Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

MAY 30, 2019

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (4DX SCREENING)

My heart sank a bit when the ticket taker handed me a pair of 3D glasses for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as I remember the 3D being such a drag on the first film and have gotten even less interested in the format in the five years since. This was a 4DX screening, which has motion seats and wind/water/lighting* effects to immerse you in the film, but my lone previous experience for it was IT, which was not 3D, so I just kind of had it in my head that all the shaking around would make the extra dimension a bit of overkill and thus they didn't bother with it. Thankfully, the conversion was far more successful this time - I wouldn't call it *necessary*, but I never once found myself distracted or annoyed by it, which is an achievement all on its own.

And that applies to the film as a whole: an improvement on the original. I actually liked the 2014 one quite a bit, despite its nothing of a lead character, but I know a lot of folks weren't into the serious approach and reduced monster action, so I worried this one would just be wall-to-wall destruction porn to appease the people who buy large sodas for 9 am screenings. But it's actually a nice balance of the two approaches - it does indeed have more monster action, but not so much that you become numb to it after awhile, and it still offers enough time with the human characters to give you something to connect to. And they've fixed that too - Aaron Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen are MIA and unmentioned, and in their place we have Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga, two of the best actors in their age group. Chandler's character is a bit like Johnson's in that he just seems to be good at whatever the scene requires, but somehow it goes down easier when it's someone with more screen charisma.

As for Farmiga, her character has created a device that can mimic the "voice" of the various creatures and keep them calm when necessary, and naturally some nefarious types want the device for their dastardly deeds. She's also Chandler's ex-wife; their marriage fell apart after they lost their young son during the first film's Godzilla attack (shades of Batman vs Superman, throwing Bruce Wayne into Man of Steel's climax to tie the new characters into the first film's events), and their surviving daughter is living with mom but trying to retain her relationship with her dad. Thankfully, it's not a Twister kinda thing where they are forced to reunite because of whatever spectacle is occurring and fall back in love during the process - in fact I think they only have two scenes together throughout the movie, and they're not particularly warm. It's more about how they (and the daughter, played by Millie Brown from Stranger Things) have each dealt with the tragedy - Chandler shuts down and hates the monsters, Farmiga wants to understand them, and the daughter just wants her family back.

The other major new character is an eco-terrorist played by Charles Dance, who I spent some time marveling that it's been 26 years since Last Action Hero and this esteemed actor is still showing up and seemingly having a blast playing villains in summer blockbusters. He believes the monsters should be allowed to run rampant and restore some balance to the world (but not wipe us out entirely; kind of Thanos-y in that regard), so it's a good kind of villain where you can almost see his point if you happened to read the news before you entered the theater. The rest of the humans are fine; a few return from the first film (including Ken Watanabe, yay!) and the others are basically filling out stock characters; the nerdy assistant (Thomas Middleditch), the soldier who seems to be present for every major battle (O'Shea Jackson Jr), the guy who spends the whole movie looking at monitors, giving ETAs and the like, and saying funny things (Bradley Whitford), etc. I couldn't tell you any of their names and in a couple months I won't remember which of them survived, but as they were mostly played by actors I like seeing, and never doing anything particularly stupid, I had no beef with any of them. Again, if it was wall to wall action I'd get bored, so spending a few minutes with these folks in between the fights was hardly an issue for me.

But yes, the fights! As the title suggests there are more monsters this time: Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidora all show up along with G himself, who gets more screentime as well. With most of the humans kind of on his side (or at least, not actively trying to kill him) he spends most of his scenes fighting the bad ones (Rodan and Ghidora) instead of knocking down jet fighters or whatever, and like the first film he only starts crumbling buildings in the finale - but not because the director cut away from it. Gareth Edwards has been replaced by Michael Dougherty (who also co-wrote) and the new director had the good idea to set the first few battles in isolated areas (Antarctica and a couple miles off the coast of Mexico) so that we could get our giant monster action fill without watching buildings get knocked over ad nauseum. So when all four monsters collide for the big action finale, it's also the first time they're doing so in a city (Boston, in fact!), treating us to the destruction we've been waiting for without getting blue balls by cutting away from it just before it happened.

Back to Dougherty, if you are coming into this movie as fan of his as opposed to a Godzilla one, fear not - his mark is intact! For obvious reasons it's more mainstream than Krampus or Trick r Treat, but he works in some dark humor (there's an ejector seat gag that had me laughing for a solid minute) and - yes! - a nod to John Carpenter, as the Antarctic post where one of the monsters was found is known simply as "Outpost 32", making it a neighbor to MacReady and the rest of the guys (he also retains his signature credit font, itself a modified version of Carpenter's usual one). Similar to Krampus, some folks might get restless waiting for the spectacle to start, but as with that film he makes it worth the wait, though to be fair I am *from* Boston so making it the center of all the climactic action may have given me a bit of a bias. Seeing Godzilla fire his iconic atomic breath past the equally iconic CITGO sign made me wish I flew back to watch it at the theater I used to frequent just a ways up from Fenway Park - the crowds there must have gone apeshit.

This is a good a place as any to mention the 4DX presentation, which was terrific and probably added to my overall enjoyment of the movie. For those unfamiliar, the seat shakes and tumbles along with the on-screen action, and environmental effects are also tossed in for good measure. So when Godzilla punches a monster in the water, your seat jolts with the impact as a little mist of water sprays your face and air blasts fly past your ears. It's a gimmick, yes, but an effective one, and I found myself laughing at this or that seat motion more than once. The only downside to it is if you're a snack eater/drinker - if you're caught off guard, you will spill your stuff, so keep both hands on your drink when sipping and a firm grasp on your bag of popcorn to prevent any disasters (I'd also avoid coffee if that's your go-to). There's one moment in particular where a monster makes an appearance out of nowhere, and the 4DX folks take full advantage of the opportunity, with the seat suddenly lurching after a period of stillness - never assume you'll be safe from spillage for a few minutes!

In fact I only have two real complaints about the narrative. One is that, as with the first film, it seems some character moments have been dropped for pacing or whatever. Jackson and Whitford's characters in particular seem to have had their introduction excised, because all of a sudden they're just there, when both are played by actors you'd expect to be given a more fitting debut in the narrative (Charles Dance definitely gets a good one, for the record). Chandler's character also seems particularly attached to Jackson's, another thing that doesn't seem to be properly established before it just IS, where they're risking their own lives to save the other when it seems like they barely knew the other one's name.

The other is that it spends a few too many moments reminding us that this is part of an ongoing "Monsterverse" that includes Skull Island; while Kong doesn't show up properly they do mention him/his home like a dozen times, and at one point stops cold to introduce us to Joe Morton as the grown-up version of Corey Hawkins' character from that film, a scene that is in no way necessary. More obnoxiously, the same scene introduces Ziyi Zhang as the twin sister of her other character (who is part of the main story, playing Watanabe's partner), a "Huh?" type development I assume will pay off in next year's Kong vs Godzilla. Skull Island was at least nice enough to confine the world building stuff to the post-credits, so I wish this one had followed suit or at least reigned it in a bit - it got grating after a while.

Some of my colleagues and friends go all in for the Pacific Rim movies (well, the first one at least) while finding these to be snooze, but I dunno - the Godzillas are just more interesting to me, despite their occasional hiccups. Even though the Pacific Rim films have a better reason to keep cutting to humans (since they control the giant robots that fight the monsters) I have never cared about any of those people or their scenes, something that's not the case here. Would I like it even more if they cut 10-15 minutes of dialogue out and replaced it with another big monster fight in the woods or desert (two unused locales that would also keep collateral damage to a minimum)? Perhaps - but I never found myself waiting for them to show up, either. The original Godzilla films always had plenty of human-only scenes too, so I'm unsure where this criticism comes from. Trust me - two straight hours of monster fighting would get dull after a while, and it's much better to make those scenes count when they appear.

What say you?

*They also do olfactory effects, but as I have no sense of smell I can't vouch for them. Feel free to let me know in the comments what Godzilla smells like.

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Brightburn (2019)

MAY 26, 2019

GENRE: ALIEN, SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As movie concepts go, "What if Kal-El became Michael Myers instead of Clark Kent?" is kind of a great one - it allows the filmmakers to use a story everyone knows and then pivot into something different. It's basically the same as Marvel's "What If?" series (as I'm not a big DC reader, I don't know if they had something similar - forgive me if they do), where you'd get something like "What if Spider-Man saved Uncle Ben?" or "What if the Fantastic Four all got the same powers?", and get a quick glimpse of what that'd be like, per the imagination of that issue's writer anyway. It's such an interesting idea that I almost wish Brightburn had made tens of millions of dollars this past weekend, because maybe it'd launch an anthology series of films that had the same core idea, and then one creative team would do something more exciting beyond the one line concept.

Because sadly, if you've seen the trailer for the film, you've basically seen every idea it has - there's really nothing to it beyond which I've already described. It takes the core origin of Superman that you've seen in any number of movies (including/perhaps especially Man of Steel, more on that soon) and gives you a Cliff's Notes version so that they can get to the R-rated switcheroom but then never gets any more ambitious after that. For those who have somehow never seen a Superman origin story, the setup is this: the childless owners of a farm (played by Elizabeth Banks and David Denman) find a crashed spaceship in the woods behind their house one night, and it has what looks like a human baby. They raise it as their own, and as he grows up he discovers he has powers: super strength, heat vision, flight, etc., but to them he's still their son and they want to protect him. In the DC comics and movies, he of course becomes Superman/Clark Kent, a man of justice and principal who uses his powers for good.

In Brightburn, he uses his powers to melt a guy's head, or fly someone up hundreds of feet into the air only to drop them. As to WHY he does these things, the movie never bothers to explain that, but unlike Michael Myers I feel this time we kind of should know what exactly turned him into a murderer. Since the origin is so clearly taken from Superman's, it's puzzling why this film's primary character (named Brandon Breyer) turns out so different from Clark Kent. If it's a nature vs nurture thing, fine, but as we don't ever see the home planet or even learn anything about it, we have to just assume it's an... evil planet? I guess? Banks and Denman are seen to be great and loving parents, even after he starts doing terrible things, so I guess we have to just assume that it's simply in his nature to be an alien killer, and the planet is playing a long con by dropping him to Earth and waiting 12 years for him to do anything murder-y.

It's one of the many things that the film could have taken the time to explore, or even hint at. Instead it just lets Brandon discover a power, use it to kill someone, lie about his whereabouts to his only somewhat suspicious parents, and then repeat the cycle again. Worse, there's no real connective tissue from one sequence to the next, as if everyone just kind of hit a mental reset button in between scenes. At one point early on, Brandon lashes out as his father for not letting him have a birthday gift (a rifle), ruining his birthday party and rightfully pissing the man off - but in the next scene everyone's hunky dory again. And it extends to the other characters too; Brandon visits a classmate who is already afraid of him, and when she mentions her mother not wanting him anywhere near her, he says he'll take care of it and disappears. You'd think the girl would warn her mother, or at least mention it to the cops when the woman turned up missing (it's the lady in the diner you've seen in the trailer), but nope! She's barely even mentioned again.

And that is very frustrating, because each scene on its own is fine, sometimes even quite good, especially when it concerns a character whose fate WASN'T spoiled in the damn trailer. But they don't really add up to much, so as the film went on I found myself less and less interested and basically just mentally checking off when each thing from the trailer happened and in turn what would be left ("Where's that bit where Banks runs to the door to see a cop just as Brandon flies by and whooshes him off? Oh, there it is."). Even the film's closing scene was given away in the spots, so it almost felt like I was watching an extended cut of a film I already saw instead of being engaged by a new story. Such a flimsy narrative can be saved by strong/memorable characters, but that's a miss too; characterization is so thin that at an hour into the movie, Banks' character comes home with a name tag on and it was the first time I was aware she even had a job (what exactly it is is still a mystery).

Also, while the gore gags are great (there's one involving a jaw that KNB, Savini, etc. must be jealous they didn't do first), the stalking parts aren't particularly scary or suspenseful, killing much of the "It's a superhero slasher" appeal for me. If you're a fan of the later Jason movies where you rooted for him and they doubled the body counts, you might be into it, but as I prefer the older ones where the filmmakers were still trying to have some real tension in there, I found it lacking in that department. There are some nice shots here and there, like one of Brandon standing (flying?) at a window as the drapes blow him in and out of visibility, but the stalking is pretty much always the same - he is standing in a spot, then he's gone, then he's right next to the target and kills them. The gimmick gets old after two kills, and the script never bothers to introduce any real wrinkles or surprises. Banks discovers a weakness, but it's a non-starter, and there are no equally powered heroes for him to fight or anything like that - he just does his thing over and over until the movie hits a 90 minute mark, at which point it ends.

So really, the only thing that really kept me engaged was my amusement that producer James Gunn (his brother and cousin wrote the script) convinced Sony to give him a few million bucks to make fun of Zack Snyder, his "partner" from Dawn of the Dead (Gunn's script was rewritten by others once Snyder came on board; I'm not sure if the two ever actually collaborated in a traditional way). Snyder's version of Superman has been (rightfully) criticized for being kind of an asshole, without much regard for the human beings around him, so it seemed to me like Gunn and his crew had the idea of taking it to the next level and turning him into an actual serial killer. Which is very funny, yes, but probably would have worked better as a Funny or Die short film or the one-shot comic book I described. For a feature film, as good as that joke may be, it ultimately wore too thin for me. It's a fine enough one-time watch I guess, but this concept deserved a lot more meat on the bone.

What say you?

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FTP: Single White Female (1992)

MAY 15, 2019

GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Like any good horror/thriller fan, I saw Single White Female when it came out on video, and maybe once or twice more over the following months, but never again - I remember it being enjoyable but not the sort of movie I needed to watch over and over like Buffy and Lethal Weapon 3 (to use examples from that same summer of 1992). All I really remembered was that Bridget Fonda got a roommate who started mimicking her hairstyle, borrowing her clothes, even muscling in on her boyfriend, and that eventually things got deadly - which I could have surmised from the trailer if I watched it. But a friend of mine had recently referenced it a couple times in regards to a friend who was kind of doing the same thing Jennifer Jason Leigh does in the movie (albeit without the violence, thankfully - just the more harmless stuff), so I dug it out of the dreaded pile to give it my first look as an adult.

Well unlike some other childhood movies that I revisit, my memories weren't way off or anything - it is indeed a perfectly decent thriller that doesn't benefit from repeated viewings. At 107 minutes it's a bit drawn out, which doesn't help make a rewatch all that enticing, especially when you consider how unambitious it is. The New York setting is largely wasted; I'd estimate 75% of the film takes place in their apartment, with minimal and non-descript exceptions like the hair salon and Fonda's office. Fonda apparently only has one friend, a gay neighbor who lives in the apartment below, and despite being a gorgeous woman with an interesting job she apparently has no other romantic prospects beyond Steven Weber, the fiance who cheated on her (with his ex no less!) and forced her to take on the roommate in the first place. Honestly, the thing could be adapted for the stage with very few revisions.

And while Leigh's creepy "I'm gonna be just like her" moves are engaging to a degree, they're kind of deflated by Fonda's reluctance to do much about it, chalking it up to "I feel sorry for her" kinda stuff as opposed to being unsettled as she should be. If she doesn't feel threatened, why should we? Plus she takes Weber back instantly (before Leigh has even really done anything nutso), so you spend the movie thinking "If she took an extra couple days to put that 'roommate wanted' ad out she wouldn't have needed one anyway". That movie The Roommate was a big ol' ripoff of this one, but at least the college setting gave the sense of being truly stuck with someone like that. Why doesn't she just stay wherever Weber went after she kicked him out?

But Leigh's performance keeps it going; the stiletto kill still works like gangbusters, and in the #MeToo era the subplot about Fonda's sleazy boss (played by Stephen Tobolowsky!) probably works better now than it did in 1992, as both women get a chance to give him exactly what he deserved (Fonda hits him in the balls, Leigh kills him). And I couldn't remember how it ended exactly, so the finale gave me the requisite number of thrills, especially the great bit where Leigh thinks she's got Fonda trapped only to discover it's a ruse. Plus, a computer with networking capabilities plays a part - it's always fun to go back and see how things we take for granted like "sending out an email to silently report an intruder" used to be a massive undertaking that the person on the other end might not even fully understand.

Scream Factory's blu has a bunch of interviews and a commentary, but alas Fonda and Leigh are MIA (they got Weber though, who admits to getting aroused during a makeout scene with the former). The one with the writer is funny because he says he was inspired by seeing The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, which can't be correct as they shot the movie before that one was released (maybe it was Pacific Heights?) and also that he didn't really remember the book he was adapting, only using its major plot points and whatever else he recalled from his single reading. Good thing he wasn't hired to adapt Game of Thrones, I guess.

What say you?

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FTP: The Binding (2016)

MAY 8, 2019

GENRE: RELIGIOUS, THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It must really suck to be a devout Christian. Despite being raised Catholic I don't follow much of it these days (though "Thou Shall Not Kill" is a pretty good idea, I must admit), so if I came home one day and my wife said that God told her to murder our kid, I wouldn't hesitate to grab him and get the hell out of that house as quickly as possible, then call the cops and tell them a crazy person was in my home and please have them removed. But the heroine of The Binding, married to a minister who indeed tells her that God wants him to kill their child, chooses to stick around and try to get him some help, while usually leaving the child right there in the home with them - because the rules of her religion basically tell her to obey the minister and have faith in what he's saying.

Thankfully, the movie is more or less about her growing concern that maybe he's a nut and, furthermore, some of their religious ideas are a little insane, rather than go along with it blindly. But it doesn't change the fact that it's dreadfully dull and hard to get into, because it takes her so long to finally put her foot down; it's one thing to yell at Laurie Strode for dropping the knife at the end of Halloween, because she's been smart up until that point and now you love her and want her to survive. But when the main character (Amy Gumenick, who played young Mary Winchester at one point on Supernatural) is "dropping the knife" (so to speak) for the entire runtime, there's no real "in" to the story. Perhaps to devout Christian viewers this would be more terrifying or at least involving, because they might have trouble reconciling their long-standing faith with an immediate danger they can see with their own two eyes, but I spent 85 minutes rolling my eyes at her for not leaving, calling the cops, etc. I just don't understand the mindset of anyone who'd put religion over their child's well-being; quite frankly I was hoping child services would come and remove the poor girl from both of these morons.

Anyway, the movie is more or less in a loop until the final 10 minutes: the wife has a vision or nightmare of something happening to the child, the husband comes home from work or whatever and says something cryptic, they bicker, they talk to someone (a fellow priest, a shrink, etc) to try to help him, it doesn't take, a truce is called, and the cycle begins anew. She briefly lets her mother take the kid out of the house for a bit, but before long she's back in danger in her own home. For a thriller there isn't a lot of thrills outside of the obvious nightmare scenes, and most sane viewers will have checked out long before the husband finally decides to start acting on the plan he's convinced God has tasked him with. Oh, for those not caught up on Bible stories, the title refers to Isaac, a tale in which God commands Abraham to offer his son (that'd be Isaac) as a sacrifice, to which Abraham complies by binding him to an altar and then murdering him. Luckily, he only gets through the first part - God just wanted to see if he had enough faith to actually go through it, and stops him just in time.

Well (spoiler ahead) the husband chickens out at the last second and stabs himself instead, letting the baby live... but turns out he wasn't crazy after all, and God, apparently pissed off, brings upon the end of days (or at least shuts off all of the electricity in Los Angeles) as punishment for the guy not having more faith, I guess. Had this been the halfway point of the movie they might have been on to something, but why wait until the last 10 seconds to do something interesting and daring? This could have been an indie horror Knowing, instead of a lifeless thriller where most viewers won't be able to connect to its main character. I admire the "he was right all along" approach (shades of the underrated End of the Line), but it's too little too late - a cherry on top of a gross ass salad instead of delicious ice cream. Oh well.

What say you?

P.S. Rare for Scream Factory's modern indie releases, the Blu-ray has commentary and deleted scenes. However, "pile" movies need to be better for me to bother with their supplemental stuff, so I didn't watch any of them. Just letting you know it's a special edition should the above have you thinking it might be worth checking out!

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The Intruder (2019)

MAY 3, 2019

GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

A few years back, Screen Gems was making some decent money with a series of annual (September releases, usually) thrillers that cast black actors in the roles that would have been played by white actors in the 90s films they often emulated. None of them were particularly great, but they served as decent time-killers and offered some more grounded thrills before the more elaborate horror movies came along to cash in on the Halloween season. But after 2016's When The Bough Breaks failed to hit the same level of grosses as its predecessors, they took a couple years off, and only came back now with The Intruder, which picks up where the "series" left off - for better and - alas mostly - worse.

Michael Ealy (who was the villain in one of their other ones) and Meagan Good are a San Francisco couple who decide to buy a house in Napa Valley so they can start a family and let those children play outside. For reasons we're not privy to, they entertain no other options and zero in on a house owned by Charlie (Dennis Quaid), who has refused other offers because he didn't like the people who wanted to buy it. But he has a "good feeling" about these folks and sells it to them, only to keep showing up as if he still owns it. At first he's just helping them mow the lawn and reminding them when to tend the garden (it's a huge estate), but then Scott (Ealy) starts finding him to be a creepy nuisance, while Annie (Good) seems to enjoy his company and feels bad for him. Guess who is right about him?

I mean, even if the trailer didn't give away everything, you'll know he's a psycho before they even make an offer on the place, so in this current climate it feels like a huge step back to have Good's character spend so much of the movie oblivious to Charlie's nature. Had the roles been switched, allowing Scott to bond with Charlie as a sort of father figure while Annie was suspicious, maybe it would have gone down easier, but the movie's practically over by the time she finally realizes that Charlie's insane. And it's not helped by the episodic nature of the plot: Scott goes to work or something (he commutes back to San Fran every day - it's a two hour drive at rush hour), then Charlie shows up with some food or to offer a hand with the Christmas lights or something, and Annie lets him in, never once questioning why Charlie is still hanging around for TWO MONTHS (at least) after they bought the house from him. Scott comes home and says "I don't like that guy, I don't want him here" and she seemingly agrees, only for the cycle to repeat again the next day or week or whatever.

So you're just waiting for her to finally catch on so the fun stuff can really begin, and the limited cast keeps it from ever coming to life before that point. There are only two other people of note in the film: Scott's business partner Mike, and Mike's wife, who stop over every now and then. The wife disappears without fanfare, but Mike is tasked with "doing some digging" and discovers Charlie's past, so you know he's a goner. Unfortunately he's the only obstacle - the police are a non-entity, there's a brief subplot about Scott having a wandering eye that goes nowhere, and we barely even see him at work. Part of the fun of the movies that this one is ripping off (Unlawful Entry and Pacific Heights seem to be very much on the mind of the screenwriter) is seeing the villain make the heroes' lives fall apart, but other than running Scott off the road while jogging (resulting in the vaguest injuries I can recall seeing in a major film - he seems to just be... kind of upset by getting run over?) Charlie can't be bothered to do much beyond kind of annoy them.

Even his backstory is bland - turns out he made some bad business deals and owes a lot of money, which is why he had to sell the house (which his great grandfather built and is the only one he ever lived in, which is why he's so attached to it). We see that he has two kids but we only briefly meet one of them, who confirms to Scott what he already knows (that Charlie's insane), in a scene that feels like it should be a big reveal but comes off more as a reminder for audience members who might not have been paying attention. But at least she has a reason to be offering up this information, because Scott called and asked - a big difference from when he's first tipped off in a coffee shop, where a guy in line who we've never seen before basically says "Hey you just bought Charlie's place huh? Isn't it great? Charlie's got secrets and probably killed his wife there. OK, see ya!" I mean I'm paraphrasing but that's 90% the gist of it, and then the guy disappears - we never see him again. It's the clunkiest and most shoehorned scene I've seen in recent memory; it's so out of place that it doesn't even surprise me that as of this writing his character isn't even on the film's IMDb page.

Ultimately there are only two reasons to watch the movie, with one being obvious: Quaid's performance. He doesn't play too many villains, and you can tell he's stoked about the opportunity - every now and then we get to see him on his own, where he practices smiling in the mirror and talks to himself, and I couldn't help but wish the movie was entirely from his perspective instead of the forgettable main couple (whose occasional marital problems never seem to extend into the following scene; much like their thoughts on Charlie, it's like a reset button gets pressed every time they go to sleep). It's only in the last 20 minutes that he really gets to cut loose, but it's great - he even pulls a couple Michael Myers moves, appearing/disappearing behind Annie like Michael did behind, er, Annie in the original, and also slowly lowering himself from a hiding spot above like in H20. The man's in his 60s, but he looks great (he's shirtless a few times, ladies!) and chews the scenery selectively, making it count when he does.

The other may have been unintentional, but let's pretend it wasn't for their sake. As explained, the movie is about an unhinged man, ravaged by bad business decisions, who fully snaps when a black man takes over the house he wants for himself - and he wears a red ball cap for good measure. A bit of a reach perhaps, but I was looking for anything to make the movie more interesting until it got to the inevitable showdown, where at least there was a chance Charlie would kill Scott, or inadvertently destroy the house and kill himself, or maybe Annie might finally do something besides offer Charlie some wine (seriously, between the three characters we see like ten bottles get consumed over the course of the movie). But until then, Quaid's tics and the amusing idea that the filmmakers were taking a few shots at 45 were the only life the movie really had.

I didn't bother to look at the credits beforehand, and there weren't any up front, so it wasn't until the movie was over that I discovered it was directed by Deon Taylor, who also "blessed" us with Chain Letter and Meet the Blacks, aka two of the lousiest movies I've ever suffered through (I even dubbed the latter one of the worst movies to ever play in wide theatrical release; not even sure if it's hyperbole). This is at least an improvement on those goddamn things, because it's at least mostly competent (though he still seems to believe smooth editing is for chumps; there are any number of occasions where there's a cut and the characters are clearly in different spots/positions than they were in the previous shot), but this guy is clearly not on my wavelength. A movie that holds my interest only because I am waiting to see the stuff I was promised in the trailer (namely, Quaid finally cutting loose and Good finally being less dim) is not a particularly valid use of my time.

What say you?

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Tarantula! (1955)

APRIL 26, 2019

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I frequently daydream about being born in the late '30s or early '40s, so that I'd be the right age to go see the 1950s monster movies (not to mention the revivals of the earlier Universal stuff!) when they were new... and not yet outdone by the stuff I DID grow up with, i.e. the '80s monster movies, some of which were superior versions of those films (i.e. The Thing, The Blob, etc). Because while still enjoyable to a degree, it's hard to really get excited about something like Tarantula! when I'm seeing it for the first time in 2019, 60+ years after it was made. Without the nostalgic factor to give it a boost, I can just take it for what it is: a rather slow paced giant spider movie with not enough destruction to make up for its long buildup.

Ironically, I never expect these older films to be fast paced, but the movie gave me a reason to be optimistic as it kicked off with a deformed man, clearly the result of something gone awry (i.e. the same experiment that would produce our giant spider), staggering around and dropping dead in the first few minutes. "Great!", I thought, figuring that meant our titular "hero" would be along shortly since we were joining a story in progress. But alas that wasn't really the case; another deformed scientist frees the (big but not GIANT) spider about 15 minutes later, and then it takes another 30-35 minutes for it to actually start attacking anything. And it's not even a full-on mayhem fest from that point even though there's less than 30 minutes left - there's quite a bit of yakety yak in between the spider scenes all the way until the bitter end, and we see more people running from the thing on the Blu-ray cover than actually see it in the movie.

Luckily the spider scenes are still fun, and it seems they went for a quality over quantity approach. Sure, the rear projection stuff doesn't always look amazing (especially on Blu-ray) and there's a funny mistake in the mattework that results in the spider's legs disappearing in one shot, but it holds up better than a lot of other FX shots of the era (and even some beyond it). It doesn't hurt that they used an actual spider instead of a scale puppet or something, so even though we are denied much up close and personal interaction with the characters there's still some genuine spectacle to enjoy, especially in the wider shots when the spider is menacing a hillside or something. Since I, like any sane human, have a natural tendency to want to stomp on or run away from a spider when it's in the vicinity, having a real one, as opposed to a fake looking puppet, really helps it play as intended even if the compositing isn't always great.

And director/co-writer Jack Arnold gets some mileage out of the slow transformation of poor Leo G. Carroll (not over a barrel, as I discovered), who is injected with the same serum that made the giant tarantula. But he doesn't become a giant Leo G. - he just turns into the same mutant thing that the guy at the beginning did, and his final form (courtesy of Bud Westmore, aka the guy who stole Millicent Patrick's credit for Creature From The Black Lagoon) is legit kind of unsettling, with a drooped eye and other facial disfigurements (the first victim's symptoms are chalked up to Acromegaly). Since we never saw the other guy normally, it's hard to tell the progression, but Leo starts the movie looking like, well, the guy from the Hitchcock movies and what not, and ends up looking like the Phantom of the Opera mixed with the Elephant Man.

As for the heroes, eh. John Agar is his usual amiable but forgettable self, and while I liked Mara Corday as "Steve" (Stephanie), she doesn't get all that much to do. Her and Agar don't fall in love, so there's something, but you could also remove them from the movie with almost minimal effect. In fact you could do it with *zero* effect when it comes to the climax - they just stand and watch as jet fighters (one piloted by an uncredited Clint Eastwood!) take on the monster. They're not even that close to the battle, so the risk of getting caught in the crossfire is nil - they might as well have just gone home early. My favorite character was probably the sheriff, because he was played by Creature's Nestor Paiva, a guy I always love to watch. He'd reteam with Agar on Revenge of the Creature (his Lucas was the only one who came back from the original) and Mole People, and it's easy to see why Universal kept pairing them up: the two have good chemistry here, starting off kind of antagonistic toward each other but becoming bros by the end.

Besides the trailer the only bonus feature on the Blu-ray is a commentary hosted by Tom Weaver, who also notes that the film pales compared to the likes of Them! and others of the era, though still has its charms. It's an odd track; he is by himself but frequently introduces separately recorded folks to offer their own insight, including someone who explains the history of the film's (mostly recycled) score for ten straight minutes before Weaver returns. It's a good way to get around the dryness that usually accompanies solo tracks, and it has a good mix of "guest stars" (Joe Dante even pops up at one point), and Weaver himself offers up some good info, such as a rundown of Arnold's various lies about the script (which he ultimately took sole credit for in later years, despite the two other credited writer's proven contributions) and how the scientists ended up looking like morons after a scene explaining their motives was deleted.

Without a 3D gimmick or franchise appeal, I'm not sure how this one can really find its place for modern fans. It's very much a product of its time, for better or worse, but there are better options for those who haven't ever seen one of the giant monster flicks of the era. Obviously if you're already a fan then it's an easy recommend - the transfer is terrific and the commentary track has plenty of good information for those who are curious about such things - but if my kid asked to see an ideal entry from this decade, I'd go with Them! or even The Deadly Mantis if I wanted him to have more fun with the experience and not walk away with the dreaded "it's old so it's boring" takeaway. Plus, in my house, Kingdom of the Spiders is the spider horror movie of choice, so it can't win there either. It's fine, just not one of the best of its time and made somewhat irrelevant over the six decades since.

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FTP: Full Moon High (1981)

APRIL 17, 2019

GENRE: COMEDIC, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Like any good horror fan, I was sad to hear the news that Larry Cohen had passed away a few weeks back. Not because we would be denied more films, as he seemed to have retired from filmmaking anyway (his sole directorial effort in the past 20+ years was his Masters of Horror episode, thirteen years ago), but because he was such a fun storyteller for Q&As and commentary tracks, and it's sad knowing he won't be able to contribute one again. Luckily he was still in good spirits and health when he sat down (with King Cohen director Steve Mitchell) to talk about Full Moon High, and it's one of his better tracks - his memory is vague on a few things (naturally; I mean, it's been 35+ years) but he's got plenty of fun anecdotes and "from the trenches" tales of indie filmmaking, making the track just as entertaining as the film.

Or perhaps more so? It's not a BAD movie, but for a comedy it's oddly low on big laughs until the last twenty minutes, when Alan Arkin shows up as the world's worst psychiatrist. Until then, it's got a sort of breezy charm that keeps it watchable, but overall it lives up to the standards set by the other early 80s glut of spoofy horror movies (Class Reunion, Student Bodies, Saturday the 14th, etc), i.e. you're better off rewatching Young Frankenstein than tracking them down. Unless, of course, you're a particular fan of their individual filmmakers or stars and are seeing them out of curiosity - indeed, the only reason I bothered with this was because I hadn't seen it yet and wanted to listen to Cohen tell some stories to celebrate his life (and also because it's been in the pile for well over a year now so it made a good candidate for this column).

The weirdest thing about the movie is that it's a PG-rated sex comedy. Adam Arkin plays a high school football star who is bitten when traveling with his horndog father (Ed McMahon!) and becomes a wolf with a penchant for biting victims on their butt. He also becomes a conquest of sorts for a few of the local women, including Happy Days' Roz Kelly, so we are treated to more sex scenes than I've ever seen in a PG movie (hell, it technically has more sex than Basic Instinct). Add in the coach (who seems to have designs on his players as opposed to the cheerleaders) and some other supporting characters' own inhibitions, and you have a super horny movie that is also hamstrung by its rating, which makes it feel neutered, never getting as outrageous as it often feels like it should be.

One thing that does work is the time jump; as an immortal, Arkin's character leaves town and does his thing elsewhere for 20 year or so before coming back, posing as his own son and re-enrolling at school. Some of his friends (including Kelly and the coach, played by Kenneth mars) are still around and aged up, and his school has gone to total shit over the years, so Cohen does a pretty good job at establishing the two time periods despite his usual low budget and some iffy actors. One of my favorite gags was during this passage of time montage, which was partially explained by replacing the photo of the current President: Eisenhower to Kennedy, Kennedy to Johnson, etc. After just swapping the photos for a bit, Cohen tosses in some gags: Nixon's photo is angrily shattered first before being replaced, and Ford's is placed but not actually hung, letting it instantly drop to the floor - heh.

That and a few other inspired gags are spread out between what for me was just a lot of mild smiling. If this was a straight up horror comedy, that might not be such a big deal - as long as the horror element was working, the dud jokes wouldn't hurt all that much. But this is a full on comedy with a werewolf in it, much closer to Teen Wolf than American Werewolf in London, so the jokes need to land more often than they do, even when taking into account that some of the humor is no longer in vogue. I suspect it has a number of fans who saw it for the first time in the early 80s, but seeing it for the first time now, sans nostalgia? It doesn't quite hit the mark. Still, Cohen ropes in some of his regulars, and Alan Arkin's performance is right in line with the stuff Michael Moriarty was doing in his best collaborations with the filmmaker, so it still at least satisfies on that level. Cohen's made worse movies, certainly, so as a tribute viewing I guess it turned out OK. But I'll miss him more than I'll miss this disc when I trade it in, for sure.

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FTP: The Witches (1966)

APRIL 10, 2019

GENRE: CULT, HAMMER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Maybe from now on I'll stay away from anything Hammer made in 1966. I like Plague of the Zombies OK but it's partially my nostalgia driving that one (first one I saw), but The Reptile was possibly my least favorite and now The Witches gets pretty close to that territory as well. On paper it sounds fine (incidentally, it's adapted from a book), telling a Wicker Man-ish story of a lady taking a job as a schoolteacher in a town where everyone is "off", but the movie never has a pulse until its final ten minutes, and that stuff isn't scary or thrilling - it's just ridiculous, which is an improvement over "plodding", sure, but certainly isn't what anyone would probably want when they sat down for a Hammer movie about witches.

Things are amiss almost instantly. The film begins in Africa, where our protagonist Gwen (Joan Fontaine) is desperately trying to escape from some approaching witch doctors, due to events we're not fully privy to. The masked doctors crash through the door and approach her, seemingly to kill her, and then the movie fades to credits, only to come back in England where she's meeting about the schoolteacher job - she's apparently just a bit rattled by her experience that seemed to suggest she was about to be murdered. I actually spent a chunk of the runtime thinking maybe she was dead and this was some kind of Jacob's Ladder kind of deal, but as the movie dragged along I realized that would be too exciting a conclusion for this particular story.

Oddly enough, the most fun I got out of the disc was the historian commentary by Ted Newsom (the package says he'd be joined by Constantine Nasr, but while Mr. Nasr is mentioned a few times he's not there). I tend to find most of these a bit too dry for my liking when they're solo, but Newsom doesn't seem to think too highly of the movie either, so instead of rattling off filmographies and mildly amusing anecdotes from the production he's actually just kind of complaining about it half the time. He rightfully lambasts the inexplicable decision to include an amnesia detour at around the film's 50 minute mark (tellingly for how dull the movie is, Newsom says it happens 90 minutes in - clearly it just felt that way, since the movie is only 90 minutes long entirely), notes how "dowdy" everyone looks every few minutes, and laughs at some of its rare attempts at suspense. He also doesn't seem to be reading from notes the whole time, another thing that made it more lively than some others.

I should note that this is a recent "pile" acquisition; it only came to disc like three weeks ago. The problem with this new experiment is that more stuff keeps coming in, so I'm trying to balance it between newer arrivals and ones that have literally gotten dust on them because they've been there so long. I hope you guys don't mind the shorter reviews, but honestly for movies like this I don't think I could find enough to say to make it standard length, so I'd probably end up saying nothing and this site would be a ghost town that much longer. It took me five attempts to watch it because I kept dozing off; it was only the allure of the Hammer brand that kept me going because I was sure it'd get better. And technically it did (the climax is truly goofy), but too little too late. Oh well.

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The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

APRIL 9, 2019

GENRE: HAMMER, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

My attempt to go through the entire Hammer Dracula series in the old days of the site (can you believe it's been six years since I "quit"? That's as long as I ran it in the first place!) was not successful - I am only just now catching The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, and I *still* haven't seen Scars of Dracula. But I chalk this up to seeing them all out of order (not as much by choice as by availability); it makes it hard to remember which ones I was missing, and in at least one instance I obtained one I thought I had missed only to discover not only had I seen it, I already reviewed it! I vow though, come hell or high water - I will see Scars this year! Or at least in less than six years from now.

Anyway I knew this one was kind of the black sheep of the series due to having someone else play Dracula besides Christopher Lee, and also for making it a hybrid between vampire movie and kung fu flick, as the latter was very much in vogue at the time. So I was surprised to discover it was actually quite a bit of fun; the plot is nonsense, yes, but it's never dull for a second - if there's ever more than maybe five minutes of plot stuff, a fight will break out and last an equal (or longer) amount of time. And it's good fighting too - although uncredited, Cheh Chang brought his considerable experience (The Flying Dagger, The One-Armed Swordsman) to make sure the fight scenes were authentic, with Hammer stalwart Roy Ward Baker's team giving them the lighting/editing polish the kung fu flicks often lacked, so it's like a best of both worlds kind of scenario more often than not.

Of course, in the usual martial arts films there would be a bunch of normal humans fighting, whereas here we have undead vampires on one side of the battles, making it look more than just a little goofy at times. As is always the case, you'll see bad guys waiting their turn to get their ass kicked by the hero because they never think to rush him as a group, but it's far more ridiculous a sight when he's got a skeleton face and (as vampires tended to do in these things) is jumping up and down while he waits. But the choreography and stunt work doesn't seem to be much affected by their costumes, making all of the battles exciting (if somewhat repetitive) and in turn giving the entire film a pulse most Hammer films only really reach in their final reel.

As for the Hammer part of the equation... well I can see how the die-hard purists would be disappointed. Even if it was Lee in the role I can't imagine too many folks would be satisfied with his use here - he's only in the film's opening and closing scenes, seemingly thrown in just to tie it into the series as opposed to anything particularly necessary to the story. And it's hard to even think of it as a sequel anyway - not only does the timeline throw off what passes for continuity in these things (in a prologue set before any of the other films, Dracula takes the form of a Chinese man and isn't reborn in his usual form until the end - in a scene that takes place after most of the other entries), but Peter Cushing is playing a different Van Helsing than he played in the others. In AD 1972 it made sense that he'd be playing his own descendant, but that doesn't seem to be the case here - he's just a generic "Van Helsing" (no first name) that does the same things but doesn't appear to have any connection to the one we knew from the previous films. Unless it's like a Halloween (2018) thing where they were ignoring some of his entries? If so it's not made clear.

Anyway, like Dracula Van Helsing's role in the proceedings isn't particularly necessary - he's a professor who tells his class that vampires are real, and are terrorizing a village somewhere, but only one of them believes his story. And for good reason: he's the grandson of a man who killed one of the vampires (leaving six), and is planning to head there and kill the rest (excellent timing for the syllabus on Van Helsing's part!), inviting the professor to come along. They're joined by Van Helsing's son (an obligatory handsome young man, interchangeable with the ones who appeared in other Hammer films of the era), a rich lady (read: Hammer Glamour) who funds the trip, and lots of redshirts who help make the fights more epic. Why Helsing is needed is unclear; it's only in the final few minutes that he does much beyond watch the fights, maybe waving a torch around every now and then.

But on the other hand, it actually does offer plenty of legit horror stuff - the scene where the undead vampires rise from their graves is actually pretty effective, and it's got some surprising (at times even gratuitous) bloodspray if that's your bag. And there's even a surprising death or two in the climax, so I found myself continually surprised that while the kung fu aspect was clearly the focus, Baker and his team weren't dropping the ball when it came to the genre elements. As with AD 1972, they clearly realized audiences wouldn't be much interested in another "Dracula rises and seduces a lady in his castle" kind of movie, so the change of scenery (and in this case, faster pace) gives it an adrenaline shot most franchises would die to have in their 9th installment.

Alas, it was also the final installment - while another "exotic" sequel was planned that would send everyone off to India, it was never made, due to both the film's mixed reception and Hammer's own problems as a whole. So at least it went out on a high note - it may not be the best of the series, but it's an exciting and memorable entry all the same, which is more than I can say for what ended up closing off the likes of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Paranormal Activity series. And Scream Factory gives it a proper Blu-ray; in addition to the fine transfer, it's got a solid historian commentary, which is loaded with anecdotes about the film's tense shoot (the two crews didn't mix well together; Baker is actually referred to as a "racist" at one point) and some context for the period that will help explain why Dracula is palling around with martial arts gurus for the unsuspecting viewers.

It also has the incomprehensible US cut of the film (under the title The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula, which isn't even accurate), which chops at least fifteen minutes out and rearranges key scenes, while also reducing Cushing's role even further - it reminded me of certain Dimension productions of the 1990s, in fact. Even having seen the proper version the day before, I often found myself baffled as to what was going on, and can't imagine how it would play to a fresh viewer. I love when they include this sort of thing - there's no real use for it anymore, but it's fun to try to put yourselves in the shoes of a ticket buyer in 1974, who didn't have the internet or a Blu-ray commentary to explain why things were the wacky way they were. I try my best to go in blind to every movie I see, but in this era it's too easy to find out what went wrong - how long did the US audiences (those who cared anyway) have to wait until they found out who anyone was, since this cut omitted most of their full introductions? What a time to be alive!

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FTP: Midnighters (2017)

APRIL 5, 2019

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

In many ways, Midnighters is an ideal "pile" movie - it's a decent watch, but also the sort of film that I'd never want to watch again as its greatest strength is watching loyalties between its primary characters continually shift as it inches its way toward a conclusion that leaves very few of them standing. So I've made the pile that much smaller, but also don't need to clear any room on my permanent shelf for it! Hurrah! And also because it's a fairly simply plot that largely relies on springing those twists on you, so if I was giving it a traditionally lengthy HMAD review I'd probably end up spoiling some things, and that wouldn't be very good.

Here's as much of the story I'll give away (i.e. the first 20-30 minutes or so): a couple (Alex Essoe from Starry Eyes and Dylan McTee from this week's The Wind) who are facing some issues (financial ones, mainly) but still seem to be in love are on their way home from a New Year's Eve party when they accidentally run someone over. He appears to be dead, and as they've been drinking they don't want to call the cops just yet, so they bring the body home so they can cover up a bit before bringing him to the hospital. But it turns out he's not actually dead, and a couple of people stop over with their own motivations, so things just keep getting dicier. A (pointless, but thankfully not too crippling) flash forward opening tells us that Essoe's character will end up tied to a chair at some point - it's to the movie's credit that until it happened it could have been anyone that put her in there.

Of course that also means that everyone but her is an awful person, and she herself isn't a saint at times, so while it's not easy to guess who will end up siding with who, it's hard to care all that much either; kill the whole lot of them for all it matters. In something like Game of Thrones, everyone being an asshole isn't too much of a big deal because there's such a big tapestry playing out before you (and dragons!), but here it's just a bunch of jerks in a house arguing about what to do next - it's hard to get as invested in the proceedings. As a result, my favorite scene in the movie was probably when a pair of cops come over, because they keep catching them in their lies (they say they hit a deer with their car) and clearly know something is up but can't really do anything without a warrant or even much probable cause. So unlike most such scenes, where you're biting your nails hoping your heroes are able to outsmart the suspicious cops, I was starting to get nervous for the cops, fearing they'd finally find something they couldn't shrug off and end up being kidnapped or killed by the couple as well (it occurs too early in the film for it to lead to a conclusion).

But for what it is, it still mostly works; like a Coen thriller without any of the humor (a deleted scene on the disc offers its only real levity - a bit where some friends stop by and can't seem to get the hint that it's not the best time). Despite the flash forward, the most torture-y violence is saved for a male character (its most despicable, at that) so it's not a "tough watch" or anything like that; some of the harsher moments occur off screen entirely. Suspense and tension are the order of the day here, with director Julius Ramsay using graphic violence sparingly/effectively, so there's another check in the "pro" column for the film. The deleted scenes are the only feature on the disc, so if you opt for streaming you're not missing much in that department. Ultimately, the only real shame is that it's not really a horror film - we can use more New Year's set ones!

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FTP: Devil's Gate (2017)

MARCH 31, 2019

GENRE: RELIGIOUS, THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I'll give Devil's Gate this much: I never in a million years could have guessed its final moments from its opening ones, in which a guy's car break down and he is promptly killed by a booby trap on the grounds of an ominous looking farm nearby. This would lead me, you, and anyone else who had ever seen a horror movie before to think they were in some kind of survival horror territory; a mix of Saw and Texas Chainsaw that would pile up the bodies and not have anything else to say or offer, but at least scratch an itch you might have if you were in need of some brainless carnage. However, the plot gets more and more complicated as it goes on, and while I can't spoil the particulars (or even list all of its sub-genres) I can say that at a certain point, the filmmakers switched gears one too many times and lost me.

The farm belongs to Pritchard (Milo Ventimiglia), who doesn't seem to be too concerned about the dead stranger on his property and also has someone/something chained up in his basement. Meanwhile, an FBI agent (Amanda Schull) arrives in this small North Dakotan town to investigate the disappearance of a woman and her son - Pritchard's family, as it turns out. Defying orders from the sheriff to leave him be, she grabs deputy Shawn Ashmore and heads out to the farm, where Pritchard attacks them and force them into cuffing him - at which point things start getting freaky. It's obvious that whatever he has locked up is more of an "I want to protect everyone from this thing" move than a "I'm a crazy man kidnapping innocent people", but that doesn't explain why his family seems to have vanished, so Schull can't fully trust him - only accept that he's not a clear cut villain.

The twists and turns that follow, mostly regarding the nature of what he has in the basement and what he wants to do with it, are hit or miss when it comes to how successful they are. I appreciate that the filmmakers wanted to spin their generic opening into something unexpected, but it's almost like they wanted to keep chasing that high and pulling the wool over our eyes again and again. The problem with that is that it gets hard to really get a firm grasp on the proceedings; it's like getting three serialized movies' worth of information and retcons all at once. One in particular, involving Pritchard's own backstory, comes so out of nowhere (and explained quite awkwardly to boot) that it not only derails most of the rest of the movie, but seemingly renders many of his earlier actions inexplicable as well (which they cover up with a "I didn't realize" kind of hand-waving excuse). It reminded me of that one season of Supernatural where Sam lost his soul in between seasons, but only after we learned that (several episodes in) did he start actually acting soulless, making us wonder why he couldn't keep up the act or why he ever bothered keeping the act in the first place.

But again, at least it was never generic. Milo was clearly embracing the villain/crazy guy kinda role, something he used to get to do often in his earlier career (Gamer!) but not so much these days since he's practically playing God on This is Us (this came out around when Season 2 was kicking off) and scoring other nice guy roles as a result of that show's success. As a fan of it (leave me alone, it's good) I was delighted in seeing him get all bug eyed and holding shotguns on people, something Jack Pearson rarely does (even in Vietnam the dude was all peaceful!). I just can't help but wonder how many middle aged houswives rented this from a Redbox after seeing him on the cover, only to discover it ended up closer to Heroes territory than his current hit. Ironically, an impulse Redbox rental is about all it's good for, and as it's been on disc for almost a year now it's probably not IN those clunky red kiosks anymore, so I'm not sure who this review will be enticing or warning. Oh well.

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Us (2019)

MARCH 25, 2019

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

One of my favorite (for lack of a better word) things to do when watching movies is to scan the characters' bookshelves/ entertainment centers to see what movies/books/games/etc they own, usually for my own amusement and also to test my "skill" at recognizing something from a blurry spine. However, in Jordan Peele's Us, this habit is actually rewarded - the five VHS films that are seen on the shelf next to a television in the film's opening scene are all referenced later in one way or another, and help unpack some of the clues that this puzzling film offers about its ambitious (borderline insane) concept. It's a film that I felt I needed to see twice before writing this review (I first saw it last week at an advanced screening), partly because I had some issues with its third act reveals that I thought might work better a second time, and partly to double check that my own theories as to what Peele was *really talking about* weren't contradicted by information I was conveniently forgetting (i.e. what 90% of fan theories end up being).

But also partly just to enjoy the film on its surface level, which is a perfectly fine way to watch the movie - it's not like everyone who loves Dawn of the Dead has picked up on its satire, to name one example. If you've seen the trailer you know the concept: a normal family of four, led by Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) and Gabe (Winston Duke) finds themselves menaced by mirror images of themselves, and the first 80ish minutes are essentially a freakier version of a home invasion movie as a result. There's a lengthy chunk in the middle where it's easy to forget that this movie has any real ideas and just enjoy the cat and mouse stuff, with clones substituting for the usual people in masks or whatever. Our heroes don't stay in the home for as long as you'd expect from a traditional entry in the sub-genre, but it still offers the same kind of thrills. There's a bit where the clone of the daughter chases her to a car and then seemingly disappears, leaving our hero daughter to wonder if she's gotten on the car's roof or gone under it - that's just a straight up suspense setpiece, no politics or message required.

However, eventually these sort of beats are discarded in favor of explaining where the clones came from, what they want (sort of), and why Red (Adelaide's double, who she first encountered as a child and was traumatized as a result) seems to be the only one that can talk. And that, my friends, is where we get into heavy spoiler territory, so after I say "This movie is really good if somewhat messy in spots" for those who came here to see if it got my seal of approval, you need to close this tab right now if you haven't seen it yet.

Still with me? OK, so Peele could have just let the clones do their thing for an appropriate horror movie runtime, have our family (or just SOMEONE) survive and maybe give us a grim ending with the reveal that they weren't the only ones being menaced by duplicates, without ever explaining where they came from. It'd frustrate some, of course, but it'd follow suit with horror classics (including Peele's beloved Night of the Living Dead) to not explain why it was happening and focus more on who will survive it, letting audiences draw their own conclusions. Instead, Red delivers not one but two lengthy monologues that lay most of it out, plus there's a Saw-like "OK here's all those things that happened earlier, quickly flashing by now that you have new context" montage for good measure. Red's first info dump is vague enough to still fit into a "it just IS" kind of explanation since it focuses more on her own personal motivations, but the second (much longer) one inches into "Someone's about to draw a diagram on a chalkboard" areas of making sure the audience is completely brought up to speed.

(In fact there is a chalkboard behind her, but she doesn't use it in the scene, so I guess we dodged a bullet there.)

It's not that the explanation itself is bad - on the contrary, it's kind of fascinating, and I'd happily watch another movie (even - gasp - a prequel) that explored it even more. The problem is, like The Purge (also from Jason Blum, notably), the concept is so good that it's natural to ask questions about the logistics, and the way the information is presented invites itself to these questions. I won't spoil everything, but I'll say that the clone people come from underground subway tunnels and such and apparently have a Dharma Corporation-like entity making sure they are supplied with water (food is explained via rabbits, eaten raw) and materials to make clothing (and also lots of golden scissors, for some reason). If we only ever saw the clones wearing red jumpsuits, no one would think "where did they get their clothes?" but instead we see them dressed in generic normal clothing and then actually make their jumpsuits - and it's very difficult to see this and not start wondering how that worked. Did they have enough red material to make 320 million suits? Why? The concept is huge, but it feels like Peele realized if he answered one question about the nitty-gritty he'd have to answer all of them, so he had to just ask us to go with it, but perhaps he should have been scaling back what he showed us so we never thought to ask.

One benefit to this is that you are free to come up with your own theories as to what he's really getting at, as there's not a lot of hard evidence that can contradict it. One thing that keeps popping up is "Hands Across America", a charity stunt that was held in 1986 where people would hold hands in a line (ideally from one end of the country to the other) while raising awareness/money for hunger. It didn't really pan out; they didn't make all that much money and more than half of what they did went to paying for the operating costs. This concept - for spoiler-y reasons I won't divulge - speaks to the clone folk, and stage two of their uprising (stage one being "kill our others") appears to be recreating it, only more successfully. Now, while the film isn't as overtly racially motivated as Get Out, this interpretation (and others that I've spoken to) about these people, with their affinity for red clothing and mission to form a wall, certainly recalls some unfortunate racial biases - but that whole idea might just be my own reading and not what Peele intended at all.

And there's a trickle down effect to this that can drive you batty if your mind is engineered to decode/analyze what you're seeing, because you're not sure where it ends. The VHS tapes are obviously very carefully chosen (otherwise they'd just be fellow Universal movies), as is the "I got five on it" song that the family sings along to (it's about sharing something that traditionally is barely enough for one, like a dimebag, or your time on earth). But where does it stop? The son wears a Jaws shirt throughout the movie - is Peele drawing a parallel between the shark and the clones, because they're both coming to the surface because they need to survive but seen as monsters to the people above? Or does he just like Jaws and could save a couple bucks on licensing if a character wore a shirt from a Universal movie? This sort of thing can be fun (see: The Shining documentary Room 237), but it can also be distracting, as you start looking around for clues and end up missing the larger point of a scene. And since some information is indeed conveyed in a subtle manner (Adelaide's father walked out on the family shortly after her incident, but that's never spelled out - we just have to notice that he's not in any of the pictures that we see of her growing up), it's hard to know when you're allowed to just get caught in the moment of a scene or if you still need to have your thinking cap on.

Of course, he has something he wants to say, and is using a horror film to make that point because he's good like that. Naturally, your reading of these elements will play a big part on how you look at the film as a whole, so on one hand it's good that he confined the bulk of it for the film's final 20-25 minutes, so you could at least enjoy the ride until then. On the other, it gives the film a strange pacing, as it almost literally stops dead to have someone explain everything that's going on, at a point where things should be at their most exciting. And it's stuff I'm not sure we needed explained anyway, so it'd be like if the original Halloween carried on as normal and then Dr Wynn came back and explained all the cult stuff from H6 right then and there. In interviews, Peele has gone out of his way to combat the "it's a psychological thriller" kind of shit by insisting that it's a horror movie, but the lack of tension in its final reel is odd to say the least. The crux of the finale involves Adelaide trying to rescue her son from Red (who has taken him back to the tunnels), but he's practically forgotten once Adelaide gets down there and confronts her doppelgänger - he's not in any perceivable danger, and even if he was, most audience members would probably be thinking about the implications of what they just learned instead of getting worked up in the present threat.

That said, Peele's horror cred is never in doubt throughout the rest of the film; a clever in-joke early on reminds us that he knows his shit ("They're filming a movie by the carousel," says Adelaide's mother in a 1986 flashback set in Santa Cruz - you get it, Michael?) and while one of the two horror films in that aforementioned VHS collection is a classic everyone knows, the other is more obscure and will excite only Peele's fellow Fangoria readers. But more importantly, he uses horror cliches smartly - in particular an early bit where Gabe and Adelaide chide their daughter for wanting to quit the track team because she says it's pointless. This is a standard bit of foreshadowing shorthand; they want to establish that this character can run fast because later on they'll be required to do that for plot purposes, and that is indeed what happens. BUT, the real point to it is to lay out another example of how the "above" people are wasting the life that has been denied to the clones in the tunnels, hammered home when the clone daughter has to chase the real one and is clearly relishing the ability to use her skill, even letting the real one get a bit of a head start so that she can give herself more of a challenge. That's the sort of thing that Peele really excels at, and why the genre is lucky to have him.

But it's his intelligence and skill that also makes the film somewhat frustrating, because it's so close to being an all-timer. I don't know if he chose to convey as much info as he did (and WHEN he did) or if a producer/test screening dictated he do so, but either way it lacks the finesse that earned him an Oscar last time. An opening text crawl also seems to exist only to clarify something people might wonder about, and it too is ill-timed, as it foreshadows information that seems like it should be a total surprise when introduced ninety minutes later (it reminded me a bit of the theatrical cut of Dark City explaining who the strangers were right off the bat). We also have to take a large leap of faith that Adelaide has seemingly never realized that their summer home is so close to the beach where she had her childhood trauma, which is another thing that Peele could have easily avoided by removing the references to having been there before in the first place.

However, even with its minor missteps, it's another exciting film from a one-of-a-kind modern filmmaker, one I'll enjoy revisiting down the road to pick up on more little details and see how my own continued privileged existence has me interpreting certain things. Peele even said he'd be open to going back to this world (more optimistic than he sounded when asked about a Get Out sequel), so it's possible there are things we're not meant to fully comprehend yet but will later. If that doesn't happen, then what we got is intriguing and ambitious, and overall worthy of its praise (and box office fortunes) despite its few flaws. Since I could say the same about the original Twilight Zone, we can consider this movie a $20m advertisement for his upcoming revival, and CBS should send Universal a gift basket for all the extra subscriptions they'll be selling as a result.

What say you?

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