11/27/15: Fists of Funny

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'80s homage, absurdist, action-comedies, Andreas Cahling, cinema, computer hacking, crowdfunded films, Danger Force 5, David Hasselhoff, David Sandberg, dinosaurs vs Nazis, directorial debut, Eleni Young, Erik Hörnqvist, film reviews, films, foreign films, Frank Sanderson, Helene Ahlson, Jorma Taccone, Kung Fury, Leopold Nilsson, Lost Years, Mitch Murder, Movies, Patrik Öberg, retro-themed films, sci-fi, shorts, Steven Chew, Swedish films, synth scores, time travel, writer-director-actor

Is there such a thing as a perfect roller-coaster? While opinions may vary, I think there are a few key aspects that just about anyone can agree on. A perfect roller-coaster should have a balance of climbs and falls, straight shots and zig-zags: a roller-coaster that consists of one long, steady climb and a corresponding fall may be a great endurance test but it makes for a pretty poor roller-coaster. A perfect roller-coaster should feature plenty of surprise twists, turns and sudden swerves to the left and right: when done right, the only thing you should be anticipating is that big, final plunge into the abyss right before the cars stop and your heart thumps back into your chest. Perhaps most importantly, however, a perfect roller-coaster should be short and sweet. There’s a subtle (but definite) line between pummeling your senses and red-lining your adrenaline  and being reduced to a quivering pile of bodily functions on the blessed pavement. The perfect roller-coaster should leave you shaken, giddy, a little unsteady on your feet and eager to jump right back in line and do the whole thing all over again.

In this spirit, writer/director/actor/tour de force David Sandberg’s 30-minute mind-blower, Kung Fury (2015), might just be the perfect cinematic roller-coaster. Over the course of its short and sweet run-time, Kung Fury wastes not one single minute and features not one wasted, repetitive or unnecessary frame. The effect is like mainlining Pixie Stix and Red Bull, a jittery, explosive and relentlessly inventive trawl through the very best of ’80s-era junk culture, all filtered through a brilliantly absurd worldview that allows for Triceratops-headed police officers, machine gun-wielding Valkyries riding giant wolves and massive, sentient, blood-thirsty arcade games. Kung Fury is what might happen if a teenage metalhead’s Trapper Keeper doodles suddenly sprang to life and it is, quite frankly, rather amazing.

Taking place in a 1985 version of Miami that most closely resembles the neon-and-pastel insanity of Grand Theft Auto, Kung Fury details the adventures of the titular hero (ably portrayed by Sandberg in a genuinely funny, flat-as-a-pancake delivery) as he attempts to travel back in time and stop the evil Adolf Hitler (Jorma Taccone), who has dubbed himself the “Kung Fuhrer” and plots to take over the world with his endlessly impressive kung fu skills. Since this is an ’80s parody, we get all of the standard tropes: Kung Fury is a renegade cop who refuses to be teamed with a new partner after the death of his last one (even though Erik Hornqvist’s Triceracops seems like a perfectly nice, polite dude); he’s got a tech-savvy helper (Leopold Nilssen’s outrageously mulleted Hackerman); the picture quality is constantly marred by static and missing footage; the main bad guy has an army of thousands of heavily armed, killers, none of whom could hit the broadside of a barn if their lives depended on it (which they always do); the acting ranges from amateurish to studiously awkward. Basically, if you grew up on ’80s action/kung fu films (or pretty much anything put out by Cannon), this will be the best kind of deja vu.

While Kung Fury is endlessly fun, full of the kind of giddy, stupid thrills and setpieces that pretty much every comic book/superhero/mindless action film aspires to, one of the most impressive aspects of the production is how damn good the whole thing looks on a ridiculously small budget. After crowdfunding failed to produce enough funds for a full-length, Sandberg and company opted to turn their idea into a short. The whole film was essentially shot in the Swedish filmmaker’s office, utilizing green screens for everything, and budgeted on such a shoestring that they only had one, shared uniform for the scene where Kung Fury wades into an ocean of Nazis. It looks cheap, of course, but by design, not accident. When necessary, the film is as fully immersive as any mega-budget Hollywood blockbuster, stock-footage wolf or not.

Since part of the sheer, unmitigated joy of the short is giving yourself over to its particular brand of lunacy, I’ll refrain from spoiling much more, although I could probably list my fifteen favorite moments and still have enough leftover material for at least fifteen more. Suffice to say that if you’re a fan of absurd fare like Danger Force Five, ’80s action films or bone-dry humor, Sandberg’s Kung Fury should steal a pretty massive piece of your heart. With a promised full-length version over the horizon (featuring no recycled footage which, in and of itself, is kinda mind-blowing), I have a feeling that we’re all going to be seeing a lot more of Sandberg and his inspired brand on insanity.

I still think that the perfect roller-coaster is a short, sharp shock to the system. I’m more than willing to let David Sandberg prove me wrong, however: if nothing else, Kung Fury has handily earned him that right. Too much of a good thing? Bring it on.

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7/29/15 (Part One): A Sinister Case of Deja Vu

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Antonia Campbell-Hughes, archival footage, archivists, Calum Heath, Carl Shaaban, Ceiri Torjussen, cheating partners, children in peril, cinema, dead children, dramas, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hannah Hoekstra, haunted bathrooms, horror, horror films, human sacrifice, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Irish films, Ivan Kavanagh, Kelly Byrne, Movies, Piers McGrail, Robin Hill, Rupert Evans, sewer tunnels, Sinister, Steve Oram, supernatural, The Canal, The Ring, twist ending, UK films, writer-director

Here’s a bit of friendly advice, free of charge and as heartfelt as the day is long: should there ever come a time when you’re in the market for a house and discover creepy video footage of terrible acts being committed in said house…go find another damn house. I mean, sure: this particular place might have hardwood floors, a nice backyard, good schools, a progressive city council and easy access to public transportation. If, however, it was also a place where people were tortured/murdered/sacrificed/et al, well…is linoleum really that bad?

While there have been a handful of films that have utilized the above trope to good effect, perhaps none have been more recently popular than Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), in which Ethan Hawke moves his family into a former “murder house” and shit gets all kinds of…you know…sinister. On the heels of that surprise smash (with a sequel scheduled for sometime in the near future), we get Irish writer-director Ivan Kavanagh’s The Canal (2014), in which a husband/father discovers that his family’s new(ish) home might have more than a few secrets of its own. Similar to Derrickson’s film in some pretty substantial ways, The Canal still manages to carve out its own path, paralleling the sad dissolution of a marriage with the eerie happenings in and around a creepy house and the adjoining canal.

We first meet our hapless hero, David (Rupert Evans), as he and his pregnant wife, Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), are just about to buy the aforementioned creepy house. Flash forward five years and David, Alice and their now five-year-old son, Billy (Calum Heath), seem content in their abode, although we get hints of trouble in paradise. In particular, David and Alice seem to have a strained relationship that includes her getting late-night calls from “clients,” one of whom, a strapping young lad named Alex (Carl Shaaban), seems to be just a little too close for comfort to David’s lady-love.

As these dramatic developments are unfolding, David’s day-job suddenly inserts itself into the equation. You see, David and his partner, Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), are film archivists and they’ve just got in a new batch of old police films, one of which takes place in the very house that David, Alice and Billy call home. It appears that a husband murdered his philandering wife, was jailed, escaped and proceeded to hunt down and slaughter his own son and the boy’s nanny. Faster than you can whisper “sinister,” David has become obsessed with the case, the grisly details of which have begun to seep into his dreams.

Opting to follow his hunch, David trails Alice, one night, and his worst fears are confirmed when he witnesses her making the beast with two backs with handsome, ol’ Alex. Utterly destroyed, David slouches away and winds up at the undeniably creepy public restroom, next to the canal by his house, where he and his young son once threw stones at “ghosts.” While sobbing in a stall, David is confronted by a mysterious figure who intones the suitably chilling “The Master wants you.” Racing out, he seems to be just in time to witness his wife grappling with someone by the water’s edge.

When his wife never comes home that night, David calls the police and ends up in the gravitational pull of one Detective McNamara (Steve Oram), a cagey, soft-spoken Irish Columbo who gets one of the film’s best lines: “People always suspect the husband. You know why that is? Because it’s always the fucking husband.” Needless to say, McNamara doesn’t buy David’s story of a mysterious assailant or bathroom visitation for one minute: from the jump, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a bulldog with a bone and has no intention of dropping his “prize” whatsoever, especially once Alice’s body is hauled up from the canal.

As David tries to keep his life together, with the endless assistance of long-suffering, pot-smoking nanny Sophie (Kelly Byrne), he digs deeper and deeper into the history of his house. Turns out that the aforementioned husband and wife weren’t the only tragedies in the home’s past: there’s a virtual laundry list of previous crimes, atrocities and terrible acts, including a woman who burned her own child alive but insists that “demons” did it. David becomes convinced that the house (and adjoining canal) are all part of a terrible child sacrifice conspiracy, a terrifying tradition of evil that he, Alice and Billy have, unwittingly, become part of. To make matters worse (better?), David sees all manner of strange, creepy figures around the house, especially once he begins to film supposedly empty rooms with an old-fashioned movie camera.

With Claire and Sophie worried about his sanity and McNamara doing his damnedest to put him into jail, David knows that the only way to clear his name is to uncover the hideous paranormal monstrosities at the heart of it all. Is David really getting a peep into a murderous, ghostly phantasmagoria or is he just as insane and guilty as McNamara assumes? To find out, David will need to do the unthinkable: he’ll need to go into the murky, seemingly bottomless depths of the canal. Will he find salvation…or doom?

Exceptionally well-made, if always a little too obvious, writer-director Kavanagh’s The Canal is the latest in a series of austere, serious-minded and atmospheric horror films that include the likes of Absentia (2011), The Pact (2011) and Oculus (2013), among others. As with the rest of these “New Wave of Atmospheric Horror” (NWoAH, patent pending) films, The Canal looks and sounds great: the colors are bright and vibrant (the color palette switches between reds and blues, depending on David’s current state of mind), cinematographer Piers McGrail (who also shot the highly lauded Let Us Prey (2014)) shoots some truly lovely footage and the sense of creeping unease is thick from the jump.

The acting is solid, with Evans and Oram leading the pack, albeit from two completely opposite sides of the coin: Evans perfectly portrays the combined despair, agony, fear, rage and sorrow within David, leading to a performance that’s truly three-dimensional, even if the whole thing is colored in shades of gray and black. Oram, on the other hand, is like a breath of fresh air, a vibrant, alive, cynical and altogether awesome police presence who provides a perfect foil for David and a great source of association for the audience.

Between these towering presences, the rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely (Campbell-Hughes is especially great as David’s partner/only friend), although a few of the characters (Alice’s mother comes immediately to mind) are so under-developed as to be more plot points than real people. I also wish that Hoekstra got a little more to do: there are a few nicely emotional moments between her and David but, by and large, the focus is squarely on him, not her. Due to this, Alice comes across as more of a “bad guy” than anything: since we never get to spend much time with her, the decision to cheat on David also feels more like a plot point than an organic culmination of their relationship.

On the horror side, The Canal also equates quite nicely with the aforementioned NWoAH films: like the others, the film has a chilly, glacial pace and a tendency to rely on slow burn chills and “something’s happening behind you”-isms, although the occasional jump-cuts and loud musical cues are thoroughly off-putting and kind of obnoxious. When you have images as nice as the ones in this film, long, leisurely takes work much better than jump-cuts or quick-cuts, especially when trying to build atmosphere. It’s a minor quibble, to be sure, but one that definitely took me out a time or two.

While The Canal is full of really rich horror moments/imagery (one of the most unforgettable being the zombie-like figure that gives birth to an equally horrifying child…I’ve rarely seen anything quite that nasty and it’s a truly bracing moment), the main problem, once again, ends up being the familiarity of it all. In particular, Kavanagh and company make two explicit references to Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring (2002), including one where a creepy woman with long, dark hair crawls out of a television set. To be honest, it’s an oddly lazy moment in a film that’s generally much more interesting than that, although the image, itself, still packs a nice visceral wallop.

There’s also an inherent issue with this kind of “did he/didn’t he?” storyline, especially when the filmmakers seem to push one particular viewpoint over the other: while The Canal does take a few twists and turns and does a good job with the kind of open ending that usually causes me to roll my eyes, nothing that happened was really that surprising or shocking. I felt like I knew what was coming from the first reel and, for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Again, this isn’t to cast undue derision on Kavanagh’s film as much as to state the relative limitations of this particular kind of tale.

Despite some minor issues and the aforementioned similarities to other films, The Canal is actually quite exceptional: some of the supernatural elements and imagery were quietly stunning and the relationship drama aspect feels utterly real (almost painfully so). One of the scenes, where David films by the canal as “something” approaches the camera, agonizingly slow step by agonizingly slow step, is really as good as NWoAH films get: there’s a genuine sense of building terror that hits you in the gut like a brick.

Looking through Kavanagh’s back-catalog, The Canal appears to be his most explicitly horror-related film, with the majority of his work seeming to fall into the “dark drama” category. This, of course, makes perfect sense: as mentioned earlier, the dissolution of David and Alice’s marriage has a verisimilitude that makes you want to look away, even though you’re too wrapped up in the events to do so. Here’s to hoping that Kavanagh continues to work in the horror field: there are enough good ideas and stylish moments here to indicate that he definitely has something to say. Hopefully, in the future, he won’t lean quite so heavily on what came before: I have a feeling that Kavanagh’s “roads not taken” might lead to some pretty damn interesting places.

7/14/15: This Little Light of Mine

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cinema, Conor McMahon, couples in peril, couples on vacation, creature feature, film reviews, films, foreign films, From the Dark, Ged Murray, Gerry O'Brien, horror, horror movies, independent film, Irish films, isolation, low-budget films, Michael Lavelle, Monsters, Movies, Niamh Algar, night-vision, peat bog, Pitch Black, set in Ireland, Stephen Cromwell, Stitches, The Descent, weekend in the country, writer-director

Several years ago, a horror film emerged from the ether (so to speak) and gave me a righteous thumping upside my head: the film was Stitches (2012), the filmmaker was an Irish writer/director/editor named Conor McMahon and it became, hands down, one of my favorite films of the entire year. By turns horrifying, hilarious and almost ludicrously splatterific, Stitches was a glorious return to the good old days of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and introduced the world to one of the greatest, new horror icons of the 2000s: Stitches, the homicidal, undead clown. Death by ice cream cone? Two scoops, please!

After a few years of silence, McMahon’s newest opus, From the Dark (2014), has been unleashed upon a largely unsuspecting populace. As someone who not only liked but positively loved McMahon’s previous film, I found myself greedily seeking more of the same: after all, horror-comedy is never an easy sub-genre to pull off but the writer-director made it seem so easy-breezy the first time around, who can fault me for pulling an Oliver Twist? Proving he’s anything but a one-trick pony, however, McMahon’s newest film is the furthest thing from his previous one: From the Dark is an ultra-serious, low-budget and very modest production (the entire cast appears to consist of four actors, including the costumed creature) that involves a bickering couple stumbling upon ancient evil in the picturesque Irish countryside. While the film never approaches the sublime heights of Stitches, it handily showcases another side of an extremely exciting new(ish) filmmaker and points the way towards an interesting future.

Sarah (Niamh Algar) and Mark (Stephen Cromwell) are a young couple who set off for a romantic getaway but end up running into the usual raft of horror movie problems: their car gets stuck in the mud, in the middle of nowhere, and Mark is forced to set off and find help, as Sarah waits with the vehicle. Characterization is light but we get a few basics: the couple aren’t married, yet, although Mark’s dim view of the institution of wedlock doesn’t bespeak of a particularly rosy future. They bicker a little, although we can tell there’s a lot of love here. We also get the notion that Sarah is the stronger of the two, both mentally and emotionally: again, never bad qualities to have in a horror movie heroine.

Mark ends up stumbling upon a seemingly deserted farmhouse, although an intriguing opening scene has already set the scene for this, as well: our first image is of a grizzled old farmer digging up some sort of “body” in a peat bog, a body which seems to move of its own volition after the farmer leaves. We witness “something” attack and drag the farmer into a nearby pond, which makes Mark’s discovery of him standing in the dark farmhouse, zombie-like, somewhat disconcerting. After bringing Sarah back to the farmhouse, in order to help the seemingly wounded farmer, he suddenly turns on the couple, attacking viciously.

To make matters worse, the “thing” that the farmer initially dug up is roaming around the countryside, looking like a rather terrifying combination of the troglodytes in The Descent (2005), James Sizemore’s creations in The Demon’s Rook (2013) and Max Schreck’s take on Nosferatu. It’s big, monstrous, vaguely humanoid and seems to be very hungry (or angry…it’s a little hard to tell). There is a bright spot, however (quite literally): the creature can’t stand light, similar to the monsters in David Twohy’s under-rated Pitch Black (2000). Thus, Sarah and Mark retreat to the “safety” of the farmhouse and make a desperate stand, utilizing flashlights, lamps, candelabrum, makeshift torches and anything else they can get their hands on. If they can only make it to the morning, perhaps the healing, warm rays of the sun will wash away the evil. It’s going to be a long, dark night, however…a very long one, indeed.

Were I not such a huge fan of McMahon’s previous film, From the Dark would, most likely, have hit me a lot harder than it did: as it stands, however, I can’t help but feel a tad disappointed, even though there’s nothing particularly wrong with the finished product. It is a bit familiar, true: if I’ve seen one recent indie horror about a couple stranded out in the wilderness, I’ve probably seen at least five (to be fair, maybe four). It’s not like McMahon and crew drop the ball on this facet of the film: despite the familiarity, Algar and Cromwell are a likable enough pair and everything moves forward at a fairly fast clip. The cinematography, courtesy of Michael Lavelle, is plenty evocative and atmospheric, even if the occasional camera shake feels woefully out-of-place. The creature looks great from farther away and pretty good from up close (the closer we get, the more it looks like one of the aforementioned Descent critters) and there’s a really intuitive use of light and shadow to help build suspense and tension, both of which also tie into the basic mechanics of the film.

Pretty much everything is in place, yet From the Dark still feels a touch under-cooked, just a shade less developed than it needs to be. For one thing, there’s absolutely no mythos attached to the monster whatsoever: while I found the recent Horsehead (2014) to be cagier than necessary with its titular creature, From the Dark vaults straight past “mysterious” right into “unnecessarily vague.” The creature acts and looks sort of vampiric (the Nosferatu nod, being buried with a stake in its chest), infects people like a zombie, has night-vision (hence the light resistance, I’m assuming), has human-like hands and feet and, at times, seems to be able to fly around (or, at the least, run really quickly and silently). I definitely didn’t need an awkward exposition scene where an old townie holds a flashlight under his chin and tells us a ghost story but I also needed more than what we’re given. As it stands, we don’t even get the vague insinuations of age-old mutations hinted at in The Descent: we pretty much get a monster, which chases our protagonists around for a while.

This sense of vagueness also points towards another major difference between From the Dark and its predecessor: From the Dark is a markedly less clever, inventive film than Stitches. While this might have a little to do with the differences in tone (Stitches, after all, was an extremely dark comedy featuring a motor-mouthed comic in the lead sociopath role), some of the cleverest, most outrageous aspects of Stitches were the incredibly inventive death setpieces, not the hilarious dialogue. In these moments, Stitches was not only one of the smartest, wackiest modern films, it was one of the smartest to come down the pike since the glory days of the ’80s.

As compared to Stitches, From the Dark is as bare-bones, meat-and-potatoes as it gets. The only setpiece in the film that really stands out (aside from the beautifully Gothic final confrontation) is the one where Sarah maneuvers from the upstairs of the farmhouse to the ground floor, moving a lamp, as necessary, to provide meager protection from the rampaging creature. It’s a gloriously tense scene, exquisitely blocked and genuinely thrilling: too bad that so many other scenes devolve into your basic “run and get chased” formula. Stitches was a film where you never had any sense of what’s coming next: from clown sex to death by ice cream scooper, McMahon seemed to pull twists and outrage seemingly out of thin air. Here, McMahon seems to be following a pre-established recipe, giving us all of the required beats and moments for this type of thing but with a decided lack of “seasoning”: even the creature’s aversion to light hearkens back to Pitch Black, which managed to make much better use of that particular “gimmick.”

Despite my disappointment, however, I still enjoyed From the Dark. While Stephen Cromwell’s Mark got a little tedious and whiny by the film’s conclusion, Niamh Algar’s Sarah was always a sturdy protagonist and a more than suitable “final girl” to move the proceedings into their logical conclusion. In fact, I was so impressed with her organic progression from “scared” to “ass-kicking” that I’m going to make a point to follow her more in the future: I’m hoping that more filmmakers take McMahon’s lead and start making Algar the focus of their fright flicks.

I also really liked the film’s look and atmosphere, for the most part, and totally dug the idea of the monster, even if the actual execution was a little too vague and anonymous for my taste: I found myself thinking about it for some time after, trying to fill in the missing pieces. This, of course, is pretty high praise for any film, least of all a low-budget horror film: if I find myself thinking about any of it afterwards, that’s always a big plus, in my book.

There’s no doubt that Conor McMahon is one seriously talented dude: irregardless of its numerous issues, From the Dark is still vastly superior to many similar films. It’s also great to see that he’s not a one-trick-pony: anyone who can create something as giddy and uproarious as Stitches, yet follow it up with something as serious and glum as From the Dark seems poised to avoid pigeon-holing at all costs. At the end of the day, however, I’m nothing if not a greedy bastard: for that reason, I’m gonna be holding out for another Stitches. Serious or funny…flip a coin. As long as McMahon’s next film displays the same delirious level of invention and imagination as his killer clown opus, I’ll be that proverbial kid in that proverbial candy store.

 

7/12/15: The Sleep of Reason

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bad fathers, Benjamin Shielden, Catriona MacColl, cinema, co-writers, Dario Argento, dream imagery, dream research, dream-like, dysfunctional family, Emmanuel Bonami, family secrets, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, foreign films, French cinema, French films, Fu'ad Aït Aattou, Gala Besson, horror, horror films, horror-fantasy, Horsehead, Joe Sheridan, Karim Chériguène, keys, Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux, lucid dreaming, lush, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, multiple writers, Murray Head, Nightmare on Elm St., nightmares, Romain Basset, step-father, supernatural, surreal, Vernon Dobtcheff, Vincent Vieillard-Baron, visually stunning, writer-director

In many ways, writer-director Romain Basset’s feature debut, Horsehead (2014), is as strange a creation as its titular demonic figurehead: both too nonsensical to conform to standard cinematic narratives and not gonzo enough to properly pay homage to the surreal, Italo-gore films that are its obvious influence, the film is lush, visually stunning and stuck in a bit of a no-man’s-land. When the film’s visuals and atmosphere mesh, Basset comes dangerously close to approximating the fever dream insanity of vintage Argento: something like A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) jammed sideways into Inferno (1980), if you will. When the film leans hard into actual plot mechanics, however, it tends to collapse into a bit of a chaotic mess, favoring complex backstory over actual emotional impact.

Jessica (Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux), our plucky heroine, has been plagued by terrible nightmares of a terrifying, horse-headed demon for the majority of her life. After her grandmother Rose (Gala Besson) dies, Jessica returns to her childhood home for the funeral. Like many horror film heroes, Jessica has a difficult history with her stern, disapproving mother, Catelyn (Lucio Fulci mainstay Catriona MacColl), although she gets along great with her cheerful, ultra-supportive step-dad, Jim (Murray Head). Returning to her old stomping grounds for the first time in years, Jessica and her mom immediately get to butting heads, all while Jim and faithful servant, George (Vernon Dobtcheff), try to run interference.

Once she gets “home,” however, Jessica immediately starts to have strange dreams about her grandmother, dreams in which a younger version of Rose frantically looks for some sort of key. A sinister preacher (Fu’ad Aït Aattou) also pops up in her dreams and he seems to be pursuing Rose, for some undisclosed reason: we know he’s evil, however, because he has one of those patented “totally, completely evil” voices…always a handy indicator. She also continues to see the menacing Horsehead, the towering, monstrous presence from her youth that’s pursued her in her slumber for decades.

Using a handy bottle of ether and some of that “take control of your dreams” advice that all the kids on Elm Street receive, Jessica proceeds to explore the phantasmagoric world of her dreams, attempting to figure out the connection between the creepy priest, Horsehead, her grandmother and that damned missing key. Jessica will have to be careful, however: if Horsehead gets a hold of her while she’s dreaming, it might spell the end of her in the “real world,” as well.

Similar to Rob Zombie’s recent The Lords of Salem (2012), Basset’s Horsehead is a very clear nod to the classic ’80s horror fare of Italian gore-maestros like Argento and Fulci: hell, he even casts MacColl, the star of such Fulci standards as City of the Living Dead (1980), House By the Cemetery (1981) and The Beyond (1981), as Jessica’s mother. With its dreamlike atmosphere, brightly colored lighting and emphasis on visuals over logic, it’s pretty easy to draw a through-line straight into the heart of Basset’s little opus. If you’re going to wear your influences on your sleeve, however, there are certainly worse ones you could pick than Argento or Fulci.

When the emphasis stays on the visuals and vibe, Horsehead works remarkably well: cinematographer Vincent Vieillard-Baron, on only his second full-length feature, produces some staggeringly strange, beautiful imagery, much of which is on a par with the best of Luciano Tovoli’s work in films like Suspiria (1977) and Tenebre (1982). The figure of Horsehead is a genuinely creepy image and certain scenes, like Jessica’s climatic battle with the dream demon, approach del Toro and Tarsem Singh’s level of fastidious attention to detail. Horsehead looks consistently great, with a truly cool sense of Gothic grandeur that befits the more fairy-tale-like aspects of the narrative.

Basset gets good work from a dependable cast: it’s always good to see MacColl and she brings quite a bit of edge to her portrayal of Jessica’s troubled mother, while Pointeaux is a likable, (mostly) reasonable protagonist. As befits the film’s spiritual forebears, some of the performances are a little more over-the-top than others: Fu’ad Aït Aattou’s evil priest and Joe Sheridan’s oddly lecherous doctor are pure comic book, while veteran actor Dobtcheff doesn’t get a whole lot to do as the seemingly superfluous butler/caretaker.

In another parallel with the aforementioned Zombie film, however, Basset’s movie starts to unravel whenever we get thrust down into the actual nitty-grit of the plot. To not put too fine a point on it, Horsehead makes very little sense, even when all of the cards have been laid on the table by the film’s conclusion. This, of course, was a pretty common issue with the films that directly influenced Horsehead: no one ever went into a Fulci or Argento film to focus on the plots, most of which only existed as a rough framework to hang numerous setpieces from. The difference, of course, is that both Fulci and Argento seemed perfectly aware of this and were more than happy to play to their strengths: Basset, unfortunately, tries to have his cake and eat it, too, by turning his film into an extremely plot-heavy, if thoroughly surreal, exercise in combining style and substance.

By the time that Jessica figures out what’s happening, the film has become a morass of missing keys, symbolic imagery, musty old “family secrets” and philosophical concepts masquerading as spook-show imagery. Immaculate conception, stillborn twins, abusive fathers and imaginary churches all make an appearance, although it’s all so much nonsense, at least as far as the actual impact on the story goes. By the time that Jessica is advised to “follow the wolf, not the horse,” I found myself more bemused than anything.

One of the odder aspects of Horsehead ends up being the many parallels between the Nightmare on Elm Street series. From Jessica learning to take control of her dreams, to the “sins of the parents” themes, to Catelyn’s attempt to stop Jessica’s lucid dreaming via some sort of “anti-dreaming” drug, there are times when it definitely feels as if Basset (who co-scripted with Karim Chériguène) is actively trying to kickstart his own version of Wes Craven’s little empire: even the final shot seems to set up a direct, more action-packed sequel, which doesn’t sit comfortably with the film’s headier aspirations.

Despite some fundamental problems, however, Horsehead is still an intriguing, if frustrating, film. Whenever the dream sequences are in full force, it’s hard to deny the intoxicating power of Basset’s imagination: like Singh, he knows how to blend the horrific and fantastic in equal measures, often within the same frame. It’s also encouraging to note that he’s taking inspiration from horror’s forefathers but using it to create his own, new mythology: I’ll take that over another remake/reimagining any day of the week.

For his first full-length, Romain Basset shows a tremendous amount of promise: if he’s able to completely jettison his more traditional narrative impulses and just go with the power of his imagery, I have a feeling that he just might be able to get in the same head=space as his Italian horror heroes. Horsehead isn’t quite a thoroughbred but it’s a damn strong runner: that wins races, too.

6/21/15: Know When To Say When

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Anthony Hopkins, based on a book, based on a true story, British-Dutch films, cinema, Cor van Hout, crime thriller, Daniel Alfredson, David Dencik, drama, film reviews, films, foreign films, Fredrik Bäckar, Håkan Karlsson, Heineken, Heineken beer, held for ransom, Jemima West, Jim Sturgess, Kat Lindsay, kidnapping, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, large ransoms, Lucas Vidal, Mark van Eeuwen, Movies, Peter R. de Vries, Ryan Kwanten, Sam Worthington, set in 1980s, set in Amsterdam, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Thomas Cocquerel, Willem Holleeder, William Brookfield

On paper, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015) must have seemed like a no-brainer: throw Sam Worthington, Jim Sturgess and some fellow named Sir Anthony Hopkins into a film about the real-life kidnapping of the titular beer baron and get the guy who directed the original versions of The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2009) to helm it. Stir, cook at 350 and voila: instant thriller goodness! The resulting film, however, ends up being much less than the sum of its parts: while Kidnapping Mr. Heineken sports a fairly relentless pace, it’s also overly familiar, a little nonsensical and more than a little slight. While the principals all turn in sturdy performances, it’s unlikely that you’ll remember much of it after the credits roll.

Taking place in Amsterdam, in the early ’80s, we’re immediately introduced to our intrepid gang of wannabe kidnappers: Cor van Hout (Jim Sturgess), his best friend, Willem Holleeder (Sam Worthington), “Cat” Boellard (Ryan Kwanten), “Spikes” Meijer (Mark van Eeuwen) and “Brakes” Erkamps (Thomas Cocquerel). When we first meet them, the group is trying to secure a renovation loan for an apartment building that they collectively own, a building which has now been overrun by “squatter punks.” When the loan officer indicates that the building will need to be “cleaned out” before any money can be disbursed, the gang springs into action and goes to kick some punk ass. The point is clear: this is a bunch of dudes who takes matters into their own hands.

On the home-front, Cor and his girlfriend, Sonja (Jemima West), are expecting a baby, which has put quite the financial strain on them. Cor wants to provide for Sonja (who also happens to be Willem’s sister) but there aren’t a lot of options out there for someone who’s done time in the big house. The group comes up with a simple, if outrageous, solution: they decide to kidnap Alfred “Freddy” Heineken (Anthony Hopkins) and hold him for the largest ransom in history…$35 million.

In order to finance their scheme, the gang robs a bank in a daring, daytime heist and uses the money to buy weapons, getaway vehicles and a soundproof, hidden room to hide their abductee. After planning the crime extensively, the group executes their mission without a hitch, grabbing Heineken and his driver (David Dencik) and spiriting them away to their hiding place. Once they actually have their quarry, however, everything begins to unravel: the group begins to fall out among each other, Willem becomes increasingly violent and irrational and Heineken ends up being a canny, sly bastard who pours pretty poison in the ear of anyone he comes in contact with. As the authorities begin to close in, will Cor and the others be able to reap their “rewards” or will grabbing Heineken prove to be the stupidest (and last) thing any of them will ever do?

Technically, all of the moving parts in Kidnapping Mr. Heineken do what they’re supposed to do: the cinematography is crisp and polished (Bäckar was also a cameraman on the American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)), all of the action scenes have a relentless pace (in particular, the bank heist is a truly impressive, exhilarating setpiece) and the acting is, for the most part, as sturdy as a rock. While this won’t go down as anyone’s shining moment (Hopkins, in particular, is rather stiff), it all works just fine in service of the actual film. As a director, Daniel Alfredson handles the action setpieces just fine, even if some of the more dramatic elements feel a little short-sheeted.

The big problem, as it turns out, is that Alfredson’s film just doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from any number of similar movies: in certain ways, this comes across as a “paint-by-numbers” action film, a generic template where only the names and faces have been changed. None of the characters are really fleshed-out in any meaningful way (there’s some mention made of one of the kidnappers’ families being intrinsically tied to Heineken but that particular plot point leads nowhere), which means that we never get fully invested in them. Sturgess plays Cor like any number of “nice guy forced to do bad things” roles, while Worthington brings nothing new, whatsoever, to his portrayal of the loose cannon. Sonja is just the put-upon significant other, Heineken is just the petulant rich guy. None of the characters ever breaks out of their generic “types,” leaving us with a drama that feels no weightier than the average teen slasher flick.

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is also one of those crime thriller/heist films where the characters act in inexplicable ways as a means of advancing the plot. They take their masks off at inopportune times, leave witnesses behind, and, in general, seem to do everything they can to get caught. Closing text informs us that no one really knows why the group originally got caught: if the real-life criminals were this sloppy and stupid, I’m pretty sure we don’t need three guesses.

In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of Kidnapping Mr. Heineken isn’t what happens on-screen but, apparently, what happened to the real-life participants after the film ended. As that helpful text informs us, Cor and Willem went on to become criminal godfathers in the Netherlands, after serving their 11-year prison sentences. Cor would go on to be assassinated, with scuttlebutt pointing the finger at his own best friend, Willem. Perhaps it’s only me but that actually sounds like a much more interesting story than the by-the-book heist film that we actually get: it’s rather telling that the film never really sparked my interest until it was actually over.

Ultimately, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken isn’t a terrible film, although it is a terribly familiar one. With its slight characterizations, lapses in logic and adherence to multiplex action movie conventions, Alfredson’s film might play well in the background but it’s unlikely to earn your full, undivided attention. In other words, this beer ain’t bad but it is pretty flat.

6/2/15: Grand Theft Mariachi

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action films, auteur theory, bounty hunters, bounty killers, Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman, Chilean films, cinema, dark comedies, El Mariachi, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, exploitation films, Fernanda Urrejola, Film auteurs, film homages, film reviews, films, foreign films, Francisca Castillo, gangsters, Grand Theft Auto, Guillermo Saavedra, independent films, indie films, Jaime Omeñaca, Javier Cay Saavedra, Jorge Alis, Kill Bill, low-budget films, Matías Oviedo, Mauricio Pesutic, Movies, Nicolás Ibieta, over-the-top, retrosploitation, Robert Rodriguez, Rocco, romances, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Sofía García, stylish films, The ABCs of Death, unlikely hero, video games, writer-director-editor

Homage is a tricky thing: it’s no mean feat getting the perfect balance between exacting reproduction and unique perspectives. The original era of grindhouse and exploitation films weren’t really setting out to create a singular aesthetic: this was more the result of budgetary concerns, current events, audience expectations and the technology of the time. When modern filmmakers attempt to emulate the late ’60s-’70s grindhouse aesthetic, it’s always filtered through a modern sensibility, usually the hyper self-awareness that’s plagued us since the days of Pop-Up Videos. Adding fake film grain and scratches to a modern film doesn’t automatically make it a genuine grindhouse film any more than donning fake fangs makes one a genuine vampire.

That being said, many modern films have managed to emulate the grindhouse/exploitation aesthetic to varying degrees of success. Filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth and Rob Zombie have all mined the drive-in days of old for films that manage, in one way or the other, to add another few brushstrokes to the overall mural. Chilean auteur Ernesto Díaz Espinoza certainly isn’t the first filmmaker to make us check the wall calendar: while his Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman (2012) is far from perfect and quite a ways from obvious influence El Mariachi (1992), it’s not without its charms and possesses a gonzo sense of energy and invention that often helps to smooth over the rough spots. When it’s firing on all cylinders, the film is nearly as lethal as its titular badass.

Like Rodriguez’s debut, BMTHOTMGW is about the path that an unlikely sad-sack takes from meek acceptance to ass-kicking independence. Our hero, in this case, is Santiago (Matías Oviedo), a small-town DJ who still lives at home with his mother (Francisca Castillo), plays way too much Grand Theft Auto and makes money, on the side, from mob boss Che Longana (Jorge Alis). Longana is the kind of bat-shit crime lord who’s surrounded by topless ballroom dancers, thinks nothing of wasting his own henchmen for the slightest infractions and rules by complete and absolute fear.

Poor Santiago runs afoul of his boss after he happens to overhear Longana discussing a hit on his former girlfriend, the legendary bounty-killer Machine Gun Woman (Fernanda Urrejola). MGW is the kind of person who struts around in a barely-there leather lingerie and fur coat ensemble, mercilessly blasting anything that moves before sawing off heads in order to collect the attached bounties: in other words, not the kind of person you normally want to fuck with. In order to save his own skin, Santiago promises to deliver MGW to Longana, come hell or high water.

From this point on, Santiago enters his own version of the beloved Grand Theft Auto, each new step along his path of personal growth designated by such video game friendly titles as “Mission 01: Get a Clue With Shadeline Soto” or “Mission 03: Get a Gun.” Along the way, Santiago must avoid the other bounty killers, each with their own quirks and Warriors-approved outfits (the lethal chinchinero and his mini-me son were personal favorites). When he finally comes face-to-face with the deadliest killer of them all, Santiago faces a feeling altogether different from fear…love. Will the humble DJ face his fears and double-cross the most feared man in Chile or will he crack under the pressure and turn his back on true love? Unlike his video games, Santiago is only going to get one chance to get this right…will it be love or the head of the Machine Gun Woman?

Despite a few glaring issues and the overridingly gimmicky core concept (the Grand Theft Auto angle wears out its welcome quickly), Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman ends up being a breezy, painless watch, not terribly far removed from the films with which it bears allegiance. The retro-visualization works well overall (the credits are spot-on and the musical score, by eponymous Rocco, is great), although the look is let-down quite a bit by the generally flat lighting: at times, BMTHOTMGW very much looks like a modern, low-budget film gussied up with film grain and random scratches.

Acting-wise, the film tends to be broad, which suits the overall vibe to a tee. Oviedo is likable as the hapless Santiago, although the film has a distressing tendency to make him more of a passive observer to the events than an active participant: it isn’t until the climax that he really gets a chance to let loose. Urrejola does a fine job as the almost mythically lethal Machine Gun Woman, although it’s worth noting that her character is just about as one-note as they come: MGW is an asskicking sexpot, nothing more, nothing less. She belongs to the same video game traditions that spawned similar characters like Lara Croft, traditions that dictate female action stars must show as much skin as possible and act lasciviously whenever the plot needs a little jolt. It’s no more (or less) offensive a representation than many others in the past but BMTHOTMGW does a pretty good of fetishizing Urrejola to an almost distressing degree.

The villains are all nice and slimy, which befits a film like this, with Alis having the biggest blast as the scenery-chewing, howlingly-mad mob boss. In many ways, Alis’ Che Longana hearkens back to the glory days of films like Andy Sidaris’ classic Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) and his ludicrously over-the-top death scene is truly one for the ages. There’s also the aforementioned variety with the various bounty killers (let’s hear it, again, for that father-son duo and the really smart riff on Kill Bill (2003)), which not only helps to play up the video game aspect (at times, the film definitely reminded me of Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010), although that was more structure-related than visual) but also injects much-needed originality into the premise.

While too much of the film seems to fall into generic indie-action territory (lots of noisy shootouts and gratuitous slo-mo), Espinoza finds plenty of new ways to riff on old motifs. The garage “oil check” scene is bracingly original, if thoroughly unpleasant, while the scene where Santiago’s iPod (it has 30,000 songs on it) is treated as if it were Marcellus Wallace’s fabled briefcase is patently great. It’s quite clear that Espinoza (who also scripted the film) has a few new wrinkles to add, whenever he steps away from the more well-trod path.

In the end, the well-trod path is what, ultimately, keeps Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman from having the impact it might have had. The film is lots of goofy fun, no two ways about it, but it never approaches the zany abandon of something like classic Troma or even Jason Eisener’s neo-classic Hobo With a Shotgun (2011). This, of course, is exactly what a film like this really needs: when you have a fur-coat-and-bikini-bedecked assassin spraying bullets every which way but loose, restraint should be the last thing you’re thinking about.

When Espinoza’s film works, it provides more than its share of pleasures (guilty and otherwise), although it never hits the consistent highs of El Mariachi. Here’s to hoping that Ernesto Díaz Espinoza continues to sharpen his blade: if he can make match his explotiation-leaning aesthetic to a genuinely subversive edge, I have a feeling that filmmakers might be paying him homage in the not-to-distant future.

5/26/15: He’s Got the World Up His Ass

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abusive relationships, America's Cup, Andy Canny, Angus Sampson, Australia, Australian films, based on a true story, Chris Pang, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, corrupt law enforcement, crime thriller, dark films, dramas, drug dealers, drug mule, drug smuggling, Ewen Leslie, film reviews, films, Fletcher Humphrys, foreign films, Geoff Morrell, Georgina Haig, Hugo Weaving, Ilya Altman, Insidious, Jaime Browne, John Noble, Leigh Whannell, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Noni Hazlehurst, period-piece, Richard Davies, Saw, set in 1980s, set in Australia, Stefan Duscio, The Mule, Tony Mahony, writer-director-actor

If you think about it, being a drug mule has to have one of the worst risk-to-reward ratios of any job, roughly equitable to being the royal food taster in medieval times. Let’s see…you get to swallow multiple, latex-bundled packages full of potentially lethal narcotics, any of which could burst, come open or leak out into your stomach, flipping the hourglass on what could be the last, miserable moments of your existence. If this works out, you then get the white-knuckle thrill-ride of attempting to bypass police, customs, airport security and drug enforcement officials, often in countries where illegal drug possession carries a life sentence (if you’re lucky) or something a bit more permanent (if you’re not).

Get through all of that in one piece and you still have to deal with whomever gave you the job in the first place: historically, drug traffickers haven’t been known to be the most trust-worthy folks, so there’s still every possibility that you’ll get a bullet to the face instead of an envelope of cash for your troubles. Of course, if it all works out perfectly, well…you get to repeat the whole process all over again, rolling the dice anew every step of the way. Small wonder they don’t talk about this one on career day, eh?

While drug mule might not be the profession of choice for most, there’s always a first time for everything: under the right (or wrong) circumstances, the role of smuggler’s little helper might be the only one available. This, of course, is the crux of actor Angus Sampson’s co-directorial debut (he shares the role with Tony Mahony), the appropriately named The Mule (2014). Pulling triple-duty, Sampson co-writes, co-directs and stars in the film as the titular character, a meek, down-trodden nebbish who, quite literally, ends up sticking his future right where the sun doesn’t shine. In the process, Sampson and company come up with one of the most intense, unpleasant and genuinely impressive films of last year, a roller-coaster ride where the weak of stomach would be well-advised to keep a bucket close at hand, while those who like their entertainment pitch-black might just find a new favorite for their collections.

Set in Melbourne, circa 1983, we meet poor Ray Jenkins (Sampson), the kind of salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar guy who seems tailor-made for getting screwed over in film noirs. A rather simple TV repairman who’s really into his footie team, loves his mom (Noni Hazlehurst) and step-dad (Geoff Morell) and can chug a pint of beer faster than most folks can blink, Ray seems to have a pretty decent life. He’s also lifelong mates with Gavin (co-writer Leigh Whannell), who happens to be the captain of Ray’s football team…when he isn’t trafficking drugs for the team’s president, the by-turns jovial and terrifying Pat (John Noble), that is.

When the team decides to take a trip to Thailand to celebrate the end of another successful season, Gavin and Pat see it as the perfect opportunity to bring back another half key of heroin. Although he initially refuses Gavin’s request to help mule the drugs, he changes his tune once he realizes that his step-dad, John, is up to his eyeballs in debt to Pat: if Ray doesn’t help, Pat and his over-sized Russian thug will take John apart and put him back together upside down.

Once Gavin and Ray get to Thailand, however, Gavin calls an audible: he purchases an extra half key of product with the express purpose of selling it himself, without Pat’s knowledge. Despite changing his mind and wanting out, Ray is manipulated into swallowing the entire key of heroin, separated out into a multitude of condom-wrapped packages. With a gut full of drugs and enough anxiety for an entire continent, Ray makes it back to the Australian airport but gets busted after he acts like the kind of twitchy idiot who normally, you know, mules drugs.

Separated from his family, his mates and his normal life, Ray is taken to a motel by a couple of hard-ass detectives, Paris (Ewen Leslie) and Croft (Hugo Weaving), after he refuses to either admit to smuggling drugs or submit to a stomach x-ray. Paris and Croft make the situation quite clear: they’ll keep Ray there, under 24-hour surveillance, until they get the drugs…one way or another. From this point on, it becomes a (literal) fight against the clock, as Ray does everything he can to make sure that the drugs stay right where they are. The record for a mule keeping drugs in his system is 10 days, Croft smugly tells Ray: if he can “hold it” for longer, he’ll be a free man.

While Ray is staying true-blue from the isolation of his motel room prison, however, things are a little dicier on the outside. After figuring out what happened, Pat decides that Ray has become too much of a liability and tasks his best friend with the job of silencing him, once and for all. As all of these forces swirl around him, Ray, with the help of his cheerful public defender, Jasmine (Georgina Haig), puts a final, desperate plan into action. Pat and Gavin aren’t the only threats to his existence, however: sometimes, the baddest people are the ones you least suspect.

From the jump, The Mule is a ridiculously self-assured film, the kind of effortless thriller that the Coens used to pump out in their sleep. Despite this being his first full-length directorial effort, Sampson reveals a complete mastery over the film’s tone, triple impressive considering that he also co-wrote and stars in it. There’s never a point in the film where Ray is anything less than completely sympathetic and some of Sampson’s scenes are so unbelievably powerful that it’s rather impossible for me to believe no one saw fit to nominate him for any kind of acting award. In particular, the showstopping scene where Ray needs to re-ingest the packages is one of the most powerful, painful bits of acting I’ve ever seen. The biggest compliment I can pay Sampson is that he actually becomes Ray: it’s an astonishingly immersive performance.

Sampson isn’t the only actor who goes above and beyond, however: if anything, The Mule is a showcase for intense, masterful performances. Whannell, perhaps best known as the co-creator of the Saw franchise, along with James Wan, is perfect as Ray’s best mate/biggest problem. Weaving and Leslie are, likewise, perfect as the bad cop/bad cop duo, with Weaving turning in the kind of terrifying performance that should make folks remember how versatile and valuable he’s always been. Haig does some really interesting things with her portrayal of Ray’s lawyer, adding some shading and subtle deviousness to a character who could have been a crusading do-gooder on paper. Hazlehurst and Morrell are excellent as Ray’s loving parents, with each of them getting some nice opportunities to shine on their own: the scene where Hazlehurst tries to force-feed Ray some laxative-doped lamp is pretty unforgettable, as is the one where Morrell drunkenly confronts Pat and his murderous restaurant employee, Phuk (a likewise excellent Chris Pang).

And speaking of Pat: let’s take a few moments to sing the praises of John Noble, shall we? As an actor, Noble seems to have the singular ability to not only crawl beneath the skin of many a reprehensible character but beneath the audience’s skin, as well: in a long-line of memorable roles, Pat Shepard is, easily, one of Noble’s best and scariest. Riding the fine-line between joviality and cold-blooded, murderous evil, Pat is a perfect villain and Noble lustily grabs the film with both hands whenever he’s on-screen.

While the acting in The Mule is strictly top-notch, it also helps considerably that the actors have such a great script to work with. Loosely (very loosely) based on true incidents in Sampson and Whannell’s native Australia, The Mule is lean, mean and exquisitely plotted, breathlessly swinging from Ray’s motel imprisonment to Pat’s outside machinations with stunning ease. Full of great dialogue, thrilling setpieces and nicely intuitive emotional beats, The Mule reinforces that Sampson and Whannell are one of the most formidable teams in modern cinema. Throw in some excellent, evocative camerawork, courtesy of Stefan Duscio, along with a great score by Cornel Wilczek and Mikey Young, and you have a film that looks and sounds great: there are no smudged brushstrokes or missing lines in this particular “painting.”

To sum it up: I absolutely loved The Mule from start to finish. Smart, twisted, endlessly entertaining and constantly thrilling, it was nothing short of a minor masterpiece. At times reminiscent of the Coens’ iconic Fargo (1996), at other times bringing to mind Sam Raimi’s relentlessly bleak, under-rated A Simple Plan (1998), Sampson’s The Mule still manages to carve out its own unique acre of cinematic real estate. While you might not think that a film about a man steadfastly refusing to take a shit for over a week is your cup of tea, I’m here to tell you to think again: if you like smart, edgy films with brilliant acting, you’d be an absolute fool to pass up The Mule. Suffice to say, I’ll be sitting right here, breathlessly awaiting the next Sampson/Whannell joint: I’d advise you to do the same.

5/22/15: Doin’ It For the Kids

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7th Floor, Abel Dolz Doval, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Alfred Hitchcock, alternate title, Argentinian film, Belén Rueda, Buenos Aires, Charo Dolz Doval, cheating husbands, cinema, custody issues, divorced parents, film reviews, films, foreign films, Guillermo Arengo, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Jorge D'Elía, kids in peril, Lucas Nolla, Lucio Bonelli, Luis Ziembrowski, missing children, Movies, mysteries, Osvaldo Santoro, parent-child relationships, Patxi Amezcua, Ricardo Darín, Septimo, set in Argentina, Spurloos, suspense, The Lady Vanishes, The Vanishing, thrillers, twist ending, writer-director

For parents of young children, there can’t be many more terrifying nightmares than having them vanish, seemingly without a trace. Despite how careful and attentive parents might be, they’re not omniscient deities: even the best parents can let their attention stray for a moment, become complacent with friendly surroundings, take their eyes off their precious charges for the barest of moments. As we find out all too frequently these days, it doesn’t take more than a moment (sometimes only a few seconds) for tragedy to strike.

Argentinian writer-director Patxi Amezcua’s Septimo (2013) deals with just this parental nightmare and, for over half its 88 minute running-time, it’s quite the razor-sharp, white knuckle thriller. Coming off as a grim combination of Hitchcock’s classic The Lady Vanishes (1938) and George Sluzier’s Spurloos (The Vanishing) (1988), Amezcua puts his characters (and his audience) through the wringer, giving us a front-row seat to the mounting terror that an estranged husband and wife feel as they desperately search for their missing children. Once the mystery comes into sharper focus, however, the film loses much of its inherent tension, playing out towards a rather predictable ending, right up to the fourth act “twist.” At the end of the day, however, half a Hitchcock ain’t too shabby.

When we first meet newly divorced criminal lawyer, Sebastian (Ricardo Darín), it’s pretty obvious that the guy is a dick: we watch him shrug off his anxious sister’s concerns about her potentially abusive ex and see him rage against the “old lady” who keeps parking in his designated spot at his apartment building. After the kindly super, Miguel (Luis Ziembrowski), explains that the old lady is almost blind, Sebastian snorts and replies that he’ll happily have her towed, anyway: if she can’t see, sell the damn car. George Bailey, he’s most certainly not.

Once Sebastian gets up to his seventh floor apartment (hence the film’s Spanish title, as well as its alternate title, 7th Floor), we meet his adorable kids, Luna (Charo Dolz Doval) and Luca (Abel Dolz Doval), as well as his put-upon ex-wife, Delia (Belén Rueda). There’s still lots of simmering tension in the relationship, mostly due to the fact that Sebastian is a pompous ass who’s constantly running late, although more for the fact that he steadfastly refuses to sign the paperwork that will allow Delia to move herself and the kids to Spain (they all currently reside in Buenos Aires), so that she can take care of her ailing father. Sebastian is, above all else, a deeply selfish man, however, and he has no intention of making anything easy for his ex.

On the day of a particularly high-profile case, however, Sebastian’s life hits a bit of a speed-bump. Humoring his children, the lawyer lets them race down the stairs while he takes the elevator, the exact same “game” that Delia has previously complained about being “too dangerous.” Beating them to the lobby, Sebastian waits around until he gets a troublesome notion: the kids aren’t coming down. From this point, Luna and Luca’s father flies into a mad frenzy of activity, frantically searching his apartment building for any sign of his kids, all while trying to avoid alerting Delia to the present crisis. Enlisting a resident police office, Rosales (Osvaldo Santoro), for help, Sebastian questions his neighbors, many of whom seem to be decidedly odd, suspicious people. As the clock continues to tick down, the obnoxious lawyer must learn to rely on the help of others, even as he seeks to unravel the mystery of his kids’ disappearance. Is this related to his high-profile case? Does Rosales know more than he’s letting on? And, most importantly: will Sebastian and Delia ever see their children again?

Up until the midpoint revelation, Septimo is an endlessly tense, nail-biting bit of cinema, easily comparable to the work of fellow Argentinian Adrián García Bogliano (there are bits and pieces of his Cold Sweat (2010) and Penumbra (2011) littered through Septimo’s DNA). The acting is uniformly solid, with Darín and Rueda being easy standouts as the parents. There’s a real art-form to playing an asshole character (too much on either side and the character becomes either completely unbearable or thoroughly unrealistic) and Darín hits the bulls-eye with what seems to be studied ease. It’s all in the margins for the character: we get enough casual exposition to establish Sebastian’s more douche-bag tendencies (his infidelity with Delia’s best friend, his casually dismissive interactions with anyone “below” his station) but he fills in the spaces with some truly subtle mannerisms that are almost subliminal. We can see that Sebastian is an asshole but, more importantly, we can feel that he’s an asshole: as far as I’m concerned, that’s great characterization, right there.

For her part, Rueda’s Delia is a massively complex character, made more so by the fact that we spend so little time with her compared to Sebastian: like Sebastian, we pick up much of our impressions of her from the margins, with the added benefit of the surprise “revelations” of the mystery format. There’s a subtle sense of downplaying that really works with Rueda’s performance: she dials it back enough that, when Delia needs to let loose, her outbursts actually come with a little punch. Call it the benefit of knowing when to turn the knobs to 11 and when to exercise a little restraint.

The rest of the cast does equally admirable work, albeit in much smaller doses. Osvaldo Santoro is extremely charismatic as the gruff, no-nonsense police officer, while Luis Ziembrowski manages to make the character of the landlord seem kindly, sympathetic and a tad bit sinister. Perhaps most impressively, the Dovals do fantastic work as the children, Luna and Luca. Oftentimes, child performers are the weak link in any production: it pretty much comes with the territory. In this case, however, Abel and Charo hit every single required beat, managing to walk a tight line between adorable urchins and actual flesh-and-blood people.

If I have any real complaints with Septimo, they lie more with what is being expressed than how it’s being expressed (although I’ll freely admit that the midpoint resolution and resulting “twist” ending did nothing for me and actually knocked the film down a peg or two, in my mind). While I won’t give away the final revelation (astute viewers will probably be able to piece at least part of it together well before the final act), suffice to say that it felt more than a little misogynistic and casually cruel, at least to this viewer. It seems that Amezcua went out of his way to establish Sebastian as an unrepentant cad throughout the film, only to suddenly end up in his corner by the finale. It feels a little unfair, sure, but it also feels as if it blatantly disregards many of the subtle points that have been raised throughout the rest of the film. I’m not sure if Amezcua was making an actual point or whether I just read a bit too much into it: regardless, this ended up leaving a distinctly bad taste in my mouth that impacted my overall impression.

Slightly muddled message aside, there’s an awful lot to like here. As stated earlier, the first 40+ minutes of the film are some of the tightest, most tense and atmospheric that I’ve seen recently: I don’t throw that Hitchcock stuff around lightly, after all. When Darín is frantically racing around his apartment building, barging into locked residences and alternately cajoling and threatening anyone who crosses his path, there’s a sweaty, adrenalized sense of panic to the proceedings that are pure cinematic bliss. Perhaps it was asking a bit much for Amezcua and company to sustain that fever pitch for the entirety of the film but I still can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Here’s to hoping that, next time around, Amezcua lets us all twist on the hook just a little longer.

4/23/15: One Family’s Trash, Everyone’s Treasure

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cinema, coming of age, dramadies, dramas, dysfunctional family, Eva Birthistle, family in crisis, film reviews, films, Fionnula Flanagan, foreign films, grandmothers, independent films, Irish films, Kelly Thornton, Lance Daly, Lesley Conroy, Life's a Breeze, lost money, low-key, media circus, Movies, Pat Shortt, Philip Judge, set in Ireland, Willie Higgins, writer-director-cinematographer-editor

As far as problems go, Nan (Fionnula Flanagan) has quite a few on her plate: she’s just about to turn 80; her pie-in-the-sky son, Colm (Pat Shortt), is habitually unemployed; her daughters, Margaret (Eva Birthistle) and Annie (Lesley Conroy), don’t understand her; her granddaughter, Emma (Kelly Thornton), doesn’t want to spend time with her; and her little Irish town is just about as economically depressed as one place can get. And she’s just had her life savings accidentally sent to the landfill by her well-meaning but hopelessly inept family: you know…no big deal.

The loss of Nan’s fortune (she was quite the thrifty saver!) is, of course, only the catalyst of writer-director Lance Daly’s low-key Life’s a Breeze (2013): the meat of the matter is the way in which her dysfunctional family must pull together in order to undo their own colossal blunder, during which they’ll heal old wounds, create new friendships and actually become a family. As the motley group races around town, desperately seeking the tossed-out mattress that holds just south of a million euros, they’ll learn the most important lesson of all: family may drive you crazy but, when the chips are down, they’re also the only people you can ever really rely on.

Story-wise, Life’s a Breeze (which takes its name from the logo on a prominent air freshener, in but one of many sly sight gags) is pretty standard-issue, independent film dramady but it’s elevated exponentially by a truly great cast. As always, Fionnula Flanagan is a complete treasure, one of those actors who is so immensely entertaining that she can carry just about production on her shoulders. In this case, however, the heavy-lifting is alleviated by the presence of Pat Shortt (equally outstanding in The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014)), Eva Birthistle and Lesley Conroy as Nan’s constantly feuding children. The chemistry between the family is pitch-perfect, leading to some deliciously on-the-nose bickering, all tempered by a genuine sense that these misfits actually love each other.

If Life’s a Breeze has a secret weapon (besides Flanagan, of course), it definitely lies with Kelly Thornton. This is her debut and, to be honest, she’s nothing short of astounding. Emma’s coming-of-age journey from petulant teen to strong, confident young woman is never less than riveting and Thornton very nearly steals any scene that she’s in. With her ever-present knit cap (complete with ears), Emma often reminds of a life-action version of the incomparable Louise Belcher and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. Suffice to say that I hope (and expect) to see much more of Thornton in the future: everything about her performance suggests that she’s just beginning what promises to be a must-see career.

Ultimately, Life’s a Breeze is an agreeable, surprisingly serious and incredibly well-acted (if overly familiar) entry in the “dysfunctional family” subgroup of independent films. Fans of Fionnula Flanagan (and, let’s be honest, who isn’t?) will definitely want to check this out but I suspect that Kelly Thornton’s Emma will be the one that stays on most audience member’s minds well after the credits roll. At the end of the day, Daly’s film is really about the passing of the torch from the older generation to the younger and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of receiving that prestigious flaming honor than Thornton.

4/8/15: The Silence is Deafening

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British films, cinema, Erin Richards, evil dolls, experiments, film reviews, films, foreign films, ghosts, Hammer, Hammer Films, haunted houses, horror movies, insanity, isolated estates, Jared Harris, John Pogue, Movies, multiple writers, obsession, Olivia Cooke, paranormal investigators, possession, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Sam Claflin, set in the 1970s, The Quiet Ones, twist ending

For old school horror fans, few names bear quite as much weight as Hammer Films. For the uninitiated, Hammer Films was a British production company that specialized in lush horror films that were, by turns, elegant and suitably lurid. From the ’50s all the way through the Swingin’ ’70s, Hammer churned out a fairly staggering amount of stylish films, many of them sequels and offshoots to popular properties like Dracula and Frankenstein. As the times changed, Hammer Films became bloodier and more sexually charged, although they always maintained a least a little of that initial elegance. As the world moved on into the 1980s, however, Hammer’s cachet in the genre dwindled to nothing and the company, essentially, petered out of existence.

Like any good undead monster, however, the Hammer story would also include a bit of reanimation. After lying dormant for decades, Hammer Films was bought-up and the company began to release new films in the mid-2000s. Beginning with Beyond the Rave (2008), Hammer would release a handful of films including the American remake of Let the Right One In, Wake Wood (2011) and The Woman in Black (2012), as well as a sequel in 2015. They would also jump into the currently hot topic of possession stories with The Quiet Ones (2014), which is where we enter this particular tale.

As someone who grew up on Hammer Films, I was pretty excited when they announced a restart to the fabled production company. My one concern, of course, was the same one that I had when Hammer originally petered out: would they have any relevance in a modern world that had long ago left behind the stylish, Gothic trappings of their best films or would they stick out like a septuagenarian at a One Direction concert? My first experience with the “new” Hammer didn’t set the bar very high, as I found Wake Wood to be a marginally entertaining, if massively flawed exercise. Much better was The Woman in Black, which managed to retain much of the old-school Hammer elements (slow-burn horror, stylish production design, mature themes) and used them in service of a pretty good ghost story. As such, I was primed to see where The Quiet Ones would take me: would this be the disappointment of Wake Wood or the pleasant surprise of The Woman in Black?

Taking place in 1974, The Quiet Ones concerns the experiments of one Professor Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris), the kind of driven, obsessive man-of-science that was practically a staple for Hammer back in the day. Coupland is conducting research into the intersection of “faith, superstition and medicine” which, as we all know, is shorthand for “messing around where he doesn’t belong.” Along with his faithful students Brian (Sam Claflin), Krissi (Erin Richards) and Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne), Coupland seeks to observe actual poltergeist activity in a test subject, with the ultimate goal being to remove said “bad spirits” in a purely scientific manner. The subject, in this case, is Jane (Olivia Cooke), a disturbed young woman who seems to have an unhealthy relationship with a sinister doll named Evie.

After Coupland has his funding pulled by the overly-cautious Oxford University administration, he’s forced to relocate Jane and his team to a secluded, out-of-the-way country estate so that they can continue their experiments. If you guessed that moving the proceedings to a secluded area is a bad idea, go ahead and give yourself that cookie. As strange, unexplained things begin to happen around them, Coupland and his team are quick to realize that they’ve opened a door to a very, very dangerous place. Our obsessed professor has a secret, however, a secret which will threaten not only the team’s collective sanities but their very lives. Who, exactly, is Jane? Is Evie an actual sinister presence, like a demon, or she just a manifestation of Jane’s own damaged, fractured psyche? All these questions and more will be answered as our intrepid heroes discover that, sometimes, the quiet ones are the ones you need to watch out for.

As previously mentioned, my opinion on the “modern” Hammer Films is a little mixed, making The Quiet Ones a bit of a tie-breaker, as it were. In this case, however, the scales have definitely tipped down towards the Wake Wood end of things, rather than the Woman in Black end. Like Wake Wood, The Quiet Ones alternates between measured, stately scares and purely ridiculous moments in an awkward ballet that never seems to come into its own. The initial premise is intriguing and there’s plenty of room for commentary on the obsessive quality of “good” researchers, the horrors of the past, etc etc but a late revelation about the “true” nature of the evil upends the film and turns it into an all-too-familiar possession story without adding anything new to the mix.

For my money, however, The Quiet Ones critical flaw is, ironically, found right there in the title: for a supposedly stately film about “quiet” evil, this film had more excruciatingly loud jump scares than anything I can remember in the near past. This was also an issue with Wake Wood, although not to this extent, while The Woman in Black managed to largely avoid this issue. Here, each and every instance of Evie’s presence is denoted by some sort of blaring loud sound, usually an intensely unpleasant EMF “whine” that’s positively headache inducing. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have a complete and total bias against loud jump scares: call it extreme prejudice, if you will. In this case, The Quiet Ones obnoxious sound design managed to hobble the film before it even made it out of the gate.

Which, in a way, is kind of a shame: there’s a lot to like here, even if nothing is extraordinary or particularly thought-provoking. Harris gives a phenomenal performance as the far beyond driven professor, proving, once again, that he’s an absolute diamond in the rough when it comes to these sorts of films. While none of the other actors have anywhere near Harris’ presence or charisma, they still produce decent enough work, although I can’t shake the feeling that Sam Claflin has to be one of the most generic, vanilla protagonists in some time. The film also blends its found-footage and “traditional” cinematography to good effect, although the film, eventually, devolves into much more of a stereotypical found-footage film, complete with “spooky” things in the background. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the location: the secluded mansion is a masterpiece of set design and any of the film’s genuine frights are to found from the hapless researchers bumbling down its dark halls, ala any number of more traditional Gothic affairs: this is one aspect of the “new” Hammer that most resembles the “old.”

Ultimately, The Quiet Ones was a disappointing film, mostly because there was so much potential here. I’ve yet to see the Woman in Black sequel, so it would be a little silly to make any concrete declarations about the dreadful state of Hammer’s current incarnation. So far, however, suffice to say that I’m somewhat less than impressed. While the new Hammer resembles the old one in some fundamental ways, it also lacks a lot of the original’s soul and spirit. Like any good ghoul, Hammer refuses to stay dead and buried: at this point, however, it’s difficult to determine whether that’s a noble attribute or whether this particular creature needs to be put out of its misery.