Tag: Bryan Bertino

FANTASIA20 REVIEW: The Dark and the Wicked [2020]

Jared Mobarak

What’s going to be okay? No matter how staunch your atheism, there still exists a surefire way to get you believing in God. It’s not hearing His voice or seeing His work, though. Those can easily be laughed away or chalked up to coincidence. God is an abstract catchall in which His faithful are conditioned to place their faith. They rely on Him as their savior while atheists rely on themselves. His deeds are inconsequential to those recognizing how “good” can always be explained by their own actions first. It’s…

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REVIEW: The Monster [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“I wish you listened more” Monster movies are tough because there’s a desire to go full bore into cat and mouse chaos or metaphorical symbolism. Things get muddled when both are attempted at once without the correct balance. I’m not saying picking one or the other always spells success—writer/director Bryan Bertino‘s debut The Strangers ultimately failed at mysterious chaos for me despite some effective scares—but it does often allow a filmmaker the opportunity to focus and reinforce his/her idea with less chance of getting distracted. Bertino’s third film The Monster,…

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REVIEW: The Strangers [2008]

Jared Mobarak

“Is Tamara there?” I am all for the torture porn genre—the Saw films are entertaining, yes even the fourth, and I thoroughly enjoyed Hostel. First time writer/director Bryan Bertino has decided to throw his cap into the ring with the new film The Strangers. Supposedly based on true events, the movie ends up running similarly to Haneke’s Funny Games, except without the social commentary and instead more contemporary scare tactics with masks, (I’ll admit that seeing the faces of the killers as human beings is far scarier because you can…

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