For It Is Man's Number: August 2023

Thursday 31 August 2023

Titanic 666 (2023)

If you look through the films made by director Nick Lyon, or the films written by Jason Cooney or Jason White, you may notice a number of . . . interesting (yes, let's go with interesting) titles listed. Don't be too quick to dismiss their work though, because they all seem interested in making films that are at least fun, even if limited budgets and resources undermine whatever vision they're trying to put onscreen. That approach is also clear in the silly, but not entirely unenjoyable, Titanic 666.

The plot is on a level of silliness that you might expect. A group of people are on board the Titanic III - the usual mix of people you might root for, people you might hate, and someone who seems to have their own mysterious agenda - and there are also cabinets displaying items salvaged from the original Titanic. Could that be just asking for bad luck? Maybe, but Professor Hal Cochran (Jamie Bamber) doesn't believe so. He thinks there's a lot of money to be made. Idina Bess (Lydia Hearst), on the other hand, thinks that there's another way for people to pay for a piece of the past.

It's never scary, not really, but Titanic 666 is also never too dull, whether viewers are being introduced to the selection of characters (including a pair of influencers, played by AnnaLynne McCord and Derek Yates) or shown the appearance of numerous spirits about to cause havoc on the ship. It's typical of many movies from The Asylum, with very simple plotting, plenty of stereotypes populating the narrative, and runtime that's padded out by judicious use of stock footage, but those who know what they're getting into should find enough to enjoy here. While I wouldn't rush to rewatch this, nor would I recommend it to many people, I didn't have a bad time watching it. I wanted more AnnaLynne McCord, she's sadly underused, but everything else worked on the level I expected.

Aside from McCord, the cast members worth mentioning are Keesha Sharp (playing the Captain of the ship), Joseph Gatt (definitely up to something that may make the situation much worse), and both Bamber and Hearst, playing central characters with opposing viewpoints on the history of the Titanic, and the weight of the tragedy.

The script is more concerned with filling time in between the minor ghostly set-pieces, and the direction is more competent than skilled, and let's not dwell on the quality of the special effects on display, but I cannot bring myself to loathe this. It was fine. I've seen plenty of other people eager to pick this apart. If you want to do that then there's plenty here to pick at. But if you just want to watch something that aims to entertain, something that isn't challenging or too complicated, then this is perfectly fine. I wouldn't call it good, but it does what it sets out to do.

4/10

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Wednesday 30 August 2023

Prime Time: The Lost Episode (2012)

There were three things I didn’t know when I decided to press play on The Lost Episode. First of all, it was directed by Michael Rooker. I thought it might have been someone different with the same name, but no, it is THAT Michael Rooker. Second, it has about half a dozen alternate titles and is part of some loosely-connected series of ultra-low-budget horror movies. Third, it’s absolutely awful.

Although one or two movies have angered me recently, The Lost Episode takes the prize for the laziest and most insulting movie I have seen this year. It’s clear that, yet again, people came up with this idea and decided that unfussy horror fans will still swallow this down like a sugar-coated lump of animal faeces.

The plot is simple. A group of people enter an apparently haunted building and start poking around. Ghosts soon join them, but logic never does.

Surprisingly, there is supposed to be a proper script, written by Joe Nelms and Sue Bailey, although I am not sure how much effort they put into the actual dialogue (which is awful . . . especially coming from people who have actually written one proper movie that I enjoy before this, the very amusing Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The Thirteenth). Almost every minute of this is terrible, terribly dull, and featuring characters it is impossible to care about.

I am not going to mention any of the cast here, mainly because I don’t want to be too negative and nasty towards a bunch of people I doubt I will see in any major lead roles, although I am surprised by how many movie credits some of them have. Nobody does good work here, but I am going to put all of the blame on the broad shoulders of Rooker, who directs with all the style and skill of a dropped bowl of mashed potato.

I really like Rooker, I often love Rooker, but this attempt to move from acting into directing is an absolute disaster. Visuals are crude and ugly throughout, and there’s never a feeling of anyone really being at the helm. It is unsurprising, and quite a relief, to see that Rooker hasn’t tried his hand at directing anything else. Maybe he did this as a challenge, or a favour, but it’s clear that he is much more suited to being in front of the camera (which he also manages here, somehow directing himself in one of his worst onscreen performances).

One to avoid at all costs, and truly one of the worst films I have ever seen, not even saved by the relatively short runtime under 80 minutes. I know that some people will read this review and think “it can’t be THAT bad”. It is. If you decide to check it out for yourself then don’t say that you weren’t warned.

1/10

Tuesday 29 August 2023

The Dive (2023)

Based on a 2020 film, Breaking Surface (which I haven’t seen, meaning I cannot tell you how closely this sticks to the plot beats), The Dive is an enjoyable and tense thriller that boasts some excellent underwater cinematography complementing the escalating chain of obstacles getting between the characters and precious oxygen.

Louisa Krause and Sophie Lowe play sisters named, respectively, May and Drew. The two of them are on a diving trip together, ready to enjoy some time underwater in a beautiful, but very isolated, seaside area. The two seem to know what they are doing, neither is an amateur, and they want to find some memorable underwater sights to enjoy. There’s also tension between the two sisters though, something that stems from past events that are glimpsed in various flashbacks throughout the film. The idyllic experience is spoiled slightly by a rockfall that leaves May trapped under a large rock. It is up to Drew to get extra oxygen to May as she works on a plan to move the rock and free her sister. Time is of the essence, but you cannot rush everything when moving between fairly deep water and the surface.

Directed and co-written by Maximilian Erlenwein, alongside Joachim Hedén (writer of the original), The Dive is a film that benefits from having a great central concept. The problem comes from a script that then tries to flesh that concept out in a way that is completely unnecessary. I get it, a 91-minute runtime isn’t exactly bloated, but it still feels too long for this, mainly because the flashbacks ultimately feel as if they lead to a conclusion that is flat and underwhelming. There’s nothing here as interesting as anything viewers may have already made up in their own minds, and then everything just peters out. I know that those involved may have been trying to stay away from too many obvious pulpy thrills, but you could have easily replaced the disappointing backstory with other obstacles instead. A few more rocks threatening our trapped diver, a nervy encounter with some curious marine life, I can think of at least half a dozen other details I would have preferred to the scenes that just felt like padding.

Krause and Lowe are perfectly fine in their roles, if nothing special. They seem to have been picked more for their ability to deal with the physical side of things, and they always look convincingly capable, despite the growing stress and danger of the situation. Krause has more to do, in terms of an emotional journey, and her performance would have been helped by a backstory delivering a properly impactful punch, but both do well enough with what they’re given.

I enjoyed this, especially for the scenes leading up to the halfway point that show one problem after another as the situation goes from bad to worse, but it should have been so much better. Sometimes a simplistic thriller works best when every ounce of fat is trimmed from it. That should have been the approach here. Regardless, enjoy the tension, and enjoy the underwater cinematography (Eric Börjeson is the underwater DOP, so I have to mention him before I end this review). There’s enough to like here. I just don’t think anyone will love it.

6/10

Monday 28 August 2023

Mubi Monday: Medusa Deluxe (2023)

Whether it only seems that way, or whether it has actually been filmed that way, the one-take movie has become a very popular format in recent years. It's a technical challenge that allows everyone involved to show off their skillset, and it can increase the tension of any subject matter. You still need other elements in place though, like an engaging script and interesting characters, but the maker of Medusa Deluxe seems to have forgotten that.

The setting is a hairdressing contest. There's been a death, and the dead man was scalped. The various hairdressers, as well as their models, have to wait around for their time to be interviewed by the police. While everyone starts to speculate about who might be a murderer, secrets and simmering resentments start to increase the possibility of someone else ending up dead by the end of the day.

The feature debut from writer-director Thomas Hardiman, Medusa Deluxe is a gimmick movie without anything else going for it. That isn't to dismiss the talent of the cast, who all do a good job of playing their characters while also hitting the marks needed to maintain that one-take magic, but they deserve much better material to work with. Hardiman seems so intent in the setting and style of the movie that he forgets to craft a better "murder mystery" at the heart of it. I defy anyone to watch this and care about the victim, or to even care about 90% of the conversations. It's dull, despite the roving camera and the mix of characters used to prove that a one-take movie doesn't have to feel locked down and "safe". The problem is that many movie viewers will already know this, especially if they have seen better films like Victoria and Boiling Point.

Standouts from the cast include Clare Perkins, Harriet Webb, Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Heider Ali, and Darrell D'Silva, although nobody embarrasses themselves. It's just a shame that I didn't really warm to anyone here, which meant that I wasn't invested in however everything might be resolved, whether it's a safe and cosy finale or one that adds another dead body to the plot. People stand where they are supposed to stand, in relation to the lighting and framing, and they deliver their dialogue, but there's always a palpable sense of them working in service of the technique, rather than the technique feeling more organic alongside their performances.

I've seen/heard a lot of praise for this, some people appreciate this as an astonishing and dazzling achievement, but I'm with the people who disliked it. It's undeniably a hell of a way to make your first feature, and kudos to Hardiman for a number of the choices made here, but it's not actually enjoyable or interesting enough in the many ways that it should be.

3/10

Sunday 27 August 2023

Netflix And Chill: Heart Of Stone (2023)

I am often accused of being too kind in my movie ratings and reviews, and that is absolutely fine with me. I go into EVERY movie with optimism, and I always remember that the final result in front of my eyes is the result of people working together to get a clear vision onscreen. Sometimes it is only a handful of people, sweating and struggling to pool resources, and sometimes it's a huge number of people who can get their hands on whatever they need for their glossy blockbuster. Heart Of Stone falls into the latter camp, and it's one of those films that allows me to be unkind. Because it is, undoubtedly, one of the most soulless and unexciting pieces of garbage that I've seen in a long time.

Gal Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, a woman working as part of a MI6 team. She's a technician, supposed to be able to stay safe and observant while others do the action stuff, but they don't realise that Stone is actually working for a global peacekeeping agency known as The Charter. The Charter has the advantage of being able to feed agents information from a powerful AI device they call The Heart (see? see where the title comes from?), a super-computer that can hack into any digital device and offer fluctuating predictions on the potential success of every possibility for a field agent on a mission. Someone wants to get to The Heart though, and that could allow them to become a very powerful super-villain. There's treachery, changes of alliance, and horribly inept set-pieces all thrown together on the way to a finale that feels as smug as it does predictable.

It has become all too easy lately for people to dismiss a film by saying "it feels as if it was written by A.I.", but that certainly feels like it was a factor here. A Netflix film, and we know that they often design their movies around certain patterns and factor they have seen in their viewing data, the humans actually responsible for this screenplay are Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder. While I wasn't surprised to see that Rucka was used to the Netflix style, having also had a hand in The Old Guard (a film I have yet to muster the enthusiasm to watch), I was very surprised to see Schroeder attached to this, considering her work in recent years on both Hidden Figures and Christopher Robin, as well as being an extra helping hand on the screenplay for Frozen 2. It's equally surprising to see Tom Harper sitting in the director's chair for this. I can only imagine that he either wanted a different kind of challenge, wanted a big payday, or both, considering his past couple of movies were the very different, and apparently much better, The Aeronauts and Wild Rose. What isn't surprising is that neither the writers nor director put any kind of personal stamp on this. Heart Of Stone is a star vehicle. It just doesn't have a good enough star in the lead role.

I like Gal Gadot. I do. She's pretty great in the role of Wonder Woman, even if the films are very often not the best vehicles for the character, and I have enjoyed her in most of her other movie roles. Superhero movies aside though, she's never really been given a lead role, and Heart Of Stone clearly shows why this is the case. She doesn't shine as she should, unable to give the role the mix of humour and charisma needed. It doesn't help that she's surrounded by a cast of equally dull performers, whether that's caused by their own acting or the script is something I'm still debating internally. Jamie Dornan and Alia Bhatt are the wost offenders, but even someone as good as Sophie Okonedo seems to be delivering her lines as if she'd rather be doing anything else instead. Both Jing Kusi and Paul Ready are a bit more enjoyable, and I was most disappointed when their limited screentime came to an end. The other cast member worth mentioning is Matthias Schwieghöfer, who proves himself a highlight once again, having won people over with his turn in Army Of The Dead, leading to his lead role in the spin-off, Army Of Thieves. He works well in his role here, despite having to deliver exposition while portraying "intel guy monitoring and moving around computer data depicted as an augmented reality display surrounding him".

There was one action set-piece I quite enjoyed here, a chase involving cars, bikes, and a chunky van, but I even watched that while wondering whether or not I preferred a similar sequence in the recent action comedy Murder Mystery 2. As for the rest of the film, it moves from one bit of over-edited greenscreen nonsense to the next, keeping you stuck alongside a lead character you don't care about as things wind towards a tiresome conclusion that lets the film end EXACTLY how you think it is going to end. This is the kind of hollow and artless work that ends up on Netflix because it isn't good enough to end up anywhere else. It certainly isn't good enough to end up on your viewing schedule. Treat yourself to something better. It won't be hard.

And, yes, I know many will still think my final rating here is too kind.

3/10

Saturday 26 August 2023

Shudder Saturday: The Communion Girl (2022)

A Spanish horror film that will feel very familiar to those who have seen one or two movies about vengeful spirits, The Communion Girl has a lot going for it, and I suspect there may be a bit more to it than I even realised. For example, considering the themes being explored, I'm not sure why it was set in the latter half of the 1980s. The time period didn't seem to matter too much, but maybe that will be a bonus for people who know more about what may have been happening in Spain at that time. Or maybe it doesn't matter.

Carla Campara plays Sara, a relatively new girl in town. After a night of drink and drugs with her friend, Rebe (Aina Quiñones), things get a bit spooky. While being driven home by a couple of potential "bad boys", Sara thinks she sees a little girl in a communion dress crossing their path. Heading into some woods to find her, she comes back with nothing more than a grubby little doll. Hoping to reunite doll and owner, Sara takes the thing back home. And that's when things go from bad to worse, with Sara and Rebe, and one or two others, eventually having visions of a scary figure who seems to want to be saved from being lost, cold, and alone.

Directed by Victor García, who also directed the fun Return To House On Haunted Hill and the not-so-fun Hellraiser: Revelations, this is a perfectly enjoyable slice of spookiness that features a pair of decent main characters having to solve a mystery before it causes them to expire. Guillem Clau's script delivers just enough information and context throughout to keep them going on the right track while the exact details are suitably obfuscated until it's time for a last-minute reveal. It also shows Sara and Rebe dealing with a number of other factors - two very different family situations, interference from others ready to judge the company they keep and how they spend their time - as they try to focus their energies on an increasingly important investigation.

Campra and Quiñones are both very good in their roles, playing two different types of young women who complement one another nicely, and both Marc Soler and Carlos Oviedo are decent as the young men who end up unwillingly involved in a very scary situation. Aside from Olimpia Roch, playing Sara's little sister, Judit, and doing an excellent job of providing extra motivation for Sara to put an end to the danger that she worries will also affect others around her, I would also highlight the combination of physical performance and great makeup that brings "to life" one or two impressively unnerving spirits.

While there's nothing spectacular here, and nothing spectacularly original, this does everything you want it to do very well. The actions of the characters don't feel too illogical, the central mystery is put together reasonably well, and there's a dark undertone to a number of main sequences that highlight a deeper theme running through everything (again, the time period may also be a factor here, but maybe that was just used to omit the genre-spoiling likes of the internet and smart phones). Maybe not a film to revisit often, if at all, but it's a creepy little gem that horror fans shouldn't resent fitting into their viewing schedules.

7/10

Friday 25 August 2023

No Hard Feelings (2023)

Walking a tightrope between raunchy fun and hard-to-overlook ickiness, No Hard Feelings is a disappointingly tame sec comedy that has not enough of either the sex or the comedy. If you have been put off by the central premise (Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman so desperate for money that she answers an ad placed by two parents who want her to give their son a full girlfriend experience) then I would simply say that the script, co-written by John Phillips and Gene Stupnitsky, works hard to make everything much sweeter and more palatable, arguably to the detriment of the comedic potential of the whole thing.

Lawrence is Maddie Barker, someone we first see panicking as her car gets taken away. She needs the cat to earn money as an Uber driver, allowing her to pay off an overdue amount of tax on the house that was left to her by her mother. Maddie is a bit of a mess, for a number of reasons, but she tries to put on a different persona when answering the aforementioned advert, placed by two parents who don’t want their son to know anything about the scheme. It has to seem natural and real, and Maddie believes she will easily present herself as a fine catch. Unfortunately, the young man (Percy Becker, played by Andrew Barth Feldman) is so painfully shy and awkward, and so unable to pick up on social cues, that a successful outcome seems far from guaranteed. Maddie soon learns that he’s also very sweet, which is a development/complication that she didn’t even consider.

The main strength here is Lawrence, who leans fully into any ridiculous moment her character is thrown into. Whether she’s insulting people who are delivering unwanted judgements, sharing the class-based chip on her shoulder, or delivering so many double entendres that quickly devolve into sledgehammering single entendres, Lawrence is a lot of fun, and it’s clear that she should try her hand at it more often. Feldman is also very good, perfectly embodying the kind of nervy and good-hearted nerd that would have been placed as the super-horny lead if this film has been made in the 1980s. The concerned/slightly creepy parents are well-played by Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti, both seemingly oblivious to the oddness of their approach to dealing with, and trying to help, their son. Natalie Morales and Scott MacArthur are fairly enjoyable as friends of Maddie, sometimes offering advice and sometimes criticising her choices, and Ebon Moss-Bacharach has a very amusing turn as the man who tows away Maddie’s car while wondering aloud why she broke off their short relationship without giving him any explanation or second chance.

Stupnitsky directs the whole thing with a disappointing lack of energy, not helped by the script that he and Phillips should have taken apart and rebuilt once they realised it wasn’t really working. And they should have realised that it wasn’t really working when the entire third act became far too dull and depressing. There are positives, but they are too little too late when it comes to outweighing the negatives, almost as if the film-makers forgot what kind of film they started with. It isn’t as if this is uncommon, many films like this one decide to push the laughs aside as the scene is set for a grand finale of rehabilitation and renewed love (be it for a character or just for life itself), but they have usually taken viewers on a more enjoyable journey before getting to that point.

It’s not dire, and I smiled a number of times as predictable moments played out, but this is hugely disappointing, and it lacks even one memorable set-piece (aside from one scene notable for Lawrence playing it completely nude, which gets more sad the more I think about it . . . THAT is the best you could come up with for a set-piece idea?). Either make a sweet rom-com or make a ballsy sex comedy. This neutered end result will, I suspect, end up pleasing less people as it tries to please everyone.

4/10

Thursday 24 August 2023

The Blackening (2023)

Expanding a skit by comedy group 3Peat, and riffing on the well-known horror trope of the black character most often being the first to die, The Blackening is a slasher comedy that I was looking forward to for some time. The marketing was pretty good, and the tagline - "we can't all die first" - was brilliantly on point.

There's a small prologue showing a couple of people in danger, but then it's business as usual. A group of people meet up at a cabin in the woods, all there for an overdue bit of quality time with their friends during the Juneteenth holiday (a date that celebrates the end of slavery in the USA). Unfortunately, someone has set up a deadly game for them to participate in. That game involves answering various questions revolving around black culture, with a wrong answer due to result in great pain, and even death. It might be time, this time around, for the "least black" main characters to be endangered ahead of the others. But that pits our characters against one another, as they start to prove their race credentials to one another, playing on stereotypes and clichés that are also subverted as things start to twist and turn on the way to a final act revealing the killer and motivation.

Written by Tracy Oliver (who has delivered a number of fun scripts in the past 6-7 years) and Dewayne Perkins (a member of 3Peat, and someone with a decent selection of TV credits to his name already), The Blackening is a film full of potential, and the first half hits pretty much every target. Director Tim Story has been in the game long enough to handle the material with a steady guiding hand, and the simplicity of the setting keeps the focus on the various friendships and rivalries within the main group of characters.

The cast all have fun in their roles, whether they're playing things broadly or allowed to be more low-key, and I think everyone did their best to ensure that the script was delivered as well as could be. Grace Byers, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Perkins (hey, if you co-write a screenplay then you may as well give yourself a part), Jermaine Fowler, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji interact well with one another, and convince when faced with a masked killer, and Diedrich Bader is good fun as the aptly-named Ranger White, a character who spends a lot of time ensuring that his words aren't misconstrued when his priority should be stopping a killing spree.

Sadly, as is often the case with many horror comedies, the biggest problem here is the balance of the genre elements. There are some great laughs here, with the script often never too far away from a smart and witty observation, but there aren't any real scares or tension (decent opening sequence aside). Which means that the third act, where laughs are a bit less frequent, stumbles along to resolve everything with an underwhelming sigh. It's so disappointing that it drags down the entire movie, but there's still just enough here to make it worth a watch. And you have to bear in mind that I am saying this as a plain white Brit, so I am sure there are many African American people who will get even more out of it than I did.

A great concept, well-realised during a number of scenes, but it's a shame that there couldn't have been a better handling of the horror elements alongside the comedy. Maybe they'll do better with that if there's a sequel.

6/10

Wednesday 23 August 2023

Prime Time: Miss Sloane (2016)

Although essentially a drama about a very skilled lobbyist being put in a tight corner by people wanting to render her powerless, Miss Sloane could equally be described as a con movie. Then again, maybe that is very much part of the point. Viewers are shown how lobbying is often a con game, and the system is open to equal amounts of abuse from the good and the bad, with both sides often believing that they are on the right side of a worthwhile political cause.

Jessica Chastain is the titular (Miss) Elizabeth Sloane, a successful and shrewd lobbyist who decides to jump ship, heading to join “the other side”, when there’s another bill being proposed to help improve gun control laws. Her passionate opposition to this makes her a target, which leads to her being requested to testify at a congressional hearing about her behaviour, and ethics, throughout her time working in politics. As she seems to make one or two minor mistakes, potentially bringing a house of cards crashing down upon her head, it becomes clear that the hearing is all part of the battle between two teams on opposite sides of the gun control debate.

Although writer Jonathan Perera doesn’t spoonfeed viewers, Miss Sloane just about manages to convey everything it needs to convey in a smart and concise manner. There are other approaches to the material that might have worked equally well, or even better, but Perera relies on getting us to trust a main character that, above all else, seems to be all too aware of the consequences of her actions. When things become a bit too busy or confusing, never mind, we are always right alongside someone who is convinced that they are doing the right thing.

Director John Madden has faith in the script and cast, and rightly so, as well as the patience of viewers. A lot of this movie is made up of people debating in rooms of various sizes, but it’s intelligent and snappy enough to be entertaining without any unnecessary bells and whistles added to it. Every aspect of the production seems to have been handled with care, the camera is set, and the cast get to give their best. Which they certainly do.

I have recently come to appreciate Chastain more and more onscreen, and this is one of her best roles. She is brilliantly relentless and smart, often acting in a way that would turn you off a main character, but helped by the fact that her considerable intellect and determination is aimed squarely at the gun lobby. Mark Strong is his usual dependable excellence, playing a boss who has to trust his new employee as she looks set to head further and further into deep and dangerous waters. John Lithgow is the senator chairing the hearing, and it’s a fine turn from him, while there are equally great roles for Michael Stuhlberg (a standout for him, playing a “shark” on the opposing team), Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alison Pill, Sam Waterston, and Jake Lacy. Everyone seems to be using others or being used, but it’s something that feels more like acceptable collateral damage in the fight for the greater good.

It isn’t always pleasant to see how often the plans of government are actually crafted by those hidden away behind the main figureheads, but it’s important to remember it. Knowing the system can lead people to more easily hold the system to account, which could, perhaps, improve it. Maybe I am just being far too optimistic there. Regardless, Miss Sloane is a worthwhile watch, both informative and entertaining, and it’s a reminder that politics is like playing chess with a panicking pigeon; sometimes only one person knows the game, but the winner can still end up covered in shit.

8/10

Tuesday 22 August 2023

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

If watching Insidious: The Red Door has helped me fix a major blind spot then it was all worthwhile. I was setting up my review template for this (which is when I usually double-check cast and crew names) when I realised that I had been mis-spelling Leigh Whannell’s name for over a decade. Over a decade. Please, I implore you, if you ever read anything from me that contains such a constant error, please let me know. Sometimes the brain tricks you into thinking you are spelling things correctly, which can create the habit of a long-standing error. This long-standing error has now been corrected, with me editing every one of my online reviews that I could still access, after seeing Insidious: The Red Door. Which probably means that I got more from this film than most people.

I really enjoyed Insidious. While many people were underwhelmed by it, and quite a few were in a rush to refer to the main demonic figure as Darth Maul, I thought it was an excellent horror movie with some perfectly-executed scares. Despite the ups and downs of the series, it stays just ahead of The Conjuring movies, and is helped by not having to be beholden to central characters we know were actually viewed by many others as self-serving fraudsters. If Insidious: The Red Door is the last in the series then it is a very disappointing end, but I would prefer the series to end here than to try and limp through another instalment or two.

Everyone returns to their main roles, but the focus of the film is on the strained father and son relationship between Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins). Having had their most traumatic life experience wiped from their minds, there seems to be something else missing between them. Josh and Renai (Rose Byrne) have separated, and Dalton is leaving the nest aka heading to university. Go figure, something happens that triggers something in the mind of Dalton, leading him on a path to remember his past and face his demons. Literally. Helped on his journey by a new female friend (Chris Winslow, played by Sinclair Daniel), Dalton soon realises that he is in a lot of danger . . . and he might have to reconnect with his father to find a way back to something resembling a more normal, and much safer, life.

Written by Scott Teems, continuing song the path set out a long time ago by Leigh Whannell, Insidious: The Red Door is just about as redundant as movies get. There’s nothing new here, nothing to care about, and no decent scares. As well as reprising his onscreen role, Wilson has been allowed to direct this, and it feels like a way to thank him for being part of two hugely successful modern horror movie franchises. That’s all well and good, but perhaps studios could just send him a wine subscription next time. Although competent, Wilson shows that he knows the basics of film-making without having noted the ways in which geography and set-ups are worked together to craft the best scares. The best moments here are, dare I say it, Wan-esque, but they are slightly mishandled in a way that makes you wish you were watching one of the earlier films in this series.

As for the acting, Wilson and Simpkins are both fine, and Byrne does what is required of her, but the only person to really stand out is Daniel, who provides a much-needed shot in the arm to the film, which would otherwise have been full of scenes showing one young man being glum, an older man being glum, and sometimes the two of them being glum together.

Nobody is helped by the script, with Teems seeming far too nervous to stray from the central path that should lead to the end of the series, but the pacing and infrequent moments of humour help to make it more bearable than it could have been. Despite bringing to mind more memorable moments, callbacks to the first film generally work well, and there’s a middle section that allows Simpkins and Daniel to almost have some fun before everything descends further into darkness and peril.

It’s not good, but it’s not exactly awful either. I doubt I will remember it by next month though, and I certainly won’t want to ever revisit it.

5/10

Monday 21 August 2023

Mubi Monday: Baghead (2008)

Although I had no idea about what to really expect from Baghead, I knew that I liked the people involved. The Duplass brothers were in charge of both writing and directing (with John E. Bryant also credited for creating a film within the film), and the cast included Greta Gerwig, currently being celebrated by almost everyone for helming Barbie and helping to turn the world happily pink, for at least a short time anyway.

The slight plot sees four people, two men and two women, head out to a cabin in the woods to relax and come up with some creative movie ideas. That’s a perfect horror movie premise, of course, and it isn’t long until someone gets nervous when they realise they are being watched by someone with who could best be described as a “baghead”, hence the title. It probably isn’t anyone outside the core group though, because who would want to get mixed up with this mass of insecurities, tensions, frustrations, and attempted betrayal. These adults often act like teens, especially when both of the men take a shine to the same woman (Gerwig).

Described in some places as a low-budget, lo-fi, horror comedy, Baghead isn’t something to rush to if you want scares or laughs. It has too few of either, although it certainly has a better blend of the two than some horror comedies I could point out. I am not trying to gate-keep here, not wanting to remove any genre credentials. I just don’t want people going in with the wrong expectations. What you get here is decent, it’s interesting, but it actually works best when looking at the ways in which people will manipulate the creative process for personal gain. It also looks at abuse of power in a small, but thought-provoking, way.

Steve Zissis and Ross Partridge are the two main male characters, and both feel very well-suited to the Duplass brothers style. In fact, I was surprised that the brothers themselves didn’t take on these roles, but maybe they weren’t confident enough at this point in their career. Or maybe they just felt that Zissis and Partridge were better in the roles. Gerwig is as good as she always is, and she works especially well opposite Elise Muller (the older of the two, a bit more savvy, and able to deliver criticisms with a smile and a demeanour that makes them seem as if they could be compliments). Jett Garner also has a small, but vital, role, and he does well enough, but it’s a relief that he isn’t part of the main group that we spend most of our time with.

I tend to like movies from the Duplass brothers, although I always feel as if I haven’t seen nearly enough of them. Don’t go into this if you want a horror or a comedy, or a mix of the two. Go into it if you want a Duplass brothers movie. It succeeds in that regard, with the talented duo using some genre elements to present moments that work on a couple of different layers. You could even begin to wonder if we should be as critical of what the brothers present as we are of what the men onscreen are planning, and I think that is absolutely part of the talking points being raised here. This is fun, odd, and very clever.

8/10

Sunday 20 August 2023

Netflix And Chill: Bull (2021)

I doubt he remembers it, but I had a lovely meeting once with writer-director Paul Andrew Williams that I believe has helped inform my approach to reviewing over the past decade. It was a timely reminder that, whatever you think of a movie, people are often working together with the best of intentions to put something onscreen that they believe in, something that they hope will connect with others. The fact that he granted me an interview before I even had a smartphone is also as sweet as it is embarrassing (I can still remember frantically scribbling down notes on a jotter that encapsulated the gist of our all-too-brief conversation).

Anyway, this is all preamble, and it doesn't explain why I took so long to get around to watching Bull. Perhaps it does though. And perhaps it also explains why I have yet to watch his 2012 movie, Song For Marion. I wanted to maintain an opinion of his filmography that remained weighted towards the positive (having enjoyed both London To Brighton and The Cottage) and Williams certainly isn't someone afraid of making bold choices in his film-making.

Bull stars the excellent Neil Maskell in the main role, a man who is apparently "back from the dead" to get revenge on those who wronged him. He wants to know where his ex-partner, Gemma (Lois Brabin-Platt) and son are currently living, and he'll destroy anyone who gets in his way. Numerous flashbacks show us what happened before everything went to pot for Bull. There are some happy times, but it's soon a slow slide towards misery as Gemma starts having an affair behind his back, using heroin, and then wanting to take their son away from Bull. He doesn't want this to happen, of course, but Gemma is the daughter of local crime lord, Norm (David Hayman). Norm is also Bull's boss, basically, and that makes things very difficult when Bull starts to fight for the right to keep custody of his son.

Not for the queasy, Bull is a film that shows terrible, and realistic, violence from the very first moments. And it only gets worse from there. The central character, played with impressive focus and barely-contained rage by Maskell, doesn't care about those he kills. If they're in his way then they have to be removed, and if their death can also be turned into a message then all the better. Williams threads together plenty of impressive moments, helped by a cast who all feel very believable in their roles, and there's also a brooding score by Benjamin Stefanski AKA Raffertie, as well as impressive cinematography from Ben Chads and Vanessa Whyte.

With the main premise being a feared figure coming back into their home town to cut a swathe through the local criminal gang as he gets bloody vengeance that starts to seem more and more unavoidable, it's natural to compare this to the masterful Dead Man's Shoes. It's also a bit unfair though. Few films are as good as Dead Man's Shoes, in my opinion, but Bull actually comes damn close. Although many will disagree, I started to appreciate it even more as it turned into something a bit stranger and less predictable in the third act, heading towards an audacious and brilliant ending that I know some people absolutely loathed. As I said just above, Williams certainly isn't someone afraid of making bold choices in his film-making.

Maskell is as great as ever here, and it's always great to see him get a rare lead role (he should get a lot more of them), and Hayman is equal to him, albeit portraying someone apparently just as dangerous in a quieter and more dishonest way. Brabin-Platt is good, even if her character is turned into someone you can boo and hiss at by the midway point, and I was pleased to see both Tamzin Outhwaite and Kellie Shirley in minor roles, although both are sorely underused. Kevin Harvey, Jason Milligan, Yassine Mkhichen, David Nellist, Jake Davies, and Jay Simpson make up the rest of the main players, and all do well at being suitably unnerved, and/or prepared to be violently murdered, by our lead.

I can't find much to fault in this. I thought it was a great story, told with the help of a great cast, and the ending felt as if it somehow made complete sense, and somehow fit perfectly in line with all that had already happened. I realise others feel different about it, but I would certainly encourage everyone to watch it at least once. Now, excuse me, I'm off to buy the limited edtion blu-ray from Second Sight.

9/10

Saturday 19 August 2023

Shudder Saturday: Bad Things (2023)

Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) has just inherited her grandmother's hotel at the start of Bad Things. That kind of sudden surprise could easily be the start of a sweet romance, the springboard for an "underdog overcomes the odds" feelgood flick, or just an outright comedy. The fact that Ruthie is staying at the hotel with her partner, Cal (Hari Nef), a friend named Maddie (Rad Pereira), and another friend, but one who might want more than just friendship (Fran, played by Annabelle Dexter-Jones), maintains all of that potential for a selection of light-hearted options. Bad Things isn't light-hearted though. It's a horror movie, and one that seems to focus most of all on absence, whether it's the absence of real guests in the hotel, the absence of real regret, or the absence of Ruthie's mother, a woman who has helped to make Ruthie the mess she seems to be.

Much like a certain other horror movie set in a fairly empty hotel, Bad Things is all about the deteriorating mental state of the main character, a fragility and nerviness that is exacerbated by others around her. Things are strained between Ruthie and Cal, something Maddie is very much aware of, and Fran seems intent on adding to that strain, especially if it means that she can convince Ruthie to choose her over anyone else. Meanwhile, a jogging couple keep turning up around, and sometimes inside, the hotel, and there are a few other individuals who seem to appear just long enough to make people doubt their sanity.

Writer-director Stewart Thorndike might not be making her first feature, that would be Lyle (2014), a film that sounds interesting enough for me to seek out at some point, but she definitely works well with fairly limited resources to deliver an impressively unique and female-focused horror that moves slowly, but purposefully, from an atmosphere of carelessness and slight worry to one of panic and real danger. Cinematographer Grant Greenberg prowls the corridors of the main building, often showing other characters at a slight distance, whether they are recognisable to viewers or some of the strange interlopers about to unnerve one or two of the leads, and the score by Jason Falkner is a brilliant blend of the simple, the quirky, and the outright menacing.

The acting styles vary between the leads, but everyone feels like a good fit for the role given to them. Rankin is the eye of the storm, in many ways, and those around her struggle to keep themeselves rooted safely to the ground, for different reasons. Dexter-Jones wants to get closer to her, while both Pereira and Nef try to maintain a certain distance, the latter out of a self-protective urge to avoid being hurt once again by a partner who hasn't been on her best behaviour recently. Jared Abrahamson has a couple of memorable scenes, and I enjoyed the fact that he was never really depicted as more than just a minor annoyance, and fans of Molly Ringwald will be please to see her onscreen for a few minutes, in a role that actually makes excellent use of her in such a limited amount of screentime.

Many will watch this and be turned off by it. It's a deliberately obtuse and challenging piece of work, a horror of internal stress and damage being transformed into external dangers. Get through the first scenes, however, and start to soak up the atmosphere of it, and you will be rewarded with something both thought-provoking and satisfyingly unnerving. It's a character piece, and a look at some different relationship dynamics, but it also remembers to deliver proper horror movie moments.

8/10

Friday 18 August 2023

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Although there has been a renewed interested in women’s football recently, I should state that the timing of me finally watching Bend It Like Beckham, a film I have owned for at least a decade, is entirely coincidental. I just figured that it was time I actually checked it off the list.

Directed by Gurinder Chadha, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Guljit Bindra and Paul Mayeda Berges, this is the tale of two young women who want to pursue their passion for playing football. Jesminda aka Jess (Parminder Nagra) comes from a traditional Indian family who are dead against the idea of her being so “unladylike”, while her friend, Jules (Keira Knightley), has more accepting parents. The two hope to do well enough in a tournament to attract the attention of a talent scout, but that involves Jess lying to her parents as they prepare for her sister’s big wedding day. I hope that event doesn’t clash with an important football game. And I hope the coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), doesn’t create any tension between our two leads.

Although it’s about football, Bend It Like Beckham isn’t really about that at all. It is, of course, but it also very much isn’t. It’s about finding something you love to do, connecting with people who support you in that, and moving into full adulthood while clearly communicating with your family as you set new boundaries and goals. It’s also about cultural differences, with Jess feeling the extra weight of the Indian family traditions that are supposed to inform her fate.

Both Nagra and Knightley are enjoyable in the main roles, although neither seem too convincing in the over-edited moments of action on the pitch. Nagra is the better of the two, a bit more believable throughout, and also given much more of the screentime. The focus is on her character throughout, with Knightley just a main supporting player, and she’s a great presence to spend time with. The same cannot be said of Meyers, someone I have rarely enjoyed seeing in movies. Maybe I have yet to see his best work, but he rarely feels natural and at ease in front of the camera, and his main plot strand here is easily the worst aspect of the movie. Shaheen Khan, Anumpam Kher, and Archie Panjabi are all very good, playing Jess’s mother, father, and sister, respectively, and Frank Harper and Juliet Stevenson are good fun as the parents of Jules. Ameet Chana is also very enjoyable, playing a good friend named Tony, and there is a small role for Shaznay Lewis that shows a potential she never had a chance to fulfil.

Nicely weaving between the more uplifting moments and the dramatic, happy to intersperse realism and honesty with flights of cinematic fancy, Bend It Like Beckham is an easy crowd-pleaser. The pacing is pretty great, there are decent tunes scattered throughout the soundtrack, and the third act has a sense of jubilation that stems from the double-whammy of the football dream and the gorgeous wedding celebrations. This may not be as good as Chadha’s debut feature, the superb Bhaji On The Beach, but it is arguably aimed at a wider audience looking for something cheerful and optimistic.

It may not top the league, in terms of either football films or British comedy dramas, but it’s certainly battling for a decent place in the table.

7/10

Thursday 17 August 2023

Ghost Chase (1987)

Also known as Hollywood-Monster, apparently.

Before making his name with big-budget fare that often saw the world, or at least major cities, being completely devastated, director Roland Emmerich made some strange, but entertaining, horror and sci-fi films that feel largely forgotten about nowadays. Ghost Chase is perhaps his strangest, and it's yet another film I had wanted to see ever since I was a kid (having been won over by the VHS box art and the trailer).

Fred (Tim McDaniel) is an amateur film director, trying his best to make a film starring his cousin, Warren (Jason Lively). Unfortunately, Warren keeps trying his luck with the leading lady, Laurie (Jill Whitlow), which leads to her leaving, which then leads to the production grinding to a halt. About to drown in debt, things don't look good for Fred and Warren. Their fortunes may change, however, when Warren is asked to attend a reading of his grandfather's will. This is where things get weird. Warren inherits an old clock. That clock contains the spirit of Louis, the man who was the butler to Warren's grandfather. The spirit of Louis inhabits an animatronic butler dummy, built by Fred after a dream vision he had, and he soon starts trying to convince our leads that there should be much more for Warren to inherit, but a scheming producer named Stan Gordon (Paul Gleason) is trying to keep it all to himself.

In case you aren't sure from that plot summary, Ghost Chase is bonkers. It's very silly, it's all over the place (in terms of tone and brief plot tangents), and it seems to have been created by someone wanting to soundtrack scenes with the song "Imagination", as performed by Belouis Some. Emmerich directs from a screenplay co-written by himself and Thomas Kubisch, and it's clear that he's more about enthusiasm and homage than minor things like believability and logic. It's a fantasy horror adventure movie about a ghost butler that makes an animatronic dummy butler come alive, therefore believability and logic don't have to place high on the list of priorities, but it's a shame that things never feel as if they are part of a properly flowing narrative. What you get here is a selection of decent bits, all stuck in between moments of surprising dullness. This should be a blast throughout. It isn't.

It doesn’t help that the cast don’t really feel like a good fit for their roles. Neither Lively nor McDaniel are good enough to carry the film, while both Whitlow and Gleason are sorely underused. Other slightly familiar faces include Ian MacNaughton and Chuck Mitchell, the latter arguably most famous for being Porky in the Porky’s movies.

There’s still a charm to this, it’s a film in which you can see the creativity and sweat used to get anything even half-decent onscreen, and the animatronic dummy is both odd and delightful, but you can tell that it’s made by someone yet to find the focus and vision to match their determination. Still, I am sure many will prefer it to Emmerich’s folly AKA Godzilla.

5/10

Wednesday 16 August 2023

Prime Time: What We Did On Our Holiday (2014)

Holidays, as much as we fantasize about them in our minds, don’t always go to plan. They can actually be very stressful, especially when you are wrangling various family members, and especially when you aren’t heading off to sun-kissed tropical climes. And visiting family, including a very ill father who may not see beyond his next upcoming birthday, while pretending that you and your wife haven’t separated and are struggling to behave in a way that doesn’t negatively impact on the children? That probably wouldn’t be a nice and relaxing holiday. It is the holiday that viewers see depicted here though.

Rosamund Pike is Abi, David Tennant is Doug, and the two are taking their three children up to Scotland to visit Doug’s father, Gordie (Billy Connolly). Gordie has terminal cancer, with not long left until he reaches his expiration date, so Abi and Doug try to put on a united front, despite going through divorce proceedings. This united front will also require the help of their children, Lottie (Emilia Jones), Mickey (Bobby Smalldridge), and Jess (Harriet Turnbull). Other characters populate the screen, including Doug’s brother, Gavin (Ben Miller), and his sister-in-law, Margaret (Amelia Bulmore), but the focus stays on the antics of the children, eventually left in the care of their grandfather, and the bickering between Abi and Doug. It isn’t long until some messy stuff hits the fan.

Co-directed and co-written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, What We Did On Our Holidays is very much in line with other work they have delivered over the years, most often on the small screen. These two men have decades of experience, and they help themselves by casting familiar adults with an equal amount of experience in front of the camera. If you like any of the cast members here then you’re going to enjoy this, to some degree, and you may be relieved to hear that the child actors are all more than up to the task of being amusing and entertaining without becoming too annoying.

It cannot help feeling like a TV movie though, as opposed to something that could stand tall as a theatrical feature. The small scale of the story, the familiar faces most recognisable from their TV work, the tone and pacing of the whole thing. It’s not bad, and it certainly doesn’t feel as if it was made by people lacking skill or resources, but it’s not inherently filmic. Not to me anyway.

The children get to shine, especially in their scenes alongside a typically cheeky and anarchic Connolly, Tennant and Pike work well together, Miller and Bulmore are entertainingly uptight throughout, and I will always welcome screentime for the likes of Celia Imrie and Annette Crosbie. Nobody is doing their best work, but they all add extra value to the project.

You get a fair few decent laughs, some entertaining characters, and some pleasant views of the Scottish countryside. If that sounds like enough to keep you happy, and you may already be swayed if you are a fan of Tennant, Pike, or Connolly, then I recommend this. Unlikely to become a firm favourite, but it’s a decent enough little film with a big heart.

6/10

Tuesday 15 August 2023

Night Screams (1987)

Although I have not written down this tale before, some people are already aware of my journey with Night Screams, a title that I figured would be lost in the mists of time after I experienced it on VHS in my youth. A friend and I tented it from a local video store, when you could rent anything as long as you were a regular customer and the owner knew that you had the permission of a parent or guardian, and we settled down to watch it in the privacy of my room. It was, from memory, a film full of sex and death. But my mother didn’t want me to see too much of the sex. As the video recorder was in the living room, attached to my smaller TV by a lengthy cable pinned along the ceiling, my mother could keep an eye on what I was watching, and could do some fast-forward “censoring” in real time, to the crushing disappointment of my friend and I, who both felt old enough to enjoy some gratuitous nudity.

I always wondered about Night Screams, mainly curious to find out if it was as bad as I remembered. Because it wasn’t good, although the smattering of sex scenes might have helped. I didn’t expect to ever get to revisit it though. What strange and wonderful times we live in.

You have a typical slasher movie premise here. Some dangerous criminals are on the loose. A young man is about to have a party with some friends while his parents are out for the evening. Oh, and the young man has some issues of his own, making him just as much of a suspect as anyone else when the corpses start to pile up.

Directed by Allen Plone, making his debut feature (and, surprisingly, he helmed one or two more feature films after this) and written by Mitch Brian (who also did some more feature work after this) and Dillis L. Hart II (ahhhh, nothing else from them though), this is a late entry into the slasher sub-genre boom of the 1980s, not helped by the fact that it’s generally put together with very little competence. When the murders properly begin, they all take place within a mix of low lighting levels, clumsy framing, and unconvincing special effects. Are there one or two moments that rise above the awfulness? Yes, but that doesn’t mean they are any great shakes. They are just better than awful.

Speaking of awfulness, the cast don’t help much. Joseph Paul Manno is not a good lead, playing David, the young man who may have a dangerously short temper. Megan Wyss does a bit better as Joni, and I liked Janette Caldwell as Lisa, but nobody else is really worth mentioning. They’re not helped by a script that fails to let them have any decent characterization, and everyone is basically onscreen to up the bodycount.

As for the gratuitous nudity I sorely missed out on decades ago . . . there’s some, but not as much as I remember, and not enough to help make this easier to watch. The characters are shown once or twice watching some porn clips, allowing the film-makers to pad out the runtime slightly and potentially punctuate the dullness with some spice. It doesn’t work, but I can understand why my mother didn’t appreciate those clumsily-inserted moments.

There’s something more disheartening and disappointing about a very bad slasher movie. It shouldn’t be hard to deliver at least the familiar basics of the sub-genre. Although not the worst I have seen, considering the fact that it seemed to have enough of a budget to get some things right, this is a mess. Worst of all, it’s a mess that proves to be consistently dull from start to finish, despite the moments of sex and violence that the film-makers clearly thought would make it a hit with undemanding horror movie fans.

3/10

Monday 14 August 2023

Mubi Monday: Rude Boy (1980)

If you are a fan of The Clash and watched Rude Boy at any time then you would find plenty to enjoy. It has enough footage of The Clash throughout it, weaving a narrative between a number of energetic gig clips, and the soundtrack contains a good selection of some of their greatest hits. If you’re not a fan of The Clash then you may find this a tougher watch, but I would implore you to give it your time. Especially right now.

Ray Gange, who also co-wrote the screenplay with co-director David Mingay, plays Ray, a young lad who works in a sex shop and spends his free time wanting to enjoy the music of The Clash, get drunk, and generally sneer at different factions of society around him, apart from other punk rock fans. He gets a boost when allowed to work with the band, learning some of the tricks required to set up and maintain the instruments and staging, but this also gives him a slightly different perspective on the attitudes and lifestyle choices of people who may have been exactly like him just a few years earlier. Or maybe they always had a better head on their shoulders, and maybe Ray needs to figure out a better way to direct his anger at the many issues causing it.

Released in 1980, it is slightly depressing to see how much of Rude Boy feels like it could be a snapshot of the Britain of today, over 40 years later. We have so many of the same problems now, but we don’t have enough opportunities to listen to The Clash at full volume (although, if you can, treat yourself right now . . . go on, blast out Tommy Gun, or Complete Control, or Janie Jones, and you will feel better already). Those in control of the country don’t seem to care enough about those they are meant to be serving, racial and class division is being stirred up in an attempt to distract everyone from the real source of their problems, and there’s an economy that feels very much like it’s in the toilet, despite news reports constantly telling us how lucky we have been that the UK has avoided a recession.

Directors Jack Hazan and Mingay do well with a script that throws a lot against the graffiti-covered walls. They are helped by the fact that a lot of it sticks, much more than expected, and the energy and attitude throughout every main sequence helps the 133-minute runtime go by briskly enough. In fact, I could easily have watched another hour of this, especially if it meant time for another 5 or 6 snippets of The Clash performing live. Part documentary, part concert film, and part standard narrative feature, the parts slot together perfectly to make a hugely satisfying whole.

The acting might not always be on point, but nobody is embarrassingly awful. Gange plays his character in a way that is believably frustrating and confrontational, and The Clash (Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon) are exactly how you hope they would be: talented, witty, cynical, happy to use their status to try and win some minor battles against the authorities. Other performances are more varied in quality, but the core of the film is about Ray and The Clash, and they do more than enough to carry the material.

A snapshot of then, a reflection of now. I loved Rude Boy, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who shares some of my main sensibilities. I won’t be bothered by those who end up disliking it though (and it should be noted that The Clash themselves weren’t fans once the film was finished). I will just sneer at them from afar. It feels like the right thing to do.

9/10

Sunday 13 August 2023

Netflix And Chill: They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

Thanks to the cast and the aesthetic I saw in the trailer, I was looking forward to They Cloned Tyrone. Then it dropped on Netflix and, like many a release once it appears on there, I just never made it a priority. Other people got around to watching it though, and many enjoyed it. That spurred me on to get around to it ASAP.

John Boyega plays Fontaine, a drug dealer who works in his home neighbourhood of The Glen. After trying to collect money owed to him by a pimp named Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), Fontaine is fatally shot by a rival dealer, Isaac (J. Alphones Nicholson). This shooting is witnessed (sort of) by a sex worker named Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris). It's understandable that Slick becomes confused when Fontaine reappears at his door the next evening still trying to collect his money, and the two then track down Yo-Yo to try and get to the bottom of this mysterious resurrection. It turns out that something odd is going on beneath their feet, something that is affecting the entire local black population. And it might be just the tip of the iceberg.

Writer-director Juel Taylor (assisted once again on the screenplay by co-writer Tony Rettenmaier, the two having also worked on Space Jam: A New Legacy) makes his solo feature debut here, after helming numerous shorts and participating in at least one anthology and one TV movie, and he obviously had a blast making something so stylish, infused with funk and blaxploitation elements, and happily blending genres. They Cloned Tyrone isn't a film that holds back on trying to keep viewers entertained. Superficially, the world onscreen is a well-realised one, the fashion and environments are all very retro-cool, and it's easy to accept everything as it plays out. Superficially. There's one flaw at the heart of the plot though, despite how satisfied you may or may not be by any attempt to explain it, and that's the actual resurrection that kickstarts the entire chain of events. I might have missed something, it's been known to happen, but it felt like this main plot point would, at the very least, simply cause a headache for those trying to mastermind a devious and disturbing plan that is spelled out in the third act.

Questions about the plot aside though, there's plenty of fun to be had with this cast doing wonderfully clumsy and abrupt detective work. Boyega, Foxx, and Parris are all good performers, but things are always raised up a notch in the many scenes that have them all together. Although I have seen her in a number of other roles, Parris is the standout here, her character having more actual intelligence and more actual courage than the men who spend so much time keeping their own worries and fears hidden behind a mask of macho bravado, but the three leads feel like perfect casting. There are also enjoyable turns from Nicholson, David Alan Grier, and Kiefer Sutherland (playing the aptly-monikered Nixon).

Taylor has namechecked a number of cinematic influences on They Cloned Tyrone and they're all enjoyably obvious, but it's impressive that he has made this feel both laden with homage and yet also highly original. The soundtrack and visuals help in that regard, because the movies being referenced are viewed through the more common white male gaze, but it's also a willingness to go just a bit further than you might expect, with the silliness and the horrible implications of what is going on.

Sadly not great, there are just too many gaps in logic to make it feel as well-constructed as it could be, but this is good fun while it's on and the leads are great company to be in for a couple of hours.

6/10

Saturday 12 August 2023

Shudder Saturday: Vampir (2021)

I knew nothing about Vampir before I watched it, aside from the fact that it seemed to be an independent horror/drama that would probably have something to do with vampirism. I may have been less inclined to watch it if I had realised that star Branko Tomovic was also the writer and director. Sometimes that can work out well, but having the same person as writer, director, and star can often be a recipe for disaster if that person has more enthusiasm than actual talent.

Tomovic plays Arnaut, a man who travels from London to Serbia in order to accept a job that has him looking after a cemetery. He is happy to leave behind a recent horrible memory, but the relocation may end up leading to him having a number of disturbing new experiences. Most of the locals seem unfriendly, but perhaps that is just Arnaut being paranoid.

Not the kind of horror film to recommend to those wanting a good dose of blood and guts, and there are times when this hardly feels like a horror movie at all, Vampir is interesting, but ultimately fails to achieve what it sets out to do.

Tomovic isn’t a bad lead, certainly able to show his character feeling out of place and wrestling with various “nightmares” (while he is asleep and awake), and the journey of his character becomes intriguing at certain points. It just doesn’t progress beyond those scenes, making the film a drab affair that is too infrequently punctuated by impressive moments. There are a few supporting players, such as Eva Ras, Gorica Regodic, and Judith Georgi, but the only other person given enough to do is Joakim Tasic, playing a local priest named Father Radosav.

Trying to do something different with the vampire movie is difficult nowadays, and I admire Tomovic for giving it a go. It is easy to see what he wanted to achieve here, and the technical side of things is very impressive for such a relatively small-scale production (especially with the audio, and the atmospheric score from Mark Ashworth), but this feels like it should have been a short prequel to a much more interesting feature. I didn’t actively hate this, but I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to watch it until they have already exhausted their main list of prioritised viewings.

5/10