It Comes at Night, The Midwife, Spider-Man: Homecoming The Film Review

be New Zealand bringing you the latest from the Lions camp ahead of

the third test. But for now, on BBC News, it is time for the film

review. Welcome to The Film Review on BBC

News. Taking us through the week was Maximo 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. And Spider-man:

Homecoming. It Comes At Night. I have read enough to know that this

is your kind of film, and so not mine. You have two minutes to

persuade me. It is not a jump scare horror like the trailers make it

look like. If you expect that you will be disappointed. It is a creepy

thriller. It is set after the outbreak of one unspecified played

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 elite

access to the outside world. They have to make a decision about

whether or not to accept another family into their home. They would

bring friendship and food supplies but also brings suspicion and

paranoia and desire, and mysterious sleepwalking. Here is a clip. Angela

is an grandpa's room. She was having nightmares so I woke up. I was in

the back wall, I saw the door open, I heard something. Andrew was their?

Yes. Does he sleepwalk? No, it doesn't

make any sense. It is all that claustrophobic, is it? You get the

sense of people starting to distrust each other and be suspicious of each

other. 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 a score work in favour

of this film. It was terrific. It occupies a realm between being awake

and being asleep. It contracts during certain sequences. 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 on the back of the

neck. It is not the film the trainers 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 sleep, you should see it. I think you would

not enjoy it but admire it. 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. What do you want? It

turns out maybe she wants friendship, closure, maybe this

financial, who knows? These two characters start, one of these

characters drinks and gambles. 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 that they

really have these stories. Has a rather over emphatic and tingling

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

taught. It was very or played with some very fine performances. It is

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

characters. Most important to believe in them. And that is

important, to have characters that you can absolutely believe in. And

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

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

as a superhero movie but this is like Ferris Bueller's Day off with

added wedding. He also happens to have the superpowers, and he wants

to become an Avenger. What he is desperately trying to do is to punch

above his weight, whilst also keeping his identity absolutely

secret. Here is a clip. What are you doing in my room? ,

though. Are you an Avenger? Can keep a secret? This is the craziest thing

that has ever happened to me. We are both chuckling. This is Tom Holland,

who won the BAFTA award, a rising star. It is doing something

different with the character. Since I have been working as a critic this

is the third or fourth Spider-Man film and it is, how many times you

going to reboot this? 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 Ashley growing up yet, and

what he has actually got to do is hang out in the canteen. I liked it

very much. I went in thinking, do we really need to go here, all over

again? What this does do something different. He's very good. 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 they make the wrecked reference to it. It

sounds good. It sounds different. 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.

The joy of it, for me, is this. It is really brilliant cinema, C 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 a film he wanted it to be.

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 film I want to make. I

have seen it three times. It is like an American in Paris meets the

French connection. I hear you, seat the big screen. That said, a quick

thought for anyone not wanting to see on the big screen, what is out

on DVD? I mentioned it early on, Logan. It is a film about ageing,

about regret, about losing the powers that you once had. It is

really well directed. 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 light, people say, haven't we had

enough of this? But as long as people keep reinventing it, it will

not die out. That is a good week. Yes, but you must go and see It

Comes At Night. Get under your skin and you will appreciate it. You are

laughing! That said, still lovely to see you, as ever. Mark Kermode,

thank you. A reminder that you can find all the film News and reviews

online at the usual address. And you can find all of our previous

programmes on the BBC iPlayer. That is it this week. Enjoy your cinema

going. Those that you are brave enough to go and see! Goodbye.