Shudder Saturday: Spoonful Of Sugar (2022)

Between the two of them, director Mercedes Bryce Morgan and writer Leah Saint Marie have amassed a considerable body of work. Most of their films seem to be shorts/music videos, but there are also some TV movies in the mix. You wouldn't guess that from watching Spoonful Of Sugar, however, which is a horrible and unentertaining mess of a film.

Morgan Saylor plays Millicent, a young woman who starts a job as nanny for young Johnny (Danilo Crovetti). Johnny has a number of severe allergies, all explained to Millicent by his strained mother, Rebecca (Kat Foster). Although present, Johnny's father (Jacob, played by Myko Olivier) seems more focused on recapturing the days when he had a much more active and exciting sex life than helping to care for his sickly child. Hired without being asked too many questions about her lack of experience, or her own medical situation (as she is currently taking prescribed LSD because that is what the film requires), Millicent is soon creating tension in the household while developing a worryingly close connection to her young charge.

I can see what Morgan and Marie were aiming for here, I think. If Spoonful Of Sugar leaned further into hallucinations and surrealism then it might be worth a watch. If everything we saw was through the eyes of Millicent, and we knew that she couldn't always trust her senses, then the concept may have worked. That's not the way the film is presented though. The scenes with Millicent front and centre work the best, and there's a great early moment when she is talking to her doctor (Keith Powell) while keeping an eye on a lively, dismembered, finger moving around the room. Nothing else works though, and viewers will struggle to care about anyone, or anything, on the way to a punchline that would have worked much better in a more satisfying movie.

Saylor does well in her role. She's certainly the best presence onscreen, weaving between her mask of sanity and her unhinged potential threat to those around her. Foster and Olivier, on the other hand, aren't good. They're just not giving anything decent to work with though, the former being shown as constantly tense and the latter just trying to retain his ability to emanate some alpha male sex appeal bullshit. As for Crovetti, he is somehow both more and less annoying than he could be, depending on the scene.

Having seen her in one or two other movie roles, Saylor remains an interesting actress to keep an eye on. It's just a shame that I've not yet seen her in a movie that feels worthy of her talent. I hope that changes soon. She's the main reason to give this a go. Morgan and Marie are probably pleased with the end result, having clearly set out to make a trippy and strange psychological thriller that riffs on both bad babysitter movies and the "[insert noun here] from hell" subgenre. 

If you really want an experience similar to watching this, but without wasting too much time, then I highly recommend instead seeking out, and listening to, "Babysitters On Acid", a superb song by Lunachicks that genuinely delivers a better atmosphere and story in 4 minutes than this does in 90.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Jamie Marks Is Dead (2014)

We come, once again, to a film that is very good, and very well made, but perhaps not what people may be looking for if they're scheduling some standard horror genre fare. Although Jamie Marks Is Dead is very much, as it says, about Jamie Marks no longer being a sane pick for the dodgeball team, it's a teen drama that has more in common with the likes of River's Edge (I STILL need to see that film, but the imagery here certainly brings it to mind) and Submarine than it does with any full-blooded horrors. There are ghosts here, yes, but they're barely any more ethereal than teenagers who hide away from their peers as they deal with their problems.

The story begins with some snapshots of teen life. Sort of. It all really begins with the discovery of the corpse of Jamie Marks (Noah Silver), a young man who seems to have spent most of his high school years being an outcast and a victim of bullies. A shared fascination with the death brings Gracie (Morgan Saylor) and Adam (Cameron Monaghan) closer together, which allows them to stay distracted from their own problems. Adam, in particular, is struggling with the fact that his mother (Liv Tyler) was paralysed in an accident caused by a woman (Lucy, played by Judy Greer) that she is now friends with. Things get more intense when both Gracie and Adam start seeing, and talking to, the ghost of Jamie, which gives them hope that they can find out exactly what, or who, caused his death.

Based on a novel, "One For Sorrow", by Christopher Barzak, Jamie Marks Is Dead is one of those films that is easy to see struggling to find a target demographic. The issues explored are relevant to teenagers everywhere, but the presentation is more serious, and surprisingly grounded, than teen viewers may want. Older viewers, such as myself, can still identify with the things being worked through, but writer-director Carter Smith, who previously delivered solid horror for fans with the excellent plant-based nastiness of The Ruins, seems unwilling to believe that people will be drawn in by the drama alone. He adds an occasional scare here or there, which may stem from the source material, when things may have worked better with more time spent straying away from the horror elements.

Monaghan and Saylor are both very good in their roles, playing up their sensitivity and empathy without making it all seem too much like an assumed affectation. They work well together, but also separately, and Monaghan gets some excellent scenes in which he can direct his frustration and anger at Tyler and Greer, who both do well in supporting roles. Silver is slightly hampered by the fact that he has to spend a lot of his screentime looking miserable and lonely, for obvious reasons, but he gives a good performance, and the film is at its best in the few moments that have all three of the main characters shifting the dynamic between them. Madisen Beaty is also very good, playing another spirit named Frances Wilkinson who has her own, volatile, way of reacting to living souls around her.

There's nothing really wrong with this, in terms of the performances, the technical side of things, and the visual style. It's a good story, and it's generally presented well. It's just disappointing that nobody, whether that's Barzak or Smith, or both, was unable to nail down something more fitting and consistent when it came to the overall tone.

I tentatively recommend Jamie Marks Is Dead, but I don't know who I recommend it to.

6/10

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