For It Is Man's Number: julian richings

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Saturday, 29 January 2022

Shudder Saturday: Hall (2020)

The solo directorial feature debut from Francesco Giannini, Hall feels very much like that kind of film. In fact, it feels like a short that has been stretched out to feature length. This is a prologue that someone decided would make for a standalone film, and that person was wrong.

It's telling that this is also the narrative feature debuts for writers Derrick Adams and Adan Kolodny, making it feel very much like a concept everyone had misguided faith in. There are one or two good ideas here, including an interesting parallel between the virus at the heart of the plot and the behaviour of people behind closed doors that can hurt ones they love. It can be worth risking a journey through some dangerous and deadly environments just to escape a partner who has been abusive for many years.

Carolina Bartczak plays Val, a woman who is planning such an escape from her husband, Branden (Mark Gibson). This may have been on her mind for some time, but we see her resolve strengthen when she realises how her young daughter, Kelly (Bailey Thain), is also now a potential victim. This fractured family unit has just checked into a hotel, it's vacation time, and that is where Val meets the pregnant Naomi (Yumiko Shaku), a woman who is also secretly breaking free from her own abusive partner. Then a virus starts to affect most of the people in one floor of the hotel.

There's no way to really sugar-coat this, Hall is a bad movie. It drags everything out far too long, it gives you characters that it's hard to care for (despite obviously wanting them to get/stay away from abusive partners), and it doesn't really know where to focus. The way you can see the virus being similar to domestic abuse is interesting, and the finale goes one step further in showing it being something that is affecting one "lower" group of people while others can remain blissfully ignorant, but the weak script is further hindered by loose and unfocused direction from Giannini.

Performances are a mixed bag. Bartczak and Shaku do well, with the latter disappointingly underused, but Gibson is far too one note, and Thain cannot overcome the big hurdle of her character being asked to stay in one place for most of the second half of the movie, meaning that she has to convincingly show her worry and confusion as time continues to pass without her being taken somewhere safer. Unfortunately, although she isn't a terrible child actor, she is not up to that task.

It's almost as if every decision was made to hamper the end result here. Even playing some moments out of chronological sequence feels harmful, it makes a couple of scenes feel as if they drag on and on without having any sense of where they should be heading. Thank goodness this runs for just under 80 minutes, but it feels like it's so much longer than that.

I hope Giannini and co. take some time to seriously think about the mistakes they made before coming back with their next feature, especially if they end up developing a sequel to this.

3/10

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Saturday, 10 July 2021

Shudder Saturday: Vicious Fun (2020)

Director Cody Calahan has been doing some interesting work over the last ten years or so. Just last year alone he directed both this and The Oak Room (a film I am looking forward to rewatching before I give it a full review). But he started his feature career with Antisocial, which is a film I really disliked. I'm glad that I forgot all about my first exposure to his work, especially now that I am actively looking forward to anything else he lines up.

Working from a script by first-timer James Villeneuve (who has one short to his name before this, but nothing else that I can see), Calahan has delivered something that's absolutely spot on when it comes to the mix of silliness and dark comedy. The only thing really working against it is the small scale of every main sequence, either coming from the script or executed that way due to a limited budget.

Evan Marsh plays Joel, a horror magazine film critic who doesn't seem to be able to find a way to diplomatically interview anyone he views as simply directing tired and lazy genre fare. We see this in his very first encounter. We also see that Joel has a crush on Sarah (Alexa Rose Steele). When Sarah returns from a date one evening, Joel decides to follow the man she has decided to spend some time with. That man is Bob (Ari Millen), and a conversation with Bob leads to a drink or two in a bar, which leads to more drinks, which leads to Joel passing out in a closet and then waking up when the bar is closed. It's not empty though, and Joel takes a seat among a group of people who turn out to be serial killers. And it's not long until Bob appears to take his place in the circle. Which puts Joel in a very sticky situation.

Having fun with some killer archetypes (Robert Maillet plays Mike, a man who seems to love killing teens in camping grounds, Julian Richings plays Fritz, who has a penchant for using poison), Vicious Fun generally manages to live up to its title. It's no big surprise to see that Joel cannot keep up the facade for long, and most of the movie involves him trying to stay alive, helped by a skilled female killer named Carrie (Amber Goldfarb). More fun comes from Joel starting off as pretty much useless, while he relies on Carrie's skillset to keep them safe, but becoming more confident as he is forced into a number of situations he would much prefer to be viewing on a movie screen.

Marsh is a decent lead, doing a good job of being weak and pathetic until he finally starts to find a bit of fire in his belly. Goldfarb and Millen are both great, playing two killers with very different views on who they should be killing. Richings and Maillet are both good fun, Sean Baek does okay with his relatively small amount of screentime, and David Koechner has what amounts to an extended cameo, but is fun when he's around. Steele feels just right in her role, and you have superb comedic turns from Kristopher Bowman, Mark Gibson, and John Fray as three cops not about to believe for one second the far-fetched tale they hear from Joel.

Although really good throughout, Vicious Fun never becomes great. That's a shame. All of the ingredients are there, with the only thing lacking maybe a bit of daring or confidence. Mind you, it is easier to be daring and more confident when you have more money to play around with. At least you still get some memorable characters, a witty script, and a few decent kills in a film that makes the most of a premise that could have easily felt too slight for a feature.

7/10

Saturday, 5 December 2020

Shudder Saturday: Anything For Jackson (2020)

Sometimes when I think about my movie reviews in terms of all of the different specifics I want to discuss, sometimes I have a general feeling that I want to convey, and sometimes I spend a lot of time simply figuring out where I land with my final rating, and retro-actively working out why I came to that result. Anything For Jackson is a film that I rate 9/10, because the more I thought about it, the less I could find to criticise.

Audrey (Sheila McCarthy) and Henry Walsh (Julian Richings) are a pair of grandparents who are still mourning the loss of their grandson, Jackson. They've also been investigating rituals that may allow him to come back, which is how they end up with the pregnant Shannon (Konstantina Mantelos) held captive in their home. They want to use her unborn child as a vessel for the spirit of their grandson, bringing him back from the world of the dead, but they don't realise that creating such a vessel ends up bringing forth more than just the invited spirit. Lots of souls see their chance to get back into our world.

Director Justin G. Dyck has a filmography that doesn't really make you think he would be a natural when it comes to delivering effective horror. It's full of TV movies, mostly Christmas TV movies (which everyone knows are my favourite kind of TV movies). Sadly, the last thing I reviewed from him was, I believe, 48 Christmas Wishes (a film that has him as a co-director). Writer Keith Cooper has a similar filmography, and the two have worked together often over the past few years. It just goes to remind you not to judge anyone by their last movie, even though we continue to judge people based simply on their last movie.

Showing a real knack for creating startling imagery and genuinely unnerving moments, without feeling like people who have taken all their notes from the movies that make up "the Waniverse", Dyck and Cooper deliver something impressively intense and nerve-shredding. Although it's not laced with humour, there is something inherently darkly comedic about this plan being hatched, and executed, by a couple of kindly-looking elderly people, and that's enough to save things from being unrelentingly bleak throughout.

McCarthy and Richings are absolutely wonderful in their roles, sweet and sad, and yet staying firm in their resolve to see through their nefarious plan, even when things start to unravel and take some unexpected turns. Mantelos has to look trapped and scared, and she does so. Josh Cruddas has a unique presence, playing the character who knows more about the ancient ritual being conducted than either of the parties who actually started the ball rolling, and Lanette Ware is a detective looking for the missing Shannon. A few other people have some impressive moments, including Yannick Bisson (a handyman who offers to keep clearing snow from the driveway), Marianne Sawchuck (a "flossing ghost"), and Troy James (absolutely terrifying as a spirit credited as "Suffocating Ghost").

Set within a reality that feels grounded, and with believable character motivation, Anything For Jackson is a wild ride, a ghost train that becomes more and more intense as viewers are dragged through a brilliant third act, and I can think of very little wrong with it. It's almost perfect, hence the high rating I settled on before I started detailing my thoughts.

9/10