This month’s selection is a case of the underdog and the outsider both rising to the top during the season of the summer flopbusters. Two exceptional films that are easily my two biggest 2026 highlights so far.
Curry Barker demonstrates that a YouTube filmmaker can produce an ultra-low-budget horror film that transcends its targeted Gen Z audience. Obsession’s phenomenal success can also be attributed to Inde Navarrette’s breakout performance. Good to know she maintains her grounded approach by continuing to produce Let’s Play videos while being one of the most talked-about actors of the summer.
Similarly, Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious is a stand-out martial arts film, and exemplifies the superiority in quality of Asian brawlers over the typical fix-it-in-post Hollywood actioner. That five-man rumble is epic.
♲ Rewatch ^ Short
Dada Debaser Notes:
- Apart from a smoking hot Miriam Leone, the only other positive aspect to the Manetti Bros’ Diabolik trilogy was that it prompted me to review the more accomplished 1968 film after God knows how long.
- Speaking of trilogies, I finally got around to watching the third and final part of the Cold Prey franchise. It’s a notable departure from the previous films in Norway’s flagship slasher series but decent, nonetheless.
- Tinfoil hat time: the critical reappraisal for the dystopian and horrendously awful Welcome II the Terrordome, which cashed in on Public Enemy's style and music, is nothing more than a convoluted effort to peddle the inevitable Criterion/BFI Blu-ray to gullible cinephiles. A similar deal to the revisionist love for Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.
- "Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see." Event Horizon is more Hellraiser-in-space than what Hellraiser: Bloodline turned out to be. RIP Sam Neill!
- Carolina Caroline is a clichéd and mediocre Bonnie and Clyde tale made tolerable by Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner's performances. Starting to think Dinner in America was a one hit wonder for Adam Rehmeier.
- Spontaneous Combustion is essentially Tobe Hooper doing Scanners. The film is a mess, but the pyrotechnic horror effects are genuinely good and Brad Dourif never disappoints.
- The Drama is filled with the most insufferable and cringe-worthy characters I've seen all year; and I've watched Primate and The Bride!
Always a pleasant surprise whenever I find a novelty extra included with a Blu-ray/4K UHD. Willem Dafoe's mug on a counterfeit $20 bill is the latest example of this inside Arrow's To Live and Die in L.A. packaging. Other goodies I hope to be included from the subgenre of crooked cop films are Harvey Keitel's school run coke from Bad Lieutenant (1992); the vomit pen from Training Day (2001); and Vince Vaughn's salt shaker from Dragged Across Concrete (2018).
4 comments:
Going to see Obsession tonight based on your recommendation. I'm generally not into horror but it's been ages since I've seen one.
If you're going to watch just one horror film this year, then Obsession is a good choice.
Ah yes, Frontius. The Tegan & Turlough era.
I liked the bit when Turlough threatened those colonists with a hatstand.
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