31 Days of Halloween: Good Boy

2025, Ben Leonberg (feature debut) -- download

Elevator pitch -- ever catch your dog staring at things in the corner of the room, where there is obviously.... nothing? Or growling at a closed door, maybe to the basement? What if it wasn't ... nothing? So, let's do a movie entirely from the dog's viewpoint -- not always literally from the ground level, but from what the dog is aware of, not what the people are. And add to it a conceit where the humans are truly secondary, often only shot from the shoulders down, to lend weight to perspective from below their knees.

As a shadow grows in the corner of their room, good boy Indy whimpers and crawls into the lap of owner Todd (Shane Jensen, FBI). Todd is coughing up blood, and not long after, checks himself out of the hospital, arguing with his sister Vera (Arielle Friedman, feature debut) on the phone. Things are not good and he is relocating from the city to the abandoned home of their grandfather (Larry Fessenden, We Are Still Here), who lived alone in a rural area, and recently passed away under mysterious circumstances. The house is off the grid, relying on generators.

Whatever shadow Indy saw in Todd's home is also here. Its ever present, a strangeness that is constantly catching Indy's eyes and ears. Todd doesn't notice; only the dog is haunted. And not just by the shadow but also by the grandfather's dog Bandit, a hollow whine from the basement that only Indy hears. Vera said something about their grandfather's dogs always disappearing, in one of the angry dismissive phone calls she has with Todd. He has not come here to recover, to rest, but to escape, and she challenges him on the choice, which only makes him angry.

Whatever haunts this family only wants its men folk, and the good boys who protect them are a nuisance. Todd is frustratingly just not paying attention to Indy's silent warnings, until it is too late. 

Indy, the NS Duck Toler plays his role perfectly. Despite a lack of fear/growling in most interactions with the shadow, he is steadfast in his dedication to Todd. The movie has fun not only depicting something that only the dog perceives, but also playing with shadows and angles and isolation, from a non-human perspective. Of course, we are keen on dogs, so we are biased, but it was quite engaging, if contained.

31 Days of Halloween: Never Let Go

2024, Alexandre Aja (Horns) -- download

Its a pet peeve of mine, but I am not fond of movies that give you the choice of believing whether its a monster or supernatural being, or believing the person is just suffering mental health challenges. I am fine if you give the characters that choice, as that is a dominant trope in horror movies (given what people experience in horror movies, most people would think them off their rocker) but when the viewer is left feeling unsure, I get annoyed. There was the briefest of moments where I thought, "Yes, its explained, we are sure their is a monster," but then, thinking back on it, I was again left... unsure, and annoyed.

Momma (Hallee Berry, Gothika) lives in a remote Cabin in the Woods with her twin sons Samuel (Anthony B Jenkins, The Deliverance) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV, Paradise). Upon introduction, you can see the boys are malnourished, food-wise and human interaction-wise. They are literally tethered to the house by ropes, long ropes that unfurl from a conduit under the house. In the woods, Momma constantly reminds, is The Evil and if they let go of the rope, it will get inside them and force them to kill each other, as it did their father, and her mother before them. Age ago, Momma reminds, the world fell to evil and her father built the house away from wicked people, and The Evil, and imbued upon it a ritual of magic, wherein the blessings of the wood of the house protect those within its light or tethered to its heart. They live by this hard-and-fast rule.

But its been a hard winter. The green house's abundance has died off, the animals they hunt did not return in the spring, and the family has resorted to eating whatever they find, including bugs, grubs and frogs. And eventually bark, once the pickled and preserves run out. The (un)dead constantly torment Momma, telling her its all her fault, that she did this all on her own, she let The Evil in, she brought it with her. The boys unwavering faith in their mother is beginning to shake, and she herself is beginning to break. When she suggests them killing and eating the family dog, Nolan loses it, cutting her rope before she can put a crossbow bolt into the dog. She is severed from the protection of the house, and instead of letting The Evil in, she cuts her own throat. Kodda the dog runs off.

Without Momma the boys completely unravel. A stranger appears on their doorstep, a hiker who has become lost. At first, he's a bit concerned to see such a ragged pair of boys alone in the woods but then they point the crossbow at him. He tries to escape but.... that is when things become unsure. The man has a cell phone, a working one that makes a call through to 911 before he succumbs to the bolt in his gut. If the world outside has collapsed, then what is this all about? Was Momma lying all along? Was she being metaphorical, and if so, weren't her responses unreasonable, or was she just completely lost, a victim of familial abuse and trauma? The boys cannot know any of this, so only we can speculate. Considering the boys are starving and likely poisoned by what they have been forced to eat, anything that comes after, including a deceptive snake girl, is suspect. I continued to watch as a monster movie, but... the annoyance seeped in.

In the end, the houses is burned down, but not before the boys are ... rescued. The outside world is there, it is not destroyed. But The Evil is now in Sam and Nolan knows it. What are we to believe? Everything is left to speculation, but there was a giant snake skin found on the river side, a moulted sign of something very very large, much larger than can be found in woods like this. So, is there Evil or is there just .... evil? Bah, some questions can be fun, but I am just annoyed.

But I cannot just leave it there, can I? There was much I did enjoy -- the setting, the built up mythology and the dressing up of the environment. Aja had fun constructing this movie, giving us something that felt both magical and mundane, current yet timeless in its depiction of how the family lived. Berry is always more than capable and the boys excelled at playing the twins they were, but with their own personalities, children growing into adolescents, discovering independence and it not weighing well on their shoulders.

31 Days of Halloween: The Occupant

2025, Hugo Keijzer (feature debut) -- download

Kieijzer made a short called The Occupant: Prologue which is tied this movie much more strongly to the scifi vein. But instead of truly building on the base of that short, he decided to go for a more emotional impact, giving us a movie that is about loss and survival. They sometimes call the genre "survival horror" but usually that is when there is more than isolation and elements to be defeated. This movie is entirely about Abby fighting to survive a helicopter crash in the remote Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, the country not the state. The scifi element, which also allows a wee bit of horror to creep in, is there, but it doesn't play a big part of the movie. And if the audience reviews are to say anything, just ended up pissing off the viewers expecting a proper alien incursion movie, which wasn't helped by the absolutely infuriating AI generated images that dominate Google searches for this movie.

Abby (Ella Balinska, Charlie's Angels) and her sister are very close; they bonded strongly after the death of their mother. Now Beth has terminal cancer and Abby is desperate to find any measure to extend her sister's life, including taking a job with a Georgian uranium mining company, which could pay for private medical care. She would rather deal with a long shot than be with her sister during her final days, and the weight of the guiltis heavy.

The speculating hasn't paid off, but she found a strange obsidian like rock she believes could fund her, but then gets "the call" -- she needs to go home. She hops the company helicopter out but it runs into a flock of starlings (murmuration, once again boding ill weather) and the copter crashes, killing the pilots. She's not sure what to do next, but a walkie talkie chirps out some static and she tunes it to hear from John (Rob Delaney, Bad Monkey). He's an American pilot whose plane also crashed; he is pinned beneath some wreckage but otherwise sounds fine, in good spirits even. He knows his long-range radio is working but cannot reach it, so as hers is destroyed, Abby decides to find him instead of walking out.

The walk in the wilderness is the bulk of the movie. As a genre, I generally enjoy the survival in the harsh, cold wilds and this movie gives it in spades. But really the talking between the two is what the movie wants us to focus on, which is weird unto itself. There is notably a lack of mention of food or water, for either of the two. And then there is the rock, the strange black shiny stone that reacts to her touch. The same rocks litter the mountain sides on her journey, exhibiting strange anti-gravity effects, but really the only other-worldly effect she notices is when it rearranges to her will, into a piton assisting her getting up the mountain. Eventually she ends up in an abandoned Georgian mountain village where some Russian soldiers are patrolling. John cautions her exposing herself to them, considering the volatile nature of border patrols. But its when she discovers she's not the only one talking to "John".

Whatever "John" is, he's been manipulating people in the mountains. Can't be many but he does mention Abby was the most "fun" of those he has played with. Its time for the Russian soldier and her to trek out, but they make a fatal error crossing a large lake. The thin ice takes the soldier and Abby partially falls through. Thoroughly soaked, she is about to give up when she sees another helicopter fly over a ridge. Through delirium, she climbs the ridge and... finds a cave. She falls down its incline into a pool of water, wherein lies the body of John, the American pilot, encrusted in the black stones and quite dead.

Then the expositional explainer, the "alien". Whether its John who became one with the strange rocks or something inherent to the alien who crashed, something you would only know after seeing the "prologue" short, it wants her to join with it, with the collective nature the stones provide. Its unclear, unsatisfying (why are the rocks scattered over an entire mountain range) but it serves one purpose -- to give Abby a choice. She can join with it and be given a hallucinatory idyllic family life which isn't real, or she can fight against its offer, get out of the mountains and return for her sister's final days -- reality. She chooses the latter, of course.

I wanted to like this movie, but... it was under-baked. Sometimes the tone and visuals can allow a tense scifi and/or horror thriller to excel, but even with the stunning landscape and great performance by Balinska (is it though; hard to tell as she is the only one present most times) so much was lacking. And frustrating, especially considering the idea that she may have never actually gone for the trek, and the whole thing was an hallucination at the scene of the helicopter crash, influenced by the shiny black rock in her bag. 

31 Days of Halloween: Shaun of the Dead

2004, Edgar Wright (The Sparks Brothers) -- download/Blu-ray

Yes, I download movies because getting the game system setup to play a Blu-Ray when I haven't touched it in months is dusty & arduous and I am impatient & lazy.

Also, and again, "You haven't written about this in one of the many rewatches since 2004 ?!?!?"

Clever. The clever zombie movie. I love this clever zombie movie, which in case you have been under a cinematic rock, is part of Wright's tap-side-of-nose "Cornetto Trilogy". This is my movie, while Hot Fuzz is Marmy's movie, if we can claim ownership.

The season has been a bit ragged, as we have been tired and distracted, so we broke a generally unwritten rule, in adding more rewatches into the mix. I mean, traditionally watching horror movies during the Halloween season always involved your favourite and even just before this blog began this series, we had plowed through all the "classics" during Halloween of years previous. Rambling way to say, we might end the season with a handful of our previously seen favs, not yet written about.

Shaun's (Simon Pegg, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One) a bit of a cockup, working a dead-end job, living with two old friends, only one of whom is paying rent. He does the same thing every day, every weekend and his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield, Byzantium) is getting sick of it. He kind of likes his life, but is also kind of just stuck with it. So, she breaks up with him and as fate would have it, its on the night of the zombie apocalypse. Like many of the genre, its happening in the background, on the telly, but everyone is too caught up in their own drama to pay attention. Shaun doesn't even notice when the regulars in the neighbourhood are either gone or shambling.

And then he's caught up in it, with two things in mind: save Liz, save his Mum.

Some day I would like to track back and watch the movies that set the tropes for the genre. Even Night of the Living Dead had it on the television in the background, but more the idea of gearing-up and going on a quest to find a secure place. The journey through the zombi-fied London suburb is strewn with obstacles and dangers, but finally motivated Shaun has it in him to prove to Liz that he can do this even if it ends up at the last place on Earth she wanted to go -- the Winchester Pub. But still, she cannot deny, it feels like a more secure location than Shaun's flat. Myself, I would suggested Liz's second of third floor flat but... Shaun doesn't know it well. They don't actually lose anyone until they are "safe" inside the pub, and it quickly goes from a slightly-buzzed safe to a shit-show very quickly, mainly because of personal drama. And it ends with only Liz and Shaun left alive.

Clever. So many cute and witty things, from the obvious to the thin. People on the bus look like zombies long before these are coughing & sneezing. As someone who rides the TTC pretty much every day, I can attest to that. And the line from Ed (Nick Frost, Tomb Raider), "We're coming to get you Barbara!" (a nod to Night of the Living Dead) always makes me chuckle. Of course, the best gag is Shaun's rag tag sloppy crew running into a mirror image group, full of capable (and recognizable ! Martin Freeman! Reece Shearsmith! Tamsin Greig! Matt Lucas! Jessica Hynes!) survivors. 

This movie is brains comfort food.

1-1-1: Fall of the House of Usher

2022, 8 episodes - netflix
created by Mike Flanagan

The What 100: Roderick and Madeline Usher were the bastard offspring of the CEO of pharmaceutical corporation Fortunato. Left nothing, the siblings work their way into the Forunato company on their own merit and climb the ranks, though a secret from their past gave them a decisive leg up. Roughly a half-century later, all the Usher's successes that seemed to have been unimpeachable actually have a bill that's come due, and the cost is the entire lineage of the Usher family.

(1 Great): The story of The Fall of the House of Usher, is told by Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood, Star Trek) to US Attorney Charles Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly, M.A.N.T.I.S.), the man who has been trying to prosecute him all these years for Fortunato's many crimes against society and humanity.  The story takes place in multiple times periods, with the "present day" - in which a grieving, repentant Roderick making his final confessions to a long-time nemesis - acts as framing sequence to the series.The late 1970s era find Roderick (played by Zach Gilford, The Purge: Anarchy) picking his path in life, pulled towards being an honest, if maybe poor man but loving husband and father, or a cutthroat businessman with Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) pulling the strings from behind. There's also the weeks set before Roderick and Auguste are having their dark-and-stormy night chat, where each episode one of Roderick's six children face their horrific and untimely demise.  I love a good non-linear story, and Flanagan here constructs it masterfully. It's jumping from time to time, further expanding multiple different narratives, all while teasing right up until to the finale what the actual deal that Roderick and Madeline made with the mysterious figure (Carla Gugino) who is present at each of the kids' deaths. There's so many little mysteries that Flanagan teases out over the eight episode that make for compulsive viewing, once one episode is done, you want to dive right into another. As well, the premise of an awful family of uber-rich assholes each meeting a pretty grim end (each very loosely based around an Edgar Allen Poe story), makes for absolutely delightful viewing. 

(1 Good): Roderick himself was personally responsible for the development and exploitation of highly addictive, highly profitable painkiller Ligodone upon which he built an empire. He has hundreds of thousands of skeletons in his closet. I've seen Greenwood in many, many productions, and he's always a solid player in every appearance, but I don't know if he's ever been given a role like this which requires so much gravitas and control. Roderick is a man who is haunted, both literally and figuratively, and Greenwood plays both so perfectly. This is the story of a man recalling the glory and regrets of his past, a man trying to, in some small way atone for his sins, while within his story, he is a most assured and devilish man. Greenwood needs to work through an entire emotional spectrum with this character, all the while it has to feel appropriate and consistent to his character. He has the toe the line of being so evil that there's no chance we could like him, and then have Greenwood present little aspects of the character that show there's humanity underneath (we still don't like him, but there is a bit a sympathy, and even pathos among all the schadenfreude). The writing is largely fabulous, the performance is even better. 

(1 Bad): The only bad in what is otherwise delightfully grizzly October-friendly viewing was a few moments in the conceit of the framework. Some of the back and forth between Auguste and Roderick felt...forced, unnatural, often as the show was using the framework to jump between its time periods and narrative tracks and the attempts to direct the narrative through this dialogue felt shaky at points. In teasing out the history that Roderick and Auguste have, it makes investing in this face-to-face a little more difficult. But it's a really small quibble in an show that had me squealing and squicking in equal measure.

META: Flanagan has his ensemble of players that he uses again and again, and I'm of two minds about it. There's an aspect of it that's kind of fun, like how Hallmark just kind of mixes-and-matches their leads across their dozens of seasonal offerings each year, you kind of get to know and like these performers and look forward to seeing what roles Flanney decides to put them in.  But at the same time I also feel like it may be limiting the performances, that maybe by only casting familiar actors, he's maybe not getting the best performances that he could. But that reservation only holds water if I feel like any of the performances didn't deliver, and I couldn't really find flaw with almost any player. And it's not like Greenwood, Mary McDonnell, Lumbly, and Mark Hamill were regular players in the Flanney troupe prior to this, and they're all quite astonishing additions. Love to see them all in great roles.

One other thing about Fall of the House of Usher that deviated from usual Flanney tropes... there weren't the usual monologues that Flanney has a penchant for, but much of the face-to-face between Auguste and Roderick was monologue, but it's also narrative, so it made a lot more sense and felt more natural that it often does in Flanagan's shows.

[Toastypost - we agree!]

31 Days of Halloween: The Elixir

2025, Kimo Stamboel (Headshot) -- Netflix

Wouldn't be the season without at least one zombie movie.

A family patriarch is gathering his family at their home in a small village outside Jakarta, Indonesia. He is Sadimin (or Dimin; Donny Damara, Hotel Sakura), a greying widower who married Karina (Eva Celia, The Shadow Strays), his daughter Kenes' (Mikha Tambayong, Blood Curse) childhood best friend, which caused an irreparable rift between the two women. Kenes husband, whom she is also at odds with due to his infidelity, is there to finish a merger with Dimin's small but lucrative herbal supplement company. I guess herbal medicine is big there? Unfortunately Dimin's rushing to produce a new age defying concoction before his scientists have tested it thoroughly and downs a sample. Amazing, it takes decades off his appearance.

Except under an hour later, he dies in painful throes and is turned into a zombie, immediately attacking his family and staff. His staff succumb pretty quickly, while one grounds man who got sprayed in the face with blood drives off seeking medical help. He only gets as far as a large family gathering celebrating a circumcision (!!!), before he too succumbs to the zombie infection, slamming his car into the celebration crowd and immediately munching down on them. Thus the plague has begun.

Like most zombie that take place at the beginning of the plague, its about a small group fleeing the ravenous hordes of flesh eating dying and dead. There are the two young women, Kenes' husband & son and eventually another couple who they blunder into. The small village doesn't make for many secure buildings, so everyone ends up at the local police precinct where all but one cop have been eaten & transformed. How will they survive? Or more typically, who will survive.

The movie had two things going for it: a very very good special effects budget, and choosing to have the movie set absent of any "zombie" mythology at all, i.e. even the video game playing, crossbow building brother-in-law doesn't bring up zombie lore. The practical effects are pretty impressive here, and the drone shots of the running hordes along the narrow right angle streets between the rice fields in the lush, verdant rural village are incredible. CG or a cast of hundreds of extras? Hard to tell, which is a good thing. This movie treats its zombies as something of its own, their own gnashing teeth, their own twisted contortions and the panic stricken irrational responses of the survivors. These people have zero situational awareness, but they don't know they are in a zombie movie, so... In some ways, a little silly, but it takes itself seriously. 

Note: I watched this on my own, as seasonal filler, and even if Marmy had been interested in a zombie movie, and she isn't, this one would have immediately turned her off. It depicts the infection moving quite quickly through the body, visualized by a spread of holes in the flesh akin to those caused by parasites, giving a quick trypophobic reaction to even me, who is not bothered by it. It was gross; gross gross gross.

31 Days of Halloween: The Astronaut

2025, Jess Varley (feature debut) -- download

There is a plot point I have seen come up a few times in the last few years, one focused on women astronauts and the challenges they face, with a spotlight on being astronaut first, or mother first. There was the Noomi Rapace show Constellation, a German Netflix show called The Signal and a bit further back, the Hillary Swank Away. There's more, but there is an image, a scene I always recall, where there is guilt and pain about being dragged away from being a mother, whether it be caused by long training missions or the time away in space. Comparatively, the images of astronauts as "fathers" is always dominated by the proud stance the men take and how their sons look up to them. 

The movie begins with the splash down of Sam Walker's (Kate Mara, Fantastic Four) capsule in the ocean, its window broken, her unconscious, helmet cracked and covered in blue goo. She is taken to a secure facility in a remote location, one of those architecturally impressive houses in a dark forest that horror movies love so much, on the pretense of recovery & study. Her estranged husband (Gabriel Luna, The Last of Us) & adopted daughter meet her, but are not allowed to stay -- the tension between the couple is palpable; her mission has caused a rift. There is a brief moment where Sam talks to a fellow female astronaut and it is strongly hinted that Sam needs to hide any signs of fragility or she will be overlooked for coming missions. She has to be "strong" despite the mysterious trauma she has been through.

Its a horror movie, so almost immediately, she starts seeing things, hearing things, shadows in the background, on the perimeter of the house. And the strange bruises on her arm are spreading. Medically she seems fine, but they keep her detained for now. Things escalate, including the discovery that the house is more than it seems, being surrounded by surveillance technology. Sam's father, the Pentagon general (Laurence Fishburne, Hannibal) who runs the facility, hand-waves it away, showing her how it is as much a safe-house with lock-down capabilities as it is a house for diplomats -- typical shadowy US govt shit. Almost immediately after the house goes into lock-down, on its own, with strange electronic disturbances and shadows of creatures that we see, and not always Sam. Again, her father hand-waves it away. She doesn't mention the stalker.

In a horror movie, the narrator can be unreliable. While we see what is stalking or "haunting" her, there is always the question as to whether she is imagining the strange happenings, or is it actually happening. We also don't trust the authorities, including her father. Eventually things do escalate to full-on reveals, a Jurassic Park style scene of some creature hunting her through the hissing steam & blaring alarms of the locked-down house, all the trappings of previous horror/alien movies but with little thought as to why these are happening. Why are there random jets of steam from the ceiling? Why, if the basement of the facility is supposed to be secure, is it behind flimsy wooden doors? The creators of the movie wanted the trappings with little care for reasons, and its a disappointment.

Spoiler-age.

As the final act escalates, as Sam is stalked, we also see that the bruises have become bioluminescent goo & skin patches, that Sam is bleeding from strange wounds emerging on her body. The aliens stalking her are also bioluminescent, and we are given enough to see that Sam is maybe not quite what the movie has told us she is. The flashes she gets of a crater, and soldiers with guns chasing... something. Sam is the alien, an alien, one of many who many years ago, chose a bio-altering camouflage and became Sam as a child, who was taken by the general and raises as his daughter. Now, years later, her real family attacked the ISS and introduced an "antidote" to the camouflage. Sam is becoming who she really is. And the aliens take her away, whoosh.

Meh. Not bad, effective haunted house, stalking-stranger motifs with some decent acting. Despite my labelling as a "fan" of horror movies, there are those by-the-numbers that really do it for me, and those that just barely scratch the itch; most in fact -- a lot of chaff that needs to be brushed away for the grain of value left behind.

I am wont to mention my fondness for directors being given a chance, something to cut their Hollywood teeth on, and while this will not be the Neil Blomkamp District 9 of Varley's career, its a good start to a hard-working career. And the purple suits ("from the producers of A Quiet Place") have to keep on purple-suiting.

KWIF: Roofman (+3)

 KWIF=Kent's week in film. An odd drama, plus more Coens, more Nick and Nora and more teenagers foiling death's design.

This Week:
Roofman (2025, d. Derek Cianfrance - in theatre)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, d. Joel and Ethan Coen - Crave)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1941, d.  - DVD)
Final Destination 3 (2005, d. Glen Morgan - rental)

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If one were to attend Roofman based on the trailer, or even the poster, one would think that Roofman was this year's Hit Man, a "based on a true story" film that turns real events into a sort of whimsical romantic comedy. The story of a down-on-his-luck veteran who turns to breaking into chain stores and fast food restaurants only to go on the lam by hiding out in a Toys R Us where he falls for one of the employees sounds like it should be an amusing, maybe even silly fun time at the movies.

But director Cianfrance, who co-writes the screenplay with Kurt Gunn, is much, much, much more interested in the human angle than finding much funny about the situation at all.  This is a true story of something that happened to a real person, and unlike Richard Linklater with Hit Man, Cianfrance isn't interested in sugar coating the story.

Channing Tatum has managed to get away from the meathead/pretty-boy perception that haunted his early career, despite still often playing meatheads and pretty boys. In between such roles he finds interesting projects that challenge him as an actor, and working with directors he likes, having clocked in time with Tarantino, the Coens, the Wachowskis and Soderbergh (so much Soderbergh). Still, in Jeffrey Manchester, the titular "Roofman", we find Tatum at his most vulnerable and soulful, walking a tightrope between sweet and sketchy with lots of fumbles to either side. 

Manchester is an Army vet, separated from his wife with alternate weekends with his kids. He's broke with no prospects and just can't seem to figure out how to get a leg up. His "super power", an exceptional innate skill, is observation. He sees patterns and details that are either invisible to the rest of us, or we take for granted. Someone with such a skill can be very effective in many situations, including crime, which is what Manchester turns to.  His series of break-ins in North Carolina become notorious over a two year span, but it's afforded Manchester a new house and won his family back...until he gets found out and goes to jail.

Tatum provides voice over throughout the film largely to give insight into how Manchester executes his crimes, the observations made and the patience needed accomplish the task, including describing how he broke out of prison, and eluded immediate capture by hiding out in a toy store. Unfortunately the narration doesn't extend to Manchester's thought process in entering a relationship with Leigh Wainscott (Kirstin Dunst), a store employee who he has been observing during store hours over baby cameras he set up. He meets her in person at her church and winds up on a date with her under a fake name and a government employee doing "undercover" work he can't discuss. But he's beefy and charming and soon they're a couple.  He meets Leigh's teenage daughters, showering the family with stolen goods, or goods bought with money from pawned video games from Toys R Us. 

Not too long ago, we would be made to feel sorry for Manchester. A film from, say, 2010, would paint him as a nice guy who went through hard times, and made the only decision he could. Such a film would root for Manchester to be free and stay free, root for the coupling of Leigh and "John Zorn", despite the cloud of deceit hanging over the whole proceedings (hell, Hit Man even did that...last year).  But this isn't that film. This film is all too aware that, as nice a guy as Manchester may seem, he's still being selfish even in his generosity. His attachment to Leigh and her family is, at least in part, a substitute for missing his own. While the film doesn't heighten or exacerbate the tension of it all, playing it pretty naturally, it's still exceptionally tense if you have any empathy for Leigh. Manchester's "victims" of his robberies all describe him as, really, a nice guy underneath, but there's nothing nice about deceit, and when Manchester is finally found out, it is a relief, more than anything.

Alongside exceptional performances from Tatum and Dunst, and Dinklage as the store manager, Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba play the pastor and his wife at the church, LaKeith Stanfield plays Manchester's army buddy while Juno Temple plays Stanfield's girlfriend while Tony Revolori and Jimmy O. Yang both have smaller cameos. These are quite some notable names for what amount to fairly nominal roles.

It's a good film, but certainly not what it was sold as. There's a few situational chuckles, but by and large it's all played very dramatically. Even the scene where Manchester is taking one of his "boys room" showers and is accidentally discovered by the store manager (Peter Dinklage), it could have been a really big comedic set pieces, but instead it's played exceptionally tense as Tatum, fully nude, tries to retreat to his hidey hole, and Dinklage is clearly traumatized by the encounter. It's the moment that spells the beginning of the end for Manchester's freedom and the new life he's deceptively built for himself. 

There's an exceptional coda to the film, though, that provides the audience with both resolution and even a little insight into the real Manchester. Interviews and news footage of the real "Roofman" and some of the people whose lives he touched play during the closing credits, and, again provide more context and a sense of closure to the story at hand.

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I have been going through the films of the Coen Brothers week-by-week for the past three months now, and we've finally hit the point in their filmography where I've already done a review on this blog for the film that I've watched this week.

It's been over 11 years since I last watched Inside Llewyn Davis, and my memories of the film were mere flashes, out of context moments that told me nothing of the experience of watching the film. I didn't re-read my review until after watching the movie. Spelling mistakes aside, and maybe a bit of reassessing my Coen's preamble, I was surprised at how spot on my review from over a decade ago mirrored my repeat experience with the film, right down to the examination about whether it was a time loop film or not (it might be, but probably not).

In that review, I talked about how it was under-appreciated by critics. In the time since, it's been added to the Criteron Collection and has been held up as another of the Coens' many, many masterpieces. It gets into the director's interests of being behind the scenes of the performing arts, following this struggling musician as he tries to make space for himself and his interests in the world. There's shades of Barton Fink without the heightened reality, this is a very naturalistic experience.

Llewyn (Oscar Isaac), it was much clearer to me in this second viewing, is a traumatized man and his response to the world is to push it away, despite his best intentions. He's an asshole, and he knows it, but he doesn't know how to be any other way, because he's angry at the world. You would think the wake-up call would be taking a road trip with jazz musician Roland Turner (John Goodman) and his driver, beat poet Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund...watching a lot of this guy of late). Turner is the vision of Llewyn 30 years in the future: a junkie who has an opinion on everything and hates pretty much all of it. 

Llewyn tries to abandon the life, the music, and just settle, but the music world proves that it isn't done with him, and karma gets him back on stage with a guitar in his hands.

My big realization watching this film, besides admiring how goddamned talented and appealing a performer Oscar Isaac is), is that I'm really, really not a folk music guy. I don't find a guy and his acoustic guitar or a trio harmonizing (with an acoustic guitar), or any of the folksy instruments and "traditional" songs terribly appealing. I appreciate them in the moment, but it's never something I'm going to put any effort into seeking out. There's a reason I haven't watched this film in over a decade (and it's been even longer since I saw A Mighty Wind) despite thinking it's a pretty great movie with phenomenal performances.

No Deakins' cinematography here, as Bruno Debonnel steps in with a very natural sensibility to the proceedings. There's no gloss here, and it's often all about the immediacy of the music. It's desaturated into greys and blues and browns, all feeling like very late fall or early winter in New York (and Chicago), cold and somewhat unforgiving. Also missing from the usual Coens production, Carter Burwell, as the music in the film is all performances, with frequent collaborator T-Bone Burnett working with Issac to arrange his performances, among others.  It's a standout film in the Coens filmography primarily because it feels so different, both musically and visually, but that said it feels like the proper extension to the shift the Coens had been making since The Ladykillers. You can definitely see, with No Country for Old Men, True Grit, and A Serious Man how this fits into this phase of their career.

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It still kind of ruffles my feathers that the "Nick and Nora" movies are called The Thin Man series and the title of each film seems to be referencing Nick as the titular "Thin Man", when the thin man of the first movie was the suspect of the murder case.  Increasingly the titles of the series make less and less sense.

In The Thin Man Goes Home, Nick and Nora travel by train to Nick's hometown for a visit with his doting mother and disapproving father. Nick, a near 50-year-old man at this point, regresses somewhat upon returning home. His father thinks him lazy and hard-drinking, so, Nick decides to switch from his all-martini diet to drinking cider, but still runs afoul of situations that leads his father to think him tipsy off his ass.

Nick's arrival in town causes a stir. It's a tight community and, all told, a peaceful one. But as we know about America of the 1900's (especially through the works of David Lynch) beneath the placid normalcy of everyday America lies a deep, dark undercurrent that most just ignore is even there. To acknowledge it is to give it power, to summon it forth. Nick's mere arrival has Joe and Jane Normal thinking Nick's there on a case and it may involve them.  Nora, the muckraker she is, adds fuel to the fire and all but fabricates a case for Nick to work on. She really wants Nick to show off his detective skills to his father and finally impress him, like he constantly impresses her.

When a man is murdered by a sniper's rifle on Nick's parent's very doorstep, Nick can't help but get involved. Like all the "Think Man" movies, the cast expands and the actual crime spirals, leading to a gathering of all the possible suspects in one room where Nick sorts it all out. This film, so aware of its proceedings, gets downright meta as Nora explains to Nick's parents exactly how it will all shake out, including maybe a gunshot or two take at Nick.

Missing completely from this endeavour is Nick Jr. At first I thought the series was just outright abandoning him as if he never existed at all, but turns out he loves kindergarten so much that his parents couldn't dare to pull him from it to visit his grandparents (uh huh).

In prior Thin Man sequels there have been sit-com-esque set-ups or sequences that sometimes feel at odds with the murder and crime aspects of the film, but here, the tone remains pretty well balanced throughout. It never fully abandons its comedic elements for a more stone-faced approach to the investigation. If anything, it may go too far with the comedy as it tries to introduce physical comedy and slapstick, it turns out, it's not one of Willam Powell's strengths.

Still a fun time is always had in the company of Nick and Nora Charles.

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With Final Destination 2, it felt like a step away from the intensity of the first film in favour of the delights of seeing annoying people get killed via incredibly elaborate cosmic jokes played on them. As well, FD2 really tried to figure out how to connect the first two films in wholly unnecessary and clumsy ways that just contributed to its delightful lunacy. I think my write-up last week didn't hit hard enough how damn entertaining the sequel was because of its ridiculousness, not in spite of it. As it lingered in my brain, I enjoyed it more and more.

I was excited to see than the makers of the first film were back, and I was keen to see what X-Files veterans James Wong and Glen Morgan had in store for a third entry of teenagers trying to escape death.

It's as if Wong and Morgan thought the ludicrousness of the second film was a flaw, with Final Destination 3 they really tried to bring back the ominousness, the foreboding dread of death and its designs. It doesn't work so well.

A young Mary Elizabeth Winstead leads the cast as Wedny, the one who has the vision of a Canadian roller coaster ride gone haywire. Next to the crazy highway chaos of the second film, a roller coaster malfunction isn't anywhere near as exciting, as wild as the deaths in Wendy's vision are.  The roller coaster accident itself is a tricky bit of filmmaking. Using a mix of practical shots of a roller coaster in motion as well as in-studio shots for the deaths, it's uneven and a bit janky-looking. The second film over-delivered on the opening calamity, and this pales in comparison.

Following Wendy and others getting off the roller coaster before its epic fail, Wendy starts to see in the photos she was taking for school yearbook signs that the survivors are going to die.  What happens often, though is Wendy and friends are looking at the wrong picture and thus the wrong signs.. the point being there's really no way to tell, no way to be certain what death's plan is for you.

While I like the vehicle for predicting the deaths much, much more than the repeated "visions" in FD2 (photos prognosticating deaths date back at least to The Omen), the deaths themselves are for the most part fairly straightforward, with no where near the level of fake-outs and surprises that the second film had, although there's a pretty decent sequence involving a drive-thru lineup, hills and a runaway delivery truck.

The finale of the film, taking place at a tricentennial fair, is pretty weak, all things considered, as the film seemed far more concerned with its three leads than anyone in the audience. There is a delightfully wicked 5-months-later coda, though, that seems so much more inspired than the rest of the film.

31 Days of Halloween: Rabbit Trap

2025, Bryn Chainey (feature debut) -- download

I feel that I have to watch at least one UK movie that highlights its wild, bleak and gloomy countryside. If it also adds in a touch of the fae, bonus! 

Daphne (Rosy McEwan, Vesper) and Darcy (Dev Patel, The Green Knight) are a married couple who have come to the Welsh countryside from London. Daphne is an established electronic musician and Darcy is ... her sound man? I was never sure what Darcy was, but he was as enraptured with collecting sound as Daphne was in creating it. It should be noted that it is 1976 and thus all of Daphne's electronic musical instruments are giant, modular analog monstrosities. Its odd that I was offered this movie, considering I have just become aware of "Look Ma No Computer", a YouTube musician known for his use of modular synthesizers. Not that he is anything like Daphne's music, which is more akin to Laurie Spiegel. Anywayz, Daphne is into discordant soundscapes, and is suffering a bit of a block, while Darcy is out recording water dropping and murmurations.

One day while wandering a forested hillside, Darcy comes across a pool of water obviously reacting to an unheard sound. He puts on his headphones, adjusts his big mic and hears.... music & voices, if you stretch your mind enough to call the sounds that. He follows them, comes across a fairy ring and before we can yell at the screen, "Don't walk into that !!" we find him waking up in its centre.

What has Darcy done...

Not long after Daphne sees someone watching the house. Darcy, on one of his wandering treks, also catches a young... boy (?) hiding in the grass. The child (Jade Croot, The Witcher) is obviously a wild creature of the hills and moors, threadbare coat, thick Welsh accent and very odd nature. Darcy introduces them to Daphne and thus begins a co-dependent relationship. Both are obviously seeking something from the other, including inspiration for Daphne's music.

Meanwhile Darcy continues to suffer from night terrors, a dream of a looming figure at the foot of his bed, which leaves him with sleep paralysis.

The Child, which never gives the couple their name, begins to manipulate the situation more and more, until they have a "gift" for Daphne, and the two walk out into the woods, through a tunnel under a hill (again, we yell at the screen, "Never do that!!") and into an ancient wooded area. By this time Darcy is already panicking and has to follow, but ends up having more and more visions. Daphne ends up being incredibly disturbed by the experience, finally seeing the Child as being something strange and otherworldly and ends up asking them to leave, after a strained night where they claim to have become the couple's child.

It gets worse for the couple.

This is an incredibly well shot, well recorded movie with powerful performances especially from Jade Croot as The Child. The problem lies in that its not sure what it can do with this obviously sly, manipulative fae creature as it shies close to folklore but also to metaphorical family trauma. The ending is weird, gross and mystical but not entirely satisfying.

31 Days of Halloween: Kristy

2013, Olly Blackburn (Donkey Punch) -- Amazon

We continue the trend of clicking past all the movies we have in our Lists on streaming services, as well as the getting-longer list of horror movies I have already downloaded (previous years worth of them) for something new & shiny that caught our eye. We have always liked a final-girl who turns the tables on her attacker.

Justine (Haley Bennett, The Magnificent Seven) is staying for the long weekend at her university -- she cannot afford the flight. Originally she is staying with her roommate, whose family is abroad, but plans change at the last minute and suddenly Justine is alone. That is weird. In an entire campus, she is the only one who stays? Anywayz, I am skipping past the over-share preamble & opening credits which sets up a Dark Web based network of thrill killers, led by a mysterious woman (Ashley Green, Twilight) who has something against pretty girls and Christians. She organizes "hunts", i.e. those collections of masked & hoodie wearing thrill killers who terrorize and kill isolated young women.  And then she bumps into Justine at an all night convenience store near the campus, and the unfortunate young woman is marked as a "Kristy".

This is another movie with distinct style, sometimes a bit too heavy handed with it. It is so very much a product of the 2000-teens, with the non-stop period appropriate music (music that sounds so distinctly 2000-teens) and the nausea inducing panic-stricken shaky-camera runs. But its effective. Kristy... sorry, Justine, plays the role of the final-girl when there are actually no other girls, just a handful of campus staff who are quickly killed off more or less as innocent bystanders.

But Justine is capable. Despite her fear, she eludes her hunters with ingenuity on multiple occasions, getting tired of running, and even turning on them eventually. There are only four, so it doesn't take long, once she is underway, but the movie enjoys having us run along with Justine, rooting for her, cheering her on. And in the end, via voice over, we understand Justine is helping authorities find all the "cells" of this thrill kill cult, and end them. A post-credit scene, which was entirely wasted, implies they are still active, likely to setup a sequel that never happened.

31 Days of Halloween: Kill Me Again

2025, Keith Jardine (action actor's feature debut) -- Amazon

OK, tempted to do this in the format of a Loopty Loo, but that would just be unfair to Kent. But indeedy do, this is a horror-thriller time loop movie, but without the comedic light nature of Happy Death Day. Essentially, a psychopath walks into a diner, and then cannot get out. 

The movie begins with a distinct amount of style in colour and music and lighting. I like when mood, vibes, tone are very apparent. The Midnight Mangler, or Charlie (Brendan Fehr, The Night Shift), drives into the diner parking lot in his shitty pickup, and upon entering, takes stock of the people in this all-night place, obviously in the wee hours already. Two rednecks at the counter arguing over shit. A couple who look out of place, having a quiet heart to heart, some random guy sitting in the far back corner eating fries. Two off shift nurses finishing off their pie. A single waitress who is obviously on her last nerve, and does not react well to Charlie's ham fisted attempts at human interaction. He's an ass and she's just not in the mood. Eventually, her shift ends, and he follows her out, coaxing her into his truck with a gun. And then he stabs her.

This whole scene was incredibly uncomfortable. I was wondering what I got myself into. Is this movie going to revel in our psycho? I know he's the main character but shit, this scene seems to be really getting off on his abuse. But, he stabs her and... poof, he's back walking through the door.

Insert the usual commentary about time loop movies and the second iteration. Charlie is confused and assuming people are fucking with him. But still, what makes him feel better? Killing someone. He kills one of the nurses, tries to leave and ... poof. Without getting too detailed, this goes on (and on) for a while. Kill someone, fuck with someone, try to leave, poof. The movie even does the loopty middle bit where the character tosses any caution to the wind, shouting, "I AM A GOD !!" and kills with abandon.

But gradually the movie comes to dislike Charlie, and like, a lot. Sure, there is a wee bit of sympathy as he begins to unravel. A minute smidgen. But then there is the joy in watching him get his ass handed to him by the burly Russian fry cook (massive gun mook #34) over and over and over again. Eventually killing gets boring for even Charlie and he starts trying to figure out what is going on, and how to get out. He does the typical fourth-wall breaking idea of commenting with silent guy-eating-fries that time loop movies usually have the person come to a realization, and get out. But none of it works.

The tones and colours of the movie change, as Charlie degrades. He starts showing it on his face and the lighting in the diner changes. Eventually this all heads to ... well, spoilers.

I am not going to reveal the ending, but it jumped from what I thought was going to be a horror-specific metaphysical tell (Charlie's in Hell; I know, cliche but appropriate) to something entirely different, almost an entirely different movie. It wasn't satisfying, despite them trying to write in a "gotcha Charlie!" hook at the very end.

Still, a chilling, disturbing example of the Loopty Loop movie genre.

31 Days of Halloween: Knowing

2009, Alex Proyas (Dark City) -- Tubi

I started watching this because, once again I got suckered in by The Algorithm, wherein YouTube (I have a tendency to watch it at 6am while the cats are eating) showed me clips of this old disaster movie I love. I always likened it to a scifi disaster movie but didn't realize how much of it presents like a Horror Movie. So, as filler, here we go!

Of note, I am sure so very sure I had this plugged in somewhere already on this blog, likely a post collecting previous rewatches. But I cannot find it. I suspect it may have been on a un-published post of rewatches, that I eventually deleted.

Anywayz, we start with a bunch of 50s kids collecting things to go into a Time Capsule, which will be opened in 50 years. Little Lucinda offers up her page of numbers, after acting weird all day. Yeah, just a sheet full of numbers. Later on, during the capsule entombment, she disappears, and is found in a basement closet having scratched her little nails off inscribing something on the inside of the door. "Please make them stop, make the whispering stop..." she intones.

Fifty years later little Caleb (Chandler Cantebury, The Host) gets the sheet when they open the capsule -- not sure what he was supposed to do with it, maybe do a class presentation or write an essay. Meanwhile his dad John (Nicolas Cage, Season of the Witch) is drinking and doing the single dad thing really badly. Both of them are still grieving for mom, who perished in a fire.... maybe a year ago? John is a lecturer at MIT and a bit intense; its Nick Cage after all.

While drinking heavily, as his son sleeps upstairs, John notices a very specific set of numbers on the sheet -- 9112001, and after them some digits that a bit of Googling shows is the number of people who died that day in NYC. John freaks. And then John starts finding other number sequences on the sheet. He transcribes it to his white board and spends the rest of the night circling dates, and numbers of deaths. There are other digits which he does not identify, but the dates he has circled are all definitely sequential, leading up to ... now. Well, now of 2009. 

Meanwhile Caleb is seeing weird ass guys outside, pale men in long black coats. If you saw Proyas's 1998 movie Dark City you will be wigged out by those guys, but really who wouldn't.

John takes his wiggy 50-year-old-sheet-predicting-mass-deaths idea to his best friend Phil (Ben Mendelsohn, Andor), who works in astrophysics. He does not take John's idea very well. The meeting makes him late to pick up Caleb from school and that's when he notices his truck's GPS setting, realizing what the other numbers are -- location data. And the location for the next date on the sheet is... where he is at right now. John jumps out of his truck to see what the accident is ahead, assuming its about to be a disaster, and something worse happens. Right behind him, a plane crashes, scraping across the road before exploding in a field. Its a horrific scene or roaring engines, exploding fuel tanks and vast pools of flaming jet fuel. And people dying right in front of John's eyes.

The next day the news is all about atmospheric activity causing havoc in flight navigation systems and the ground of the all planes in the US.

Just the directorial tone is what sets this aside for me. There is now a palpable air of fear, not only in John but in Caleb seeing the men outside. Maybe its just the level of tension & anxiety that this viewing season, and currently real life, sets into my bones, but the movie moved from just the tense feeling I get from disaster flicks (because, even with them, you already expect mass death is coming) to an ever present sick feeling. 

The next date, John tries to prevent. He sees the event is happening in NYC, so he calls it in anonymously. He is ignored, so he goes to the location, where there is the presence of authorities, but also crowds of people. They are there to catch a crank caller, possibly who is going to cause something to happen. John sees danger everywhere, chasing some of it down into the subway system, where... sparks fly, a train rail shorts and boom crunch, a subway train car is slamming through the platform wiping away lives. John is missed by the finest of hairs, as is the one woman & child he saves. Its a soul crushing scene of close up disaster.

There is one event left. Soon, but no "number of deaths". It just says "EE" which John sees as possibly Extinction Level Event. He's desperate and trying to trace down any idea of why and what is going on, maybe a hint of what he can do about it all. He tries to find the original writer of the sheet, and instead finds her daughter & granddaughter. Little Lucinda never really recovered and was obsessed with death, which is understandable. And then John realizes EE is "everyone else". News comes of a solar event coming, which John figures out moments before its announced, something that will burn off the atmosphere and sink solar radiation miles into the planet's crust --- killing everyone and everything. Planetary end. But what can John do? Why was his family presented this, if they cannot save anyone?

This is where the tone, and not untoward considering its Proyas, but probably why the movie got panned, the tone shifts from fearful supernatural horror & disaster to ... well, alien intervention. The scary guys in coats are aliens, who have been whispering to "chosen ones"; Caleb and Lucinda's granddaughter are such. They and other chosen ones will be taken off the planet, but... no one else. We end the movie with a wee bit of Close Encounters and then.... fire.

I still really like the movie, despite the reigned in Nick Cage craziness, maybe because of? Proyas does like his hope tinged darkness.

31 Days of Halloween: Heretic

2024, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods (65) -- download

I would more credit them for being the writers of "A Quiet Place".

Two young Mormon girls get stuck inside a very oddly constructed house, as intellectual playthings for a strange man who wants them to question their faith. 

This movie was as well constructed as the house they were imprisoned within. Whether you think the plot worked or not, one could not deny how well built everything was, from the dialogue, to the imagery to the lighting and cinematography. After a season, or more likely a year, of seeing terrible and tepid, it was just nice to absorb this.

Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher, Companion) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East, The Wolf of Snow Hollow) are two inquisitive, thoughtful and devoted members of their Church (of Latter Day Saints). Their final "investigator" (someone who has professed an interest in the LDS) is Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant, Love Actually) who lives in an isolated house at the end of an isolated street. He invites them in, assuring them that his wife is upstairs and will be down shortly to serve them blueberry pie. They shouldn't be alone with Mr. Reed but he is charming, disarming and charismatic. He immediately drops into an interrogative, inquisitive line of questioning. He offers them Coca-Cola, knowing they cannot have caffeine. Paxton is amazed at his knowledge of Mormonism, while Barnes seems hesitant, more worldly, less trusting.

There is no Mrs. Reed, there is no pie, and there is no escape. There is just Mr. Reed and his own mission, to have the girls question their own faith as he lays out a long dialogue about the position and purpose of religion in the world. I love every moment of these scenes, from the construction, semi-temple-like, of the room, to the colour-tones, to how he lays out the holy tomes and Monopoly games. I do like me some creative precision. Even his presentation is precisely faulty, as Barnes angrily points out, while Paxton just wishes to capitulate and escape.

He claims he wants them to question their belief and in doing so, choose a door through which to leave. Both doors lead to a cold, crudely constructed basement - a ragged metaphor. Once they are aware they are thoroughly trapped down there, Reed introduces his "prophet", a woman in rags & gray skin, and the blueberry pie. And death, and a simulacrum of a miraculous resurrection. But as Barnes angrily points out, its all smoke & mirrors, magic tricks, a weak attempt to deceive them. And just as she is about to equally direct Paxton to attack Reed, he cuts her throat. She bleeds out in front of Paxton who responds like a switch has been thrown; gone is the meek, frightened girl and the thoughtful, angry one emerges, a side of her that she usually demurred to Barnes. She not only challenges Reed's little act but beats him at it, disappearing into his sub-basement that winds its way down and around, his own little play on Dante's Inferno. At the very least, you cannot fault Reed for being a creative mind. Her journey ends in a room with more of his "prophets", other women he has captured and "converted" into shades in cages. He thinks he has her, that she will be his next, but no, not at all. She stabs him in the throat and runs off.

But of course, a horror movie cannot have its villain go down so easy. He once again corners her, stabbing her in the belly and as he is about to ... crunch, the earlier alluded to pointy stick full of rusty nails is slammed into his head by the ashen grey Barnes, a proper miracle to save her friend, before she falls into her own endless sleep. Paxton can escape.

If ever a movie demanded one of those stupid click-baity videos or articles of "Ending of 'Heretic' Explained" its this movie. You see, there is a seemingly toss away plot point, a quick jaunt left of centre, where Reed claims this has never been about proving whether the girls have faith or not, but whether they can break the simulation -- you know, that conspiracy theory that we are all in a great simulation. His proof comes when he cuts out Barnes's birth control implant (LARC) and presents it as a marker for an NPC in this simulation. Its ridiculous, its him grasping at straws as the girls disassemble his little play. Paxton has had enough and dismisses it entirely, buuuuut after she escapes, she emerges into a verdant field covered in last night's snow fall, either an early autumn storm or a late spring one. An unearthly beautiful field, and a butterfly lands on her fingers, recollecting her own professed desire to come back as a butterfly and follow her loved ones about. Then it glitches and the snow & butterfly are gone.

There are a number of ways you could go. Was it all actually a simulation, another iteration of something played out again and again? Was this proof that Paxton was actually a prophet and Barnes, her angel of belief? Or crazy man and survivor hallucinations. I like the idea that as Reed was fucking with them, the directors/writers are fucking with us.

Good movie.

I noticed an odd trend for Amazon. Soon after digital release, Amazon posts the movie in their catalog, but then in a rather short period after, quietly removes it, redirecting you to their partner subscriptions instead. Stupid capitalism. 

31 Days of Halloween: Vicious

2025, Bryan Bertino (The Monster) -- download

We saw one of his earlier movies, The Monster. 

The movie opens with a familiar intonation of the voice of depression. I am tired, tired of banging my head against the wall, tired of being me. This is a movie that is not quiet about its metaphors, for trauma, for deep depression, but it does come with some mild hope. Very mild. After all, its a horror movie, not treatment.

Polly (Dakota Fanning, The Watchers) lives in her sister's house, well one sister and brother in law are renting to her. Mega fucking huge house for a 30ish young art student working dead end jobs that she really really doesn't want to go to. She is so deep in the throes of depression that she doesn't want to do anything. This is not the passing kind of depression, something you can curl up on the sofa with a tub of ice cream kind, but the long lasting, impact every aspect of your life kind. She seems to mostly live with it, but is not really living. She hints at maybe trying to date someone her sister is setting her up with it, but can barely fake interest.

Then the box arrives. An old woman (Kathryn Hunter, Andor; yep, Syril's mom) knocks on her door on a cold winter night. Polly is kind, invites the woman in, offers her some tea. The woman seems confused, until she is not. She has passed the box onto Polly and explains the brief rules: don't tell anyone about the box, and give the box what it wants, or you are dead. In fact, the old woman intones that Polly is already dead. Polly freaks out and kicks the old woman out, leaving her box in the middle of the road. It finds its way back to her coffee table.

The box is an asshole. The idea is that you have to sacrifice three things, each before the sand runs through the hourglass. Something you love, something you hate, something you need. Polly is chain smoking, barely starting one cigarette before she lights the next. That should be easy, right? Cigarettes. Nope, nothing is easy. Fuck with the box, and the box fucks with you via visions and imagery and sound and phone calls. The dead call you, monsters under the bed grab you, memories haunt you. Its relentless, manipulative, conniving. And deceitful. After all, its an evil fucking box, Dybbuk-style.

The movie is pretty effective with the standards of American jump scare horror movies, and the ever growing panic and dread Polly feels about what she will be compelled to do is tangible. Given how the movie will begin, we understand that the only way she can stop this (and yes, its been a single night) is to give the box to someone else. Again, there is no real mythology present in the movie, so really, the rules are loose, and what is explained by the box (when it calls you in other people's voices) can be a lie, so really there aren't any rules, just the tortures of a cursed item. Like The Monster, there is no explainer, just fear and dread, and really, that's what horror movies are about.

And yes, the metaphor for depression was a hammer to the forehead, even when they weren't depicting Polly accurately. Depression lies, depression takes, depression has no real rules and just wants to hurt you, or more accurately, have you hurt yourself. But, you can stand up to it.

Meta note: From the get go, Marmy went, "Where is this shot? I recognize that house." She was right, we did. Its in Ottawa and the architecture was clear.

KWIF: sets and series

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. This week, the big view was Tron:Ares which I covered doing a whole Recognizer-sized post about the film series. So that leaves three other sets and series I've been lured into as of late.

This Week:
True Grit (2010, d. Joel and Ethan Coen - dvd)
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941, d. W.S. Van Dyke - dvd)
Final Destination 2 (2003, d. David R. Ellis - rental)

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Some might say that making a new True Grit was a gamble, while others might say that it was a no-risk, sure-fire hit. Both can be true.

Yes, True Grit was, and remains, the Coen Brothers' biggest box office success by quite a wide margin. Grossing over 250 million it was a legitimate blockbuster that went on to earn 10 Oscar nominations (and won none... Jeff Bridges would have been a shoe-in had the Academy not just given him Best Actor for Crazy Heart the year prior, a decision some say was more a "career achievement" Oscar rather than a reflection of the quality of film or his performance in it). It was a new adaptation of Charles Portis' novel that had been previously adapted in 1969, shortly after its publication, into a John Wayne-starring vehicle [Toasty's pandemic-era review] that was also a bit hit and won John Wayne his first and only Oscar, and is considered a classic in cinematic westerns.

In promoting the film, the filmmakers and cast were explicit about noting the film was an adaptation of the novel, not a remake of the movie. Remaking a classic means comparing one's film to the classic, and the risk is 9 times out of 10 that doesn't go very well. But there are always exceptions, and the Coen's True Grit proved to be one of those exceptions. 

It's a fairly straightforward premise, as most classically-styled westerns tend to be. A young woman, Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld in her first role), arrives in Fort Smith, Arkansas, looking to hire a Marshall to hunt down the man who killed her father. Mattie is hyper-intelligent, educated, well-read, brash, and can talk circles around pretty much anyone... and regularly does. She fixates on U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), because he's been described as a man with "true grit" (that's the name of the movie!), and has a history of being less than lenient on the subject he pursues.

In reality, Cogburn is a one-eyed alcoholic who sleeps on a cot in the back of a grocers store. He's kind of gross, but also, he's pretty damn good at his job. Likely because of his perpetually inebriated state, Mattie can't really get a leg up on him, at least verbally, but money talks and Cogburn takes the job. But in taking the job he's unfortunately (at least in his perspective) saddled with Matty who persistently accompanies him on the trek, because she wants to see the job gets done personally. 

Cogburn has also forged an uneasy partnership with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who has been in pursuit of their prey, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) for many years now. LaBoeuf is cocky and dresses in clean leathers with fancy tassels and has the air of arrogance about him, which rubs Cogburn the wrong way (the gulf spreads further when the men realize they were on opposite sides during the Civil War).

The story is about how these three very different people interact with one another, how they want to let their differences divide them, but along the way find respect for each other. 

I have not read the book, not seen the original adaptation, so I don't know how much of this True Grit deviates from the past of either story. Compared to almost every other Coens film, there doesn't seem to be much Coen-isms in this, but I'd bet pretty heavily I would see them were I to actually compare. (The one standout Coen-ism is LaBoeuf pronouncing his last name LeBeef).

It's a film that would have succeeded without a doubt because its source material is solid and the directors are master craftsmen, but the casting elevates everything. Hailee Steinfeld has to carry the first act pretty much on her own, and she does so exceptionally well. Adopting a drawl at the same time as performing exceptionally twisty, fast-talking dialogue, while still retaining a twinkle of mischievous charm at 14-years-old...she's a once-in-a-lifetime find, able to punch her weight against the likes of Bridges, Damon and Brolin. She was exceptional on-screen from moment one, and she's only gotten better in the 15 years since. She's one of my favourite actors, and it's awe-inspiring seeing how good she's always been.

Bridges's post-The Big Lebowski career seemed to always be in the shadow of Lebowski. It's like his relaxed, Californian dude-ness was allowed to come front and center in that film, and he couldn't get it back in. Suddenly, on the press circuit, Bridges wasn't just "actor Jeff Bridges", he was actually the Dude. But on screen, when it called for it, Bridges could bottle that all up and pull out completely different personas, and Cogburn was definitely one of those other personas. Bridges does some incredible physical work based around Cogburn's eye patch alone, but he dances on pin heads stepping between hypercapable, soused boor, and endearing mentor to Matty. 

With Roger Deakins behind the lens, it of course looks fantastic. Carter Burwell's score leans heavily into conventional western territory with absolute purpose. It's a masterfully executed production by all parties involved. It's seems so breezy a production to watch and quick immerse one's self in, that it's easy to undermine how complicated it must have been to pull off. The Coen's films almost always tend to challenge the audience's expectations, to toy with genre and storytelling conventions, so it's True Grit's lack of these qualities, and only the absence of those "Coen-isms" that make this a lesser production in the portfolio...in almost other director's portfolio it would be their masterpiece.

[Poster talk... when did character posters become a thing. I remember two main posters for the film... the one above which was all about font, resembling an older timey parchment poster, and the one which features grizzled looking men with guns.  The "men with guns" one was to sell it to the guys who like men-with-guns movies. The parchment one is meant to sell it to the art house movie crowd who like to read, I guess. Look! Words! But I didn't realize that True Grit had a series of character posters, and now I'm wondering when the whole character poster trend started...a quick *something* search finds character posters for the original Oceans 11 though the individual character one-sheets are rare, but Batman Returns was maybe the first big one where it's really spotlighting individual characters, not just the actor...TBC]

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The fourth Thin Man movie takes the Charles family back to San Francisco. Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) leave Nick Jr. and Asta behind for a day at the races when Nick's drunken speeding gets him pulled over... well, more the speeding than the drunkenness. The motorcycle cop writes Nick up a ticket, but then recognizes the famous detective, and decides to escort him to the track...very slowly, when they are suddenly swept up in a swarm of cop cars, all on their way to the same destination.

A jockey has been murdered at the track and now Nick has been roped into working on the case by the ever-annoyed Lieutenant Abrams (Sam Levene). There's been a task force afoot to root out the criminals who have been fixing the sporting events in the area, and they think the jockey's murder is a part of it. 

As is common with a Thin Man film, the story gets twisted and complex as more and more players filter in, additional murders happen, and Nick reluctantly investigates while Nora insinuates herself into the investigations with less and less resistance from Nick.  And there's plenty of drinking.

Shadow of the Thin Man leans the more heavily on the comedy than the last two films, and keeps Nick and Nora closer (acknowledging even in film how it's better when they're together). Also, the return of Levene as Abrams is more than welcome, although the script does make Abrams out to be much lest competent than he seemed last time (a lot of the comedy from Abrams is how he understands what's really going on but then asks Nick to explain it to him). The story, though gets way too convoluted in its plotting and when it reaches its endgame (the usual Thin Man end game, where Nick gets all potential suspects in a room and then figures out the killer on the fly), well, the stakes feel alarmingly low.

I probably shouldn't enjoy the comedy of the Charles' alcohol abuse as much as I do, but it's presented whimsically, without ever a hint of how it's an impediment to their lives, as if it was a magical joy elixir that makes everything better. It makes me miss being able to have a nip, as it seems it should be especially fun to pair up some cocktails and drink along with the film.

[Poster talk... while that kinda looks like Myrna Loy, it's really not doing her any favours.This poster is telling you nothing.]

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With the second of the Final Destination films, the filmmakers (including series creator Jeffrey Reddick) decided to do what so many horror franchises do in their initial sequel: build mythology.

The first film presented the idea that sometimes people get visions, and then they escape death, and maybe help others escape Death. That escape is only temporary and death will come calling again, and there's a "design" to Death's approach. However, there are also signs, that, if you're paying attention, can foretell Death's plan. ("Death" is not an actual character, but the way that Death is talked about in this film, it's as if it is an actual being).

Final Destination 2 both expands on the ideas of the first one, but also breaks the structure in a way that threatens to lessens the entertainment value.

The film opens with college student Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) heading out on a road trip with her pals to Daytona Beach, only to get on the highway and immediately become part of a horrifying sequence of events involving a logging truck. It's an absolutely spectacular and delightful sequence as it introduces us to Cook and her annoying friends who we look forward to watching die, as well as these super-funny quick-hit introduction to all these other drivers on the highway who, likewise, we look forward to watching die because they're all mostly awful.  And yeah, they all die real, real quick when the logging truck spills its load and chaos ensues.

Of course it's all Kimberly's vision as she's sitting on the on-ramp, and she freaks out, block the ramp and effectively saves the lives of many of the drivers immediately behind her when the accident triggers shortly thereafter.  I'm not sure how Kimberly and only the people she saw die in her vision all wound up at the police station together (I guess they wanted to see if any of them needed crisis counselling?) but they do and they all have varying levels of skepticism over Kimberly's prognostication.

This takes place in the same region as the last movie, and so everyone's familiar with Flight 180. After one of the survivors dies shortly after, Kimberly thinks what happened to the Flight 180 survivors is going to happen to the survivors of the crash. Not only does she think it, she knows it, because she keeps getting difficult-to-interpret visions (rather than the signs that the survivors of the past film would see).

Paired with overprotective Police Officer Thomas Burke (who's too old to have an obvious crush on this teenage college girl, played by one-time Jimmy Olson Michael Landes) they seek out the only remaining survivor of Flight 180, Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) who resides on her own volition at a mental health facility, paranoid that death will find her.  After more deaths, Clear takes Kimberly and Thomas to see the guy at the mortuary from the last film (Tony Todd)  who seems to have special insight on Death. He tells them the only way to interrupt Death's design is to bring new life into the world. The surviving Scooby gang recall a pregnant woman from the highway, and determine that they need to find her and ensure her baby is born in order to break the cycle.

Of course, Death finds them along the way in a series of gleeful and gruesome accidents, until only a few of them are left. But before they're all dead, they all learn that they are all alive anyway thanks to some knock-off effects from the survivors of the first film. So in a way Death is still trying to clean up the mess that happened in the last movie.

For what was a pretty simple premise in the first film, Final Destination 2 tends to overcomplicate things, but that actually works in its favour. The more ridiculous it gets, the more entertaining it is. The first Final Destination was literally life-or-death for its characters. It was a serious movie when a host of unfortunate events happened killing off a crew of very scared teenagers who already lived through a big traumatic incident. Here, it's so evident that the film just wants us to root for the invisible spectre of death to just take everyone out in as elaborate a fashion as possible.

The Rube-Goldberg-ian set-ups here leading to the kills are absolutely delicious, and director/stunt coordinator David R. Ellis revels in the fake out. Each kill presents many different ways that the target may die, whole sets are constructed with danger after danger such that the audience is constantly led astray as to what will actually be the victim's inevitable demise (a guy walks up the stairs only to reach the landing where all kinds of balls, marbles and wheeled toys lay to be stepped on sending him back down the stairs, only he makes it through that death trap completely unscathed. His actual death involves a dozen stages and an absurd level of confluence that makes the kill a comedic set piece rather than a horrific one).  

It's really Kimberly's visions, though, that weaken the film. The visions prognosticate the deaths, somewhat with oblique visuals that are intentionally difficult to interpret. The visions threaten to undercut the surprise of the deaths, and yet, the hints of what's to come actually wind up engaging the audience in a guessing game as to how the deaths are going to play out (and the film's defiance of those expectations most of the time is part of the fun). Yet, the visions feel like such a cheat for the film. The "signs" that were foretold by Clear (and also used in the last film) are only presented once here, and "signs" are much more creative and engaging than "visions". Kimberly's reliance upon her visions, and the surety upon which she believes she's interpreted her visions correctly, as well as the other characters so blindly following her visions...well, it makes the characters both dumb and unlikable. Kill them all! Kill them all!

Final Destination 2 really is so stupid, and yet it's exceptionally well-crafted stupidity. It's clear that while maybe not the greatest of attentions were paid to building its characters or writing dialogue, the level of detail work and care put into the deadly scenarios, and the execution of those scenarios are phenomenal. I always liked the first Final Destination, but Final Destination 2 may be one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen. 

[Poster talk... there was only one poster for the American release of Final Destination 2, and main part of that poster is presented in the rear-view mirror of the French poster for the film. There was this trend for horror movie posters post-Scream, I think, that put all the young cast's heads on the poster in a slightly stylized way with a slight indication of what was coming for them, all presented in heavy blacks with a monochromatic accent. The horror posters of the late-90s and 2000s were so annoyingly same-y same-y and dull dull dull. FD2 is such a lively movie that largely takes place in the daytime that this grimdark shadowy poster with headlights doesn't represent the film in the slightest.]