Wrapping up loose threads while setting the stage for more cosmic threats. The film explores deeper layers of Eddie’s symbiosis with Venom, offering fans an insightful and emotional ride through their relationship. While the plot aims high with intriguing conflicts and darker themes, it doesn’t always maintain a consistent momentum. A few scenes feel stretched, slowing the pacing in spots. However, these moments serve to flesh out character dynamics and provide breathing room for the final showdown.

The action scenes, as always, are energetic and inventive, showcasing Venom’s abilities in new and thrilling ways. Director Kelly Marcel balances humor with horror, giving Venom his characteristic charm and chaotic energy. The supporting cast brings fresh dynamics, although some side arcs could have benefitted from more development.

What’s particularly exciting is how Venom Last Dance subtly lays the groundwork for the arrival of Knull, the god-like figure tied to the origins of symbiotes. The hints and lore expansions point to something vast and mythic on the horizon, leaving fans curious about the universe’s next direction. Despite a few slower moments, Venom Last Dance successfully wraps up Eddie and Venom’s story while setting up a bigger, more ambitious future. Fans of the symbiotic duo will find this a surprisingly satisfying, if occasionally uneven, conclusion to the trilogy. I would give this film a solid rating of 8/10.

Ringu 

Way back in the 90s, a sudden film spawned a popular film franchise, triggered a Western popularization of Japanese Horror, and started a renaissance of Japanese Horror, all with a single film – Ringu. 

Based on a series of novels written by Koji Suzuki, the story involves a cursed VHS tape that, after you watch it, leads to a phone call informing the viewer that they now have seven days left to live. After that, the vengeful spirit of Sadako, the girl from the well that gives Ringu its name, comes and kills you in the most terrorizing way possible. After her niece Tomoko is found horrifically dead, investigative reporter Reiko Asakawa takes it upon herself to look into the curse. 

The film is lauded worldwide for its’ unique-for-that-time atmosphere, slow-burn gripping horror, and intertwining of traditional Japanese ghostly vengeful horror with modern twists. There have been several sequels to the original Ringu, and a whole bunch of Americanized remakes, but nothing replaces the original vision of a contortionist nightmare wraith climbing backwards out of a well to come frighten you literally to death! 

Ju-On the Grudge 

They say that when a person dies in the grip of a deep and powerful rage, a curse is born. The curse gathers in the place where that person died and repeats itself there, with the help of the dead haunting said location, often killing anyone who comes into contact with that curse. 

The traditional vision of the yurei, the vengeful wrongfully killed Japanese ghost, is something we Westerners have generally come to accept as being female, with long straggly black hair and an almost see-through-like quality about her. Ju-on gives the yurei in this story license, potentially sympathetic reason even, to wreak her ghostly vengeance upon the world that did her wrong and turns her traditional yurei appearance into weapons with which to terrorize her victims. That long straggly black hair is now prehensile and deadly, the sound of the poor drowned cat coming from the tiny boy-ghosts mouth heralds extreme sudden peril, and even that insanely creepy door-closing noise coming from mother Kayako’s mouth is now an iconic known of the Ju-On franchise. 

Originally based on two short films from acclaimed director Takashi Shimizu from when he studied at the Film School of Tokyo under a Kurosawa, the Ju-On franchise of course spawned an Americanized version, aptly titled The Grudge, and a whole host of sequels. Now boasting over 8 Japanese films, a Netflix streaming TV show under the title Ju-On: Origins, several Americanized remakes with their accompanying sequels, a crossover movie featuring the ghosts from Ju-On and Ringu in a face-off, and novelizations of nearly all the films, Ju-On still stands high as a front-runner for the huge popularization of the other type of Japanese ghost-beastie, the “vengeful ghost” or onryo for viewers all around the world! 

Three … Extremes 

A horror anthology film comprised of a trio of stories from directors from China, South Korea and Japan, Three … Extremes was controversial when it came out and continues to remain so to this day. 

Chinese Indie director Fruit Chan brings us Dumplings, a story of a woman desperate to retain her youth at literally the worst cost in the whole world; South Korea’s Park Chan Wook delivers Cut, about a prominent film director and his wife being terrorized by a psychopath from his past; and finally, almost inevitably, Japanese director Takashi Miike offers us Box, where a circus contortionist grapples with the guilt of her tormented past when evil returns to take vengeance in her adult life. 

Fruit Chans’ Dumplings was expanded to whole-movie format though it kept the exact same monstrous storyline as the short; Park Chan Wook is known for such masterpieces as Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and Snowpiercer just to name a few, he has so many; and of course Takashi Miike has so many action and horror and “other” flicks to his unique style of directing that, beyond the world of JHorror even, Miike is now a household name. 

Over Your Dead Body 

Arguably the most famous (and infamous) ghost story in Japan, Yotsuya Kaidan began life as a Kabuki play made for the stage in 1825, and has been adapted to film more than 30 times since then, continuing to be a giant influence on Japanese horror culture even today. The story is a tale of much betrayal, so much murder, and of course, ghostly revenge, with many layers and characters and interleaved mini-stories being added to Tsuruya Nanboku IV’s original work. 

Here in modern day in the film, a troop of actors have been cast in a reimagining of the Yotsuya Kaidan stage play, and they each have their own obsessions and desires, mostly for other members of the cast. The play proceeds to intensify and amplify the casts’ possessive loves, and as the lines between reality and the play blur, spurned love morphs into multiple grudges. And we all know about Asian folk and their ghostly grudges. 

Over Your Dead Body is a lesser-known Takashi Miike movie and as such, sports his zany over-the-top style of filmmaking, but for this film alone, is presented in an almost arthouse style of horror. Expect the usual splattergore and emotional explosions Miike is known for, but also anticipate a beautifully shot grotesquerie of the horrors we humans voluntarily visit upon each-other! 

Audition 

Based on the book by Ryu Murakami, one of the very few movies to get a “holysh*t!” style rating from the likes of Rob Zombie himself, Audition is not for the faint of stomach. Takashi Miike directs another horror movie in his singularly unnerving style, so strap in! 

Shigeharu Aoyama is a widower and has been for some time, and after his grown son expresses his plans to move out soon, Aoyama acknowledges his loneliness and decides its time to start looking for a new wife. But not in any kind of normal way, like dating apps or whatever, no, Aoyama and a fellow film producer friend of his conceive to hold auditions for a non-existent film so Aoyama can choose his potential bride from the audition pool of women. Any romance begun on such lies is bound for failure, but Asami, the former ballerina with let’s just say some serious trauma issues to work out that Aoyama selects for his paramour, takes her reactions to such duplicity to major extremes. 

Credited with being a major influence on the likes of Eli Roth, the Soska sisters, Rob Zombie and tons of other horror directors, plus being described as a progenitor of the now-infamous sub-genre of Horror gleefully called “torture porn”, Audition evokes strong reactions in an unforgettable Miike blend of duplicity, gorgeous monstrosity, and gore! 

After being corrupted by the smile entity curse, global singing sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing terrifying visions and strange events, forcing her to try to fight back against the pressures of superstardom and her own past demons, before it’s entirely too late! 

So, the first ten minutes or so of the film deal with the transference of the smile curse, demonic haunting, whatever you want to call it, being foisted off on some other poor slob. At least, that was the theory our gunman was operating under, but as we’re all aware, the smile curse has a tendency to make things go awry as much as possible, maximizing pain and fear for consumption. And junkies aren’t exactly known for their ability to make nefarious plans and pull them off without a hitch anyways. 

Meet Skye Riley, the former rising singing mega-superstar who, a year ago or so, allowed herself to succumb to drugs under the intense pressures of stardom and suffered a devastating car crash in which her actor “boyfriend” died and Skye herself endured massive injuries that left bad scars. Her former best friend and handler Gemma (Dylan Gelula) was inevitably blamed for outing Skye’s drug use, yet Gemma turns out to be the one person Skye really wants to talk to when the smile entity begins really beating her over the head. Skye’s mom Elizabeth (Rosemarie Dewitt) has taken over the managerial duties of Skye’s resurging career and obsessively goads Skye into event after event, as they prepare to launch a comeback tour for Skye. Darius (Raul Castillo) and Joshua (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) are both in Skye’s performing sphere too, as a co-managerial type and the new personal assistant, respectively. And of course, there’s Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage), who we met in the beginning, a twitchy little drug dealer from Skye’s past who is ultimately responsible for visiting the smile curse upon Skye’s head. Thanks a lot, everybody. 

Skye has problems ya’ll, even now. She endures dance and singing practice that causes her massive amounts of pain she’s supposed to hide; she drinks water like a beached fish because a therapist told her to drink water anytime she felt like using drugs again, hoo boy; she gets so twitchy she starts pulling out whole hanks of her hair so now Skye has a brand-new much shorter hairstyle in theory to celebrate her new world tour; and Skye is trying very hard to hide the car accident scars, which is seriously hard in those skimpy ridiculously revealing outfits megastars wear when performing onstage. So finally, in a desperate act that sadly everyone saw coming, Skye goes by herself to see Lewis in his rather obvious drug dealer loft, to score some Vicodin for her back. Really. That’s all, Skye swears. 

The smile entity has now moved into Skyes’ entire world, as if things weren’t stressful enough, and now Skye is starting to twitch herself, when she sees that horrific smile split the mouths of strangers and even people she knows, and hears words cursing her delivered in a voice clearly not belonging to the person whose mouth they’re coming out of. 

The scenes with the various characters haunting Skye in the smile curse fashion are all great, very similar to the original film but smartened up for the sequel, slick and polished, and absolutely sick in the reveling of scaring a person literally out of their mind. The scene with Skye’s backup dancers in her bedroom in particular, are incredibly well done and should be lauded tons. 

Skye is trying to hold onto whats left of her sanity by her very fingernails when she finally agrees to meet with the anonymous person who’s been sending her eerie phone messages, Morris (Peter Jacobson). Morris actually does his best to try and explain the smile entity and its adjoining curse, and how the best way to stop the thing is to briefly “kill” Skye, though he seems to be twitchy and nervous for his own reasons too.  

Time is running out for poor beleaguered Skye, and after a devastating and very bloody act that shatters what’s left of Skye’s dwindling mind, Skye makes the choice to try and fight the smile entity with every resource at her disposal. Somehow it never occurred to her that a walk-in freezer in a former Pizza Hut would be listed among those resources, but whatever! 

The movie is full of jump scares and gore, yes, but the scenes are much less torture porn for the sake of it and more psychological horror presented in a visceral way that even still manages to leave a fair bit open to audience interpretation. Did Skye really just truth vomit all of that repressed rage aloud, or is it all pretty much in her head? That final concert battle scene, where there were hundreds of people in the live audience and in theory much more to be had from the live televised event, does this mean the smile entity has access now to a legion of potential victims? 

Enjoy a villain who absolutely revels in being as evil as possible while sporting a terrifying mouth-splitting smile, Smile 2 is in theaters now!