Shudder Saturday: Outpost (2023)

While looking to recover from a major traumatic event, a woman (Kate, played by Beth Dover) ends up hoping to enjoy some calm and isolation as a volunteer firewatcher at a fairly remote outpost, hence the title. But there are still interactions with others around her that cause her to fret, and her mental health may have suffered even more than she realised. 

The directorial feature debut from Joe Lo Truglio (arguably best known for his comedic acting work, particularly his portrayal of Charles Boyle on Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Outpost uses a fairly slim premise to look at aspects of trauma and the standard female experience. As well as directing, Lo Truglio is also the one who wrote the screenplay, and he makes a number of choices that show some genuine care and interest, as opposed to just stringing together a number of jump scares. Those are also present, but they are executed well, and keep us well-informed about the lack of real improvement in Kate’s mindset.

Dover is superb in the main role. Although there’s a very good supporting cast around her, she carries a lot of the movie on her shoulders and has to keep you rooting for her even as her behaviour seems to get progressively worse en route to whatever the finale has in store for her. Dylan Baker is as good as he always is, playing a “neighbour” who is quite far away from the outpost, but also closer than Kate is comfortable with, and there are equally strong turns from Ta’Rea Campbell (a concerned friend), Ato Essandoh (Kate’s new boss), and Becky Ann Baker (someone who appears to have gone through a similar experience to Kate).

Nothing stands out, in the technical side of things anyway, but that isn’t a major negative. Lo Truglio simply presents this (character/trauma) study in a way that best allows viewers to experience the range of emotions that our lead goes through, and it’s a checkmark in his favour that he doesn’t feel the need to pack the film with flourishes or obvious nods to his influences. The film is about Kate, something reflected on both sides of the camera, and everything is balanced between being cinematically satisfying and keeping everything nicely free of unnecessary distractions.

Maybe not one to easily recommend to horror fans, this is still worth the time and attention of those who don’t mind something so deliberately-paced and earnest in intention. Despite being written and directed by a man, it feels very knowledgeable of, and sympathetic to, how every small moment of tension and vulnerability is heightened when experienced by a woman.

8/10

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Joshua AKA The Devil's Child (2007)

A film with an alternative title that is as useful as it is incorrect, Joshua is a “bad seed” movie that sadly never settles on just the right tone it wants to have. It’s a creepy slow burn on the way to an unsettling final scene, but it’s neither subtle nor ridiculous enough to be as impressive or entertaining as it could be.

Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga are Brad and Abby, the parents of a newborn baby girl. The newborn already has an older brother, Joshua (Jacob Kogan), and it is established early on that the family unit isn’t as cosy and happy as some. Abby is suffering, the baby won’t stop crying, and Joshua gets weirder and weirder, and potentially more dangerous to those around him.

Directed by George Ratliff, who also co-wrote the screenplay with David Gilbert, this is a silly film, but only when you stop to think of the many ways in which the main characters could resolve their situation. To the credit of the film-makers, the pacing of the third act, as things hurtle towards a worthwhile “punchline”, helps you to overlook the many plot holes.

The cast also help, of course. I will watch Rockwell in anything, and he does well in his role here, and Farmiga is easily just as good a performer as he is (although she hasn’t had as many plum roles). Both are playing people under different pressures, and a lot of that is applied by young Joshua, even though they don’t always realise it. In that vital role, Kogan is pretty good, although his entire persona is defined as awkward and/or creepy. Michael McKean has a small, but welcome, role, playing the boss of Brad, and only really caring about anything that affects the profit margin of the business. And you have some decent moneys for both Celia Weston, as the gran, and Dallas Roberts, as the uncle Joshua enjoys spending time with.

It would be fair to warn new parents away from this, considering the unrelenting atmosphere of misery and stress that permeates the entire runtime, because the scenes that play out more realistically will resonate strongly with anyone who has, for example, struggled to get a baby to feed or sleep. Most people, hopefully, won’t have a little psychopath making their lives worse, but parenting can be hard enough, at times, when you cannot find an immediate solution to keep a child content.

That aside, Joshua should have been deeply unsettling by and disturbing, or simply just bonkers and fun. Sadly, it is just disappointingly average.

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Mayhem (2017)

The second film in a short space of time to focus on a bout of extreme violence in an office environment (the other being The Belko Experiment), Mayhem may have suffered thanks to the timing of its release. Maybe. It also may have suffered due to the fact that not many people found it all that enjoyable. Once again, I find myself in the minority.

Steven Yeun is Derek Cho an ambitious white collar worker in your standard dog-eat-dog corporate environment. His day starts off badly (he can't find his favourite coffee cup), becomes slightly worse with a meeting that he takes in his stride as someone (Melanie, played by Samara Weaving) desperately tries to save their home from foreclosure, and then he is thrown under a bus by a colleague, which leads to him being sacked and removed from the building. Well, due to be removed from the building. That has to be delayed when the entire building is placed under quarantine, due to the presence of a virus that causes people to act unashamedly on their baser urges. This gives Derek the time, and necessary attitude, to try and make his way up to the boardroom and win back his job.

Written by Matias Caruso and directed by Joe Lynch, Mayhem is a hugely entertaining mix of workplace tensions and cathartic violence. The effect of the virus may not be quite what you expect, especially when compared to the over the top opening sequence that explains how it changes people, but all of the decisions made work in favour of a better story, and lead characters that are easier to root for than mindless psychopaths. Despite the film being set in a densely-populated office building, the plot only makes use of a core group of characters, and most of the people who end up the most bruised and bloodied (and murder death killed) are the ones that we strongly dislike from their earliest appearances onscreen. There's a lot of madness shown going on in the background, however, and plentiful doses of pain and bloodshed.

Yeun is great in the lead role, helped by the script that allows him to also narrate exposition and notes of his own failings, and Weaving gives another very likable turn, initially opposed to Yeun and quickly realising that it is best for them to work together. Caroline Chikezie is the one who ruins Yeun's life, Steven Brand is the big boss man, Dallas Roberts is the man sent in to meet people when it is time for their tenure with the company to end,  and Kerry Fox is a senior board member. All of them are amusingly easy to loathe, each one for a slightly different reason, although it all amounts to self-preservation in a corporate environment.

I really enjoyed this. It was a lot funnier than I expected it to be, Yeun and Weaving are a big plus in their main roles, and it strikes just the right balance between satire and visceral thrills. Some may dislike it because it doesn't have enough of the titular noun, some may dislike it in (unfair) comparison to The Belko Experiment, and some may just dislike it because, well, individual taste is subjective, of course. I hope a few others check it out, and maybe one or two of them will agree with my minority opinion.

8/10

You can buy Mayhem here.
Americans can buy the movie here.