Shudder Saturday: Fried Barry (2020)

Barry (Gary Green) is a drug addict, a terrible partner to a woman named Suz (Chanelle de Jager), and a general waste of space. Which makes it harder for anyone to notice a major difference when his body is taken over by an alien, making him a walking flesh-suit keen to explore the streets and people of South Africa. Lucky for Barry, or maybe not, he seems to have a new way with people, attracting others who are as . . . idiosyncratic as himself, and somehow emanating an aura of desirability that make many women immediately want to have sex with him.

Written and directed by Ryan Kruger, fleshing out a short from a few years ago, Fried Barry is a decent idea that allows Kruger to work within a very low budget and still show what he's capable of. I'm disappointed that he didn't title it "Under The Foreskin", but that's for my own amusement. Having said that Kruger both wrote and directed this, it's worth correcting myself slightly to say that many of the scenes were improvised or workshopped with the cast.

Green may have some of the least amount of acting experience of those onscreen, having worked as a stuntman for some time, but his performance, more directly controlled by Kruger, is a fantastic one. His character is unsavoury, unrepentant, and completely free from social and moral norms. It's part of the fun to see him suddenly encounter this opportunity for fleeting happiness, and he manages to be odd and inquisitive without being too far removed from the selfish man we saw in the very first scenes. De Jager has some memorable rants, and does great in her main supporting role, and Bianka Hartenstein is equally good as a prostitute who has a life-changing encounter with Barry. You also get people popping up who don't mind doing a bit of impromptu dentistry (Jonathan Pienaar being gleefully sadistic), a number of patients in a psychiatric hospital who don't view Barry as being all that odd, and someone popping up at the start of the film to remind you of the meaning of film certification, in a clip that will make viewers of a certain age smile as they remember being given the same information from Simon Bates before most feature films on VHS.

The big problem with Fried Barry is the fact that it has little point. The central character gets to wallow in his preferred lifestyle, observations of human behaviour are filtered through the life of Barry, and even the inserted moments for the VHS generation (e.g. that certification intro just mentioned) are spliced in with no real reason, as enjoyable as they are. Not that every film has to have some big point to make, or commentary running through it, but Fried Barry seems like it will have both of those things, and then it doesn't.

I had a lot of fun with this, and Kruger has definitely marked himself out as someone to keep an eye on. I just wish it hadn't felt QUITE so random and pointless (pointless as in avoiding any real comment, not pointless as a viewing experience) by the time the end credits rolled.

7/10

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Planet Of The Sharks (2016)

If you wanted to remake Waterworld for the cost of a few quid, and add a load of sharks, then you would probably end up with Planet Of The Sharks, a terrible film that I find myself now trying to review.

The story is simple, yet also more complicated at times than it needs to be. All you need to know is that our planet has become flooded. And the food chain has changed, putting sharks at the very top. A small group of people have an idea of how to try and improve the situation, and viewers get to see their journey. Which is nowhere near as exciting as it should be.

Directed by Mark Atkins, someone who has done a number of films in this vein (as is so often the way), Planet Of The Sharks wants to mix some post-apocalyptic shenanigans with plenty of shark activity, which is commendable. Unfortunately, Atkins has neither the budget nor the skill to make something pacey and entertaining. He also doesn’t have a decent script, working from an awfully dull creation co-written by himself and Marc Gottlieb. I watched this late in the afternoon, fully fed and caffeinated, and I still almost fell asleep once or twice. I know it can happen, but it always amazes me when people make a film based around sharks SO dull.

The cast do nothing to help matters. Brandon Auret, Stephanie Beran, and Lindsay Sullivan are the nominal leads, aside from the sharks, but none of them have any real presence. I wish I could say the same for Angie Teodora Dick, playing a character so annoying that I wanted her to be eaten within seconds of her first appearance.

And speaking of the characters, giving your characters names of famous people, or names that reference other films, isn't enough to make your film a fun, cine-literate, experience. I admit that when I found out the annoying character played by Dick was called Joanne D'amato I thought that wasn't a bad way to namecheck someone, but having someone just called Dr. Caroline Munro? You may as well just call your leads Peeta Cushing and Kristoff Earl Lee, with room for Bella Lugosi, Doris Karloff, etc. Those names would be more amusing than simply using the real name of someone that genre fans have enjoyed through the decades.

I know what I am letting myself in for with these movies, and those who know me already know that about me, but there are still many movies of this ilk that provide simple entertainment for those undemanding in their creature feature viewing habits. Planet Of The Sharks doesn't do that. One to avoid, although I'll grudgingly admit that a number of the CGI moments weren't as bad as I expected them to be.

3/10

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Nightwish (1989)

Written and directed by Bruce R. Cook, his second of only two films he directed, Nightwish is just the right kind of bonkers for anyone hankering for that wonderfully silly ‘80s horror vibe. It was suggested to me after I laid some praise on Spookies, and it’s easy to see why. 

The plot concerns a careless professor taking a bunch of students to a house that they’re going to investigate. There’s also a machine that has people trying to control their dreams and deal with their fears. What that means is that you get a feature mixing supernatural shenanigans, a hefty dose of treachery, and even some potential alien activity. It’s best described as From Beyond crossed with The Legend Of Hell House, via a number of X-Files episodes. 

Although he continues to take things further and further into the realm of the ridiculous, Cook actually does a decent enough job with his writing and direction. The science is all for the sake of the movie, aka completely unbelievable, the characters are bearable enough to care about, but also disposable when the threat of death grows, and there are some fun effects dotted throughout. The dialogue is also in line with how the film is playing out, which means that you shouldn't come here if you're in the mood for some Shakespeare, but it's perfectly fine for a fun genre film.

Brian Thompson is probably the biggest name in the cast, but he only has a few minutes of screentime, effectively bookending the central section of the film. Jack Starrett is the professor, and enjoys taking his performance from calm civility to dangerous "captor" once others start to become reluctant about everything going on. Elizabeth Kaitan and Alisha Das are the main ladies, Donna and Kim, and both do fine in their roles, while other people hang around and wait to be imperilled. 

There's so much going on here that it's impossible for me to figure out just how much to put into this review. I worry that mentioning too many details will have you expecting one specific kind of film while Nightwish actually wants to deliver about ten different film plots to you. It's a gleeful mish-mash of stuff that could have easily been reworked into parody, and I admire the fact that it seems to be playing the whole thing relatively straight, despite sometimes getting very close to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Special effects from KNB help, but not as much as the overall feeling of an earnest desire to entertain. It's all very silly, and doesn't once even accidentally get close to creating any tension in the second half, but it's an easy one to watch and enjoy. If you're not smiling by the time you get to the inevitable stinger in the final scenes then I don't know what to tell you . . . we're just very different people who can take movies in very different ways.

7/10

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Prime Time: Without Remorse (2021)

A Tom Clancy adventure tale, which means a lot of military tactics and hardware on display, Without Remorse is yet another vehicle for Michael B. Jordan that isn't really deserving of his talent. That's not to say that it's bad, it's just not great. And it could easily have been improved.

Jordan plays John Kelly, a bit of a super-soldier. He's taken, along with his team, on a mission overseen by Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell). It turns out to be a mission that upsets some powerful Russians, apparently, and a revenge attack attempts to take out the team when they're back on American soil. Kelly actually survives the attack, but his pregnant wife is murdered. So he's determined to do whatever it takes to take down the people responsible for shattering his life. But who is the one giving the orders, and how far up the chain does the whole mess go?

Not considering the cast, who I will mention soon enough,  Without Remorse has a number of good names involved with putting it together. The script is by Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples, and it's not that bad. Oh, it's fairly predictable and clichéd, but it works just fine for the kind of film it wants to be. Director Stefano Sollima handles everything capably enough, especially in the action scenes that give a cinematic spin on some more realistic action, if you can overlook the fact that at least one character seems to be pretty indestructible at times. The plotting is kept straightforward enough, and the geography is usually quite clear when it comes to the gunfights and combat.

Jordan is as riveting as usual in the lead role, absolutely believable as a smart and tough badass (I'd say his John Kelly is on a par with a character like Jack Reacher). Bell is just fine in his role, playing someone that Kelly distrusts from the start, which means we viewers also distrust him. Jodie Turner-Smith is another main member of the military team, Karen Greer, and she holds her own in the thick of the action. Last, but not least, is Guy Pearce, playing Secretary Clay, the kind of suit-wearing official you suspect will always be looking out for plausible deniability, even as he seems to be helping the main characters. Pearce is another highlight, and he gets some of the better little moments in the script, gaining trust from soldiers with his ability to be savvy and realistic, at times offering an option to others without any glorious reward at the end of it.

If you like this kind of film then you're going to like this. It's exactly what you want it to be. But it's nothing more than that. Nothing. There's no real ambiguity or complexity, despite what the writers may want you to think by the third act. You have good guys going after bad guys, and those bad guys come in various guises. There are a few decent set-pieces, and it sets things up for a potential series. But it's unlikely to be one that viewers will revisit often, if at all, and if there IS a sequel coming along then I hope it improves on what has been laid down here. A solid, unspectacular, foundation.

6/10

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Spookies (1986)

Although I didn't know anything about the production history of the movie when I first saw it, as a teenager seeking out every horror movie with a tantalising title and/or lurid video cover, Spookies has always been a film I viewed with a mix of affection and admiration. I knew it wasn't quite how movies should be, going by the standard criteria that many use to judge their viewing experiences, but I also knew that I kind of loved it.

It's a sign of the wonderful age we live in that Spookies now has a lovely blu-ray release, packaged with a documentary about the film and a documentary on VIPCO, the company who brought so many horror movies to VHS and DVD here in the UK, often butchered by the BBFC. It's worth noting that, for all the complaints to be made about VIPCO releases (murky prints, the many cuts to the material, etc), they were delivering this kind of content to horror fans years before we had the wonderful variety of boutique labels we have now. It may be difficult to limit your purchases now, with the likes of Arrow, Indicator, Second Sight, 101 Films, and others vying for your money, but 20-30 years ago we mainly had to rely on the curating skills of VIPCO and Anchor Bay.

But back to the film. There's an elderly man (Felix Ward) waiting beside a beautiful woman (Maria Pachukas) he seems to be in love with. They're hidden away somewhere in an old house that is visited by a mixed group of people we will call "People Obviously Set To Imminently Expire" AKA POSTIE. What's more, this group includes a Man With A Hand-puppet AKA MWAH. I think that tells you everything you need to know. As is so often the case, the POSTIE group decide to play around with a spirit board. That leads to encounters with the undead, including demonic creatures, a statue of the grim reaper that doesn't want to stay still, an arachno-beastie, and, rather infamously, some farting mudmen.

The things that are bad here are things that are bad in a lot of small horror movies. The acting isn't great, especially any scene featuring MWAH, the script gives people some laughably bad dialogue, and there's a lack of any sense of logic or consistency. The fact that the film was so severely recut and reworked explains that last aspect, but the air of surreal insanity it creates also ends up being a big plus point for the film. You can accuse Spookies of many things, but you certainly couldn't accuse it of being boring.

Eugenie Joseph is the director to have finished it off, and Ann Burgund helped to write the extra material used, but equal credit must go to Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, and Frank M. Farel, the people who created "Twisted Souls", the film that was mistreated and transformed into Spookies.

My love for this film isn't fully in line with what you get onscreen, but I cannot bring myself to let the bad outweigh the good. The cast at least do what is asked of them, even MWAH, but they're playing second fiddle to the wild and varied special effects on display, with lots of pulsating bladders being used and an ill-advised amount of blue paint to create a number of unthreatening ghouls.

Not a film I would hastily recommend to everyone, but one I would hastily recommend to those who spent the same amount of hours as I did browsing the many horror movie video boxes that often specialised in misrepresenting the actual content of the films contained within them, Spookies may well be one of the best films to come from such a bad experience. It's cheesy, laughable, often incoherent, and full of moments lifted from elsewhere. It's also pretty bloody brilliant.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Rules Don't Apply (2016)

A drama loosely based on part of the life of Howard Hughes, Rules Don't Apply allows the character of Hughes (played by writer-director, Warren Beatty) to cast a very long shadow over the lives of a driver/assistant named Frank (Alden Ehrenreich) and a newly-arrived potential film starlet, Marla (Lily Collins).

The main storyline begins when Frank picks up Marla, who has just arrived in town with her mother, Lucy (Annette Bening). The two start to get along right away, but Howard Hughes has strict rules forbidding staff from fraternising with one another. That doesn't stop these two youngsters developing stronger feelings for one another, however, despite the other factors that are working against them. Hughes takes a liking to Frank, asking more and more of him, and both viewers, and Frank, watch the downward spiral of a man who would become a virtual recluse for so many years.

Say what you like about Warren Beatty, and his reputation has preceded him for decades now, the man can put together a film. His sensibilities may be a little old-fashioned for people seeking out films with energy and/or challenging moments, but he picks material that he can work with. He then gives that material the treatment it deserves. Even the much-maligned Dick Tracy movie has a lot going for it, from the effects and production design to the casting. Rules Don't Apply takes two very familiar movie concepts, the "star-crossed" lovers and the legend of Hughes, and blends them together in a way that makes for one engrossing and enjoyable Hollywood presentation.

The script, from a story co-developed with Bo Goldman, is decent, if unspectacular. It keeps Hughes more enigmatic for the first third of the movie, eventually revealing more of the man, flaws and all, as his erratic behaviour is shown, and commented on by those trying to keep their jobs around him. The same goes for the technical side of things, with things like shot choice, soundtrack selections, and everything seen onscreen as well-made and polished as you would expect.

The big boost to the material comes from the cast, something Beatty has always done well with. Ehrenreich is superb in the lead role, and looks absolutely right in this era, while Collins is a very enjoyable female lead. Both deliver the right level of innocence and earnestness, only growing more savvy and cynical as time marches on. Beatty is a decent fit for Hughes, although this is the only role I would have been tempted to recast, and his performance is complemented by great little turns from Matthew Broderick, Martin Sheen, Candice Bergen, and many other familiar faces.

There's nothing new here, but what's here is done well. Really well. And sometimes it's nice to sit back and enjoy something that is so unabashedly old-fashioned and sympathetic to all of the main characters. You get a peek at a strange lifestyle of one of the most rich and famous figures of the 20th century. And you get a couple of young stars being allowed to truly shine.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Things Heard And Seen (2021)

If the past year or so has taught us anything, impact of a global pandemic aside, it is never to move in to a house with Amanda Seyfried. She just doesn't seem to have any luck with it. The biggest worry for most of us is watching the movers take our things in and out, and wincing if a beloved item of furniture is bumped and forced through a doorway that looks a bit too small for it. Seyfried seems to have a knack for finding haunted houses, which can make for a more nerve-wracking experience than sorting through bags to find the one that you stashed the bath towels in.

Seyfried plays Catherine Claire, a talented artist who has given up most of what she enjoys in life to support her husband, George (James Norton), and look after their young daughter, Franny (Ana Sophia Heger). Catherine also has an ongoing battle with an eating disorder, seems to be more susceptible to tales of spookiness, according to George, and looks to be a bit unhappy with her life. George, on the other hand, is feeling great about things. He's now the college professor he always wanted to be, he starts having an affair with a young local woman (Willis, played by Natalia Dyer), and his life is almost exactly as he wants it to be. George isn't really a nice man though, and a lot of his current situation may have been created by some cheating and manipulation.

Co-directed and co-written by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, adapting "All Things Cease To Appear", the novel by Elizabeth Brundage, it's no surprise to see that neither Berman nor Pulcini have any other horror movies in their main filmography. They deliver some great little chills throughout this movie, but they're more interested in showing the extensive damage in the relationship between Catherine and George, and how George has been causing this for a number of years, but it was easier to overlook when creating fault lines under the surface. You also get an ending that, while satisfying, actually moves away from delivering some better horror and supernatural twists.

Seyfried is as good as ever in the lead role, easy to root for as he gets angrier and tougher in the second half. Norton does well as someone it's easy to hate, starting with an air of entitlement and arrogance before becoming worse and worse. Heger doesn't get too much to do, but she certainly does decent work. Dyer is saddled with one of the weakest characters, but she does okay, Alex Neustaedter and Jack Gore are good as a couple of young brothers who come around to help at the house (and also lived there at one point), F. Murray Abraham is a welcome presence, and I hope this is the first of many more worthwhile film roles for the talented Rhea Seehorn. I should also mention the small role for Karen Allen, someone else I am always happy to see in anything.

It's not that Things Heard And Seen is bad, or boring. It does everything well enough, including an ending that focuses on details that were signposted elsewhere in the movie. I just can't help but think of the third act as a missed opportunity, for reasons I won't go into here (because of spoilers), and that makes me then think that the rest of the film could have been tweaked and improved here and there. It never really feels as if it does more than coast along, and Berman and Pulcini seem to steadfastly refuse to turn the screws when they have chances to ratchet up the tension. The end result is something that's decent, but also so safe that it's also a bit disappointing.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: In Search Of Darkness: Part II (2020)

I was quite clear when I discussed In Search Of Darkness last year, a lengthy documentary about the horror movies of the 1980s. So many people loved it, and the only reason I can think of for that love is the shared affection for the genre, and a large helping of nostalgia. A lot of the contributors offered nothing more than the most basic opinions, there were very few films mentioned that weren't already very well known, and they angered me by crediting John Carpenter with that fine score for The Thing which came from Ennio Morricone.

Why would I dive into this sequel then? Well, I was hoping they might do better. 

The format is pretty much the same. You get a lot of the same selection of talking heads (some better than others, and some make you question why they were chosen for involvement in the first place), you get plenty of clips from the movies being discussed, and you get some attempts to contextualise individual entries within the bigger picture of what was happening to the horror genre throughout the decade.

First of all, although the titles picked here are generally a bit less "mainstream" than the titles in the first instalment, this still almost steadfastly refuses to dive into the really dark recesses of the video selections from the '80s. A whole section could have been dedicated to Gremlins rip-offs, but instead they're simply name-checked by Joe Dante, who gets to state that he doesn't rate Ghoulies, but considers Critters the best of the bunch that came out about that time. Every time the camera shows a number of movie posters (or I guess they are supposed to be video covers), you get to see some more obscure titles before it zooms in to focus on the next film up for discussion, which is most often one that most horror fans will be familiar with. And a horror documentary full of movie clips spending some time discussing a previous horror documentary full of movie clips - Terror In The Aisles - seems both meta and also completely unnecessary.

I won't try to list some of the many notable omissions, as that would just be too depressing, but things are saved this time around by some sections that allow stars to discuss their careers. You get Nancy Allen On Nancy Allen, Tom Savini On Tom Savini, Robert Englund On Robert Englund, and Linnea Quigley On Linnea Quigley. These, alongside a section that looks at the horror movie videogames of the era, offer up just enough insight and enjoyment to make this a better film than the first instalment. It's also bittersweet to see some on-camera contributions from the late, great, Stuart Gordon.

If you enjoyed In Search Of Darkness then you're bound to enjoy this. It's more of the same. If, like me, you were in the minority then this at least improves things slightly. I have no doubt that a third entry would be possible, and it would be the same yet again. And I'll be bemoaning the fact that we horror fans seem to be so easily pleased sometimes by stuff put out there with minimal amounts of care and real insight. 

4/10

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Relic (2020)

Another horror movie that takes the idea of the very real horror of gradually losing a loved one to dementia, or something very similar, Relic does everything very well, and leads to a finale that is equal parts moving and equal parts creepy (or at least attempting to be creepy).

Emily Mortimer plays Kay, a woman who heads along to find out what has happened to her missing mother (Edna, played by Robyn Nevin). Kay has her daughter (Sam, played by Bella Heathcote) there to help, and it isn’t long until they realise that Edna may no longer be able to live on her own. But is her decline in mental health due to the usual circumstances, or is there something else happening?

Directed by Natalie Erika James, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Christian White, Relic could easily have done gone very wrong, and I wouldn’t mind if the horror genre now moves away from this idea, before some film comes along that completely mishandles the subject matter. James and White take great care to keep fleshing out the heart of the film, the relationships that come with both love and pain, and they help themselves greatly by incorporating a superb cast.

Mortimer is rarely less than great, and this is another very good turn from her, while Heathcote is equally good, giving a performance that balances out the different dynamics you have between being a child and being a grandchild. Nevin may seem to get the easiest role - simply having to veer between moments of clarity and moments of confusion - but she also has to seem like a victim for many scenes, and then occasionally act with what could be malicious intent. There are one or two others onscreen, but it’s largely kept to the three main leads.

Although it’s very good throughout, and gives an interesting twist on what you might expect to happen, this is also a surprisingly straightforward film, in terms of how things unfold and the reveals that occur. It’s a shame that James didn’t take some more chances, with both the narrative and her stylistic choices, but maybe she was concentrating on keeping the tone so finely balanced for the duration.

A solid, if unspectacular, horror. I recommend this, and it definitely fully won me over by the time the end credits rolled.

7/10

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The Astronaut's Wife (1999)

Part Quatermass movie, part Rosemary's Baby, The Astronaut's Wife could easily be titled Rosemary's Space Baby and nobody would complain.

Charlize Theron plays Jillian Armacost, the wife of an astronaut named Spencer (Johnny Depp). While up in space on a mission, contact was lost with Spencer and his flight partner, Alex (Nick Cassavetes). All seems fine when they get back to Earth, although Spencer and Alex are put through a number of tests. Sherman Reese (Joe Morton) thinks differently, however, and ends up trying to warn people who don't want to hear his "paranoia".

The only feature both written and directed by Rand Ravich, and it soon becomes clear why that is, The Astronaut's Wife is a plodding melodrama with no tension, no originality, and one or two scenes that use some ill-advised CGI to create some kind of set-piece highlight.

It also wastes what could have been a great cast. Theron has to watch her husband while looking tense and worried, obviously. Depp isn't in his self-parody stage yet, but it's not a great central turn from him (I think  he's always struggled to play anyone who seems . . . "normal"). Cassavetes makes no impression, while Donna Murphy, playing his wife, is disappointingly underused. Morton is good, as is Clea DuVall (playing the sister of Theron's character), and there are decent little supporting turns from Blair Brown, Tom Noonan, and Samantha Eggar, but Ravich clearly does nothing to help any of them.

At no point does Ravich do enough to make his movie more than a full waiting game between points A to B, to C and beyond, which is a real shame. Not only that, he refuses to then take the other approach that could have been more entertaining, a simple lean in to the potential horror and craziness of the concept. So you get a restrained horror that wants to be a mystery, but has no sense of mystery. The score by George S. Clinton is underwhelming, and there's not even any aspect of the film that is accidentally impressive (from the production design to the cinematography, it's all just . . . there).

Probably forgotten by everyone involved as soon as get settled into the 21st century, The Astronaut’s Wife is best also forgotten by anyone who might think about watching it. It is a big waste of time. Maybe not as terrible as some glossy movies, it’s still criminally dull for almost the entirety of the runtime. 

3/10

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Prime Time: Assassin (2015)

Look, I don’t actually hate Danny Dyer. I rarely think he is the best actor for any role (one or two major highlights aside), and many of his movies have been amusingly incompetent, but I still always root for him to pick better films to star in. Unfortunately, he seems to think that his bread and butter comes from British movies in which he can portray a tough lead. And maybe that is where his bread and butter comes from. But it never leads to his best work.

Dyer is Jamie, the titular assassin. He is hired by two crooks (played by Gary and Martin Kemp) to kill off a competitor. Which he does. But not before coincidentally sleeping with Chloe (Holly Weston), who happens to be the daughter of the soon-to-be-dead crook. Complications ensue, and Jamie shows himself to be a terrible choice of assassin, although we’re supposed to think he is still a most excellent and capable killer.

Written and directed by J. K. Amalou, this film is so carelessly thrown together, with everything leading to a final ten minutes that is supposed to feel like a satisfying finale, that it borders on the outright insulting. Dyer at no point seems like a good fit for the main role, and none of the other characters are written to seem at all convincing.

The cast cannot really be bothered. They have been paid, maybe get some free food and drink as they spend time in between scenes, and half-heartedly recite lines from a script they must know is just dire. There’s no style, no decent score to help, nothing to help distract from the awfulness of it all.

As for Dyer, he walks through his performance looking as if, moments before the camera started rolling, he was just woken up from a nap and asked to reel off the first twenty integers of pi. In the pantheon of Dyer performances, this ranks as one of his very worst.

Nobody livens up the material, no part of the plot gives you something to care about (either due to the laughably weak characters or the editing removing any tension from the sequences that are supposed to be standouts), and this is a film destined to be forgotten by everyone, until you see fifty copies of it on a shelf in your nearest Poundland store.

2/10

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Superintelligence (2020)

A comedy vehicle for Melissa McCarthy that is once again directed by her husband, Ben Falcone, Superintelligence has a soft, sweet, centre to it that may gain it some goodwill from the right viewer. It's certainly not the usual mix of swearing and pratfalls that people assume is part of every Melissa McCarthy movie.

McCarthy plays Carol Peters, a woman deemed by a number of people to be one of the most average humans alive. Which is why an artificial intelligence system enters her life, erasing her debt and upgrading everything around her, in order to study Carol and learn about humanity. Over the course of a few days it will decide the best way to deal with the human race. Yes, that means that things could go very bad. Carol is also given a chance to make up with her ex-partner, George (Bobby Cannavale), a man about to leave the country in just a few days.

That's all you need to know about Superintelligence. Oh, and the AI is voiced by James Corden, because that was deemed the voice that Carol would respond to best, having been a massive fan of his for many years.

I've said many times that I like McCarthy, more than most people seem to, and I once again like her here, despite the fact that the comedy is often left to many of the supporting players (such as Brian Tyree Henry, a man who becomes flustered when in the same room of the President - Jean Smart - that he greatly admires, or the much smaller turns from the likes of Karan Soni, Usman Ally and Jenna Perusich, and Damon Jones). Carol Peters is supposed to be unremarkable, but she has a good heart, and hopes to one day be able to change the direction of the human race on to a better path.

Falcone directs well enough, and also gives himself a fun supporting role as an agent, alongside Sam Richardson, and he doesn’t seem to warp or strangle the light script from Steve Mallory. There are a number of fun pop culture references (WarGames being an excellent one), the tech side of things is kept simple, it’s easy to show how powerful the AI can be with so much gadgetry around, and the focus keeps returning to the potential rekindling of love at the heart of the story.

While McCarthy is very good in her role, she’s ably supported by everyone around her. I have already mentioned some of the highlights in the supporting cast, but Cannavale also deserves some praise, especially when his role could so easily be seen as the thankless love interest role that women usually get landed with. Kept largely offscreen, aside from one or two moments of visualisation, Corden has fun portraying a version of himself in audio form. And Henry, playing Carol’s friend, and a computer expert, provides a good number of laughs every time he appears.

It’s difficult to think who will enjoy this most though. Those who dislike McCarthy won’t be won over. Those who dislike Corden could be put off. Anyone after a rom-com might hate the tech thriller plot strand, and vice versa. That doesn’t make it a bad film though, not necessarily, but it easily stops it from being a very good one.

6/10

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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: Love And Monsters (2020)

No matter how often it happens, it can always be surprising to see the Netflix effect in action. Everyone and their dog, ironically, seemed to have watched Love And Monsters last week. It was a film on my radar for some time, but I didn't realise it had appeared online until I saw everyone giving their opinions on it. And the general census seemed to be that it was a good one.

Yeah, I don't disagree with the majority here.

Set a number of years after a chain reaction of events that led to our planet being overrun by mutated creatures, we follow Joel Dawson (Dylan O'Brien), a young man who has recently reconnected over the radio comms system with Aimee (Jessica Henwick), the potential love of his life. He decides to leave his own colony to travel the seven days over land and meet her again in person. The only problem is that Joel is not a fighter. He tends to freeze when faced with any nasty monster. Thankfully, he meets a very smart, and helpful, dog along the way, and also meets a couple of other survivors (Clyde, played by Michael Rooker, and young Minnow, played by Ariana Greenblatt) who have skills they can teach him. Growing more and more capable, Joel starts to rate his chances of getting to Aimee. But the threats keep getting progressively more dangerous.

Directed by Michael Matthews (who has a small filmography that doesn't indicate a sudden move in this direction), Love And Monsters is a fun post-apocalyptic creature feature that moves some very likeable characters around in a world chock full of influences, ranging from the obvious (A Boy And His Dog and a number of films featuring Ray Harryhausen effects) to the not-so-obvious (there seems to be a few nods to the famous journey made by Frodo Baggins).

The script, by Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson, manages to be light and amusing while also maintaining a sense of threat. Our hero is woefully unprepared for so many steps of his journey, but improves on the way. His chances of survival, however, tend to remain the same, depending on what luck he might have on the way. And the comedic approach to the material means that you're not entirely sure that there won't be a way to kill the main character off (temporarily, or for good).

O'Brien is very good in the main role, believably naive and optimistic, and able to step up to some big challenges without suddenly seeming superhuman. It's a world in which brains are just as valuable as any other resource, and O'Brien convincingly plays his role wide-eyed, but not dumb. Rooker and Greenblatt are a great addition to the middle section, and provide some great set-ups that are later paid off. Henwick is also very good, although her character development is undermined by a complete lack of surprise. There are also good turns from Dan Ewing as a yacht captain offering to help a colony move and, best of all, a couple of very talented canines playing a dog named Boy, arguably one of the best scene-stealing animals I can think of from the past decade.

With a finale that even manages to make you think of the wonderful Clash Of The Titans, consistently impressive special effects throughout, a surprisingly positive approach to living in a post-apocalyptic world, and the potential for at least one solid sequel, Love And Monsters is well worth your time, if you like creature features. Although, as far as I'm aware, everyone else has seen it by now anyway.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: Mother's Day (1980)

Co-written and directed by Charles Kaufman (arguably best known for being the brother of Lloyd "Troma" Kaufman), Mother's Day is a strange slasher movie that tries to work within the standard parameters of the sub-genre while also having fun with some of the tropes. It doesn't work, let's get that out of the way right now, but there are elements here that remain interesting, especially when you consider that this was a film released at the start of the 1980s, before the slasher movie had really taken the firm hold it would take on the horror movie output of the decade.

Beatrice Pons (billed as Rose Ross) plays Mother, an elderly woman who has a couple of sons, Ike and Addley, she encourages to torture and kill people. They live in a cabin in the middle of some woods, which is very unfortunate for Abbey (Nancy Hendrickson), Trina (Tiana Pierce), and Jackie (Deborah Luce), three women who set out on a carefree vacation.

A fairly "cheap 'n' cheerful" horror, with occasional dollops of gore and moments of nastiness to ensure that horror fans won't feel as if they have been short-changed, Mother's Day feels somewhat like a reaction to the nastier, and more notorious, films that were released in the latter half of the '70s. The Last House On The Left, The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit On Your Grave, et al. Those films often feel like endurance tests, especially in the scenes that show the victims being tortured and brutalised before we get to the more cathartic third acts. Mother's Day, on the other hand, tries to show the villains being despicable and abusive while not dwelling on things for any extended period of time. But when it comes to the inevitable retribution, THAT is when you get more gore and the camera moving in to get closer to the bloodshed.

The acting is a mixed bag, but it's in line with the tone of the material. Pons is a lot of fun as the demented mother, while Hendrickson, Pierce, and Luce all do well enough as the trio trying to stay alive once Ike and Addley have a hold of them. Frederick Coffin and Michael McCleery (both billed under different nnames) are suitably menacing and powerful as the baddies, so blasé about their deadly deeds that they can take time to bicker with one another and/or check on how much mother approves.

If the script, co-written by Kaufman and Leight, was just improved slightly then this could have been a solid slasher that also subverts a number of the tropes already established by the time it was released. Unfortunately, because of the uneven tone and the lack of a well-constructed "Trojan horse" for the main ideas, it just ends up being a bit of a misfire. Those wanting a slasher movie can find many better ones to watch, those wanting to enjoy the comedic elements of it will have to put in a bit more effort than they may feel should be necessary.

5/10

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I Blame Society (2020)

I don't blame society. I blame Gillian Wallace Horvat. And that's my review done. 

Okay, I guess I should say a bit more.

Gillian Wallace Horvat plays a struggling filmmaker (named Gillian), who is also having a hard time with a friend, Chase (played by Chase Williamson). She starts to plan murders, having been told that she could be very good at it, and then puts them together into a film she hopes will impress those who can help her career.

It's hard to think of where to really begin with my full review of I Blame Society, mainly because there are lots of separate little moments that at least made me smile. It's a bad film though, weighed down by the ridiculousness of a central concept that it never really knows how best to handle. I've seen a lot of people giving this a fair bit of praise, which surprised me once I'd finally seen it for myself.

First of all, Horvat is a great talent. Her filmography is full of some interesting celebrations of different movies (her video documentary shorts cover films as diverse as American Ninja and The Bells Of St. Mary's, as well as some looking at Frank Capra, Cary Grant, and others . . . I assume these are pieces that have been packaged with various features given upgraded shiny disc releases). Horvat is clearly a big film fan, and has decided to try something that can call out, and make use of, the limitations of low-budget, independent, cinema. It just didn't work for me.

The two main problems are the script, co-written by Horvat and Williamson, and the central performance. Try as she might, I just don't think Horvat felt right in the lead role. It all feels like acting throughout, whereas the whole thing could have been better if there was someone who was able to convincingly portray that detached coldness needed for most of the small set-pieces that occur.

Although I can't say just how much effort went into this, and most films take a hell of a lot of effort just to get made, there's also a feeling that everyone involved took the easiest options. A pet peeve of mine is when mockumentaries and/or "found footage" films have lead characters who are just given the same name of the actors. I know it's often used to blur the lines between fact and fiction, and allow for some more spontaneous magic to happen, but it always feels lazy to me. Then you have the supporting cast that are just dragged in and out of the loose storyline when required, none of them really given any time or space to feel like a potentially real person. And the ending is just a culmination of the ridiculousness that keeps being piled on throughout the second half.

You can blame society. You can blame others close to you. But don't blame me if you watch this and end up disliking it. The humour saves it, but there's not enough of it to make it something I would even rate as average.

4/10

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Promising Young Woman (2020)

You're probably already familiar with Promising Young Woman, either after seeing the impressive trailer or just hearing about the excellence of the central performance from Carey Mulligan. If you have heard people heap lots of praise upon it then, trust me, it's all warranted. Promising Young Woman is an enjoyable thriller that manages to be as entertaining and satisfying as it is searingly damning.

Mulligan plays Cassandra, a young woman who dropped out of university after a traumatic event changed her life, and the life of her friend, Nina, forever. Always ready to assume the worst in people, Cassandra hangs around in various clubs, pretending that she is very drunk, and waits for some guy to come along and act as if he's being her saviour. When the man inevitably decides that sex is on the cards, Cassandra drops her charade and confronts them about their behaviour. Despite this being all well and good, and an important lesson for every man she meets, Cassandra also has a grand plan to get revenge on the main criminal who ruined Nina's life. But that plan may need some tweaking, especially as she connects with Ryan (Bo Burnham), a paediatrician who was also at the same university. Is Ryan different from other men she has encountered? Is he a good man? He certainly seems to be better than most.

Although she has a number of acting credits to her name, this is an incredible feature debut from writer-director Emerald Fennell (who also wrote a number of episodes for the highly-praised Killing Eve). The big plus is creating a central character who is such a determined and smart day of reckoning for those who are blissfully ignorant of her ongoing work. Although taking aim at the behaviour of many men, it also ensures that viewers are reminded of how society is still designed to support and enforce a patriarchy that allows that kind of behaviour to be justified, defended, or disbelieved, even in the face of clear and obvious evidence.

Mulligan gives what may well be a career-best performance here, and that is saying something. Her character is so often attempting to outwit and wrong-foot others that her performance needs to be made up of layers upon layers. Burnham is very good alongside her, someone who may be a good guy, patient and understanding, but who may also get in the way of the main plan. Alison Brie gives an enjoyably ugly turn as Madison, someone who disbelieved Nina back in university, and doesn't think of her reaction as necessarily something to be ashamed of, and Connie Britton is so detached in her role of Dean Walker that it would be funny if it wasn't so sad/horrible. Chris Lowell is Al Monroe, the top name on Cassandra's list, with good reason, and he's also very good. Nobody gives a bad performance at all, whether it's Adam Brody or Christopher Mintz-Plasse, playing two different types of awful men, Laverne Cox, as Cassandra's employer, or Clancy Brown and Jennifer Coolidge, who play Cassandra's parents. You also get a fantastic couple of scenes featuring an uncredited Alfred Molina, a lawyer who bluntly lays out how the system works.

Considering the path this goes on, it's surprising that Fennell has kept it all so perfectly balanced. There are moments that will give you chills, scenes full of real potential nastiness, but they're often eventually reframed by a line of dialogue or an action that shows we, as much as anyone else around Cassandra, were being tricked into thinking the worst. Which is easy to do, because few people have as strong a moral compass as Cassandra has, and that says a lot about where we are with our world today.

9/10

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Prime Time: Palm Springs (2020)

The feature film debut from director Max Barbakow (who has a number of shorts and a documentary already to his name), Palm Springs is a time loop comedy-drama that focuses on two wedding guests who get to know one another better as they try to make the best of their situation.

Andy Samberg is Nyles, a man who seems to know everything that is about to happen, which helps him to make a strong impression on Sarah (Cristin Milioti). After spending a memorable evening together, things start to get crazy when Nyles is attacked by someone wielding a bow and arrow. Crawling into a glowing cave, Nyles implores Sarah not to follow him. Not heeding his pleas, Sarah enters the cave, which takes her into the same time loop that Nyles has been experiencing for a very long time already. Freaked out, obviously, we see Sarah go through a number of phases that Nyles already went through. She is confused, she wonders if death can end the loop, she tries to right some wrongs, and she and Nyles have some fun, in between conversations about the lack of consequences and the meaning of life.

Although Andy Samberg is the male lead here, those who might not always enjoy his schtick should know that this performance is nowhere near his usual full-on Samberg. He's actually perfectly cast, a mix of confidence and understandable fear. Milioti, who I am much less familiar with, is equally perfectly cast. She's likeable, strong, and very capable of pushing Samberg's character towards being a better person. Meredith Hagner is fine as Misty, the girlfriend of Nyles (who we find out very early on isn't being faithful to him), but the only other person who really gets to stand out is J. K. Simmons, playing Roy, a man who ended up stuck in the time loop after a night of partying with Nyles.

Barbakow directs well enough, keeping things lively and clear throughout (markers dotted throughout, of course, and a montage here or there), helped in no small way by the script, from Andy Siara. Although it takes what is, by now, a premise that could be seen as overly familiar, Siara adds some layers to be peeled away on the way to the ending, one or two twists that help to explain different character motivations, and he also does enough in the third act to make the science seem remotely possible. 

If you like time loop movies, and I do, then Palm Springs is a worthy addition to the sub-genre. It's a lot of fun, but it also takes some time to remind viewers of why we should value the lives that we lead, whether time seems to march on too quickly ahead of us, or whether we are sometimes stuck with the consequences of bad decisions. Those consequences mean that your life is having an impact, on yourself and on others. Worrying about the time you have available to you means that you have things you want to do with your time that have meaning to you. But, let's face it, being stuck in a time loop for a while would be pretty damn cool.

8/10

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A Little More Flesh II (2021)

While I liked A Little More Flesh, the second feature from writer-director Sam Ashurst, I had some issues with it that held it back from being something truly great. Other people didn't have those same issues, so maybe it was just me being in the minority. Which may be the case again here, but I am happy to say that A Little More Flesh II is an impressive step up from the preceding film, even if it is also an interesting logical progression in the meta-layered approach that Ashurst has been using to make a couple of features under extremely challenging conditions, especially for independent artists trying to get films made.

Ashurst plays Sam Ashurst, looking to follow up his last film with something entitled 'Stalker'. He wants to use footage from Harley Dee (played by Harley Dee) and Sean Mahoney (played by Sean Mahoney). The film that we see plays out various snippets of self-recorded footage, overlaid with phone/computer conversations between Ashurst and his cast members. It soon becomes apparent that Ashurst has a hidden agenda for this movie project, and it's something that will send him further and further beyond the boundaries of anything that is acceptable.

Co-written by the three leads, and I am not sure how much of it was improvised and workshopped, A Little More Flesh II plays with viewers in a thrilling and unnerving way. Once certain things become more apparent, you realise that nothing you have been watching has really been okay. And you're warned from the opening scene (a moment showing Elf Lyons, star of A Little More Flesh, berating Ashurst and insisting she definitely doesn't want to work with him on this project).

Although it escalates to what many may deem an unbelievable level, the dark beauty of A Little More Flesh II comes from the core of harsh reality to so many ideas bubbling through it. The male who hears another male being inappropriate and tries to speak up against it, but doesn't do enough to really help the situation. The manipulative abuser blaming a victim for the situation that they've put themselves in. The horrible way people can hold a little bit of power over others, be they employees, loved ones, the vulnerable, minors, or anyone who may be relying on someone else to do right while they are in some position of authority, however small. The projection of emotions on to someone else. Denial, anger, spite, obsession, it's all here. And it gets worse. But, no matter how bad it gets, there's also always an audience there for it. 

A large part of the success of A Little More Flesh II comes from Ashurst playing an onscreen version of Ashurst (and I admire him for giving a performance that puts him in such a horrible light). I noted for his previous film that Ashurst didn't sound convincing as an old man in his seventies, but he obviously sounds convincing as Sam Ashurst. Mahoney and Dee are both very good, with the latter needing singled out for a performance that requires her to make herself vulnerable onscreen for most of the runtime. There are also a couple of solid cameos at the very end of the film, a bit of light relief after the difficult viewing experience that you've just gone through.

Certainly not for everyone, casual horror movie fans who want something slick and full of jumps won't want to stick with this, A Little More Flesh II displays uncomfortable footage that seems to last for far too long, almost challenging viewers to keep watching. We're all complicit, yet it's almost impossible to just turn it off and walk away. And that's kind of the point, with Ashurst making one hell of a clear statement on the nature of humanity, and our tolerance for nastiness that is packaged in a way we accept as just something we cannot stop. Maybe he will get his message across, or maybe those who think they can clear their conscience by typing "not all men", for example, will continue to think that they're doing enough to stop the insidious acts of evil committed every day by abusers. I hope for the former.

8/10

A Little More Flesh II debuted, I believe, at yet another fantastic Sohome Horror Film Festival. Check out the website here.

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Mubi Monday: This Boy's Life (1993)

A fairly standard coming-of-age/memoir tale, This Boy's Life is a film you may have heard of before, mainly because of the celebrated performances from Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. And it's highly recommended to fans of any of the leads (Ellen Barkin being the third central character).

DiCaprio is Toby, who often likes to be called Jack, a young boy who is used to tagging around with his mother, Caroline (Ellen Barkin), as she tries to make a good life for them both. Caroline meets Dwight (Robert De Niro), a man who initially seems pleasant, if a bit uncool. It doesn't take long to see that Dwight is happy to lie and manipulate to keep himself in a good light, while also keeping everything in his favour, and he and Toby start to clash in increasingly violent confrontations. Toby seems to be a good kid, at heart, but often runs with some of the wrong crowd, but Dwight is not necessarily the good man he keeps trying to make himself out as.

Based on the book by Tobias Wolff, the Toby of the main story (this is his life), and adapted into screenplay form by Robert Getchell, this is a consistently solid drama that is elevated by an absolutely fantastic cast. Michael Caton-Jones directs well, dropping a number of pop hits from the era throughout the soundtrack, allowing the dialogue to reveal so much about all of the characters, and framing many of the confrontations in a way that focuses on the imbalance of power and the physical threat posed by Dwight.

But it's all about this superb cast. DiCaprio makes one hell of a large move away from the daffy fun of Critters 3, easily holding his own alongside the adults, and shows the talent that would put him on the radar of so many other directors. De Niro gives another fantastic turn, unafraid to play a character who is so jealous and petty that he will go to any lengths to make himself look like "the big man". Barkin may have less to do, but she's an essential layer in between the two main men in her life. Jonah Blechman is also wonderful, playing a young man named Arthur Gayle, and you have the cast list filled out by the likes of Eliza Dushku, Chris Cooper, Tobey Maguire, and Gerrit Graham (many of them onscreen for just a few minutes).

The focus throughout stays on Toby and Dwight. The story belongs to the latter, but is so clearly moulded and overshadowed by the former. It's almost like coming up for air when you are reminded that Toby obviously did something to eventually get his story told, and it's extremely satisfying to watch Dwight devolve, little by little, from angry man to whining baby. It is, essentially, the way that so many men like him really are. And not everyone is lucky enough to escape their pleas and clutches.

9/10

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