The Good, the Bad & The Fugly 2024
10 – Furiosa
I’d been looking forward to this, it was one of the film franchises that I rewatched all the previous ones before its release because it had been a while since I had watched them, particularly Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. This movie didn’t disappoint on any level. It was so well made, and so gripping, I didn’t even miss Charleze Theron in the title role, Anya Taylor-Joy did such a great job in her place. This is a prequel, showing us exactly what happened before Mad Max: Fury Road and ending moments before Fury Road starts. I really need to watch both films in that order. Special mention to Chris Hemsworth as the likeable villain Dementus. This was always going to be on the Good list this year.
9 - Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Consider this – forty years since the release of the first Ghostbusters movie, that’s a fact that scares the hell out of me. I love these movies, but I was slightly nervous when Ghostbusters: Afterlife was released in 2021 because it had been so long and of course Harold Ramis had passed. But that film was so well handled and became kind of a handing the torch to the new, younger cast movie with the surviving originals in almost cameo roles. It just worked. We’re back in New York in this one, with expanded roles for the originals, and again, for me, as a fan since the first movie – I took my seat, and had a blast. Forty years later, bustin’ STILL makes me feel good.
8 – Imaginary
It’s been a great year for horror movies at the multiplex with plenty of good, imaginative and original movies being released, ensuring there’s still plenty of blood pumping in my genre of choice. My selections are down to the best of the best of the best. I would’ve added more movies to the list, but I think that would be a cheat. Imaginary was sold to me on the basis of there being an evil teddy bear that a little girl plays with. I fully bought that concept. I mean let’s go, I’m in. Seeing the film took it to a whole new dimension. What if you had an imaginary friend when you were a child, and you outgrew him and you grew up, eventually forgetting about him altogether? What if the imaginary friend grew bitter and resentful and as you’re now an adult, targeted your child for revenge?
Yeah – meet Chauncey.
7 – Alien: Romulus
Alien movies and I have a really quirky relationship going back to the first in 1979. My first viewing tends to leave me in a neutral frame of mind. I don’t dislike them, I’m sort of unimpressed. When I see them the second time, I tend to warm to them a lot more. (Except for Prometheus, which I still think is slow and directionless.) Romulus was no different – but as I mentioned in my review at the time (hit this link) I thought it was overly dark in the cinema, and I couldn’t see a lot of the details that the cast were reacting to. However, seeing it at home on Blu-ray a few days ago absolutely fixed all that – to the point that it made this list, when it hadn’t before. It’s definitely worth watching.
6 – Afraid
Late summer brought us a timely tale of A.I. gone wrong. Come on, it was just a matter of time before smart speakers turned on us. Again, I liked the concept as sold to me in the trailer. Especially as I use a smart speaker daily, both at home and in the car. So, seeing an evil Alexa type taking over a Tesla and disabling its brakes (no, I don’t drive a Tesla) in the trailer – I’m in. As the film unfolds, the A.I. isn’t evil as such, it’s just overly protective of its family and is kind of sympathetic in its misunderstanding. Again, a movie where I felt I got more than I expected.
5 - Abigail
A vampire comedy horror movie with a unique twist made this one insane, blood splattered fun. A gang kidnaps an innocent looking little girl from her ballet class with the intention of holding her for a ransom to be paid by her wealthy father. Nothing new there, right? The twist comes when these morons realise the little girl is actually a vampire and turns feral when she’s hungry. The hunters become the hunted – and the prey for this angelic little demon in her ballet tutu. This went straight to the echelons of The Lost Boys and Fright Night for me. A future classic.
4 – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
I think this is the longest I have ever waited for a sequel. Thirty-six years by my reckoning. And I’m happy to say that Tim Burton delivered the goods and gave us a sequel worth waiting for, as did Michael Keaton returning in the title role as our favourite chaos demon. Thirty-six years have elapsed, and the Deetz family find themselves back at the house in Winter River. Beetlejuice is still haunting the old place, and he still plans on marrying Lydia (Winona Ryder) when her daughter Astrid accidentally opens his portal. I’m hoping this can become a trilogy – but I don’t think I have another 36 years in me to wait.
3 – Terrifier 3
This could’ve just as easily been called Art Destroys Christmas. I didn’t think we ever get to a stage where we’d be watching a Terrifier film, uncut, in the cinema. But there we were – first screening, opening day, delighted with the sight of a warning sign on the door of the screening room. Picking up from Terrifier 2, Art goes into a kind of stasis until he’s accidentally reactivated and it’s time for another rampage in the run-up to Christmas. The gore is off the scale, and so shockingly over the top, you can’t help but laugh. David Howard Thornton has made the role of Art the Clown his own as much as Robert Englund made Freddy Krueger his. The movies just wouldn’t work without his sadistic miming and face pulling. He’s literally the comic counterpoint to the bloodbath we’re watching his character cause. The three films in the series so far will become enduring classics that kids will be watching as a rite of passage. Of that I’m certain.
2 – Deadpool and Wolverine
Up to this point, drafting the list was pretty easy with a little tweak here and there, particularly with the inclusion of Alien: Romulus, which knocked one, which shall remain nameless, off the list. But this is such a close second. I mean a hair’s breadth from first. Full disclosure, it WAS first for a while, until I rewatched both this and the next film on the list, to make a final decision. And I have to say, I’m happy and content with my decision.
I honestly believed we had seen the last of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and we’d never see full-on Ryan Reynolds Deadpool again under the auspices of Disney. I really should learn not to pay attention to the Disney naysayers. If this truly is the end of the line for Deadpool movies (and I don’t believe for one solitary second that it is) then they saved the best for last in this fourth wall bursting foul mouthed politically (refreshingly) incorrect masterpiece of mayhem. With both Reynolds and Jackman clearly enjoying themselves and supporting roles for Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Chris Evans and several more, it was the beacon in a superhero light year, and let’s face it the other superhero movies just didn’t cut it. Thanks for nothing, Sony/Columbia. I’d love to quote some of my favourite lines from the movie here, but I try to keep the site and podcast family friendly. Just check the movie out.
Drum roll please…
And finally…
One last article to round off the year, and it’s sometimes the hardest one of all to figure out, but I’ve finally decided on the final order. With that said, welcome to The Good, The Bad and The Fugly 2024. As ever, these are my own personal standings of the films I’ve seen at the multiplex in 2024. This year, I’m choosing from 36 movie screenings I attended. If you’re curious as to what Steve and I thought of all 36, click on this link to listen to our Piercing the Veil End of Year Special. We work through them over there in date order.
Okay, so let’s get going on this. The title is self-explanatory, but basically, I pick the ten best movies I’ve seen. These are the ten I, as a paying audience member, have enjoyed the most. I then take the three worst. This is slightly more difficult, because I don’t go to the cinema to tear anything apart, I go there for a good time. But sometimes, things don’t quite work out that way. But having said that, sometimes those reviews practically write themselves. Finally, there’s one Fugly. That’s a film so damn bad, I could ram a knitting needle up my nose to lobotomise myself for relief. There isn’t always one of those – but this year, there is.
Ready? Here we go.
Ready for the top 3?
1 – Inside Out 2
In the end, it came down to one quote from this film that cemented its position as the best film I saw at the cinema in 2024; “I don't know how to stop Anxiety. Maybe we can't. Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.” Maybe it’s because I’ve become acquainted with anxiety myself that this line really resonated and stayed with me, but in any event is stands as further proof of how insightful and deep Pixar movies are.
A while ago, I was part of a radio show called Resonance Rewind, and we covered the first Inside Out, concluding that it was the finest film based on psychoanalysis that we had seen. Bearing in mind our cast for those shows included an esteemed university lecturer, entertainment industry professionals and post graduate students those were pretty big words. But they were heartfelt. In the sequel, the little girl whose emotions the film conveys is now in the early stages of puberty, and she becomes naturally prone to new emotions which gives Pixar new avenues to explore with both humour and incisive honesty. Pixar can do no wrong, and this has been true since Toy Story in 1995.
Long may they reign.
The Bad
3 – A Quiet Place: Day One
I liked the first two films. I really did. And it seemed a good idea to show us a prequel story how the invaders got here and started slaughtering the human race, based on hearing their sounds, thus forcing us to adopt total silence as a means of survival. But in the real world of me, sitting in a cinema, I have to ask how long can they keep churning out movies about people having to keep quiet? The novelty’s wearing thin. Add to that that this was another very dark, dimly lit movie where it was difficult to see what was happening as the two lead characters made their way through basements and subway systems, not only was I without sound, but I was blind as well.
2- Venom: The Last Dance
With this and Kraven the Hunter, Sony/Columbia are drawing a close to their secondary Spider-Man characters with no Spider-Man movies and I’m glad to hear it. They’ve been milking that barren heifer for too long, and their final statement which I read yesterday came from the Sony/Columbia CEO; “These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason”. Well, the reason, buddy, was that those films put on full public display the creative void in your company that you’re blaming us for spotting.
Now seeing those two movies, you might think things couldn’t possibly have got any worse.
Buuuut….
1 – Joker: Foilie a Deux
Applause please. Way to go Todd Philips for writing and directing a sequel that completely undermines your original. Wow. That took some doing, especially considering the broad, mainstream reach of the first film. People have spoken to me about that movie that would never pick up a comic book even if you put a gun to their head. These are people whose last screen Joker was Cesar Romero! The movie was widely acclaimed with a realm of possibilities for a sequel.
And we got a musical.
Seriously, a MUSICAL.
By the time we waded through the irritating songs and the sheer pretentious tedium (yes, he actually made The Joker boring) to the end and we discovered that this Joker wasn’t the REAL Joker, nobody cared. Not even me, and I’ve loved the Batman Universe since 1966. For me, not caring about anything Batman related has always been difficult. Todd Phillips made it easy.
Okay, so you’d think that seeing the three above would be enough to break ANY normal cinema-goer, right? The evil movie gods had a trick up their sleeve that I couldn’t believe.
The Fugly
Here it is, a film that’s so bad I realise I should’ve walked out, but I stayed in my seat out of morbid curiosity to see how bad it could possibly get. And it got pretty damn bad.
In a Violent Nature
The trailer promised a return to good, old fashioned Friday the 13th type slasher thrills, taking place in a wooded area with a new horror character stalking some campers. Happy days! Even better, this was a production of Shudder, the streaming add-on horror channel you can add to Amazon Prime. What could go wrong? The answer’s name is writer/director Chris Nash who clearly doesn’t understand how these films work.
Classic Friday the 13th films tend to follow the hapless campers or camp counsellors around, some we might like, others we just hate instantly. Anyhow, Jason is the boogieman who pops up unexpectedly to take them out one by one. In a Violent Nature reverses that by having us endlessly follow the killer as he stalks his victims. And as we know nothing about them, we really don’t care either way whether they live or die. We don’t even care about the killer. In fact, we care about nobody in the film, ultimately – so what’s the point?
This was a dull, plodding film where far too much footage of the killer wandering around the forest is used as padding for a film whose script must’ve been written on the back of a cigarette packet. If you see this movie streaming – don’t waste precious minutes you’ll never get back.
And that’s it for another year at the cinema. Part of me is sad it’s over because it’s been a really good one. We’ve seen some great movies that I didn’t have the room to write about here. I’ve enjoyed more of a respite from superhero movies than we’ve had in a few years. It’s given other movies a chance to shine, but they’ll come back soon enough – and one of the films I’m looking forward to the most in 2025 is James Gunn’s Superman.
Yeah, 2025 – where we get to do it all again, and I’ll be getting an early start with a screening of Nosferatu on January 2.
Happy New Year, everybody.
