Her Smell, 2018

 Her Smell is a 2018 American drama film written, co-produced and directed by Alex Ross Perry. It stars Elisabeth Moss, Cara Delevingne, Dan Stevens, Agyness Deyn, Gayle Rankin, Ashley Benson, Amber Heard, Dylan Gelula, Eka Darville and Lindsay Burdge and follows Moss as fictional rock star Becky Something, whose band experiences brief fame but is broken up by her self-destructive behaviour.

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The film is told with five distinct scenes punctuated with some home movie footage from early in the band's career when they were successful—appearing on magazine covers, attending photo shoots, and receiving gold records.

In the first scene, punk rock group, Something She, wraps up a show and lead vocalist, Becky Something, goes backstage to attend a brief ceremony with her personal shaman. Her mood swings violently from happy to aggressive as her bandmates, ex-husband, manager, and a former musical collaborator all try to steer her toward positive choices: recording their next album, playing future shows, and finding stability for her child. The scene ends as she turns a corner with her infant in her hands and falls over inebriated, vomiting on herself.

In the second vignette, Something She is in the studio several months later, aimlessly trying to record the band's next album. Drummer Ali van der Wolff becomes frustrated and quits, followed by bassist Marielle Hell, leaving their manager Howard Goodman distraught as he tries to clear the space for his new band Akergirls to record. Becky refuses to leave and butts in on their session. 

The third scene is set after Akergirls have become famous and Becky is opening their show, with Ali back to support her. She shows up two hours late with a film crew in tow, berating her ex-husband, Danny, and her mother, Ania, who are the last persons in her life still willing to put up with her selfishness. When Ania gives her some papers from her estranged father, Becky becomes violently upset and hurls verbal abuse at her mother and assaults Ali before rushing onstage and collapsing into another stupor. 

Several years later, Becky is sober and her daughter Tama, now a young girl, is coming to visit. As Dan drops her off, he gives his ex some paperwork for some of the many lawsuits facing Becky and tells her that Mari has also come with them. Becky has brief tender moments with all three, but her thinking appears disordered: she believes that leaving her house will kill her and that her love for her daughter will destroy her; she also recounts a dream from a past life that she thinks justifies her cruelty and selfishness toward her ex. 

In the final piece, 11 years have passed since Howard first signed Something She and four years since they have performed together, but they have reunited to perform a single song at a showcase event that features all of Howard's popular musical acts. Becky appears nervous and has to rely on all of the musicians performing a séance with her before she can gather her courage to go onstage.

She briefly walks away after cryptically thanking all of them for staying with her until the end. Several of her loved ones become concerned, but they find her ready to take the stage and she performs one song with her bandmates and fellow musicians all collaborating. It is successful and they step backstage where Howard tells her the crowd wants more and asks if she has another one in her. Becky says that she is done, embracing Tama and smelling her hair.

Rating: 10 Stars

Forget Me Not, 2009

 Forget Me Not is a 2009 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Tyler Oliver. Premiering on August 24, 2009, the film had a limited theatrical release and stars Carly Schroeder, Cody Linley, Micah Alberti, Brie Gabrielle, and Jillian Murray.

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A crying little girl runs through a graveyard. She makes it to her house and her parents ask her what's wrong. She responds, "I don't remember."

Years later, Sandy Channing and her brother, Eli, are college bound students who attend a party at their friend TJ's house. When they go to the graveyard to play a game, a new girl their age joins them. They play a ghost version of 'Tag', and the new girl wins. The girl asks Sandy if she remembers her. Sandy does not, and the girls states, "You will," before jumping off a cliff. The police are unable to find a body.

A flashback shows a young Sandy and another young girl playing the ghost game in the graveyard during the day. When they sit and talk, the girl explains to Sandy that the flower in her hair is a forget-me-not, which is put on graves so people remember the dead. Sandy says she doesn't know any dead people, and the girl replies, "I do". The two proclaim themselves "best friends forever."

In the present, Layla and Chad have sex in Chad's car, after which Chad tells Layla he wants to break up. Layla throws her necklace, bearing his class ring, into the lake. Chad drives off and Layla dives in to retrieve the necklace. She sees a mysterious girl in the water, who drowns her. The girl is revealed to be a demonic incarnation of the girl who jumped from the cliff. Chad arrives at Sandy and Eli's house, and when Sandy mentions Layla, Chad does not know who she means.

The group is waiting for TJ to arrive so they can go on a beach trip. TJ buys an engagement ring for his girlfriend, Lex. He is then killed by the now-demonic Layla. When Sandy mentions TJ to her boyfriend Jake (Lex's brother), none of the group know who she means.

Chad is killed next when the ghost friends make his car explode. Sandy yells at Eli to pull over when she sees Chad's car. However, only Sandy remembers who Chad is. Sandy drives to TJ's house, which is a vacant ruin. As Sandy goes into the house with Jake and Eli, Lex and Hannah get into an argument in the car. Sandy begins to remember the girl from the graveyard, and the name Angela, as her childhood friend. Lex is killed by the growing cadre of ghost friends. The other three think Sandy is crazy, as none of them remember Lex.

Sandy and the others go to the police station, where they learn the mysterious girl's name is Angela Smith and she now lives in a convent. At a hotel, Hannah and Eli go to the pool and have sex, after which Hannah is killed by the ghost friends.

At the convent, Sandy and Jake discover Angela is in a coma. Jake is killed and Eli doesn't remember him. He realizes that they are being erased from time, just like the rhyme they sing before playing the graveyard game. Sandy's parents, believing she has become depressed, admits her to a hospital. Eli is killed by his friends' ghosts, and when Sandy asks for Eli, their parents do not know him.

Sandy dreams of a time where she and her friends played a scary prank on Angela, who had a seizure in front of the convent after knocking her head into the door. Sister Dolores comes out of the convent and screams "who did this?". It is revealed that the little girl at the beginning of the film is a young Sandy, and the older girl who jumped from the cliff is Angela. Sandy awakes and, recalling the rhyme to "kill the ghost or seal your fate", goes to Angela's room and disconnects her life support. Angela sits up, and the ghost friends chase Sandy to the roof. The child version of Angela appears, hands Sandy some forget-me-nots, then reveals a demonic expression as she says, "Best friends forever, right, Sandy?" Sandy falls from the roof.

The grown Angela "miraculously" awakens from her coma, while Sandy is now in a coma of her own.

Ratings: 10 Stars

The Attic, 2007

 The Attic is a 2007 American horror film directed by Mary Lambert and starring Elisabeth Moss, Jason Lewis, Tom Malloy, and Catherine Mary Stewart.

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Emma has a strong aversion towards her family's new house, especially the attic. After moving in, she becomes miserable and reclusive. The rest of her family also seems unhappy and unsettled. The situation escalates one day when Emma is in the attic alone. All of a sudden someone who looks exactly like Emma attacks her viciously.

Emma is convinced that someone or something is haunting her, and she refuses to leave her house until she can piece the puzzle together, with the assistance of John Trevor, a sympathetic detective. Eventually, Emma suspects her parents of hiding skeletons in the closet from the family's past and practicing magical rituals using Wicca symbols seemingly stolen from Satanism. As the clues pile up, she discovers that she once had a sister named Beth, who died twelve days after Emma was born. Emma realizes that this identical apparition may actually be Beth returning to life.

Emma witnesses Beth kill her brother, and the police suspect it was really Emma. John Trevor comes to the rescue when Beth is trying to strangle Emma to death, and leaves Emma with a gun. She suspects that her father was to blame and murders both her parents. When the police arrive, Emma threatens "John Trevor", who now claims to be a paramedic, with the gun he gave her. As she points the gun at Trevor, she is really pointing the gun at herself, and when she pulls the trigger, she kills herself. The police later discuss the incident, and Emma's former psychologist explains that Beth and Trevor were only in her mind. Another officer mentions that the previous owner of the house, Ava Strauss, mysteriously died. The psychologist says that houses do not kill people, but in this case it did. The film ends as a new family looks to buy the house. As a young girl about Emma's age explores the attic, "John Trevor", now a real estate agent called Ron, appears behind her and says they will be seeing a lot of each other.

Rating: 10 Stars

The Forest, 2016

The Forest is a 2016 American supernatural horror film directed by Jason Zada and written by Ben Ketai, Nick Antosca, and Sarah Cornwell. The film stars Natalie Dormer, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa, and Eoin Macken.

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The majority of the story is set in Aokigahara, a forest at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan known as a popular destination for those wanting to die by suicide. Sara Price receives a phone call from the Japanese police telling her that they believe her troubled twin sister, Jess, is dead after being seen entering the forest. Despite her fiancé Rob's concerns, Sara travels to Japan and arrives at the hotel where Jess was staying.

At the hotel, Sara meets a reporter named Aiden. They drink together, and Sara tells him of her parents' death. In reality, her father committed a murder–suicide, but she tells him they were killed by a drunk driver. Jess saw the bodies, but Sara did not. Aiden invites Sara to join him and a park guide, Michi, in searching for Jess in the forest. 

As they enter Aokigahara, Michi tells Sara that Jess has most likely killed herself, but Sara refuses to believe this, claiming that as a twin, she can "feel" that Jess is still alive.

In the forest, the group discovers a yellow tent that Sara recognizes as Jess's. With nightfall approaching, Michi suggests leaving a note for Jess and leaving, but Sara insists on staying. Aiden volunteers to stay with her. That night, Sara hears rustling in the bushes and believes it may be Jess. 

She runs after the sound and instead finds a Japanese girl, Hoshiko, who claims to know Jess. Hoshiko warns Sara not to trust Aiden and flees when she hears his voice. Sara attempts to follow but falls and loses her.

The next day, Aiden and Sara become lost. As they walk, Sara grows suspicious and demands Aiden's phone, where she finds a picture of Jess. Aiden denies any involvement with Jess, but Sara runs into the forest alone. She hears voices urging her to turn back and, upon turning around, sees a hanged body.

 She continues running but falls into a cave, where she wakes to find Hoshiko, who is revealed to be a yūrei and transforms into a demonic figure. Sara escapes the cave and finds a flip camera that reveals the night her parents died, showing her father's suicide.

 Aiden finds Sara and helps her out of the cave. After some convincing, they continue searching. Meanwhile, Rob arrives at the forest with a search party and Michi to look for the sisters.

Aiden takes Sara to an old ranger station he claims to have discovered while looking for her. Sara hears Jess's voice from a locked basement and finds a note suggesting Aiden is holding Jess captive.

 Convinced that he is a threat, Sara attacks and kills Aiden with a kitchen knife. As he dies, Sara realizes that Aiden was telling the truth and that the picture on his phone, the voice, and the note had all been hallucinations.

Still in the basement, Sara has a vision of the night her parents died. Her father's ghost appears and lunges at her, but she escapes by cutting his fingers off. Running into the forest, she sees Jess running toward the search party's lights. Sara calls out to her, but Jess cannot hear her.

 Sara then realizes her escape from the ranger station was another hallucination, and that she had cut herself while hallucinating her father's ghost and is now dying from blood loss in the basement. 

As she succumbs to her wounds, a group of yūrei pulls her beneath the forest floor. Jess, very much alive, is rescued by the search party and explains that the "feeling" of her sister is gone, and it is assumed that Jess knows Sara is dead. As the search party leaves, Michi spots a dark figure in the forest and realizes it is Sara, now a vengeful yūrei.

Rating: 10 Stars

I Spit on your Grave Series, 1978, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2019

Original series

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

After a young writer (Camille Keaton) is brutally raped and left for dead by four men, she systematically hunts them down one by one to exact a terrible vengeance.

I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu (2019)

Forty years after a woman (Camille Keaton) gets revenge on her attackers, she faces the wrath of the families of the men she killed. She and her daughter (Jamie Bernadette) are kidnapped and have to face off against a gang of degenerates overseen by a violently unhinged matriarch.

Remake series

I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

Jennifer (Sarah Butler), a writer, rents an isolated cabin in the country so she can work on her latest novel. The peace and quiet is soon shattered by a gang of local thugs who rape and torture her, then leave her for dead. But she returns for vengeance, trapping the men one by one. Jennifer inflicts pain on her attackers with a ferocity that surpasses her own ordeal. 

I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013) 

A young woman (Jemma Dallender) embarks on a merciless path of revenge after three men rape and torture her.

I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance Is Mine (2015) 

After joining a therapy group for rape victims, a woman (Sarah Butler) seeks grisly revenge against the perpetrators of the crimes.

Rating: 10 Stars

Morbius, 2022, Top 10 Netflix

Morbius is a 2022 American super-hero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment, Arad Productions, and Matt Tolmach Productions, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing as the third film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Directed by Daniel Espinosa and written by the writing team of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, the film stars Jared Leto (who also served as an executive producer on the film) as Dr. Michael Morbius, alongside Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson. In the film, Michael Morbius and his surrogate brother Milo (Smith) become living vampires after curing themselves of a rare blood disease.

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At a hospital in Greece, 10-year-old Michael Morbius welcomes his surrogate brother Lucien, whom he renames Milo; they bond over their shared blood illness and desire to be "normal". Seeing Michael's potential, their adoptive father and hospital director Nicholas arranges for Michael to attend medical school in New York while he focuses on caring for Milo.

25 years later, Michael publicly declines a Nobel Prize for his work with artificial blood. His colleague Martine Bancroft discovers he has secretly captured dozens of vampire bats from Costa Rica in the hope of splicing their genes with his own to cure his condition. Michael receives funding from Milo to outfit a private mercenary vessel in international waters with his equipment. While the cure works, it transforms Michael into a vampire who kills and drains the crew of their blood after they attack him out of fear. Once his bloodlust subsides and he regains his senses, a horrified Michael erases all CCTV footage of his experiment before contacting authorities and jumping overboard.

Michael returns to New York and discovers he now has superhuman strength, speed, and echolocation, with his vampire bats treating him as one of their own. To control his bloodlust, he subsists on his artificial blood as it gradually ceases to satisfy his needs. FBI agents Simon Stroud and Al Rodriguez investigate Michael's victims and deduce his involvement. Milo learns that Michael is cured but becomes furious when Michael refuses to cure him as well. While checking on a hospitalized Martine, Michael finds a dead nurse, drained of her blood. Believing he was responsible, he attempts to escape before being arrested by Stroud. In prison, he is visited by Milo and realizes Milo took his cure and killed the nurse. Michael escapes to confront him. An unrepentant Milo urges Michael to embrace his powers as he has. Unwilling to hurt his brother, Michael flees.

Michael meets Martine, acquires a new lab, and develops an antibody against vampirism to stop Milo; he also plans to use it on himself. Stroud and Rodriguez find footage of one of Milo's attacks and, believing Michael's vampirism to be spreading, release it to the media. Nicholas recognizes Milo and pleads with him to stop. Angered by Nicholas' perceived preference for Michael, Milo mortally wounds him; Michael arrives too late to save him while Milo also mortally wounds Martine. Martine dies in Michael's arms, forcing him to drink her blood. Michael summons an army of bats to restrain Milo and inject the antibody. Milo dies and Michael flies off with the bats, mourning his loved ones and embracing his identity as a vampire. Unbeknownst to him, Martine is resurrected, having ingested a drop of Michael's blood as he fed on her.

In two mid-credits scenes, Adrian Toomes is transported to Michael's universe from his own. Surmising that Spider-Man is somehow responsible, Toomes approaches the fugitive Michael and suggests that they form a team.

Rating: 10 Stars

The Last House on the Left, 2009 (NETFLIX) Watch until March, 31

The Last House on the Left is a 2009 rape and revenge film directed by Dennis Iliadis and written by Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth. A remake of the 1972 film of the same name, it stars Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Garret Dillahunt, Aaron Paul, Spencer Treat Clark, Riki Lindhome, Martha MacIsaac, and Sara Paxton. The film follows Mari Collingwood, a teenager who is abducted, raped, and left for dead by a family of violent fugitives. When her parents learn what was done to her, they seek vengeance against the family, who have taken shelter at their summer home during a thunderstorm.

TRAILER

John of Fear the Walking Dead is one of the Rapists. 

PLOT

Krug, a notorious killer is being transported to a max security prison. When he asks the transporting officers for a restroom break, the two refuse knowing he is a flight risk. While stopped at a railroad crossing, the two officers are viciously broadsided by a pickup truck driven by Krug's brother Francis, and his girlfriend Sadie. 

Francis shoots one officer dead. Krug shows the other officer a picture of his two daughters, telling him he will never see them again. He then wraps a seatbelt around the officers neck which ultimately kills him. Both officers die at the scene, leaving the killers at large.

Dr. John Collingwood, his wife, Emma, and their teenaged daughter, competitive swimmer Mari, head out on vacation to their lake house. Shortly thereafter, Mari borrows the family car and drives into town to spend time with her friend Paige. 

While Paige works the cash register at a local store, she and Mari meet Justin, a teenager passing through town who invites them both back to his roadside motel room to smoke marijuana. While the three are hanging out in the motel room, Justin's family members return: his father Krug, his uncle Francis, and Krug's girlfriend Sadie. 

Krug becomes angry at Justin for bringing unknown people to their motel room and shows him a local newspaper that has Krug and Sadie's pictures on the front page, which explains how Sadie and Francis broke Krug out of police custody and killed the two officers who were transporting him. Believing it would be too risky to let Paige and Mari go, the gang kidnaps them and uses their car to leave town. 

While Krug searches for the highway, Mari convinces him to take a road that leads to her parents' lake house; Mari then attempts to jump out of the vehicle, but the ensuing fight among the passengers causes Krug to crash into a tree totalling the vehicle. 

Frustrated by Mari's attempt to escape, Sadie and Francis proceed to beat Mari and Paige as they crawl from the wreckage. Once Sadie begins to attack Mari, Paige grabs a tree branch and hits Sadie in the stomach, knocking her off Mari and giving the girls a chance to escape their assailants. However, before Mari can run away, Krug grabs her and urges Sadie and Francis to get Paige. 

Paige runs through the woods, falls, and injures her leg. Upon doing so, she sees a construction site ahead and calls for help but is not heard over the loud noise of the machines. She is then captured by Sadie and Francis and taken back into the woods. When they arrive back in the woods where the rest of the group is, a now-tied-up Paige is placed on the ground. 

Krug then attempts to teach Justin to "be a man" by forcing him to touch Mari's breasts. Paige begins insulting him to get him to stop; in response, Krug and Francis stab Paige repeatedly, and Mari watches her friend bleed to death. Krug, frustrated at Mari’s rebelliousness, proceeds to pin her face down to the ground and rape her. 

During the sexual assault, Krug pulls off Mari's necklace and throws it away. When he is finished raping her, Mari musters enough strength to escape the group and make it to the lake so she can swim to safety. Krug shoots her in the back as she swims, leaving her body floating in the lake. 

A storm forces Krug, Francis, Sadie, and Justin to seek refuge at a nearby house. Justin is the only one to deduce that the inhabitants, John and Emma, are Mari's parents. John invites them to stay the night in their guest house, and Justin intentionally leaves Mari's necklace on the kitchen counter to alert them about their daughter. 

Meanwhile, Mari, critically wounded, manages to swim ashore and makes her way to her parents’ home, collapsing on the front porch. When John and Emma discover Mari and the necklace on the counter, they realize that Mari's assailants are the people in their guest house. 

As they try to find the key to their boat, so they can take Mari to the hospital, Francis enters the main house and happens upon Mari. Emma attacks Francis, and John sticks his hand in the garbage disposal and kills him with a hammer. John and Emma enter the guest house while Krug and Sadie are sleeping. They find Justin holding Krug's gun, which he hands to John. 

Sadie awakens, and John shoots and wounds her in the neck, allowing Krug to escape through the window and into their house. Finding Francis dead, Krug realizes that they are Mari's parents. Sadie attacks John, then runs into the bathroom. John and Justin break in, and Sadie beats them with a shower curtain rod, almost knocking them out until Emma shoots Sadie through her right eye, killing her. 

Krug hides and attacks John and Justin when they search for him. Justin is stabbed by Krug, but with a combined effort from Emma and John, Krug is knocked unconscious. John, Emma, Mari, and Justin then leave in the boat for the hospital. 

Later, John returns to the cabin, where he has paralyzed Krug from the neck down. John places Krug's head in a microwave jury-rigged to operate even with the door open. As John walks away, Krug's head explodes, ultimately killing him.

Rating: 10 Stars