Like the character she portrays rules her evening talk show, Thompson towers over this movie with a stunning magnificence that’s extraordinary, and when I watch Late Night again in the future I will do so entirely because of her.

“With kids, what’s the first language they speak? Well, that’s emotion…Even if they don’t understand the specifics of what is being talked about, if they see a character is upset or fearful or happy, they respond to that.”

What’s fascinating is just how many levels this ingenious bit of storytelling virtuosity works on. The youngest of minds will be mesmerized by the dazzling colors and the enchanting characters, while more seasoned viewers will be just as deeply engrossed by the complexity of the themes being examined.

I Origins is a beautiful treatise on self, human understanding, religion, science and most of all faith. It moves, shifts and evolves in naturalistic fastidiousness, everything building to a magnificent conclusion.

Less than 12 months later, producers/writers/directors Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard have managed to cajole another group of talented filmmakers to take their crack at the concept, and results are, to be perfectly frank, close to astonishing. V/H/S 2 doesn’t just improve upon the first film, doesn’t just take note of its missteps and mistakes, it quickly enters the pantheon as one of the great horror anthologies ever made.

“I wanted to tell a story that was emotionally true, and these people didn’t know how heroic what they were doing would turn out to be. For them, they had to believe they were all going to die. There was no other way to look at the situation.”
– David France

How to Survive a Plague is sensational, and without a doubt France’s debut is one of the more profoundly inspiring motion pictures I’ve seen this year.

While V/H/S is a wildly uneven ride, for those willing to take a seat on the rollercoaster the hypnotic horrors found within are undeniably worthy of discovery.

“I have made six horror movies in seven years. Pretty soon it’s going to start to feel repetitive. But it’s a great genre to experiment in as a filmmaker. You can pretty much do anything. That sense of freedom is inspirational.”
– Ti West