Weekly Screenings: 11/14-11/20

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2016, Belly of the Bulldog, Ben Wheatley, cinema, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, Michael Smiley, Movies, November, Paranormal Sex Tape, Sex Tape Horror, Tank 432, weekly screenings

For the third week of November, I fear that the pickings were a bit slim: the stresses of starting a new job in a new field left little head space for the cinematic arts. For this week, we only screened two films, neither of which could have been called a home-run, by any standards. Call it a wash, then, but we still crossed two more off the 2016 releases list, so the Graveyard remains groovy. In that spirit, let’s take a look at this particular week’s offerings.

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Tank 432

Nick Gillespie’s Tank 432 (nee Belly of the Bulldog, which is a much better title) has a lot of things going for it: if anything, the veteran camera-man (he’s done lots of work for personal hero Ben Wheatley, who also produced) brings an awfully stacked deck to his first stint as a feature-length director. He’s got a great cast of British actors, including Rupert Evans, Michael Smiley, Deirdre Mullins, Gordon Kennedy  and Tom Meeten. There’s a unique concept and location. The visual style and sound design are top-notch and work well with the overall feeling of dread. All of the elements are here for a classic British genre film, ala the aforementioned Wheatley or Neil Marshall. Why, then, did I walk away so disappointed?

A group of shell-shocked soldiers, including Evans as the voice of reason, Smiley as the mouthy Irish guy, Kennedy as the hard-as-nails leader and Mullins as the resolute medic, emerge from an underground pipe and make their way across a desolate landscape. After finding a pile of bodies at an abandoned farm, the soldiers and their hooded, bound captives flee an unseen enemy until they find a single, solitary Bulldog tank sitting in the middle of a wide open field. The motley group stows themselves away in the tight confines of the broken-down gargantuan, jamming the door shut behind them against the threat outside. And then the fun starts.

Tank 432 starts out so strong that it seems all but assured a place in the same Hall of Fame that contains Marshall’s Dog Soldiers or David Twohy’s Pitch Black. The military element is uncommonly sharp, with great dialogue and a genuine sense of unity between the brigade. The veteran actors are all playing types, without a doubt, but they play them with nary a wink nor a nod: combined with the breakneck pace, there’s an instant immersion that builds a tremendous amount of good will early on.

Cinematographer Billy Jackson’s imagery can be quite lovely and mysterious, when he refrains from the sort of shaky, quick-cut nonsense that’s become so fashionable in genre films. The sound design adds immensely to the proceedings, accentuating the otherworldly quality of the tank and lending later events a heightened sense of lunacy. The fantastic element is introduced gradually and with enough organic clues for the astute viewer to pick up on what’s going on fairly early.

And that, in essence, ends up being one of the first (and perhaps biggest) problems with the film: after establishing a few possibilities for the uncanny events, the film proceeds to hammer down on the most obvious one, including a full explanation at the conclusion, just in case viewers were still in a fog. It’s completely heavy-handed and, coupled with the film’s completely chaotic and rather silly climax, left me with a bad taste that managed to wash away much of I’d enjoyed before. There are other issues, to be sure (the fact that the clever script devolves into “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you!” is particularly painful), but that was a real deal-breaker.

Tank 432 isn’t a bad film, by any means, but it is a terribly disappointing one, primarily because there was so much potential for a genuinely unique, strange and memorable film. The result is a movie that promises much more than it can deliver, writing a check that it can’t possibly cash. There’s a shell of a good story here and a pretty good idea of where it could have gone. In the end, however, like that proverbial tank, it just sits there and rusts.

Paranormal Sex Tape

 

I’ll be frankly honest: were it not for my personal goal to screen every single horror title released in 2016, there’s no way I ever would have watched auteur Dick Van Dark’s Paranormal Sex Tape (or Sex Tape Horror, if you make it to the end credits). I’ve developed a sixth sense for stinkers, so to speak, and there’s no way this one passed the smell test. Since it was on the menu, however, I was more than willing to let the dish speak for itself: after all, I’d been surprised by other no-budget horror flicks, this year, so the precedent was there.

If I may continue to be honest, gentle readers, I didn’t make it 10 minutes into the film before it became necessary to employ judicious use of the frame-forward button. I have a longheld personal rule that just doesn’t allow me to turn a film off once I’ve started watching: I may resist watching something for my whole life but, once it’s on, I’m gonna finish it or be damned. I couldn’t turn Paranormal Sex Tape off but there was no way I intended to watch every single obe of its 70 minutes: even I have my limits.

The plot (I don’t have a more appropriate word but that’s not quite right) seems to involve a young woman named Scarlet (the impossibly blank Amber West) and the “terrifying” figure that appears every time she has sex with her boyfriend (I’m assuming, since the film never makes this clear or even gives the poor fellow a name). She sets up a camera, in order to record the “demon” (again, the film never makes this clear in any way) and things get strange.

In essence, the film consists of incredibly long, dull scenes of Scarlet either walking to various places or riding the subway intercut with incredibly long, dull, softcore sex scenes involving Scarlet and the guy, while the demon waggles its hands in the background, looking thoroughly dejected. That’s just about it. We also get some nonsense involving Scarlet and a tattooed drug dealer, along with Scarlet and her strange friend (who I believe was portrayed by the director but, again, who really knows?) but none of them ever amount to more than time-fillers.

As noted above, I started advancing through the film once I realized exactly what it would be. The pattern was pretty simple: watch for a moment, get to a walking scene, advance until it was over, watch for a moment, get to a sex scene, advance until it was over, lather, rinse and repeat. I did manage to watch a few individual bits, here and there: one sex scene involving blacklights, bodypaint and a forced perspective vignette filter was too preposterous not to sit through. For the most part, however, this was just impossible, the kind of impossible that even Troma doesn’t seem capable of.

I’ll freely admit that certain films just aren’t my cup of tea and I don’t hold them to the same standards: the Sharknado series (the 4th, of which, is also on my 2016 list) is a good example of this. Maybe someone out there really got a kick out of this: if so, more power to ’em and a long and healthy life, to boot. As for me, this was amateurish junk, unfitting of even a porn label. Potayto, potato.

Join us next time as we delve further into November with last week’s screenings, including another of my picks for best films of the year. Until then, gentle readers, stay away from abandoned tanks and keep an eye on your sex tapes: you never know what may be watching!

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/21/15 (Part Two): The Abyss Stares Back

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Amy Jump, auteur theory, Ben Wheatley, best friends, British films, cinema, co-writers, contract killers, disturbing films, Emma Fryer, fate, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Harry Simpson, hitmen, husband-wife relationship, Kill List, Laurie Rose, Michael Smiley, Movies, MyAnna Buring, Neil Maskell, psychological horror, secret societies, strange ceremonies, Struan Rodger, twist ending, writer-director-editor

When one is standing at the bottom of a very deep hole, looking up at a tiny patch of daylight, it’s tempting to say that it can only get better from there: the only way is up, after all. This, of course, is a very comforting lie, the kind of fairy tale that helps us all sleep better at night. The plain and simple truth of the matter is that things can always get worse: regardless of far down you’ve already dug your hole, there’s always new depths to aspire to. As humans, the very bravest (and foolhardy) thing we can do is stare fate right in the face and dare it to blink. We’ll lose, every time, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Nowhere is this notion made more explicit than in British auteur Ben Wheatley’s sophomore film, Kill List (2011). When we first meet Jay (Neil Maskell), the poor bastard seems to have dug a hole as far into the earth as humanly possible. Out of work for eight months, after botching some sort of undisclosed job that appears to have left him with a potent case of PTSD, Jay’s doing everything he can to hold his life together, even if he’s doing a piss-poor job of it. Jay and his wife, Shel (MyAnna Buring), are at each others’ throats constantly, to the point where they routinely hurl bottles against walls and scream in each others’ faces until they’re out-of-breath. To make a bad situation even better, their young son, Sam (Harry Simpson), is a silent, aching witness to the whole massive shit show, wanting nothing more than some semblance of peace in his shattered home.

Things start to look up a bit, however, when Jay’s partner, Gal (Michael Smiley), shows up for a night of drinking, merriment and reminiscing. As the night progresses, complete with a number of potent meltdowns between the feuding spouses, Gal takes Michael aside and offers him an opportunity to “get back up on the horse” and bring a much-needed sense of financial security back to his domestic war-zone. Caught between a rock and an even sharper rock, Jay’s only too eager to get back to earning and takes Gal up on his offer.

Just what, exactly, did Jay and Gal do before whatever happened eight months prior? Well, as it turns out, they were hitmen, a revelation that Wheatley gets out of the way fairly quickly. Gal has just received a job offer that promises maximum money for minimum effort: all they have to do are exterminate three separate targets and they’ll get enough money to make any number of problems permanently disappear. After the pair meet with their strange “client” (a suitably sinister Struan Rodger), a meeting that ends with an impromptu blood oath, they set off on their fated path, uneasy but determined to get the job(s) done. It doesn’t take a psychic to know that this ends up being a very, very bad idea, the kind of bad idea that proves, once and for all, that life can always get worse. Much, much worse.

From his humble beginnings with the caustically comic “kitchen-sink-and-gangsters” flick Down Terrace (2009) all the way to his upcoming, much ballyhooed adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise (2016), writer-director Ben Wheatley has made a sort-of cottage industry out of the intersection between “polite” British society and the howling insanity of a world gone very, very wrong. By mashing character dramas up with more traditional (“traditional” being a relative term, here) genre films, Wheatley gives extra heft to his narratives, providing intricate insight into characters that, in lesser hands, might across as either vilely unredeemable or completely sociopathic. In Wheatley films, there are never traditional “heroes” or “villains,” nor is there, necessarily, a “right” or “wrong.” There just is, for better or worse…often, of course, for the worse.

Like all of Wheatley’s films, Kill List takes so many sudden turns and reveals so many surprises that to reveal much beyond a basic synopsis is to rob new viewers of a singularly unique experience. As far as plot and story goes, suffice to say that you will call some of the twists (or, at the very least, suspect them) but you will never call all of them, least of all the harrowing, soul-shattering climax. You may think that you know what Wheatley’s doing and, for a time, you might be right. Hell: even after seeing the film a half dozen times, I still find myself second-guessing earlier viewings and readjusting my understanding of the proceedings.

This, of course, is one of the hallmarks of any indispensable film: that ability to return, time and time again and discover new thrills with each subsequent viewing. There are plenty of exquisitely made films that have always been “one-and-dones” for me: it’s to Kill List’s great credit that, despite the film’s many unpleasantries, I keep returning to it, time after time. Chalk this up to the exceptional filmcraft, the airtight writing or the stellar performances (there, literally, isn’t a bad performance from the entire cast, whether in lead or walk-on parts) but Wheatley’s Kill List is the very definition of a modern classic.

Despite all of this, however, I find myself offering the same caveat that I do with many of my favorite films: Kill List, despite its overriding quality, is not a film for everyone. This is a film that delves into the very heart of darkness that so many genre and horror films only hint at, a film that derives its hideous power not from a collection of gory onscreen effects (although there’s plenty of those) but from the deeper horror of shattered humanity. The finale is impossibly, almost oppressively horrifying, make no bones about it, but it’s also deeply and fundamentally sad and hopeless, the kind of revelation that sucks the wind out of your sails, leaving you defeated and broken.

Kill List is many things: a tale of friendship and duty; a heartbreaking look into the dissolution of a marriage; an examination of the destructive power of anger and the redemptive nature of martyrdom; a mystery; a grotesque; a cautionary tale. Kill List is all of these things and so many more. Above and beyond all else, however, Wheatley’s Kill List is a dark, savage, merciless abyss: stare into it, by all means, but don’t be surprised if you find that the abyss also stares back at you.

10/22/14 (Part One): When History Just Won’t Stay Buried

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31 Days of Halloween, abandoned bunkers, Brett Fancy, British films, cinema, Dead Snow, directorial debut, Dog Soldiers, Enoch Frost, ensemble cast, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror franchises, Julian Rivett, Julian Wadham, Michael Smiley, Movies, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Neil Marshall, Oasis of the Zombies, Outpost, Paul Blair, Rae Brunton, Ray Stevenson, Richard Brake, set in Eastern Europe, soldiers, Steve Barker, UK films, zombies

Despite having seen so few good ones, I’ve always been a fan of Nazi zombie flicks. Chalk it up to seeing “classics” like Shock Waves (1977) and Oasis of the Zombies (1981) when I was I kid but I’ve always had a soft spot for shockers that feature the undead SS, especially when said films tend to take a more serious, dark approach. While Oasis, Shock Waves and Zombie Lake (1981) are all pretty silly entries in this particular subgenre, there have also been real gems like The Bunker (2001), Blood Creek (2009), the hilarious Dead Snow (2009) and The Keep (1983) (although The Keep is a bit of a cheat since it features Nazis and a demon but no Nazi zombies). Chief among these “good” Nazi zombie films, however, would have to be Steve Barker’s creepy, atmospheric feature-debut, Outpost (2007). Making good use of a strong ensemble cast and some genuinely eerie locations, Outpost is a rock-solid horror film that resembles Neil Marshall’s excellent Dog Soldiers (2002) yet manages to have an identity all its own.

Kicking off in present-day Eastern Europe, a fussy bureaucrat by the name of Hunt (Julian Wadham) hires a team of mercenaries to take him into a dangerous no-man’s land so that he can access a long-abandoned World War II-era bunker. Hunt tells the team that he’s after mineral deposits but merc leader DC (Rome’s Ray Stevenson) has his doubts, especially when his team appears to get fired on by unseen assailants. Returning fire with a zeal that should’ve laid a whole city flat, the mercenaries come to find that not only aren’t there any bodies in the nearby woods, there aren’t even any shell casings or signs that anything living was ever in the area.

Things get even eerier once the team descends into the bunker and realizes that nothing is quite as it seems. For one thing, the bunker appears to be an old Nazi fortification, as evidenced by the enormous swastika found in one of the chambers. There’s also an inexplicable room full of dead bodies, bodies which appear to belong to the poor, unfortunate locals in the area. Most importantly, however, the group also comes across a large, mysterious machine that appears to be part combustion engine, part science experiment. This, of course, is the reason that Hunt needed to come to the bunker: in the end, it always come around to some button-pusher’s hidden agenda, doesn’t it?

All hell breaks loose when Hunt powers on the machine and its seems to have the effect of raising the dead, unleashing an army of zombified Nazi soldiers upon the unfortunate mercs and their employer. Unlike the gut-munching zombies of Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead (1968), these Nazis are the weapon-utilizing variety found in Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980): in no time, the soldiers are locked in a desperate life-or-death struggle against creatures that shrugged off the mortal coil some time in the past but just can’t seem to stay dead. One zombie in particular, a mute, stone-faced commandant, appears to take charge of the undead legion, leading his troops in blood-thristy pursuit against the living. As DC’s men are picked off, one by one, he must uncover the secret behind the machine and figure out Hunt’s real reason for being there: otherwise, he’s going to be just another body for the war machine to roll over.

Similar to Marshall’s Dog Soldiers, Outpost ends up being an excellent, fast-paced and atmospheric war-horror hybrid that features some fantastic effects work (the makeup, in particular, is great), evocative cinematography and eerie sound design. The bunker location is a truly awesome setting and utilized to great effect by Barker and director of photography Gavin Struthers, in only his second full-length film. The filmmakers wring endless mileage out of the mercs slipping from one dark tunnel to the next, often lit by nothing more than the gentle glow of a light stick: to be honest, it never really gets old, testament to the importance of a good location.

In another nod to Marshall’s debut, the ensemble cast in Outpost is particularly strong, ably anchored by Stevenson’s authoritative performance as DC (in an odd coincidence, Stevenson’s partner-in-Rome, Kevin McKidd, was also in Dog Soldiers). The whole cast is solid, however, featuring reliable character actors like Michael Smiley, Richard Brake and Enoch Frost: their interactions ring true, for the most part, and it’s pretty easy to believe that these guys are not only former soldiers but current comrades, despite their often bristly relationships. Actually caring about the characters is one of the prime requisites for separating “decent” horror films from “good” ones and Outpost has this handily locked down.

While the “zombies using weapons” aspect was initially a little off-putting (I prefer my zombies to be old-school, meaning they shuffle, stumble and chew with their mouths open), it actually fits in perfectly with the film’s “soldier” theme and leads to some truly disturbing scenes, such as the one where the Nazis hammer bullets into one of the mercs. These Nazi are soldiers, first, and zombies second, which is actually kind of refreshing. Despite being more military than monstrous, the Nazis still manage to cut quite the terrifying figures: the scene where they slowly emerge from the woods, surrounded by fog and backlit by a blinding white light, is instantly reminiscent of both Carpenter’s classic The Fog (1980) and Bava’s stylish Demons (1985) and is a real corker.

Ultimately, Outpost succeeds so well because it has modest ambitions and executes them with a sturdy, self-assured hand. While the “mysterious machine” aspect of the film tends to get a little overly complicated (I’m still not quite sure what the logistics of the Nazi plan was supposed to be, although it was obviously nefarious), there’s no shortage of genuine chills and shocks to be found, making sure that the film stays firmly planted in “horror” territory. The ending even leaves the door wide open for a sequel, a promise which Barker would make good on a few years later with Outpost: Black Sun (2012), followed by a further entry, Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz in 2013, albeit one not directed by Barker.

And there you have it: a great setting, strong cast, smart script and creative kill scenes combine to make one helluva horror movie. While the early days of the Nazi zombie film might have been overly silly, it looks like Barker is helping to give them a little legitimacy. Here’s to hoping that the Outpost franchise continues to deliver quality chills into the distant future: for this guy, at least, you can never have too many Nazi zombies wandering around.

10/6/14 (Part Two): Middle Age, Pints and Blue Goop

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31 Days of Halloween, alien invasion, auteur theory, Best of 2013, British comedies, British films, cinema, co-writers, David Bradley, Eddie Marsan, Edgar Wright, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, friends, Gary King, horror-comedies, Hot Fuzz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, male friendships, Martin Freeman, Michael Smiley, Movies, Nick Frost, obnoxious friends, Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan, pubs, Rosamund Pike, sci-fi, Shaun of the Dead, siege, SImon Pegg, the Cornetto trilogy, the Golden Mile, the Network, The World's End, writer-director, youth vs old age

Like most vacation destinations, nostalgia is a great place to visit but a pretty awful place to live. While all of us may spend at least some part of our lives pining for “the good old days” and hoping to relive past glories, there comes a time when we must plant our eyes firmly ahead and charge straight into the unknown, lest we find that our lives have become the equivalent of a hamster ball: furious motion with no chance of forward movement. In a real reason sense, nostalgia can kill…but it sure is a pretty poison.

Writer-director Edgar Wright’s The World’s End (2013), the third entry in his unofficial “Cornetto Trilogy” that also features Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), is a movie that’s not only about the curse of nostalgia but also informed by this very phenomena: it’s a classic case of having your cake and eating it, too, if you will and it’s doubtful that many directors could pull it off as capably as Wright does here. The end result is wildly successful and, as far as I’m concerned, ranks as Wright’s greatest film, thus far, a towering achievement that manages to be equal parts gut-busting and thought-provoking. It’s a film that should be enjoyed by just about anyone but will have particular relevance to that portion of society who find themselves aging into versions of themselves that seem distinctly watered-down from their youthful ideals. For anyone approaching middle-age who’ve ever taken a long look in the mirror and asked, “What the hell happened to me?,” Wright’s got the cheeky answer: “You got fucking old, mate…it happens to the best of us.”

The man-child at the center of Wright’s latest opus is Gary King, expertly portrayed by Wright regular Simon Pegg, who’s managed to turn these type of roles into something of a cottage industry. From his start on the BBC with cult-hit Spaced to more recent films like How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) and A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012), Pegg has become something of the go-to guy for schlubs trying to relive their youth, characters who would rather get ripped at the pub, play video games all day long and avoid honest work than buckle down and admit that the care-free days are far in the rearview mirror.

In this case, Gary King is firmly stuck in the past: 1991, to be exact, which happens to be the year that he and his pack of friends attempted, but failed, to complete the Golden Mile. The Golden Mile entails drinking a pint at twelve different pubs, culminating in the titular World’s End pub. As far as he’s concerned, Gary’s life never got any better than that one debauched night and he’s spent the two decades since chasing that same dragon. He wears the same clothes as he used to, drives the same junker car, listens to the exact same mixtape and obsessively dwells on every minute detail of that era. When it all gets to be too much, Gary decides to do the only “sensible” thing: get the band back together, as it were, and give the Golden Mile another go.

There’s only one problem: Gary’s crew haven’t seen him in 20-odd years and many of them detest him with a passion normally reserved for baby-stealing dingoes. Never one to let common sense spoil a good plan, Gary goes about insinuating himself back into the lives of his former comrades, all the while trying to wheedle them into giving their old drinking challenge another try. Times, of course, have moved on and so have Gary’s “friends”: Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver (Martin Freeman) and Steve (Paddy Considine) all have their own lives, jobs and responsibilities to see to and none of them, particularly former best friend Andy, want anything to do with their former “leader.”

Gary’s nothing if not insistent, however, and in no time, he’s got the group back on the Golden Mile. As they pub-hop, however, issues old and new continue to rear their ugly heads: Andy is now a teetotaling “party-pooper” while no one is willing to forgive Gary’s past (and present) churlish behavior. When Oliver’s sister, Sam (Rosamund Pike) enters the picture, new conflicts abound: Gary had sex with Sam in the bathroom on that fateful night so long ago, but it’s poor Steve who’s always pined for her. Just when Gary’s insensitive, assholish behavior threatens to tear the group apart for the second time, they become united in something that seems a bit more important: the group stumbles upon a sinister plot to usurp humanity and invade our planet, a plot which they seem to be in the unique position to foil…even they can quit taking pot-shots at each other, that is. As Gary and his friends fight for the very survival of our species, they’re also fighting for the survival of their long-gone friendships and relationships, seeking to move from the immature past into the responsible present. If they succeed, mankind will live to fight another day. If they don’t, however, we may just see a future that makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) seem more like public service announcement than flight of fancy.

The most important thing to note about The World’s End is how absolutely, completely and totally enthralling the film is: from the very first to the very last one, Wright’s film grabs the audience by the lapels and doesn’t let go. From rapid-fire dialogue to an endless array of inventive and (frequently) astounding sight gags to one thrilling setpiece after another, The World’s End is absolutely relentless. The film rarely comes up for breath and hardly ever slows down. This could, of course, be a recipe for one very tiresome film: nonstop chaos is almost impossible to pull off, as evidenced by the fact that even mostly successful films like Airplane (1980) feature as many leaden duds as high-soaring hits. Thanks to the exceptional script, sure-handed direction and fantastic ensemble cast, however, The World’s End is one high-point after the other.

Truth be told, I’d already fallen in love with the film by the time the opening credits rolled: the next 100 minutes simply served to reaffirm this feeling. While I enjoyed both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, there was something about The World’s End that really struck a chord with me. Perhaps it’s the theme of aging gracefully into a more mature version of yourself…perhaps it was the wildly inventive invasion plot…perhaps it was just the fact that the film manages to hit all of its marks and then some…whatever the reason, The World’s End hooked me hard and refused to let go.

Since part of the film’s endless charm comes from the myriad surprises that it manages to throw at the audience, I’d be remiss to shed too much light on any of them. Suffice to say that the film features fist-raising moments galore: a spot-on reference to the under-rated Dead and Buried (1981); clever riffs on Invasion of the Body Snatchers; a throw-away visual reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) that’s made my jaw drop, a little; the fact that the climax manages to revolve around not just one but two classic clichés of sci-fi cinema; Nick Frost playing a neebish…Martin Freeman taking his prim and proper caracatures to their logical extreme…the film is like an endless replenishing box of goodies, coughing up untold comic treasures at a moment’s notice.

The comedy’s not the only thing that hits the mark, however: The World’s End succeeds just as capably as a sci-fi/horror film, featuring some truly intense and frightening scenes. The moments where the Blanks’ eyes and mouths become the equivalent of high beams is a truly chilling moment, whereas the numerous fight scenes are brilliantly choreographed and staged. One fight in particular, which features Simon Pegg moving in and around a brawl while attempting to avoid spilling his treasured pint of lager, is pure gold, perhaps the single best fight scene I’ve seen in years. Make no bones about it: The World’s End is a very, very funny film. It’s also a very thrilling film, however: the two polar opposites are absolutely not mutually exclusive, in this case.

In truth, there’s very little real criticism I can give the film, aside from the fact that I felt the final coda was a bit silly and unnecessary. Aside from that, however, I found myself in a pretty constant state of awe for nearly two hours. The World’s End is a smashing success, a film that sets a pretty high bar for itself, right out of the gate, and then manages to effortlessly hurdle that bar. It’s a film that can be enjoyed by anyone but should be treasured by those folks with even a passing interest in sci-fi (classic and otherwise).

There’s one point in the film where Gary posits that something must be going on with the people in the town because they’ve “changed”: 20 years later and no one seems to be acting the way he remembered. He never once, of course, allows for the distressing notion that he might be the one who’s changed, not them. We’d like to believe that we’re the truest people out there, the equivalent of a bunch of Holden Caulfields stomping through the masses, pointing out “phonies” left and right. In reality, however, we’re all just as compromised as the next person: time and the need to survive make hypocrites of us all.

Gary thinks that if he can just retrace his steps, he’ll be able to unlock some sort of Fountain of Youth, some way to prevent any more of himself from slipping away. He’s wrong, of course: the most that any of us can do is face the future, keep our backs to the past and keep trudging forward. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to make the journey with some good friends and companions. If not, we’ll keep circling the drain spout of irrelevance, ending up as no more than the dreams that our youthful selves never dared to hope might one day come true. When an ultra-goofy alien invasion comedy can make you think about stuff like this, you have what I like to call a classic on your hands.

2/9/14: Here There Be Monsters

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A Field in England, absurdist, Alejandro Jodorowsky, auteur theory, Ben Wheatley, black-and-white cinematography, British films, cinema, Down Terrace, England, English Civil War, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, horror films, Jim Jarmusch, Kill List, Michael Smiley, Movies, mushrooms, Nicholas Winding Refn, Peter Ferdinando, psychedelics, psychological horror, Reece Shearsmith, Richard Glover, Ryan Pope, Sightseers, Top Films of 2013, Waiting for Godot

Even though this particular Sunday featured the first double-header in quite some time (and the last for at least a week, sadly), I still found myself having to split the reviews in half. The reason? The first screening on that particular day was Ben Wheatley’s eye-popping, amazing new film A Field in England. Suffice to say, I had more than enough praise to fill up its own entry. We’ll get to the second film, Walker, in the next installment.

When it came time for me to sit down and actually A Field in England, I found myself inexplicably thinking of the Sound of Music chestnut “Maria.” Specifically, I found myself running the line “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” through my head over and over again. You see, I had my own little problem here: how, exactly, do you review a film like A Field in England? Would it be possible to explain my complete and total love for a film that I only partially (and, most likely, imperfectly) understand? Will anyone but a complete and total weirdo like myself even care about this crazy, absurd, brilliant little bit of madness? I like to think that true quality will always shine through, however: if something is good enough, it will always make itself known, even if it can’t make itself popular. In that spirit, I feel that it’s my duty to help make A Field in England as visible as possible. You’ve been warned, fellow travelers…you’ve been warned.

There is a plot to A Field in England, of sorts, but the film really functions more as a visceral, emotional experience than as a narrative, intellectual one. Truth be told, there were so many points in the film where the visuals and ideas completely overwhelmed my senses (especially in the colossally mind-melting “psychedelic freakout” scene) that any attempt to follow a traditionally linear story-line was pretty much given up as a lost cause. I intend to watch the film many more times before I die and hope, with each viewing, to understand it a little more: by the time I’m 90, I may just have it figured out…although I doubt it.

The film opens on a chaotic battle, during England’s 17th century Civil War. Our “protagonist,” Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith), has just seen his abusive commander get speared right before his eyes and, as skittish as a deer crossing a four-lane-freeway, hightails it for freedom. Whitehead meets three other deserters, Jacob, Cutler and Friend (Peter Ferdinando, Ryan Pope and Richard Glover, respectively) and the four set out to find some way out of the madness…or, at the very least, some place to grab a beer. What they find, unfortunately, is an express route directly into the gibbering maw of insanity.

Eventually, the group comes across the titular field. The field is covered in mushrooms and one of the men makes a tasty mushroom stew, which everyone but Whitehead partakes in. Continuing their trek across the seemingly endless field, the group finds a huge rope running down the center of the field. As anyone would do when confronted by a giant rope, the group digs in their heels and gets to pulling. The rope, it turns out, is tied to a strange man laying in the middle of the field: this man, O’Neil (Michael Smiley), just happens to have stolen some important documents from Whitehead’s master, who just happens to be a powerful alchemist.  Whitehead wants the documents back but O’Neil has other plans: you see, he’s positive that there’s…something…buried in the field and he forces Whitehead and the others to help him find it. As the situation becomes more and more bizarre and otherworldly, everything comes to a head as the men are faced with a terrifying realization: either the world has gone completely mad…or they have. Either way, they’re now stuck in a very strange situation with a very dangerous individual. Will any of them, Whitehead especially, be able to retain their humanity? Will O’Neil ever find his “treasure?” And what are we to think of the black sun that seems poised to swallow the entire world?

If ever there was a film that could be done no justice whatsoever by a plot summary, than A Field in England is that film. At first glance, a black-and-white period-piece about a group of men digging in a nondescript field would seem to be just about as interesting as watching paint dry. Don’t make the mistake of assuming this is any regular film, however: this is another species of beast altogether, much more akin to the glory days of transgressive cinema than anything more modern.

A Field in England is a brilliantly constructed puzzle box, one of those seamless head-scratchers that depends not so much on 3rd Act twists and misdirection as on an omnipresent sense of skewed reality and insanity. It may seem strange for me to compare such a singular film to existing movies but I think there are at least a few that do bear mentioning. The films of Jodorowsky, particularly Holy Mountain, are a big reference, as are the films of Kurosawa, thanks in no small part to A Field in England’s beautiful, evocative black-and-white cinematography. There were many points were the film explicitly reminded me of The Hidden Fortress, particularly with the (occasionally) comic interplay between the deserters and Whitehead. Jarmusch’s Dead Man seems to be a huge point of reference, not only for the sense of absurdity that runs through it but also for the mystical, dream-like atmosphere that permeates every shot. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention Refn’s Valhalla Rising, which often seems like a spiritual twin to Wheatley’s film. Toss Eraserhead into the mix, for obvious reasons, and mix in ample amounts of Waiting for Godot and voila: you get about as close to a good description of A Field in England as you possibly could.

Although I may not understand the film completely, I enjoyed it absolutely. In fact, A Field in England was both one of the most best and most infuriating cinematic experiences I’ve had in some time. On a purely technical basis, the film is flawless: the cinematography really adds to the overall experience (some of the still, tableau-like shots of the actors were truly haunting), the sound design is amazing and the script is very sharp: one of my favorite lines in quite some time has to be, “I just figured out what God is punishing us for: everything.” The dialogue manages to nail the absurd, nonsensical quality of writers like Beckett and Ionesco without sounding like a bunch of random sentences thrown together: there’s a disquieting but tangible sense that comprehension is just around the corner…if we allow ourselves to understand, that is.

The film opens with a warning about the use of stroboscopic images and, for once, the warning isn’t a bit of mood-setting fluff: when the film really kicks into gear, during the jaw-dropping psychedelic scene, the combination of sound, strobing images and bizarre visuals nearly overwhelmed me. For one of the first times in my life, I felt physically assaulted by a film…and it was amazing! Similar to coming out of the dead-man’s-drop on a rollercoaster in one piece, emerging from the other side of A Field in England with my psyche intact felt like some kind of a special achievement: woe to any who might try to view the film with chemical enhancement, since I could easily see that leading to a mental breakdown. Think that’s a little hyperbolic? Turn the lights off, turn the sound up and try to keep from turning away during the scene in question. That weird sound you hear? That just may be your brain crying for help.

Over the course of four full-lengths (Down Terrace (2009), Kill List (2011), Sightseers (2012) and A Field in England) and one anthology segment (in the ABCs of Death), Ben Wheatley has quickly become my favorite 2000s-era filmmakers, next to Nicholas Winding Refn. I’ve never seen a Wheatley film that didn’t blow me away and I’ve noticed the absolutely delightful trend that his films just seem to keep getting better as he goes along: Kill List devastated me, only to have Sightseers top it, only to be bested, in turn, by A Field in England. With this kind of track-record, Wheatley is set to be one of the single greatest filmmakers since the glory days of the ’70s. Fitting, then, that his new project will be the first film version ever of JG Ballard’s seminal High Rise.

Wheatley’s ability to blend kitchen-sink British drama with absurd, horrifying situations has been honed into a razor-sharp point. There are some films that flirt with the strange and absurd (Donnie Darko, Dark City) and there are some films that ARE strange and absurd (Lost Highway, Eraserhead, Holy Mountain): A Field in England is definitely the latter. My early comparison to Waiting for Godot is particularly apt: until the introduction of O’Neil, when the film takes a decidedly dark turn, it’s nothing if not reminiscent of British absurdities like The Bed Sitting Room or, perhaps, a particularly low-key Monty Python. Anyone familiar with Wheatley’s other films will definitely recognize his M.O: begin in a familiar, blue-collar-setting/style before gradually drowning the proceedings in nightmarish insanity and uncertainty. A Field in England seems even more capable of throwing us off-kilter thanks to its quasi-fantastical, period setting, which automatically makes it seem stranger than Wheatley’s other “modern” films.

At the end of the day, A Field in England is that rarest of things: an honest-to-God experience in a day and age where such things, at least as far as films go, are all too rare. Even Martin Scorcese thinks so: the film’s poster prominently features a pull-quote from the iconic director that says, simply, “A most original and stunning cinematic experience.” There ya have it, ladies and gentlemen: if A Field in England is good enough for Marty, it damn sure better be good enough for you. If you haven’t joined the Wheatley fan club, now seems like as good a time as any to send in your membership.