Scout Taylor-Compton’s Bring the Law

Det. Desmond Mitchell’s new Chatsworth-area territory is so lawless, it makes him miss Oakland. Frankly, crimelord Glen Gargos considers it his territory. Most of the cops tend to agree, perhaps including a member or members of Mitchell’s new team. However, Mitchell is too hardheaded and has too little to lose, so he refuses to play ball in Scout Taylor-Compton’s Bring the Law, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Gargos’s Red Flag gang runs the drugs and human trafficking in the area. They have also branched out into the protection racket, but they aren’t as good at it—judging from the bodega bodies they left behind. Mitchell’s team cautions against “rocking the boat,” but he prefers to enforce the law. (Even weirder, his new office happens to be in the Los Angeles MDC Federal Prison, at least judging from the exterior shots.)

It is pretty clear someone is on the take, especially when a hit squad reaches a potential witness right after Mitchell. Unfortunately, one of gunmen happens to be Laura Sanchez’s junkie brother. Mitchell is not exactly close with her, but the diner waitress is one of the few people in the neighborhood who will talk to him. So far, his best source of intel is Olaf, the homeless curmudgeon, who doesn’t expect Mitchell to live much longer.

Bring the Law is unusually gritty and cynical, even by the standards of Mickey Rourke VOD movies. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but the decidedly cheap look is a real drawback. In her directorial debut, Taylor-Compton (best-known for starring in Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies) seems to be going for throwback grunge, which isn’t a terrible strategy. Yet, despite Rourke’s creepy preening as Gargos, the themes and subject matter are too conventional to appeal as exploitation nostalgia. It is just a conspicuously low budget cop movie.

Into the Deep: Richard Dreyfuss and Sharks, Together Again

Jaws 2 gets a bad rap. People unfairly lump it together with the next two truly dreadful sequels. Of course, for many, it was doomed from the start when Richard Dreyfuss refused to reprise his original role. Now, forty-five years later, Dreyfuss finally appears in another shark movie (Piranha 3D and documentary narration don’t count). Technically, he never leaves shore, but he still has some of the best moments in Christian Sesma’s Into the Deep, which releases today in theaters and on VOD.

Years ago, Cassidy Branham’s parents moored their boat at a spot where sharks had never been reported, but a great white ate her father right in front of her anyway. She has had a love-hate with the ocean ever since, largely because Seamus, her marine biologist grandfather, keeps pushing her to face her fears. That is why she agrees to join her archeologist husband Gregg and his scruffy skipper pal Daemon Benz on a treasure dive.

Tragically, both sharks and pirates crash their party. First sharks chow down on one of their companions. Then they hail the nearest boat for help, but the bandits aboard are decidedly not good Samaritans. Led by disgraced Navy SEAL Jordan Devane, they are tracking the signal of a large submerged shipment of drugs that they intend to hijack/salvage. However, they need a better, lighter diver to ferry the drugs back up in the shark cage.

Mixing sharks with pirates gives Into the Deep a slightly different angle than other sharksploitation movies. It also has a decent cast, especially Dreyfuss, whose appearance is quite a coup for a movie of this stature. Essentially, crusty Seamus, who constantly warns his students to fear nature’s wrath, is a combination of his original oceanographer character, Matt Hooper, and Robert Shaw’s salty sea dog, Quint. He never gets within earshot of a shark, but delivers several colorful monologues and makes an extended pitch for shark conservation during the closing credits.

Model House

When was the last time anything good came from social media in the movies? Pretty much never and this one is not about to be the first. A group of hyper-online models want to enjoy a brainless night off between shoots, but they are interrupted by two cyber-stalking IRL-home invaders in director-screenwriter Dave Pike’s Model House, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Not only did Zoe just land her first really high-profile shoot, she also gets to stay in the luxurious “model house” the night after—and she did it all without being a slave to her Instagram. Frankly, it seems like there must be some secret in her backstory that makes her so averse to social media, but Pike never bothers to explain what that might be. Zoe definitely seems to have bad luck, having sprained her ankle during the shoot, but her relative modesty makes her prime “final girl” material.

The rest of her housemates could never survive an 80’s slasher movie. The outlook for them here is not great either. After generating bad karma for an evening, they find themselves the victims of a violent home invasion. The masked Thomas and his influencer-obsessed girlfriend Annie intend to hold them hostage over the night, so they can monetize the models’ social media accounts, for their own benefit. Collecting the models’ phones, they post links to a phony memorial fund supposedly honoring another model who died during the prologue. Of course, the money will be funneled to their off-shore account.

Unfortunately, things get messy when Annie forces the models to get more revealing, to boost donations. Soon, the masks start falling, which has ominous implications for the models.

There are several recognizable horror movies regulars in Model House, but they cannot elevate Pike’s unremarkably blah story. Frankly, Model House is so tepid and forgettable, it is not worth getting worked up over. It cannot even be described as a bad movie. Rather, it is underwhelming and disposable, which is arguably worse.

A Creature was Stirring, on DVD

There are two reasons we have so many Christmas horror movies, one good and one bad. Some filmmakers probably enjoy defiling a Christian holiday, but for others, it is a convenient way to assemble a group of characters and keep them confined inside, sheltering from the cold. Weirdly, nobody seems to have plans for the holiday in this film, not even a pair of sibling Christian missionaries. Of course, they want in from the cold, but what they find is even worse in Damien LeVeck’s A Creature was Stirring, which releases Tuesday on DVD and BluRay.

It is immediate clear to viewers Faith Larsen has a very difficult relationship with her daughter Charm, over and beyond having named her “Charm.” Initially, we assume she has a particularly nasty case of Munchausen-by-proxy, but there soon seems to be good reason to worry if Charm’s temperature falls outside a 102-104-ish range.

Considering Creature has been promoted as a monster movie (see title) and there is a spiky thing on the DVD cover, it should not be too spoilery to mention a monster might come out. That makes it rather awkward when Liz and Kory invite themselves in, mistakenly believing the house is empty. They quickly learn how wrong they were when Larsen whacks Kory’s knee with a bat tricked out like the one Jeffrey Dean Morgan wields on The Walking Dead.

It seems strange two missionaries would not be attending services on Christmas night and yet here they are, apologizing profusely and pleading relief from the cold, as well as medical treatment for Kory. Being a nurse, it is hard for Larsen to refuse. Her medical training also helped her analyze Charm’s weird condition. Unfortunately, Liz will misdiagnosis the situation, suspecting a sinister case of abuse, whereas Kory starts to get the monstrous nature of the danger they face.

This could very well be the least Christmasy Christmas horror movie ever. Maybe the Larsens would not have plans to observe, but surely the missionaries would. Frankly, the title feels more like a marketing gimmick that borders on a bait-and-switch.

LeVeck creates a tensely claustrophobic vibe, but Shannon Wells’ screenplay is too obviously trying to fool the audience. The final twist is more likely to generate groans than gasps—and will definitely leave you questioning the investment of your time in this movie.

The Best Man, Starring Dolph Lundgren

What the Stanley Hotel is to horror, the Inn of the Mountain Gods now is to VOD action movies. The resort has spectacular views, an indoor pool, and a casino (since it is on Apache-governed land). It would be a great place for Brook and Cal’s wedding, if it were not for the armed, hostage-taking party-crashers in Shane Dax Taylor’s The Best Man, which releases this Friday on demand and in theaters.

Cal and Brook did not exactly meet-cute. He was part of the team of special operators hired to rescue her from terrorist kidnappers. They got her safely back home, but at the cost of several comrades. Cal had not seen Bradley or Anders since the team broke up, but they both come to show their support during the wedding. Bradley even agrees to be the best man. As a result, he finds himself paired up with Brook’s somewhat forward sister and maid-of-honor, Hailey, which he does not mind at all. That gives Bradley an extra added motivation to fight Axel’s gang of mercenaries, when they start rounding up the bride’s family.

So, yes, this is basically Die Hard in a resort, during a wedding, but why shouldn’t it be? Especially since Dolph Lundgren plays Anders. It is a good setting, with at least a handful of interesting characters. Weirdly, that does not include any of the villains, who are all quite cardboard and forgettable.

However, Lundgren does a nice job as Anders, projecting a heaviness reflective of his character’s grizzled maturity and checkered history. Likewise, as Hailey, Scout Taylor-Compton injects more energy and attitude than viewers usually find in formulaic Die Hard rip-offs. Luke Wilson largely squanders his “action debut” as Cal, which is a shame, since it is impossible to resist comparing The Best Man to his brother Owen’s comedy hit, Wedding Crashers. However, Chris Mullinax makes quite a memorably drunken mess as Chuck, the father of the bride.