Into the Dark: School Spirit

There is nothing old school slashers enjoy more than killing naughty teenagers. It therefore stands to reason weekend detention would be a very happy hunting ground for some lucky psychopath. However, this is no place for a high-achieving class president like Erica Yang. Yet, that is exactly where she finds herself one fateful Saturday. The Breakfast Club gets a horror makeover courtesy of Blumhouse in Mike Gan’s School Spirit, the back-to-school installment of Hulu’s monthly Into the Dark series, which premieres tomorrow.

Yang has been working obscenely hard to become the first graduate of Helbrook High to make it into Harvard, so she is less than thrilled about this detour through detention. Her fellow detainees are quite curious what Helbrook’s “Admiral of the Year” did to warrant punishment, but she isn’t saying. On the other hand, pot-smoking Lizzy Witmore, rebellious Victor Castro, flaky stoner Russ Johns, and socially awkward weirdo Brett Calloway could have done any number of things to get there.

Unfortunately, Vice Principal Armstrong is even sterner than Paul Gleason in The Breakfast Club, but he also happens to be a raging alcoholic. Usually, when he gets into his cups, the kids can relax, but this time they will have to contend with a maniac dressed like the school mascot, the Helbrook Admiral. Legend has it, the school is haunted by the angry spirit of a teacher who was accidentally killed by her class and subsequently disposed of while camouflaged in a mascot uniform. Of course, as the story goes, she returned (still in costume) to direct her righteous rage at misbehaving students, somewhat in the tradition of Mrs.Voorhees.

In fact, School Spirit proudly wears its 1980s influences on its sleeve, which makes it jolly nostalgic fun to watch. Despite the ultra-now attitudes and dialogue, its aesthetic is old school all the way. Gan keeps it snappy and pacey, but also manages to build up a fair measure of suspense. Granted, it probably does not bring enough that is sufficiently new and fresh to the table to justify theatrical screenings, but it is quite enjoyable as an evening’s head-clearing horror streaming.

A great deal of credit should go to Annie Q., for maintaining the film’s high energy level. Admittedly, Yang has “final girl” stitched all over her cardigan, but AQ, a star in the making, keeps our sympathies engaged, while still managing to surprise us in key moments. Jessi Case and Julian Works also follow nicely in the John Hughes tradition, humanizing their bad kids to a considerable extent.

Gan definitely pushes all the right buttons for retro horror fans, without resorting to slavish imitation. This will almost certainly not go down as the best horror film of 2019, but it will probably be re-watched over time more than most. Enthusiastically recommended for those who dig throwback slashers, Into the Dark: School Spirit starts streaming tomorrow (8/2) on Hulu.

Ten: Murder Island, or Ten Little Teens

By some measures, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is the seventh best-selling novel of all time. Therefore, you can’t blame filmmakers for coming back to it, even though René Clair’s 1945 film is pretty definitive. Both Mario Bava and the Detective Conan anime franchise memorably riffed on it. In the latter case, the basic structure was adapted to a high school setting well before Gretchen McNeil’s teen novel. There are infinitely superior And Then There Were Nones, but it is strangely satisfying to watch the obnoxious teens get slaughtered in Chris Robert’s Ten: Murder Island (trailer here), based on McNeil's novel (and Christie's, by extension), which premieres on Lifetime this Saturday.

How many guests do you suppose were lured to a party on a remote island? In this case, they are students from three rival high schools, all of which Claire briefly attended before her untimely suicide. Instead of U.N. Owen, they thought they were invited by one of the most popular girls in their overlapping social circles, but it is quickly apparent they have been had.

Since there is no direct accusation, the shallow, entitled kids will have to figure out their situation on their own. Naturally, suspicion quickly falls on earnest Meg, because she is probably the slightest of stature of the whole bunch. She also happens to have the highest capacity for empathy and deductive reasoning. As a result, the killer leaves her illuminating pages ripped from poor Claire’s diary after each murder. The unknown subject also keeps a more conspicuous tally in red paint for the other idiots on the island.

As you would expect from millennials, all ten guests are dumber than a bag of hammers and none of them has read And Then There Were None. At least China Anne McClain is generally likable and sympathetic as Meg. Within the ensemble, Annie Q (who was terrific in Cardinal X) is the most likely to break out big. This won’t be the film to do it, but the catty edge she brings as rebound girlfriend Kumiko helps make the film watchable. Katya Martin is also quite effective as the bullied Claire in flashback scenes. Alas, the rest of the ensemble is either blandly forgettable or prone to excessive overacting or just plain dead before we can make a fair evaluation.

Christie’s basic premise is so insidiously compelling, it takes perverse effort to screw it up. Clair’s version is a classic and 1965’s Ten Little Indians with Shirley Eaton and the voice of Christopher Lee on the gramophone is nearly as good. The 1974 desert-bound incarnation with Oliver Reed and Charles Aznavour also holds up nicely. Even a 1959 TV production with Nina Foch has some merit. They are all better than Ten: Murder Island.

These kids’ lack of intuition and survival skills is just too problematic. However, Robert doesn’t go down without a fight, offering up some nifty aerial shots to distract us. What it really needs is more caustic attitude and ironic humor in the Scream tradition. Disappointing, yet weirdly difficult to turn away from, Ten: Murder Island airs this Saturday (9/16) on Lifetime.

CAAMFest ’17: Cardinal X

Angie Wang was the Walter White of her 1980s Bay Area campus. When her financial aid suddenly stopped, she combined her chemistry know how and club kid social contacts to become a major manufacturer and distributor of MDMA. The good times will be fun while they last, but there will come a reckoning in Angie Wang’s Cardinal X (clip here), which screens during the 2017 CAAMFest in San Francisco and Oakland.

Wang grew up in Newark, so you can’t judge her too harshly. She had it especially difficult, thanks to her severe father and the erratic mother who bailed on them. Yet, through hard work and academic achievement, Wang earns admittance to a prestigious Northern California university that is absolutely, positively not Stanford. She is also awarded some financial aid, but it will not be enough.

Through her privileged party girl roommate Jeanine Rockwell, Wang gains entrée to all the campus frat parties, where she learns of the voracious demand for MDMA (ecstasy). When her grant money falls through, Wang rather enterprisingly sets herself up in the ecstasy business (which wasn’t even illegal at the time). However, the lure of easy money and the hard partying that go with it takes Wang to some dark places. Even Tommy, her chem lab buddy and the angel perched in her shoulder cannot prevent her hard fall from grace, but unlike the Breaking Bad protag, Wang might have a shot at redemption.

We can only hope Wang the director did not live the life of Wang the character, chapter and verse, but she is clearly drawing on sufficient personal experience to give Cardinal X the ring of authenticity completely lacking in thematically similar films, such as the laughable White Powder. You can tell some serious street cred went into the film. However, Annie Q’s performance as Wang never allows cynicism to set in. Thanks to her, we can always see the vulnerability Wang tries to hide beneath her tough-talking façade.

Cardinal X also showcases a side of action movie regular Ron Yuan that we do not often get to see. Honestly, he is just terrific as Wang’s father Michael, a hardworking cook, who is incapable of expressing his emotions (his big climatic scene is extraordinarily well written and well played). Francesca Eastwood brings greater depth and dimension to Wang’s hot mess roommate than you would ever find in an average college melodrama, while Scott Keiji Takeda is winningly geeky as poor old Tommy. Arguably, the subplot involving the distressed inner city school girl Wang counsels as part of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program is way too on-the-nose, but Aalyrah Caldwell’s work as young Bree is still remarkably assured.

Despite the somewhat lurid subject matter, Wang’s gritty execution and the quality of her cast make it a serious indie drama rather than a guilty camp pleasure. When it is over, viewers will feel like they have been through a lot with Wang, which is impressive. To her further credit, she also totally nails the Eighties vibe. Recommended as both nostalgic and cautionary viewing, Cardinal X screens again this coming Saturday (3/18), as part of CAAMFest.