Shudder Saturday: Relaxer (2018)

Intrigued by the premise of Relaxer, I enthusiastically decided to watch it as what I thought was a fairly new release, ignorant of the fact that it was actually first released about eight years ago. That doesn't mean that it was always in this final form, of course, but it certainly seems to have spent some time "in the wild" before receiving any kind of wider and more mainstream release. I don't think there will be too many people who view it as any kind of hidden gem.

Joshua Burge plays Abbie, a man who has been challenged by his brother, Cam (David Dastmalchian), to stay seated on a couch until he has defeated a mythical, apparently unbeatable, final level of Pac-Man. Oh, it's also coming up to Y2K, which surely means an apocalypse is looming. Or maybe the apocalypse will be on a much smaller scale, perhaps just a sofa covered in soda stains and bodily excretions.

Written and directed by Joel Potrykus, Relaxer is, ironically, so relaxed about presenting any kind of narrative that it gives viewers nothing to be invested in. The main character could have been amusingly laid back and surrounded by some kind of force field of calm, but he instead comes across as nothing more than a whiny man-baby, locked in a situation of his own making and somehow doing everything he can to make his environment as bad as it can be.

Things start well enough, I guess, with Dastmalchian and Burge having a good bit of interplay, one brother constantly ribbing the other one while he attempts a challenge on a Tony Hawks skateboarding videogame, but it all goes downhill very quickly once Dastmalchian leaves the screen, leaving viewers alone with Burge, who isn't able to add anything interesting to his character. One or two others eventually appear onscreen, but all they do is indulge the behaviour of someone who really needs to be given a swift kick up the backside.

It's obvious that Potrykus thought he came up with an amusing premise, and clearly figured that keeping things set in the one apartment would be good for the budget, but it's not enough to sustain a feature. Not even close. The 91-minute runtime feels as if it overruns by at least an hour. This should have been an anthology segment, at most, or simply tweaked to create a better reason for Abbie having to stay rooted to his sofa (an accident, a trap, anything other than just "that's the challenge").

There's a decent little "punchline" at the very end of the film, but it doesn't make up for the time spent watching so little happen throughout the rest of the runtime. Even the actual videogaming itself never feels realistic, which might seem a petty thing to complain about, but feels crucial as it's such a major factor in the slight plot.

Awful stuff. *insert Pac-Man dying noise here* 

2/10

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Netflix And Chill: Prisoners (2013)

Another day, another film that I delayed watching for over a decade, despite strongly suspecting that I would love it. Prisoners is written by Aaron Guzikowski, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and stars Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Melissa Leo, and David Dastmalchian in a number of main roles. That's a hell of a cast, and Prisoners is a hell of a film.

A dark and downbeat crime thriller, this is the story of two girls (Anna, played by Erin Gerasimovich, and Joy, played by Kyla-Drew Simmons) who disappear. Their parents obviously fear the worst, but there may be a chance for a good result with Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) on the case. It doesn't take long for the police to haul in a prime suspect (Alex, played by Paul Dano), but things are complicated by the fact that he has the mental age of a small child. He's clearly guilty though, at least according to Anna's father, Keller (Hugh Jackman). Which leads to him coming up with his own plan to get information when the police have no choice but to release Alex back into the care of his guardian (Holly, played by Melissa Leo). Keller has an empty building available to him, a hankering for some violent retribution, and a variety of ideas that he think will force Alex to tell him where his young victims are.

The first thing worth noting here is that this isn't quite as great as it could have been. Guzikowski's screenplay leaves characters repeating themselves too many times, and it feels heavily indebted to a couple of crime thrillers helmed by David Fincher. Mind you, if you're going to be influenced by other art then you may as well be influenced by some of the best, and that is certainly the case here.

Villeneuve is happy to go along with the same mindset. This is a dark world, with almost every scene accompanied by a heavy downpour once the young girls have gone missing. Making important decisions about what to show and what to heavily imply, Villeneuve keeps things riveting for those who can handle the subject matter, helped by the fact that the direction and screenplay seem to keep a tiny portion of hope dangling in front of our faces like a carrot to help us avoid being beaten with the stick.

In terms of the acting, it's hard to be critical of those doing fantastic work with what they're given. It's just a shame that some of what they're given isn't the best material for them. This applies especially to Gyllenhaal, who is made to repeat one or two playbook lines in a way that I know is supposed to show him just wanting to de-escalate situations and get him away from emotional victims as quickly as possible, but is then shown so committed to his job that it feels at odds with that robotic "auto-pilot" mode we've seen elsewhere. Jackman is allowed to go to level ten righteous anger and stay there for the duration, Bello starts to medicate, and both Davis and Howard are used well to show the complex emotions of loving parents wanting answers about their child, no matter what it might take. Dano is absolutely fantastic, even if he doesn't say much, and Leo ends up stealing one or two scenes, while Dastmalchian comes along later in the movie to deliver another reframing of the whole narrative (this happens two or three times throughout the film, with Villeneuve and Guzikowski as interested in making viewers question themselves as they are in the journey of the characters onscreen).

It falls short of greatness in a couple of small ways, but Prisoners is very good stuff indeed. It's basically what you'd expect from a director as good as Villeneuve working with a cast of this calibre on a story about grief, pain, well-honed detective skills, and revenge.

8/10

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The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023)

Based on one specific chapter from Dracula, this is an old-fashioned horror movie that makes great use of modern effects to depict, and enhance, a classic bit of text. Directed by André Øvredal, who is yet to helm a real stinker in his filmography, it's as easy to appreciate and enjoy this as it is to, sadly, see why it failed to find a big audience.

Corey Hawkins plays Clemens, a man who ends up getting himself hired as a crew member on the Demeter. Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) is a fair taskmaster, but he soon finds himself overwhelmed by numerous incidents that make everyone suspect their voyage may be cloaked in misfortune. It may well have something to do with their mysterious cargo, which won't be a surprise to anyone familiar with the source material.

Despite the inherent limitations of the source material (meaning the film takes place mainly in one location and with a fairly limited cast of characters), The Last Voyage Of The Demeter manages to come up with a number of inventive and entertaining ways to wander through very familiar territory. Writers Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz have less consistency than Øvredal, but they seem to work together well on something that approaches the trappings of the vampire movie with an impressive sense of reverence and earnestness.

While the cast are a mixed bag (I don't want to spend too much time discussing the accent work by David Dastmalchian, nor do I want to try to list those who play the more forgettable characters), the leads are excellent. Hawkins is the right person to carry this on his shoulders, especially when he can occasionally share the burden with Cunningham, Aisling Franciosi does very good work as a stowaway who knows the danger of the "cargo" being transported, and Javier Botet delivers yet another physical performance under heavy make up that puts him right alongside Doug Jones when it comes to being able to bring supernatural beings to life in solid humanoid form.

The runtime may be a touch too long, as the runtime clocks in at just under the 2-hour mark, but there's plenty to enjoy here, from start to finish. There's wonderful music from Bear McCreary, gorgeous cinematography from Tom Stern (although I did thing things a bit hard to see in a finale that sets everything in the middle of a dark and foggy area of the sea . . . but maybe that's more to do with my ageing eyes than the professionals working to create the visuals), and beautiful design work throughout every department, from sound to wardrobe, and everything in between.

It's far from perfect, especially when the screen has too many characters that aren't really memorable enough to do more than add to the bodycount, but this is an enjoyable and surprisingly bloody little film that makes good use of modern movie-making techniques to deliver something comfortably old-fashioned at heart, yet garnished with some impressive effects and bloodshed. Not recommended for the impatient, but tentatively recommended for vampire movie fans.

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: Late Night With The Devil (2023)

A lot has been said already about Late Night With The Devil, most of it hugely positive, and I am unlikely to add anything new to the conversation. I've never let that stop me before though, and here's my own full review of the film. Those not wanting to read too much more about it may be satisfied with this summary: "it's very good, but it's no Ghostwatch".

Presented as a previously-unseen final episode of a late '70s talk show, viewers are given a quick history of TV host Jack Delroy (Dabid Dastmalchian). The ratings for his show have been falling, he has suffered the loss of his wife, Madeleine (Georgina Haig), to cancer, and it starts to look more and more unlikely that he's nearing the end of his career. Or, at the very least, nearing the end of this phase of his career. Jack puts on a brave face though, and he thinks they may get some big ratings with an occult-themed episode for Halloween. Joined by his sidekick, Gus (Rhys Auteri), Jack is looking to impress the audience with a medium, Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), a former-magician-turned-debunker, Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), and a parapsychologist (June Ross-Mitchell, played by Laura Gordon) who is bringing along a young, supposedly possessed, girl named Lily (Ingrid Torelli). There should also be time for a musical guest to cheer everyone up at the end of the spookiness. It's not long until things start getting a bit strange, and we see more of the impact of that strangeness during moments that were filmed during the ad breaks as Jack and the crew try to keep everything running smoothly.

Co-written and co-directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes, two brothers who already have a handful of movie and TV/short credits to their names, there's no denying that Late Night With The Devil gets a lot right, particularly when it comes to the casting. I just didn't see the authenticity and attention to detail that others have responded to. There's too little confidence being displayed, although this "episode" was filmed at a time when the host was showing his vulnerability and putting his fate in the hands of his viewership, there are too many times when it feels as if the programmers would cut away from everything and potentially take the whole thing off-air sharp, and there is an end sequence that discards the whole "rediscovered episode" format to allow the Cairnes brothers to show us some unsettling and fantastical sights. I didn't mind being shown the escalating tensions during the apparent ad breaks, but the last 5-10 minutes slightly soured me on this. If you have an idea that works best in a certain format then, dammit, you need to work as hard as you can to ensure that you can deliver everything you need to deliver IN that format.

I could be way off here, especially when others have complimented the film for how accurately it recreates that era of late-night TV chat show, but nothing drew me in to a world that I thought was realistic. It almost felt like a castelet, albeit a good one, with the cast all being unwitting puppets in a show destined to end in a way that cuts their strings, one way or another.

Dastmalchian is brilliant though, and I will be delighted if this lead role helps him receive the kind of offers he should have been inundated with before now. He's just the right mix of polish and awkwardness, the host striving to overcome any obstacle in the way of presenting a show that he hopes will put him back near the top of the TV ratings, and he delivers a performance that gives us a fully-rounded and brilliantly-nuanced lead character to root for. Auteri is also very good, playing the typical sidekick we've seen many times in this TV show format. Bazzi feels like a bit of comedy relief, but his appearance sets some interesting wheels in motion, and Bliss is enjoyably arrogant and sceptical as he offers up explanations for the "inexplicable". Gordon is given the least to do, even less than Haig (in some ways), but does well, as does the latter, and Torelli is quite perfect as Lily, constantly intriguing and unnerving in a way that stems from the subtlety and natural manner of her performance.

I wouldn't ever call this a bad film. It's good, and most people seem to think that it's very good, but that lack of authenticity spoils it for me, as does that complete turn away from the format at the very end of the film. Very few people, if any, will agree with me, and many think that it absolutely nails the look and feel it is going for, which makes me think that it's maybe my British lens not recognising a very specific American time and place, but it's all different strokes for different folks, eh. Considering what it gets right, and considering how many others love it, I would still recommend this to horror fans. I would just acknowledge that some people may, like myself, end up underwhelmed by it.

6/10

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The Boogeyman (2023)

Urgh. That's the best way to start this review. Director Rob Savage made such a great impression on horror fans when he released Host, arguably the best use of Zoom ever, with the exception of that one short clip of the man who accidentally made himself look like a cat (check it out if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's hilarious). Unfortunately, it is starting to look more and more like Host was an exception, with Savage following that up with the horrible Dashcam and now this. The Boogeyman isn't as bad as Dashcam, but it's a surprisingly lazy and inept movie that delivers a polished package of everything that exemplifies the worst of modern mainstream horror.

Springboarding from a short story by Stephen King, and that's more worthy of your time than this is, the very simple plot summary for this is that it looks at a family terrorised by a boogeyman. Still grieving the death of their mother, there's teenager Sadie Harper (Sophie Thatcher) and younger sister, Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair). They both live with their father, Will (Chris Messina), a therapist struggling to help his children through this difficult time. Anyway, once the boogeyman enters their home, and once they start figuring out exactly what is going on, people are warned not to spend too much time alone in the dark . . . and they then spend most of the movie wandering about alone in the bloody dark.

I really don’t want to spend too much time discussing this, it annoyed me so much for almost every minute of the runtime (although the opening sequence is impressively dark and disturbing, which makes the sharp slide downhill all the more disappointing). It might be a bit more polished than the 2005 movie that covered some similar ground, but I would struggle to say this is better. It’s so carelessly thrown together, but has a couple of elements in the story that are supposed to give it some weight it never maintains, and I blame Savage and the writers, Scott Beck, Mark Heyman, and Bryan Woods. Having read the original short story, one of the many little gems written by Stephen King, I assumed that everyone involved was drawn to the material because of a twisted ending that could be expanded into a feature full of paranoia and constant unease, but it appears that they just wanted the title so they could then deliver a few jump scares and mediocre scenes we have seen hundreds of times before. 

The cast aren’t bad, with Thatcher and Blair capably carrying the whole thing on their young shoulders. Messina is sidelined for a lot of the movie, of course, but does perfectly fine work in his role, and David Dastmalchian is sorely underused in what amounts to little more than a cameo. Having said that, at least he doesn’t suffer the fate of Marin Ireland, stuck playing the standard grizzled survivor who thinks she knows how to finally kill the boogeyman and drags Thatcher’s character into her scheme. LisaGay Hamilton is enjoyable in the role of Dr. Weller, another therapist, but suffers from the fact that her screentime alludes more to the aforementioned short story ending in a way that fails to then deliver any decent pay-off.

I saw a lot of love for this when it was in cinemas, which meant I was keen to see it as soon as it hit home media, but I am glad I didn’t rush along to see this on the big screen. I don’t know what others saw in this, and maybe a fair few people left cinemas disappointed after being hoodwinked into buying a ticket, but there was nothing here that worked for me in terms of the horror content. I might have even preferred a straightforward drama showing the main characters dealing with their grief. Or, and here’s a radical idea, a creepy horror film that actually felt in line with the source material.

3/10

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The Suicide Squad (2021)

There's an extra factor at play here, something that makes The Suicide Squad feel like it deserves to be relished more than perhaps any previous superhero movie within the recent selection of DC adventures. Because writer-director James Gunn got this gig after some idiot attempted to lose him work with Marvel/Disney, which temporarily worked, allowing him to deliver this film . . . before returning to Marvel/Disney for the third Guardians Of The Galaxy movie. So thanks to that idiot, with a name I have already forgotten, for allowing us to receive even more fun from Gunn.

The plot is relatively simple. A squad is assembled for a mission that doesn't seem to have much chance for survival. That squad includes Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher (Daniela Melchior), King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), and one or two others. They wade into the hostile territory of Corto Maltese, where they end up plotting to apprehend an important figure named Thinker (Peter Capaldi).

If there's one word you could use to describe The Suicide Squad it's gleeful. Gunn gleefully throws around bucket-loads of blood and gore, mixing laughs in with the action to provide the most twisted and anarchic superhero film since, well, Super. Strangely enough, that sense of anarchy still manages to feel very calculated and formulaic. The film is wild fun when compared to other movies within this subgenre, but it's not all that surprising when you know the kind of film it is aiming to be, and Gunn makes that pretty clear from the opening sequence (with great use of the song "People Who Died", by the Jim Carroll Band). Thankfully, the set-pieces are entertaining enough to keep your spirits high, and there are also one or two moments that allow viewers to remember that Gunn is good at giving his high-budget fare a good bit of heart and soul.

Robbie remains arguably the most valuable jewel in the crown of this movie universe, and is once again excellent, while Elba makes effortless cool again look . . . effortlessly cool. Cena is a lot of fun in his role, Melchior and Dastmalchian are both wonderful, and Stallone's vocal work is a lot of fun. But it would be very easy to criticise these characters for obvious parallels, considering the direction from Gunn. King Shark may have more words in his vocabulary, but feels quite Groot-ish, and Cena is as humourless as Drax. Consider Harley Quinn as an equal to Rocket, and that just leaves you wondering whether Elba would be Peter Quill or Gamora. It might seem unfair to think of those comparisons while the film is on, but Gunn practically invites them by the fact that he seems to be drawn to the same kind of ragtag bunch of lovable rogues. 

Each main act here has enough inventiveness and energy to blow away that feeling of over-saturation that many film fans have been experiencing lately. Superhero movies aren't going away any time soon, but that's not a problem when we get some more variety from the films being released. And if that variety sometimes comes from focusing on "the villains" then all the better, because I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed Suicide Squad. And I liked Suicide Squad well enough.

8/10

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