Shudder Saturday: Slapface (2021)

Written and directed by Jeremiah Kipp, Slapface is a feature adaptation of his 2017 short film, and I would argue that, like some others, it perhaps worked better as a short than it does as a feature. Not that I have seen the short film yet, but I aim to.

The film is all about young Lucas (August Maturo), who lives with his brother, Tom (Mike Manning, also a producer on the film). The two have been scrambling to figure out their way through life after the sudden death of their mother, and part of their coping mechanism is to use a "game" named Slapface to question and test one another. Lucas doesn't really have any friends, but that changes when he encounters a legendary local monster (played by Lukas Hassel).

On the one hand, and most importantly, Slapface shows the life of a child that will be horribly familiar to anyone who has grown up relatively unsupervised in their home. You have that element of fun and freedom, but it comes with the major price of also not having that support, you don't have anyone to help you course correct or learn some more social defence mechanisms, which makes it easier to end up on the end of different forms of bullying. This is a film that hones in on that point better than many others, and that's partly thanks to the lead performance from Maturo.

Unfortunately, the horror element mixed in doesn't quite work, not for me anyway. The monster always feels too . . . monstrous, making it impossible to consider young Lucas making a connection with the creature. It's clear what Kipp is aiming for here, it just doesn't ever work as well as he thinks it well. Having said that, I seem to be very much in the minority with that view.

Maturo gives a great performance, introverted and withdrawn in a way that clearly shows how his childhood has been impacted by a traumatic loss. Manning is also very good, a big brother who tries, but isn't really ready, to be the parental figure. Libe Barer and Mirabelle Lee both put in good turns, playing two young women who view Lucas very differently, and their view of Lucas, and his relationship with his brother, is an important reminder of the different ideas that people can have when they are observing from an outsider's perspective. Dan Hedaya also has a small role, playing a local Sheriff, and is as good as ever.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. There's a very good idea at the heart of it, and it sometimes comes very close to being great. It ultimately never worked as well as it should, sadly, but I'd really like to see Kipp explore this territory again, committing himself to a journey that keeps him away from the middle ground. This either needed additional horror content or no extra horror at all, with the damaged child at the centre of it all arguably going through enough horror in his daily life. 

Good intentions, nicely put together, and with some great performances, this falls just short of being one to recommend to people. But I do recommend keeping an eye out for whatever comes next from Kipp.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: I See You (2019)

What starts off as a fairly routine, perhaps even substandard, thriller soon turns into something much more interesting by the time you get to the second half, and I am happy to highly recommend I See You to everyone who enjoys a film with some decent twists and turns.

It starts with the abduction of a young boy. This leads to Detective Greg Harper (Jon Tenney) diving into a case that feels very similar to one that everyone thought was all wrapped up. And missing teens aren't the only thing troubling Harper, as he deals with problems at home, mostly in the shape of infidelity committed by his wife, Jackie (Helen Hunt), and the anger this has stirred up in their teen son, Connor (Judah Lewis). There are also two other important characters, Alec and Mindy, but they come along later on, so I won't be focusing on them just now.

A big step up from director Adam Randall's previous movie (the disappointing iBoy), I See You works so well thanks to the script from first-timer Devon Graye. People may be a bit disappointed during the opening scenes, with the first half of the film playing out in a way that implies a supernatural element some won't want to accept, but patience is rewarded in a back end that is loaded with enjoyable revelations. Graye plots everything tightly enough, making the less believable moments easier to swallow as he starts to tighten the coiled spring you know will be loosed by the finale.

A lot of scenes feature some nicely "floating" camerawork, accompanied by a brooding score, that maintains the feeling of characters being watched by something in the house, be it an intruder or some kind of supernatural force. The conversations between various characters all feel loaded with much more than just the words being said, and that's even more apparent when viewers are given a different perspective on things.

Although Hunt is the big name at the heart of the cast, this is very much an ensemble piece. Tenney is an imposing presence throughout, and it's easy to stay on his side for a lot of the runtime, considering what he's dealing with, while Lewis is allowed to play his character as a teen with plenty of anger that is absolutely understandable. Owen Teague and Libe Barer are Alec and Mindy, respectively, and both give great performances, although it is Teague who ends up carrying a lot of the responsibility for how you ultimately react to things, his character arguably going through more changes than anyone else. Gregory Alan Williams does very well as the other detective, Spitzky, who wants to find out what the hell is going on with this new case of missing kids bringing a dark past crashing back into the present, and Sam Trammell has a small, but pivotal, role in the proceedings.

One to watch before you read too much about it, trust me when I tell you that you should end up satisfied with this one if you trust the people guiding you through the twists and turns. It has some great tension, it has some thrills, and it has an emotional core that, once revealed, feels very plausible and completely earned.

8/10

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