THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE (2025)

 

Directed By: Mona Fastvold

Written By: Mona Fastvold And Brady Corbet 

Cinematography: William Rexer 

Editor: Sofia Subercaseaux 

Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin Mckenzie, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Beard, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Daniel Blumberg, David Cale, Viola Prettejohn

Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, is proclaimed as the female Christ by her followers. This film depicts her establishment of a utopian society and the Shakers’ worship through song and dance, based on real events.

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This is a hard film to quite get your head around. 

Though it definitely makes an impression. As it is an epic done on a budget, but still manages to be quite illustrious throughout even when it seems like it’s not doing that much or playing it basic at times.

Which showcases limitation, but works for the time the story is set in when the world and society was still building itself.

The film is a musical and the religious choreography, testimonial music score and movements are great. Which is what keeps a captivating and keeps your interest as it might not have been as magical if it had played as a straight drama. It might’ve felt more like a prestige film rather than something of its own concoction while trying to tell a true story.

The film gets matters of the flesh out of the way early, so that while that theme is always in the background, it’s not as heavily a focus, and once the lead character played by Amanda Seyfried goes all in with her religion and beliefs. We don’t get to see any really again, it’s more hinted at or implied, but never seen until when the film needs to be brutal.

One can see this from getting more of an audience as more people discovered it through word-of-mouth as it might not be perfect, but it certainly is interesting and never boring

Amanda Seyfried in the lead is strong and memorable. One of her strongest performance is so far as it seems like with each new passing year and each new project she does get stronger as an actress and more captivating to see with her range.

Christopher abbot plays another terrible character. Which at this point he seems to have cornered the market on. When not playing leading roles. 

The film ends brutally as that seems to be the case when it comes to most films, depicting religion or even religious ones as usually we know how they will end. It’s all in how he get there.

What keeps this from exciting is that you Never quite know where it’s going so it manages to be quite an Odyssey in of itself. Even with its limited surroundings. 

Looking forward to more films from this filmmaker.

Grade: B+ 

KRAVEN THE HUNTER (2024)

 

Directed By: J.C. Chandor

Written By: Richard Wenk, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway 

Story By: Richard Wenk

Based on characters created by: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko 

Cinematography: Ben Davis 

Editor: Milos Djakovic and Zach Vandlik 

Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Alessandro Nivola, Russell Crowe, Christopher Abbott, Levi Miller 

Kraven's complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff, starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.

WOLF MAN (2025)

 

Directed By: Leigh Whannell

Written By: Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck 

Cinematography: Stefan Duscio and Ruairi O’Brien

Editor: Andy Canny

Cast: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, Benedict Hardie, Ben Prendergast

A family at a remote farmhouse is attacked by an unseen animal, but as the night stretches on, the father begins to transform into something unrecognizable.

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Pay attention to the title, because that’s pretty much what this movie seems to be about as it has its own reminiscence of the fly as we watch the lead character slowly transform into this Wolfman.

There are so many ways of looking at this movie. It has the Liriano kind of cold direction, but impressive style at times that at least is some thing you don’t expect.

Though this is more a traumatic thriller, so if you’re looking for a horror film, you’re gonna find yourself sadly disappointed as it does have those types of scenes, but for the most part seems to be more about this man’s slow transformation, and trying to protect his family, and then also slowly morphing into the problem himself

The film at times feels like it should be more hard-hitting, but there just seems to be something missing or just plays off bland. It also obviously is trying to push the female character to be more of the heroic force because she’s trying to be a nurture and at first it seems like she’s more a journalist, but when it comes to survival, she does what she hast to do to protect her daughter, her family even if she hast to face off against the man, she loves her husband.

His transformation can also be seen as him try, actually having to face his trauma from his rough childhood with what seems to be an uncaring father that he has obviously Buried, but still has that anger while trying to be the good guy, decent husband, and good father he doesn’t want his family to have to deal with the same types of things that he did.

So eventually, unfortunately, it becomes like an incredible hulk situation, where he can’t help this other side of him coming out or really transforming him totally. 

As what the film does have going forward, is if the few scenes of style and prosthetic special effects. While the film does have violence, it’s also a secluded thriller where there aren’t that many victims so not so much useless bloodshed almost like Cujoh more of trying to survive the night and the ordeal, which also makes it feel a little bit more like most of the film takes place in real time

The Hulk analogy also works for this phone because it seems like it’s very hard for Hollywood to truly come up with a good or great werewolf movie and they’re either barely passable usually just OK or just bad or disappointing, whereas every other famous creature seems to have more than a few defining films to the repertoire.

The film isn’t bad it just is that you go in, expecting one thing and coming out with another and even the other that it is is pretty plain and bland, feeling more melodramatic with supernatural horror and thriller elements.

Which is a shame, because with the invisible Man, leave, Wagner came up with a film that felt inventive, but then again, he also had more room to work with as THE INVISIBLE MAN, while a memorable character isn’t as popular isn’t ball down by as many rules and lower, so you can kind of create an ad more than you can with well established, vampire, zombies, or where wolves

At least I can say that the film is Earnest in it’s

depictions of werewolves as it tries to create, but it seems like it’s problem was It wants

to dip itself a little in the fantasy, but also be somewhat grounded in reality-based as well as offering some scientific explanations, and while they work well enough off of each other, they don’t create a satisfying formula completely.

No, maybe the focus was too much on the transformation giving it a sort of THE FLY comparisons only not as focused on the Body Horror

Grade: C

SANCTUARY (2023)

 

Directed By: Zachary Wigon  

Written By: Micah Bloomberg 

Cinematography: Ludovica Isidori 

Editor: Kate Brokaw and Lance Edmonds

Cast: Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley 

Follows a dominatrix and Hal, her wealthy client, and the disaster that ensues when Hal tries to end their relationship.

BLACK BEAR (2020)

 

Written & Directed By: Laurence Michael Levine Cinematography: Robert Leitzell Editor: Matthew L. Weiss 

Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, Sarah Gadon, Paola Lozaro, Grantham Coleman, Jennifer Kim, Lindsay Burge, Lou Gonzalez, Shannon O’Neill, Alexander Koch

At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously convoluted their lives will soon become in the filmmaker's pursuit of a work of art, which blurs the boundaries between autobiography and invention.

TYREL (2018)

Written & Directed By: Sebastian Silva 
Cinematography: Alexis Zabe 
Editor: Jennifer Lame & Sofia Subercaseaux 

Cast: Jason Mitchell, Christopher Abbott, Caleb Landry Jones, Michael Cera, Michael Zegen, Reg E. Cathey, Ann Dowd, Roddy Bottum, Nicolas Arze 


Tyler, a sole black man, attends an otherwise all-white weekend of drunken bro debauchery on a birthday trip to a cabin in the Catskills.

PIERCING (2018)

Written & Directed By: Nicolas Pesce 
Story By: Ryu Murakami 
Cinematography: Zack Galler 
Editor: Sofia Subercaseaux 

Cast: Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Laia Costa, Marin Ireland, Maria Dizzia, Wendell Pierce 

 A man kisses his wife and baby goodbye and seemingly heads away on business, with a plan to check into a hotel, call an escort service, and kill an unsuspecting prostitute.

VOX LUX (2018)

Written & Directed By: Brady Corbet 
Cinematography: Lol Crawley 
Editor: Matthew Hunnam 


Cast: Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Stacy Martin, Jennifer Ehle, Raffey Cassidy, Christopher Abbott, Maria Dizzia, Matt Servitto 


An unusual set of circumstances brings unexpected success to a pop star.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES (2015)

Directed By: Jackie Earle Haley 
Written By: Robin Moore 
Cinematography By: Seamus Tierney 
Editor: Alex Marquez 

Cast: Michael Pitt, Dan Stevens, Rob Brown, Christopher Abbott, John Travolta, Jackie Earle Haley, Morgan Wolk, Edi Gathegi  


The film is about four young guys who reunite at an ex-classmate's funeral. One mentions to the others inside information on a stock that is a guaranteed lock to make them instant millionaires. Unfortunately, the deal goes south along with their investment. Things go from bad to worse: one of them borrowed his share of the money from a mobster.