Tiny Reviews Department: "Immaculate", "Love Lies Bleeding" and "Madame Web"

IMMACULATE

A tepid piece of religious horror, Immaculate has a great premise, but it never actually takes advantage of it at its full. It gets lost when it tries to criticize the patriarchy and the rigid religious norms in an attempt to make for a necessary commentary about The Curch. Still, it offers a fine performance from Sydney Sweeney, who goes higher than what we have already seen from her in Euphoria TV series and Anyone But You - she might not reach brilliance here, but she does make for a great scream queen (specially in the last scene). Promising, but not as good as it could be. It demanded more visual/graphic horror in order to be terrifying and there are some plot holes in this narrative. Watchable, but underwhelming.

RATING: 4,5/10

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

It starts as a conventional girl meets girl in a weird context, but then things catch fire and the characters start to evolve - and that's when the movie really grips you. Love Lies Bleeding is a hell of a cinematic trip, where the actual narrative blends with the made-up scenarios of its leading ladies, balancing style, narrative and character development beautifully. Kristen Stewart is quite good and she's effortless in her role. As for Ed Harris, he's terrifying, yet he proves he still has that powerful on-screen presence - I believe he will be remembered as one of the best cinematic villains in recent movie history. But the brighest star is Katy O'Brian: a star-is-born kind of turn, she not uses her physicality to make a statement every time she enters a scene, but she also conveys the inner chaos of her character in perfect sync with the director's vision and the movie's tone. Beautiful cinematography work and some laugh-out-loud *wtf* moments will forever live rent free on my mind. A winner!

RATING: 7,5/10

MADAME WEB

Dakota Johnson makes for an engaging leading lady (the camera loves her, her peaceful aura makes her look like she's effortless and she really has some nice dramatic chops), but... the dialogue is bad (even for an action-driven film), it's full of unlogical elements, everything is too sudden and too easy! Visual effects look cheap... and the final battle is just laughably bad! But, I believe it is destined to become a so so guilty-pleasure film. Nothing much to add... Madame Web is just a bad film.

RATING: 2/10

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