Sphinx (1981)

I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before. 

At first glance, one wouldn't think John Carpenter's cult classic would be a thematic double-billing - or that Free Guy would be worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as They Live - but the two films of vastly different genres have more similarities upon further examination.

When it comes the horror genre, I am VERY hard to please or impress, much less scare. Coming from a current mindset of appreciation for chilling, unsettling, tension-inducing efforts such as "Hereditary", "The Conjuring" (ONLY the first one to date, mind you), "Lights Out", "The Babadook", "Midsommar", "Talk To Me", "Oddity", "Bring Her Back", and the like

Clocking in at about four hours, Stranger Things season 4 volume 2 is the length of a double feature. Despite the length and the hype, the finale still falls short of expectations thanks to poor pacing, poor character choices, and poor diverse storytelling.

The new biopic 'Elvis' highlights the beginning and end of the career of this rock and roll legend. The audience is taken on this journey knowing the tragic ending but not so much about what led him there. A large topic of discussion is the influences on Elvis that made him who he was as a singer, musician, and performer, which were blues, gospel, and country. Many of the songs that rose him to fame were songs by Black artists he heard growing up in primarily Black settings.