In recent years, one horror film emerges early on as the best horror film of the year. In 2017 it was Jordan Peele’s exceptionally smart social thriller Get Out; in 2016 it was Robert Eggers’ period stunner The Witch; in 2018 that honor goes to Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Starring Toni Collette as a woman struggling to cope with the increasingly disturbing implications of her mother’s death, Aster’s ferocious directorial debut plumbs the darkest depths of mental illness to reveal the true meaning of psychological terror.
If you’re a suburban mom and your day-to-day consists of cleaning diapers, dropping the kids at school, and going to PTA meetings after work, life can turn pretty monotonous. That’s why Bridget Everett’s Melanie plans weekly fun mom dinners to unwind sans-children and husbands with her fellow mothers.
There’s some bio-terrorism a-brewin’ in London, and it’s up to Noomi Rapace to track down the no-noodniks responsible and dispense some harsh and uncompromising justice. Nope, it’s not another iteration of the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo franchise, it’s the new trailer for the upcoming espionage thriller Unlocked. Rapace plays a stone-cold killer who does everything Jason Bourne did (but in chunky heels) as she shoots her way through the United Kingdom’s capital city to disarm a viral germ bomb of some manner or another. It’s a glowing green liquid in a syringe; whatever it is, we know it’s not good news.
Since the presidential election, many critics have been quick to point out that not every film released should be viewed as a response to Trump’s presidency. Movies spend far too much time in production for any 2017 to really have a chance to incorporate the current political climate into its message. What is acceptable — and perhaps even necessary — is to acknowledge when new releases feel like the product of a bygone era. Sometimes, Hollywood is unprepared for large cultural shifts, and that means movies that would have been fine even a year ago sit wrong with most audiences.