Prime Time: Dark Harvest (2023)

Based on what seems to be quite a popular YA book by Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest is a film with some nice moments of Halloween atmosphere to it, but not much else.

There’s a small town with a strange and deadly tradition that involves forcing a number of young men to fast before setting them on the task of stopping a supernatural creature named Sawtooth Jack getting from the cornfield to the town church. Many will die, but one person will be a victorious hero, allowing them to leave town and enjoy a much better life. Richie (Casey Likes) isn’t supposed to take part in the event, only one family member takes a turn and his older brother already won, and has been gone since that time, but he decides to break the rules, assisted by a young woman named Kelly (Emyri Crutchfield). As the night goes on, Richie starts to become more curious about the creation of Sawtooth Jack. There may be more than just a hibernating “demon” coming out into the open tonight.

Directed by David Slade, a director who came out swinging almost two decades ago with a double-whammy of Hard Candy and then the cinematic adaptation of 30 Days Of Night, Dark Harvest has a style and cool visual palette that feels very much in line with the cinematic signature of Slade, but it’s lacking something essential in the script.

The person responsible for getting this from novel to script form is Michael Gilio. Gilio was one part of the writing team responsible for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves, but he clearly works better with others than he does on his own. While some individual elements here work, mainly the scenes that put atmosphere ahead of the plot, most of the film is a disappointing mess, with poor explanations and unbelievable motivations built on a central idea that isn’t given enough proper care and attention. The script is a weak foundation, and nothing stays settled for too long before collapsing. The third act is fumbled and wobbly, undercutting a finale that ends up having no impact whatsoever.

It doesn’t help that the casting feels misjudged. Crutchfield is excellent, and it’s usually good to see Jeremy Davies (who plays the father to our lead) onscreen, but nobody else makes a strong impression. So it all rests on the shoulders of Likes, but Likes isn’t captivating enough to keep things watchable. If you can watch this without being bored at least once then please let me know your secret.

I cannot recommend this, and I really wish I could, but it at least has some great seasonal atmosphere running through it, and there are a few individual scenes that I really enjoyed (all of them involving Sawtooth Jack, a well-realised creation you might end up rooting for more than anyone else onscreen). Disappointing, but certainly not unwatchable.

4/10

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The Black Phone (2022)

Based on the short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone is a tale, not entirely unlike some other Hill stories, that feels VERY much like something his dad would write. You get a nice feeling of Americana from the past (it's set in the late 1970s), you get one main character imbued with some magical power, there are horrible bullies, a parent who likes the bottle more than anything else, and the main villain constantly tries to act as if he is working in service of a higher power. I can't see anyone who liked It, or the stories in Different Seasons, finding too much to dislike here.

Ethan Hawke plays 'The Grabber', a masked kidnapper of children who has been reducing the population of a small part of Denver. He meets his match when he grabs young Finney (Mason Thames), but he doesn't realise just how much help Finney is going to have when it comes to staying alive. Finney has a sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who has been having scarily accurate dreams, which means she may be able to locate her brother. And Finney also has the titular phone, attached to the wall of the relatively bare room he is trapped in. It occasionally rings, something that 'The Grabber' puts down to static electricity, but Finney soon becomes the first person in some time to hear voices through the receiver. Those voices are the previous victims of 'The Grabber', and they have some advice to offer Finney.

Directed by Scott Derrickson, someone who has been delivering solid entertainment for about two decades now (with his last feature being the first Doctor Strange movie), The Black Phone is a supernatural-tinged thriller that works as well as it does thanks to those involved not looking to give themselves any kind of get-out clause. The thriller aspect is solid, and there are moments of tension in between the more predictable plot beats, but the supernatural aspect is equally solid, and it's never dropped in favour of some attempt to tidy everything up in the final scenes. 

The script, written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, effectively delivers all of the information required within the first 20-30 minutes to then really focus on the tension for the remainder of the movie. There are some obvious points made that will be referred back to, but there are also some more subtle details. The 103-minute runtime speeds by, but underpinning the basic thrills and chills is a pleasantly unexpected comment, deliberate or not, about giving victims a voice, and keeping their names more relevant and recognisable than the name of their abuser. You get to learn the names of a number of kids as the movie plays out. You don't learn the real name of Hawke's character, unless I missed one quick mention of it anywhere.

While he's not onscreen for that long, Hawke is excellent, and chilling, in his role. His character casts such a long shadow that I never really felt his lack of physical absence to be a problem (although I have seen some mention that they were surprised by how few main scenes he was in). Thames is the one who carries most of the film, giving a performance that marks him out as someone to keep an eye on. The same goes for McGraw, who makes a strong impression as the feisty and gifted Gwen. The other child actors, most often seen depicting their characters as The Talking Dead, also do well. James Ransone is a highlight, playing a coked-up armchair detective who ends up closer to the truth than the people who are officially on the case. The only person who didn't work in their role was Jeremy Davies, stuck with portraying the drunken father who has to deliver some unnecessary clunky backstory that I initially through was going to set up some extended Hill/King cinematic universe.

I really liked this. It's a simple premise that is executed pretty perfectly (it probably helped that most of the film is set in one room, allowing Derrickson and co. to optimise the use of the budget elsewhere), it doesn't run overlong, and it doesn't feel as if the ending is setting up a sequel. None of those things should be so rare in modern cinema, but watching a film getting everything just right serves as a reminder of how rare they are.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Rescue Dawn (2006)

Written and directed by the always-interesting Werner Herzog, who turned the subject of his documentary "Little Dieter Needs To Fly" into a narrative feature, Rescue Dawn feels like one of the stranger Herzog movies, which is saying something when you consider his whole filmography.

Christian Bale plays Dieter Dengler, a German-born American citizen who is shot down in his aircraft during the Vietnam War. He ends up in a jungle prison, doing time alongside other individuals who have given up all hope of freedom until the war is won. Dieter is quick to start plans for an escape, despite the protestations of his fellow prisoners. The prison itself may not be that challenging to escape from, it's the jungle environment surrounding them that makes it a life-threatening challenge.

Things start off a bit wobbly here, to put it bluntly. Herzog depicts the downing of Dieter's plane in a way that shows him to be far less confident with a special effect sequence than he is with actors and ordinary people. But it's not long before things settle down after that, with the main character confused and pained by his captors.

Although I have said that this feels like one of the stranger Herzog movies, the reason for that is because it feels like his most mainstream film. It's a prisoner of war drama, and the moments that feel most like a prisoner of war drama are the moments that feel less . . . Herzogian, but there are also a lot of great little moments showing people handling their very extreme amounts of stress in different ways, and forging different connections with one another.

Bale is fantastic in the main role, giving the kind of performance that allows him to once again also change his physicality as he gets put through the wringer, and there are two superb supporting performances from Jeremy Davies and Steve Zahn. Both are very different in the way they handle their prison life, but both are equally good and fitting in their roles. And everyone else onscreen does decent work, whether they're portraying American military personnel or Vietnamese soldiers.

Despite the documentary already being out there (and I still need to see it for myself), it's easy to see why Herzog was drawn to the material for a second feature. Especially with this cast and the way it very much feels like a well-plotted Hollywood drama. I'm not sure how many liberties were taken with the original tale, but it turns into yet another standout film from a director who has given us more than his fair share.

8/10

Mubi Monday: Secretary (2002)

Sex. It's hard to deny that the world could be a better, happier place if so many people weren't so uptight about sex, whether that leads to them trying to move sex workers further and further to the edges of society, where they are more likely to be abused and harmed, or spending the vast majority of their time concerning themselves about the contents of someone else's underpants. And then you have the people who either judge others for their likes and dislikes, or spend a lot of their time unhappy because they haven't actively discussed some sexual preferences that give them more satisfaction than what some may call "vanilla" sex.

Secretary is about someone discovering themselves with the help of someone else, it's about a shared love of a certain lifestyle, or small choices made when the lifestyle allows, and it's a film that gets more right about the mindset of those involved than any of the few mainstream movies that have tried to venture into this territory (and it's ironic that James Spader plays a character named Mr. Grey).

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a young woman named Lee who starts the movie by leaving an institution that has clearly been trying to help her with her mental health. Lee goes through some training to be a secretary, and then ends up in the employment of Mr. Grey (Spader). Things start off fairly standard, but one or two moments lead to both employer and employee exploring, and enjoying, a closer relationship that allows them to explore their shared kinks.

Based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, which was adapted by director Steven Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson, Secretary is constantly walking a tightrope that it admirably never slips on. That's not to say it does everything perfectly, but it keeps moving without giving a second thought to any minor wobbles or near-misses. And the more troublesome elements, including the mental health background of Lee before she finds something that truly satisfies her while it scratches an itch she didn't realise was there, aren't so troublesome when you consider that a) a lot of people DO find themselves suffering mentally before they allow themselves to more fully explore something that easily makes them happier, and b) while Gyllenhaal is shown as submissive, to use one of the labels she is given, the script takes care to show that what is going on is communicated subtly between the two in ways that make it consensual, and also shows that submissives have just as much, if not more, control in any effective sexual dynamic.

Both of the leads are as good as you'd expect, with Gyllenhaal making a strong impression early on in her career while Spader does the kind of kinky SOB he's played effortlessly for decades (even in roles that didn't say anything about his character . . . he always played them like a kinky SOB). Lesley Ann Warren and Stephen McHattie are fine in their small supporting roles, the parents who are concerned about their daughter, but also don't necessarily know what's best for her, and Jeremy Davies is very sweet as Peter, a young man who may want to have a relationship with Lee, but may not be the right person to manage to scratch that constant little itch.

Although Secretary may seem, on the surface, as if it is designed to appeal to a very specific viewer demographic, that's not the case. You just need to adjust your perspective slightly. The script and direction work together to make everything clear, with wit and the nice subtleties of the character interactions helping everything along, and what you have is ultimately an offbeat, but still quite sweet, romantic film for those who don't really like romantic films.

And if none of it makes any sense to you, maybe read up further on kinks and fetishes, without judging others or eagerly dismissing it as evil filth. At the very least, you might read some unusual anecdotes from some very cool people.

9/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can get a shiny disc here.