2024 is proving to be a year of horror, both bad and good. The year has featured some of the most generic horror films to date as well as some excellent new visions and scares. Oz Perkins‘ fourth feature, Longlegs, ultimately falls in the latter category, despite some familiarity in the ground it treads. While the film is at its core a police procedural in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs, Perkins’ unique sense of atmosphere, striking editing choices, and heavy coat of Satanic scare make it a captivating experience despite its flaws. Opening on a startling sequence shot in academy ra ..read more

When Ti West‘s X released two years ago, it was heralded as a loving and talented homage to 70s exploitation movies. It was also the coming-out party for actress Mia Goth, who, while having a small career beforehand, earned critical acclaim for her double role as a porn actress and as the film’s elderly killer. That film ended on a surprise tease for a prequel film Pearl, which had been filmed back-to-back with X and released just a few short months later. Pearl was also successful, and was reviewed well by this site, with some thinking it surpassed X. That film, too ..read more

Despicable Me 4 – 45% Reviewer Flickchart ranking: 3,048 / 5,506 Gru and his minions are back in the 6th installment of this franchise. Despicable Me 4 (the other two movies are not in sequence) embraces a sitcom plot as the family Gru is thrust into witness protection. They are hauled away from the environment we most recognize them and into a new town, with new roles. Why? Well, somehow Gru waltzes into a reunion at his alma mater, the School of Villainy, despite his now long-running association with the Anti-Villain League. Here he attempts to apprehend at-large criminal Maxim Le Mal (voic ..read more

The premise of A Quiet Place: Day One seemed very much like the unnecessary prequel. Depicting how the world arrived at the condition found in the initial film seemed like a question that didn’t need answering. For both better and worse, Day One avoids that problem by focusing its scope on two other survivors of this world-shaping arrival of sound-hunting alien beasts. The small-scale human story is effective, if not super deep. Lupita Nyong’o‘s Sam, a terminal cancer patient, and her cat try their best to survive as aliens suddenly arrive and start killing indiscriminately. Fo ..read more

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 Reviewer Flickchart ranking: 3,794 / 5,502 (31%) Kevin Costner is back in the director’s chair for the first time since 2003’s Open Range. This time sees him starring, producing, writing, and directing a 4-part western epic, Horizon: An American Saga. The first installment is a sprawling 3-hour epic attempting to lay the groundwork for 4-7 storylines, depending on how you count. Is Costner capable of pulling off his most ambitious project to date, or will Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 only remind us of why the traditional western mostly died in th ..read more

For a variety of reasons and factors, Pixar Animation Studios has lost some of the prestige it once had. Throughout the 2000s, the Pixar brand was near-impeccable and a sign of sheer quality, though Pixar wasn’t without its bumps even then. But the combination of recent duds, COVID-19 forcing several releases into streaming-only, and perhaps an overwhelming amount of sequels and franchises have made Pixar feel like just another part of the content factory. Inside Out 2 proves there is still magic left in the Pixar world, even if it still comes via a sequel. The first Inside Out is g ..read more

Films like I Saw the TV Glow that come out of festivals have sporadic wide releases, so someone may have seen this months ago, or last month, or just now, like this reviewer. But whenever you saw it, it feels like a breathe of fresh air compared to so much of the major studio horror this year has brought. With a firm directorial vision, I Saw the TV Glow immediately asserts itself as one of the year’s best films. The premise barely communicates what the film is like, but it still serves as the most concise way of describing it. The film follows Owen, a teenager living in the su ..read more

Eerily beautiful visuals and shots? Check. A decent cast with fairly good performances? Check. A late film twist that ruins the logic of everything that came before? Check. Awful dialogue and bare-bones characterizations? Check. If The Watchers is any indication, Ishana Night Shyamalan has inherited all of the good and bad characteristics of most of her father’s filmography. Despite the lush setting of a mountainous forest in western Ireland and a slightly intriguing premise, Shyamalan squanders it all because her script and inability to generate tension handcuff the film. After the ..read more

Flickchart finishes its final lap in the Houston area by traveling to a suburb that is technically outside of Houston, but still part of the greater city. Join us as we eat some Texas BBQ in Pearland and watch one of the most famous films to take place in the Houston area. Stop #35: Pearland, Killen’s Barbecue A running theme of many of the towns in our Texas travels are their origins in the railroad era. Pearland likewise began in the late 1800’s as a siding switch for the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway. It garnered its name due to the many fruit trees, including pear trees, in the ar ..read more

We’re back on the Flickchart Texas BBQ Road Trip. We’re north of Houston and heading slightly west to a suburb with one of the more unique BBQ joints on the list. We’re heading to Tomball, to a site that started as a chocolate confectionary! Stop #33: Tomball, Tejas Chocolate + Barbecue Two main qualities made Tomball a good place to settle in the 19th century: fertile land and lots of rain. The community, first known as Peck, began with farming as its primary activity. By the beginning of the 1900s, the area began to boom due to the presence of the railroad. In 1907 the town was renamed Tom ..read more