Karan Johar slams ‘herd mentality’ as he talks about Pushpa, Chhaava, Stree 2 success; addresses spy universe craze and asks, “How will I stand out if I copy?” - EXCLUSIVE

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Karan Johar is known for his candour, and in a recent conversation with Bollywood Hungama, the filmmaker once again shared some hard-hitting insights - this time on the current state of storytelling in the Hindi film industry. From genre fatigue to the obsession with cinematic universes, Johar didn’t hold back in expressing his views on why originality should be celebrated, not sidelined. “I think it's everybody grappling to do what others are doing. I think herd mentality. So, we see Pushpa running and catering so strongly to the tier two and tier three audiences. Suddenly there'll be 20 others wanting to do the same. You see Chhaava working, and everybody will want to make historical dramas! After Stree, everybody wants to make horror comedies. Those worked because they were individually strong, and there was no other option in that genre. And it was a unique thought that made those films work. We all have individual thoughts that are unique to ourselves,” Karan told Bollywo...
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Fear the Night review – Neil LaBute on losing streak with atrocious home invasion thriller

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The director of In the Company of Men continues his run of terrible films with this awfully acted, ungripping drama

In the most dismaying possible way, Neil LaBute has done it again. The dramatist and film-maker who gave us the 90s toxic masculinity classic In the Company of Men and the interesting and undervalued Samuel L Jackson thriller Lakeview Terrace in 2008, seems now to be going through a period of churning out exploitation content like a hack-for-hire. Last year we had the dismal revenge horror House of Darkness; now it’s this terrible home invasion thriller, with awful acting, clunking dialogue cues and drearily ungripping action and suspense sequences, along with a ChatGPT-ish title.

Maggie Q plays Tess, a military veteran who has seen action in Iraq and is now a recovering alcoholic struggling with a return to civilian life. She agrees to come to her sister’s bachelorette party (despite being out of place with all the girly types), and the bride-to-be has implausibly decreed this should take place in the big old remote house once occupied by her recently deceased parents, a place where there is – in accordance with time-honoured movie tradition – no mobile phone coverage. They all show up and find themselves under attack for a bizarrely elaborate reason. Much later, a gloomy epilogue has a misogynist sheriff disbelieve Tess’s version of events, which is not completely unreasonable of him. It could be a screenwriting way of sneakily conceding how weirdly contrived it has all been.

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