Last Night in Soho is not quite horror if you think about it
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https://blenderdumbass.org/reviews : 👁 1
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
Edgar Wright has probably the same curse as Steven Spielberg. His films cannot be too scary, even when he tries his best, because he is so bloody good at film-making that your brain is constantly filled with dopamine. I remember watching Hot Fuzz as a kid, as a little kid, before I became all grumpy about the world and started watching things that makes me scared, and even thought it had some rather brutal gruesome R-rated bloody stuff in it, I don't remember feeling much fear at all. I felt something akin to "hell yeah". ↩ Reply
So here comes Edgar Wright, in 2021, and makes a movie that tries to be a real horror film. This must be the real shit right? Wright? Well... Last Night in Soho is kind of creepy here and there. It has a good level of tension. And some scenes feel like the best attempts by Wight at making something truly fucked up. But the virtuousness of the directing, the rhythm of the editing, the seamless transitions, the color, the cinematography, the dialogue, the acting, all of it, just makes the film too good to be scary. You do feel some of that tension, but you are utterly overwhelmed by the dopamine. c:0 ↩ Reply
I remember seeing Thomasin McKenzie's performance for the first time in Jojo Rabbit by Taika Waititi and being like: hell yeah. Then she also appeared in the not-so-good M. Night Shyamalan film Old. But here, Edgar Wright, basically made a fucking star out of her. But, even though McKenzie is the star of the show in this movie, she is not the only cool actor on the cast. ↩ Reply
How about the magnificent Anya Taylor-Joy. She worked with M. Night Shyamalan twice, on the two sequels for Unbreakable. Or how about Jessie Mei Li who I had so much to say about in my review of Havoc. ↩ Reply
Damn the casting in this movie is good. But wait for the fucking banger of the cast: Diana Rigg. ↩ Reply
Spoiler alert, but Diana plays a character related to the character of Anya Taylor-Joy. If you look at her as a young woman ( picture of her as a young woman could be found on Wikipedia ), she looks kind of like what Anya Taylor-Joy looks like. This is phenomenal casting. ↩ Reply
Yet, the Diana part is probably the closest thing to actual horror that happened on this film. See, she dies in the film. And she died after the film was wrapped, before the film was released. The film is dedicated to Diana. ↩ Reply
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So how is the story of the film? Well the Wrighting is as always on point. But the interesting thing is not the writing, but rather the slightly, on purpose, meandering, messaging. ↩ Reply
The film is an an-apologetically feminist picture, but there is a moment where Wright is asking the audience to consider the suffering of the rapists. The movie is afraid to go too deeply into it, but it feels like the movie has at least the balls to address some rather strange shit. Or maybe Edgar just took a clue from the book, of his pal Eli Roth and thought that something like this would probably be disturbing for the audience, to, you know, make the horror more horror-like. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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c:0 February 02, 2026 But the virtuousness of the directing, the rhythm of the editing, the seamless transitions, the color, the cinematography, the dialogue, the acting, all of it, just makes the film too good to be scary. You do feel some of that tension, but you are utterly overwhelmed by the dopamine.
⤴ ViewYou're saying horror needs to be rough and unpleasant?
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