Maybe
these three friends are not the absolute worst choice to handle first contact
for the rest of Earth. Sam is a first-responder and Shannon is a veteran
returning from her final tour of duty. As for Diane, she has a way of getting
her way and she can be very “welcoming.” Regardless, the alien invasion comes
smack dab in the middle of the friends’ getaway in Stefano Milla’s Onyx,
which is now streaming on BET+.
Sam
thought Noah might be the one, because he is also a fireman, but he turned out
to be another lying dog of a good-for-nothing man. To cheer her up, and to
celebrate Shannon’s homecoming, Dianne organizes a desert resort weekend. She
has the horndog owner Cody eating out of the palm of her hand, so he comps them
a bonus off-road excursion. Unfortunately, during their desert exploration, a
mysterious force cuts off all cell service, GPS, and radio contact.
Given
their limited provisions, the trio seeks shelter at the nearest man-made
outpost, an old government radio-satellite installation converted into an
airplane graveyard, which serves as the headquarters for “A.K.A.,” a conspiracy
podcaster with a taste for questionable hip hop. Whatever happened, he sort of
expected it. However, he cannot broadcast his scoop or call for help, because
of the alien interference. Shannon might be able to restore communications, but
fighting off the interstellar predators will be a tricker proposition.
Even by
B-movie standards, Milla had to make do with a tragically tight budget
constraint. The effects are conspicuous cut-rate, yet lack the cheesy charm of MST3K
fodder. The alien invasion business is also rather uninspired. Pretty much
the only positive for Milla and Damien Douglas’s screenplay is the sympathetic
depictions of veterans and firefighters (arguably including Noah, who tries to
redeem himself). Regardless, it takes Milla forever to get the film going, devoting
the full first act to boring exposition.
When it comes to reliability, Japanese demons put the U.S. Postal Service to shame.
When you mail something, there is maybe a 50% chance it will reach its
destination (at least judging by recent experience). However, a grieving
letter-carrier Jill Hill keeps receiving an ominous supernatural letter, over
and over again, until she finally succumbs to temptation in Jean-Pierre
Chapoteau’s The Despaired, which is now streaming on BET Plus.
Several
years have passed since Hill’s husband Wayne was fatally shot, but rather than recovering,
she steadily sinks further into despair. Frankly, her now-teenaged son
struggles to engage with her. Of course, this makes her a prime target for the
ancient Japanese entity repeatedly sending her an evil “to the Despaired” form
letter.
Inside,
are instructions for bringing someone back from the dead. Naturally, Hill was
not paying very close attention to the fine print, so her newly returned
husband explains she will need to deliver four souls quickly, or he will go back
downstairs to his eternal torment. This might sound like a demon impersonating
Hill, but it turns out her husband was no boy scout. Perhaps his murder was not
so random either. Regardless, Hill tries to comply, searching for the “marked”
souls, who are destined for the same place her husband just left.
Admittedly,
The Despaired is a low-budget b-grade horror movie, but the way it
addresses big archetypal themes, like bereavement, temptation, and damnation,
still resonates to a surprising extent. Both the “human” and demonic elements
are rather unsettling. However, the subplot supposedly explaining the
mysterious Coco’s involvement with the Hill murder comes off like a forced afterthought.
The
Despaired also
makes a career in the Postal Service look profoundly dismal. In fact, the
entire setting looks economically depressed and relentlessly gloomy. This is a
very fatalistic film, but in a way that distinguishes it from a lot of other
mindlessly nihilistic horror flicks.
The good thing about dating in Detroit is any time someone ghosts you, you
can just assume they were the victim of a violent crime and therefore not take
it personally. Diarra Brickland’s friends assume she is kidding herself in that
manner. Yet, as she starts looking for her non-responsive Tinder hookup, she
uncovers evidence of some kind of foul play in creator-star Diarra Kirkpatrick’s
Diarra from Detroit, which is now streaming on BET+.
Brickland
is going through a rough patch. Due to her contentious divorce to the wealthy,
snappy-dressing “Swa” (François), Brickland had to move back to her old,
working-class neighborhood. Conveniently, she discovers the burglar she walks
in on happens to be a childhood friend. Despite his criminal activity, he will
take a lot of grief from Brickland, as will the rest of her long-suffering
friends and co-workers.
They
will all really give everyone an earful when Chris ghosts her. He was supposed
to be a no-stress distraction from Swa, but Brickland thought they really
clicked. That is why she is so hurt and confused when he bails on their second
date. Believing she is owed an explanation, Brickland starts snooping around
Chris’s apartment. What she stumbles across piques her suspicions, including a
Russian thug, whom she meets under very unusual circumstances. Soon, she starts
to believe Chris is actually Deonte Brooks Jr, who was notoriously abducted as
a child in the 1990s and long-presumed dead, which would mean Brickland was
ghosted by a ghost.
Admittedly,
I am not the target demo for Diarra from Detroit. There is a lot of
sassy and often quite explicit talk about sex and relationships, very definitely
coming from a black woman’s perspective. However, in the first three episodes
(out of eight) provided for review, Kirkpatrick does a nice job balancing the
ribald humor with a fairly sophisticated mystery. Kirkpatrick and company also
fully explore the Detroit setting, both the good (the trendy hipster night
scene) and the bad (like the crack house Brickland reluctantly visits).
The
mysterious Russian turns out to be a surprisingly intriguing (and wildly
sleazy) villain, played with great panache by Ilia Volok (who is really a Ukrainian
American). Phylicia Rashad is also terrific as Vonda Brooks, Deonte’s mother,
who has lived under a cloud of suspicion since her son’s disappearance. She and
Volok really help elevate Diarra from Detroit above garden-variety
Lifetime originals.
It is getting harder to make old fashioned voodoo-themed horror movies, but
on paper, this one would sound like it found the key to unlock that subgenre
for hyper-sensitive viewers. For Donovan Jones’s Uncle Rufus, voodoo was a
means to protect himself from mid-Twentieth Century racism in Blue Ridge,
Georgia. Unfortunately, his uncanny powers claim several innocent victims in Jared
Safier’s Stay Out, which is now streaming on BET Plus.
Much
to his surprise, Jones is informed he is the sole heir of his long-deceased
uncle and aunt’s estate, primarily consisting of the family home that has
languished for decades (hence the tape across the door, cautioning: “stay out”).
Apparently, the incompetence of the firm handling the probate reached levels requiring
state bar intervention. Be that as it may, Jones reluctantly agrees to travel
to Blue Ridge, which apparently still has quite a backwards reputation. In
fact, the only other black family living in town are William and Lauren, with
their rebellious, Blue Ridge-hating teen daughter Raveen. However, for most of
the film, they really will not have anything to do with Donovan Jones.
Instead,
Uncle Rufus periodically possesses his nephew’s body, using it to murder the
descendants of the men who murdered him. It is always deeply traumatizing for
Jones, who tries to fight it, but without success. Of course, he usually gets
stuck with the clean-up. He probably should have listened to the spooky
homeless man who warned him to leave while he still could.
Stay
Out is
presumably intended as horror, but it is hard to tell from the poky execution.
Safier has a momentum-killing habit of repeating expositional dialogue in
multiple scenes. The first act is so slow and flabby, most streamers will probably
bail before the first murder.
There are those who think Judge Jaeda King is too tough on criminals, or the “accused,”
if you prefer. Somehow, an armed takeover of her courtroom seems unlikely to
chill her out. The accused’s brother also did not understand how much training
Judge King had in martial arts and marksmanship. He and his private army are totally
out-of-order in director-screenwriter Wes Miller’s Call Her King, which
premieres this coming Thursday on BET Plus.
Judge
King’s court is the only one in session this morning. Apparently, this is for
security reasons, due to the intense interest in the case of accused
contract-killer Sean Samuels. However, nobody thought to increase the level of
security personnel. Its still just a handful of nearly-retired officers drinking
coffee around the magnetometers. Gabriel Samuels, a.k.a. “Black Caesar” is not
complaining.
Just
as King sentences Samuels to death, his brother comes in guns-blazing.
Presumably, this stunt will do some reputational damage to the Caesar’s
internet security company, but he seems to have a bigger plan than simply
freeing his brother. However, he did not count on Judge King and her chief of
security, John Stryker, being so resourceful. Soon, they are regrouping in King’s
chambers, with the convicted defendant and his neurotic lawyer, Jerry Spencer
(he’s no Gerry Spence), which is obviously super-awkward. Samuels claims he
knew nothing about his brother’s plans, but he continues to protest his
innocence.
So,
yeah, it’s a you-know-what in a courthouse. You have definitely seen better and
you have probably seen worse. However, Miller uses the siege as a soapbox to
air racial grievances regarding the U.S. justice system, but there is no meaningful
sociological or criminological analysis in Miller’s screenplay (like you can find here).
It is sort of like A Simple Plan, but in Pittsburgh instead of rural
Minnesota. It turns out that is a more dangerous place to squabble over
misplaced drug money, considering how freely the Russian mob operates there.
Joe Washington’s dad worked as a mule for the “Thieves by Law,” until his
accidental death, but not before he stole 10 million dollars and a Lamborghini
we have yet to see. Not surprisingly, the Russian mob wants it all back in
creator Robb Cullen’s Average Joe, which is now streaming on BET Plus.
Washington
and his friends are struggling to get by. His wife Angela should see a
specialist and his daughter Jennifer will need college tuition. Leon
Montgomery’s hardware store is barely scraping by, while their friend Benjamin
“Touch” Tuchawuski, a white desk-cop, as they frequently point out, is wracked
with guilt over a family tragedy. Nobody would have thought Washington’s dad
had ten million bucks laying around, so he is quite surprised when the Russian
gangsters start asking for it, in a rather rude manner.
Quite
awkwardly, one of them happens to be Dimitri Dzhugashvili, his daughter’s
boyfriend. Frankly, Washington never really liked him, even before
Dzhugashvili’s goon started breaking his fingers. However, ten million would
solve a lot of problems. They would solve a lot of problems for Montgomery and
Tuchawuski too, who also get involved. Despite their clueless reluctance,
Washington’s family and Montgomery’s true crime-binging wife Cathy soon also get
mired in their scheme.
Based
on the first two episodes, Average Joe is surprisingly funny, in a
one-darned-thing-after-another kind of way, especially the second episode,
which really leans into the morbid humor. Cullen and the writing team have
already buried Washington in a host of troubles worthy of an average Job. They
also have a decent handle on how the Thieves By Law operate. Generally
speaking, it is not a good idea to cross them.
Most movie psychics are either scamming frauds or the tormented real deal. Sky
Brown is the worst of both. She can genuinely connect with the dead, who then
become very angry when they see Brown and their friends conning their loved
ones out of money. It is getting harder to keep them at bay, so Brown wants
out, but she agrees to one last high-paying job in Courtney Glaude’s The
Reading, produced and “presented” by Lee Daniels, which is now streaming on
BET+.
Emma
Leeden just barely survived the violent home invasion that left her husband,
teen daughter, and young son brutally murdered. She is truly a survivor, who is
currently promoting her empowering memoir. To spur sales, Leeden’s publicist
hires Brown’s crew to stage a reading with her. Gregory, the ringleader of
their scam knows Brown is having a spiritual crisis of sorts, but he high-pressures
her to agree anyway.
Of
course, Leeden and her publicist assume Brown is a fraud, so they are pretty
surprised when she starts telling Leeden things they did not previously leak to
her. Then all heck breaks lose and Brown finds herself trapped with friends in
Leeden’s smartly-secured, bullet-proofed McMansion.
The
Reading has
a big twist that is surprisingly effective if you do not see it coming—so this
should be the only review you read. It turns into a very different kind of
horror movie, but the ending implies a promise of a sequel that might be more
in line with what Glaude initially presents The Reading to be.
Regardless, he nimbly helms the film, pulling off the big shockeroni and then directing
all the traffic of the resulting chaos.
These game designers and gamers aren’t like the characters of One Second After.
Their digitally-dependent lives make them particularly unprepared for the
destruction wrought by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). However, they think they
unique insight that will help them overcome, because the disaster appears to be
unfolding just like their scenario of the horror-survival game they wrote and
play. Regardless, they must somehow fight their way out of the building in the
six-episode Pulse, which is now streaming on BET+.
The
game of Pulse is personal to Jaz, Caspar, and Errol. They designed it
together and modeled the playable characters after themselves. After selling
out to a big company, they reluctantly made many compromises when designing the
new reboot. Jaz is tired of hearing criticism from Eddie, the building’s
toxic-fan security guard, especially since she largely agrees with him.
Unfortunately,
they all must take Eddie’s notes seriously when an apparent EMP fries all the building’s
electronics. Rather perversely, Eddie starts conducting a deadly Pulse game
in real life, tauntingly challenging Jaz and her colleagues to survive each
deadly level of the building. Originally designed for the state secret service,
the blocky brutalist behemoth has some seriously evil feng shui. It was a scary
place, even before all its occupants started going stark raving mad. First the
EMP started scrambling the electrical charges in everyone’s brains. Then a
carbon monoxide leak drove them into full-blown psychosis.
The
Pulse office was spared the worst effects of the chemicals, but the EMP really
did a number on Jaz. She was already diagnosed with Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS),
but its effects have been intensified by the electric charge. Ironically, in
the game, her character’s AIWS gives her an advantage to see beyond the
deceptions of ostensive reality, which also might now be the case for Jaz in
real life too.
Admittedly,
Pulse has issues with logic, but it was clearly made by and for survival
horror video game players. Everyone who was disappointed in Netflix’s utterly
dreadful Resident Evil reboot (probably the worst series of the year),
should watch Pulse instead. It is a high energy, often bloody
celebration of mayhem, which also features some absolutely crazy, but weirdly
satisfying twists. Most of what fans want from Resident Evil they can
find here.
