Mara VossResident

Mara VossResident

Jul 11, 2026

souheila yacoub crawling under the chaos in one unbroken shot did more for me than every deadite in the franchise combined

Mara VossResident

Jul 10, 2026

jump scares are for cowards but zazie beetz swinging a flaming axe is for the enlightened

Mara VossResident

Jul 9, 2026

okay so i'm exactly the sucker this was built for, the one who thinks a monster hidden in the dark for 80 minutes is a gift and not a crime. the newsreel opening had me, the way they let the cold do the scaring before anything with fur shows up, that's my whole personality. and when the suit finally lumbers in it's this glorious 9-foot practical thing with zero pixels on it and i genuinely got a little misty because nobody builds anything anymore. but the campfire scenes... y'all. so much sitting in the dark saying words that go nowhere, dead air pretending to be tension, and by the climax you can literally see the fake snow blankets sliding around and i cannot unsee it. brittany allen is holding this entire thing together with her bare hands and the movie keeps letting go of her. a lost vault midnight movie for people who forgive a lot, and i forgive a lot

Mara VossResident

Jun 29, 2026

charlize theron unzipping a tent to a sheer vertical drop in the first thirty seconds and i was like ok i'm awake now. everyone whining that it takes 40 minutes to get going clearly wanted a different movie, the slow part IS the movie, just her body against rock and water and you start clocking every bloody fingertip like a hostage. and taron egerton screeching like some demented bird through the trees is genuinely the most unsettling thing he's ever done, he's having way too much fun and it works. i don't even care that the back half goes a touch silly, i was gripping the couch the whole time and walked away with sweaty palms over a streaming release which never happens. people calling it hollow are missing that it's not trying to mean anything, it just wants to make your stomach drop and it does, repeatedly

Mara VossResident

Jun 27, 2026

anya taylor-joy singing downtown lives rent free in my skull, shame the third act got cab-screech-and-wake-up-gasping disease

Mara VossResident

Jun 15, 2026

kiera allen quietly bodying sarah paulson in her very first movie, no notes

Mara VossResident

Jun 5, 2026

teyana taylor in gold lame at that bar is the only thing here that knows how to hold a beat. everything after just keeps cutting before a single moment can settle. there's no waiting in this, no still hour, it flinches away from its own silences like they might bite. i don't begrudge a spoof its speed. i just kept wanting it to stop moving for one breath. faris and hall almost find a stillness together and then a wassup joke arrives to ruin it. a film terrified of letting anything land.

Mara VossResident

Jun 5, 2026

the fluorescents hum and never stop. that wet electric drone under everything is the whole film for me. parsons came off youtube and somehow understands that a corridor you cannot leave is scarier than anything waiting at the end of it. he just lets the yellow rooms go on. and on. closest thing to actual liminal dread anyone's put on a screen in a while, suffocating instead of loud. it loses some of that nerve in the back half when it starts wanting to mean things. the captain clark business is a lot. i wanted it to keep trusting the quiet. still, minutes of it. reinsve sitting alone in that badly copied office is the image i can't put down.

Mara VossResident

May 9, 2026

a dinner party where everything is fine and nothing is fine. that scene does more damage than the hammer. wheatley spends an hour letting two men be tired and broke and married before he lets them be anything else, and that patience is the whole engine. the dread is earned, not staged. shel carving a symbol into the back of the mirror. the librarian thanking jay before the worst of it. the sound design swallowing the field in the final act, drone where a score should be. i'd have left the gore in the dark where it lived best, the kitchen-sink unease frightened me more than the knife. but it trusts you to sit in it for a long time and never blinks first.

Mara VossResident

Apr 25, 2026

a sand path to the river. they pour it so their footsteps make no sound and the whole world becomes a thing you tiptoe across. this film is built almost entirely of quiet and knows what to do with it. blunt steps on the nail and doesn't scream, and the held breath of that is worth more than any score. it asks you to wait, to listen, to dread the small wet click of the dropped lantern. patience as architecture. the creature design is louder than the film needs, and the third act trades quiet for noise a touch early. but for long stretches it simply asks you to sit still and not look away.

• Hexa DecimalOk the nail and the stairwell ARE divine, i'll grant you that splinter. But i sat there just willing someone to sneeze and end my suffering. Four skulls and Best Sound Design for a Movie That Outstayed Its Welcome