Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Get Out

With the rise of slasher films in the 1970s and 1980s, horror became synonymous with the gross and bloody spectacles of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Less attention has been paid to the nearly-bloodless strain of horror films that traded on situations to provide context for frightening events. The likes of Rosemary’s Baby, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Wicker Man were creepy without being violent. Get Out belongs to this latter group of films, seeming to draw its most significant influence from that Edward Woodward film, Wicker Man.

A young couple, one black (Daniel Kaluuya) and one white (Allison Williams), trek out to her parents’ house as a means of introduction. There her hypnotherapist mother (Catherine Keener) and neurosurgeon father (Bradley Whitford) welcome him with open arms. However, a veneer of friendliness becomes an unsettling backdrop for the horrors that unfold as the film progresses.

Comedian Jordan Peele helmed this horror feature that explores racial tensions in modern America, seeking to give the audience a glimpse into the troubling and often horrific treatment of black Americans. It explores concepts of white guilt, suspiciously favorable treatment, and other elements that make for a fascinating glimpse into concepts that too many Americans don’t recognize. It’s a watershed kind of film that takes horror into a realm that resembles that of science-fiction, exploring culture and society through the lens of fantastical elements or horrific situations.

Murder on the Orient Express

After decades restricted to the small screen, Agatha Christie returns to the big screen in the first of an apparent series of films featuring the famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Re-adapting Christie’s classic novel Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh helms the film and stars as Poirot in this star-studded extravaganza that unsurprisingly pales compared to the original.

Written in 1934, Christie’s novel about a dozen strangers on the legendary train the Orient Express who become suspects in a gruesome murder, was first adapted for the big screen in 1974 by Sidney Lumet who brought in some of cinema’s greatest actors to the cast: Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Perkins, Wendy Hiller, Jacqueline Bisset, Rachel Roberts, Richard Widmark, and Michael York. In the end, the sumptuous film was a textbook case of how to handle large casts with aplomb.

Branagh’s film pulls in a smaller list of notable names like Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Olivia Colman, and Michell Pfeiffer; along with josh Gad, Leslie Odom Jr., Daisy Ridley, Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, and others. Apart from a cast that feels like a pale imitation of the Lumet original, the film tries to blend in thrilling elements that are utterly absent from the original work or the 1974 adaptation in attempt to modernize the feel of the period detective thriller. There are some interesting elements in the film, but it ultimately feels like a vain attempt to sell an admittedly stuffy story that works for Christie fans, but won’t particularly jive with contemporary views on murder mysteries.

Justice League

The DC Extended Universe is built on popular, though flawed characters who have thrilled and excited comic readers for decades and, for the most part, have been a part of the popular culture longer than their Marvel counterparts. The problem is that Zack Snyder, has decided that the DCEU will be a dark affair filled with brooding superheroes and moral gray areas. While Wonder Woman was a nice departure from the darkened Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, and the tonally brighter, but still bulky Man of Steel, Justice League is a return to the moribund and bruising style.

The cast of the prior films all return joined by new heroes Barry Allen/Flash (Ezra Miller), who doesn’t have the affability of his TV incarnation (Grant Gustin); Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa); and Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher). They even manage to drag Amy Adams, Diane Lane, and J.K. Simmons back into the action. This time, they are faced with the arrival of the planet destroyer Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciaran Hinds) who wants to turn Earth into a wasteland centuries after he last attempted to do so. The newly-forming Justice League must work together to stop his nefarious plans.

After Snyder had to step away from the film due to a major personal issue, co-writer Joss Whedon stepped in to finish the film, which creates a tonal vortex for the film. Although much of the film had been completed, Whedon inserted his particular views of filmmaking into the film and reworked a lot of it. The two styles don’t mesh well, leaving a mixture of corny jokes and dark brooding landscapes to fight over a screenplay that feels forced and familiar.