Sundance ’18: Hereditary

Like the saying goes, emotional problems do not run in Annie Graham’s family, they gallop. She always blamed her mother, perhaps with good reason. However, she starts to feel guilty about her long simmering resentments when the semi-estranged matriarch finally passes away. Yet, the full toxicity of Grandma’s legacy soon becomes apparent as the Graham family tragedies compound in Ari Aster’s Hereditary, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Annie Graham lives with her family in a remote chalet-style home, where she works as a scale-model artist, thereby establishing a creepy locale and décor for Aster to build off. Their teen son Peter can’t even fit in with his stoner friends, but his younger sister Charlie is the real odd duck. Maybe not so coincidentally, Annie and her husband Steve allowed Grandma more access to Charlie, but they totally froze her out during Peter’s early years.

Graham was already unsettled, but further family tragedy sends her hurtling down to some dark emotional places. In some ways, Hereditary evokes the spirit of The Babadook as Graham’s relationship with her son becomes increasingly poisoned. Yet, there is also plenty of The Conjuring, including some seance business, which always works out so well in horror movies, right?

Hereditary is getting a lot of buzz, because its depiction of family dysfunction is nearly as harrowing as its supernatural horrors. As Annie Graham, Toni Collette gets frantic and feverish beyond on all reason. It is sort of a cross between Isabelle Adjani in Possession and a dramatically less shticky Meryl Streep in Ossage County. In a straight domestic drama, she would be excessively over-the-top, but in a claustrophobic horror film like this, she is just what the mad doctor ordered.

Aster’s narrative takes some shockingly dark and insidious turns, but it all seems believable, thanks to his masterful control of atmosphere. Each time he drops a revelation, it raises the hair on your arms. His horror movie mechanics are spot-on, especially in his use of Graham’s diorama models. Plus, there is an attic to the Graham house that you really wouldn’t want to rummage through.

Gabriel Byrne nicely counterbalances Collette as the painfully reserved Steve Graham. Milly Shapiro (one of four young actresses who originated the role of Roald Dahl’s Matilda on Broadway) gives a remarkably weird performance as Charlie, making the more conventional teen angst of Alex Wolff’s Peter, pale in comparison. Of course, Ann Dowd is rock solid as Joan, Graham’s séance buddy, in scenes reviewers will want to revisit after the fact.

Hereditary is an unusually good-looking horror film, thanks to Pawel Pogorzelski’s eerie cinematography and the richly-detailed, award-worthy work of production designer Grace Yun, art director Richard T. Olson, and the rest of the design team. This is a deeply scary film that fans of James Wan ought to flip over. Highly recommended, Hereditary screens again this afternoon (1/27) in Park City, as part of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Cinepocalypse ’18: Satan’s Slaves

It could be the Indonesian Hereditary—and it’s a remake, so there really isn’t much new under the sun. That doesn’t mean it isn’t scary as Hell though. After three years of bedridden decline, Rini Suwono’s mother is finally gone. Or is she? She was always difficult, but she takes it to all new heights (or lows) when she starts haunting her family. It seems to be all part of her satanic death cult’s plan in Joko Anwar’s Satan’s Slaves (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Cinepocalypse in Chicago.

Mawarni Suwono was once a popular local folk singer, whose eerie ballads had a vibe not unlike the string-heavy Judy Collins’ rendition of “Both Sides Now” that happens to play over Hereditary’s closing credits. Of course, her old records label just throws crumbs to her family, so they are in rather desperate financial straits. In fact, the nameless father will leave looking for work shortly after the funeral.

As a result, Rini will have to face the initial rounds of terror and tragedy on her own, including the death of her paternal grandmother. That just leaves her and her younger brothers: the surprisingly helpful sixteen-year-old Tony, the bratty ten-year-old Bondi, and the mute nearly seven-year-old Ian, who will become the primary focus of most of the supernatural and sinister attention. Rather tellingly, none of the siblings look alike, presumably because they were each the product of unions with different cult members.

So yes, things are bad, but they will get steadily worse. Hereditary really is a fitting comparison film for Satan’s Slaves, which incorporates elements of James Wan haunted house movies, demonic horror, and killer cults. The milieu of isolated rural poverty and Islamic traditionalism heightens the atmosphere of hopeless dread (it might be politically incorrect to say it, but the truth is Catholics and Buddhists have the best exorcists). The early 1980s period details are all spot-on and the music, most particularly Suwono’s old records, burrows under your skin like a tick.

Tara Basro solidly anchors the film as Rini, but some of the best work comes from her younger co-stars, especially Nasar Annuz and M. Adhiyat, who are completely believable as Bondi and Ian, even when placed in some wildly freaky circumstances. As a bonus, Egy Fedly cranks up the attitude and eccentricity as Budiman, who was once a close friend of Rini’s grandmother, before becoming a paranoid Fortean researcher.

Frankly, Anwar is probably the most under-appreciated genre master working in cinema today. He has a masterful command of mood, pacing, and fear that builds over time. Despite, or maybe because of its thematic similarities with Hereditary, Satan’s Slaves could very well be the film that will take him to higher levels of international awareness and distribution. Very highly recommended, Satan’s Slaves screens again this Monday night (6/25) at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago as part of Cinepocalypse 2018.

Ari Aster’s Midsommar

Blame Bernie Sanders for giving Millennials a false impression of Sweden. Granted, taxes are high, but it is a capitalistic economy that was arguably less regulated than our own, until we got some relief over the last two years (perhaps you have heard of Swedish companies, like Volvo, H&M, Ikea, and Ericsson). It is also overwhelmingly Lutheran, in an upstanding Calvinist kind of way, but for a group of hard-partying grad students, it is more fun to romanticize pagan solstice rituals. However, the midnight sun phenomenon is legit and it will contribute to the mounting disorientation the abrasively obnoxious tourists experience in Ari Aster’s Midsommar, which opens today in New York.

Dani is the likable one, relatively speaking, but an almost unbearable family tragedy has rendered her an emotional basket case. Her passive-aggressive boyfriend Christian is incapable of giving her the support she needs, because he has been too busy looking for an easy, no-stress exit from their relationship. Yet, he reluctantly invites her along on a trip to the Midsommar festival in northern Sweden, held every nine years at the commune where their fellow anthropology student Pelle lives. He seems a little less randy and crass than the other grad lads, but his interest in Dani may not necessarily be a good thing.

At first, everything is cool when the Americans (and two Brits brought along by Pelle’s cousin) drop acid and gambol in the fields. However, the first ritual is absolutely shocking, even to Josh, who is doing his thesis on midsummer folk traditions. Nevertheless, they stay, to keep the movie going.

There is no getting around the fact Midsommar is nowhere near as scary as Aster’s breakout debut, Hereditary. In fact, it is not really frightening, per se. Instead, more of a string of jaw-dropping, over-the-top set pieces, featuring a fair degree of gore. It is not unlike Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake-re-conception, because the primary response sought by both films is “Dude, WTF,” rather than fear or suspense. It is still definitely a horror movie, but it is all about spectacle rather than existential dread.

Yet, there are still elements of what could be considered hallmarks of a consistent Aster style. Once again, he plumbs the depths of human anguish, putting his lead through a torturous emotional ringer, within the first ten minutes. Arguably, he could be one of the few filmmakers working today who can address themes of grief and guilt in such a brutally honest, unsentimentalized fashion. In addition, we can see the way he employs art and décor to build tension. This time around, it is weird murals and folk paintings that set the tone, much like the eerie miniatures in Hereditary.

Midsommar could even have an outside shot at a best costume Oscar, if A24 campaigns hard for it. A lot of craftsmanship went into the film, but the narrative is rather standard stuff. There are no great surprises here, not even the kicker ending, which would not be out of place in a vintage issue of EC Comics.

Regardless, Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor hold up their ends with uncompromising, all-in performances, even when their characters’ excesses confound the audience’s desire to identify with them, or at least with Dani. Although Christian is a raging jerkheel, we can’t help tiring of her manic swings. Honestly, they are both so unpleasant to spend time with (and wait till you get an earful of Will Poulter as Christian’s horndog pal, Mark), you might just find yourself rooting for the pagan cult to Wicker Man everyone’s butt back to the pre-Christianity era.

That is really how you have to buy into Midsommar­—as a wild dive into a maelstrom of lunacy (again, very much like Suspiria). At times, Midsommar will make you laugh out loud. Other times, you will stomp and shout. It is mostly a good thing when films inspire strong reactions, even if a lot of fans were going in expecting to respond differently.

Of course, horror fans will need to see Midsommar just so they can form their own opinions. It is probably the most eagerly anticipated horror movie and sophomore film since Jordan Peele’s Us (which was better than Midsommar, but Hereditary was vastly superior to the over-hyped Get Out, so let’s call it a draw, so far). Recommended as nutty slice of Scandinavian midnight madness (but not a major new statement in the genre), Midsommar opens today (7/3) in theaters throughout New York, including the AMC Empire.

Fantasia ’19: It Comes

Hereditary’s Ari Aster cannot hold a candle to Tetsuya Nakashima when it comes to portraying extreme human emotions. Technically, this is his first outright horror movie, but aesthetically, it is not so far distant from films like Confessions and Memories of Matsuko. The only thing more intense then the family dysfunction in his latest work is the supernatural horror looming over Nakashima’s It Comes, which had its Canadian premiere at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Newlyweds Hideki and Kana Tahara look like a picture-book couple, but there was a strange incident from his childhood that continues to haunt his dreams and subconscious. There is a sinister force out there that still “calls out” to him. The birth of his daughter Chisa was a happy event for the couple and their friends, but it might provide an opening for the ominous supernatural power to get its hooks into the nuclear family.

When wild things start happening around him, Tahara reaches out to Kazuhiro Nozaki, an expert on the occult, and his girlfriend, Makoto Higa, a self-taught psychic. However, the uncanny entity is too powerful for her to handle. Much to her chagrin, the Tahara family will need the help of Higa’s arrogant older sister Kotoko, a professional exorcist highly trained in the shamanistic arts. Then you-know-what happens—a lot of it.

It Comes is a heck of a wild ride. It starts on a micro level, but Nakashima quickly takes it macro, staging bigger and more-over-the-top horror movie exorcisms than you have ever seen before. There are also multiple shocking surprises in store for viewers. In fact, we start out assuming it is about one set of characters, but it really turns out to be about an entirely different group of folks. It Comes morphs into a very different film than what you expect, but that makes it genuinely surprising, almost (but not quite) like seeing Hitchcock’s Psycho again for the first time.

Takako Matsu, who rocked Nakashima’s Confessions, commands the screen as Kotoko Higa, portraying a psychic exorcist distinctive enough to rival Lin Shaye in the Insidious franchise. Jun’ichi Okada really sells the film’s extreme madness, convincingly playing Nozaki as the character is dragged sideways through the proverbial wringer. Nana Komatsu and Haru Kuroki, as Makoto and Kana, respectively, also convincingly shift gears multiple times over, completely keeping viewers off balance.

This is a scary film and an insane spectacle. It is also Nakashima’s best film since Confessions, representing a rebound after the comparatively disappointing World of Kanako. Enthusiastically recommended for fans of films like Hereditary, Insidious, and The Conjuring, It Comes premiered in Canada during this year’s Fantasia.

Sundance ’19: Wounds

Being a bartender in New Orleans, Will has seen a thing or two in his day, but even by his standards, things are about to get ridiculous. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of Cajun or Creole recipes for cockroach, because his troubles start with an infestation issues and mushroom from there in director-screenwriter Babak Anvari’s Wounds, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Will enjoys being a perennially-buzzed under-achiever, even though it is starting to lose its charm for his current girlfriend, Carrie, just like it did for Alicia, the one before her, whom he is still hung up on. One rowdy night at the bar, a group of creepy Millennials leaves behind a cell phone that starts displaying some alarming text messages. When Will cracks the code, he finds some disturbingly violent images inside. He tries to shrug it off, but the mysterious black car following him really amps up his paranoia. It also seems to be somehow related to the cockroaches increasingly swarming in the bar or his apartment (or so we assume, Anvari never really closes the narrative loop on the roaches).

In some ways, Wounds would make a fitting companion film with Guadagnino’s reconceived/remade/reconfigured Suspiria, for reasons beyond Dakota Johnson’s appearance in both. Ostensibly, the two films blend body horror with some mysterious form of ancient occult evil, but they are really more interesting in smearing outrageously over-the-top lunacy all over the screen.

You just have to either accept Wounds’ madness or call it a day, but it arguably works on its own level, thanks to the game work of Armie Hammer, Zazie Beetz, and Karl Glusman. They keep it all barreling along with their energy as Will, Alicia, and her new boyfriend, Jeffrey. Plus, Brad William Henke is a spectacular mess playing Eric, Will’s beer-muscled, meathead customer.

Wounds is distinctive in its way, but it is bound to disappoint fans of his first film, Under the Shadow, because it lacks similar depth and emotional complexity. Yet, he still manages to maintain an eerie atmosphere of foreboding, at least for most of the time. To Anvari’s credit, he also conveys a decent sense of the city of New Orleans (at one point, Will buys what we assume is a muffuletta to eat down by the river—and of course, Dixie is his beer of choice).

Wounds is the sort of film you keep watching if only to see if it can keep the nuttiness going, which it does. Nobody can make a steady diet of that flavor of cinema, but if you enjoyed debating Suspiria (and to a lesser extent, Hereditary) than Wounds should be on your dance card. You know who you are. Recommended accordingly, Wounds screens again today (1/30) and Saturday (2/2) in Park City and Friday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’20: Impetigore

There is usually a reason why secluded villages are secluded. It might not be rational, strictly speaking, but it holds enough sway to prevent people from beating a path to town. Likewise, large empty houses are not left abandoned without some kind of rationale, especially in hardscrabble rural Indonesia. Unfortunately, a scuffling twenty-five-year-old will go out of her way, putting herself in harm’s way, in hopes of securing an inheritance in Joko Anwar’s Impetigore, which screens during the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Frankly, Anwar is criminally under-heralded as a modern master of the horror genre. In the future, film schools could very well show Impetigore’s opening sequence in horror directing classes, as a crackerjack example of immediate white-knuckle tension that could serve as a compartmentalized prologue, but steadily takes on greater significance as the film develops. Maya is a frustrated toll-collector who survives a harrowing attack from a passing motorist. Weirdly, he seems to know her, even calling her by a name she vaguely remembers from her early childhood.

The ordeal spurs Maya to examine her hazy memories of life with her late parents in the countryside, before the orphaned girl relocated to the city with the woman she always knew as an aunt. All that remains is a photo of little Maya (as she is now known) standing with her parents, in front of a large and presumably valuable house. Accompanied by her encouraging friend Dini, Maya treks out to the too-small-to-be-on-the-map village, hoping to claim title to the property. However, they find the village odd. The people are standoffish and there are absolutely no children to be seen—except for the three spectral girls Maya thought she saw standing by the road, during the overnight bus ride.

The evil vibe Anwar establishes right from the start only deepens as he reveals the details regarding the curse plaguing the town. Karma kills and tragedy compounds—brutally. Arguably, Anwar’s storyline is not blow-you-away original, but his execution is so skillful, he keeps the audience on pins-and-needles throughout every second and every frame. Like his previous horror film, the remake of Satan’s Slaves, Impetigore is straight-up terrifying.

Japan Cuts ’15: The Voice of Water

L. Ron Hubbard would be impressed. The leaders of the God’s Water cult come from the advertising industry and they explicitly refer to the “religion industry.” They make no secret of their commercial ambitions, even when in the presence of cult members. Business is on the upswing thanks to their charismatic priestess, but her family issues will engulf the entire cult in screenwriter-director Masashi Yamamoto’s The Voice of Water (trailer here), which screens as a selection of this year’s Japan Cuts, the Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Lovely and serene-looking, the Zainichi Min-jung is a natural fronting God’s Water. You could say it is in her blood. She hails from a long line of shimbang, women who practice a regional form of shamanism on Jeju Island. Everyone knows she is faking it, even their core followers, but there is something reassuring about her presence. However, Min-jung starts to maybe-sort of believe in her hereditary powers at an inopportune time. Internal dissension is on the rise and her own lowlife father Mikio/Mickey might pull the entire group into his chaos. To avoid his Yakuza loan shark, Mikio has been crashing in the God’s Water headquarters. He has even won over some of the office staff, despite her protests.

Arguably, Voice is the greatest, under-heralded find at this year’s Japan Cuts. You will be hard-pressed to find a similarly matter-of-fact, cynically business-oriented perspective on cults and their followers in a year of film festivals. It is particularly damning when showing how the need to belong trumps all common sense, keeping members blindly devoted even when they know full well it is all just a racket. The specifics of the Korean-Japanese Zainichi experience and the Korean shamanic tradition further enrich the film, grounding it in a very distinctive cultural context.

As a result, Voice could well be the definitive cultist film of the decade, but it is also a Yakuza film. In fact, sensitive viewers should be warned, there is at least one tough to watch scene involving Mikio’s nemesis. Yet, it makes the uni-named Hyunri’s lead performance even braver. She is absolutely riveting and acutely human (in every messy way possible) as the inspiring Min-jung. As Mikio, Akio Kamataki is also achingly tragic, while Kei Oda is unsettlingly sinister as Takazawa, the gangster.

Yamamoto draws out the punishing third act just a tad too long, but his patience and attention to detail creating the God’s Water universe is completely fascinating to behold. It is very different from Sion Sono’s Love Exposure, but it is just as powerful in its own way. Very highly recommended, The Voice of Water screens tomorrow night (7/17) at the Japan Society, as part of the 2015 Japan Cuts.

Abertoir ’17: The Sleep Curse

Heather Langenkamp and Freddy Krueger’s other victims would be jealous of Dr. Lam Sik-ka and his latest patient, because no matter what they do, they cannot drift off to sleep. Yet, they still manage to have nightmares in Herman Yau’s The Sleep Curse (trailer here), which screens at this year’s Abertoir: The International Horror Festival of Wales.

Dr. Lam is a man of science, but not exclusively. He has seen uncanny things and visited his share of mediums. Neither he or his former girlfriend Monique want to end up like her older brother, whose mental collapse due to supernatural sleep deprivation takes place during the prologue. It turns out their respective fathers met the same fate, but it isn’t a hereditary condition. It is a curse dating back to the Japanese occupation.

Quite inconveniently (for a host of reasons), Lam’s decent but passive father Lam Sing was involuntarily recruited to serve as a clerk and translator to the Japanese commander. Part of his duties involve coordinating with Chow Fook, the collaborator managing the local so-called “comfort station.” Lam’s heart aches for the women enslaved there, but when his Japanese masters force him to make a pseudo-Sophie’s Choice, it sets off a chain of very bad karma, which unfolds in a series of flashbacks.

The prospect of using war crimes committed against comfort women as the catalyst for a horror film is admittedly dicey, but it certainly reflects still potent (and officially sanctioned) anti-Japanese prejudices. Intriguingly, the film is also set in 1990, pre-handover, at a time when many Hong Kongers were having nightmares. It is therefore easy to sense ghosts from two eras haunting the film. Initially, Yau seems more inclined to evoke feelings of uneasiness while maintaining a general sense of mystery, until total bedlam breaks in in the third act. We’re talking totally nuts here.

Regardless, in a dual role, Anthony Wong makes a credible Peter Cushing figure as Dr. Lam and is aptly tragic as the ill-fated Lam Sing. Likewise, Michelle Wai also shows tremendous range as both Man Ching and Man Woon, two twins of drastically differing temperaments, separated by cruel fate and Lam Sing. Jojo Goh only has one role, but she still makes an impression playing Monique partly as a femme fatale and partly as an increasingly vulnerable and agitated patient.

Herman Yau is maybe not quite as prolific as Takeshi Miike, but he certainly does not lack for a work ethic or ready financing. Despite turning out a steady stream of hit action movies and comedies, he still exhibits a distinctive touch for supernatural fare. Perfect for fans of the Nightmare Detective franchise, The Sleep Curse screens Thursday night (11/16), as part of Abertoir 2017.

Yellow Birds

In recent years, the military has sanitized their marching cadences. Now the “yellow bird” gets his “little head” smashed, rather than his “f’ing head.” Surely, this has caused great relief among ornithologists everywhere. Unfortunately, they have not been able to prettify the nature of warfare itself. Incidents from the Iraq War will haunt survivors in Alexandre Moors’ Yellow Birds (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Brandon Bartle is twenty-one, making him a veritable gray beard compared to eighteen-year-old Daniel Murphy, but they are both from rural Virginia, so they bond during basic training. Sergeant Sterling also recognizes their reliability, so he takes them under his wing, at least to an extent. This is mostly a good thing, especially when they first arrive in-country.

We can tell from the flashback structure something profoundly unfortunate happened during their deployment, but Bartle clearly survived, since we watch the film through his remorseful POV. It is not long before we realize Murph’s fate remains unresolved, because a good deal of the third act involves his mother Maureen Murphy’s crusade for the truth. She is the one played by executive producer Jennifer Aniston (that’s right, Rachel from Friends is playing the mother of an eighteen-year-old).

Reportedly, Yellow Birds was recut after its Sundance premiere, which makes sense considering there are cast-members listed on its imdb page we’re at a loss to remember. The current cut is pretty tight and the temporal shifts mostly work, which is saying something. However, the current cut is probably not sufficiently scathing to satisfy to the anti-war left (which includes our current president), nor is it sympathetic enough to appeal to military families and supporters. Instead, it feels like it walks a carefully calibrated line down the middle, like one would more expect from a TV movie.

Alden Ehrenreich (who has had a tough summer with Solo) is very good as Bartle. He does his share of brooding, but it is a more complex performance than just that. Toni Collette also elevates the largely stereotypical role of his mother Amy (between this and Hereditary, she gives quite a composite portrait of motherhood). Aniston is fine as Mother Murphy, but it is a very safe role. However, Jack Huston is terrific as the increasingly unstable, but still formidable Sgt. Sterling. Most disappointingly, Jason Patric is largely squandered as CID Captain Anderson.

David Lowery’s screenplay, subsequently worked over by R.F.I. Porto, represents a good faith effort to adapt Kevin Powers’ novel. The film exhibits genuine empathy for Bartle and Murphy, which is to its credit. There are also some relatively convincing scenes of warfighting, but it never reaches the level of classical tragedy that it clearly aspires to. Indeed, it feels rather narrow in scope, especially compared to Patric’s classic war movie, The Beast. Yellow Birds is not a scandal, but it still doesn’t justify Manhattan ticket prices when it opens tomorrow (6/15), at the Village East.

Don’t Leave Home: A Portrait of Irish Horror

Portraiture rarely turns out well in horror stories—just ask the model in Poe’s “Oval Portrait.” Religious experiences generally turn out badly as well. Little Siobhan Callahan has the misfortune of combining both. Her infamous disappearance inspires an American artist to take a pilgrimage to the scene of the “dark miracle” in Michael Tully’s Don’t Leave Home (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Brooklyn.

The title sounds like a gimmicky riff on American Express, but it is actually a moody, existential Irish horror movie, very much in the tradition of The Devil’s Doorway. In fact, the films share two principle cast members. As is usually the case with tales of mysterious evil forces, it began years ago. The Callahan family worked for the parish priest, Father Alastair Burke, a skilled amateur painter. One day, Burke painted Siobhan as she stood at an early Christian altar in the forest, where she seemed to become bathed in light. The she disappeared, both from the canvass and real life.

Years later, Melanie Thomas is trying to depict the incident in her work. She is a diorama artist, not unlike Toni Colette in Hereditary, but fortunately she doesn’t have a family of her own. After a getting an unfair critical drubbing, Thomas receives a call from Father Burke’s caretaker, Shelly. He read about her show and wants to see and most likely buy the Callahan piece for himself, so off she goes to Ireland. It turns out Burke is nice old gent, who clearly remains haunted by events from his past. On the other hand, Shelly seems to mass produce bad vibes. Their taciturn handyman-manservant Padraig is not particularly welcoming either.

Thomas’s experiences on their secluded estate are all kinds of Gothic, channeling all the usual suspects, from Du Maurier to The Innocents to Hammer Films, but Tully has something rather fresh and original up his sleeve. He also has two terrific trump cards in Lalor Roddy and Helena Bereen (also recently seen together in The Devil’s Doorway), who are both terrific as Father Burke and Shelly. Here Roddy is refined and anguished but also unsettling, in the tradition of vintage Peter Cushing, while Bereen just has a knack for putting viewers immediately on edge.

Anna Margaret Hollyman also gives an unusually strong horror movie performance as the intuitive but insecure Thomas. Arguably, the cast is so good, they manage to not get completely up-staged by the creepy locations in and around Killadoon House in County Kildare. Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield really runs with the Gothic atmosphere, giving the film an eerie, perpetually overcast look. This is a smart, literate genre film that continues the mini-Irish horror renaissance represented by films like The Devil’s Doorway, The Lodgers, Cherry Tree, and The Canal. Recommended highly for neo-Gothic horror fans, Don’t Leave Home screens this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (9/14-9/16) at the Brooklyn Alamo Drafthouse.

Sundance ’19: The Lodge

Step-parenting is always a tricky proposition, but it is especially so for Grace. As the sole survivor of a suicidal death cult, she has sort of already lost one “family.” Her prospective stepson and stepdaughter are less than thrilled to welcome her into their family. It is hard to form a conclusive judge about them or her in Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s The Lodge, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Grace’s father was the charismatic leader of an apocalyptic Christian cult that committed mass-suicide Hale-Bopp-style. She was left behind to tell their tale, like the characters left standing at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Should that make us trust her more or less?

Regardless, Richard fell for her hard while writing a retrospective piece on the cult. Aidan and Mia were already seriously unhappy with his decision to take up with Grace, but when their mother Laura is suddenly ushered out of the movie, Grace becomes the focus of their hard feelings. Hoping to bring peace to their awkward family unit, Richard books a getaway vacation at an isolated mountain lodge. Right, what could go wrong—aside from Richard getting called back to work just before a severe storm cuts off Grace and the two resentful children from the outside world?

Maybe Grace is a victim in all this, or maybe not, but either way, her cult backstory is massively creepy. Franz & Fiala frequently return to images of the mass suicide, which are especially disturbing, because they deliberately emulate news footage of the Heaven’s Gate cult. It is arguably exploitative, but undeniably effective.

In fact, The Lodge is consistently unsettling because of its uncertainties, starting first and foremost with the true nature of Grace’s character. Riley Keough’s subtle, ambiguous performance gives viewer plenty to support any interpretation. Likewise, as Aidan and Mia, Jaeden Lieberher and Lia McHugh make two of the most suspicious and intense kids to appear on film since the off-the-rails twins in Franz & Fiala’s Goodnight Mother.

If you want to get technical, there are probably some serious logical issues within The Lodge, but Franz & Fiala’s command of mood and atmosphere is so strong, we don’t even notice in the moment. The chills are further heightened by Thimios Bakatakis’s appropriately icy cinematography. However, the recurring use of a dollhouse motif is probably a mistake, because it automatically brings to mind comparisons to Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Recommended for fans of high-end horror, The Lodge screens again today (2/2), as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Wolves: Jason Momoa Smells Fresh Blood

Evidently, werewolves can be as snobby as anyone. Sure, some humans are turned through bites, but hereditary lycanthropes look down their snouts at then. You will find a large concentration of pure-bred wolves in Lupine Ridge. It might look like hill country, but it is the Philadelphia Main Line for werewolves. It is there that Cayden Richards will go searching for answers in David Hayter’s Wolves (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Richards never knew he was adopted until he heard it on the TV news. Having discovered his parents ripped apart wolf-style after an inconvenient black-out, it is now too late for him to ask them any questions. Resigned to live as a fugitive from justice, Richards simply roams the highways, trying to keep his inner beast in check. However, a chance encounter with Wild Joe, a fellow pure-bred werewolf outcast, points him towards Lupine Ridge.

As soon as he blows into town, he seems to rub Connor, the town’s alpha-male-alpha-wolf, the wrong way. However, a wiry old farmer by the name of John Tollerman offers to take him on as a farmhand, no questions asked. Even the television reports about Richards’ previous misadventures do not seem to throw the good-hearted Tollermans. Nor does it scare off Angelina Timmons, who ought to be too young to tend the bar she inherited if she roughly as old as Richards, the high school senior-dropout. Of course, the authorities never come to Lupine Ridge, because aside from a few humans like Mrs. Tollerman, they are all werewolves.

In terms of tone, Wolves aims to be something like the lycanthropic equivalent of The Lost Boys, with hit-or-miss results. On the plus side, Jason Momoa’s Connor makes a terrific hairy heavy and Stephen McHattie has the perfect Lance Henriksen-esque weather-beaten gravitas for Tollerson. Both come into Wolves with genre cred that they only further burnish.

The problem is Lucas Till is horribly dull and awkwardly light weight as Richards. It is hard to see him as a high school quarterback—drama club president, maybe. Hayter had to notice how much verve Momoa and McHattie brought to the table (which they then proceeded to chew) and how slight Till’s presence is in contrast. Granted, dull horror movie heroes are a tradition dating back to mild David Manners in the original Dracula. However, in this case, the film depends on Richards’ fierceness, but it isn’t happening.

Despite the weak vanilla lead, there is a lot of fun stuff in Wolves. The werewolf makeup is not bad and the southern rock soundtrack nicely amplifies Momoa’s super-bad attitude. Unfortunately, too many of Till’s scenes feel like something out of Twilight instead of a werewolf movie with hair on its chest. If only there were less of him and more McHattie, but it is still kind of entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Recommended for fans of Momoa and McHattie, Wolves opens this Friday (11/14) in New York at the AMC Empire.

The Brass Teapot: The Dark Side of Antiquing

To paraphrase Gerald Ford, any supernatural agency powerful enough to grant your wishes is ominous enough to produce some grimly ironic consequences.  This is something anyone who has read W.W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” or seen the “Man in the Bottle” episode of The Twilight Zone ought to know. Unfortunately, that excludes young, dumb Alice and John.  They are not so great at getting and holding down jobs either, so when they have the chance to make cash from a paranormal piece of kitchenware they are all over it, despite the painful complications in Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Alice was predicted to become quite the success after high school.  John not so much.  She married him anyway and they both have fallen short of expectations.  Although she is a college graduate, Alice is fundamentally unemployable.  Though technically employed, John will not be surprised to get the axe at his tele-marketing gig.  Enter the antique teapot Alice is mysteriously compelled to steal from a Holocaust survivor.  Through an everyday household accident, she learns the teapot mystically rewards pain with cold hard cash.

Before long, Alice and John are beating each other fifty shades of black-and-blue to move into her dream home.  Naturally, they forget about their real friends and start hobnobbing with the smart set.  However, their new found affluence comes with a wicked catch—the teapot requires the pain to escalate.  There are also third parties who suspect what they are up to, including a horribly clichéd Orthodox Jewish gang and Dr. Ling, a hereditary member of a secret society dedicated to containing the evil handle-and-spout.  Since they are the good guys, it must be voluntarily given to them.  They will not take it by force or subterfuge, which is why Dr. Ling’s brethren are still watching and waiting after all these years.

There is an intriguing backstory to the teapot.  It might even be the most interesting aspect of the entire film.  Nevertheless, the decision to adorn the item in question with Stars of David seems like an unfortunate choice.  Mosley and screenwriter-short story author Tim Macy may not be aware of this, but centuries of hate literature has perniciously linked the Jewish people to money and avarice for sake of justifying some terrible things.  Watching Brass one gets the creepy feeling the wrong sort of people might be able to use it.

Regardless, it is hard to imagine a more irritating couple than Alice and John.  Juno Temple’s pixie charms quickly fray, while Michael Angarano’s John is more of a whiny loser than an identifiable everyman.  Frankly, viewers will soon have the urge to help them earn more cash from the teapot.  Just about the only character that is not pure fingernails-on-the-blackboard is Stephen Park’s Dr. Ling, who is also largely the product of cultural stereotypes, the Asian wise man, but in this case not such an offensive one.

As if aware of her characters’ vacuity and sometimes questionable imagery, Mosley keeps her foot firmly planted on the gas.  Occasionally, a sharp scene breaks out here and there, as when the physically exhausted couple resorts to emotional pain. Even so, the overall film is just a complete tonal mishmash.  Recommended only for those looking to see Temple pouting in lingerie, The Brass Teapot opens this Friday (4/5) in New York at the Cinema Village.

It Lives Inside

Horror movies are inclusive. Demons of any faith or tradition can be just as deadly, regardless of one’s personal beliefs. In this case, it is a pishacha, a soul- and flesh-eating demon of Hindu lore, running amok. That the last thing Sam wants to think about is an embarrassing legend from her parents’ homeland. The Americanized high school student has no use for those old stories, until she finds herself fighting a pishacha in director-screenwriter Bishal Dutta’s It Lives Inside, which opens Friday in theaters.

Sam appreciates her father’s successful career focus and contemporary attitude, but her mother’s incessant emphasis on tradition is a constant source of angsty teen embarrassment. She also dropped her grade school bestie, Tamira because of her inability to assimilate. Unfortunately, Tamira has not been doing well lately, so their cool teacher, Joyce, hopes Sam can reach out. Instead, she is appalled to see Tamira is bedraggled and unkempt, schlepping around a ratty, stinky jar. The disturbed Tamira is such a threat to her nouveau popularity, Sam pushes her away, breaking her nasty mason jar—at which point very bad things happen.

It turns out pishacha are a bit like djinn. You can biottle them up, but they still need to be fed blood regularly, or else. Now that this one is loose, she must trap it again. The good news is Russ, the jock Sam has had her eye on, is willing to help her find Tamira. Presumably, the pishacha has her stashed somewhere, so it can feed off her, until it totally consumes her life force.

It Lives Inside is a high-quality horror production that is further distinguished by its use of Hindu legend. There are several seriously creepy sequences, but the pishacha never quite reaches the sinister heights of the scariest movie demons, like King Paimon in Hereditary or Valak in The Conjuring 2. It is more akin to the Nosferatu-like Dracula in Last Voyage of the Demeter—though certainly creepy, it won’t inspire lasting nightmares.

Dutta’s screenplay is also unvaryingly dark and serious. These kids don’t have much snarky sarcasm, but, admittedly, for a lot of grownups, that will be a heck of a recommendation. Be that as it may, Megan Suri and Gage Marsh are terrific as Sam and Russ, especially in their scenes together. They are generally smart and engaging kids, which is another highly valid basis for recommending It Lives Inside.

ICFF ’18: The Girl in the Fog

Det. Vogel’s weapon of choice is particularly dangerous. He wields the media. A well-timed feeding frenzy will cause many hardened serial killers to reveal themselves. However, there is always the risk they will turn on him. That happened during his last investigation, the co-called “Mutilator Case.” He has come to Avechot in the Italian Alps in search of the missing Anna Lou Kastner, but the restoration of his reputation is his real goal in Donato Carrisi’s The Girl in the Fog (trailer here), adapted from his own novel, which screens up north, as part of the Italian Contemporary Film Festival.

Two months after Kastner’s presumed abduction, Vogel is admitted to the hospital in a near catatonic state. He had a nasty auto accident, but the blood covering his clothes is not his own. Staff head-shrinker Dr. Augusto Flores is roused to interrogate the interrogator, whose investigation unfolds in media res.

Vogel is relatively sensitive while dealing with the Kastner family, but when they are not around, he is openly contemptuous of their Evangelical faith. He also clashes with the provincial police. However, it turns out Anna Lou really is the pious small-town girl she presented herself to be. She is no Laura Palmer, which is good for his media campaign. About halfway through, circumstances will cast suspicion on Prof. Loris Martini, who teaches English at Anna Lou’s high school. It is all highly circumstantial, but that does not trouble Vogel or his media hounds. At this point, whatever you’re assuming—don’t.

Fog is a little slow going at first, but once it has all its pieces in place, it down shifts into an especially dark and cynical psycho thriller. Compared to this film, Gone Girl is practically a love letter to Nancy Grace and the tabloid cable news media. Even though Carrisi’s novel has been translated into English, it is hard to see any mid-sized distributors taking this one on. Think of it as the absolute polar opposite of Spotlight.

Toni Servillo was born to play brainy incisive characters like Vogel. Of course, it is great fun to watch him cutting off fools at the knees. He is rock-solid as Vogel, but the detective is still rather a cold fish.  Hopefully, we can eventually see him play a really flamboyant smarty-pants sleuth in the Sherlock Holmes tradition. Plus, the Italian-fluent Jean Reno is no mere walk-on as Dr. Flores. Their periodic framing banter holds a good deal of significance. As Martini, Alessio Boni will have viewings pulling their hair out in frustration, but that is certainly a sign of effectiveness. Lorenzo Richelmy also makes the most his key third act moments as Det. Borghi, the junior copper assigned to Vogel.

Much like Hereditary, Fog also uses scale models to help set the scene and establish geographical proximities in the small hamlet of Avechot. In this case, it is not quite as creepy (how could it be?), but still definitely heightens the sinister vibe. Cinematographer Federico Masiero does his part to dial up the moodiness too. Basically, this is a quality Euro thriller, much like what mystery fans have come to expect from Scandinavian imports. Highly recommended, The Girl in the Fog screens this Wednesday (6/20) in Toronto and Tuesday (6/19) and Thursday (6/21) in Vancouver, as part of ICFF 2018.

ADIFF ’10: Evil Angel

She was Adam’s ex, not Frasier Crane’s. Lilith was the first wife #1 to get dumped for a younger model. Still a bit out of sorts over it, she has been venting her fury on Adam and Eve’s descendants ever since. She will be creating quite a bit trouble for one paramedic, both professionally and personally, in Richard Dutcher’s indie horror movie Evil Angel (nsfw-ish trailer here), which has its New York premiere during this year’s African Diaspora International Film Festival.

Marcus Galan is going through what could be called a rough patch. He is under investigation for the death of a diabetic prostitute not wearing her medical alert bracelet, while his compulsively unfaithful and suicidal wife makes his home life miserable. Yet, he is most tormented by another patient he was unable to save, the saintly Emma Carrillo, who lived a cloistered life in service to the poor.

Private investigator John Carruthers is supposed to be examining Galan’s case, but he has been sidetracked by a number of bodies that have cropped up, especially that of his son and partner, Vic. They all seem to trace back to that prostitute Galan inadvertently misdiagnosed, who like several other characters, underwent a radical change of personality after a near death experience. See a pattern emerging?

Angel has two things really going for it. Ving Rhames costars as Carruthers. He would be cool simply reading the newspaper, but Rhames investigating an ancient demon is some serious badness. There is also a fair amount of naughtiness in Angel, which at least makes it watchable.

In truth, Angel executes its supernatural premise relatively well, but it shares the same hereditary flaws present in nearly every horror film of the last thirty years. People definitely do stupid things here (like carelessly telling the ancient evil in human guise everything they know about her), but to an extent that would be forgivable. Like most other horror filmmaker, Dutcher also seems to have something against closure, giving viewers a predictably clichéd open-ended coda. However, he takes a surprisingly effective supporting turn as Martineau, Galan’s eccentric former colleague who seems to have listened to far too much Art Bell during those graveyard shifts (or could he be onto something after all?).

Angel looks considerably more polished than most indie genre pictures and Rhames is always an engaging screen presence. Still, the film would have benefited had Dutcher adhered less to the standard horror movie template. Essentially following in the tradition of workaday horror programmers, Angel screens this Thursday (12/2) and Saturday (11/4) at the Anthology Film Archives as part of the 2010 ADIFF.

Racing Daylight

Racing Daylight
Written and directed by Nicole Quinn
Vanguard Cinema

Sometimes weirdness is hereditary. “There have always been Stokes in Cedarsville,” says Sadie Stokes, but they tended to be crazy, haunted, or both. The Stokes’ dark family history truly haunts the present generation, resulting in a willing journey into madness in Nicole Quinn’s Racing Daylight (trailer here), which releases on DVD this week

The first of Racing’s triptych of stories is that of Sadie’s descent into madness. The end of the Stokes line, Sadie has no identity of her own in Cedarsville. She is either her mother’s daughter or her grandmother’s granddaughter, depending on the generation of the townsperson. She is desperately infatuated with Henry, the handyman and avid reader of Civil War history, but he seems to interpret her extreme shyness as either disinterest or mental derangement. In fact, she is going mad, as she says so herself in her voiceover narration.

Sadie is apparently a dead-ringer for her ancestor Anna, whose spirit is slowly taking possession of her. As small town luck would have it, Henry is also the spitting image of Anna’s true love Harry. As Anna was much bolder in affairs of the heart, Sadie eventually decides to go along for the ride, embracing Anna’s dominant persona.

In the second part of Racing we meet Edmund, Anna’s husband and father to the son she conceived with Harry. Like Sadie, he is also haunted by spirits, including that of a runaway slave he accidentally killed as a teenager, who happens to look exactly like one of Sadie’s few friends in modern day Cedarsville. Since Edmund has long grown accustomed to the silent company of his ghost, it is a sad, pointless haunting. However, when Anna dies and also returns as a spirit, her presence makes it nearly impossible for him to carry on with his life.

The third part is “Henry’s Story,” as he tries to make sense of it all, both past and present. Here, Racing abruptly departs from the serious tone of the first two parts. While apparently addressing the audience directly, Henry makes some shrewd observations as he puts his amateur historian’s instincts to good use. In some cleverly cut sequences, we view scenes from Sadie’s story from his ironic perspective. We also get a wild “punchline” that seems completely out of place with the rest of what preceded it. However, “Henry’s Story” has a go-for-broke spirit that you have to admire.

Racing boasts an interesting cast, including Melissa Leo, recognizable from the show Homicide as Sadie and Anna, as well as the perfectly cast David Strathairn, seen in nearly every John Sayles film in recent years, as Henry and Harry. Unfortunately, the film’s other name actor, the cool Giancarlo Esposito (also of Homicide and films like The Usual Suspects) does not get much to do here beyond looking sad as Edmund’s ghost.

Though entirely written and directed Nicole Quinn, one would think Henry’s installment was produced by an entirely different creative team than first two stories. Even if it is somewhat overwritten and highly uneven, the result is at least memorable. Ultimately, Racing is worth checking out on DVD for a fine performance by Strathairn and a few odd scenes of “well-how-do-you-like-that” bemusement.

Sight Unseen, on CW

Just because a detective might be blind doesn’t mean they aren’t observant. Indeed, there is a long tradition of vision-impaired crime-fighters, including Daredevil, Longstreet, Clive Owen in Second Sight, and Andy Lau in Blind Detective. Tess Avery is the latest. Her hereditary Leber’s Neuropathy came on quickly but decisively, forcing her to resign from the police force. Yet, we all know she can never walk away from solving crimes in creators Karen & Nikolijne Troubetzkoy’s Sight Unseen, which premieres Wednesday on the CW.

Avery was so good at her job, she used to make all the other detectives look bad, even including her partner Jake Campbell, who maybe also carried an ambiguously romantic torch for her. However, she abruptly resigns when she is unable to shoot a suspect fleeing with an abduction victim. Even though he nearly died during the incident, Campbell assumes it is a one-time choke, but she knows she finally inherited her late mother’s Leber’s.

She does not deal with it well. Refusing to confide in Campbell, she constantly dodges Mia Moss, her new adaptation “coach,” who is also legally blind. Instead, she relies on Sunny Patel, her video chat guide, much like the one featured in Randall Okita’s horror-thriller, See for Me. Rather conveniently, Patel is an agoraphobe, so she is pretty much always available. She is also a true crime junkie, so she is also willing.

Unfortunately, Campbell’s new partner Leo Li is one of those cops who cares more about his “numbers” than justice, so Avery must constantly supply Campbell with the motivation and ammunition to do the right thing. In the premiere episode, “Tess,” she starts by searching for the still-missing woman. For a change of pace this time, Avery believes the husband is innocent. Given the limited number of supporting characters, that leaves very few alternate suspects.

Of the first three episodes provided for review, the second, “Sunny,” probably serves up the best crime story. Since hit-and-runs are notoriously difficult to solve, Avery returns to one of the final cases she worked before losing her vision. Soon, she suspects it involves the disappearance of a disgraced tech-lifestyle guru, which is definitely the sort of case Det. Li would like to solve. Avery still has trouble leveling with Campbell, even though their on-screen chemistry starts to take on greater definition.

Again, the mystery of the third episode, “Jake,” has a very Quinn Martin-esque lack of mystery, because there are literally only one or maybe two suspects it could be. However, writer Russ Cochrane does a nice job using the search for a John Doe’s identity to tease out elements of Avery’s character. It also introduces her deadbeat brother Lucas, who will obviously get into serious trouble later. We learn more about Patel’s issues, but so far, they do not land as compellingly as Avery’s.

Pyewacket: Black Magic Buyer’s Remorse

Obviously, Leah Reyes must be a weird kid, because she goes to a book signing. In this case, it is a book on the occult. As a moody goth kid, she is quite interested in black magic rituals—too interested for her own good. As a result, she will be the one most at risk from the evil spirit she summons in Adam MacDonald’s Pyewacket (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay.

Forget about the stupid cat in Bell, Book, and Candle. The familiar supposedly sleuthed out by Matthew Hopkins, the notorious witch-finder general, is closer in nature, but this Pyewacket is one seriously insidious entity. Reyes and her mother had been getting on poorly since her father’s death. Frankly, the older woman bears some responsibility. Her drinking and insensitive comments did not help much, but her decision to move to an isolated cabin up north was really the last straw. So, Reyes went into the woods to perform a ceremony invoking Pyewacket, to kill her mother.

Shortly thereafter, Reyes realizes she might have slightly over-reacted, but what’s done is done. Soon, she can see and hear signs Pyewacket is out there stalking her oblivious mother. Unfortunately, the gothy friends she was so upset to leave are not much help either, so she will pretty much be on her own, trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

Pyewacket is a major step up for MacDonald, whose last film was the just-okay outdoor survival thriller, Backcountry. Basically, Pyewacket is nine parts twenty-teens moody indie horror (don’t call it “post-horror”) and one part old school satanic (or Pyewacketic) panic. He builds the fear slowly and subtly through some carefully composed scenes. Pyewacket is mostly outside our field of vision, but his presence is keenly felt.

With its uncompromising depiction of family dysfunction, Pyewacket also shares a kinship with Hereditary and The Babadook. Nicole Muñoz does a terrific job humanizing the Leah, the resentful goth. Chloe Rose also freaks out quite memorably as Janice, the friend who has a bit of a bad experience. James McGowan should also earn the attention of a lot of casting directors with his brief but significant turn as bestselling occult writer Rowan Dove.

There is a lot of effectively unnerving sound work going on in Pyewacket that nicely compliments Christian Bielz’s eerie cinematography. Those woods just look like a bad place to be isolated, but wireless service is surprisingly strong up there. Regardless, it is pretty scary (and dashed dark) stuff. Recommended for fans of contemporary indie horror, Pyewacket is now available on DVD and BluRay.