08/07/2017 The Film Review

Welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.

Taking us through the week was Maximo releases is Mark Kermode.

Taking us through the week's film releases is Mark Kermode.

This week we have It Comes At Night, which is a very creepy thriller.

The Midwife with Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot.

I have read enough to know that this is your kind

It is not a jump-scare horror like the trailers make it look like.

If you expect that, you will be disappointed.

It is set after the outbreak of an unspecified plague-like incident,

which has pretty much done for civilisation.

There was a family, mother, father, son living in a remote woodland.

The windows are boarded up, there is a corridor with a red door

which is the only access to the outside world.

When an intruder breaks into the house, they have to make

a decision about whether or not to accept

They would bring friendship and food supplies, but also bring suspicion

and paranoia and desire, and mysterious sleepwalking.

She was having nightmares so I woke up.

I was in the back hall, I saw the door open, I heard something.

Think real hard. Tell me what you remember. I can't remember.

It is all that claustrophobic, is it?

You get the sense of people starting to distrust each other and be

If you think of a film like The Witch that has deep themes,

they are creepy but not full of jump scares.

They make you feel very worried and uncomfortable.

The sound effects and score work in favour of this film.

It occupies a realm between being awake and being asleep.

The screen contracts during certain sequences.

It is implying it is a dream sequence.

Maybe we are, maybe we are not awake or asleep.

It is what happens when you lose track of objective reality

and you just start to trust your fears.

It is like that classic horror movie with a cold hand

It is not the film the trailers make it look like.

They make it look like it is a slam-bang horror.

If you want something that is going to cause you to lose

I think you would not enjoy it but admire it.

The director is only in his 20s. Yes, it is just ridiculous, he is

Yes, it is just ridiculous, he is incredibly talented.

It is all to do with what is implied rather than what is actually shown.

Which is the sort of film that is the most frightening.

I hear you, in terms of the skill that went into it.

The Midwife is about a friendship between the two main characters.

Catherine Deneuve is Beatrice, her father's lover has had

a medical diagnosis, suddenly she reappears.

It turns out maybe she wants friendship, closure,

These two characters start to build a friendship,

The key distinction between them is that one of them has been

involved in bringing children into the world.

What I like about this was it has well-observed characters.

It has people in professions that you actually believe in.

I can understand all of those things that happen and I can think

It has a rather over-emphatic and tingling score.

It tells you things are moving when you did not need to be taught.

It was played with some very fine performances.

For the most part, it allows you to observe the characters.

And that is important, to have characters that you can

And that is on my list, oddly enough.

And that, oddly enough brings us to Spider-man: Homecoming.

I said that this was a low-key character study posing

as a superhero movie, but this is like Ferris Bueller's

He also happens to have the superpowers, and he wants

What he is desperately trying to do is to punch above his weight,

whilst also keeping his identity absolutely secret.

This is the craziest thing that has ever happened to me.

This is Tom Holland, who won the BAFTA award, a rising star.

It is doing something different with the character.

We have seen many incarnations of Spiderman.

Since I have been working as a critic this is the third

or fourth Spider-Man film - how many times are you

They are playing to the adolescent story, the school boy story,

the high school story, so there is all the action stuff,

web spinning and dealing with criminals, but really

what makes it work is the high school stuff, the stuff

about wanting to fit in and being awkward,

wanting to grow up but not actually growing up yet,

and what he has actually got to do is hang out in the canteen.

I went in thinking, do we really need to go here, all over again?

But this does do something different.

He's very charming in a very kind of oddball way.

Only one false step in the film, there's a lovely sequence

which is a direct reference to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and

You have been loving this, this week, as anyone who has been

following you on Twitter, Baby Driver.

It is a car chase movie which is actually a musical.

Everything in it is cut to a fantastic selection of pop tunes.

It is really brilliant cinema, see it on a big screen with a good sound

system, it is witty, clever, poignant and nostalgic

and it is made by somebody who was going to direct another

movie and then walked away because it wasn't

Now he has made exactly the movie he wanted and it is a pleasure

to see a director like Edgar Wright saying, this is the

It is like an American in Paris meets the French connection.

I hear you, see it on the big screen.

That said, a quick thought for anyone not wanting

to see on the big screen, what is out on DVD?

It is a film about ageing, about regret, about losing

You can do something really interesting with the superhero

theme, and as long as we get movies like that and Spider-Man,

there will always be new life, people say, haven't we had

But as long as people keep reinventing it,

Yes, but you must go and see It Comes At Night.

It will get under your skin and you will appreciate it.

That said, still lovely to see you, as ever.

A reminder that you can find all the film news and reviews online

And you can find all of our previous programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

Whatever it is you are brave enough to see.

We have got some more warm sunshine across many parts of the country in

the second half of the weekend. This