The Clearing, on Hulu

This Australian cult has its members undergo recorded confessions, or so-called “clearings,” which provide them ample blackmail fodder, should anyone ever step out of line. Gee, can you imagine any purported cults with ties to Hollywood engaging in similar practices? Yet, for Australian audiences, the cult matriarch’s “children,” amassed through questionable adoptions and foster arrangements, would immediately recall “The Family,” led by Anne Hamilton-Byrnes. In the case of Adrienne Beaufort’s cult, things start to fall apart when an over-zealous member kidnaps a little girl, who refuses to be indoctrinated into the “family.” The mystery of young Sara’s fate will haunt every character in writer-creators Matt Cameron & Elise McCredie’s The Clearing, which premieres today on Hulu.

Sometime in the past, Freya (as she now calls herself) was traumatically associated with the cult based at Bronte-esque Blackmarsh Manor. She got out, but the scars remain, especially when news of a child abduction triggers (the word is actually appropriate in this case) bad memories.

Tamsin Latham is a true believer, unwaveringly devoted to Beaufort, but her initiative has been disastrous. No matter how hard they try to brainwash Sara, she refuses to accept her new name, “Asha,” or her new “mother.” Beaufort’s favorite “child,” possibly her own biological daughter, Amy, was supposed to win Sara/Asha over. Instead, the little girl’s deep sense of self raises questions in Amy, at the worst possible time—right before her first ritual “clearing.”

Cameron and McCredie play a lot of devious games with the timeline that might be easier to guess from this review than from watching The Clearing from the start, despite my good faith efforts to be vague and misdirecting. However, they are not simply being clever for the sake of cleverness. By the time you get through the first four episodes provided for review (out of eight), you get a potent sense of how the sins of the past continue to exert an evil influence over everyone in the present, especially since several characters cut their own deals, rather than holding fast to their principles.

Without question, Miranda Otto is the star of Clearing as the chillingly regal Beaufort. She makes the cult leader’s Svengali-like control over people totally believable and absolutely terrifying. Likewise, Kate Mulvany might be even scarier as the sadistic Latham, who seems to have joined the cult for the opportunity to bully children. Guy Pearce is also pretty creepy and clammy as Beaufort’s consigliere and theoretician, Dr. Bryce Latham, but it is still not clear why the role was meaty enough to attract the well-known thesp.

The Twin, on Shudder

Where better to recover from a profound family tragedy than a remote Finnish country village? If they are fortunate, they will be there in time for this year’s Midsommar ceremony. True to genre expectations, the Doyles somehow managed to move into an area that is a focal point for pagan weirdness in Taneli Mustonen’s The Twin, which premieres Friday on Shudder.

Sadly, Rachel and Anthony Doyle lost their son Nathan in a car wreck, but at least they still have his spare twin, Elliot. For a fresh start, they move to his ancestral Finnish home, but the standoffish locals welcome her like a case of Mad Cow Disease. Only Helen, a mildly eccentric English expat gives her the time of day. Unfortunately, Helen’s crazy talk about sinister pagan powers starts to sound believable when Doyle starts to suspect something is out to get Elliot.

Honestly, Elliot is such a sullen and off-putting kid, spending any length of time with him is hard enough. Enduring two of them is almost unimaginable. That is a major reason why the first half-hour or so hard to slog through. The film starts to click when Helen introduces a lot of creepy pagan lore. There is also a reasonably effective twist laying in wait for the audience, but Mustonen and co-screenwriter Aleksi Hyvarinen can’t quite stick the dismount.

One of the problems with the bulk of The Twin is the cold, detached behavior of Anthony, which makes it feels like yet another horror film trying to earn scares by undermining the institutions of marriage and family. Yet, the Conjuring franchise (for instance) has been so successful precisely because they are all about families coming together to overcome profoundly evil horrors (with the help of the Warrens, of course).

A Discovery of Witches, Season 2

You remember from Ghostbusters how bad it is when cats and dogs are living together? It is even worse for vampires and witches. Nevertheless, vampire Matthew de Clairmont and Diana Bishop, an American witch, have fallen in love, but it is a romance forbidden by the terms of the uneasy truce governing vampires, witches, and demons, the weird kind. Yet, fate and a missing book of alchemy seemed to have conspired to bring them together. However, to stay together and escape their enemies, the two lovers had to jaunt back in time at the conclusion of season one. Getting back will take some doing in season two of A Discovery of Witches, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder and Sundance Now.

It is a bit awkward to hide out in during an era of literal witch hunts for a witch like Bishop. It just so happens, her beloved de Clairmont was one of the most ruthless witch-hunters. He was also a faithful French Catholic, but he loyally served Queen Elizabeth, doggedly persecuting his co-religionists. Such is vampire politics.

At least she is impressed to learn he is also known as the poet Matthew Roydon during this era. One of his great friends is Christopher Marlowe, a demon with a serious case of bro-jealousy. Understandably, it is a bit tricky for de Clairmont to remember what he exactly was doing four hundred years ago, but he will fake it as best he can, while Bishop seeks out the training to spellcast their way back to their proper time. After years of being “spellbound,” her powers have only just resurfaced, so she does not yet understand their full extent or how to properly control them.

This review is only based on the first four episodes of season two (out of seven), because time is limited for us mortals. Still, we feel safe in saying the general quality is consistent with the first season. Particularly notable are the depictions of historical figures, which are much more fully developed than mere gimmicks. Barbara Marten is a kick chewing the scenery as the Machiavellian Queen Elizabeth and Tom Hughes does some of the best work we have ever seen from him as the temperamental Marlowe. However, it seems rather a shame to have the great Lindsay Duncan sidelined for so long, as de Clairmont’s regal mother, Ysabeau.

2:22—Caught Up in Karma

You know what they say about karma. Contemporary art can be pretty sinister too. Dylan Branson will face both for the sake of the woman he loves (despite knowing her less than a week) in Paul Currie’s 2:22 (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select cities.

Branson is an air traffic-controller with a knack for keeping the arrivals and departures flowing smoothly through his aptitude for perceiving patterns. However, one fateful day, at 2:22 PM, Branson falls into some sort of cosmically-induced reverie, snapping out of it just in time to avert a mid-air collision. This near-miss is so conspicuously obvious, Branson is suspended for a month, pending an official review.

During his time off, Branson starts to notice weird patterns in his life. The people are different, but the same chain of events culminates in a rather chaotic 2:22 in Grand Central. Each time around, strange electrical short circuits plague the terminal, while Branson gets visions of a violent shooting in the rotunda. However, the time off isn’t all bad. Branson meets and quickly falls for Sarah Barton. It must be fate, since they share the same birthday. Unfortunately, Branson soon starts to suspect Barton is involved in the karmic happening he is struggling to understand—in a way that could be very dangerous for her.

It sounds kind of woo-woo, but screenwriters Todd Stein and Nathan Parker rather cleverly combine metaphysics and astronomy (dissipated energy from a distant supernova may also be a contributing factor) in what could be considered a Groundhog Day-style movie, but with a cumulative memory. Each day until Branson and Barton’s thirtieth birthday, his visions repeat, but his interpretations evolve in significant ways.

Despite often looking like an unshaven homeless person, Michiel Huisman still pairs up rather attractively with Teresa Palmer. There really seems to be some genuine electricity between them, which is critically important for us to buy into their immediate attraction and subsequent relationship turmoil. Sam Reid is also effectively slimy as her artist ex-boyfriend, Jonas Edman, in a vintage 1980s Richard Tyson kind of way. Plus, veteran Australian singer-character actor John Waters (not the Pope of Trash) gets to chew a spot of scenery as a sardonic rival gallerist.

Somehow, Currie manages to avoid dopey New Age sentimentality, even while he piles on the fickleness of fate. In fact, 2:22 is really a nice little package that looks appropriately slick and mysterious thanks to cinematographer David Eggby. Frankly, it is rather baffling the film is getting a wider distribution, because it is far better than a lot of flicks that escape into theaters. At least, VOD (including iTunes) is an option. Recommended as a pleasant sleeper-surprise, 2:22 opens this Friday (6/30) in limited release (the Gateway Film Center in Columbus).