The 31 Days of Halloween (2017): 10/22-10/28

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1922, 31 Days of Halloween, cinema, Creep, Creep 2, film reviews, films, Halloween, horror, horror films, literary adaptation, Mark Duplass, Movies, New Nightmare, October, Patrick Brice, Stephen King, Wes Craven, Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Better late than never, The VHS Graveyard now presents the four films screened during the fourth week of the recent 31 Days of Halloween. While there might not be many films here, we managed to screen a pretty diverse array, including a couple of brand-new (as of last month, at least) ones. Let the haunting begin!

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1922

In a year stacked to the brim with cinematic adaptations of Stephen King stories, Zak Hilditch’s note-perfect 1922 is easily one of the very best. From the ominous opening image straight through to the fantastic final moment, everything about this exquisite period-piece is top-notch, leading me to one conclusion: this, friends and neighbors, is how you adapt Stephen King to the silver screen.

Beginning in the titular year, in Nebraska, we’re introduced to farmer Wilfred James (Thomas Jane), his long-suffering wife, Arlette (Molly Parker) and teenage son, Henry (Dylan Schmid). When Arlette decides to sell the lions’ share of their 100-acre-property and move to the big city, Wilf decides to kill her and keep the property: after all, in 1922, who’s going to come looking for a missing wife? While the murder, itself, proceeds without a hitch, Wilf must now deal with his son’s guilt over his complicity in the murder of his own mother, as well as the suspicion of those who Arlette planned to sell the property to. There’s also, of course, the little matter of Arlette’s decomposed, yet surprisingly ambulatory body, and the horde of voracious rats that follow it wherever it goes.

In every way, Hilditch’s adaptation of 1922 is the epitome of “the right way” to bring King to the big screen: this lean, mean, no-frills chiller doubles down on craft (the acting, cinematography, score, editing and pace are all flawless) while resisting the need to add unnecessary subplots and bric-a-brac to clutter the narrative. From Jane’s sturdy voice-over narration to the razor-sharp line of pitch-black humor that subtly underscores everything (the bit with the cow and the well might be one of the best, nastiest moments of the entire year), this twist on Poe’s classic The Telltale Heart is easily one of the year’s best horror films, provided you like them smart, bleak and stylish. My advice? Hand Zak Hilditch the rest of King’s short story collections and let him get to work: the dude knows what he’s doing.

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Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

In many ways, the late Wes Craven’s return to the Elm Street that he created can be seen as a dry-run for mega-hit Scream, which would follow two years later. Self-referential, ultra-meta, glossy, bloody and lined with a dry sense of humor, the origins of Scream’s hip revival of the slasher genre are easy to read all over New Nightmare.

For his second foray into the Elm Street franchise after the 1984 original, Craven posits a scenario where the principal actors from the first film (Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund and John Saxon), along with himself, find themselves smack dab in the middle of their own nightmarish run-in with the real Freddy Krueger (also played by Englund, natch). The whole thing might play as a bit too goofy if New Nightmare wasn’t also the most serious Elm Street film after the original: Craven plays it all fairly lean and mean, keeps the wise-cracking to a minimum and manages to bring much of the menace back to horror’s favorite subdivision.

While I’ll always cherish Dream Warriors and hold it as the pinnacle of the entire series, New Nightmare ended up being a respectable way for Craven to both return to the franchise and put it to an end (for the most part). It’s a smart trick from a filmmaker who had more than his fair share of smart tricks up his sleeve: Craven will be missed.

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Creep

Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass’ Creep impressed the hell out of me when I first saw it, more than living up to the title. This twisted tale of a videographer (Brice) who answers the wrong Craigslist ad and runs afoul of Duplass’ Josef is a claustrophobic bit of insanity that starts odd and ends nightmarishly. The whole film is so simple that it almost sounds like a style exercise: two actors, first-person/found-footage style, no effects, one location (for the most part).

In reality, Creep is a thoroughly unnerving tale of madness that works its way under your skin and refuses to let go. There’s something about Duplass’ performance that transcends acting and becomes something entirely, uncomfortably, different. For much of the film, Duplass plays Josef like the kind of high-maintenance pain-in-the-ass that most of us would relish booting through the ceiling. By the time you begin to notice how truly deranged he is, however, it’s too late for everyone involved, audience included. It’s a film that’s entirely dependent on its performances and Duplass and Brice don’t let down in the slightest.

Creep would be good just based on the performances but the filmcraft is pretty damn seamless, to boot. It’s actually one of the best found-footage films out there, finding some truly surprising ways to mess with perspective and play with the established rules of the sub-genre. The pacing is exquisite and the script (which often seems improvised) is incredibly smart and barbed. In every way, Creep is the epitome of a great film, horror or otherwise.

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Creep 2

Perhaps it was the heavy weight of expectations, considering how much I enjoyed the first film, but I couldn’t help but feel more than a little let down after screening Brice and Duplass’ recently released sequel, Creep 2. Here, unfortunately, is a prime example of how truly difficult it is to replicate what makes a sleeper so special.

We’re reintroduced to good, ol’ insane Josef (Duplass, still great), now going by Aaron but still up to his old tricks. This time around, Aaron is going through a bit of a midlife crisis and has all but lost his former spark for murdering innocent people. “Salvation” comes in the form of Sara (the absolutely fearless Desiree Akhavan), host of a web-series about meeting strange men through Craigslist personal ads. Sara is going through her own existential crisis, as luck would have it, and eagerly jumps into the deep end of Aaron’s psychosis, encouraging him to open up for her ever-present video camera. Who’s playing who, however, and to what end? Has Aaron actually found love? Does Sara actually believe what Aaron tells her? And what about Peachfuzz?

Despite being a solid step-down from the first film, Duplass and Brice still pack plenty of good stuff into the sequel. As before, Duplass’ performance is pitch-perfect and it’s a genuine pleasure to watch him continue to develop and refine his character. Akhavan provides a more than capable foil: Sara isn’t a helpless waif…quite the opposite. She’s actually a crafty, calculating manipulator who may be as fundamentally “damaged” as Aaron, if in slightly more socially acceptable ways. There are plenty of powerhouse scenes to be found (the one where Aaron and Sara doff their clothes in order to be totally open and honest with each other is a real corker) but the climax comes across as silly and unbelievable, while the final coda feels unnecessary and forced.

That being said, I’ll still be first in line for Creep 3 (this was originally announced as a trilogy). Missteps notwithstanding, Creep 2 was odd, uncomfortable, unsettling and more than a little thought-provoking: here’s to hoping that Brice and Duplass can give this modest little franchise the send-off that it truly deserves. Creep 2 is good but they can do much better.

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Stay tuned for the final week of The 31 Days of Halloween, including the day of honor, itself.

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7/15/15 (Part One): Peachfuzz Still Loves You, Little Buckaroo

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awkward films, Best of 2015, cinema, co-writers, confessions, Creep, dark comedies, disturbing films, feature-film debut, Film, film reviews, found-footage, found-footage films, Funny Games, horror, horror films, insanity, isolated estates, lake house, Man Bites Dog, Mark Duplass, Movies, multiple writers, obsession, Patrick Brice, Peachfuzz, psychopaths, small cast, The Puffy Chair, trilogy, unsettling, videographer for hire, writer-director-actor

Suppose that you’re a freelance videographer and you’ve just stumbled upon one of those “too-good-to-be-true”-type Craigslist ads: you know, the ones that promise lots of money for what seems like a surprisingly small amount of work? In this case, the job offers a cool grand for just a few hour’s work…not too shabby, eh? When you get to the address, you find out that it’s in a really picturesque, isolated mountain town, at the top of a long, wending hill. Once there, you discover that your prospective employer is the dictionary definition of a meek, unassuming guy…basically, the kind of guy that no one would cross the street to avoid, although they might do so to steal his lunch money.

This guy, he seems like a nice enough dude but he has a few quirks: he really likes to hug, for one thing, and he has a rather unsettling propensity for jumping out from around corners and trying (and succeeding) to startle you. He also keeps a wolf Halloween mask in his closet, which he’s named “Peachfuzz” and written a jaunty tune about. No biggie, though: the guy’s house is really nice, modern, well-lit and comfy…no piles of bodies, bone chandeliers or Sawyer-approved home decor to be found here, doncha know! In every way, shape and form, this guy is the poster-boy for middle-of-the-road, plain-ol’-vanilla normalcy.

After talking to this friendly, unassuming fella, he makes a pretty good case for needing your services: turns out that he’s been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and he wants you to make a “My Life (1993)-esque” video document for his unborn son. He may not be around to raise him, but this dedicated soon-to-be-dad wants to leave his child with as much of his wisdom and attention as he can: get the life lessons out of the way right now, while he’s still around to give them, and leave his son a legacy for the future.

All well and good, no alarm bells whatsoever…if anything, this guy might be in the running for “Father of the Year,” unborn child or not. After paying you upfront (talk about a totally upstanding dude!), your humble host decides that it’s time to get down to business: you were paid to film, so film you will. The first thing on the agenda? This totally normal, average guy wants to walk his son through the mechanics of “tubby time,” so he strips naked and jumps in the bathtub, all while you keep filming. And then things get really weird.

This, in a nutshell, is Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass’ intensely awkward, genuinely disturbing Creep (2014), a two-person, found-footage examination of obsession, insanity, loneliness and the often terrifying “real faces” that supposedly normal folks hide from the world at large. Despite the inherent simplicity of the set-up and format (Brice and Duplass co-write the film, as well as starring in it, while Brice also served as the director…at no point do we ever get another actor on-screen aside from these two), Creep is endlessly engaging and so tightly plotted that it’s almost seamless. Creep is not only a first-rate found-footage film, it’s also one of the best, most unsettling films of the year.

The secret weapon here, as in many other indie productions, is wunderkind Mark Duplass. Although perhaps best known for his pioneering work in mumblecore and for his role on the relentlessly hilarious TV show The League, Duplass and his brother, Jay, have been involved with an almost dizzying variety of projects, either as writer, director, actor or all three: The Puffy Chair (2005), Baghead (2008), Cyrus (2010), Greenberg (2010), Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), Your Sister’s Sister (2011), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Mercy (2014), to name but a few.

In this case, Duplass has teamed with Patrick Brice, whose follow-up to Creep, The Overnight (2015), made big waves at various film festivals this year. Described as the first in a trilogy, Creep is as low-budget and bare-bones as it gets: in essence, the entire film consists of Duplass’ Josef creeping out Brice’s Aaron in every way imaginable, with the tension slowly ratcheting up until the entire film threatens to explode like a busted water heater. To make things even odder and more uncomfortable, Creep is also full of pitch-black, deadpan humor, much of which walks an incredibly thin line between making one burst out laughing (Josef’s “Charlie Day-worthy” Peachfuzz song is an easy highlight) and making one cringe down in their seat, attempting vainly to become invisible.

Perhaps the greatest triumph, here, above and beyond the masterfully economic production (“anyone” can do this…provided, of course, that they’re as talented as Brice and Duplass) is the way that the film sinks its hooks into us and refuses to let go. Unless you’re a complete horror neophyte, you’ll probably be able to predict where the film eventually ends up. The route to get there, however, is a particularly thorny one, full of red herrings, dead ends, misplaced assumptions and cinematic slight of hand: at one point, we seem to be witnessing the natural progression of what we assume will happen, only to have it be revealed as recorded footage from earlier. Brice and Duplass don’t engage in the same sort of meta-mind-fuckery that Haneke did in Funny Games (1997) but they’ve managed to set up show just one door down, which is a pretty neat trick all by itself.

Creep is a strange film, no two ways about it. It’s a surprisingly complex narrative for such a short, deceptively simple film: Brice and Duplass seem to be telling a pretty straight-forward genre story about a creepy guy (think Psycho (1960) stripped down to a two-person drama) but constantly throw in allusions, asides and nods to much bigger, darker things happening in the background. The film could be about the hidden dangers lurking behind any potentially smiling face but it could also be about the very nature of truth and perception, sort of a Schrodinger test to see if “absolute truth” exists outside of our individual understandings. It could be about loneliness and mental illness but it could also be about the horrifying randomness of the universe, the howlingly unknowable cosmic coin toss that puts some folks on the road to happiness while others end up mulch.

There are moments in the film (the harrowing bit involving Josef’s ringing cell phone, that amazing final long shot) that are as classically “horror” as the genre gets, while other scenes (tubby time, the unpleasant Peachfuzz story, the visit to the healing spring) would be odd fits in any film, regardless of the generic focus. Creep is such an amazing piece of work because it somehow makes all these disparate elements fit together in a wholly organic way: Brice and Duplass’ film could be about any or all of these things or it could be about none of them.

While Brice has a few off moments, acting-wise (some of his close-up asides to the camera feel more like delivering lines than just “being”), Duplass has such a singular focus that it’s difficult to see where the actor stops and the character begins. At times, I was reminded of Duplass’ archly awesome asshole from The League, a totally cool dude who fucks with people just to watch their reactions. At other times, however, that odd combo of sweetly goofy happiness and reptilian, dispassionate reserve would chill me straight to my blood cells: it’s always difficult to get under a lifelong horror fanatic’s skin, especially where more modern horrors are concerned…Creep makes it seem distressingly easy.

As the first film in a proposed trilogy, I’m deathly curious to see where Brice and Duplass go from here: while the film ends in a way that seems to “pan back” and give us a wider overview of the evil we’ve witnessed, I’d hate to think that Brice and Duplass might get lazy and just give us more of the same in future installments. As it stands, Creep was one of the most uncomfortable, unpleasant, powerful and astounding little films I managed to see this year: I’d love to be able to say the same thing about the next two, whenever Brice and Duplass decide to unleash them upon the world.

For now, however, I’m going to double-down on my long-standing paranoia regarding other people: the world might be full of totally nice, cool individuals, but as long as there are Josefs out there, I think I’ll be a little more comfortable behind my locked door, thank you very much. As for answering Craigslist ads? Fuggedaboudit.

 

12/24/14: To Grandmother’s House We Go!

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Amanda Walsh, based on a short story, brothers, Byron Shah, Chandler Riggs, children in peril, Chris Browning, cinema, creepy buildings, demons, Dylan McDermott, dysfunctional family, Eddie Jones, farmhouse, feuding brothers, film adaptations, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frances O'Connor, Gramma, grandmothers, Hastur, horror, isolated estates, Joel Courtney, literary adaptation, Mark Duplass, Matt Greenberg, Mercy, Movies, Peter Cornwell, possession, Reza Safinia, Shirley Knight, single mother, Stephen King, suicide, violence against children, voice-over narration, weeping book

When it comes to filmed adaptations of literary works, the question always comes around to “How close do you stay to the original work?” As a visual medium, film is a much different ballgame than written works and not every book or short story is equally suited to adaptation. In particular, adapting short stories can present certain challenges, especially when filmmakers attempt to make full-length productions out of decidedly shorter works: when you only have 20-30 pages of the original material to work with, stretching the proceedings to 80 or 90 minutes seems to make about as much sense as a silent-film version of a Mamet play.

This, of course, becomes the first (and, perhaps, most significant) problem with Peter Cornwell’s recent adaptation of the Stephen King short story “Gramma,” here renamed Mercy (2014) in honor of the titular character. While Cornwell’s version of the story gets quite a bit right and makes great use of the creepy, isolated farmhouse locale, it also bears little resemblance to the original, save for the film’s final 20 minutes. By attempting to expand King’s original short to roughly three times its size, Cornwell and screenwriter Matt Greenberg manage to add lots of stuff and nonsense, especially concerning “gramma’s” backstory, but very little in the way of real value. In the process, the filmmakers manage to strip much of the quiet menace from King’s story, a creepy little shocker with a simple premise (little kid stuck by himself with his creepy, dead grandmother), turning it into something both more complex and, unfortunately, far less interesting.

After her aging mother, Mercy (Shirley Knight), has a stroke, single mother Rebecca (Francis O’Connor) and her two young sons, George (Chandler Riggs) and Buddy (Joel Courtney), move into her dilapidated farmhouse, in order to take care of her. Rebecca’s loutish brother, Lanning (Mark Duplass), had been taking care of their mother but he’s not quite reliable (he may also be a little crazy, come to think of it) and doesn’t really seem to care whether Mercy lives or dies. Also on the scene are Jim (Dylan McDermott) and his wife, Charlotte (Amanda Walsh), an artist who paints eerie pictures of local “haints” like the death wolf. Seems that Jim and Rebecca used to be an item, back in the day, and there appear to be a few unrequited feelings flying around on both their behalves: hell, even the kids make constant comments about “the one who got away” and keep talking about how they wish dear ol’ mom had married Jim, when she had the chance.

Via flashbacks, we’ve already had a little inkling of Mercy’s past, including her tireless efforts to conceive (she has one miscarriage after the other, at first), as well as the shocking suicide of her husband (by axe to the face which, if you think about it, is pretty much one of the most hardcore way to off yourself, ever). After her stroke, Mercy has been mostly silent, although her eyes seem ever watchful. When George gets a mysterious note that mentions “Hastur,” however, he sets off a rather dreadful chain of events when he speaks the name to his ailing grandmother. In no time, Mercy seems sharper, more alert and, needless to say, more than a little sinister (she’s given to dropping more big winks than the wolf in a Merrie Melodies short). As bodies begin to pile up around them, George is faced with the frightening notion that his beloved gramma may be both more and less than completely human: with the help of his brother and a local priest (Eddie Jones), George must get to the bottom of Mercy’s past, before he becomes her next victim.

Right from the jump, Mercy looks and sounds great: Byron Shah’s evocative cinematography really shows off the landscape and creepy farmhouse to great effect and the droning musical score, courtesy of Reza Safinia, adds immeasurable tension to the proceedings. The acting is generally pretty good, with industry vet Shirley Knight chewing a bit less scenery than she’s been known to and familiar faces like Dylan McDermott and Mark Duplass giving a little oomph to the film. Chandler Riggs isn’t bad as George, although I found Joel Courtney’s performance as his brother to be slightly off. The film moves at a decent clip and, at slightly under 80 minutes, doesn’t really wear its welcome out until the final reel.

The biggest problem, as previously mentioned, is how overstuffed Mercy’s narrative is compared to the original source material. While the need to expand on the evil gramma’s backstory makes sense, the new material ends up being rather confusing and unnecessarily jumbled: by the time we get to the climax, we’ve even been introduced to some sort of shaggy Sasquatch-demon-thing that pops up out of nowhere, sends the narrative in a new direction and disappears just as quickly. Unlike the sinister bit of foreshadowing that ends the original story (although these kind of “Or are they actually evil?” endings have been driven into the ground, as of late), the conclusion to Cornwell’s film makes little sense: the film ends happily but certain unresolved issues seem to make this an impossibility, rendering the final image as something perilously close to silly.

Despite all of the frustratingly unnecessary added backstory, I kind of liked Mercy: for much of the film, the atmosphere and tension is as thick as a New England fog and there are some genuinely interesting ideas floating around (the concept of the “weeping book” is pretty great, to be honest). While the acting can, occasionally, dip into the highly unrealistic, most of the time, Mercy is filled with some nice, dependable performances, none of which really stick out like a sore thumb. Perhaps my overall dissatisfaction with the film has more to do with my status as an avowed Stephen King fan than any more technical reason: in any other situation, Mercy would be an enjoyable,  decent-enough B-horror film. As a King adaptation, however, the film comes up just a little bit short.

12/6/14 (Part One): Love You Two Times

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Being John Malkovich, Best of 2014, black comedies, cinema, couples' therapy, dopplegangers, doubles, Elisabeth Moss, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, ideal self, independent films, indie films, infidelity, marital issues, Mark Duplass, marriage, Movies, romances, small cast, surreal, Ted Danson, The One I Love, troubled marriages

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A husband and wife go see a marriage counselor after repeated attempts to put the spark back into their rocky relationship fail miserably. The therapist invites the couple to spend the weekend, on their own, at his isolated estate: away from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, he theorizes that the pair will be able to reconnect and rediscover what first drew them to each other. Once there, however, the husband and wife continue to bicker and pick at each other, right up until the point where they discover their doppelgängers living in the guest-house: their doubles appear to exemplify each person’s “better” qualities but also seem unable to leave the guest-house. As the wife begins to fall in love with her husband’s “double,” her real husband must do everything he can to try to woo her back from “himself.” As the rules of space and time appear to be collapsing on themselves, the couple must make one last, desperate stand to preserve their marriage and, by extension, themselves: failure to do so may very well change the world…forever. Same old, same old, right?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Every once in a while, a film comes along that is so genuinely “out there,” so free of ties to conventional thought that it can’t help but stick out from the pack. Spike Jonze’s oddball Being John Malkovich (1999) is one such film, Jason Banker’s Toad Road (2012) is another. We could easily add Ben Wheatley’s amazing head-scratcher A Field in England (2013) to the list, saving a spot near the top for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013). Whatever you do, however, don’t forget to set a place at the table for Charlie McDowell’s feature-debut, The One I Love (2014), a genius film that manages to take the romantic-comedy, turn it inside out, spray-paint the carcass metallic gold, attach some rockets and send the whole damn thing straight into apace. It’s an incredibly simple film, utilizing only three actors and two locations, yet feels a million times more complex, stuffed to bursting with the kind of casual metaphysical nonsense that would be persona non grata in anything more “mainstream.” It is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite films of the year and, as far as I’m concerned, a cult classic in the making.

It’s hard to explain why the film works so well but I’ll give it the old college try. For one thing, you have an absolutely unbeatable cast: indie-film darling Mark Duplass has always been a lot of fun to watch (cold-start any given episode of The League for proof) but he’s never been better than he is here, effectively playing two very different characters, often at the exact same time. It’s a great performance because of how subtle it is: it’s not quite as simple as “alternative” Ethan being laid-back while “real” Ethan is uptight: Duplass works with his body language, facial expressions, posture and everything else at his disposal to really set these up as different individuals. There’s none of that hoary-old “which witch is which?” shit because both Marks are distinctly different individuals, even they seem to be opposite sides of the same coin.

Fans of Moss’ performances in Mad Men and Top of the Lake will already know what a gifted actor she is, able to easily portray the sad lot of the outsider without ever coming across as pitiable or in need of “saving.” Her performance here, like Duplass’, is a masterpiece of modulation: the differences between the two Sophies are even more subtle than between the Ethans, yet Moss still manages to make them distinctly different characters. Indeed, it’s Moss complete mastery of her characters that allows the final image to pack such a wallop. If it wasn’t completely obvious before, let’s go ahead and get it out-of-the-way right now: Elisabeth Moss is a force to be reckoned with and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if The One I Love was the beginning of her ascent into the stardom that she so richly deserves. It would be a career-making performance if Moss wasn’t already doing just fine: it’s just more proof that we need much, much more of her onscreen.

As a filmmaker, McDowell is an absolutely formidable presence. While the script (the feature-length debut for short writer Justin Lader) is rock-solid and pokes some suitably large holes in moldy rom-com clichés, it’s the director’s subtle touches that really make the film stand out. For one thing, I love how the ominous, foreboding score was almost always at odds with the action on-screen: from the get-go, the film makes us feel uneasy and edgy, which sits at decided odds with the Portlandia-esque opening banter between Duplass and Moss. We never have any idea which direction the film is going to take which ends up paying massive dividends in the second half when things really get hairy. It’s a smart, economical way to build mood and managed to put a big, dumb smile on my face from the jump.

I’m also rather enamored with the way McDowell (and Lader) combine so many disparate genres/themes/ideas into one big stew, tossing in elements of romantic comedies, troubled marriage dramas, intelligent sci-fi and double/doppelgänger films. It’s even possible to read the film as a horror movie, albeit an extremely tricky one: we never do get the full story of what’s going on but the bits and pieces we’re fed seem to point to some pretty sinister, mysterious things happening just off in the film’s margins. Ted Danson’s therapist is a fantastically shadowy character: the bit where he uses a piano to measure how “in tune” Ethan and Sophie are is nicely realized. If I have one real complaint with the film, it’s that Danson’s performance amounts to a glorified cameo: he deserved more screen time, plain and simple.

A lot of films get called “thought-provoking,” but The One I Love is one of the very few that earns the designation. The film not only makes some incredibly astute observations about marriage (there’s a painfully honest scene where Sophie discusses “real” Ethan’s infidelity with “fake” Ethan that’s almost too real to watch) but also manages to make the sci-fi/doppelgänger angle completely organic. The film makes absolutely no attempt to explain anything but, as far as I’m concerned, that’s one of its prime strengths: the remarkable amount of audience hand-holding. The One I Love is a film that doesn’t pander, relying on the antiquated idea that the audience won’t be too stupid to follow along. Suffice to say that I felt thoroughly satisfied with the resolution, even if nothing was wrapped up with a shiny bow.

If it hasn’t been made plainly clear before, I absolutely adored The One I Love. As a post-modern take on the romantic-comedy, it’s pretty much in a class all its own: there’s just enough ties to the old-school to make it recognizable, yet so much ferocious innovation as to let it easily stand out.  The acting was impeccable (if anything, I wanted more of everyone, not less) and looked like a million bucks. I had more fun watching this film than I have in quite a while. The One I Love is Charlie McDowell’s debut feature and, if you’re smart, you’ll keep an eye on him: I have a feeling he’s got a long, amazing career ahead of him.

7/10/14: A Mediocre Day at Black Rock

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actor-director, Anslem Richardson, battle of the sexes, Black Rock, cinema, disappointing films, Donkey Punch, drama, female friendships, film reviews, films, friends, Iraq War, islands, isolation, Jay Paulson, Kate Bosworth, Katie Aselton, Lake Bell, Mark Duplass, Movies, survival-horror, The Descent, The League, The Puffy Chair, thriller, violence against women, war veterans, Will Bouvier

I really wanted to love Katie Aselton’s Black Rock (2012): oh, boy, did I ever. I went into the film with not only the highest of hopes but also the greatest of expectations, practically willing it to be amazing. How could it lose, after all? The film stars and is directed by Aselton  (a complete gold mine in the uproariously funny TV show, The League), is written by her husband, Mark Duplass (also of The League and equally amazing), features Lake Bell (who may just be this generation’s Crispin Glover) and is a female-centric survival-horror film. A pedigree like this seems almost tailor-made for my sensibilities, especially considering how much I’ve always loved The Descent (2005).

Alas, Black Rock ends up being a pretty major disappointment. From a clichéd storyline and heavy-handed musical score to unrealistic, irritating acting and wooden dialogue, the film ended up deflating all of my expectations, one by one. Rather than being a neo-classic, Black Rock ends up being a distinctly lackluster entry into the survival-horror subgenre, more Donkey Punch (2008) than Wilderness (2006). Even worse, the film manages to fail as both a friendship-oriented drama and a horror film, keeping one foot planted in the worst of both worlds.

All that poor Sarah (Kate Bosworth) wants to do is return to the secluded island that she remembered so fondly from her childhood and relive her girlhood memories with her best friends, Abby (Katie Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell). The only fly in the ointment, of course, being that Abby and Lou can’t stand each others’ guts. Being a real Kissinger, however, Sarah decides to bring everybody together by just, you know, lying about it and invites them each separately. When they all show up at the dock, ready to board the boat, Abby and Lou look about as excited to see each other as a fly and a fly swatter might. Thinking fast, Sarah defuses the situation by pretending to have cancer. That’s right, Sarah the humanitarian bridges the divide by telling her best friends that she has a terminal disease. Let the good times begin!

From here, we get some pretty sub-Blair Witch arguing in the woods stuff, as Abby and Lou proceed to hash out every bit of their contentious relationship. Rather than seeming like a good way to get the gang back together, this begins to seem like a plot on Sarah’s part to have her friends kill each other: could this be some kind of Hitchcockian twist on the part of screenwriter Duplass? Nah…it’s just a lot of pointless bickering to add some “drama” and “character development.” The big problem? All of the “development” stops at the obnoxious phase and never makes it past that.

While tooling through the woods, our trio are surprised by three hunters: Henry (Will Bouvier), Derek (Jay Paulson) and Alex (Anslem Richardson). Turns out that the ladies all went to high school with Henry’s older brother, Jimmy. After as much awkward hemming and hawing as a junior high formal, Abby invites the guys to hang out and get shit-faced with them. This, of course, doesn’t make Sarah and Lou particularly happy, since Sarah wanted a girls’ weekend and Lou just wants Abby to spontaneously combust, but Abby gets what she wants because she’s Abby, dammit!

After another exceedingly awkward scene where Abby gets trashed and makes fun of Derek’s lack of facial hair while flagrantly coming on to Henry, she excuses herself to go get some firewood, followed shortly afterwards by Henry, who sees a good opportunity to take this to the next level. This, of course, leaves Sarah and Lou alone with Derek and Alex, which is just enough time to learn that the three guys are recently back from Iraq, where they were dishonorably discharged. “Something” happened over there, something that they don’t want to talk about but, hey: these are still probably nice enough guys, right?

Not quite, as we find out once Henry attempts to rape Abby out in the woods. She puts the kibosh on the attack with a large rock, which ends up putting the kibosh on the rest of Henry’s lifespan. This, in turn, makes Derek and Alex fly into a murderous rage: how dare this crazy bitch kill their wannabe rapist/potentially lunatic war veteran/cuddly best friend?! Since any measure of actual thought, at this point, would derail the rest of the film, the remaining guys make what seems to be a pretty reasonable decision: kill the three women.

Being a survival-horror film, however, this is all just set-up for one long game of cat-and-mouse between the three friends and their (presumably) insane captors. It goes without saying that they’ll break free, escape, suffer injuries, fight back, get in touch with their inner warriors and kick a ton of ass: it goes without saying because these are all of the traditional beats in any survival-horror film and Aselton and Duplass are absolutely not interested in doing anything outside of this particular box. Period. This, of course, all leads to an ending that could probably be seen coming from at least the end of the first act, if not the opening credits and the sudden realization that tremendous success in television comedy doesn’t necessarily translate to incredible success in a thriller/horror film.

Not to flog this horse too much but Black Rock really isn’t a very good film. It’s stunningly unoriginal, for one thing, almost seeming like a paint-by-numbers attempt at this particular subgenre. While the cinematography and shot selection is actually quite good, the musical score is eye-rolling, so heavy-handed that it felt like the music was constantly elbowing me in the side, going, “Eh? Eh? Get it? You get it?” The script is consistently awful, filled not only with howlingly bad dialogue but also so many character and plot inconsistencies that it felt unfinished, as if the dialogue was half-scripted, half-improv.

The fatal blow, however, has to be the unrealistic acting and thoroughly unlikable characters. To be quite blunt, all six of these people are shitheads: the men are all homicidal, misogynist, insane, steroidal assholes, while Sarah is a misanthropic, self-centered nitwit, Abby is a bat-shit crazy boozehound and Lou is a unlikeable jerk who spends the entire film making bitter beer faces at Abby. Not only would I never want to be stuck on an isolated island with any of these people, I didn’t want to be stuck in a movie with them, either. By the time folks started to die off, it was too little, too late: I kept hoping this would turn into some sort of alien invasion film and ETs would swoop in and turn these jackasses into ash piles. Alas, it was pretty content to stay a thoroughly pedestrian survival-horror film.

Perhaps the worst thing about Black Rock is how much wasted potential there was here. Aselton, Bell and Bosworth are all more than capable actors, while Duplass was responsible for writing not only the mumblecore films The Puffy Chair (2005) and Baghead (2008), but also the way-excellent Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011). What the hell happened? Short of any kind of definitive answer, I’m going to have to assume that this all looked a whole lot more promising during the planning stages, kind of like mixing the perfect souffle, only to have the whole thing collapse into mush in the oven.