While we are given numerous films to review, some don't always fit with the type of content we normally provide here. However, in the interest of providing thoughts on them nonetheless, here are our thoughts on several of these that were watched over the last month that isn't worth producing a full review for but is still worth some of your time.
Hunt Club (Elizabeth Blake-Thomas)-
This serviceable enough thriller, a riff on 'The Most Dangerous Game' involving a group of men luring women to a remote island to then hunt them down and kill them, has some likable enough features but is somewhat problematic. What works well here is a solid enough central premise about the whole exercise being undertaken as a way to instill a more straightforward sense of primal male dominance over women by having wannabe alpha-males come together to hunt women down for the sheer fact of them being women. That serves this one to get to the series of interactions here once they finally get to the girls fighting back as this setup offers a fine twist as to their purpose being there which offers a series of fun action-packed encounters during the finale where they turn the tables rather nicely taking things to a fun conclusion. This is all fun and keeps things moving along at a great clip with the amount of action on display countering the build-up well even if that build is incredibly disappointing. Hardly any of it is special with the main gist of everything here boiling down to misguided male aggression towards women with a group of males thinking they've been cheated out of their sense of superiority trying to get one over on women by hunting and killing them which is a fine concept but only scratches the surface of what it could've been had this not just been the most ridiculously cliched and robotic-sounding sayings trying to hammer this point home. Had this done something interesting or unique with it it might've been something but is highly underwhelming as is.
The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou (Lucas Delangle)-
This coming-of-age drama, focusing on a young boy living in a remote village in the French Alps with his grandmother who is forced to look into the truth behind her legendary healing powers to save a young woman in the area that is suspected of a series of vicious animal attacks in the area, has all the hallmarks of the genre but misses the boat somewhat. The atmosphere of the film, taking place in a beautiful picturesque village in the mountains as well as the general setup about a potential lycanthropic curse affecting this village while exploring a profoundly-topical sense of how doing the right thing to help others might not be beneficial to everyone around them, offer an incredibly endearing start which is all fine but that's about all this one has going for it. The focus here on looking into the old-world ways of him looking into her regenerative abilities as a means of helping him to overcome his quiet and reserved lifestyle which really goes nowhere due to us not really given much of a chance to learn anything about the girl he's treating so she just feels like a random inclusion to help tell the story being told. However, it's all just undone by the utterly banal pacing that renders everything so hard to stay invested in without any kind of action or on-screen hint of anything happening that really showcases the intent behind this one not being a true genre effort which is the biggest factor against this one.
Homestead (Ehrland Hollingsworth)-
This was a solid if generally flawed throwback Western. The main setup, involving a group of thugs looking to settle the score against an old associate who lives a quiet life on the prairie and forces their foul-mouthed daughter to try to save him, is a rather enjoyable time here which gets the characters settled pretty quickly. That also generates a solid setup for the eventual rampage to come with the action relegated to some solid if low-key shootouts in the prairie house featuring several battles to keep them out while under utilizing barricades for protection or some fun brawling with the thugs trying to get back at him for what he did to them that feature some solid brutality to the quest for revenge. It's really only undone by the fact that there's just not much in the way of genre thrills here which makes its inclusion feel rather awkward since hardly anything that happens here makes for a justified tag as its biggest issue. The brutality doesn't equate to a lot of overtly graphic gore scenes as the main focus on the characters here feels far more settled on cliched Western style which leaves this way more of a Western than a full-on genre feature. These features aren't that detrimental to the film in the long run, but as a genre outing, it's decidedly lacking due to the designated genre tags.
Clock (Alexis Jacknow)-
This wasn’t too bad of a genre thriller. The idea at play here involving her arriving at the facility to help cure her of her maternal deficiencies and being sent back into the real world seemed to initiate a series of psychological issues with her following the treatment making the film incredibly intriguing overall. As the sketchiness of the treatment she receives while at the facility, ranging from the deprivation tank experiment to the discovery of the figures haunting her and their continued torment and appearance towards her even after finishing the service, all give this one a fine look into her mental breakdown as the change she undergoes gives everything a fantastic breaking point. However, the fact that all of this never really goes for the jugular regarding the early malicious genre qualities intended here since most of those elements are revealed to be psychologically inflicted by the nefarious actions of the doctor which gives everything a distinctly thriller touch instead. None of this is really wrong and instead really makes it enjoyable but this psychological approach that renders all the previously established attempts at horror content moot so it undoes all the content presented for its only big flaw.
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