May 2021 Review: The Best Movies I Saw Last Month
Originally published June 6, 2021
May was a really intense month at work so I had to take a bit longer to write this. That being said, it was a great month! We saw the return of big budget movies at the theaters and I personally saw four really amazing new releases, two of which end up on this list. I watched 36 horror movies this month and, without further ado, here are the three best!
BEST #3) Army of the Dead (2021); Director: Zack Snyder; United States
Please check out the full review here.
Overall Score? 8/10
BEST #2) Psycho Goreman (2021); Director: Steven Kostanski; Canada
Please check out the full review here.
Overall Score? 8/10
BEST #1) Perfect Blue (1998); Director: Satoshi Kon; Japan/United States
Perfect Blue is an animated mystery horror that follows popstar turned actress, Mima. The transition in her career stirs up a lot of controversy, so much that it inspires a stalker to create a fake diary of hers and post it on the internet. Slowly, this takes a toll on her mental health and sense of reality. Mima finds herself daydreaming, blacking out and missing time, and exhausted beyond measure. Meanwhile, there’s a killer that is dispatching those around her in plenty of gruesome ways. Is Mima’s stalker naturally progressing into something more sinister or will Mima learn a painful truth about herself? I’m actually still kind of blown away by Perfect Blue; it is such a well-made and exciting film. It is a beautifully filmed, cleverly written, and surprisingly nasty murder mystery dealing with the psychological and existential horrors of ambition. Thanks to a taut script with good dialogue, Perfect Blue slowly nudges the viewer into the unease of Mima’s life before taking a sharp plunge into insanity in the final act. The visceral horror behind the deconstruction of identity predates later horror classics like Black Swan and to a degree, Starry Eyes. I hope you’ll join me in supporting Mima’s acting career by watching Perfect Blue asap.
Overall Score? 9/10
