NewFest ’15: You’re Killing Me

Even the reality TV obsessed youtube video-producing George and Barnes find Maya Angelou’s bromides ridiculously cheesy. However, they probably should take the one about “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” a bit more to heart. Unfortunately, they assume good-looking Joe Palmer is joking whenever he talks about being a serial killer. Oh, but he’s not kidding. As a result, their circle of friends will dramatically contract in Jim Hansen’s pretty damn funny gay slasher comedy, You’re Killing Me (trailer here), which screens as part of the inaugural Queer Horror Night at this year’s NewFest.

Palmer doesn’t really know his pop culture references, because he was just released from the nut house. It seems his treatment didn’t take. In the past, he only killed small animals, but he is about to graduate to people. Since he is not comfortable with sex, he will just kill his new boyfriend instead. At least the late Andy puts him onto George and Barnes’ videos. When Palmer makes a point of bumping into him, George assumes it is a meet-cute, but he really is stalking him. In fact, Palmer has an endless supply serial killer jokes. George thinks they are a riot, but they are the cold, hard truth. Eventually, Barnes starts to suspect something is not right about Palmer, but by that point, the bodies are really starting to pile up.

Frankly, YKM skewers our contemporary reality TV-viral video obsessed society with more wit and satiric insight than just about any recent comedy, regardless of orientation. Hansen never really nostalgically calls back to fan favorite horror films of years gone by, but he is certainly not stingy when it comes to blood and guts. Essentially, the humor operates on two levels, blood splattered slapstick and highly exaggerated but still wickedly smart cultural criticism. If that isn’t enough for you, Mindy Cohn from The Facts of Life also shows up at the darnedest time.

Yet, despite the gory nuttiness, YKM still has a good heart. In large measure, this is due to the riffing camaraderie of George and Barnes’ friendship. Co-writer Jeffery Self and Bryan Safi are terrific as the aspiring celebrities. Self also maintains the energy level almost single-handedly when playing off Matthew McKelligon’s suspiciously reserved Palmer.

YKM’s characters are mostly gay (and they probably have to be, because not a lot of straight guys are so well versed on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), but the humor is blackly universal. If you enjoy films like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, you should dig it just as much or more. Highly recommended for horror mash-up fans, You’re Killing Me screens this Sunday (10/25) at the Chelsea Bowtie, as part of NewFest 2015.

Margaret Mead ’15: Land of Songs

For the better part of the Twentieth Century, the Soviet Union gave the Baltic States the Blues. Lithuanians responded by singing their traditional folks songs—and engaging in armed resistance. Sibling filmmakers Aldona and Julian Watts journeyed to their grandmother’s Lithuanian homeland, to record the Dainava region’s folksongs for posterity in Land of Songs (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Dainava ladies might be getting on in years, but they are no shrinking violets. Yet, they join together in song remarkably harmoniously. As in Estonia, Lithuanian folk songs played a major role in the revolution against Communism, but unlike the massive Laulupidu song festival in Tallinn (as seen in The Singing Revolution), which remains a hugely significant national cultural event, the folk singing tradition appears to be falling out of favor with younger Lithuanians.

There are some eerily evocative performance by the distinguished ladies of the Ethnographic Ensemble of Puvočiai that seem to harken back to some mystical time before time. However, they cannot match triumphant emotional crescendo of the massive Laulipidu performances. Still, the film really starts to come together when they link the Dainava folk songs with the Forest Brothers resistance movement. It is pretty significant to watch and listen to the Partisan veteran code-named “Tiger” singing some of their patriotic anthems in the bunker that was once his home. The Watts (director Aldona & cinematographer-co-producer Julian) also incorporate some wonderfully striking archival photos of their subjects that really give viewers a sense of the dramatic sweep of their lives.

Land of Songs is a lovely film that captures the idyllic beauty of the Dainava region (a.k.a. “The Land of Songs”) and the sly humor of its residents. It offers some solid history and accessible ethnomusicology. Frankly, Land really deserves to be picked up for a national audience on PBS stations (and with its sixty minute running time, the film could easily accommodate their broadcast schedules), but for now, look for it on the festival circuit. Highly recommended, Land of Songs screens this Friday afternoon (10/23) with the short doc The Ladies, as part of the AMNH’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Bone Tomahawk: Kurt Russell Tracks Cannibals

Whatever you do, don’t call them Native Americans, or any less politically correct term. They are Troglodytes, an ancient secret race of cannibals so brutal, they have been disavowed by all Native Peoples. When they kidnap a cowboy’s wife, he will set off after them, in the tradition of The Searchers. However, he has no worries she might “go native,” because he is keenly aware of her place on the menu in S. Craig Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

All the trouble starts when two knuckle-headed outlaws go traipsing through a Troglodyte burial ground. Eventually, the thuggish Buddy will make it to the upstanding town of Bright Hope, but his sidekick Purvis will not. However, Buddy’s suspicious behavior and general bad attitude will get him shot in the leg by Sheriff Franklin Hunt. Since they can’t just let that get infected, they send for the medically trained Samantha O’Dwyer. She had been enjoying a quiet evening at home, tending the broken leg of her cattle-driving husband Arthur.

Inconveniently, when morning comes, the sheriff discovers Ms. O’Dwyer has been abducted, along with the prisoner and his legit deputy. Leg or no leg, O’Dwyer is saddling up and giving chase. The duty-bound Hunt will ride with him, as will the roguish gambler and ladies’ man John Brooder, who nurses a pathological hatred of Native tribes. Old Chicory will also tag along. The old timer Hunt indulgently dubbed his “back-up deputy” might not inspire a lot of confidence, but he did not survive the Civil War and years on the frontier because he wasn’t resourceful.

It is absolutely fascinating to watch all the hoops Tomahawk jumps through to make it okay for a cowboy to shoot a sort of, but not really Native American. (Does this mean the Toledo Troglodytes are now going to have to change their name too?) Regardless, those Trogs sure are hard to kill, but the manly cast is mostly up for the task, starting with the eternally cool Kurt Russell, who is as grizzled and hardnosed as ever as Sheriff Hunt. It is too bad Hollywood doesn’t make westerns as regularly as they used to, because the Hateful Eight co-star is a natural for the genre, just like his father Bing.

Frankly, most of the film’s best scenes play out between Hunt and Chicory, played by the ever-reliable Richard Jenkins as a Gabby Hayes figure, but with dignity and common sense. He invests the Back-up Deputy with so much tragic heft, he arguably takes ownership of the film. In contrast, Patrick Wilson’s O’Dwyer is basically a wet noodle with a gimpy leg. However, as Brooder, the heroic anti-hero, Matthew Fox absolutely gorges on the Paramount Ranch scenery.

With a running time of one hundred thirty minutes (seriously, its over two hours), Tomahawk takes too dang long to get from Bright Hope to the Troglodyte lair. Still, it is loaded with cool bits of business, starting with Roger Corman repertory player Sid Haig doing his thing as Buddy. The film’s respect for O’Dwyer’s abiding Christian faith is also unexpectedly refreshing, especially since Wilson played the abusive Evangelical in the laughably stilted atheist outreach film, The Ledge. Despite some pacing issues, Bone Tomahawk is still an entertaining excursion into weird west terrain. Recommended for Kurt Russell fans and Deadlands players, Bone Tomahawk opens this Friday (10/23) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

The Advocate: a Missing Body

The sleazy Byun Ho-sung is not exactly Rumpole, but the lack of a corpse is the sort of loose end he masterfully exploits. However, at times it is unclear whether his client really wants to beat the rap. A rather complicated case unfolds both inside and outside the courtroom in Heo Jong-ho’s The Advocate: a Missing Body (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New Jersey.

After winning a spectacular product liability victory for a big pharma company, Byun is personally requested by the charismatic CEO Moon Ji-hoon for an apparently hopeless charity case. His former driver Kim Man-suk is accused of killing the woman he was allegedly stalking. He was arrested in the dead woman’s apartment with blood on his shirt and his prints on the supposed murder weapon. There was a lethal amount of blood splattered, but the body is absent.

Yet, just as Byun starts to make hay over other crime scene irregularities, Kim up and confesses in open court. Obviously, Byun smells a fix. With the assistance of his long suffering office manager, Mr. Park, Byun starts to follow the trail of clues back to Moon. Unfortunately, the shady company will push back hard.

Frankly, it is sort of shame The Advocate eventually evolves into a conspiratorial legal-medical thriller, because it starts out as a refreshingly intriguing old fashioned murder mystery. Still, even though it is ostensibly a breezy comedy-thriller, Heo is not afraid to go dark for an extended period of time, which is cool. In fact, there is no way you can come out of the film with a higher regard for lawyers. Unfortunately, the dastardly Moon and his corporate crimes are predictably shopworn elements by now.

Nevertheless, the high stakes intrigue offers a perfect showcase for the hardnosed and rubber-faced Lee Sun-kyun. Arguably, The Advocate could be considered the “Order” follow-up to the “Law” of his breakout hit A Hard Day. He takes a similar licking here and keeps on grimacing. A chameleon-like Kim Go-eun stands her ground against him as the principled prosecutor Jin Sun-mi, who is still hung up on Byun, her former senior at school. Jang Hyun-sung’s Moon is an adequate but not inspired villain. However, Hong Song-duk really anchors the film as the mysterious and troubled accused.

There are enough clever twists and turns unleashed at regular intervals to maintain the suspense and a good sense of fun. Although it is not as super-charged or wickedly sly as A Hard Day, The Advocate is slick and professional, just like the sort of mouthpiece you would want to litigate on your behalf. Entertaining in a swaggering with attitude kind of way, The Advocate: a Missing Body is recommended for thriller fans when it opens this Friday (10/23) at the Edgewater Multiplex Cinemas in New Jersey.

NewFest ’15: Everlasting Love

Sex does not get much more dangerous than this. A professor might think he is engaging in a moderately risking bit of cruising, but it puts him on the radar of a decidedly sinister circle of friends in Marçal Forés’ Everlasting Love (trailer here), which screens as part of the inaugural Queer Horror Night at this year’s NewFest.

If you are expecting to hear the disco version of Robert Knight’s R&B hit, forget about it. However, this thicket of woods in Barcelona is a lot like the club in Friedkin’s Cruising, except it draws straights and lesbians in search of hook-ups as well. Carlos, a middle-aged Chinese language instructor often comes there for the obvious. He also recognizes the attraction of one of his shy students. Toni is not really his type, per se, but at the right time, in the right place, anyone is Carlos’s type.

Unfortunately, Toni has trouble accepting the whole one night stand thing. This troubles Carlos, but he should really be worried about Toni’s friends. Although Forés only shows us oblique glimpses, it is enough to understand these kids are profoundly bad news.

Although just under seventy minutes, Everlasting is a fascinating example of how visual perspectives can elevate feelings of dread and suspense. Cinematographer Elías M. Félix’s wide-angle shots give us a disorienting view of events that conceals as much as it reveals. By the same token, it gives the film a lush, exotic vibe that bizarrely compares to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin in that strictly limited respect.

Considering Aimar Vega’s Toni is intended to be a shrinking violet who appears to withdraw into himself like a turtle on-screen, Joan Bentallé deserves most of the credit for carrying the film like a pack mule. As Carlos, he is roguishly reckless and hedonistic, yet viewers will squirm for him as he unknowingly facilitates the inevitable.

Everlasting is creepy and economical. It also ends on a defiantly surreal note reminiscent of Park Chan-wook’s iPhone short, Night Fishing. Despite its restraint, the unsettling mood should definitely appeal to fans of horror movies and dark thrillers. Recommended for open-minded art-house genre fans, Everlasting Love screens this Sunday (10/25) at the Chelsea Bowtie, as part of NewFest 2015.

Rotor DR1: The Drones Will Endure

It is the post-apocalyptic story of a boy and his drone. A few years ago, drones were a cause for concern among civil liberties activists, but they have apparently moved to more media-friendly causes. As a result, the field has been cleared for drone enthusiasts to rehabilitate the image of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Thanks to the active collaboration of the drone community, UAVs will have their post-apocalyptic day in Rotor DR1 (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Cinema Libre.

In the future, apes will evolve from men, but before that, a catastrophic virus will wipe out most of the human population. It is a bleak world, where drones have more to fear from humans than vice versa. That is because the rag tag survivors covet the drones’ power source. Those uber-batteries are the only real currency left. Kitch (once known as Mitchell Scott, Jr.) survives by harvesting power cores and selling them to Hashtag, a dodgy intermediary working for 4C, who runs the only remotely organized outfit in the area.

One fateful day, Kitch captures a drone unlike any he has seen before. That would be DR1, a next generation prototype. Out of curiosity, Kitch starts to patch it up, leading to the stunning discover that it just might hold clues to the whereabouts of Kitch’s missing and presumed dead father, Dr. Mitchell Scott. The senior Kitch was the CEO of Medix, a company that specialized in medical delivery drones and infectious disease drones. Rightly or wrongly, many survivors blame Dr. Scott for the lousy state of the world. However, Kitch is determined to track down his old man, with the help of DR1 and 4C’s rebellious niece, Maya.

Although originally produced as a web-series, DR1 hangs together quite cogently as a feature. Apparently, the collective judgement of the drone community is usually pretty sound. There are a few plot holes big enough to drive a tractor-trailer through, but the aerial shots of the drones flying are impressive (frankly, the drone race is way cooler than Phantom Menace’s pod race) and the post-industrial, post-apocalyptic locales (Northeastern Ohio) truly look like a scarred wasteland. However, it seems the drone community likes its portentous narration, because there sure is a lot of it.

Even though he was stuck with excessive voiceover work, Christian Kapper’s turn as Kitch is impressively complex and understated. Tom E. Nicholson also makes a strong impression as 4C—sort of like a mature, less shticky Kevin Smith, while David Windestål scores points with his “guest appearance” as the drone scientist turned drone hunter. However, it should be noted the quartet of credited screenwriters never try to invest DR1 with a personality (a la Number 5 in Short Circuit). The implications of that are admirably realistic, but not particularly cinematic.

Regardless, it is nice to see a pro-science science fiction movie, especially one that falls within the post-apocalyptic subgenre. This might be the first film of the decade that does not demonize pharmaceutical companies, which certainly distinguishes it from the field. In many ways, it is an intriguing speculation on the future of UAV and AI technology. Recommended for fans of apocalyptic science fiction and the drone pilot reading over your shoulder, Rotor DR1 is now available on DVD and BluRay, from Cinema Libre.

Margaret Mead ’15: East Punk Memories

Anarchy was all very well for the UK, but not for the Captive Nations of the Warsaw Pact. Of course, that only made Hungary’s early 1980s underground punk movement embrace the music and its nihilistic ethos with ever greater fervor. Having secretly documented them in their prime on Super 8, Lucile Chaufour returned three decades later to see how angry and rebellious they still were in East Punk Memories (clip here), which screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Communist authorities did not like punk—and the feeling was mutual. Homegrown Hungarian punk bands verbally smashed the state every night with politically charged lyrics, such as: “you’re just a street kid, you’ll never be party secretary” and “Communist drug, no seduction needed.” You sort of need to hear them in the original Hungarian for the full effect.

Several of the survivors of the Hungarian punk scene speak without nostalgia for the frequent feeling they experienced during the Socialist era that they were being followed (which they often were). Nobody is ready to shed a tear for Communism, but many are pointedly disappointed with the austerity and rising nationalism that followed. One former punk probably speaks for them all when he tells Chaufour he would not want to relive the Soviet years or the current era.

Yet, indirectly but unmistakably, Chaufour and several interview subjects hint that the punk movement might be partially responsible for the current state of things. It seems a legit skinhead faction eventually split off from the Hungarian punk scene, apparently reading too much into Sid Vicious’s swastika. You have to wonder if the current public discourse would be better if they had focused more on the black flag.

Perhaps, it is also telling that nearly every former punker is holding a beer in their “after” interviews. That is the Eastern Europe I know and love. Introspection and candor are also healthy, so maybe the former punkers are ready to help Hungary take the next step. The depth of their insights is somewhat inconsistent, but it is still an intriguing and appropriately grungy film. Recommended for Cold War punkers, the fifty-one minute East Punk Memories screens this Friday night (10/23), as part of the AMNH’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

The Last Wolf of Ezo: From the Early Meiji Era to the Old West

There is a long tradition of supernatural felines in Japanese ghost stories. There is also extensive shapeshifting lore about kitsune fox-spirits, but Japanese lycanthropy typical does fit the lupine mold. Nevertheless, a Japanese werewolf wreaks havoc on an American frontier town in Eduardo Castrillo’s The Last Wolf of Ezo (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Maverick Entertainment.

Karukan’s clan was honor-bound to hunt down and kill the savage werewolf, but when it hopped a steamer for America in human form, the Emperor was content to leave it be. However, Karukan was still obligated to follow it on his own. It is not exactly a great time to be Asian in the Old West, but Karukan forges an alliance with Langdon, a gunslinger-cardsharp that evolves into a bickering friendship. When they hear of a beast terrorizing River City (honest, that is what it’s called), they make haste, but find a dodgy band of bounty-hunters has been retained to dispatch the beast. Of course, they have no idea what they are getting into.

The pitch for Ezo practically speaks for itself: Kung Fu meets The Wolfman. However, it needs to do better than a C-level execution, given its budget constraints and the recent mini-boomlet of weird west competition. In fact, it has pretty terrible timing, releasing the same week Bone Tomahawk hits theaters and not long after Jeremy Wooding’s over-achieving Blood Moon launched on DVD and VOD. Although Wooding’s resources were probably just as limited as what was available for Castrillo, Blood Moon’s vivid characters and dynamic energy make it a B-movie delight. Unfortunately, the same is not exactly true of Ezo.

There are a few laughs in the right places and the Japanese flashback scenes look better than you might expect, but the entire film basically feels like everyone is trying to get from point A to point B with the least amount of fuss. Professional kickboxer Daniel J. Kim has the right strong, silent presence, but here he is working with sub-standard fight choreography. Alex Renteria probably makes the strongest impression as Langdon, playing his roguishness to the hilt. However, there are simply too many bounty hunters and outlaws, washing in and out and blending together. Still, Lexy Gama (as Karukan’s young love) and the rest of the Japanese cast are surprisingly solid. Maybe Castrillo should have kept that wolf off the boat.

On paper, Ezo sounds like a blast, but it is not nearly as nutty, inventive, or twisted as its microbudget requires. That is frustrating, because it has a number of elements in place. Nevertheless, if you want to see an Old West werewolf movie, check out Blood Moon, you know, the British one. Regardless, The Last Wolf of Ezo is on-sale today (10/20), from Maverick Entertainment.

NewFest ’15: When Bette Met Mae

Mae West practically single-handedly saved Paramount from bankruptcy, while Bette Davis was the first actress to bring a little glamour to the hardboiled Warner Brothers studio. Yet, despite their mutual admiration, it took decades for the two movie stars to finally meet. Optometrist and volunteer bartender Wes Wheadon was a fly on the wall when they did and he has the standard audio cassette recording to prove it. With the help of lip-synching actors, he recreates the lively early 1970s dinner party in the hybrid documentary When Bette Met Mae (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 NewFest.

Davis had four husbands and West never had a shortage of men, but both became gay icons, in part through drag show impersonations. It was a phenomenon they discussed on that night in 1973, so WBMM is not so out of place at NewFest. Sadly, the movie business had largely forgotten them at this point, but Davis still worked regularly in television, resenting nearly every minute of it. Having invested wisely in real estate, West did not need to work at all. Still, neither was the type to sit about idle.

Despite its obvious artificiality and the disorienting distance between the on-screen figures and their voices, it is rather lovely to hear the real life Davis and West again, in any context. The former was especially her tart-tongued self, venting her spleen against agents, producers, and former SAG president Ronald Reagan. In retrospect, most historians give Reagan credit for standing up to the moguls, but clearly anything less than a May Day storming of the studio barricades would not impress Ms. Davis.

Wheadon, who had already been pulled into Bette Davis’s orbit through mutual friends at the dinner party, serves as an easy-going and informative host. He augments the gossipy conversation with some intriguing background and context on the often overlooked later years of the two stars’ lives. It is particularly amusing to hear New York publicist Gary Springer (whom those of us who cover film and theater know and respect quite well) speak of an evening at Town Hall his father produced. Conceived as a sort of 92Y-style Q&A, it became a command appearance for the royal Davis to receive her adoring fans (who were apparently 99% gay men). Nevertheless, since the breezy forty five minute dish session constitutes the core of the film, Wheadon can barely stretch it past sixty minutes.

Karen Teliha and Victoria Mills are both the respective spitting images of Davis and West, but Teliha also shows a command of the former’s instantly recognizable mannerisms. She seems comfortable in Davis’s skin, whereas Mills does not. However, the night was largely Ms. Davis’s show, so we can just watch and listen to her do her thing.

The graphics and Jack Anderson’s cinematography have a retro vibe that look like they might have been produced in 1973, along with the muffled audio. Yet, there is something appealing about its throwback grunginess. It is also a NewFest selection that could draw a lot of straight fans, because Mae West was Mae West and Bette Davis was smoking hot in The Letter and The Man Who Came to Dinner. Recommended for fans of Golden Age Hollywood, When Bette Met Mae screens Thursday afternoon (10/22) with the short film, Who Stole the Ruby Slippers, during this year’s NewFest.

Extraordinary Tales: GKIDS does Poe

Finally, the two greatest Draculas are together in one film. It is a posthumous collaboration between Bela Lugosi and Sir Christopher Lee, but that is all the more fitting. Many of the greatest voices in horror cinema bring to life five classic Edgar Allan Poe stories in Raúl García’s Extraordinary Tales (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Between 2004 and 2014, former Disney animator García unleashed his inner fanboy producing a series of Poe short films that paid tribute to the dark bard of Baltimore, as well as other icons of classic horror cinema and graphic art. They are now finally collected and connected by a framing device naturally set in a gothic cemetery. Poe’s spirit now resides in a raven, but an anthropomorphized Lady of Death tries to convince the writer to accept his final resting, by using his own stories as grim object lessons.

The figures of García’s interstitials and the first tale, The Fall of the House of Usher, are a bit blocky, but the backgrounds are wonderfully atmospheric. Usher is also stratospherically elevated by the late, great Sir Christopher’s drippingly macabre narration. He sounds as sonorously sinister as ever, which make Usher a delight.

However, for classic monster fans, nothing can top García’s The Tell Tale Heart, which was Oscar short-listed as an animated short in 2005. Using a non-professional proof-of-concept recording taped by Lugosi’s agent in the late 1940s when he was trying to package a Poe-themed stage show, García truly taps into the psychologically perverse essence of the story. Rather than phoning it in, Lugosi fully draws out all the twisted drama. With all its hisses and pops, it rather appropriately sounds like some sort of ghostly spirit broadcast. Visually, García’s stark black & white animation, conceived as an homage to Argentine comic artist Alberto Breccia, is also absolutely arresting.

Julian Sands does not exactly have the same stature, but the Warlock and Arachnophobia actor is certainly no stranger to a horror movie set. His narration for The Fact in the Case of M. Valdemar is right on the money, yet he is completely up-staged by García’s visuals. In this case, he renders the story in a style that evokes the pulpy look of EC Comics. It is definitely cool looking, but the master touch is the mesmerist narrator, who bears a surely not coincidental resemblance to Vincent Price.

Frankly, Guillermo del Toro is not a natural born voice-over artist, but the Mexican auteur sounds duly authentic narrating arguably the most faithful English language adaptation of Spanish Inquisition-set The Pit and the Pendulum to date. In fact, the entire film remains remarkably true to Poe’s source material. The expressionism of Pit also makes it one of García’s most sophisticated looking and psychologically engaging tales.

With The Masque of Red Death, Extraordinary ends on a mostly wordless high point. Roger Corman himself, the self-made mogul who helmed all the great Poe adaptations starring Price, has only one line of dialogue as Prince Prospero, but it is worth the wait. Instead of chatter, García builds tension and foreboding by showing the silent figure of death glide through the Prince’s hedonistic bacchanal.

García has truly assembled a horror connoisseur’s dream team by incorporating the work of Poe, Lugosi, Lee, Corman, del Toro, and sort of Price and Breccia into one enormously satisfying film. Even though it is distributed by GKIDS, Extraordinary Tales might be too intense for youngsters, but kids old enough to stay up for Corman classics on the weekends should enjoy its spookiness. García maintains an impressively eerie mood, but older fans might just get caught up in nostalgia for our old midnight movie idols. Either way, it is thoroughly entertaining film. Highly recommended for horror and animation fans, Extraordinary Tales opens this Friday (10/23) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Margaret Mead ’15: Double Happiness

What does China want? Pretty much the whole world. They tried copying the best parts in Beijing World Park, as seen in Jia Zhangke’s The World, but the results are a little kitschy. However, they were much more ambitious and thorough when secretly replicating the Austrian lakefront village Hallstatt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Both Chinese and Austrian observers wrestle with the cultural significance of the Guangdong Hallstatt in Ella Raidel’s Double Happiness (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

When Hallstatt hotelier Monika Wenger discovered her guest was a Chinese architect working to copy her picturesque inn and the rest of the city’s picture-postcard market square, she was understandably put out. After all tourism is her business. She has since resigned herself to the situation, because what choice does she have? Hallstatt’s mayor chose to embrace the project, hoping it would generate more Chinese tourist trade, but that seems optimistic. Provocatively, one Beijing talk show host finds ironic logic in the project, arguing since China has destroyed its past, it must now copy other countries’ historical landmarks.

Yet, Hallstatt, China is just a jumping off point for a larger consideration of urban planning—a noble pursuit Shenzhen planner Wu Wenyuan finds nearly impossible because of the Special Economic Zone’s explosive growth. Frankly, it is perfect example of the folly of centralized planning. By the time her department’s Soviet-style long-range plans are officially approved (a process that apparently takes years, not months), the population projections prove to be hopelessly inadequate.

Frustratingly, there are questions beyond the obvious issues of cultural appropriation Happiness largely ignores, such as the environmental impact of the construction process. The fact that the project was developed by the mining company China Minmetals might not inspire tremendous confidence on that score, yet the systemic environmental degradation of China is only tangentially referenced. Also, the implications of copying the iconic architecture of the Evangelical Church of Hallstatt without respect to its sacred function is problematic, but churchy kind of stuff does not seem to interest Raidel.

Still, there is an eccentric charm to the film’s impressionistic interludes, featuring actress Yaki Cang as our audience surrogate. Raidel also has a remarkable sense of composition, capturing some incredible images of Hallstatt in Austria and China. In some ways, Happiness has a greater kinship with Jia’s 24 City, because of its concern for hyper development and hybrid structure. It has its flaws, but Double Happiness also delivers some intriguing visuals and commentary. It is recommended on balance, especially since it screens with the entertaining short doc China Remix this Friday (10/23), as part of the AMNH’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Margaret Mead ’15: China Remix (short)

There is no pathway to citizenship in China, but there are plenty of immigrants. For instance, Guangzhou is now known as the center of China’s West African expat population. While many work as traders, shipping clothes and consumer electronics back to their clients for a small commission, some enterprising African hip hop musicians have found success catering to this growing market. Yet, despite their superior hipness, they face the same legal barriers. Melissa Lefkowitz & Dorian Carli-Jones follow three such performers as they go about their lives and business in China Remix (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

Dibaocha, Flame Ramadan, and Ivan Manivoo have all found varying degrees of success in Guangzhou. The former two artists already have a number of releases to their credit. Dibaocha is particularly well-established, as both the godfather of the local hip hop scene and the father of two, with his Chinese wife, Cherrish (yes, with two r’s). Yet, Manivoo a student leader as well as a rapper and an all-purpose wheeler-dealer, probably has the brightest future. Yet, their music careers are all essentially off-the-books.

Clearly, Dibaocha has put down roots, but he still must go to great lengths to renew his visa. As a result, he is by far the most vocal in his criticism of Chinese immigration policies. Of course, anyone hoping the CP will loosen up is delusional, especially when their internal Hukou system of residency permits forbids native born rural Chinese from legally working in big cities.

Indeed, if one thing comes shining through China Remix with crystal clarity it is the spectacular class stratifications and disparities of contemporary China. If you doubt it, take a gander at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show produced to celebrate the opening of a luxury condo high-rise in Guangzhou. Manivoo certainly seems to enjoy the gig when hired to rap as the models strut down the runway, but it constitutes conspicuous commercialism, even by Manhattan standards.

Since it clocks in just under thirty minutes, China Remix can hardly be exhaustive, but it dives into its subjects’ world with both feet. We get a sense of the energy of the Guangzhou hip hop and African music scenes, as well as the attitudes of the immigrant community. Lefkowitz & Carli-Jones keep the pace brisk and give viewers a good taste of the music in question, which the performers would probably appreciate. Well worth seeing, China Remix screens this Friday (10/23) with Double Happiness, as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Irma Vep at AFA

She was the Catwoman of 1915 Paris. She was the leader of Le Vampires, which had nothing to do with the undead. Instead, they were a band of Parisian Apaches, who were completely unrelated to Native Americans. Credited with single-handedly launching thrillers as a cinematic genre, Louis Feuillade’s character and Musidora, the actress who played her, remain icons a century later. It takes guts to do her jumpsuit, but some have tried. The original Gaumont serial and subsequent films it inspired will screen as part of a mini tribute to Irma Vep and Musidora this week at Anthology Film Archives.

In contrast to the silent film programmed, series curator Michelle Handelman’s own short film Irma Vep, the Last Breath feels very installational. Starring transgender performance artist Zackary Drucker, Handelman literally puts Vep on the couch for a session of psychoanalysis that really holds a mirror up to the audience and our fascination with Vep’s fetish trappings. It should find an appreciative avant-garde audience when it screens this Thursday (10/22) at AFA—and you know who you are.

Not just anyone can slip into the catsuit and become Irma Vep, but Hong Kong action superstar Maggie Cheung is an icon in her own right. Casting her takes liberties with the character’s nationality, but it still makes sense. At least, that is what the past-his-prime auteur of Olivier Assayas’s late 1990s meta-riff thinks and it still makes perfect sense today. Fortunately Assayas was able to get Maggie Cheung to play Maggie Cheung playing Irma Vep in the 1997 Irma Vep (trailer here), which also streams on Fandor.

Thanks to cats like Tarantino, the West has just started embracing the films of John Woo and Johnnie To. Cheung is suddenly getting offers from around the world, including Rene Vidal’s ill-conceived comeback project, a remake of Les Vampires. Since Cheung speaks English, but not French, communication with be difficult. The under-funded production is in such a constant state of bedlam, Cheung has largely been palmed off on Zoe, the stressed out lesbian wardrobe specialist. One look at Cheung in costume and she falls for her hard. It is hard to blame her. In fact, Cheung herself seems to be falling under the influence of her character, or at least she gets a little methody slinking about the corridors and fire escapes of her hotel.

In addition to Les Vampires, Irma Vep openly engages in dialogue with Truffaut’s Day for Night, with Cheung serving as an analogue for Jacqueline Bisset, while also slyly commenting on her own action image of the era. Most fittingly, Jean-Pierre Léaud provides an apostolic link between the films. While he is unexpectedly restrained as the arrogant but anti-social Vidal, this still might be the funniest performance of his storied career.

However, Maggie Cheung is the uncontested star of the film, truly making the legendary role and outfit her own. Even in a secondary language, her presence shines through. She is smart and forceful, but also somewhat shy and hesitant, as one would expect from a famous stranger in a strange hipster land.

Cheung and Assayas would marry in 1998, divorce in 2001, and make the film Clean in 2004, so Irma Vep would clearly be the start of a significant relationship. It is also a heck of a star turn for Cheung. Along with Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage, it helped position Cheung as a serious screen thesp, beyond a mere action star. Although its grungy edges are a bit distracting at times, there is a freshness and vitality to it that still stands up. Recommended for fans of films about films, Irma Vep screens this Friday (10/23) as part of the Vep-Musidora retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

ArtDocFest/Riga: Grozny Blues

Taita Yunusova was released a mere nineteen hours after she was abducted. She would know better than most how fortunate she was. Yunusova is one of four middle-aged women independently documenting the horrors of the Chechen Wars and the subsequent human rights violations of Putin’s puppet, Ramzan Kadyrov. Although no longer held captive, you wouldn’t exactly say Yunusova and her colleagues are “safe.” However, by selecting Nicola Bellucci’s Grozny Blues, in which they prominently appear, for their fifteen film documentary shortlist, the European Film Academy will help spread awareness of the activists and the constant danger they face. Fittingly, Grozny Blues (clip here) screens this coming Wednesday at the Riga International Film Festival, as one of the ArtDocFest selections programmer Vitaly Mansky doubted he could present in Moscow under the current regime.

Yunusova, Zargan Makhadzhieva, Tais Titieva, and the exiled Zainap Gaishaeva do not look like independent filmmakers, but they document the devastation of their country and the oral history of grieving family members, because someone has to do it. In many ways, they are living in a hostile environment. Like a lord currying favor with his emperor, Kadyrov demands Chechens kowtow to the despised Putin. Increasingly, he uses stringent Islamification policies to maintain control, even while Putin uses the specter of Islamic terror to justify his harsh pacification campaigns. Chechnya is a man’s world, affording little rights to the four citizen archivists, but it is an old man’s world, since most of the younger generations were wiped out in the Chechen Wars.

Frankly, Bellucci’s approach is less authoritative than that of his subjects. Instead of facts and figures, he prefers to give viewers an impressionistic sense of life in Grozny and the surrounding provinces. It was probably quite picturesque once, but the many bombed out buildings and the massive public portraits of Kadyrov and Putin are an ever-present blight on the country.

We also get to meet the Chechen Archive’s neighbor, the Blues Brothers Café. Arguably, the proprietor is just as idealistic and even more impractical than Yunusova and company. After all, he is trying to run a legit, no heavy metal or grunge, blue club in Grozny. Of course, the system is stacked against him too. He has discovered a promising young talent, but as a woman, she cannot perform in his club after five o’clock.

You might say Bellucci’s style is observational and maybe even a little roundabout, but he clearly understands what he is seeing. When you listen to the women explain their trials and tribulations, including a shotgun marriage to avoid legal problems, it exposes Putin’s rhetoric as the propaganda it is. There is definitely terrorism going on, but most of it is conducted by the Kayrov’s militias. Likewise, since the dramatic Grozny-City Towers fire seen briefly in the film was attributed to safety violations, it probably can also be traced back to the notoriously corrupt regime.

Instead of a formal indictment, Grozny Blues is like a mastercut of small, telling moments all spliced together. By going micro, we see just how systemically dysfunctional the Chechen Republic has become. As its subjects become more widely known internationally, they will probably be less likely disappear in the dark of night. Therefore, the mesmerizing and alarming Grozny Blues is recommended with considerable urgency when it screens this Wednesday (10/21) during ArtDocFest/Riga.

Toronto After Dark ’15: The Hollow One

Being a scientist is sort of like a form of original sin in horror movies. Linda Wade inherited that sin from her parents in the form of a very sinister artifact. For years, she tried to protect her own family, but when her well-meaning husband starts snooping into her past, he stirs up a ferociously powerful force in Nathan Hendrickson’s The Hollow One (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Toronto After Dark.

Michael Wade had two daughters with Linda, but he literally did not know the first thing about her past. You might think he would figure she had her reasons, but instead he hires a private detective at the urging of his youngest, Anna. What he gets is a manila envelope full of field notes and a pepper grinder from Hell. It seems Linda’s medallion fits rather snuggly in the artifact. Unfortunately, Wade will not have much time to peruse the material before dark malicious figures start tormenting him.

At least the Wade sisters were not around when darkness fell over their home. Linda Wade tries to contain the damage, but to no avail. Ironically, she will be fatally injured when she dashes in front of Matt Hoffman’s car. He and Rachel Wade were a heavy item, but she refuses to forgive him for her mother’s death. However, the tragedy leads the Wade sisters away from the rural Washington State town for several years. When they finally return, they find the place a veritable ghost town. What few zombie-like people remain, including their apparently deranged father, have bizarre, ancient metal disks affixed to the back of their necks. To get to the bottom of it all, they will have to work with Hoffman, who was just finished serving his sentence for the accident.

Although Hollow has not played a lot of the big genre fests, it is one of the scariest films currently in circulation. The ominous forces threatening the Wades are not merely malicious. They are malevolent in a greater, metaphysical kind of way. Probably the last horror film that dared to suggest an equivalently big, evil picture was H.P. Mendoza’s I am a Ghost.

While the implications of Hollow are massively unsettling, the execution is also wickedly effective. Hendrickson’s macabre visuals and the Exorcist­-esque sound design are profoundly unsettling. Honest to gosh, if this film does not give you the heebie-jeebies than you must have absolute nerves of steel. Still, it is not quite the pinnacle of perfection. Hendrickson often resorts to glaring contrivances for the sake of advancing his narrative. Frankly, there are a few “oh, c’mon” moments in there.

Still, we can forgive such micro shortcomings, because the macro whole is so blasted creepy. When the sisters and Hoffman start investigating the wreckage of their former home, detail after little detail will just set you on edge. Production designer Lisa B. Hammond and her team did terrific work crafting the distinctive look of the film. The cast is also uniformly consistent and credible. It should also be noted how much Tonya Skoog and Kate Alden’s Rachel Wade look like mother and daughter.

A lot of scary things have come out of Washington State, like Microsoft, so it is nice to see one that is frightening in a good way. Hendrickson’s film will truly get into your head and under your skin. Therefore highly recommended for horror fans, The Hollow One screens this Sunday (10/18) as part of the 2015 Toronto After Dark.

The Sand: Beach Blanket Monster Bash

After a long, hard semester of sun & surf, Kaylee and her friends can finally enjoy spring break. So far, there has been less reality in their lives than a typical episode of Friends, but karma, if not realism, is about to catch up with them. Something hatched during their bon voyage blowout and it has turned the beach deadly in Isaac Gabaeff’s The Sand (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Monarch Home Entertainment.

There was a lot of drinking and hooking up the night before, but nobody will be embarrassed, because Mitch had the foresight to collect everyone’s phones and smart devices. He will spend the night consoling Kaylee over her ex now hooking up with her former bestie Chandra, but that is as far as he gets. It is already awkward when Kaylee and Mitch wake up in the life guard station twenty feet from the convertible where Jonah and Chandra still slumber. However, things really get awkward when they realize there is something horrific lurking under the sand.

Kaylee only needs to see a few seagulls sucked under to draw the right conclusions, but Mitch, Jonah, and Ronnie in the backseat, will have to watch her boyfriend die a gruesome death before they accept the situation. Unfortunately, Jonah the knucklehead drained the battery over the course of the hedonistic night. Things will get uncomfortable for them as the sun starts to beat down, but the convertible trio is still better off than their pal Gilbert, whose tubby butt was stuffed in a barrel.

Do not jump to conclusions based on the bikinis. The Sand might sound like a silly Cormanesque beach monster mash-up, but it is really a surprisingly credible lifeboat thriller, executed with Kevin Williamsonesque attitude. Granted, these are all nauseatingly privileged airheads, but by horror movie standards, they are extraordinarily proactive. Following Kaylee’s lead, they start taking productive steps as early as the first act. Unfortunately, the beach patrol blowhard is played by Jamie Kennedy, so no help there. At least, it is his funniest screen appearance in years.

It turns out Gabaeff is quite adept at staging their halting attempts to shimmy around the sand. It is sort of like a lethal game of twister in which both feet must remain on a hard surface. He rather sparingly shows the monster itself, which is just as well, since the big CGI spectacles are not so hot looking. However, whenever someone falls into the same, the resulting gore is totally satisfying. While it is conspicuously obvious why Brooke Butler, Meagan Holder, and Cynthia Murrell were cast as Kaylee, Chandra, and Ronnie, they never give the sort of awkward line-readings you would expect to find in 1980s direct-to-video gems. Seriously, they are all pretty solid. Yet, it gets downright painful (in the right way) to watch Cleo Berry’s Gilbert sweltering in his barrel.

If you are the sort of person who approaches every new low budget horror movie with optimism, The Sand is the kind of film that justifies your faith. It has a knowing fondness for all the piranha and crab monster creature features that came before it, but it still gets down to genre business quite effectively. No kidding, this is a cool film. Recommended for anyone looking for Halloween viewing with a lot of beach bodies, The Sand is now available on DVD and VOD from Monarch Home Entertainment.

The Diabolical: Home Sweet Horror

Madison is a conscientious mother, but since the death of her emotionally disturbed husband, she has been saddled with a difficult mortgage and a problem child. Unfortunately, she cannot sell her son Jacob, because that would be wrong, or her house, because it is haunted. The family is stuck between a rock and a supernatural place in Alistair Legrand’s The Diabolical (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select theaters.

By now, Madison, Jacob, and his younger sister Haley fully accept they are living in a haunted house. They have simply seen too much, too frequently, to remain in denial. Madison has brought in paranormal researchers, but they have all beat hasty retreats. So who’s she gonna call? Maybe Nikolai, Jacob’s cool science teacher, who she has been seeing on the sly.

Unfortunately, when it rains for Madison, it pours. Just as Jacob was finishing his mandated counseling sessions for his last “incident,” he launches into another fight at school. Ostensibly, she seems to catch a break when her mortgage company offers to buy back her house at favorable terms as part of a dodgy development scheme. However, an unseen force refuses to let Jacob and Haley leave the property, attacking their nervous systems as soon as they advance past the front porch.

Actually, things are not what they seem in Diabolical, but it would be telling to explain how so. Technically, we have seen all the elements Legrand eventually reveals in some form or another in any number of previous films, but he gives them all a deeply sinister twist, while telegraphing absolutely nothing. His execution is unusually tense and creepy. With co-writer Luke Harvis, Legrand taps into the current mortgage-based economic anxieties, without overplaying the topicality card. Viewers just get a visceral sense Madison is physically and emotionally trapped in that house.

Despite still looking like a supermodel, Ali Larter is quite compelling as Madison. Frankly, her work as the anxiety and guilt-ridden mother compares favorably with Essie Davis in the over-hyped Babadook. (The Diabolical addresses similar themes, but does a better job taking care of the genre business.) Arjun Gupta’s work as Nikolai is also notable for its subtlety and intelligence, especially when grading on a horror movie curve.

This is turning out to be a very strong season for horror films—and The Diabolical definitely reinforces and advances that trend. Larter and Gupta show actors can still ply their craft in genre films, while Legrand maintains a distinctively uncanny atmosphere. Recommended with enthusiasm for horror fans, The Diabolical opens tomorrow (10/16) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema and also releases on iTunes.

Mill Valley ’15: Ablution (short)

Iran might have an Islamist government, but aside from the Revolutionary interlude, average Iranians have never been generally inclined towards fundamentalist orthodoxy. This disconnect will deeply confuse a young devout Muslim woman in Canadian-Iranian filmmaker Parisa Barani’s short Ablution (trailer here), which screens in a slightly revised form during the 2015 Mill Valley Film Festival.

Neda Enezari’s mother Afsenah makes no secret she was a “mistake,” While the pious twenty-something openly regards Afsenah’s second marriage as a sin. Neda’s brother Omid reluctantly serves as a buffer between them. He is much more modern in his thinking, but he still respects his sister’s religious devotion. Tensions are already high, with the Iran-Iraq War rudely interrupting everyday life on a regular basis, but the Enezari family’s declining fortunes makes everything worse. Resenting her unhappiness, particularly since she represents the Islamic Revolutionary ideal better than nearly everyone around her, Neda Enezari will start to make a series of unfortunate decisions.

It should be clearly noted Ablution portrays the fundamentalist Enezari in profoundly respectful terms. It also finds considerable value in religious observance. However, it is hard to think the ruling theocrats would consider the film to be good for business. Rightly or wrongly, Enezari’s stringent faith is isolating and alienating in practice. The symbolic interludes inspired by Sufism probably would not sit well with the Shia powers-that-be either. Although not a primary focus of the film, Barani and her co-writer-co-stars Melissa Recalde and Amin El Gamal also give viewers a sense of the corrosive fear and paranoia instilled in common citizens by the state and its notorious Basij morality militia.

Recalde plays Enezari with admirable restraint and sensitivity, but it is Amin El Gamal who probably earns the “breakout” honors as the conflicted Omid Enezari. More than just a nice guy (always a tricky role to play) or an audience surrogate, he really embodies the heart of the film’s religious and social anxieties.

Barani’s short offers an intimate look inside a middle class Iranian home, challenging some preconceptions and confirming others. Revisiting it in its ever so subtly revised form, one is struck by Neda’s confusion and bitterness that her fervor is not rewarded, while the impious around her apparently lead happier, fuller lives. Watching Ablution, one starts to understand how this gap between the promises of fundamentalism and the material benefits of modernity leads to anger and potential tragedy.

Indeed, Ablution is provocative in ways we can only obliquely hint at here. Highly recommended for those who appreciate Iranian cinema and Persian culture, Ablution screens tomorrow (10/16) and Saturday (10/17) as part of the 5 @ 5: Brand New Me short film programming block at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival.