rudi-engel Reviews

The Idol: Daybreak (2023) Season 1, Episode 3

Best episode of a TV series I've watched in years

[10/10 · 23 July 2023]

I wanted to watch 10 minutes of this and the rest later because of an appointment. Cancelled my plans because I was just mesmerized by every line and shot. One of those rare cases where everything clicks together and sucks the air out of the room to the point you hardly dare to breathe.

The Weeknd plays the role of the controlling alpha male to perfection, while Rose-Depp's performance is so moving that it almost surpasses the point of acting; she's really living this role. The cinematography did the rest in creating an atmosphere that sticks with you for every second.

This is just so brilliant. The critics not understanding it only makes it better.

Oculus (2013)

Skip this movie if you're looking to be easily scared

[10/10 · 31 August 2014]

I've never written a review on IMDb before, but with this movie I have the urge to defend it from noises I hear around me. To start with, Oculus is not The Conjuring. However I love both movies, they're both dealing at the complete opposite ends of the horror spectrum.

I keep on hearing people saying they're disappointed with Oculus because the frequency of jump-out-of-your-seat scary moments is too low. That's correct; Oculus isn't even trying to achieve that. Whereas movies such as The Conjuring are about bumping your head out of nowhere, cursing and moving on, I find watching this film as getting a tattoo on a painful spot. You're excited beforehand, after the first minutes in the chair you feel relieved because the pain is easy to deal with, after half an hour the constant scratching gets irritating and after an hour all you want is to be done with it.

Translated to Oculus and without trying to spoil the plot: at the beginning you're asking yourself whether you're even watching a horror movie, after half an hour you feel the palms of your hands getting sweaty and your gaze transfixed to the screen, and from then on the pressure keeps on building, building and building until you can't hold it anymore and you feel yourself praying for the end credits to roll over the screen.

It's such a good thing for this genre people like Mike Flanagan still exist. He already showed some early potential with the low budget horror thriller Absentia (2011); with Oculus he has made a classic film like I thought they don't exist anymore in this fast food decade. True fans of the genre simply feel Flanagan lives and breathes horror and shake their heads because of people disagreeing with this plain fact.