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Posts Tagged ‘Lulu Wilson’

The Wrath of Becky

Wednesday, September 6th, 2023

Back in 2020 there was a pretty cool indie action type thing called BECKY. Lulu Wilson (The Haunting of Hill House) played a sullen thirteen year old trying to emotionally survive a cabin retreat with her widower father and his new fiance when suddenly she has to physically survive a home invasion by a neo-nazi gang. They killed her family (except for her dog Diego) so she hides the mysterious, possibly-mystical key they’re looking for and turns into kid McClane, violently hunting them using household and treehousehold items and wearing a cutesy knitted chipmunk hat.

I had some issues with BECKY but I enjoyed it enough to be excited by the prospect of a sequel with the pulpy title THE WRATH OF BECKY. It got a limited theatrical and VOD release back in May and has since come out on DVD (but not blu-ray I guess?). (read the rest of this shit…)

Becky

Wednesday, January 13th, 2021

BECKY (2020) is a pretty quick and simple thriller with a promising hook: neo-Nazi escaped convicts invade a vacation home looking for a valuable item, and it’s up to a 13-year old girl to improvise enough weapons to seriously fuck them up. Gritty HOME ALONE, I guess. It somewhat delivers on the premise, mostly in the area of (as the rating says) “grisly images and strong bloody violence.”

Becky (Lulu Wilson, OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL) is an extremely pouty youngster who is not on good speaking terms with her dad (Joel McHale, DELIVER US FROM EVIL, MORTAL KOMBAT LEGENDS: SCORPION’S REVENGE) as they drive to the lakeside cabin together. We learn that she’s having trouble dealing with the death of her mother a year ago; conveniently the “nostalgically watching old home movies to mourn a deceased family member” storytelling device can now be done with handheld electronics. (read the rest of this shit…)

Ouija: Origin of Evil

Friday, October 23rd, 2020

This is a rare event for me, to watch a prequel to a movie I haven’t seen and don’t plan to see. The original OUIJA from 2014 was a PG-13 horror movie co-produced by ghost-merchants Blumhouse and remakers Platinum Dunes, “based on Ouija by Hasbro.” It’s the same writers as KNOWING, which could be a plus, but I didn’t know that until just now. So it didn’t seem like a movie for me, and nobody told me otherwise.

But two years later I remember seeing the trailer for the prequel before some other horror movie and talking with my friend about it actually looking good. It’s a period piece set in 1967, with a real nice look to it courtesy of cinematographer Michael Fimognari (FAST COLOR) and this time it’s directed by Mike Flanagan – I’m not sure if I’d seen anything by him yet, but I’d heard good things about OCULUS. And since then I’ve seen ABSENTIA, HUSH and GERALD’S GAME – all quite good – and the 2018 made-for-Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House convinced me that he is a legit Master of Horror for our age, even before he knocked my socks off with DOCTOR SLEEP. So it’s cool to go back and catch up on this one and realize how much of a rough draft it was for Hill House (even more than ABSENTIA). It’s got the scary old house (smaller and suburban, though), the psychic gift passed through generations, the themes of trauma and loss, the period detail, and of course the freaky ass Mike Flanagan ghosts. (Flanaghosts?) (read the rest of this shit…)