Sundance Film Festival 2022 Review

As much as I love watching movies on the big screen with an audience, I was thrilled Sundance Film Festival was a virtual film festival this year. It provided the opportunity for a wider range of people to see these outstanding independent films and allowed me to partake in one of the film festivals I’ve longed to be a part of.

Even better was the fact that six, yes, SIX!, films in the horror genre were directed by women. I was over the moon and knew right away I had to watch them all.

I was able to view five of the six due to my work schedule and was blown away at the creativity, beautiful film making techniques, unique stories and microscopic look into issues so many women face today.

I had film hangover after watching each one of them. 

Now my only wish is that each one gets picked up for the big screen so main stream audiences can relish these fantastic films and take part in the one thing that was missing from my experience – the post-cocktail film discussion with other moviegoers.

In no particular order as I’m having a hard time choosing a favorite, here are the five films I watched at Sundance Film Festival 2022:

FRESH

Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Director: Mimi Cave

Writer: Lauryn Kahn

Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs

Do yourself a favor and go into this one as blind as possible. It will allow you to be even more shocked at the reveal in the second act of the film. With outstanding acting by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan as well as a killer soundtrack, this film will fit nicely on a shelf next to AMERICAN PSYCHO.

Sundance Synopsis: Frustrated by scrolling dating apps only to end up on lame, tedious dates, Noa takes a chance by giving her number to the awkwardly charming Steve after a produce-section meet-cute at the grocery store. During a subsequent date at a local bar, sassy banter gives way to a chemistry-laden hookup, and a smitten Noa dares to hope that she might have actually found a real connection with the dashing cosmetic surgeon. She accepts Steve’s invitation to an impromptu weekend getaway, only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual appetites.

FRESH is an intoxicating ride, nesting a penetrating thriller about the perils women face on the modern dating scene within a ferocious allegory for the commodification of their bodies. 

WATCHER

Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Writer/Director: Chloe Okuno

Writer: Zack Ford

Starring: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman

Never underestimate a woman’s intuition. This film may feel familiar but the commentary around women’s self-doubt, loneliness, and buried aggression towards the patriarchy breathes fresh life into this familiar tale.

Sundance Synopsis: Julia joins her husband when he relocates to his family’s native Romania for a new job. Having recently abandoned her acting career, she finds herself frequently alone and unoccupied. One night, people-watching from her picture window, she spots a vague figure in an adjacent building, who seems to be looking back at her. Soon after, while alone at a local movie theater, Julia’s sense of being watched intensifies, and she becomes certain she’s being followed — could it be the same unknown neighbor? Meanwhile, a serial killer known as The Spider stalks the city.

Beneath the tension of Okuno’s hypnotic auteur vision, WATCHER is an elegantly simple depiction of one woman calculating in real time whether to trust her own sense of peril. 

NANNY

Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Writer/Director: Nikyatu Jusu

Starring: Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, Sinqua Walls

Winner of the U.S. Dramatic category, NANNY opens your eyes to the world of immigrant workers and the exploitation they are frequently at the other end of. With supernatural elements from West African folklore, this beautiful film leaves a long-lasting impression.

Sundance Synopsis: Aisha, an undocumented Senegalese immigrant, lands a job as a nanny of a wealthy Manhattan couple. While she easily wins the affection of their young daughter Rose, she becomes a pawn in the couple’s facade of a marriage. The mother is as controlling as the dad is disillusioned and woke. Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind in Senegal, Aisha hopes her new job will afford her the chance to bring him to the U.S. and share in the life she is piecing together. But as his arrival approaches, a supernatural presence begins to invade both her dreams and her reality.

NANNY is a singular genre all its own, with horrors specifically drawn from Aisha’s life and legacy.

HATCHING

Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Director: Hanna Bergholm

Writer: Ilja Rautsi

Starring: Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkila, Jani Volanen

When I saw the still for HATCHING, it reminded me of one my favorite childhood book's "The Mysterious Tadpole." I knew I was going love this film right away. HATCHING is a fascinating portrait of the nature of maternal instinct, family connections and the various stages of emotion a young girl goes through during her vehement tween years. It’s coming-of-age body horror at its finest.

Sundance Synopsis: Tinja’s mother showcases their family’s existence on her popular blog “Lovely Everyday Life” as a brightly hued domestic idyll set amid manicured suburban perfection. Beneath the impeccable veneer, though, friendless tween gymnast Tinja is struggling, spending most of her time striving to please her image-obsessed mom and appease her shrilly obnoxious little brother. After finding a wounded bird in the woods, she brings its strange egg home, nestles it in her bed, and nurtures it until it hatches. The creature that emerges, christened Alli, becomes Tinja’s closest friend, surrogate child, and living nightmare in this tremendously twisted coming-of-age body horror film.  

HATCHING is a pointedly satirical feature debut that constantly surprises.

PIGGY

Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Writer/director: Carlota Pereda

Starring: Laura Galán, Carmen Machi, Claudia Salas

Every adolescent girl should be required to watch this film. As a female viewer, it triggers so many emotions – anger, pity, self-reflection, camaraderie – just to name a few. Out of all the films I viewed, this was an unexpected gem that I want to see grow wings and fly.

Sundance Synopsis: With the summer sun beating down on her rural Spanish town, Sara hides away in her parent’s butcher shop. A teenager whose excess weight makes her the target of incessant bullying, she flees a clique of capricious girls who torment her at the town pool, only to stumble upon them being brutally kidnapped by a stranger, who drives off with them in his van. When the police begin asking questions, Sara keeps quiet. Intrigued by the stranger — an interest that’s mutual — she’s torn between revealing the truth and protecting the man who saved her.    

A skillfully crafted genre film, encrusted in plenty of blood by the time it reaches its crescendo, PIGGY is also a reflective, deeply personal small-town morality tale. 

Scream Review

Scream

Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Starring: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Dylan Minnette, Sonia Ammar, Mikey Madison, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Marley Shelton, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Neve Campbell

1h 54m

 

"What's your favorite scary movie?"
 
By the mid-90s, the horror genre was half a decade away from the slasher film boom of the 1980s, where icons like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger dominated the box office. Slasher film characteristics were still present and reinvented in films like 1992's "Candyman," but the oversaturation of franchises churning sequel after sequel produced more humor than horror. The worst part, the scare factor became nearly nonexistent.
 
However, in 1996, legendary filmmaker Wes Craven, responsible for conjuring an iconic figure of horror cinema in the 80s with Freddy Krueger, continued to push the genre forward with "Scream." This film transformed the landscape of genre storytelling by developing a narrative that reflected and acknowledged the plot and character tropes and stereotypes of horror films that came before. It was intelligent, funny, and, most importantly, scary. And for many horror fans, this film would grow to become the answer to the question, "What's your favorite scary movie?" 
 

The legacy of Woodsboro's murderous past continues in "Scream," co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's continuation of Wes Craven's vision of modernized horror. Coming 11 years after the ahead-of-its-time "Scream 4" and with the absence of Wes Craven, who passed away six years ago, this updated invention of "Scream" holds firmly to the tradition of the past, paying homage to the extent of becoming lost in its self-referential designs. "Scream" applies, reapplies, and slightly modifies the original film's formula, crafting a clever but redundant update. 
 
A new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins accumulating a deadly body count of teens in Woodsboro, California. Tara (Jenna Ortega) is brutally attacked in her home, her estranged sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) returns to her hometown, bringing her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid) along for the journey. Past secrets and long-forgotten memories are resurrected, connecting the past to the present and bringing survivors Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and Gail Weathers (Courteney Cox) back to the town they have tried so desperately to escape. 
 
Screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick return viewers to familiar territory, bringing back characters from past films while also trying to summon the essence of the original movie. The film crafts one of the best cold openings since the original in the process. The dialog banter between a young teenage girl with love for "elevated horror" and a sinister voice-on-the-phone with a passion for the "classics" is sharp and witty. It's an amusing callback to the original that is updated and subverted enough to launch this film as a fun, gory mystery. 
 

But as things take shape, with a Ghostface who is always one step ahead of everyone, the group of young people tries to connect the dots of who might be the mastermind under the mask. They self-describe their involvement in this new murder mystery as a "requel," a cross between a reboot and a sequel. Beyond the meta-analysis of horror movies of recent years, the film also examines the aspect of toxic fandom. It's a unique perspective to explore in the world of pop culture, where fans expect that their favorite character, story, or universe should go on forever. Along with the heightened expectation of getting everything they want from their favorite thing. Can we imagine a world where Marvel movies don't exist anymore? Will Michael Myers ever go away? Will the new Hellraiser movie meet all my unreasonable expectations? Unfortunately, this thoughtful focus is executed with satisfying and irritating twists and turns in the film.
 
The enjoyable pieces all involve unraveling the secret, the whodunit of the slasher motifs utilized. The annoying parts exist with the development of the characters, both old and new, missing the strong characteristics used so effectively in the past films. Even the return of Sidney, Dewey, and Gail is awkwardly instituted into the narrative; with the exception of Dewey, both Gail and Sidney are afterthoughts until the finale. 
 
"Scream" starts with a bang, a clever and thoughtful reintroduction of the classic horror franchise that revolutionized horror storytelling. The thrills are fun, gory, and violent in the best ways for horror fans. As it namechecks other films, like "The Witch" and "The Babadook," with a mix of admiration and admonishment to serve its meta-narrative causes, "Scream" pushes into a corner with no place to escape. In the process of revisiting, reintroducing, and reforming this continuation of "Scream," it becomes too self-aware of its designs.  

 

Monte's Rating

3.00 out of 5.00

Favorite Horror of 2021 (Monte's List)

Favorite Horror of 2021

 

In a year of uncertainty, with the literal horror film about a seemingly unstoppable deadly virus happening outside our front doors, reconnecting with movies on streaming networks, going to virtual film festivals, and returning to the sacred sanctum of the movie theater was pure joy. Horror took new forms in 2021, with both fearfully fantastic and dreadfully reality-driven stories. 2021 found new ways to approach recurring themes of isolation, desperation, and the fear of the unknown. Films about religion, urban legends, culture, society, ecology, demons, slashers, and even automotive sensuality brought intriguing visions to beautifully horrific life. This year was undeniably a unique experience for genre fans. These are my favorite horror films from 2021. 

 

13. Werewolves Within

 

Beaverfield is a snowy, isolated community with a pipeline controversy and a mysterious creature problem. The townsfolk, a mix of every comedic cliché you've seen in horror movies, are being brutally murdered by an unseen monster. It's up to a charming duo, forest ranger Finn (Sam Richardson) and postal worker Cecily (Milana Vayntrub), to keep the community from tearing themselves apart. Director Josh Ruben and writer Mishna Wolff compose a rare balanced horror/comedy that maintains mystery and mayhem with genuine laughs and thrills. 

 

12. Jakob's Wife

 

Barbara Crampton!!! That should be the only recommendation needed to watch "Jakob's Wife." Ms. Crampton is superb, also assisted by the always reliable Larry Fessenden, in a vampire film that evokes discussion about the virtues of religion and falsehoods surrounding a woman's place within a marriage. It's serious and satirical in amusing ways. "Jakob's Wife" uses the vampire subgenre to craft a character-driven film with substance. 

 

11. Saint Maud

 

"Saint Maud" is a beautiful debut from an engaging creative voice. It's many different shapes of horror. It completely understands what it wants to portray, no scary monsters or spooky ghosts, but rather the questions of what exists beyond our recognition and the choice we must make in the pursuit of what we believe and put our faith within. "Saint Maud" is here for your cinematic soul.

 

10. Gaia

 

An injured forest ranger is saved by survivalists, a father and a son, who have a cult-like devotion to the unknown elements of the forest. This ecological horror tale combines impressive myth/world building and striking visual/practical designs to create a timely story about humanity's abuse of nature. Director Jaco Bouwer delivers a supernatural film that is intriguing and thought-provoking.  

 

9. Come True

 

Suffering from horrific recurring nightmares, 18-year-old Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone) submits to a university sleep study only to realize that the monsters from her dreams are invading her waking life. Writer/director Anthony Scott Burns deftly combines science fiction and horror in strange and creepy ways. The balancing act of storytelling, building the world and blurring the lines between reality and dream, is impressively pieced together. The design of this film, from the lighting, the sound design, and the special effects, makes it stand out from others like it. 

 

8. Sator

 

The atmosphere in writer/director Jordan Graham's "Sator" is so dark and dreadful it's impossible not to get consumed by it. Every step taken into the secluded and desolate forest plunges the viewer into the nightmare. "Sator" is meticulously paced, slowly unraveling the complicated layers of its characters' lives while increasing the spooky factor around every turn in the narrative. Jordan Graham displays immense talent beyond writing and directing the actors; he also served as editor, director of photography, and sound designer. "Sator" is absorbing and unnerving filmmaking. 

 

7. Fear Street Trilogy

 

The "Fear Street" trilogy was the most pleasant horror surprise for me in 2021. Spanning over three time periods, with recurring characters and a supernatural premise that has durability across different timelines, director Leigh Janiak utilizes tropes and characteristics with near pitch-perfect quality. "Fear Street: 1994" has slasher vibes akin to "Scream," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and even a little year 2000 "Cherry Falls." "Fear Street: 1978" feels like "Friday the 13th" and 1984s "Madman." And "Fear Street: 1666" influences from "The Witch" and "The Crucible." Each film pays homage to its period in some way, whether through character design, gruesome kills, or a plot device. The three films combined serve as one of the best horror trilogies of all time.

  

6. The Night House

 

Anchored by a fantastic performance from Rebecca Hall, "The Night House" constructs a maze of atmosphere and design on its path towards chilling and frightening events. In the film, Beth (Rebecca Hall) is grieving the unexpected death of her husband, living in isolation in a lakeside home. Beth begins having vivid and horrifying dreams, and a supernatural force begins engaging with her inside the home. "The Night House" utilizes the vessel of a horror film to explore topics like loneliness, grief, trauma, and healing. While the surface narrative elements and performance by Rebecca Hall make for a good enough horror film, the underlying themes and filmmaking designs make for a tremendous multilayered genre experience.  

 

5. The Empty Man

 

Writer/director David Prior has been very honest about the difficulties of getting this ambitious genre film to the masses. Along the path of a disastrous production, long delays, and studio mergers, "The Empty Man" was lost like many films during the pandemic wave. That's a shame because there is something exceptional about this complicated film. Whether the myth-building, which echoes urban legends and ancient spirits, the religious fascinations, which show the consuming and cult-like power that belief can have, or the craft of filmmaking, which displays impressive style and construction by the filmmaker. At a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes, a time limit that pushes and pulls the narrative in intriguing ways, Prior's skillful designs are provided ample time to develop and explore the many angles that fear exists in this movie. Good films, like "The Empty Man," are never forgotten.

 

4. Titane 

 

Upon leaving the screening of Julia Ducournau's incendiary second film "Titane," the hallways of the cinema were abuzz with questions, observations, and insights concerning the 108-minute odyssey of violence, sex, love, grief, suffering, and joy. People discussed the metaphors found in the film. They expressed their outrage, and confusion was visible on their faces. Smiles were shown as moviegoers walked up and said, "so, what did you think?" Whatever convictions about Ducournau's art one may have, it's undeniable that "Titane" made people feel something. That's beautiful, and so is this confident artist's daring and evocative work of genre-busting cinema.

 

3. Candyman

 

In one of the film's best elements of 2021, director Nia DaCosta utilizes shadow puppets to reimagine the past and how stories are changed, exaggerated, and hidden the longer they are kept. It's a beautiful and elegant touch. Within this technique, "Candyman" tells the most intriguing tale. Storytelling, folklore, and spoken traditions exist to keep a piece of history alive and relevant, no matter how horrifying those pieces may be. To allow the world to know that a people, place, or event existed. It also allows for a reframing of traumatic events, a way to make sense of the fears and monsters that have brought sorrow and pain to the world, in a manner allowing for stories to capture those traumas and take away their power. You can feel this version of "Candyman" engaging in all those aspects of storytelling.

 

2. The Vigil

 

Culture and religious tradition clash in this minimalistic yet unexpectedly emotional and frightening film. The film focuses on a Jewish tradition of watching over the dead until burial. The responsibility here belongs to Yakov (Dave Davis), a young man who is desperate for the money being provided by the family. Director Keith Thomas accomplishes so much with so little in this film, using camera techniques and an arrangement of tension and anticipation to heighten the frights found within the small spaces. Add historical trauma, cultural beliefs, and traditional practices, and "The Vigil" is a clever and creepy experience.  

 

1. Midnight Mass

 

Yes, it's not a traditional film. But what director Mike Flanagan does with this ambitious 7-episode series was my favorite horror experience of the year. Combining an analysis of grief and isolation, along with ideologies of religion and fanaticism, and the overwhelming influence of evil that descends on a small island town makes for an experience that is both thought-provoking, emotional, and frightening. You can't help but become entangled and engrossed in the characters' lives, who each have different ideas of faith and engage with religion in many different ways. Each episode pushes the limits of fear and faith further into realms of doubt and madness for the characters, leading towards a finale that refuses to play towards expectation. Mike Flanagan is the best horror filmmaker working right now. Period.  

 

Honorable Mentions

·      A Quiet Place Part II

·      Brand New Cherry Flavor (Series)

·      Chucky (Series)

·      The Feast

·      In the Earth

·      Kandisha

·      The Last Matinee

·      The Medium

·      Malignant

·      Oxygen

·      Psycho Goreman

·      The Queen of Black Magic

·      Séance

·      Strings

·      V/H/S 94

·      Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

·      Yellowjackets (Series)