- There’s a lot that works about Lisa Frankenstein, from the vibrant ’80s visual design to the equally colorful performances, but the stuff that doesn’t work? Oof. The movie can’t ever figure out its tone, and it really falters because of that.
- Immaculate feels very old-fashioned, almost threadbare, like a throwback to the kind of late-’70s religious conspiracy thrillers made in the wake of The Exorcist and The Omen. It’s helped enormously, though, by some good direction and a strong performance by Sydney Sweeney.
- The Unknown
- Reckless has its charms, but it’s also kind of a mess. Jean Harlow, who was reportedly reluctant to join the picture at the last minute, gives what I think is an uneven performance, and the whole thing feels like it’s stuck somewhere between stage musical comedy and drama.
- The Mephisto Waltz is mostly just disappointing, not without a handful of interesting moments, but ultimately confused and maybe best described (as TV Guide once did) as “a made-for-TV-ish Rosemary’s Baby rip-off.”
- The Deep House is an interesting idea for a movie…and that, sadly, is about all that it is. The two leads, particularly Camille Rowe, try their best to inject some actual personality into their characters early on, but once the movie actually descends to the bottom it’s clear it has nowhere left to go. It’s not terrible, just very slow, not especially frightening, and disappointing in its ending.
- The Palm Beach Story is maybe a little less screwball than I like my screwball comedies, but there are a lot of really funny moments throughout.
- There are a lot of good performances in Lonelyhearts, but I think I was most taken with Robert Ryan’s nasty cynicism.
- The Instigators is a surprising amount of fun, with a pretty tight (if not overly clever) script.
Three Days of the Condor and The House That Dripped Blood, both of which really held up. Condor has some really good performances, along with that cynicism of ’70s political thrillers, while House is just silly horror fun.
