Holiday Gift Guide: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Alvin Schwartz made R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike possible. Although they far eclipsed him in terms of fame and merchandising, he was the favorite gateway drug of choice for a generation of young adult horror readers. His three short story anthologies (largely inspired by folklore and urban legends) continue to post strong backlist sales, thanks in good measure to Stephen Gammell’s now iconic illustrations. Thirty-eight years after the initial publication of the first book, several of Schwartz’s tales have been cleverly adapted in Andre Øvredal’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, co-produced and co-adapted by Guillermo del Toro, which is now available on DVD for all your holiday shopping needs.

It is Halloween 1968 in rural Mill Valley, PA. Richard Nixon is poised to win his first presidential term, so things aren’t all bad. Stella Nicholls and her fellow horror fan high school pals have prepared a satisfyingly effective counter attack for when bullying Tommy Millner inevitably comes looking for them. Fleeing from the number-two-smelling jock, they take refuge in the car of Ramon Morales, a teenaged migrant farm worker “following the harvest.” He and Nicholls are both rather shy, but they still have instant chemistry.

Since it is Halloween, Morales drives them to the local haunted house, once owned by the proud Bellows family. According to legend, young Sarah Bellows, the “different” daughter, was kept locked in a secret room by her cruel parents, without any human company. Nevertheless, people would sneak into the house to hear her tell her scary stories. Of course, bad things were said to happen to her listeners afterward, especially when she continued the practice as a ghost. Unfortunately, the tall tale turns out to be true.

Devoted fans of the original anthologies might take issue with the approach taken by Øvredal, del Toro, and screenwriters Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman, because it elevates the framing device to the primary narrative, instead presenting Schwartz’s stories as Sarah Bellows’ tales, which unfold is real life, tormenting her victims, as they magically appear in her journal. However, for viewers not invested in the Schwartz trilogy, it is a shrewd way to shape the material and build towards a legitimate climax.

Arguably, this concept maybe wouldn’t have played out as well without the screen charisma of Zoe Colletti and Michael Garza, playing Nicholls and Morales. They are refreshingly earnest and their chemistry is based on the degree to which they identify with each other, rather than sexuality. Colletti has some surprisingly poignant moments with Dean Norris, memorably playing her single (abandoned) father Roy. Frankly, there should have been more of them together.

Mereilles’ The Two Popes, on Netflix

Pope Benedict XVI listens to Thelonious Monk. Pope Francis listens to ABBA. That alone pretty well tips the scales in Benedict’s favor. They might have booth spoken for God, but they are still mortal men. Yet, despite their political-theological differences they find they faith still unites them in Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes, which premieres today on Netflix.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, had no desire to be pontiff, but he found himself the chief runner-up when Pope Benedict was elected by the Vatican conclave. Disillusioned by the new Pope’s theological conservatism, Cardinal Bergoglio returns to Argentina and considers resigning from the College of Cardinals.

Just when Bergoglio petitions Pope Benedict to allow his resignation, the Pope summons him to Rome. The Holy See has been rocked by the Vatican bank scandal and Benedict’s health is in decline, but not his mind. Both men are at a crossroads, but they will have to have their doctrinal debates before they can get to the really profound truths regarding the Church and themselves.

In many ways, The Two Popes is a surprisingly humanistic portrait of two men who both served in one of the most influential positions on Earth. Although it is glaringly obvious Meirelles and screenwriter Anthony McCarton are more sympathetic to the liberalism of Francis, they still treat Benedict with a good deal of respect. Arguably, the film humanizes both Popes to a great extent.

Regardless, what makes the film is the remarkable casting. Both Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce are absolute dead-ringers for Benedict and Francis, respectively. Of course, they both also happen to be very fine actors, but Hopkins finds more humor in his portrayal of the German Pope—and thereby creates an even more complex and human portrait.

Holiday Gift Guide: Christmas Presence

They say “Satan Never Sleeps.” His minions don’t work bankers’ hours either. That means the evil entity haunting a remote country house will be just as ornery on Christmas Eve. A group of boozy, sexually frustrated friends is in for a harsh holiday in James Edward Cook’s Christmas Presence (a.k.a. Why Hide?), now available on DVD for your last-minute shopping needs.

McKenzie has gathered her friends together for Christmas in an old country manor as if they were characters in an Agatha Christie novel. They are a gossipy, neurotic bunch, especially Hugo the flamboyant fashion designer and Samantha, who aspires to be the lesbian E.L. James, even though she admits she doesn’t know who that is. Schlubby Marcus and his wife Anita, the world’s worst psychic, are barely on speaking terms, while Samantha’s matronly partner Jo is annoyingly chipper. It is already fun times, even before the weird black swirling cloud of evilness starts preying on them one by one.

Presence is sort of like the horror movie version of Branagh’s Peter’s Friends. In fact, Cook spends so much time on character development, the genre stuff largely takes a back seat during the opening and middle sections. However, he rather rectifies matters during the third act. In fact, the film crescendos with a nasty bit of business that comes way out of left field. It is bound to be a divisive turn of events, but you have to give Cook credit for boldness.

Regardless, Presence features some wonderfully caustic dialogue and a number of immensely colorful performances. This is one of the relatively rare horror comedies that is legitimately funny. In fact, it earns considerably more laughs than scares, but that’s okay, since it’s all intentional.

Iskander: Shadow of the River, on Shudder

The last time most viewers saw French Guiana on screen, either Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman or Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek were escaping from a French penal colony in their respective Papillons. Neither film exaggerated the steamy climate. The French overseas department borders Brazil and Suriname, but it is as frog as the Champs-Elysees or French Algeria until 1962. As such, the same Gendarmerie and National Police are responsible for the law enforcement. It is a tough posting, but Chloe Bresson is a tough cop, but not exactly a diplomatic or politically shrewd one. Her first case in the tropical region turns into a nightmare with supernatural dimensions in the four-episode Iskander: Shadow of the River, directed by Olivier Abbou, which premieres today on Shudder.

Bresson’s new boss has no illusions how she ended up in Guiana. Her career is in freefall, but she still refuses to change her hard-charging ways. Although they clash initially, she just might be the perfect partner for Det. Joseph Dialo. He is much better equipped to deal with the indigenous population (just about anyone would be), but he is just as driven. In fact, he will become even more obsessed with their latest (and first case), for personal reasons that will be revealed over time.

The bodies of a Western couple are found brutally murdered and strung up on the mast of their small yacht. There is also the body of an exsanguinated sloth, but their six-year-old-ish son is missing. Given the hallucinogenic properties of the sloth’s blood and the word “Iskander” carved into the victims’ chests, the detectives quickly conclude the crimes are the work of a voodoo cult. Bresson follows up references to Iskander in previous case files, while Dialo simultaneously pursues his own leads, from more personal sources.

Iskander is loaded with atmosphere, dread, foreboding, and an especially keen sense of place, but the narrative could have benefited from a little tightening. Frankly, it might have been better conceived as a two-hour feature than a three-hour-and-change limited series. Be that as it may, it is cool to see such a dark, Conrad-esque exercise in genre storytelling. Even though Abbou and creator-co-screenwriter Aurelien Moras are careful to respect all Guianese ethnicities (except maybe the temp-working Euro French), it still pretty impressive they have the guts to build a horror story around voodoo rituals and indigenous lore.

Submitted by Brazil: Invisible Life

Manoel Gusmão better make good Pao de Queijo, because he is terrible father. He is indeed a baker, which is almost stereotypical of Portuguese Brazilians in the early 1950s. Gusmão equates the ordinary with the respectability he craves, but sadly, his strict sense of propriety will have tragic consequences for his daughters in Karim Aïnouz’s Invisible Life, Brazil’s official international Oscar submission, which opens this Friday in New York.

It is 1951, before Facebook and internet searches. Euridice and her older sister Guida are both remarkably sensitive young women, but in vastly different ways. The former loses herself in music and aspires to a career as a classical pianist. The latter is an unabashed romantic, who is about to abscond with her lover, a Greek sailor. Alas, running away with a merchant seaman works out about as well as we would expect.

When she inevitably returns home conspicuously pregnant, Guida is turned away by her rigid father, who deceitfully claims her sister is abroad, having accepted a music scholarship in Austria. He intends to make a clean, irreparable break with Guida—and he does. Of course, the older sister writes many letters to Euridice, but they are always intercepted. Eventually, she considers her correspondence to be more of a form of therapy than communication. Yet, the two sisters who pine for each other’s company will continue to live in Rio, quite oblivious to the other’s presence.

Thusly unfolds a fable of so close, yet so far, but Aïnouz is shrewdly restrained when it comes to staging scenes of the sisters’ near misses and almost crossed paths. Rio is a large city and their respective corners of it are practically different universes. Instead, this tale is one of profound and abiding irony, in which the sister denied her birthright as a member of “respectable” society, ultimately lives a happier life toiling on its margins, with an adoptive substitute family.

This all maybe sounds like one of the more socially conscious Globo evening soap operas, but visually Invisible Life is a feast of deep saturated color, evocative lighting, rich textures, and lovingly crafted period trappings. This is a tactile film that puts you physically into the kitchens, factories, and parlors of 1950s Rio. You can almost smell the feijoada and feel the trembled breathing.

Just as Guida’s storyline is more interesting and proactive than that of the more passive Euridice, Julia Stockler’s performance is much livelier and more passionate as the former than Carol Duarte’s moody and reserved portrayal of the younger sister. Barbara Santos is also charismatically earthy as Filomena, the retired prostitute who becomes a surrogate mother and sister to Guida.

Abominable: Oscar Qualified

It is an animated film, but it touches on several of China’s territorial disputes. The plucky young heroes are on the road to Mt. Everest, claimed by both China and Nepal, but the entire nation of Tibet is an occupied sovereign state. Yet, passions were really enflamed by the blink-and-you-missed-it appearance of China’s so-called “Nine-Dash Line” demarcating their illegal claim to hegemony over the South China Sea. It was on-screen long enough for Vietnam to ban the film and Malaysia to demand the scene be cut. Perversely, this time around, the Hollywood studio declined snip the offending image, presumably for fear of offending China. The geopolitical context is quite ugly, but the story and characters are cute in Jill Culton’s Abominable, a Chinese co-production co-directed by Todd Wilderman, which releases today on DVD.

Young Yi still mourns the loss of her father, from whom she first learned violin. As a coping mechanism, she works relentlessly, hoping to save enough money for the trip across China they always dreamed of taking. Then one night, she comes face to face with a giant hairy monster on the roof of her building.

The shy creature she dubs “Everest,” due to the clear homesick yearning inspired by a Mt. Everest billboard, is a fugitive from the sinister Burnish Corporation. Years ago, Mr. Burnish (an Anglo elite, naturally) swore he saw a yeti, but the world scoffed, so he has obsessively searched for another such beast ever since. Actually, Burnish (who looks a lot like Waldorf from the Muppets) is not nearly as nasty as his ambitious science advisor, Dr. Zara. She will be in hot pursuit behind Yi as she tries to lead Everest back home. She will have the dubious help of her enthusiastic little cousin Peng and the reluctant company of her popular, Fuerdai-esque neighbor Jin.

No doubt about it, Everest is just a big, endearing fur ball. His character design is rather simple, but totally charming. Yi is also likably earnest and resourceful. However, the best aspect of the animation are the strikingly scenic backdrops. From the sparkle of the Shanghai skyline to grandeur of Leshan Giant Buddha, Abominable truly looks terrific.

Acceleration: Let’s Speed Through this as Quickly as We Can

You have to have some degree of optimism when a film starts with Dolph Lundgren declaring: “let’s do this.” Unfortunately, it is all downhill from there. Still, even though it has been almost thirty-five years since his Hollywood debut in A View to a Kill, Lundgren is the most credible action-figure in Michael Merino & Daniel Zirilli’s Acceleration, which releases today on DVD.

Lundgren is not playing the most likeable of characters this time around. That would be the broad-shouldered Vladik, who has kidnapped Rhona’s son Mika to force her to run five deadly errands for him, all before the financial markets open the next morning. She has five sealed envelopes containing debts to collect and lowlife criminal rivals to whack. You think she’d open them all at once so she can figure out the most fuel-efficient route and maybe enter them all in her project management software, but apparently no.

The bad news is Vladik isn’t even the worst villain out there. The honors probably go to the scummy kingpin Kane, who intends to call in Vladik’s IOU’s in the morning. We can tell because there are a number of scenes in which he beats up various thugs for no discernable reason and also waxes poetic over diner pie.

We respect Lundgren as an action movie survivor and an anti-human-trafficking activist, so we try to give his films the benefit of the doubt. For instance, you can legitimately argue The Tracker has a distinctive Euro-Poliziotteschi vibe going on, but Acceleration is a pretty weak brew. Even Danny Trejo looks bored in his brief but unremarkable scene.

Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini, on Shudder

Forget about Michael Jackson and the Brat Pack. The man who really made 1980s pop culture awesome was Tom Savini. His gory effects kicked off the slasher movie craze and then he helped take the genre to the next level. The great makeup and effect artist reflects on his work and his place horror history throughout Jason Baker’s documentary profile, Smoke and Mirrors: The Tom Savini Story, which premieres today on Shudder.

Like the great George Romero (who gave him his first big break as a gore artist), Tom Savini was raised in Pittsburgh and he never left town for long. For years, it was home to his workshop and the Savini School of Special Effects is now based just outside of town. These days, Savini spends most of his time teaching and consulting, but he made his name doing makeup and effects for films like Friday the 13th I and IV, Creepshow 1 & 2, Dawn of the Dead (technically from 1978, but most of us saw in for the first time in the 80s), Day of the Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and a host of lesser known gorefests, as well as a few vintage Cannon action films. Yet, for many admirers, the revelation that Savini has also done so much work for the legit stage (a great deal of it in Pittsburgh) will be quite a surprise. In fact, his stage Dracula sounds like some of his best work.

As fans would hope, Savini is willing to revisit the making of many of his career highlights. He is also surprisingly candid when it comes to his personal life. Many fans might have heard how his service in Vietnam inspired some of gorier work, he also explains its impact on his personal relationships. Yet, Savini now seems remarkably grounded and at peace with himself. In fact, you have to give him credit for taking a lot of subsequent family drama in stride.

Mubi Presents: The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine

Decades before Title IX and the Netflix short doc Little Miss Sumo, women’s sumo wrestling was a popular attraction in Japan. Evidently, many rural spectators flocked to bouts in the mistaken hope the wrestlers would grapple topless. These weathered peasants were exactly the sort of lumpen proletariat the anarcho-socialist Guillotine Society hoped to radicalize, so they too start attending the tournaments staged by Tamasaburo Iwaki’s touring wrestling stable. They will stir up considerably more love, lust, and tragedy than revolutions and consciousness-raising in Takahisa Zeze’s The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine, which screens tomorrow as part of the Mubi Presents series at the Spectacle Theater.

The Imperial regime cynically capitalized on the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 to crackdown on revolutionary elements. That included assassinating the charismatic leader of the Guillotine Society, as well as his wife, a feminist professor, and their six-year-old nephew. As the new de facto leader of the underground organization, Tetsu Nakahama burns for revenge. However, the unpublished poet and self-styled Valentino is not a formidable man of action. When one reprisal attempt goes horribly wrong, Nakahama and the achingly conscientious Daijiro Furuta retreat to the countryside to lay low and raise funds for a further attempt.

One day, they attend some matches held by Iwaki’s wrestlers. Nakahama is immediately struck by Tamae Tokachigawa, a former prostitute, who survived a massacre of ethnic Koreans instigated by a clique of local veterans turned vigilantes. At the same time, Furuta is quite struck by the younger and more naïve Tomoyo Hanakiku (or “Kiku” for Chrysanthemum), who joined the stable after fleeing her abusive husband.

Suddenly, Nakahama and Furuta largely lose interest in politics, especially the former. Unfortunately, they will get dragged back in again when the vigilantes try to flush out the Guillotines by targeting the wrestlers. They are a sad, clumsy lot. Sort of like Clouseau, they suspect everybody and everything, but their methods are brutal and their hunches are not wrong.

So, this film is three hours and nine minutes long. It is good, but that is still a tad bit excessive. In fact, the first two hours set in 1924 are considerably more engaging and engrossing than the subsequent hour set several years later. Arguably, it might have been more effective as an epilogue than a full third act.

Nevertheless, the cast is excellent and Zeze sustains an impressive vibe of wistful romanticism during the respite from the grubby business of revolt. Some ambitious programmer should consider pairing it with Radford’s Il Postino.

Black Christmas: Remade by Blumhouse

Bob Clark’s 1974 horror movie was the original “the calls are coming from inside the house” shocker, predating When a Stranger Calls by about five years. It was also the first really notable Christmas horror movie, but certainly not the best. Nevertheless, it has already been remade once. Blumhouse takes another stab at the yuletide slasher with Sophia Takal’s Black Christmas, which opens today nationwide.

Apparently, at Hawthorne College, classes stay in session until sometime around December 23^rd. Christmas trees and lights are everywhere, but students are just starting to leave for the semester break. Riley Stone will not be one of them. She always remains on campus with a small group of self-proclaimed “orphans.” Tragically, one of her coed classmates won’t be going home either, because a cloaked figure hacked her to death during an early kill-scene, after sending her a series of hostile texts. She won’t be the last.

We soon learn Stone and three of her closest sorority sisters have also received similar texts. As word spreads of other female colleagues who are missing and unaccounted for, Stone starts to suspect something horrific is afoot. The elitist fraternity she and her sisters just called out for date rape crimes are the logical suspects, along with their faculty advisor, Prof. Gelson (you’d think the smug defender of Western patriarchal meritocracy would have a doctorate, but evidently not). It turns out, Stone has filed a complaint against him, just to make it crystal clear Gelson is a bad guy.

This take on Black Christmas has to be the most clumsily didactic Christmas movie ever. Takal and co-screenwriter April Wolfe are not satisfied with making their points. They are compelled to beat them into the ground and salt the earth around them. Seriously, this film makes Knives and Skin look like a peace offering to the “patriarchy,” whatever that might be. Yet, most of their attempts to score sexual-political points will fail to land for a very fundamental reason. The stilted dialogue they put into the nasty frat brothers’ mouths sounds like things they want people to believe un-woke dudes would say, but the complete absence of authenticity or credibility is crushingly awkward. Kicking over a transparent straw horse like the evil Delta house will not impress anyone and it will only entertain especially militant social justice warriors.

It is a shame because Takal stages some reasonably intense scenes of slasher horror. Frankly, viewers will almost start roll with it when watching the psychotic Emperor Palpatine cos-player stalking the sisters throughout their weirdly elegant-looking sorority house. In a radical departure from previous Black Christmases, Takal & Wolfe add a wacky supernatural element. It is debatable whether this is a mistake or not, but it definitely kicks the film into the sphere of unintentional over-the-top comedy, ending the affair on quite a distinctive note.

Rabid: The Soska Sisters Remake Cronenberg

Our self-appointed cultural enforcers constantly demonize “toxic fandom,” but even they should concede horror fans have maintained an impressively open mind regarding this remake of early David Cronenberg. Probably, they assumed the Soska Sisters fully understood the enduring value of the original film and therefore would not reconceive it as a gender-swapped movie musical set inside a Somali refugee camp. Of course, Cronenberg’s body horror cult classic still remains plenty transgressive in its own right. Jen & Sylvia Soska update the story, but frequently tip their hats to Cronenberg during the course of Rabid, which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Aspiring designer Rose Miller is bullied by her couture house colleagues and pitied by her condescending best friend Chelsea, because of her ugly duckling looks and borderline social anxiety. Things go from bad to worse when she is horribly disfigured in an auto accident. However, the Burroughs Institute (yes, the director just so happens to be Dr. William Burroughs) offers to take her on as a pro bono test patient for its radical reconstructive techniques.

Naturally, the initial results are amazing, bestowing her with supermodel looks, but there will be a few side effects. Suddenly, the vegan Miller starts craving meat—or rather red blood. She also starts experiencing blackouts and disturbingly vivid dreams. You do not want to cross paths with her during these fugue periods. Those who do start to exhibit disturbingly violent symptoms of their own.

The Soska Sisters offer plenty of olive branches to Cronenberg fans, starting with Dr. Burroughs, who even listens to a William Burroughs spoken word recording during one scene. The crimson surgical scrubs also conjure up memories of Dead Ringers. Unfortunately, it is not nitpicking to call out the ending for departing radically (and unsatisfyingly) from Cronenberg’s metaphorical punch-in-the-face closing.

Regardless, the Soskas’ execution is consistently slick and well-paced. In fact, they unleash several violent altercations with such surprising suddenness and visceral force, they will make most viewers bolt upright in their chairs. Clearly, the film is more than open to feminist and anti-consumerist readings, but the Soskas and co-screenwriter John Serge largely avoid didactic excesses. Instead, the vibe is more like vintage EC Comics, wherein mean, shallow pretty people deserve what’s coming.

Mob Town: Edgar Croswell Crashes the Mafia’s Party

In the time between Eliot Ness and Rudy Giuliani (before he lost his mind), Edgar D. Croswell was the great American gang-buster of his era. Although he later served on New York State Organized Crime Task Force, he worked the biggest case of his career as a New York State Trooper. In 1957, the mob threw a party in upstate Apalachin, NY (not Appalachia) and Croswell was determined to give them the reception they deserved. The dedicated lawman crashes the infamous Apalachin Mafia summit meeting in Danny A. Abeckaser’s Mob Town, which opens this Friday in New York.

Being a heads-up lawman, Croswell smelled a rat when he pulled over an associate of local bottling magnate and reputed mobster Joe Barbara, driving without a license. However, a judge in the mob’s pocket kicked him loose and Croswell’s boss was content to be rid of him. Of course, the whole sordid episode stirred Croswell righteous indignation and focused his suspicions on Barbara. A year later, Croswell’s on-and-off surveillance paid off when he observed Barbara buying suspiciously large quantities of meat, fish, and booze.

Having just solidified his position as boss of New York, New York (by whacking the interlopers), Vito Genovese wants to take a leadership position among his peers, so decided to call a summit someplace way off the beaten path. Barbara’s Apalachin home fit the bill perfectly. However, the mid-level mobster is about as subtle as a Joe Pesci character hopped up on Red Bull and amphetamines, so his manic preparations inevitable attract Croswell’s attention.

The real-life story of Croswell and the Apalachin meeting (which really did happen pretty much the way Jon Carlo & Joe Gilford’s screenplay depicts) is absolutely fascinating. However, as a work of cinema, Mob Town is a low-impact, overly safe endeavor. There is never much tension to speak of, but there is way too much slack, especially in the sluggish first act. Still, Abeckaser and his design team manage to give the film a strikingly stylish retro-period look and vibe. In terms of the cars, costumes, trappings, and settings, they over-achieve working within their indie budget constraints.

It is hard to say whether Abeckaser the supporting actor (who had a small part in The Irishman) is his own best ally or worst enemy, but you have to give him props for the energy and commitment of his over-the-top fuggedaboutit performance as Barbara. He also has some spirited chemistry with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, playing Barbara’s knowing and complicit wife, Josephine. Similarly, the great Robert Davi chews the scenery with relish as Genovese.

The Great War: The Buffalo Soldiers Behind Enemy Lines

One of the great heroes of ragtime-early jazz music was bandleader James Reese Europe, who as a commissioned Lieutenant in the New York National Guard led his military band in performances and the 369^th Infantry, known as the “Harlem Hellfighters” in combat. Educating the public on Europe’s life, music, and legacy is one of our pet projects. Despite their music and service, the Fighting 369^th is not as well-remembered as the 10^th Cavalry Regiment, better known as the “Buffalo Soldiers,” who deserve all their recognition. They served in combat during the American-Indian, the Johnson County, the Spanish-American, and Philippine-American Wars, and very definitely World War I. A somewhat prejudiced white officer will learn to appreciate his Buffalo Soldiers comrades in screenwriter-director Steven Luke’s The Great War, which opens this Friday in New York.

Armistice is imminent, but for geopolitical reasons, the troops in the trenches are supposed to fight to gain every last inch of ground before it goes into effect. Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing is not happy about it, but he has his orders, just like the soldiers under him. However, when he learns the 10^th Cavalry’s heroic push has left them stranded behind enemy lines, he sends orders down the chain-of-command to dispatch a platoon to escort them to safety.

Captain William Rivers is less than thrilled about his assignment. Even though his best friend was the Buffalo Soldiers’ progressive late Captain, he still harbors rather unenlightened racial notions. Some of his men are even worse. However, orders are orders. Grudgingly, he starts to respect Private John Cain, the messenger from the 10^th temporarily attached to his platoon. He also feels mixed feelings of guilt and respect for the mystery Buffalo Soldier who gave him the slapping he needed when temporarily paralyzed by “shellshock.”

Great War could be cynically dubbed “Saving the Buffalo Soldiers,” or “Glory Fifty Years Later,” but it is important to note the African American soldiers will have ample opportunity to fight like Hell during the third act. In fact, Luke does a pretty credible job giving the soldiers of the 10^th independent agency and largely avoiding the pitfalls of “white savior narratives,” to use the nauseatingly woke term. His real talent seems to be staging scenes of warfighting on a limited budget, especially the rousing climatic battle.

Veredas: Bedouin

For these two thesps, the play is the thing—or rather the experimental film. They will play a pair of lovers in a variety of situations and contexts, but they will never have the time and conditions necessary to develop any sort of relationship arc. Playfulness and intentional artificiality trump narrative and character in Julio Bressane’s Bedouin, which screens tomorrow during the film series, Veredas: A Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers.

“Bedouin” is maybe a bit older than “Surm,” but more problematically, he often projects an air of potential violence (that does indeed manifest itself from time to time). Nonetheless, the actors keep coming together to play problematic courtship scenes. Of course, we can plainly gather they are thespians from the behind-the-scenes prologue.

Bressane certainly has the experimental filmmaker’s contempt for convention, but he still clearly has a love of cinema. During various sequences, he evokes the look and vibe of Golden Age Hollywood, film noir, and the Nouvelle Vague, with the collaboration of cinematographers Pablo Baiao and Pepe Schettino. Admittedly, his visuals compositions are often could interesting to eyeball, which is fortunate, because they are largely the whole point of the film.

Instead of traditional acting, Alessandra Negrini and Fernando Eiras are more like malleable clay dolls for Bressane to mold and place in position as he sees fit. However, it must be conceded Negri can be remarkably expressive through the use of mere body language. With her chops, she could have worked steadily during the old-time silent movie era.

Trivisa on Shudder

It is 1997, the year Mainland China and the United Kingdom agreed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, establishing a separate system of governance for Hong Kong for the next fifty years. Today, both nations are trying to forget 1997 ever happened. As the handover loomed, three notorious real-life gangsters assumed the new regime would crack down on their business. Little did they know the CCP would appoint an HK Chief of Police who was a reputed Triad associate—allegedly—[cough]. Given the mounting uncertainty, they hope to complete one big score—perhaps even together in Frank Hui, Jevons Au & Vicky Wong’s Trivisa, co-produced by the legendary Johnnie To, which premieres today on Shudder.

In 1997, the so-called “The Kings of Thieves” are all at a career crossroads. Kwai Ching-hung has survived as an armed bandit, despite the bloody opening shootout, because he generally focuses on smaller, manageable targets. However, that means he does not have much of a nest egg to fall back on.

In contrast, Yip Kwok-foon has pulled off some spectacularly lucrative jobs, but the resulting heat forced him to retire to the Mainland, where he runs a consumer electronics smuggling operation. It is a profitable business, but he must constantly bribe the Mainland cops, who go out of their way to belittle him.

Cheuk Tze-keung is still pulling off jobs in Hong Kong, but his boredom and arrogance are causing him to be increasingly reckless. Of the “Three Kings,” he is the most interested in the rumor they will be joining forces for an end-of-an-era gig, which did not originate with any of the trio in question. In fact, he starts offering a reward for information on the whereabouts of his other two colleagues, but he is scrupulously careful vetting tips, to keep the cops in the dark.

The Sanskrit title Trivisa is a bit too obscure, but do not let that dissuade you from this jolly dark and ironic gangster thriller. It is a reference to the “three poisons:” greed, anger, and delusion. Consider it the “Three Deadly Sins” instead. Indeed, this film really is about threes, because the trio of co-directors, Hui, Au, and Wong each focused on their own focal character: Kwai, Yip, and Chuek, respectively. Yet, even with the three directors working with their own cinematographers, the film feels very much like a consistent whole.

Veredas: Homing

Brazil is the home of churrasco steak houses, so it stands to reason any country that eats that much carne must have cowboys. You can find many of them in Minas Gerais (where they also make delicious cheese). Marcelo is a cowboy, who has always rode-herd over his boss’s cattle. Life will bring him to a crossroads in Helvecio Marins Jr.’s Homing, which screens during the film series, Veredas: A Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers.

Marins has always lived in rural Minas Gerais and he has no intention of giving up the cowboy life-style. He is just too attuned to the land and the animals, unlike his little sister, who moved to the big city. However, he has a dream of being a rodeo announcer (apparently, they are a lot like rappers in Brazil, maintaining a steady patter of rhymes laced with ribald braggadocio). It would seem like an odd ambition for the shy cowhand, but performing in front of his peers could help bring Marcelo out of his shell. Unfortunately, his plans will be threatened by crisis that strikes out of the blue.

Homing is a quiet, meditatively observant film that shares a kinship with documentaries like Sweetgrass. Marcelo Di Souza (who plays his namesake, like the rest of the neophyte ensemble) is clearly deeply familiar with this world. Nobody had to train him to ride a horse. Yet, it is still presumably fiction, given third act events, including the most artistically rendered, least action-oriented cattle rustling scene probably ever seen on-screen.

This is a film just about everyone will have respect and warm feelings for, even though it will probably lull half the audience to sleep. The love Marcelo and his sister share for each other is quite endearing and the profound Catholic faith of the rodeo cowboys is also quite poignant, but the simple truth is not a lot happens during its modest 85-minute running time.

Daniel Isn’t Real—Or Is He?

Luke’s imaginary friend certainly isn’t a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit. He is slick, reckless, hedonistic, and sinister. He is everything Luke isn’t, except he maybe isn’t completely imaginary. At first, he gives Luke confidence, but then he drags the college freshman to some very dark places in Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Daniel Isn’t Real, which opens today in New York.

Daniel first appears in Luke’s young life at a moment when he was dealing with considerable trauma and angst. Initially, the “imaginary” friend provides some fun and distraction, but then he tricks the confused child into nearly poisoning his mother, Claire. When she recovers, she forces Luke to lock Daniel away in a dusty antique doll house. She assumes it is a bit of psychological role-playing, but it really works. Years later, Luke deliberately releases him, because of a vague notion Daniel could stimulate his artistic creativity. In retrospect, that was a really bad impulse decision.

For a while, Daniel helps Luke talk to girls in various social settings, but soon he is pushing Luke towards meaner, more aggressive behavior. Belatedly, Luke realizes Daniel’s influence makes him a danger to others—and himself. But wait, there’s more, which we won’t give away.

Happily, Mortimer does not overplay the “is-he-really-just-going-crazy” card, because a lot of horror fans are probably getting tired of that non-twisty twist. However, there is still some pretty cool imagery of Luke’s troubled subconscious manifested on-screen. It is not Hitchcock’s Spellbound, but it is impressive.

Knives and Skin: The Worst of 2019

Who do you think has more deadbolts, chains, and emergency locks on their doors, people who live in New York and Los Angeles or residents of small-town Middle America? If you watch a lot of contemporary, David Lynch-inspired genre films, you might think the latter, but you know it’s the former if you are actually a New Yorker or Angelino. This is the latest film to perpetuate this social-geographical disconnect, but the problems run considerably deeper for Jennifer Reeder’s almost unwatchable Knives and Skin, which opens today in NYC and LA.

Poor high school band musician and majorette Carolyn Harper is about to die from misadventure, but her schoolmates—even her supposed besties—take it in stride. Only her mother Lisa has any kind of reaction, wallowing in depression and perhaps even suffering a trauma-induced psychotic break.

Ironically, Joanna Kitzmiller’s mother is an even bigger basket case, for no clearly established reason. Kitzmiller’s knuckle-dragging jock brother (who happens to be weirdly nebbish looking) is the reason Carolyn Harper found herself in the difficult situation depicted in the prologue, but her mother never puts two-and-two together, even though she can “smell Carolyn on him.” At least, Joanna Kitzmiller is an unusually enterprising Millennial. She sells her mother’s dirty underwear to the pervy high school principal.

Two of Caroyn’s other supposed BFF’s are much more concerned with exploring their awakening lesbian attraction than worrying about their missing friend or jerkweed high school boyfriends. Frankly, they are probably perfectly matched, since there is so little to distinguish them from each other.

Clearly, Reeder has seen way, way, way too much Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. Alas, Lynch’s flare for idiosyncratic characterization and clever dialogue is completely missing from K&S. Instead, we get empty posing with pretensions of wokeness.

Grand Isle: The Latest Nic Cage Movie of the Week

In the movies, impending storms usually accompany simmering sexual tension, possibly laced with violence. That is true in spades for this soon-to-be water-logged Louisiana Barrier Island burg. Crazy Walter would rather bat down his handyman than batten down the hatches in Stephen S. Campanelli’s Grand Isle, which opens tomorrow in New York.

With tons of debt, a new born daughter, and a frail wife perhaps suffering from a mild form of postpartum depression, Buddy needs money, so takes an odd job fixing Walter’s fence. For some reason, the swaggering alcoholic insists he must complete the job that day or no dough, but the poor handyman cannot finish before the gale-force storm rolls in. (Seriously, it is only eight or ten white pickets.)

Reluctantly accepting the shelter Walter grudgingly offers, Buddy finds himself in the middle of a very dysfunctional marital dynamic. Before long, Walter’s Maggie-the-Cat-like wife Fancy starts coming on to Buddy in such an unsubtle manner, even Walter notices. Of course, that just makes him angrier and more unstable. Yet, he also has an offer to make Buddy. It is not exactly the “indecent” kind, but it will definitely be criminal. Regardless, Buddy will rue the day he walked into their home, especially during Detective Jones’ in media res interrogation sessions.

This is Nic Cage’s fifth film released in theaters this year, with another due January, so we have to admire his work ethic. He clearly has a keen affinity for Louisiana noir (after all, you can see his future pyramid-shaped crypt in St Louis Cemetery #1). As Walter, he snarls with all the wild abandon you would hope for. Nevertheless, it is still disappointing to see him help resurrect the hurtful stereotype of the crazy Vietnam veteran. In fact, screenwriters Iver William Jallah and Rich Ronat go out of their way to portray the Vietnam Vet as a monstrous caricature, setting the film in the year 1989, for no discernible reason except for making the raging Walter age-appropriate for his supposed service record.

I See You

Judging from recent films, Millennials have rather pronounced mommy issues. Add this one to the fraught mother-son relationships of Little Joe and In Fabric, as well as the similarly testy mother-daughter dynamics of Mary, The Gallows Act II, and Knives and Skin. As an added bonus this time around, there is a serial killer stalking a terrified small town in Ohio. Of course, nothing is as it seems in Adam Randall’s I See You, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Connor Harper can hardly stand talking to his mother Jackie after her infidelity was revealed. Her husband, Det. Greg Harper says he forgives her, but he is still sleeping on the coach. Granted, he has been coming home late ever since the killer’s latest victim disappeared. Still, he hasn’t made much of an effort as a peace-keeper, despite Connor’s sullen behavior. In fact, the surly kid’s passive aggression seems to be taking a more violent turn. Or maybe something supernatural is afoot, or maybe not. Meanwhile, the serial killer Det. Harper helped convict several years prior is using the presumed copycat as grounds for overturning his sentence.

I See You takes a legitimately surprising U-turn halfway through, making the film easily demarcated into the before and after portions. It is a twist that really truly changes everything. Unfortunately, the first part is deadly dull, including a lot of set-up material that doesn’t really pay off on the back nine.

It is frustrating, because you really have to admire the audacity with which Randall pulls off the big whiplash reversal. However, his feat of misdirection is largely undermined by the dullness and sourness of the main characters, especially Dr. Jackie and Millennial Connor. They just make it hard to care.

Peter Strickland’s In Fabric

In retrospect, Sheila Woodchapel should have just gone to Harrod’s, even though it might have been more expensive. There is a reason the king of all department stores still endures. Instead, she went to Dentley & Soper’s, lured by the promise of modern elegance at sale prices. The dress she buys turns out to be truly a killer in Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, which opens this Friday in New York.

Woodchapel is recently divorced and probably taking it even worse than her peevish millennial son Vince (is there any other kind of Millennial?). With considerable trepidation, she starts dating men through the newspaper classifieds (it is hard to pinpoint the exact time period, but a retro 1960s vibe deliberately permeates Fabric). Of course, she will need a new dress.

At Dentley & Soper’s, Woodchapel is tended to by the strange Cruella de Vil-esque Miss Luckmoore, who convinces her to take a fashionable red number that shouldn’t fit her, but somehow does. The new threads look fab on her, but ugly rashes breakout across her skin after she wears it for her first date. The sinister dress also seems to cause dangerous accidents around her flat. Soon, the red garment will have a similar effect on others.

The premise of Fabric sounds ludicrous, but in Strickland’s hands, it becomes an ultra-chic descent into madness. There is no question he is one of the most distinctive stylists creating genre cinema today. Arguably, Fabric is even more eye-popping than Berberian Sound Studio, but his earlier Gialo homage was a more disorienting head-spinner.

Regardless, the visual compositions and juxtapositions in Fabric are darkly dazzling. It is also cool to see Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the character thesp recognizable from Without a Trace and several hundred other film and TV credits, get to step out as the lead (more or less). She is terrific as Woodchapel, making us care (despite her human failings) and fear for the worst. She also has some unexpectedly realistic and appealing chemistry with Barry Adamson (former member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), as her more agreeable personals date.

Veredas: Necropolis Symphony

It is a fundamental law of cinema that any attempt to disturb the rest of the dead will lead to bad karma. It is also a fundamental real-life law of urban living that real estate is scarce, so any under-utilized plots should be scooped up and exploited. The conflict between these two laws leads to serious trouble for an apprentice grave-digger in Juliana Rojas’s Necropolis Symphony, which screens during the new film series, Veredas: a Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers.

Thanks to fleeting mortality, grave-digging is steady work, but poor Deodato probably isn’t cut out for it. His elevated capacity for empathy constantly overwhelms him at grave sites, causing him to pass out. The director hired him as a favor to his Uncle Jaca, a longtime cemetery employee, but he is losing patience. Fortunately for Deodato, the boss has a job requiring the full-time services of an employee, whose day-to-day productivity won’t be missed.

Deodato will assist Jaqueline, a hot-shot trouble-shooter from the Funerary Board, who will be re-organizing the layout of the storied old graveyard. They need more spaces to put bodies—bodies with funeral-paying survivors. Families behind on the upkeep of their plots will be encouraged to move their loved ones to a drawer in the prospective new mausoleum. Jaqueline does not want to say it in so many words, but remains that are forgotten and abandoned will probably just end up in a bag. Despite his hopeless schoolboy crush, this just doesn’t seem right to Deodato. He’s not the only one who feels that way.

By the way, Necropolis Symphony is also a musical, with supernatural elements. In fact, many of the musical-numbers are laugh-out loud funny for those who are somewhat familiar with Brazilian popular song of the last twenty-years or so. For the unhip, the blend of music, bittersweet romance, and the undead is still ridiculously charming (and the songs are still pretty catchy). Compared to Anna and the Apocalypse, Necropolis is much more low-key, but the two films would still make an appealing double feature.

That Pärt Feeling: The Universe of Arvo Pärt

After long struggling with Soviet censorship and mandated state aesthetics, Arvo Pärt immigrated to the West in 1980, but he returned to his native Estonia after the fall of Communism. He is widely considered to be the living composer most frequently performed in live concert and is arguably the most important (with all due respect to Adams and Glass). His compositions are not traditional crowd pleasers, but they have a distinctive power that is immediately audible. Receptive audiences can hear it for themselves when Paul Hegeman’s insightful documentary That Pärt Feeling: The Universe of Arvo Pärt releases today on DVD.

Pärt’s compositions are much more harmonically advanced than many pop listeners will be accustomed to, but that does not mean his music is inaccessible. Instead of hummable melodies, his compositions are more about the totality of the listening experience and the transportive and transformative effect they have on listeners. Several musicians eloquently describe the challenges of playing Pärt. It is not the notes are prohibitively difficult. The trick is finding the right rhythms and timbres. That is what they say, but the stormy violin passage we hear from Tabula Rasa: I. Ludus certainly looks and sounds like quite a test of the musicians’ dexterity and endurance.

Although Hegeman only includes about a thimble full of biography, he clearly establishes how Pärt’s music was forged during the period of Communist oppression and continues to be inspired by his profound Christian Orthodox faith. Pärt has a reputation for being something of an ascetic recluse, but the man we see in Hegeman’s film is very much engaged in the world and has a knack for working with musicians.

Rogue Warfare: Fighting Terror with Oppressive Regimes

How does China “fight terrorism?” By condemning hundreds of thousands of innocent Uyghurs from East Turkestan to concentration camps. As for Russia, they do their utmost to prop up terrorist-sponsoring states, like Syria and Iran. Yet, both have permanent seats on the UN Security council, so both are part of a decidedly fictional 5-nation anti-terrorism military force. Credibility takes a backseat to courting the Chinese and Russian box offices throughout Mike Gunther’s Rogue Warfare, which releases today on DVD.

As the film opens, the unnamed POTUS puts his John Hancock on the “Rogue” military pact with the UK, France, Russia, and China. He harkens back to the day when all five nations aligned to fight the Axis powers (declining to mention Russia initially sided with Hitler—ask Poland about that). They are tasked with fighting extreme Islamist terrorist, but Gunther’s screenplay doesn’t even have the guts to call out Daesh or Al-Qaeda. Instead, they will be tracking a “rogue” terrorist organization known as the Black Masks.

Still, watching the free and not-the-least-bit free worlds take on generic Islamist terror could still be entertaining, but the inter-team dynamics seem to be carefully calibrated to kill any joy that could come from this film. Naturally, the Brit is a trigger-happy jerk who has utter contempt for teamwork, while Chinese and Russian members always play well with others.

Even more problematic, at least half the film feels like it is devoted the terrorists’ “Supreme Leader” as he airs his grievances and screeds. Frankly, this film starts to feel like recruiting propaganda for anti-Western terrorist groups. It would be offensive, if it weren’t so dull.

Hausner’s Little Joe

It could almost be a cousin of Audrey II, but it is subtler and more insidious in its pursuit of world domination. It still represents a plant-based peril, but it is man-made this time around, rather than extraterrestrial. Genre film lovers get a serious, auteurist take on a flower of evil in Jessica Hausner’s Little Joe, which opens this Friday in New York.

Alice Woodard is a bit guilty she lets her dedication to experimental botany take so much time away from her son Joe, yet she refuses to change her ways or concede more custody time to his father. As some sort of consolation, she names her revolutionary genetically engineered flower, “Little Joe” in his honor and sneaks him a potted sample, in violation of every company rule and protocol.

The whole point of Little Joe is its mood-transforming effect. Its pollen stimulates parts of the brain that release feelings of happiness. However, it might do other things too. One of Woodard’s colleagues is convinced her dog’s personality was profoundly altered by exposure to Little Joe. Her age and disappointing career trajectory make it easy for others to dismiss her warnings, but Woodard starts to suspect there might be something to what she says when her research partner (and frustrated suitor) Chris also starts acting strangely different.

Although Little Joe contains surface similarities to the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it comes at the material in a sharply contemporary, medicated-to-live-your-best-life kind of way. The science is also provocative. It even echoes Jurassic Park in an unexpected twist. Woodard has deliberately engineered Little Joe to be sterile, but she fears this may have perversely kicked in its survival imperative. “Life will find a way,” Ian Malcolm always says.

For some, Little Joe might be too cool and cerebral for its own good. Hausner largely drains out the emotion from her story (co-written by Gerardine Bajard), in favor of cold, hard rational analysis and guarded paranoia. Essentially, Hausner maintains a tone that is a lot like Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, but it is more realistic and human-like. The comparison is particularly apt since Ben Whishaw appears in both films.