Ghosts of the Ozarks

Crude dictators directly instill fear in their subjects with their own brutality. The more subtly power-hungry try to harness an external fear to their own controlling advantage. The question is what fears do they cynically stoke? Some might point to terrorism or Covid (Glenn Greenwald would say both). In this case it is the monstrous ghosts that prey on the unwary outside the walls of a Reconstruction-era Arkansas town that help the boss keep everyone in-line throughout Matt Glass & Jordan Wayne Long’s Ghosts of the Ozarks, which releases on-demand and in select theaters this Thursday.

Dr. James McCune looks like a respectable medical professional, but he was deeply scarred by the Civil War—literally. Believing he lacks a place in the world, he accepts his Uncle Matthew’s invitation to replace his town’s doctor. Frankly, he barely makes to town alive, following a bizarre encounter with a monstrous shrouded figure. Once safe inside the protective walls, McCune finds his uncle serves as an unofficial mayor (and then some), whose words are followed without question, because he knows how to protect everyone from the ghosts.

Dr. McCune starts settling in to extent, thanks to the medical assistance and friendship of Annie, a healer who boldly lives outside the walls with her hulking brother William. He also finds some hospitality with the blind barkeep Torb and his wife Lucille. However, the whole thing about the monster-like “ghosts” understandably unsettles Doc McCune, who also starts to notice other suspicious activity around town.

The word for Ozarks is “weird,” starting with its bizarre portrayal Reconstruction-era characters and the unnamed border-state village. Initially, it also certainly seems to fall under the category of “Weird West,” but it weirdly gets less weird in the third act.

Regardless, there is some pretty creepy and inventive art and set design work going on. There is definitely some cool looking stuff in the film, which nicely serves its genre-straddling program. It also features some interesting performances, especially Tim Blake Nelson as the blind and emotionally damaged Torb. Angela Bettis (from Brea Grant’s 12-Hour Shift, which also involved Glass and Long) compliments him well as his world-weary wife.

Tribeca ’20: 12 Hour Shift

Nurse Mandy makes Dr. House look like a paragon of abstinence and empathy. He was just hooked on pain-killers. She needs harder stuff. Fortunately, her hospital work gives her access to dying patients and their highly-flippable organs. The arrangement had been working well until she brought in her empty-headed cousin (by marriage) as the courier. When a kidney goes missing, it leads to a dark, violent night in Brea Grant’s 12 Hour Shift, which would have screened at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, were it not for the CCP’s cover-up of the Wuhan outbreak and WHO’s subsequent collusion denying human-to-human transmission.

Karen, the admitting nurse, runs operation in the hospital. Technically, Nurse Mandy does the killing, but they are usually more like euthanasia than murder. Of course, they make it look like natural causes. Cousin Regina is just responsible for ferrying the cooler from the hospital loading dock to the thuggish Nicholas, who handles the customer side of the business. Yet, somehow, she manages to lose a pre-sold kidney on this fateful night. That means Nurse Mandy will have to improvise to save Regina’s neck (or at least her kidney).

It turns out this 1999 night will be the perfect storm of trouble. In addition to the cop killer who was just admitted with his rent-a-cop minder, Mandy’s estranged step-brother also came in comatose after an overdose. Plus, most of the local cops are out-of-town for a Y2K preparedness conference. Frankly, Nurse Mandy would probably keep matters from getting out of hand, were it not for Regina’s misguided attempts to take the initiative. Things really get messy (and blood-splattered) as a result.

Shift is often amusing in a one-darned-thing-after-another kind of way, but its condescending attitude towards the small-town Arkansas characters gets tiresome quickly. Not every Arkansan is an opioid-addicted Jesus Freak, just like not every Los Angelino is a welfare-cheating gang member. Nevertheless, the uber-caustic, ultra-deadpan performance of Angela Bettis as Nurse Mandy is a thing of beauty. Frankly, she mostly just hits one or two notes, but what cutting notes they are.