Notable Cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Ramy Zada, Bingo O’Malley,
Harvey Keitel, Madeleine Potter, John Amos, Sally Kirkland, Kim Hunter, Tom
Atkins
As a horror fan, there a few things I’m a sucker for. Well,
it’s a lot of things. For the sake of this review, it’s necessary to know four
of them: Edgar Allen Poe, George Romero, Dario Argento, and anthologies.
Combining these four pieces into one film should be a recipe for success. Going
into Two Evil Eyes, that’s the mindset I adopted. Particularly when Blue
Underground gives the film some incredibly lavish treatment in this latest
3-Disc Blu Ray set. It’s something of a shame that it’s a film that I haven’t
seen until this point, if anything for the four reasons above, but lukewarm
reactions from a lot of my cinephile friends created hesitation in me to leap
into the film. Maybe the idea of it is better than the actual product.
Notable Cast: Donald Sutherland, Chad Lowe, Mia Sara,
Knut Husebo, Rutanya Alda, Eddie Jones, Mark Burton, Adrian Sparks, Tiger
Haynes, Minnie Gentry
The use of the ‘based on true events’ gimmick is such a wild
card that it’s hard to predict what it actually means for a film. In the case
of Apprentice to Murder, it’s a signifier that the film is going to ride
its melodrama pretty hard. The film had a decent amount of hype around it for
me, thanks to be somewhat of a rare film prior to the new Arrow Video Blu Ray release,
but now that it’s in my collection, it’s understandable why the film went by
the wayside without much of a murmur. Apprentice to Murder is
forgettable. It certainly has its merits, particularly in how the film handles
its performances and many of its subplots. On the whole though, perhaps it’s
not so surprising that it was a film that fell off of the path of mainstream
classics and into the ditch where cult cinema fans would find it.
By 2004, the end of the post-Scream slasher
resurgence was finally coming to an end. Although that is a heavily debated era
of horror by fans and critics alike, its end spelled some good things to come
for horror. Namely, it allowed the slasher genre to take a step back from the
limelight and go back underground where it could find some creative forces.
When the first Malevolence film premiered at the end of 2004 (although
it did not receive a home video release until the next year – which is where I
discovered the film) it was one of the films that marked that shift in style.
It found enough of a cult audience that director/writer/producer Stevan Mena
was able to finish off his trilogy of films, even against some horrific
circumstances that had the third film postponed almost indefinitely. The
trilogy has now found its way onto Blu Ray and it’s a welcome addition to any
horror fan’s collection. This piece will cover all three films – a weird gap in
our catalog admittedly since I sang the praises of the films since 2005 and
hopefully, it will spur a few people to take a chance on this remarkably
fascinating franchise.
Remakes are always a tricky business. I say this as one
who’s generally more favorable to them than most. In theory, you have to serve
the twin masters of appeasing the original fans and thrilling new ones or focus
on one or the other, often alienating the unserved audience. There are
certainly decent examples of all three and terrible examples as well, but it is
a conflict all remakes share. The new version of Black Christmas largely
focuses on the “thrilling new take” angle, and I think that it may have
unlocked the true potential of this story’s concept, while admittedly walking
into a few pitfalls of the genre as well.
Maintaining the basic conceit of sorority girls staying on
campus during the holiday season and then being taunted by phone, stalked, and
killed, it’s the only real callback to either previous version of this story. The
original Black Christmas was very much an exploration of the “killer is
calling from within the house” campfire story archetype, while this new one is a
pure slasher focused through a lens of modern feminism. I think there are a lot
of good ideas in play, although I do think the narrative fails the concept
here.
Notable Cast: Marcia Forbes, Harlan Cary Poe, Evelyn
Kingsley, Luis Arroyo, Fran Warren, Peter Lightstone, Tiberia Mitri
Cult cinema provides a variety of surprises lying under the
docile surface of what generally looks like calm waters. Even the most mundane
of genres can pop with something impactful and strange once a person starts
dragging the waters to find what’s beneath. Toys Are Not for Children is
one of those odd films that can be dredged up from the depths. Taking what
could have translated into a more serious and abrasive adult drama concept from
a relatively exploitative baseline, the film has a raw and occasionally dream-like quality that adds a surprising amount of style to its low budget. The film
struggles to find a cohesion of tone and the messages are blurred, albeit
intentionally so at times, but the overall experience of what is brought to the
surface here is evocative and gets the mind thinking – even if it stumbles
through some of it.
Notable Cast: Ha Kwong-Li, Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, Wang Hsieh,
Tsai Hung, Peng Kang, Sun Jung-Chi, Shih Ting-Ken, Chin Lung
Also known as: The Invincible Kung Fu Legs
The last few years has seen a significant uptick in the
amount and quality of proper releases for martial arts films from the golden
age of the genre. For fans, like myself, it’s about time. Living in the realms
of bootlegs and poor-quality editions, getting restored home video releases of
so many overlooked classics is a miracle. When it was announced that the fan
favorite The Leg Fighters was getting a coveted Blu Ray release through a
new label, Pearl River, I was shocked. Most of the proper HK and martial arts
releases were from the major two studios, Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, and
the others have been buried to questionable DVDs and dubbed/VHS rips on the Wu
Tang Collection via YouTube. In fact, prior to this release, I had only seen a
dubbed low-quality version of this film. Needless to say, the fact that this
film even exists in this format for the US means its worth buying for all fans
of the genre.
Notable Cast: David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny
Agutter, John Woodvine, Brian Glover
Writing about An American Werewolf in London is a
daunting task. There are a slew of other writers and film critics who have
analyzed the film from beginning to end for its cultural relevance, the strength of
execution, and its ability to weave genres and, truthfully, most of them are
smarter than I am. Nonetheless, I was tasked with the insurmountable task of
reviewing the new Arrow Video Blu Ray release of the film and, thus, it’s time
to wear my shoes and hike this mountain. To say that An American Werewolf in
London is an American cinematic classic is a bit of an understatement. It’s
a film that has lasted the test of time with its strange and off-kilter blend
of horror and humor, but it might be most remembered for how it helped to
modernize the werewolf genre along with the other big werewolf film in 1981 – The
Howling.
It was only a few years ago I wrote a piece at Blood
Brothers about the relevancy of the Ring franchise for horror. At the
time there was two new films due for release, the wildly entertaining Sadako
vs Kayoko and the less-said-the-better American sequel, Rings.
Now, it’s time to take a look at the franchise once again, not just because we
are going another new film – Sadako, which sees the return of
Hideo Nakata to the director’s chair, but because Arrow Video has done everyone
a huge favor. They just released a phenomenal box set with new HD restorations
of the first four Japanese and any fans of the films, cinema collectors, or
even newbies will want to pick up this set and dig into its gold mine of
contents.
It should be noted that the American release of this set is
the same one as the UK one from last year, although the titles have been slightly
changed to reflect the silly US titling which is Ringu and not Ring. I
will continue to use the term Ring through this piece because, quite
frankly, the name Ringu is stupid. Fortunately, my opinion on that seems
to be backed fairly heavily on the special features of this set so at least
there’s that.
Notable Cast: Debbie Thureson, Steve Bond, Lori Lethin,
Robert Wald, Gayle Gannes, Phillip Wenckus, Jackson Bostwick, Jackie Coogan
There isn’t a lot that one can expect from the slasher
genre if we are being truly honest with ourselves. If a film has depth, a
unique character perspective, or style, it’s already sliding into the upper
echelon of what is to be expected. When broken down, there is only one real
thing that I want to see from a slasher – entertainment. The formula isn’t
rocket science, but the film, good or bad, just needs to be entertaining to
some degree. Of course, that’s exactly what The Prey lacks. Normally, if
Arrow Video is going to go to the effort and deliver a release like this filled
with a new restoration, tons of special features, and a great package – you
assume the film is probably some sort of lost gem. The Prey is not one.
Doctor Sleep has all the ingredients to be either an
unmitigated disaster or an unambiguous victory. Positioning itself as a follow-up
to both the book and filmic versions of The Shining while having to tell
its own, largely unrelated story. That’s a lot of juggling for any film, but
add to the metaphor that two of those flying balls are hand grenades, and I
mean that in the sense that director Mike Flanagan has to show proper reverence
to two masters.
The Shining, as a book, is on the shortlist of
absolute Stephen King masterpieces and is unambiguously supernatural in its
telling. There is no question that the ghosts that Jack Torrence sees are
literal, and the whole thing, although thematically and metaphorically about
addiction, is real and is really happening. The Shining, as a film, is
on the shortlist of greatest films ever made period, directed by a man who
never produced a single dud and is nothing but ambiguous about everything in
its telling. Focused almost exclusively with Jack Nicholson’s far less hinged
and sympathetic take on Torrence, this movie is an exploration of abuse,
isolation and madness, while maintaining the theme of addiction. Suffice it to
say, King famously loathes the adaptation, which is the final wrinkle in what
makes the concept of a Doctor Sleep movie so wild.
Notable Cast: Miles Robbins, Patrick Schwarzenegger,
Sasha Lane, Chukwudi Iwuji, Mary Stuart Masterson
At this point, while the term ‘elevated horror’ is making
the rounds, I feel like we should address the latest trend of ‘neon horror.’
Can we make that a thing? The Neon Demon, Mandy, Bliss,
and a dozen other films have all come out in the last few years that utilize
throwback aesthetics like heavy synth scores, saturated neon lighting, and
throwback visuals. Well, regardless if anyone else is going to use the term, I
am. More or less because this is exactly where Daniel Isn’t Real falls
into. Surrealistic horror with an old school approach to the visuals, but a
modern approach to the narrative. While I adore all of the films mentioned
above (that’s also just horror – let’s not even get started on the neon
elements of John Wick and how that has affected action cinema) Daniel
Isn’t Real handily belongs to that group. It’s a manic ride through the
urban setting of its youth culture, slyly integrating social and moral
commentaries into a film that increasingly feels more Clive Barker-esque as it
unravels. It’s enigmatic, engaging, and most fittingly – entertaining. Not only
will this end up being one of the best horror films of the year, it could very
well find itself on the best films of the year list.
The problematic part about reviewing a film like Daniel
Isn’t Real is that the film leans so heavily on the experiential portion of
connecting with its audience that, to truly talk about why this film works, it would
spoil so much of its plotting and character beats. It’s a fuckin’ great problem
to have. The start of the film features the protagonist, Luke (played later by
a character-defining performance from Miles Robbins,) as a kid who is revealed
to be from a rather volatile home life. When he sees the aftermath of a vicious
mass shooting on the street, his imaginary friend Daniel first appears.
Although Daniel allows him to cope with his situation and give him a friend to
talk to, Daniel eventually starts to push Luke in some problematic ways and
with that, and the help of his mother, he locks Daniel away. Fast forward to
Luke as a college student where his life is perpetually disappointing and, in
an attempt to free his imagination and work on his own mental state, he unleashes
Daniel once again.
A large part of Daniel Isn’t Real feels like it’s meant
to be the Fight Club for the next generation. Many of the same concepts
remain including the use of an imaginary friend of extreme toxic masculinity,
an undercurrent subtext about mental instability, and a fantasy-like sense of
style. It just handles those themes and weighty ideas in a different manner. Daniel
Isn’t Real isn’t much for replicating the films its pulling influence from,
but it certainly takes some of the better qualities and mixes them together with
its own sense of identity. The concoction is intoxicating.
Director Adam Egypt Mortimer comes out all guns blazing on
this sophomore effort too. As mentioned previously, there is a visual style to
the film that encompasses both modern and throwback values. The use of synth
scores, the neon caked lighting, and the growing existential surrealism of Luke’s
descent and rise against his imaginary friend give the film immense amounts of
tone and atmosphere. With the stellar performances, including a career-defining
high for both Miles Robbins and a truly fascinating turn for Patrick
Schwarzenegger, the film rarely has a weak spot to think of and even the
romantic subplot, given some very palpable energy by the chemistry between
Robbins and Sasha Lane, is well integrated into the main conflict of the story.
To go much further would undermine the experience of
watching Daniel Isn’t Real and although there are a few reveals in the
second half that felt like they needed a bit more exploration at times, the well-executed
and intriguing film that is delivered remains one of the best this year. It’s
unnerving, it approaches the anxieties of modern youth in a fascinating way,
and the execution is top-notch. Daniel might not be real, but the quality of
this film is.
Notable Cast: Kiersey Clemons, Emory Cohen, Hanna Mangan
Lawrence, Benedict Samuel
As cinema continues to become more expensive for patrons to
go to the theaters, the general clamor for bigger and more spectacular
entertainment only becomes stronger. There are certainly counterpoints to this
movement, but the percentage of films of a more intimate or smaller scale are
quicker and quicker to be bumped from a wide release and onto streaming
platforms. This is a trend that certainly ignites quite a few debates, but it’s
a trend that is only becoming more prevalent as time passes. On the other hand,
there’s a slew of great smaller and more intimate films that are still being
made to help level out the playing field. Although I was fortunate enough to
have the chance to see Sweetheart on the big screen via the Telluride
Horror Show, this is a film that Blumhouse understandably sent to the smaller
screen. It’s a fantastic film for what it is, but it doesn’t necessarily match
the buzz and bluster that theatrical going audiences would want to visit in a
wide theatrical release.
Notable cast: Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Eliana
Bateman, PJ Byrne
Horror is an interesting genre to be a specific fan of. It
tends to have the least studio oversight owing to lower overall budgets. This
has been used to phenomenal effect over the years telling bigger, more
insightful stories than you’d assume its plot allows. Hereditary and
it’s exploration of family dynamics and legacy, Babadook and it’s
exploration of mental health, The Shining and whatever interpretation
is popular at the time. On the
other hand, this can go the other way as
well. With low budgets and low expectations come the people who see horror as
low hanging fruit. A quick buck to be made, since they only have to be
interesting enough to get comparatively few butts in seats to be profitable,
and even if they’re not, they can license the movie out to several streaming
services. The bottom line is they will make money, by and large, so they can be
low effort.
I’m not trying to brush this lower effort class of film with
a broad, universally terrible brush, because that wouldn’t be strictly fair.
There are flashes of real ideas in these sometimes. I’m not saying Countdown
is one of these better than it should be movies, quite the opposite actually,
but I am trying to highlight that I believe there was potential, and perhaps
potential in the future, because the idea here is actually pretty cool. In
theory.
When the trailer for Legend of the Demon Cat
originally dropped, there was a skepticism that came with it. The film looked
to be a strange tonal balance, genre-hopping moment to moment and coming off as
more of a gimmick than expected. Of course, this is something of a normal thing
for Chinese cinema. When the film started garnering some awards attention,
especially from the Asian Film Awards, my interest immediately piqued.
Naturally, that excitement faded as the release of the film gestated for a long
time before its US release from Well Go USA. With its Blu Ray release now
on store shelves, there is going to be an interesting reaction to Legend of
the Demon Cat. It’s a bold classic fantasy tale Chinese mythology, ripe
with mystery and some truly poignant imagery, but it’s also a film that often
does not pander to more casual film fans. It’s an emotionally powered story first
and foremost and will, in a shocking way, actively lean away from its genre
conventions. For that choice, the film deserves a lot of respect, even if it
ends up being more of a drama with fantasy elements than vice versa.
Notable Cast: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive
Owen, Benedict Wong
There are a couple of angles from which to view Gemini
Man. As a film, obviously, but also as a technological feat. An average
film is shot in, and subsequently released in, 24 – 29 frames per second, with
television being shot on video, traditionally, at closer to 60 frames per
second. There are both technical and budgetary reasons for this, but that’s
beside the point I’m driving at. The point is that this is why soap operas have
that “soap opera look” or why motion smoothing on your TV makes movies looks
weird (motion smoothing effectively doubles the frame rate of whatever you’re
watching), you’re literally seeing twice as much visual information per second.
However, what’s interesting is that these numbers are arbitrary. There were
technical reasons at some point in history, for all of this of course, that we
consider the ‘look’ of a film is 24 frames per second. It’s now ingrained at a
near “cultural memory” level. Recently, there is a group of filmmakers that
really focused in on where the numbers were technically arbitrary and have been
pushing ultra-high frame rates. Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy was shot
in 48fps, for a notable example. Gemini Man is shot at 120 frames per
second.
There is a certain temptation whenever one sees New England,
the late 1800s, and tentacles in a horror movie trailer to assume it’s a
Lovecraftian horror. It’s a tendency that makes a certain kind of sense when
you have a surface level understanding of HP Lovecraft’s themes. Weird
mysteries, madness and aquatic terror. After reading one of his works, let’s
take Call of Cthulhu as an example which is a fascinating experience the
first time, you realize that the titular creature is barely a factor in the
story and the ultimate point was that a ship ramming it at full speed (the
era’s equivalent to a nuclear bomb, mind you) wasn’t even enough to warrant the
creature’s attention. It drives the narrator mad. That is not the kind of tale
Eggers is telling in his follow-up to The Witch. I actually found the
story, such as it is, much more Kafkaesque with a healthy portion of David
Lynch and modeled on a fisherman’s tale in the way Witch was a dark
fairy tale. To extend my comparison to its breaking point, Lovecraft stories
tended to be about normal people in impossible, existential crisis, often
learning that humanity might not be the biggest baddest thing on the planet,
and that our planet is likely insignificant altogether. Kafka’s stories were
about ordinary people in extraordinarily mundane situations that almost felt
like a cruel punishment, often for no reason or at least inequivalent reasons,
and that is more how The Lighthouse feels. The more that is shown the
less the film makes sense, which is glorious within the film’s nightmare logic.
Notable Cast: Nicole Brydon Bloom, Taylor Nichols, Giles
Matthey, Susan Davis, Celeste Sully, Clayton Hoff, Alan Blumenfeld, Naomi
Grossman
One of the best experiences of sitting in a cinema is having a
film where the final act completely makes the film. Often times on social media, I’ll use the term #SavedByTheThirdAct, but occasionally it is just a film where
the finale is such catharsis and a culmination of everything in such a
fantastic manner it executes everything – flaws and all. This was the experience
of watching 1BR at Telluride Horror Show this year. The film starts off with
a relatively slow pace and loose narrative, but the final 20 minutes is a rip-roaring
combination that makes all of the efforts of its ensemble work, it’s sly genre
shifts, and slow character development pay off. It’s a solid film throughout,
but that ending makes it worth it.
Notable Cast: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh,
Richard Armitage, Alicia Silverstone
It already seems like ages ago that The Lodge started
making the rounds of internet hype. It was finished filming in early 2018 but didn’t
receive its big debut until Sundance earlier this year. Since then, the hype
around the film has gone strangely quiet despite the fact that it received
generally favorable reviews. For this writer, the film was going to be one to
see simple to see how directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz would follow
up their immensely respected and surprise hit debut, Goodnight Mommy. The
Lodge resides very comfortably in that same territory as Goodnight Mommy in
a lot of ways – immaculate atmosphere, a plot that revolves around mother and
child relationships, and the rather intimate seclusion of its setting. It doesn’t
quite have the impact that one might assume from it, based on the hype and the
established talent of the directors, but The Lodge still remains and
chilling (pun intended) and dread-inducing film that works on the nerves in its
own horrifying ways.
To touch upon the issues right away is not necessarily how I
like to approach a review, but it’s the best way to dig into The Lodge.
This is because the lingering nag of the film comes from the methodical, slow-burn pacing. The film clocks in at a rather reasonable 100 minutes, but the
film takes a glacial pace to work through all of the necessary plot and
narrative beats to get to the main conflict. Most of these feelings of
meandering come in the second act, once the family gets to the titular remote
cabin and the film starts to establish the “new girlfriend stuck with her
potential stepchildren in a snowed in house” dynamic. With some thoughtful
trimming, The Lodge might have been an even leaner and meaner film, but
alas, it chooses to draw out the tension and suspense rather than run with the
energetic momentum it builds in key sequences.
To set that up that long narrative though, The Lodge
has to jump through a lot of hoops to establish motive and character choices as
a tactic to draw out the tension of its mood and tone. The setups in the first
act and the payoffs in the third act work in some astonishingly effective ways.
Much of the film’s success rides on the nuanced performances from its principle
(and very intimate) cast as they ably leap through the hoops. A surprisingly small
but an incredibly powerful role for Alicia Silverstone in the opening sequences
sets up much of the style that directors Fiala and Franz will utilize. A dense
cloud of distrust for all of the characters partnered with a penchant for some
popping jump scares make the atmosphere and tonal dissonance palpable. Slick
use of the settings, in particular, The Lodge which is shot in the same
cold and calculated manner that Kubrick shot the Outlook in The Shining, adds
to this sense of an unwelcome place – which is replicated as the kids and future
stepmother start to question if their own tension is being manipulated by the
other.
Once the tension is established, the film does start to
meander as previously mentioned, but it’s the third act that sells the entire
film. As the various pieces of the puzzle are laid out it becomes obvious that,
while occasionally predictable, The Lodge has laid some impressive groundwork
to make sure that even the most asinine leaps of logic or character choices pay
off in the emotional terror and streams of darkness (and infrequent and
surprising violence.) The Lodge packs one hell of a wallop in the final
20 minutes and it’s some of the best and most atmospheric material that horror
has produced this year.
All in all, The Lodge is a step down from their impressive debut, but Fiala and Franz prove once again that they are a powerful
voice in horror cinema at this time. The film is shot with an intense precision
that maximizes a plethora of fantastic visuals, suffocating atmospheric
tension, and a third act that will hang on its viewer like an emotional eulogy.
It’s one flaw is its length and rather meandering second act, but the rest is
worthy of the praise it has received thus far. The only real question remains
is how the directors will follow this up.
Notable Cast: Jeremy Gardner, Brea Grant, Justin Benson, Henry
Zebrowski, Ashley Song, Nicola Masciotra
Any self-respecting cinephile that cares about films gets
excited when two creative forces team up on a new film. Whether it’s actors and
actresses, directors, cinematographers, or any other namesake, the idea of the
“supergroup” collaborating on a film is incredibly enticing. This is why After
Midnight was a must-see film for me at Telluride Horror Show. Although I am
not a particular fan of horror-comedy in general, the combination of writer/director
Jeremy Gardner (this time co-directing with Christian Stella) and the producing
duo of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson (directors of the phenomenal The
Endless and Spring) was too salivating to pass up. The results are After
Midnight, a dramedy with a penchant for some horror set pieces to parallel the
emotional state of our lead couple. The film is a sure-fire crowd pleaser and the
audience that I saw it with was eating the comedy, drama, and horror up enthusiastically.
With a heartfelt relationship to ground the film, some remarkably charming secondary
characters, and a silly horror premise that could have worked on its own, After
Midnight is a strange buffet of genre and execution – that could only be
pulled off by the talent behind it.
Notable Cast: Michael Daniel, Rachel Johnson, Aurora
Lowe, Gabriel Nicholson, June Peterson
With the advent of various technologies that allow filmmakers to do things quicker, cheaper, and on their own laptops, perhaps it’s
not surprising that the man behind Sator, Jordan Graham, essentially made
the film on his own. Director, writer, music, production, and in a relatively
candid interview after the first screening of the film at the Telluride Horror
Show film festival, he casually mentioned that he built the cabin set of the
film with his friend. To say that this film is, at its core, the result of one
man's pure will power might be an understatement. The fact that it’s a rather impressive display
of arthouse horror is what makes all of the mentioned work by Mr. Graham even
more fantastical. Playing with naturalistic horror in a way that begs the
question on why A24 hasn’t picked up the film yet is par for the course. The
minimalistic approach to most of its plot and narrative can be both frustrating
and fascinating. Sator is an intimate film with visual style seeping off
the screen and an up-for-interpretation through-line that will certainly
appease the horror fans looking for one of those slow burn arthouse horror
flicks.
Notable Cast: Dora Madison, Tru Collins, Rhys Wakefield,
Jeremy Gardner, Graham Skipper, Chris McKenna, Rachel Avery, Mark Beltzman,
George Wendt, Abraham Benrubi, Jesse Merlin
As a horror film fan, I’ve always had a soft spot for
director Joe Begos. He has a phenomenal knack for creating throwback horror
cinema in a way that is not playing its style as a gimmick as much as a
love letter to the bygone eras of classic horror. When a debut is pure John
Carpenter meets early David Cronenberg, as is the case with his film Almost
Human, the filmmaker will end up on our list of people to watch. Although it
seemed like his career had stalled out for a hot minute after his sophomore
effort, Begos is back with TWO films this year. Both films immediately made my
list as ‘must-see’ for the year and the first of the two, Bliss, finally
dropped on VOD for consumption. Bliss is an intriguing film. It’s
incredibly low budget, but it’s obvious how much Begos has grown as a
filmmaker. The film certainly pulls from the past, once again as a stylistic
choice, but Bliss is exactly the horror experience that its title would
indicate - it’s fuckin’ Blissful in its drug-fueled, fever dream
analysis of the grimy subsect of Los Angeles. It delivers on that experience
with the gusto of an artist looking to capture the angst and intimacy of creating
art and, while the film goes to some wild places, features a rather personal
tone to it that uplifts the entire event.
Notable Cast: Louis Koo, Zhou Dongyu, Haden Kuo, Cheney
Chen, Bao Beier
Foreign cinema can always have a feeling of being off-kilter
for those not used to the style, tropes, or storytelling techniques of
different industries from various eras. Initial trailers made Kung Fu
Monster look scattered and perplexing, despite some talent and intriguing
elements to it. However, as a wuxia fan and being open to the tonal whiplash
that Chinese cinema occasionally uses as a narrative identity, I was happy to
see what this film had to offer. With that in mind, it’s best to know that Kung
Fu Monster is fuckin’ weird. It’s a genre-bending exercise in being a
comedy first and a fantasy wuxia second with some other elements tossed in for
good measure. When the tones and styles are working in conjunction, the film can
be relatively enjoyable and highly entertaining. When they don’t, it’s as scattershot
and perplexing as my initial fears for the film would indicate. Judging from the family comedy element meets fantasy wuxia from the director of The Guillotines, I probably should have known it was going to be a wild card.
Notable Cast: Wu Jing, Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Yi, Jing Boran,
Hu Ge, Wang Jingchun, Chen Long, He Lin, Choenyi Tsering, Jackie Chan
China’s attempts to be the next Hollywood are only getting
larger. Whether it’s big-time disaster films, comedies, or science fiction (and
to some extent all three at once in the blockbuster The Wandering Earth) the
industry is hellbent on taking inspiration and attempting to out-Hollywood
Hollywood at its own game. The Climbers is a product of this mindset.
This film exists to a) be a huge action-packed and dramatic blockbuster to draw
in audiences with its stars and big-name talent and b) as continued jingoistic
propaganda for China. For all of the hype around Wu Jing teaming up with
director Daniel Lee to tell the story of the Chinese expedition in 1975 to
crest Mt. Everest, it’s almost fitting that the film ends up as a gigantic
mess. It tries incredibly hard to be everything a major blockbuster film needs
to be as a huge four-quadrant success and, unfortunately, lacks the balance of
pacing and tonality to fit it all in there. There are a handful of things to
respect in how The Climbers approaches its material, but for everything
it does right, it makes a half dozen choices that don’t work in obscenely
baffling ways.
Notable cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie
Beetz, Francis Conroy, Brett Cullen
In the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs, based on a
Victor Hugo novel, Gwynplaine is a man whose face is disfigured into a
permanent smile, so that he would always laugh at his fool of a father
(executed via iron maiden by a political rival). This is a tragic romance and a
drama, but the horrifying idea and image of a man who smiles no matter what was
a major inspiration to Bob Kane and Bill Finger when they created the character
of The Clown Prince Of Crime, Joker. The Joker has a famously ambiguous
character history. In film and animation, he has always been something of an
actor’s role, since by definition there is no wrong way to play it (Jared
Leto’s take notwithstanding). The reason I mention the classic Paul Leni film
is that in a way, I feel like Joaquin Phoenix’s take on the character is the
first time I’ve ever blatantly felt The Man Who Laugh’s DNA in the
character. This is also, largely, the only reference to the comic or any source
material of The Joker’s though, because in all other ways this
ostensibly plays out like a lost mid-70s Scorsese film, down to using the
classic Warner Media logo.
Notable Cast: Ma Dong-seok, Kim Mu-yeol, Kim Sung-kyu,
Heo Dong-won
It didn’t take long for The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil
to start making some waves when it premiered at Cannes Film Festival. Between a
blissfully brilliant concept and having actor Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee because
I guess they are still trying to make that name change a thing) in the film, it
was primed to have certain cinephiles sold on seeing it. However, it’s when
Sylvester Stallone announced his plans to already remake the film that I think
even more casual fans stood up to take notice. All of this hype around the film
could potentially spell high expectations and a chance for disappointment, but
the film itself hardly disappoints when it comes to being a bombastic action
thriller. The film plays its concept more straight forward than expected so
this is not the artistic serial killer thriller in the same sect as The
Chaser or I Saw the Devil. However, the combination of scene-stealing performances, brutal action set pieces, and an effective third act
makes The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil a potent action experience.
Author’s Note: It’s hard to discuss anything to do
with the Rambo franchise without observing the politics therein. They
are all inherently political movies and I think the best of the franchise has
something real to say. Now, I don’t think Rambo: Last Blood is so much
actively making a statement as it is using some of the horrors of human
trafficking and Mexican crime cartels as a generic “boogeyman” and as motivator,
but in the reality we’re existing in now, it’s also not unfair to say that
using these real-world horrors as dressing in your film means that it needs to
be handled with a tact and grace that Last Blood doesn’t manage. This
film has both cartoonish, Eli Roth movie-like gore effects and brutally
realistic sexual violence/torture, and the incongruity of that is a problem,
even if the politics themselves weren’t. I am going to review the movie as it
is and not make any more specific political proclamations, and furthermore, I’m
going to review this movie on its narrative and intent alone. The above is
worth mentioning because, for some people, this movie will be difficult if not
impossible to sit through and it bears mentioning up top.
Notable Cast: Tony Leung Ka Fai, Deng Chao, Eddie Peng,
Vision Wei, David Cheng, Liu Tao, Kingscar Jin, Tony Yang, Joynce Cheng, Hao
Ping, Zhang Yishang, Liang Jingkang, Wang Jingwen
Tony Leung Ka Fai might be one of the greatest actors in the
world. Not just from China or Hong Kong, but in the entire world. He automatically
uplifts any film he is in, whether it’s pulpy action thrills, weighty drama, or,
in the case of Cold War, both. He’s showered in accolades as an actor
from both the Hong Kong and Golden Horse awards. Midnight Diner was
going to be a film to see simply because he’s in it. What makes this film even
more interesting is that it is his directorial debut too. It made me start to
wonder if his talents onscreen could translate behind the camera and whether
the omnibus style of the film’s concept could serve him well.
All of this combined is what makes Midnight Diner
such a wildly missed opportunity. Despite another solid performance from Tony
Leung Ka Fai, the film lacks a sense of direction and its multi-story pattern
eventually crumbles under the melodrama and lacking screen development for any
of the characters. It has its moments of heartfelt ideas, characters, and
charm, but they are fleeting in a film filled with unjustified emotional punch
and lacking cohesion.
Notable Cast: Park Jung-Min, Ryoo Seung-Bum, Choi Yu-Hwa,
Woo Hyeon, Lee Kwang-Soo, Lim Ji-Yeon, Kwon Hae-Hyo
After one of the writers here at Blood Brothers raved about
the first two entries into the Tazza series from South Korea, I was
rather ecstatic to be able to see the third entry in theaters. Although I have
not, at this time, seen the first two entries of the series, the impression I
understand is that the if there is any kind of direct connection then it’s
minute at best. This third film, under the title Tazza: The One Eyed Jack,
is a highly entertaining film. Like it’s gambling thriller basis, One Eyed
Jack doesn’t win all of the hands that it deals out, but it wins the long
game by playing all of the cards at the right times – folding when it starts to
get off track and going all-in during the finale. It might not be the most
efficient film in telling its story, but the message rings loud and true and
the thrills of its swindling plot are a sure-fire bet.
Notable Cast: George Lazenby, Anita Strindberg, Adolfo
Celi, Dominique Boschero, Peter Chatel, Alessandro Haber, Nicoletta Elmi
Director Aldo Lado surprised me with the bold and well-executed choices of his giallo film, Short Night of Glass Dolls. This is
what made me excited to finally partake in his only other film of this type and
the focus of this review, Who Saw Her Die?. The inclusion of a
relatively stacked cast, including one-time James Bond George Lazenby, only
perked my interest further. If the film was anything like Short Night,
it was bound to be one of the best giallo of the era. Through Arrow Video’s
latest (and incredibly stacked Blu Ray), Who Saw Her Die? finally found
it’s way to my viewing queue. Despite some great executions from Lado and
company, the film features a rather by the numbers plot that doesn’t quite have
the hooks and angles that made his other film so great. Still, despite a more
traditional plot, the film finds its niche in some stylish use of setting,
great performances, and snazzy kill set pieces to appease giallo fans and
horror/thriller fans alike.
Notable cast: Sherri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, Sid Haig,
Richard Brake
3 From Hell is a movie that requires some context to
fully understand, so it’s necessary to briefly summarize how we got here first.
Rob Zombie’s first movie, House of 1000 Corpses, tells us of the Firefly
clan, a family of Texas psychopaths who trap tourists searching for the local
spooky legend, an ex-Nazi scientist named Dr. Satan. In 1978, seven months after
the killings depicted in the first filmSheriff Quincy Wydell leads a raid on
the Firefly house. This kicks off the second film, The Devil’s Rejects,
and the ensuing firefight kills most of the serial killing family and leads to
the capture of the family matriarch who’s subsequently tortured to death by
Wydell. Two members escape and act as our effective franchise protagonists. The
first is Otis Driftwood, played by Bill Moseley (who’s own genre star-making performance
in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 made him a natural fit in Zombie’s TCM
inspired world) who is a murderer, rapist, and self-aggrandizing taxidermist with
a nihilist streak. The other is Baby, played by the director’s wife, Sherri
Moon Zombie in her signature role, who is a deranged, dangerous, childish, and
a game playing killer with a tenuous grip on reality at best. The two are joined
eventually by Captain Spaulding (Haig), an evil clown and purveyor of “The
Museum of Monsters and Madmen”, who sent victims to the Firefly’s by spreading
the legend of Dr. Satan and, as we also find out, is Baby’s father. After The
Devil’s Rejects (a self-branded moniker) are finally captured and confronted by
Sheriff Wydell, they escape again just to drive straight into a wall of police,
and the firefight (set, reasonably on the nose, to ‘Freebird’) ends the
violent, terrible lives of the three human monsters. It’s a neat, perfect
capper to what is a horrid, unblinking examination of the human capacity for
evil. There are no heroes in this story, only bad people and worse people, and
most couldn’t imagine we would ever revisit anyone from the family.
Notable Cast: Lexy Kolker, Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern,
Amanda Crew, Grace Park, Ava Telek, Michelle Harrison, Matty Finochio
The mystery box film has been something I’ve always enjoyed.
Even when M. Night Shyamalan essentially claimed the entire genre as his own
for a while, I’ve always appreciated a film that toys with its audience on what
it’s doing or where it’s going. With the way that modern marketing has gone
though, these are a style choice that’s a gimmick more than anything else.
Thinking back to how JJ Abrams has maneuvered the Cloverfield franchise
or his own Super 8, the way that the film industry makes the questions
such a punchline can ultimately undercut the experience of the film. Audiences are immediately looking for the twist. This is what makes Freaks relatively
special. Even the trailer that Well Go USA released gave us just enough about
the basics of the film, but the final product plays with the details throughout so that it
takes two acts before the audience even starts to put things together. It’s an
incredible and powerful experience of cinema. The film ultimately ends up going
into some familiar territory, but the manner that it gets there is riveting and
incredibly well executed. For a mystery box film, it’s a wallop.
Notable Cast: Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, Lauryn Alisa
McClain, Andrew Caldwell, Shazi Raja, Schuyler Helford, Phillip Johnson Richardson
If you were to judge it based on its overall
marketing, Haunt is the kind of film that should have dwindled away on VOD.
There is a strong movement for “haunted house” horror films. Not the ones about
ghosts, but the theme-park style haunted houses that people love to visit
around Halloween time. Some of these have been good, Hell House LLC for example, and
some have been less than good. Either way, there seem to be more and more
lately as the genre continues to grow. When Haunt was announced it didn’t make much of a splash overall in most of my circles. It
was getting a limited theatrical release which was the same day as VOD. Even though
horror fans were most likely to see it, it’s the kind of film that to get a release without much fanfare.
There is one angle that made it a fascinating addition to
that subgenre. Haunt was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan
Woods and it’s produced by Eli Roth. The directors/writers proved they could
modernize old school horror to a very successful extent with their written material
for A Quiet Place and Eli Roth is relatively smart in the producer’s chair
in bringing up talent. Fortunately, the combination proves to be very effective
and Haunt ends up being one of the best films for the haunt movement and one of the best finds of the year.
Notable Cast: Bea Alonzo, Charo Santos-Concio, Jake
Cuenca, Maxene Magalona, Mary Joy Apostol, Gabby Padilla, Gillian Vicencio
Initial trailers made me relatively excited for Eerie,
the Filipino horror film that was recently picked up and released via Netflix
in the US, but then the weird publications started to get a hold of it.
Headlines that claimed it was too scary for regular audiences and how people
had to sleep with the lights on started to make their way across social media and
it immediately turned me off of it. Not that those kinds of claims indicate a
film is good or bad – another Netflix release, Veronica, was a film I
quite enjoyed that received the same treatment, but clickbait articles like
those sour me a little. Having a bit of free time to review a few films for the
year that I had not seen was the main reason I decided to partake in Eerie after some of that overzealous hype had worn down. Although there are certainly
some creepy set pieces to be enjoyed in the film, the overly predictable nature
of the plot and its adherence to so many tropes of the ‘ghostly girl’ sub-genre
make it a rather mixed effort. For every interesting piece of execution, it
follows it up with a mediocre one. For young horror fans, more casual film watchers,
or those simply not versed in the sect of Asian ghost stories, Eerie might be appealing. For the rest of us, it’s a rather hum-drum addition to the genre.
Notable cast: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader,
Bill Skarsgård, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean
It: Chapter Two serves as a really good reminder of
why people remember and celebrate the childhood half of the story. That may seem
harsh, but if anything, this movie does deserve praise for making the material
as interesting as it’s possible to make it. The adaptation of the story and some
of its more esoteric elements are at the very least bold and interesting. I’m a
long-time devoted King reader, and I grew up with the Tim Curry miniseries, but
I’m going to take this film strictly on its own merit. For a record of my potential
bias, the miniseries doesn’t really hold up, and probably wasn’t that good in
the first place, and the book is definitely upper tier King but admittedly kind
of a mess. Especially the ending…
Notable Cast: Bruce Davison, Elizabeth Roberts, Arman
Darbo, Chloe Perrin, Denise Crosby, Treva Etienne
Maybe it was just fate. Perhaps there's the snapback of
quality that is happening right now that comes every decade or so, but the creature feature genre is getting a hefty dose of ‘hell yeah’ in the booming horror scene.
Earlier this year Aja and Raimi dropped a fantastic and efficient killer gator
flick to theaters with Crawl and just last month saw the release of the
Kickstarter funded and Shout!/Scream Factory distributed killer spider flick, Itsy
Bitsy. It’s the latter film that’s the focus of this piece and, quite
frankly, it deserves the praise. Although the film has certainly been on my
radar for most of the year, particularly after the very effective trailer dropped a few months ago, Itsy Bitsy hasn’t had the word of mouth
response in my circles that it rightfully deserves since it’s release on VOD
last week. The fact remains, Itsy Bitsy is an efficient and effective
throwback creature feature that pours on the tension, spikes it with some
grotesque moments, and delivers on its simplistic and intimate premise. In a
world where the stupidity and self-awareness of SyFy original monster films
reigns, Itsy Bitsy is a serious and well-crafted piece of genre cinema aiming
to take back the sub-genre.
Notable cast: David Oyelowo, Storm Reid, Byron Mann,
Mykelti Williamson
Don’t Let Go is a Blumhouse Tilt movie that snuck
into theaters last week to little fanfare. Much like other movies released
under the Tilt name, this film has a lot of bold ideas and a reasonably young,
fresh talent expressing those ideas. Like a couple of other BH Tilt movies,
namely The Belko Experiment, The Green Inferno, and Upgrade
before it, this plot is well navigated territory with a slight genre tint to
help it stand out. Does it work as well this time as it did for those? Not
quite and that’s too bad.
By now the formula is established. The first three Red
Peony Gambler films share a common structure and narrative that solidifies
the identity of the series, but by the third film it was starting to wear
thin – even if that film ends up being quite the impressive little period
yakuza film. For the fourth film of this franchise, with the subtitle Second
Generation Ceremony, the series takes a somewhat unique direction that differentiates
it from its predecessors. One part of me enjoys the film for a relatively
refreshing approach to telling the next chapter of Oryu’s saga as a wandering
yakuza gambler. The other part of me found the film somewhat of a chore to sit
through with its sluggish pacing and occasionally overbaked plot. Although it’s
a flawed film, Red Peony Gambler 4 is still a decent film, but it doesn’t
find the balance and effective thematic depth of the three films prior.
Notable Cast: Lyu Yanting, Cao Yalong, Wang Zheng, Chen
Hao, Zeng Hongru, Yang Wei, Zhang Jiaming
One of the more fascinating pieces about the rise of the
Chinese film industry over the last five to ten years is how incredibly
unpredictable the entire thing is as a whole. Films that would seem to check
off all of the boxes to soar in the box office flounder and yet other films
come out as massive surprises. Of the latter category, Ne Zha might be one of
the most astounding. China has been slowly putting together an animation film
plan over the last few years to build an audience there and recent foreign box
office successes like Disney’s Coco and a re-release of Spirited Away
have laid the groundwork for a domestic giant to arise. As it turns out, that
film is Ne Zha. Ne Zha took China by storm, generating astronomical box
office numbers and becoming something of a legend seemingly overnight, enough
so that international distribution label Well Go USA took notice and quickly
generated a theatrical release for the film in the US. A surprising move since,
well, it’s a foreign language animated family film. Still, now that the film
his been unleashed on the unsuspecting US market, it’s safe to say that, yes, Ne
Zha is a blast. The animation is fun and tight, balancing traditional
cartoon choices with lush CGI detailing, and the story and narrative find a
strong balance between the family-friendly moments and key fantasy action set
pieces. This landmark animated film takes the best of the blockbuster formulas
that China has learned from Hollywood and given it a delightful and distinctly
Chinese spin. The results are a rip-roaring ride of laughs, action, and bigger
than life fantasy morals.
Notable Cast: Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, Niles
McMaster, Jane Lowry, Rudolph Willrich, Mildred Clinton, Michael Hardstark,
Brooke Shields
The first time that Alice, Sweet Alice came into my
awareness was probably a decade or so ago when a painting of the masked villain
of the film popped up on my social media feed. The painting itself was
fantastic, a modern exaggeration of the characteristics with bold yellows,
reds, and blues. If I could remember the artist, they deserve some credit and I
spent a good deal of time trying to find that picture again to very little
luck. The message was clear though, I needed to see the film. At the time,
there was only a shoddy version of the film available via Amazon Prime
streaming and this is where I first experienced it. Too often Alice, Sweet
Alice gets thrown into the lot of “forgotten slashers” on a variety of
internet lists and, despite its fair share of cult cinephiles that champion the
film, it tends to be despairingly overlooked. It doesn’t deserve to be. Alice,
Sweet Alice is one of the true diamonds to be found in the genre. It toys
with the expectations of the viewer, delivers on its off-beat quirks, and still
manages to layer in a lot of thoughtful material both in the visuals and
narrative to give the film punch on multiple watches. On top of all of that,
this latest (and greatest) Arrow Video Blu Ray release lives up the strength of
the film itself.
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Notable Cast: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Henry
Czerny
Horror and comedy are two great tastes that taste great
together. In a broad sense, it’s because they rely on the same psychological
concepts to play out. They’re both about the building of tension and lean on
resolving that stress in a surprising way. Ready Or Not enters a long
lineage of this sub-genre and does so in a fun way. Perhaps not wholly unique,
but it’s fun and it has style. It draws a specific line juxtaposing a gore
heavy, violent and hard “R” slasher sensibility with a sardonic, low-key, borderline
disaffected sense of humor and then rides that line for nearly all its worth
before getting out and walking away. In other words, it’s a pretty perfect
movie for the end of the summer and wonderful counter-programming to the
standard August dumping ground fare.
