The Grudge (2020): Because You Can’t Keep an Angry Ghost Down

It’s human-to-human transmission rate is minimal, but the site of Kayako Saeki’s violent angry death is 100% infectious. The death rate is nearly as high. It is time to go back to Tokyo circa 2004, where it all started for the American remake series. Instead of rebooting, the series branches off in a separate, simultaneous, but not so radically different direction in Nicolas Pesce’s The Grudge, which releases today on DVD.

Flashback to 2004: Fiona Landers is an expat social worker in Japan, who pays an inspection visit to the house of horrors that started it all. She subsequently returns home, taking Kayako and her grudge with her. Soon, tragedy strikes the Landers family, as evil become deeply rooted in their home. That means Saeki is quite an efficient multi-tasker, since she was simultaneously tormenting Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge (2004).

For obvious reasons, the Landers House quickly develops an evil reputation. Det. Goodman still refuses to step foot inside it, which seems rather strange to his new partner, Det. Muldoon, since he ostensibly investigated the multiple homicides that occurred there. It wasn’t just the Landers who met untimely deaths. The realtors handling the sale of the property, Peter and pregnant Nina Spencer, met similar fates.

As is usually the case in horror movies, Muldoon relocated to exurban Pennsylvania hoping to find a safer, more stable environment to raise her son Burke after her husband’s devastating death from cancer. Needless to say, those plans go out the window once she enters the Landers house. From there on, she is in for the full Grudge treatment.

The Grudge 2020 is a respectable American installment in the franchise, but Pesce’s reputation as the indie auteur who helmed The Eyes of My Mother and Piercing will raise many fans expectations well above what the film delivers. We’ve seen just about all of it before, but Pesce does it with a surprisingly prestigious cast. There are two Oscar nominees in Grudge 2020: Demian Bichir, who is terrific as the devout but world-weary Goodman and Jacki Weaver, who helps humanize the thankless role of Lorna Moody, an assisted suicide activist, who pays an ill-fated visit to the current owners of the Landers house.

Gemini: Making LA Noir Again

Breakout starlet Heather Anderson is one of the beautiful people, whereas her assistant Jill LeBeau is one of the little people. However, LeBeau really believed her boss when she called her a friend and made vague promises to start developing projects with her. That is why LeBeau is so disappointed to find she is suspected of murdering Anderson in Aaron Katz’s Gemini (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Instead of telling the director face-to-face she will not do re-shoots for his troubled film, thereby likely dooming the project, Anderson sends LeBeau in to do her dirty work for her. She is accustomed to such duties. She also tries to run interference with the stalkerish fan who crashes their table when the furious director storms off and her boss slinks in.

Clearly, Anderson depends on LeBeau for both emotional and organizational support. Their relationship is highly ambiguous and fraught with sexual overtones. Nevertheless, LeBeau must not show any signs of jealousy or possessiveness when partying with her boss and Tracy, Anderson’s secret model lover. Technically, they are still employer and employee, whereas jealousy and possessiveness are the specialty of Anderson’s very-ex boyfriend, Devin, whose house she still lives in.

You would think there would be plenty of suspects for Columbo-like Det. Edward Ahn to pester, but the murder weapon happens to be LeBeau’s off-the-books handgun, which has her prints all over it. Quite inconveniently, she even accidentally discharged it on the morning in question.

You have to give Katz credit, because Gemini just oozes noir style. Cinematographer Andrew Reed dazzles us with nocturnal neon and the glossy, glassy reflective surfaces of the characters’ sunny daylight hours. This is a vision of LA that Curtis Hanson and Roman Polanski would appreciate. Plus, Keegan DeWitt’s jazzy synth score gives it an appropriately freshened-up, ultra-now “crime jazz” vibe.

Lola Kirke is quite compelling as LeBeau, who suddenly must confront most of the assumptions that gave her life comfort and structure. She also forges some hard to define, yet undeniably potent chemistry with Zoë Kravitz’s Anderson. Kravitz’s performance is admittedly quite aloof and guarded, but such are the character’s requirements. John Cho adds some energy as the deceptively shrewd Det. Ahn, while Nelson Franklin and Michelle Forbes conspicuously steal their scenes as the director and agent who would not be out of place in Altman’s The Player.

For the most part, Gemini is an appealingly evocative Tinsel Town noir, but as in his Portland mumblecore noir, Cold Weather, Katz still has trouble wrapping things up in a convincing manner. Of course, it is the journey into the dark heart of La La Land that matters to genre fans, not the ultimate destination. Basically, it is Chet Baker cool, which is high praise, but not Miles Davis cool. Recommended for fans of LA noir, Gemini opens this Friday (3/30) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Sundance ’18: Search

The internet most likely contributed to Margot Kim’s disappearance, but maybe it can also help find her. Technology is probably neutral at best in this case, but the film in question still won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize, bestowed on films addressing science and technology, at this year’s Sundance. It is every parents’ nightmare, but Margot’s father David will find plenty of clues on her laptop in Aneesh Chaganty’s Search, which screens during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

The last time David Kim talked to his daughter before she went missing, he scolded her over a face-time chat. The Kims are very connected and online, so we can follow their story via various computer and iPhone screens. Tragically, the Kims are still reeling from the untimely death of their wife and mother Pamela Nam Kim. Now, it is just the two of them, unless you also count stoner Uncle Peter.

Alas, Kim was not awake when his daughter tried to call him late the night of her disappearance, but circumstances initially conspire to offer false explanations for her absence. Unfortunately, after a few days, Kim is forced to file a missing person report. The detective assigned to the case is one of the stars of the department, but the trail is cold. Working with her, Kim will scour his daughter’s social media accounts for leads. Eventually, he takes deep dives into her online browser history, which will indeed produce clues. However, it also leads to the unsettling realization he did not know his daughter as well as he thought.

This story told on computer screens already has ample precedent, including “The Sick Thing that Happened to Emily When She was Younger,” Joe Swanberg’s segment in the original V/H/S film and Matthew Solomon’s Chatter. However, Chaganty refines the technique in a way that develops character much more than its predecessors. After the first act, the audience will be deeply invested in all three Kims, including the late mother.

Despite his Star Trek fame, John Cho still has the appropriate everyman quality necessary to carry off a role like David Kim. He covers a wide emotional range and develops some genuine paternal chemistry with Michelle La’s Margot. La gives a remarkably poignant and vulnerable performance that also greatly helps Chaganty manage the revelation of Margot’s secrets. Sara Sohn is simply devastating as Pamela Kim and Joseph Lee perfectly calibrates the surprisingly complicated Peter Lee. That makes sitcom star Debra Messing the weak link as the problematically pedestrian Det. Vick. Still, the rest of the ensemble more than compensates.

You could say Search is built around a gimmick, but the execution is tight and tense, so viewers will get caught up in it anyway. Editors Nick Johnson and Will Merrick deserve special credit for cutting all the disparate clips and screens together so smoothly. Search happens to be one of several films currently playing Sundance that inspire caution and paranoia with respect to social media. However, Chaganty and co-screenwriter Sev Ohanian present a fuller, more nuanced vision of online technology and its proper functions in society. Highly recommended, Search screens again this morning (1/23), Thursday (1/25), and Friday (1/26) in Park City, as well as Saturday (1/27) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Shopping for Fangs, on Chopso

It is the late 1990s, but Trinh is still down with the “sunglasses at night” style statement of the 1980s. At that time, independent film still had a rep for very personal passion projections, whereas today it is considered just as much an industry as the studio system. This lowkey quasi-horror comedy was very much a film of its time, but it is fondly remembered by many as one of several Asian American indie releases that have recently been dubbed the “Class of 1997.” Even without the zeitgeisty context, it would still be notable as co-director Justin Lin and co-star John Cho’s first features. Take a nostalgic trip back to the post-Pulp Fiction indie glory years when Quentin Lee & Justin Lin’s freshly restored Shopping for Fangs (trailer here) premieres on Chopso, the brand-new English-language Asian-interest streaming service.

Clarance idylls away a great deal of time in a Southern California coffeeshop, partly because it is comfortable looking and partly because he enjoys the company of the ditzy, blonde-wigged waitress, Trinh. It is strictly platonic. He pines for his long-distance boyfriend in Taipei, while she has developed a weird crush on Katherine, a mousy housewife, whose wallet and Gordon Gekko-style cell phone she swiped from a ladies’ room. Trinh seems to live in another world, so she has no reservations about sending Katherine flirting notes and photos of herself. Yet, much to her surprise, Katherine finds herself fascinated by this free spirit.

Meanwhile, the sexually and professionally frustrated Phil starts to suspect he is becoming a werewolf, due to the alarming increase in the volume and rate of growth of his facial hair. As fate would have it, his bossy sister has just shacked up with lycanthropy expert, so perhaps it is just the power of suggestion. In any event, poor Phil is getting a lot stronger and physically resilient, but also starting to develop anger management issues.

Like so many indie films of the era, the various characters and story arcs crisscross at key junctures, to demonstrate what an ironic little world we live in. However, the two main strands are more stylistically delineated, because Lee helmed Katherine’s sequences, while Lin handled those focusing on Phil. Even though Lin would become the industry powerhouse (Fast and the Furious installments 3-6, Star Trek Beyond), Lee’s Katherine/Trinh story arc has more zip. Frankly, Fangs could have been a rather intriguing (albeit idiosyncratic) little De Palma-esque psychological thriller without the lycanthropy storyline.

Lin and Cho became famous and Lee has built a reputation as a crossover indie-LGBT filmmaker (he also directed the bizarrely under-appreciated The Unbidden), but the real discovery here is Jeanne Chin’s amazing performance as Katherine. Initially, she seems almost distressingly passive, but when you least expect it, she reveals her extraordinary range. The young, fresh-faced Cho also exhibits the smart presence and on-screen charm that would lead to the Star Trek reboot (and the excellent sf series, Flashforward, which ABC inexplicably sabotaged, by giving it the NewsRadio treatment).

It is funny how innocent the late 1990s now seem in retrospect. In many ways, Fangs is a product of its time. You could argue, it works as well as it does, because the unhurried pace lulls viewers into its own rhythm. If a similar film were produced today, it would be expected to be louder, busier, bloodier, and more political. That is a shame, because it is rather pleasant to relax with a cup of coffee in the company of Clarance and Trinh. Recommended as a nostalgic indie throwback, distinguished by a dynamite turn from Chin, Shopping for Fangs is now available on Chopso.