Shudder Saturday: We Need To Do Something (2021)

A family sheltering from a storm become inadvertently trapped in their bathroom in this strange and intriguing psychological horror. Well, I considered it strange and intriguing, and it has one of the few moments in recent history to give me proper goosebumps and a chill throughout my body, but I can see a lot of people just dismissing it as nonsensical and dull.

Pat Healy and Vinessa Shaw play the parents, the former with a drinking problem and the latter with a secret that maybe isn’t so secret. Sierra McCormick is Melissa, their teenage daughter, and John James Cronin is Bobby, the youngest family member. It doesn’t take long for tensions to rise when the family realise that they are trapped in their bathroom, and trapped alongside people they don’t necessarily like spending time with, despite their familial bonds. While the main part of the film doesn’t leave the bathroom, some flashbacks show us recent developments in the life of Melissa, tied to a strong connection she has made with a young woman named Amy (Lisette Olivera, billed as Lisette Alexis). It soon becomes clear that Melissa worries she may have somehow caused the situation her family is now in.

Written by Max Booth III, adapting his own novella into movie form, this is a film that makes use of the confined setting and small cast by slowly ratcheting up the tension, interspersing things with moments of madness, and allowing viewers to imagine what could be going on outwith those bathroom walls. Some people will hate the fact that we never really see anything, but others will appreciate the chance to unnerve themselves with just their own imagination, prompted by some very good sound cues.

Director Sean King O’Grady puts his faith in the material, as well as his cast, and doesn’t try to cover up any limitations with fancy tricks and flourishes. It doesn’t need any more, especially once we start to dig deeper into Melissa’s backstory. Making his fictional feature debut, after directing some shorts and a documentary previously, O’Grady impresses with an end result that manages to be streamlined and efficient without feeling cheap.

Cast-wise, Healy is always a welcome presence in genre fare, although the downward spiral of his character is a bit quicker that I would have liked, as well as lacking any real nuance. I blame the writing more than the performance, but this is far from Healy’s best work. Shaw fares better, helped by the fact that her character remembers to keep appearing calm and reassured, for the sake of her children, even as things go from bad to worse. Cronin gives a decent performance, a typical little brother, and McCormick does an excellent job in the lead role, being believable and watchable at all times. Alexis also does good work, and her character casts a long shadow over the proceedings, despite her limited screentime. There are one or two others in the cast, used very effectively, whether they get one scene or even just one line of dialogue.

I think there’s a lot to appreciate here. I would watch this again, and would maybe even be looking for different details in certain scenes, piecing together the seemingly-random plot elements that all point towards people also being trapped with their own guilt and/or pain, as opposed to just being trapped in a bathroom. Other people may not want to give it any more time and attention after their fist viewing, and I am sure some won’t even make it to the end. I hesitate to recommend it, but I also hope that people I know give it a try. If it works for you then it should REALLY work, but if it doesn’t . . . ah well, there are plenty more movies to check out. At least the runtime isn’t much more than an hour and a half.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Compliance (2012)

A stark lesson about why we should maybe remember that blindly following the lead of someone who seems to be in a position of authority isn’t always a good thing, Compliance is based on a true story that is all the more worrying and disturbing for being all too easy to understand. And, let me make it clear, although I watched the film with a mix of anger and no small amount of self-righteous smugness about how I would do anything I could do avoid being in that situation . . . I know that I would just as easily be manipulated if I was intimidated by anyone with enough information to convince me that they were on official police business.

Dreama Walker plays Becky, the fast food employee who is taken into the office by her boss (Sandra, played by Ann Dowd) when an alleged police officer (Pat Healy) calls with an accusation of theft. The questioning begins, as does the titular compliance, even as the situation starts to get more and more strange and twisted.

Written and directed by Craig Zobel, this is a hell of an experience to sit through. Viewers are told at the very start that everything is depicted truthfully, without exaggeration (it's hard to firmly believe that, but let's give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt), and that somehow makes it all the more frustrating and angering as you watch someone toy with people over a phone line. 

Walker is very good in her role, as vulnerable and confused as anyone would be in her position. Dowd is equally good, harder to sympathise with, especially at times when she gets carried away with the whole process, but also an unwitting victim of the manipulative caller. Healy says a lot of the right things, and the script easily shows just how well this dialogue was planned out, up until a certain point that there is no coming back from. Bill Camp is also worth mentioning, in the role of Van, a man who is shown to resist the easy option of just going along with the whole thing, until he is then seemingly cajoled into action by both the voice on the phone and his partner (Dowd).

Someone once said that you can get in almost anywhere with a hi-vis and a clipboard. You can also get people to do a lot if they fear being arrested. There are many assumptions we make in our daily lives that put us in surprisingly vulnerable positions, and Compliance is a necessary reminder that we should try not to live by those assumptions. Because there will always be someone out there looking to exploit others, for monetary gain, for revenge, or just for their own enjoyment.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Run (2021)

The team behind the popular thriller, Searching (Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian), are back with another well-tuned thriller to show that their previous film wasn't just a fluke. They know how to take a solid premise and turn the screw with every scene to ratchet up the tension as they drag viewers to a knuckle-whitening finale.

Essentially a two-hander for a lot of the runtime, Run is all about Diane Sherman (Sarah Paulson) and her daughter, Chloe (Kiera Allen). Having looked after Chloe for her entire life, Diane may need to adjust to life alone if Chloe gains admission to the college of her choice. But there hasn't been any post confirming this, and Chloe starts to wonder if her mother is trying to hide something from her. And does it involve more than just a letter from a college? Having been wheelchair-bound for most of her life, as well as having asthma and a number of other illnesses, Chloe needs to use every ounce of her strength and intelligence to try and figure out just what is going on.

It's hard to discuss Run without inadvertently giving anything away, so I won't. Well, okay, I kind of have to, but I'm going to be deliberately more vague than usual.

First off, and the easiest thing to say, Paulson and Allen are both superb in their lead roles. As familiar with Paulson as I am, this is easily one of her best performances, even when she gets to act a bit more over the top in the second half of the film. It's a nice escalation, and Paulson gives her character a complete self-belief in her actions and motivations. Allen plays almost every one of her scenes with a strength and grit that makes her journey mesmerising. Elsewhere, Pat Healy pops up to play "Mailman Tom", Sharon Bajer is a woman working in a local pharmacy (who may or may not know why Chloe has started to be prescribed some new pills), and Sara Sohn is a nurse who might end up noticing something that helps save a life.

The script, co-written by director Chaganty and Ohanian, is largely put together with enough realism and logic to allow you not to question things too much as things start to get more and more out of control. There are some major flaws, including one inexplicable moment that is only there to add a reveal and some further exposition, but the big main sequences of thrills and tension make it very easy to leave any questions you may have set aside until the end credits have rolled.

Without the restrictions of the main gimmick they were using in Searching, Chaganty and Ohanian do even better work here, digging down further into levels of darkness and twisted behaviour that help a number of key scenes in the film really pack a punch. It's slick, may make you wince in pain a couple of times, and boosted by two fantastic lead performances. A near-perfect thriller.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Pale Door (2020)

The sophomore directorial feature from director Aaron B. Koontz, who has spent some time honing his craft with numerous shorts, including his segments in the mixed bag horror comedy anthology that is Scare Package, The Pale Door has a number of big names attached to draw horror movie fans to it. From producer Joe R. Lansdale to cast members Pat Healy and Noah Segan, there are plenty of names to prick up your ears. But try to ignore your ears.  This is not a terrible film, far from it, but it's nowhere near as good as it could be.

The plot is simple enough. An outlaw gang (headed up by Duncan) are planning a profitable train robbery. But when one of the gang loses out in a shoot-out, Duncan is reluctantly persuaded to use his younger brother, Jake. The robbery doesn't get too messy, but it turns out that the treasure being transported is a young woman named Pearl. Pearl convinces the gang to take her home, where they will receive a warm welcome and a reward. They'll receive a lot more than that, considering her town houses a multitude of dangerous creatures.

The biggest problem with the first half of The Pale Door is that it feels as if it is retreading material we already saw executed so well in Dead Birds. Unfortunately, the problem with the second half is that it becomes so predictable and dull that you wish it would get back to trying to emulate Dead Birds. The problem seems to lie with the script, co-written by Koontz with Cameron Burns and Keith Lansdale. The cast do what they can, but they're weighed down by the obviousness of the plotting, and also the moments that Koontz decides to drag out for what seems an interminably long time (seriously, the final scenes in this movie feel like they add half an hour to the whole bloody thing).

Knighton is good as Duncan, Devin Druid is your typical reluctant kid acting tough, and does well, and Bill Sage is a central part of the outlaw gang, and someone always willing to do whatever needs to be done to save their own skin. Stan Shaw and Pat Healy do solid work, Noah Segan is underused, as is everyone else playing a gang member. Natasha Bassett does well with her wide-eyed innocent character who we know has some dark secret to her character, and Melora Walters is a highlight as Maria, a matriarchal figure in the town who is very open about her true intentions quite early on in the proceedings.

There are some good little touches throughout (figures scrabbling across walls and ceilings to attack the main characters, a sequence involving people being manipulated while they try to stay sheltered in a small church), but not enough to keep things enjoyably varied. Once things go from relative normality to bullets vs. evil denizens then it all turns a bit dull. The editing could have been sharper, and maybe having so much happen in the space of 5-10 minutes in the middle of the film wasn't the best decision. Drawing things out a bit more, in the right ways, would have helped, while other scenes would benefit from being trimmed, or excised completely.

5/10

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Bonus Review: Starry Eyes (2014)

Starry Eyes is a smart, disturbing horror movie that cuts away a layer of plastic coating to show the flesh and bone of wannabe stars. That flesh and bone can be, more often than not, dead and broken, but it's still there. It still makes up part of a business constructed on hopes, chance, exploitation, entitlement, and vanity. Not ALL of it is that way, but most of it is.

Alex Essoe is the young woman who keeps trying to battle her way through her dayjob, while simultaneously looking for that big break into the movie business. She ends up auditioning for a breakthrough role with a couple of people who insist on pushing her way beyond her comfort zone. As the process moves further along, things get stranger and stranger. But it IS a great part.

Playing out like a cross between "Son Of Celluloid" (from the incomparable Books Of Blood, written by Clive Barker), Mulholland Dr. and any number of Cronenberg movies, Starry Eyes is a bold movie that won't be for everyone. Thankfully, those who like it should REALLY like it.

Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer share both the writing and directing duties, which allows them to give each other a pat on the back. There may be moments of surreal madness here and there, especially in the third act, but it's all held together by a sharp script, one that constantly delivers seemingly innocent lines of dialogue all coated in a thing film of venom.

But that script would be nothing without the capable talents of the main performers, who help to clarify the meaning of each sentence, and even each word, uttered. Their body language turns almost every compliment upside down, and makes every innocent question an exploratory probe for anything that can be exploited. Essoe is the centrepiece, of course, and gives the kind of brilliant, brave performance that the film deserves. Pat Healy and Noah Segan both do fine with supporting roles. Both actors probably rank as the most recognisable faces in the cast, and both are given one or two great scenes apiece. Maria Olsen and Marc Senter are suitably off-kilter as the people looking to cast a movie, and Louis Dezseran is slightly creepy and able to make your skin crawl even as he flashes his showbiz grin and attempts to convince Essoe's character that he can help her out if he knows that she's willing to go further than anyone else. Amanda Fuller, Fabianne Theresa, Shane Coffey, Natalie Castillo, and Nick Simmons flesh out the cast, all portraying young hopefuls who want to break into the world of movies, but hopefully on their own terms.

Add the moody score by Jonathan Snipes, impressive work on every technical aspect (from cinematography to editing to lighting, etc.), and an ending that manages to leave you thinking about everything without also becoming frustrated, and you have something pretty special. In fact, it's my new favourite horror of the year, and I highly recommend it to all genre fans who are willing to try something a bit different from the norm.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Starry-Eyes-Blu-ray-Alex-Essoe/dp/B00PI97QU0/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1419970934&sr=1-2&keywords=starry+eyes

Cheap Thrills (2013)

Pat Healy is Craig, a man having a very bad day. When he decides to drown his sorrows in a bar he meets up with Vince (Ethan Embry), an old friend. It's not long until the two men meet Colin (David Koechner) and Violet (Sara Paxton). Colin, as a treat for Violet on her birthday, decides to offer money in exchange for challenge accepted by Craig and/or Vince. It starts off as a bit of fun, but soon gets darker and more dangerous. Craig and Vince end up seriously competing against one another, their bonds of friendship weakening as the money on offer for each task goes up and up.

Director E. L. Katz does well here, especially considering that it's his first time in the director's chair. The movie is a small, intimate one, but also keeps reminding viewers of the wider world that's still out there, a world that Craig and Vince will have to face after humiliating themselves for cash. Whenever it seems as if the movie might need to pause and take a breath, it doesn't. Oh no, this just keeps on rolling once the nastiness gets underway.

Trent Haaga and David Chirchirillo are the writers of the script, and the two deserve no small amount of credit for giving Katz such great material to work with. Haaga, in particular, has been working in this vein for a number of years, often walking a fine line in his movies between potential horror and dark, dark comedy (and fans of the Saw franchise should check out his fantastic film, Chop).

But neither the script nor the direction would be enough to make this a great movie if the cast weren't up to the job, and thank goodness that they are. Both Healy and Embry somehow manage to stay likable throughout, even as greed starts to overshadow the better aspects of their personalities, while Koechner is a fantastic mix of benevolence and manipulation. Sara Paxton may have the least to do, out of the four main characters, but she's fine in her role, and her character is just as important to the whole dynamic, whether she's an onlooker or sometimes even a part of a challenge.

The bottom line - Cheap Thrills is a great little movie. It's not entirely dissimilar to a number of other movies that have been released over the past few years, but it does have enough going for it, thanks mainly to all of the main characterisations, to make it one of the better recent ruminations on human nature being polluted by greed. Give it a go. I bet you enjoy it.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Cheap-Thrills-Ethan-Embry/dp/B00IXYMXY6/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1395529842&sr=1-4&keywords=cheap+thrills

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