Shudder Saturday: Amigo (2020)

I sometimes use other movies as reference points in my reviews, but it's a tricky proposition. You want people to get a sense of something, you want to convey certain elements, but you don't want everyone to start comparing every aspect. Which is why I almost decided against mentioning Caveat here, a film that kept popping into my mind as I watched Amigo.

This is the tale of two friends living together in a remote lodge. Javi (Javier Botet) is a man who can barely speak or move, and he is being cared for by David (David Pareja). There's been a bad accident, that much is clear, but the details are kept hazy, leaving it up to viewers to figure out if these two men are actually still friends, if someone is in danger, and what will happen as one, or both, start to question the reality of their current circumstances.

A feature directorial debut from Óscar Martín, who also co-wrote the script with Botet and Pareja, Amigo is an interesting and atmospheric thriller that manages to move around in very familiar territory without feeling tired and tiresome. A lot of that is down to the casting of the leads, but Martín has a superb visual eye that delivers scenes mixing beauty and grit filtered through a lens worked by the talented cinematographer Alberto Morago (trust me, keep an eye out for his name on other projects).

You may not recognise Botet here, but if you're a horror movie fan then you have most likely seen some of his work already (he's been in numerous big horror movies throughout the past couple of decades, including portraying THAT character at the end of [Rec]). He's not hidden under a lot of monster make-up here, but his physicality is still used to great effect, emphasising just how weak and vulnerable his character is. Pareja isn't quite as unnerving and captivating as an onscreen presence, but he works brilliantly alongside Botet in what is, for the most part, a taut two-hander. There are a couple of other people who pop in and out of the narrative, but everything stays tightly focused on the see-sawing dynamic between Botet and Pareja.

The runtime is a lean 83 minutes, and that's just about as long as it should be. There's not too much substance here, although the intriguing puzzle of the backstory is there for viewers to piece together and consider, but atmosphere and tension are poured over every main scene, leading to a finale that is as dark and satisfying as you might expect.

I look forward to whatever feature Martín helms next, and this is recommended to anyone who wants some nightmare imagery punctuated by fleeting moments of very, and I do mean very, dark comedy (because it is there). Unspectacular, but solid and chilling fare.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: His House (2020)

If you're the kind of person who believes that the UK is being swarmed by "illegal immigrants", all aiming to come here because the system is so easy to play, and immediately being handed a 7-bedroom house and £500 a week, then His House is definitely not the film for you. This depicts the lead characters, a pair of asylum seekers, as real people with very real horror in their lives. It then adds some more horror, a bit of cinematic horror, and starts to intertwine things together in a way that endangers both of their lives.

Sope Dirisu is Bol Majur and Wunmi Mosaku is Rial Majur. They have travelled together from a country where ongoing war has cost the lives of too many already. It wasn't always just the two of them either. A child was lost along the way. Having waited to have their case processed, Bol and Rial are given a small house to live in, with numerous conditions to their stay (as their case goes through the next stage) and a weekly sum of £74/week to live on. It seems like a great new start for them. But there's something else in their new home, a supernatural force that knows exactly how to frighten and torture them. If they cannot defeat it, they will lose everything.

Based on a story by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables, His House is a feature debut from writer-director Remi Weekes, who has a number of shorts to his credit from just over the past decade. It's not only a superb feature debut, it's a superb horror movie. It mixes together the horror and the journey to seek asylum so well that it's a reminder of just how effectively the genre can be used against a backdrop of thought-provoking social commentary. There is nothing wrong with a horror movie that has a maniac going all stabby on horny teens, but there is equally nothing wrong with a horror movie that has a bit more to say alongside some solid scares.

Visually intriguing throughout, Weekes keeps things varied as we are shown scenes of the dangerous journey to the UK, scenes of Bol and Rial trying to integrate into a local community that doesn't seem to want them there, and scenes of the house becoming more creepy, lively, and damaged. Things may grow increasingly dark as the story unfolds, but even daylight does not guarantee safety. We see that in the sun-drenched scenes of a war-torn landscape, we see it as our leads encounter "neighbours", and there's no escape from a nightmare that could end lives in a couple of different ways, either by destroying the Majurs physically or resulting in them losing their status in the UK, which would lead to them being deported back to somewhere they would be much less likely to survive.

Dirisu and Mosaku are both excellent in their roles, believably earnest and worried about their futures, trying to work things out within an environment that places extra restrictions on their freedoms (as they wait in hope for a real freedom that will allow them to finally relax). The full story of their journey to the UK, revealed in flashback throughout the film, doesn't really change how well-placed they are as lead characters, because you've taken a liking to them from the earliest scenes, and you can consider how desperate anyone escaping their situation could be. Matt Smith gives great support in the role of Mark, the liaison officer who shows them to their new home and seems to hope for their success. There are other, no less important, characters who appear, but I'll leave you to discover those for yourself.

Loaded with poignancy and real consideration, and with a script that emphasises the language used to keep things officious at all times, even as people may be almost crying out for a more human, a more empathetic, approach to their situation, His House is one of the best films of the year, a timely one at that, and certainly the best horror movie.

9/10

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Slender Man (2018)

I've said it before, as have many other people, and I will say it again. The worst thing that a movie can do is to leave you feeling absolutely nothing. The ones that just exist, you watch them, you wonder what else you could have done during that time, and you hope to never have to watch them again. Slender Man is one of those movies. I can't give it the lowest possible rating, mainly due to the fact that it has a degree of technical competence and acting ability that the worst films end up lacking, but I don't want anyone thinking that this comes even close to being any good.

The very basic plot sees a group of friends discussing the modern urban legend that is the Slender Man and then working together to summon him, for no other reason than shits and giggles (this is no Candyman). Their plan works, they start to disappear one by one, and it's then a race to figure out how to get him to go away and leave them alone.

As far as I can tell, the Slender Man was created in stories on the internet about a decade ago, by someone named Eric Knudsen AKA Victor Surge, and the creation snowballed and grew into something impressively convincing and developed. My own experience with the character happened when I started to dig into the online series, Marble Hornets (look it up on YouTube, it's highly recommended), and I have been aware of his "brand" growing over the years, in videogames, movies, and as the figure at the centre of a number of crimes and media-crafted tales of fear and panic.

His presence, and the way it has developed from those early days, makes this movie all the more disappointing. What we have here is a bland, safe, mess of a film that tries to make use of the character without ever capturing the real sense of creepiness you can find in most of the tales.

The cast all do what is asked of them, without being memorable or interesting. Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, and Annalise Basso are the four main girls involved, Taylor Richardson is a younger fifth character who may get dragged into proceedings, and Alex Fitzalan plays one of the few male characters, and is so redundant that he may as well not be onscreen at all. Nobody stinks. They just can't work well enough to make up for the drab, familiar, aesthetic that is used for the nightmare imagery and scares.

Director Sylvain White has spent the past decade doing mostly TV work (his last feature was The Losers) and this doesn't look likely to lead to an increase in demand for him to try creating more cinematic outings. Although the script by David Birke is about as middling and horribly predictable as you can get, White does nothing to help, instead content to work with imagery and scene construction that feels as if it could have easily been cut and pasted from dozens of other teen horror movies from the past decade.

Do yourself a favour, skip this movie and instead spend 90 minutes browsing the internet for the early tales and videos that brought the Slender Man to the attention of the masses. You'll find a lot of that stuff much scarier.

3/10

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