, the movie is very brief. It's only 57 minutes long - the length of a free group Zoom call. However, the short length of the movie doesn't hold it back. In fact, it makes Host  a fast and fun horror movie for a season where we can't expect many new films. There's no unnecessary exposition, nor are there lengthy scenes to show us the rela

Discussing The Lodge  without spoilers is incredibly difficult, but this review will be completely spoiler free. The basic premise of the horror movie is simple, but admittedly a little strange: two children are forced to spend the holidays with their father's girlfriend in the titular lodge during a terrible blizzard. All three of them are unhappy with an arrangement which sounds disastrous from the start, yet the girlfriend and father decide it's simply what they should do. So, we join Riley Keough in her babysitting adventure isolated in a cabin. My biggest critique is that the writers should have decided on stronger reasoning for Keough to wind up stuck with the two children in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it could have been a situation more like  The Shining  and less along the lines of "your dad said this is a good idea, so it's clearly a good idea." Silly set-up aside, The Lodge  is decent. The film longs to discuss complex subjects like religious abuse,

(The following review is spoiler-free!) "Enola is alone backwards," our protagonist tells us in one of her many monologues. She tells us many things - how she's feeling, what she's thinking, where she thinks she should go next. Her wide gaze is disconcerting and her sunny disposition grating. This isn't Sherlock Holmes, this is Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill playing dress-up. Everything about Netflix's newest release is grating. Its mystery begs us to care for cartoonish characters who speak to us as if we're watching an episode of Dora the Explorer. Showing rather than telling is thrown to the wayside in favor of constant fourth wall breaks to beat your sense of immersion into a bloody pulp. Enola Holmes  wants you to know that you're watching a movie, and that it's the funniest, wittiest, and most important movie you're ever going to see (unfortunately, in light of recent events that very well may be true). From its fast-paced editing to