Shudder Saturday: The Scary Of Sixty-First (2021)

Okay, here's the plot summary for The Scary Of Sixty-First, which I have copied directly from the streaming service I used to watch it. "While out apartment hunting, college pals Noelle and Addie stumble upon the deal of a lifetime: a posh duplex on Manhattan's Upper East Side. But soon after moving in, a more sinister picture of the apartment emerges when a mysterious woman arrives and claims the property used to belong to the infamous and recently-deceased Jeffrey Epstein."

Yeah. Feel free to go back and read that again, and again, until it sinks in.

Here's my view on comedy, and it's not necessarily one that everyone will agree with. Everything CAN be joked about, and I don't mind jokes about anything. Mind you, I am in quite a privileged position, and I think context is key. Oh, and it matters that the joke is actually funny. I also think there's a difference between making any joke in the company of one or two people and making a joke that you send out into the world, via the internet. My view on taste is similar to my view on comedy, in that something being tasteless isn't a major problem . . . if it's funny enough.

The Scary Of Sixty-First, although it works for some people (which I have since discovered from a couple of conversations I have had), didn't work for me. I found it tasteless, relatively pointless, and, worst of all, unfunny. A couple of moments made me laugh, those moments focusing on the British royal family, but almost everything else became an endurance test.

Madeline Quinn, who plays Noelle, co-wrote the screenplay with director Dasha Nekrasova, who plays "The Girl", and it's clear that those two are having fun. Betsey Brown, playing Addie, puts on a brave face, and performs in one of the most amusingly twisted sex scenes I have seen in some time (it's kind of jaw-dropping, although not really graphic). Although I was worried at how bad Nekrasova might be in the role of writer-director-lead, as the whole thing reeks of an ill-conceived vanity project, she is a solid driver at the wheel, and an enjoyable onscreen presence. I will also mention Mark Rapaport, the other person involved in that aforementioned sex scene, because he fits in well with the overall vibe and humour.

On the one hand, I cannot praise this much. I was left relatively unimpressed and unsatisfied by it. On the other hand, however, it definitely feels as if everyone involved did exactly what they set out to do. There are at least a couple of moments here that I won’t forget in a hurry, and I like it a little bit more now, thinking back on it, than I did when it was all playing out before my disbelieving eyes.

I still dislike it though, but I don’t hate it. And I admire the chutzpah of everyone involved. Maybe their next collaborative project, hopefully with a less sensational hook, will be more to my liking.

4/10

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Pledge (2018)

As we all know, how you react to movies can depend on many different factors. Your own personal life experiences, what other movies you have seen (that may have influenced, or been influenced by, whatever you're watching), and even just what mood you are in on that particular day. Pledge is a horror film based around the fact that some young men are so desperate to get into an exclusive fraternity that they will let the experienced frat members put them through hell.

I hated this movie, and I can pinpoint why I hated it. I am, for better or for worse, one of those people who agrees with the motto that "I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member". Fraternities, and the act of pledging to them, embody that notion arguably more than anything else I can think of. It's such a major thing for so many American students, and I am not saying that if I was a young American that I would be able to avoid the peer pressure, but I've always been majorly averse to the idea. That doesn't mean I cannot enjoy that rite of passage being used in movies, from the MANY enjoyable comedies that make use of it, to the silliness of something like The Skulls (remember that movie about the secret society that had a building with their insignia high up on their building for all to see?). But a horror movie showing people trying to stay happy while they're abused and tortured, all because they want accepted into such a shitty little "club"? No thanks.

I don't need to summarise the plot, I've basically done that already. So let's just cut to the chase, which is the part where I complain about nothing else in the movie doing anything to lift the material.

Writer Zack Weiner, who also gives himself a lead role, seems to have done no more than come up with what he thought was a great idea, and then made sure he had a place for himself in it. The characterisations are thin, nobody is believable, the plotting is so silly that it makes it impossible to suspend your disbelief for more than a few minutes at a time (I almost lasted a whole five minutes without questioning everything happening onscreen, but it turned out I was almost dozing off, so I had to rewind the film and watch parts of it again).

This is the third feature from Daniel Robbins, and nothing here makes me want to see anything else from him. That may be a mistake, however, as the summary for his previous film, Uncaged, doesn't sound too bad (I am sure some of my friends can give me a yay or nay on that one). Perhaps he found his hands bound too tightly by the script, or perhaps he just thought, like Weiner, that the central concept was strong enough to make up for the many failings. Both of them were very wrong.

I'll mention Zachery Byrd, playing Justin, as a bit of a highlight, but I don't even want to bother namechecking the others. Those trying to pledge are shown as whiny weaklings, while the posh "kids" have all the power and enjoy abusing it throughout most of the runtime. Nobody is necessarily terrible, but nobody is given any shading to their character, despite moments that look to be heading that way.

Unless I am misremembering something, this is probably the worst mainstream horror movie I have seen in the last few years. And that includes The Nun.

2/10

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