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THE LEGEND OF OCHI MOVIE REVIEW
While A24’s latest release The Legend of Ochi may be a film directed at children, the review Chris, Wright, and Marco did for it is decidedly not (despite Marco’s best efforts to keep it on track). While discussing this little injured cryptid creature the film centers around, it was impossible not to make comparisons to Grogu (Baby Yoda). It was possible to keep from making about fifty dick jokes and overly-sexualizing Baby Grogu, but we took the path less traveled. The story follows Yuri (Helena Zengel) a young girl living in the Carpathians of Transylvania with her monster-hunting dad Maxim (Willem Dafoe). She is taken along with Maxim’s adopted son Petro (a barely utilized Finn Wolfhard) and a group of young boys on her first ‘hunt’. The Ochis, orangutan-esque cryptid creatures in the mountains, are blamed for livestock deaths and more, so Maxim has taken up the mantle of the hunter and destroyer of the beasts. Yuri realizes quickly that these creatures, while odd, are not necessarily her enemy, and she certainly feels some degree of enmity towards her overbearing father, and sense of loss for her missing mother (Emily Watson). When she discovers a baby Ochi injured in one of her father’s traps, she frees it, makes peace with it, and decides the time has come to leave home for good and also return the baby to its family. Certainly, first-time feature director Isaiah’s film seeks to capture of the feel of children’s adventure films of the 80s, our critics felt there wasn’t all that much new or interesting on offer here, aside from music composer David Longstreth’s (from The Dirty Projectors) fantastic score and some reasonably solid, albeit CG altered, puppet work. Which is probably why this review descended into NC-17 silliness. Well, at least we had fun reviewing it.
DIRECTED BY: Isaiah Saxon
STARRING: Helena Zengel, Willem Dafoe, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson
YOUR REVIEWERS
Christopher Lawrence Cox (Founder, Da Boss, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Deliberations of Doom)
Born in the wilds of northern Virginia, Chris managed to put all of his survival skills to use and barely escaped with his life to Austin Texas in 1992 where ever since he’s dabbled in everything from plumber’s assistant to sandwich maker, from band to bar and theater management. An opportunity to see theatrical release films for free by becoming a critic on a local public access show called “The Reel Deal” turned into a full-time job when Chris and his friends decided to take it to the internet. They built the site Spill.com, adding multiple podcasts and animated features, to no small amount of success. During this time, a fortuitous friendship sprung up between Chris and young Brian Salisbury, who was also a local film critic, and they merged their forces of will, and their laundry list of ideas for shows, to eventually build this community of critics. While Brian eventually followed his heart to a new family, Chris continues on with a cast of colorful folks from all over the country (and a few others).
Wright Sulek (The Other Boss, Trash in the Can, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad)
Wright hails from the northern suburbs of Dallas, Texas. His passion for filmmaking brought him to Austin to study and make movies. Since then he’s had his hand in acting, writing, and directing his own short films with numerous like-minded film geeks he’s met along his journey. His newest interest has brought him into the podcasting world. He co-hosted a few different movie related podcasts such as ‘And Now This’ and ‘The Match Cut’. He currently co-hosts with longtime friend, Eric Samaniego, where they talk shop about the grimiest, trashiest, lost gems of movies on their show, ‘Trash in the Can’. Wright also guests and hosts reviews on Screener Squad and Highly Suspect Reviews as well as co-hosts Digital Noise with Chris Cox. As of 2024, Wright has now been inducted into the Austin Film Critics Association as well as co-owns the One of Us network with Chris Cox.
Marco Noyola (Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Audio Editor)
By day, Marco is a mild-mannered office worker, but by night he is a mild-mannered movie watcher. He does other mild-mannered stuff too.
“I’m not a film critic. I just play one on the Internet.”
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