It’s rare that a film begins with such passionate backstory from its creators providing their personal connection to a story – while explaining the possible cultural disconnect from viewers who may have missed the fifty five-year plus history of Shin Ultraman, which I had. This goes from a member whose father worked on the set of Ultraman Ace and grew up collecting action figures to eventually playing Ultraman himself, to crew members that watched the history of this figure evolve into this post-COVID era film. Here, they felt audiences were ready to embrace for messages of hope and connectivity. This short interview with members of the crew braced me for perhaps not a journey into horror that I’m used to, but a trip with a cultural being that represents the connection between man, monster, and extraterrestrial, and all the unknowns that make our imaginations run wild. Reuniting after the hit Shin Godzilla in 2016, director Shinji Higuchi and producer Hideaki Anno have a reboot for the times that can speak a universal language. The 37th film in the franchise and the second reboot of the “tokusatsu” series, there is a long list of Ultraman lore you luckily won’t need to know to enjoy this film about a giant silver savior. Sparking the imagination as intended, here I’m diving into a more formal definition of “kaiju” beyond what we shout every time we see a monster.
Screaming! Running! Kaiju! Shin Ultraman wastes no time as it begins with Japan under siege from several different unidentified monstrosities: a giant flower, a flying kaiju causing an alarm of “stealth kaiju”, (and a nod to Shin Godzilla), each causing devastation to a fantastically nostalgic monster movie score that peaks and falls with roaring orchestras or lazy guitar, all mixed masterfully by Shirô Sagisu. The use of CGI for this parade of monsters at the start drew some notice from the community, as practical effects were the norm to create the creatures of this universe. But I agree with some other outlets that the quality of the CGI actually brings these monsters to life and gives them their otherworldly appearance, without fully sacrificing the old-world monster movie effect given their artistic designs. Meanwhile, a 5-man task force has risen to aid the defense, and they’ve proven successful: this is the S-Class Species Suppression Protocol Enforcement Unit (or SSSP, thank goodness). After aiding the government on several missions, it seems the SSSP is now embedded with the armed forces at crisis locations of Kaiju activity. Whilst fighting a kaiju that feeds on electricity and can become invisible to cause damage, the SSSP also deals with the political undertakings it must face, such as the fact that kaiju are a specifically Japanese problem (a fun running joke) that require them to foot the bill for damage.
Suddenly, in the midst of the electrical kaiju chaos, an unidentified object comes rocketing through the atmosphere, smashing into earth. “Some sort of silver giant?” one of the SSSP members asks as the silhouette of a giant metal humanoid rises and takes the blows from the kaiju with ease. As the monster retreats, suddenly, almost like a pose struck, the giant humanoid makes a chopping motion, sending an incredible burst of energy towards the monster, destroying it on impact and turning the air to plasma with the heat, amazing the SSSP. With the monster destroyed, the giant suddenly takes off flying, with all agencies losing track of their mysterious hero.
Cutting away from the battle zone and forward in time, the SSSP is now receiving aid from a new transfer, Hikiro Asami (Masami Nagasawa) tasked at researching the shining titan. Her captain Kimio Tamura (Hidetoshi Nishijima) assigns her a buddy to help her with the research, Shinji Kaminaga (Takumi Saitoh) which proves a bit unhelpful, as he remembers nothing as he was helping a child during the initial incident. The captain is happy with the new addition as she has put together a quick, concise report on the giant tentatively titled “Ultraman,” ultra being a code, the captain says, that is meant for top secret information, but also has a nice ring to it for the higher ups. Profiles compiling his stats puts Ultraman at 60 meters tall and 2,900 tons: that’s a lot of extraterrestrial.
I knew nothing of Ultraman before I began my exploration into his lore and this film. However, he has never been far from the public eye since his 1966 debut and has spawned films, television series, anime and even games. Apparently, in Japan he is wildly famous and omnipresent as an icon, but Shin Ultraman will supposedly make fans pay attention in a different way. Its powerful visuals and its hope to provide unity with its hero is a noble cause, especially being that it was conceived during isolation. He also provides a character that can be loved by viewers of all ages and backgrounds, regardless of what they knew about the film prior. The screen time isn’t saturated with too much Ultraman action either, so when he arrives, it’s a treat and an event in the film. Not overusing him allows for more extraterrestrial action to occur between Ultraman sightings, moving the plot along at an exciting pace with a new creature or occurrence to enjoy Ultraman’s own journey, something that I’m sure will continue as this movie leaves room for more spinoffs and sequels. Cinematography is at its finest here as well, where mundane office scenes pop using intense close ups; shots from above emphasize a busy control room; and action scenes swell with tracking and close ups of monsters just campy and just believable enough to be satisfying.
I was completely won over by Shin Ultraman without ever having known of his universe before. From well done practical and special effects, to characters with over the top reactions, or faceless military extras packed into the chaotic boardrooms you expect in a monster movie, this film hits all of the creature feature marks. Shin Ultraman is a visual delight, scored perfectly, with a story that aims to warm the heart (a feature most hero movies miss now, as they aim for the grisly origin story). According to some fans, this might not have the satire or grit that Shin Godzilla had, but I feel like with the introductions from the crew and the story of a hope for humanity with people adapting and working together, it doesn’t have to have that extra snap of ironic wit to remain a smart, heartfelt and action-packed epic. Get ready for a trip back to the monster glory days if you choose, because Shin Ultraman is the shining example of how film can transcend culture and time, even for those uninitiated, while continuing an innovative, passionate legacy.
Shin Ultraman (2022) hits VOD on July 4th, and Blu-ray/DVD on July 11th 2023.
If you looked at Malum’s poster or trailer and thought it seemed familiar, you’re not wrong: you may have seen some of these haunting images before in its origin story, Last Shift. A vivid, gory, and lore-rich reimagining of the 2014 single location psychological thriller, DiBlasi’s Malum sets a more definitive tone with more commanding visuals and richer cinematography than its predecessor, as well as decidedly fewer divided ratings upon its release (also likely due to Last Shift’s polarizing conclusion, loathed by nearly half of viewers on Rotten Tomatoes). With our lead heroine recast, some familiar faces returning, and a plot that treads more deeply into the predatory cult that plagued the first film and left Officer Loren and her father’s legacy shrouded in mystery, this terror wastes no time exploring dark topics. Malum isolates some successful aspects of what makes its source material terrifying, and inserts imaginative twists and family lore to make the haunting all the more personal. Put on the original if you need a refresher, because it’s going to be a long night.
A familiar, haunting song follows us into this film as we enter Langford Police’s evidence footage of the Malum Flock Compound. A Satanic-looking throne is briefly seen, before frolicking bathers, observed by the camera, are brought into view. We see them marching to a farm, appearing giddy, stoic, sceptic or scared, depending. These mixed emotions are soon understood: some girls are here willingly, others are here to be sacrificed, as a man with a blurred face utters incomprehensible words and horrific violence ensues, between cuts of animals and Satanic imagery scored by strings and screams. This horrifying memory is broken and we sit with Will Loren (Eric Olson) a hero in his colleagues’ eyes but a failure in his own, for saving three girls at the compound when he believes it could have been four. Suddenly at the firing range, during a playful conversation between colleagues, right before the title rolls, the scene explodes into brutal gore. Officer Loren is the one holding the gun, murdering his colleagues. Moments after the title fades, as his fellow officers close in, Loren says to tell his family he’s sorry, that he’s in the hands of his master, and he turns the gun on himself.
One year later, Jessica Loren (Jessica Sula) is donning her uniform and, much like in Last Shift, is hard at work studying and using her oath ‘to protect and serve’ as a mantra to prepare. A sunny visit to the cemetery to speak to her father is interrupted by a drunk Diane (Candice Coke), her struggling, and disapproving mother trying to talk her daughter out of her first shift. After some harsh words, Jessica is off, and we see her father’s tombstone is anointed with blood and a satanic looking symbol. As night falls, scenes of urban sprawl seem to signal danger as Jessica heads to her post under taunts of “watch it piggy,” prying eyes, and jeering smiles.
Jessica arrives at the police station, which is quiet at first, until she hears a tirade of swearing and battering coming from the back as an officer stumbles into view. Almost identical to the opening in Last Shift, Loren is asked to turn around and stop by her commanding officer Grip Cohen (Britt George) and scolded when she walks. Only after this exercise in power, and expressing his contempt with the remainder of the cult which has planted its roots on the new precinct’s front steps, does he try and get her prepared. Weird, hierarchal machismo aside, Grip leaves his number with the warning “no girl talk” and some simple directions to run the station. However, upon realizing she is Will’s daughter, Grip gets hostile, and with contempt he says if he cared any more he would get her job taken, but, seeing as he doesn’t, he simply directs her to stay out of holding, and leaves.
Left in peace, she explores the station until she finds her father’s locker, permanently sealed, until strange sounds lead her back out into the hallway. In the gym she finds the basketball which officer Cohen had been hurling, neatly placed, and a figure in uniform startles her before vanishing. Loren is suddenly interrupted by an alarm as a man, who appears homeless, bangs on the door, looking for someone. She offers to help but the man soils the floor and wanders off, leaving Loren to clean and field prank squealing pig calls.
This movie is best left without too much more description. While maintaining many of the narrative similarities to its source, Malum deviates, story-wise, to realms unexplored. With her father’s tragic past and the introduction of a sinister villain in John Malum (Chaney Morrow) in place of the cheesier, prominently featured Manson-esque trio of the Paymons we received previously, we get more depth and a more frightening turn of events that, once again, takes the psychological horror turn: is what we are seeing real or is the psychological weight of life’s horrors taking a toll on Jessica’s sanity? The frights are well placed, pacing nicely into an explosive, paranoid final act which ranges from your classic haunted fare, call-backs to Last Shift, and some shocking original imagery bolstered with jarring effects and costuming. The cast are dead serious with their roles, especially an impressive Sula with a standout performance, and even during a dicey final portion that sometimes threatens a well-built foundation with its intense shift in tone and delivery, especially if you’re making comparisons. This shift in its final act could also be a good thing for viewers if you were one of those that saw the ending of Last Shift as a disappointment.
This was a solid reimagining, sequel, whatever you want to call this instalment of film. I can say the things that may have held Last Shift back from reaching its full potential were most certainly realized in terms of story here, including some interesting depth into the politics of the police, scares that range from the familiar to the Hellraiser style bold, and bloodshed to satisfy the gore hounds. While the closing portions may be slippery, literally and figuratively, I think Malum creates its own space aside from Last Shift, sharing just enough similarities to call it a reimagining, with good bones, but with such diverging stories and hallmark details included that they can’t be called the same movie. With positive reviews rolling in, you can add this one; this is an unyielding psychological thriller with edge that builds on an existing story and retells it with vivid detail and brutal visuals, making it a go-to for a back-to-back feature, if you ever find yourself alone one night…
Malum (2023) is available to stream on all major platforms now.
Shuffling, shambling or sprinting, our relationship with the zombie has changed as fast and furiously as someone bitten by one. In the last twenty-five years we have seen an evolution of the nearly one-hundred-year love affair with the undead in all their various forms, and twenty years ago (counting to its United States release) a virus that turned its host into what we deemed “The Infected” tore through our screens via Danny Boyle’s low budget apocalyptic thriller titled 28 Days Later. Popularizing the viral trend and powering up the undead, on a budget of only $8,000,000 this film managed to turn our heads from what we expected from zombies, and it seems we never looked back. In the house, in a heartbeat, with some of the most memorable kills, haunting images of the infected and a score we can think back to when we want to hear horror, 28 Days Later deserves a twenty-year homecoming to celebrate what it did for the undead and to acknowledge how the franchise never got the closure it so rightfully deserved.
We open to footage of rioting, executions, violence and military intervention, playing for a chimp strapped down and hooked up to nodes at the Cambridge Primate Research Centre. Three activists take it upon themselves to break into the lab to gather evidence of animal testing and mistreatment. A scientist catches them in the act and attempts to reach security, but he’s stopped. He tries to warn the activists that the chimps are infected, highly contagious, infected only with what he deems “rage.” Only inciting the activists more, they release the animals and are immediately attacked and infected, spreading it to one another, and we are left with the parting message, “28 days later…”
We then see Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakening in a (fun fact, real) UK hospital, naked and abandoned. Harshly lit, closely shot, he finds the hospital deserted, phone lines down and signs of disaster everywhere as Jim wanders the building collecting clothes and supplies. As he surveys London, he sees no one, hears nothing, finds rubble everywhere on the streets and can’t find another survivor. Wandering an abandoned city, to a moody score you could catch in any survival horror game now, Jim is our last man: finding newspaper articles about evacuation and missing person posters, he’s starting to come to terms with what might have happened here. “The end is extremely fucking nigh,” painted on a wall gives Jim the message as he enters an abandoned church, filled with piles of bodies, some of which spring to life when Jim calls out.
As Jim explores further, he stumbles upon more infected and begins to realize these people are far from normal. Striking one with a bag that would knock any average person out, Jim is panicked and still guilty at hitting the infected man even as he continues to lunge and snap at him. Jim flees the church with the infected not far behind when suddenly, Molotov cocktails light up the streets. Masked survivors call out to Jim to make his way to them as they set the infected ablaze, not stopping until they’ve blown up a gas station with the infected inside. Better than a double tap, I say. Jim’s saviors are Mark (Noah Huntley) and Selena (Naomie Harris), who get the story that Jim was in an accident on his bike that left him in a coma during these events. Mark’s got some bad news, he says, and Selena follows with the story: the virus, an infection in the blood they say has taken over, and by the time evacuation came, it was too late. The army is overrun and there has been an exodus; reports of the infected in Paris were recounted, and now, there is no news at all. Jim’s the first uninfected they’ve encountered in a week.
Zombies: An Evolution
Let’s address this first of all: many fans are loath to classify 28 Days Later’s infected as actual zombies, merely human beings infected with a behaviour-altering virus (the film does base some of its symptoms on the real-life Ebola virus). However, the mindless, en masse behaviour as the Infected move around in hordes; the loss of reasoning power and intelligence; then of course the bite factor, adapted now to spread infection more than to feed – the infected are, for all intents and purposes, zombies, and they mark a long sequence of developments to this particular movie monster.
The first on-screen zombie sighting can be dated back as early as 1932. White Zombie, directed by Victor Halperin and starring Bela Lugosi, is supposedly the first on-screen trace of a human woman, given a tonic to kill her, being brought back to life as a zombie. 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie brings us closer to hoodoo and voodoo origins, as does 1966’s Plague of the Zombies. An all-important movie that gives credence to voodoo and Haitian culture respectively is Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), a film which focuses heavily on cultural respect and religious ceremonies instead of using their cultural elements as “sensational plot devices.” The zombie begins as a more magical being, a once living person given a tonic or else reanimated through ritual, an idea which comes from a more cultural, religious and regional legend which through literature and film has now spread to us.
Once Romero reaches and reinvents the genre, and with the inspiration of the epic I Am Legend (the novel not the film), we see our zombies begin to evolve. In Night of the Living Dead (1968)The East Coast has fallen and these monsters are hordes ready to devour. Romero continued to expand his vision in the wildly popular Dawn of the Dead (1978), which continues to show the aftermath, with survivors banding together in a mall to take shelter. The 80s and 90s brought us some other zombie classics – away from Romero’s ongoing work in that decade – with cult classics such as Peter Jackson’s surprise Dead Alive (1992) which is supposedly one of the goriest films ever made. Give or take a few outliers such as this one, however, the zombies we recognize in cinema even now have many similarities to Romero’s zombies. However, the key evolutions that seem to go back and forth relate largely to two factors: speed and science.
Nightmare City (Umberto Lenzi)
28 Days Later arguably re-popularized the sprinting, screaming zombie that you would have to be a track athlete to outrun, but there’s an argument out there on the web on which movie truly started the movement; 28 Days Later reinvigorated it, but didn’t create it. The argument goes between Nightmare City (1980) and Return of the Living Dead (1985) as the originators of the “quickly moving zombie”, another controversy this film faces. Then, when 28 Days Later rises in the early 2000s, it kickstarts a movement of films and videogames that were ready to pounce on a genre moving towards science and illness, focusing on viral and then fungal transmission, and away from the magic and ritual that initially brought our dead to life.
From Outbreak to Apocalypse
The zombie timeline also applies to how we viewed them as a phenomenon. In the earliest zombie films, that is pre-Romero, zombies are no unstoppable wave or super powered creature, they are the risen dead and can be put back to rest. The evolution of zombies and their reanimation and transmission method has also caused a shift where zombies seem to signal the end of the world in all cases. In older zombie films small towns, homes or just individuals were plagued by zombies and they weren’t nearly as fearsome, in decades-old makeup, shuffling and shambling. Romero’s call in Night of the Living Dead that the Eastern seaboard had fallen victim to waves of mass murder was the first echo of an apocalypse, and this cryptic plague reanimating cadavers is our first trace of a viral zombie.
28 Days Later seemed to begin the world ending trend of zombies that followed with a string of box office and television series that mimicked the same cataclysmic end to our society that a zombie virus might bring. With Night of the Living Dead landing right in the middle of the Vietnam War and 28 Days Later landing in the US after a great national tragedy, it seems the walking dead connect to us when we feel like reality is coming undone. Scenes depicting missing posters under a large building were a cause for controversy in the U.S. as it stirred memories of recent losses during 9/11. Boyle, having made the film prior, says he would have shot certain opening scenes differently with that in mind had he made the film after the attacks.
In nightmarish fashion, we watch as the government and military unravel and feel the sense of what things would be without the societal safety nets we inherently assume will be there during an emergency. We see after 28 Days Later films like the Resident Evil franchise, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Walking Dead (2010) and World War Z (2013) pile up the bodies, literally and figuratively, giving instances of corporations, governments and the CDC itself falling to their knees in the face of these outbreaks. It show us that in the event that we become our own worst enemy, there may be little we can do to stop it. Jim’s idea that “there’s always a government” shows how rooted we are in our societal nets and how the idea that the most well-funded and supported militaries and programs would fall in the face of cataclysmic disease is often simply unthinkable.
Nothing quite encapsulates this breakdown like the simple sinister phrase as spoken by one of the last remaining military personnel in the post-virus Britain of 28 Days Later, “I promised them women.” People are now currency, in a world where the only hope of rebuilding comes at the cost of the permission of those necessary to it. The idea of this full surrender – that the military would turn against civilians and institute their own breeding program – is horrifying and can briefly remind you that maybe the infected aren’t the most frightening thing hunting the streets, another Romero lesson well learned in Day of the Dead (1985). This scenes of Cillian Murphy using guerilla warfare against the soldiers to get his female captives free from a lifetime imprisonment has a very special score called “In the House, in a Heartbeat” that is easily one of the most recognizable modern horror themes, with its soft piano and foreboding guitar. It makes for an epic, bizarre climax of survivors half naked or dressed in ball gowns pitted against their would-be saviors turned captors.
A Franchise Unfinished
With 28 Days Later grossing $82 million worldwide on its modest budget of $8 million, the film was a not only a commercial success but a critical one. Audiences and reviewers alike concurred that the film was a standout and could satiate fans’ appetites for zombie violence. The film also served as a springboard for Murphy’s career, as he would shortly go on to star in thrillers like Red Eye (2005) and Batman Begins (2005) before later being cast in Inception (2020) and probably his biggest claim to fame, the TV series Peaky Blinders (2013+). Four years later the 28 Days Later sequel, 28 Weeks Later (2007) brought in a more visible cast and an even larger budget. With nearly double its predecessor’s cash and stars like Jeremy Renner, Robert Carlyle, Imogen Poots and Rose Byrne, the more star studded and obviously more expensive sequel was still successful, grossing $65 million worldwide and maintaining positive audience and critical reviews. Then – it all stopped.
Rumors floated around all the way up until last year that a sequel script could be in the making. Both Murphy and Boyle have been vocal that they would be interested in a third film, but have yet to solidify any details. As the UK celebrated its 20th year anniversary with 28 Days Later articles pouring out asking about the possibility of a sequel, there’s nothing exactly concrete besides a very vacant and mysterious IMDB page titled 28 Months Later. There was no shortage for zombie action in both movies and games in the lurch between 28 Weeks Later and the present, but there was a film that appeared which did take an angle on how the Rage Virus might have played out.
A film called The Cured, directed by David Freyne, was part of its own not-so-popular string of zombie action, supposedly connected to a film called The Third Wave that Freyne was working towards. Starring Elliot Page and Sam Keeley, The Cured came out in 2017 and had all the similar markings to 28 Days Later but claimed it was not part of the franchise. In it, the “Maze Virus” (sounds similar doesn’t it?) has terrorized citizens for years but now with the promise of a cure, 75% of the infected can return (in this case to Ireland), with all their memories of what they did as infected, to civilized society. The other 25% are considered immune and beyond saving. But society doesn’t believe the cured can be dependable, or non-violent. We see some of the best and mostly worst of human behavior in 28 Days and 28 Weeks Later, so the reality in The Cured is that those cured aren’t welcome home: they’re not to be trusted. This film also brings about the idea of “zombie rights” and whether or not the uncured should be euthanized, being that their consciousness resides within them still, or whether or not the cured should be a protected group with more rights upon their return. The film garnered a paltry $323,000 at the box office and average reviews, unfortunately not leaving it a strong enough standalone film and no entrant into the 28 Days Later franchise for any street credit despite some interesting ideas.
Closing Thoughts
28 Days Later wasn’t only a zombie film. An emotional piece with a breakneck timeline that allowed no grieving, the film touched on loss and survival on a personal level. Stories of trampling evacuations and harrowing escapes, inspired by real unrest across the globe, make for emotional retellings of discord and death in the film, and makes each character worth investing in, no matter how long they last. The idea of a military turned more than corrupt and women as currency turns the dystopian nightmare riddled with the dead even darker, and opens up to what, as Selena would say, you would be willing to do in a heartbeat. Yet even in all of this expressive storytelling amongst the chaos and a historic performance by Murphy, the infected still surface as the stars of the show, leading us to ask some questions about where we are, where we’re going, and why we enjoy it so much.
What makes a zombie? What makes fast zombies more appealing now? What about the specialized zombies we see in games? What makes them so fascinating to us still? Our fixation on the dead has lasted a lifetime and nearly a century in film, it seems the zombie isn’t going anywhere. With new voices coming from foreign directors like Train to Busan (2016) and Kingdom (2019) it looks like the zombie evolution will continue, whether we see a 28 Days Later sequel or not. 28 Days Later will remain the catalyst of this age for fast, ferocious, zombified monsters, the popularization of viral spread and the savagery of societal and governmental collapse. Deserving of a 28 Months Later, I hope that this empty IMDB page comes to fruition soon, with the return of a director with vision and Jim on his journey again to survive a plague supposedly defeated. No other movie can fill the gaps left by this franchise and fans and critics are hungry for more. Don’t make us wait 8 more years so it’s 28 Years Later, please. I think the fans are ready to rage now.
I’ve seen a few films this year about grief, death, coping, and the toll it takes on our minds. Most of these stories are epics that lead in impossible directions, lit and shot with intensity that doesn’t always reflect the emptiness you descend into after a traumatic event. The Empty Space begins using bare bones cinematography and anxiety-inducing color palettes to set a nuanced, realistic feeling of agoraphobia and depression. While it begins slow, even for a clipped run time, The Empty Space leaves some room in its second half to fill us in on its secrets and paint a slightly more emotional picture than just the sharp lens of anxiety we view through our main character’s eyes. Similar in style to From Black and with some likeness to After She Died, this picture has modern influences from what seem to be popular ideas now. However, unlike its peers, I’m not sure if the leisurely pace and uneven characters, held up by a seemingly fatigued cast, can bear the weight of its heavy storyline.
Aimee (Valerie Alene) is afraid of everything, it looks like. After a colorful, starry cosmic-looking opening hints at some past tragedy in her life, we meet with the stark yellow exterior walls of Aimee’s home. A delivery driver is frustrated with Aimee’s specific directions to leave the food in order to keep herself unseen and within the apartment. Eventually the food is left and we see Aimee, caught in memories and orange pill bottles, battling some anxiety before finally willing herself outside. Seeming distant from her boss, Aimee struggles through a day of a brutally ringing phone she seems too scared to answer, an issue which ultimately leads her to quit. Now with no job, Aimee is back to rocking back and forth in a panic outside, until mysterious Mel (Rachel Olsen) approaches and asks how she is, handing her a flier to a support group and saying it might provide help.
Soft piano music graces us as Aimee digs into a box labeled “Noah” which seems to spark some memories, leading her to the support group called Healing as One. Although quickly made uncomfortable by some unwanted advances, Aimee tries to make it through sharing, briefly connecting with a group member, James (Pablo Medina) over their mutual fear of leaving the house. This goes wrong when she adds, “Do you see people following you too?” She recounts that she sees shadows following her and the group dubs her “for real crazy.” The group leader attempts to restore order and gives a speech about choice and ways of continuing life after tragedy. Choices are paramount, choices can haunt us, including continuing to choose fear, as Aimee notes. “So long as it’s your choice,” is the group leader’s final word on the matter.
We flash back to a happier time where Aimee is socializing and throwing a party for her partner Noah (Joe Sinclitico). Outside it appears there’s someone preparing to enter and we hear a knock: a masked figure with a handgun enters the home, and fires. A very retro score covers the horror of the nightmare, now broken, as Aimee heads to a bookshop where she runs into Mel. Mel wonders at Aimee’s presence there and also questions the omnipresent yellow beanie she never seems to take off outside. Aimee curiously and jokingly asks Mel if she’s a witch regarding her very abstract reading selections, such as “Psychic Perception” – a “must read” according to Mel, as Aimee is looking for an answer as to “why we are here.” Mel’s says there’s an answer for everything in the books, but don’t look for specifics, as the best answer she has is “shit just happens.” Her favorite idea from “The Power of the Mind” is how our perception dictates our lives. But Mel expresses she just wants to believe on a grander scale that there’s “more to all this,” especially after the accident that put her in group had left her previously unable to walk. Both women want meaning in a world that doesn’t seem to make sense to them, with its apathy towards their pain and loss.
I’ll start with my one pet peeve here: I’ve never seen a more unbelievable portrayal of a support group, even as the characters develop and give excuses for poor behavior. Any of that negativity, continuous borderline sexual harassment, or back-talk to a new member would result in that person being removed. This, plus teasing, trying to take away coping mechanisms like Aimee’s beanie, and heavy outside socializing make the group a confusing place sometimes. Some messages come through loud and clear like the topics of isolation, doubt, longing and to some degree, hope. However, others, described abstractly in conversation or showed through shifting perception or flashbacks that rely on inference, can be confusing both to understand conceptually or visually. Semi-emotional descriptions that attempt to relay what lies beyond the veil can sometimes clarify what our characters are trying to understand from the universe, with a returning character about halfway through the film providing insights. However, in spite of these enormous revelations, even as Aimee is supposedly in the throes of hysteria trying to understand aloud, “What’s happening to me?” it lands flat, as most lines do, and the leads never seem to commit past monotone disappointment. Nothing ever quite frightens either, as the main antagonist wavers between trying to give Aimee what she wants or playing with her sanity. Practical and special effects also don’t land within this film’s tight budget as colorful CGI and unfortunately positioned green screens look misplaced in the previously raw settings of The Empty Space.
The Empty Space takes some big swings at emotional topics and sometimes lands its blows, but for the most part feels devoid of much of the emotion it is supposed to deliver. With an ending premise that could have been pulled off more smoothly and clearly, I can say I enjoyed the premise but not the execution. It’s comforting to know where our heroine lands in her journey, but the journey we take to get there is one that requires more patience and disbelief than I could suspend, as well as turning a blind eye to effects that the film didn’t need. As a whole it is a decently told story of grief and perception, but lacks the emotion and performance that similar films with this idea bring to the table. It also plays into a couple of unfortunate stereotypes of trauma victims (“I wish I was still on drugs” – not always funny). Unfortunately, as the title suggests, this film does leave a lot of emptiness, but in the form of cast dedication, unanswered questions and confusing concepts, visuals and backdrops that never feel all the way there.
TheEmpty Space is available from May 30th, 2023 via Bayview Entertainment.
We’ve all had that friend that never knows when the joke is over. In this case, the Amazing Andy (Will Madden) and his meager Youtube channel are here to welcome us to a weekend getaway with old friends, even one celebrity, but this is no average staycation. Mean Spirited ably uses some of the best parts of found footage and documentary style storytelling, a committed cast willing to switch roles on a dime, and the backlash against streamers that I’ve seen recently in horror movies. It puts together a genuinely funny, creepy tale on a budget that never feels like it’s being pulled too tightly, with director Jeff Ryan showing a nose for a relevant topic. With the pestilence of prank Youtubers and the fact that everyone always seems to be filming something, Mean Spirited feels like a timely entry into the genre and an exploration into the obsession with internet clout. While this watch may be too campy for some, let the practical effects and dedicated performances do their work, and you may be rewarded with a 21st century tale of “be careful what you wish for” and “there’s no such thing as bad attention.”
A home video sets the tone as the first scene is a young boy, Bryce (Jeff Ryan), caught in a prank gone wrong. Bryce is dragged into the home of an older neighbor, his friend Andy leaving him in the old man’s grasp to save himself. Cutting away to a more ragged, homegrown operation, we find Andy, alive and well attempting with all the bells, whistles and merchandise plugs that make Youtube videos awful to get everyone to look, look please look at him and his channel, Mean Spirited, which is devoted to cruel pranks. His big news in this video is that his now famous friend Bryce – Thunderman (some weird play on Thor with fun costuming that I love) – wants to reconnect for a weekend in the Poconos. Andy is plain and harsh with how he believes Bryce abandoned the channel and harps on all the things friends do: his friend’s weight, his acne, he’s a sellout, he’s fake. Rich, coming from the man who plays pretend for the camera for 35,000 followers, hardly Thunderman numbers. Andy has decided to make a “vlogumentary” documenting the deterioration of their friendship and all of the sordid things Andy believes Bryce might be interested in.
Insufferable as ever, with graphics to make you scream, Andy finally gathers his camera and sound crew, Tom (Daniel Rashid), Joey (Maria DeCotis) and Dew (Will Martin), as well as Tom’s girlfriend, Nikki (Michelle Veintimilla.) A rest stop leads to a bloody postcard on the windshield and the realization that the group is being watched. A figure in an animal mask stares at them silently beyond the tree line, prompting them to leave. The car ride grows awkward as it becomes clear Bryce has no issue; it’s Andy with his crying videos devoted to Bryce and tomato throwing at movie billboards that can’t let his missed chance go. After Andy declares his innocence and lack of jealousy, they finally arrive at a compound-like mansion, and are greeted by a barely clothed Bryce, already sick of the camera. The group is immediately taken by Bryce, but also by the strange amount of Christian iconography hanging around.
The discovery of a single locked door piques Andy’s interest, but Bryce pulls his perpetually nosy guest away for beers with friends, with things going as uncomfortably as you can imagine, between the friendly feud and Dew’s lewd behavior over drinks. Heading back to the house to unpack and unwind, the group decides to play a rigged game: a Ouija board brought and manipulated by Andy to try and guilt or expose Bryce. As the questions get too personal Bryce explodes; the jokes over, Bryce goes to get air and the group disperses. Dew, on his own, suddenly finds himself before the locked room, now open and radiating red light, behind it some unholy looking altars and decorations which we see only briefly, before our masked friend from the rest stop returns and Dew’s footage is cut short.
The next day Andy hires an actor to prank the group and is startled by Bryce in the woods while he’s filming. Bryce seems clued in enough that Andy’s motivation is to undo him, that and to use all of his good food for pranks, but it’s Dew’s new behavior that has people concerned: laughing through the night and suddenly shattering a plate to bits with a fork. Apparently the red room did a number on him, but it’s not until the crowd heads to the lake that the true abilities of what, or who, is in the red room, start to reveal themselves.
Jeff Ryan pulls triple duty as director, writer and star here, and he’s easily my favorite character as the disaffected yet somehow always witty Bryce. Good looks and charm help pull off the effortless celebrity façade, but he digs into the character’s bizarre mannerisms and can have you squirming or laughing, depending on his mood. Will Madden is equally game and never drops the charade as the Amazing Andy until it’s too late to say “cut”, making the twists of this film all the more satisfying. The cast as a whole in the closing portions of the film do a full 180 with their characters and do a convincing, campy job with the new duties assigned to them, utilizing costumes and practical effects to their advantage for a little movie magic with floating cinematography and eyes turned to pitch black.
With satire to spare for the constant Youtube and Twitch pushes and with nods to films like Superhost, Sissy, The Cleansing Hour and many other streamer-based fright films, Mean Spirited seats itself among good company with other filmmakers, equally sick of the social media fervor. I believe now that Youtube, Twitch and their peers are becoming a new generation of entertainment, we are going to be saddled with people like Andy. Mean Spirited taps into that secret hatred we have of our phones, devices and profiles and asked what we would really be willing to give up in order to be relevant enough for the masses. I’m a writer that depends on people liking my work and I already kind of hate that feeling, so this film was enough to make me say I’m perfectly happy with what I have. I’ve seen Mean Spirited three times by now, and with a runtime that’s a breeze due to its entertainment value, at least a few guaranteed laughs and a few shocking scares, you could spare it a view. It’s a comedic, chilling look at how fame is developing at different scales and how it affects the way we may relate to each other. I’ll be waiting for the next blogger to send me over the edge so I can return to Ryan’s film and savor it all over again, but in the meantime, as my favorite celebrity would say, “Thunderman, out.”
Everyone enjoys the exploration involved when looking for a good film, but there are sometimes pieces you never knew you needed that end up right in your lap. I got lucky in this way with my privilege to screen Moon Garden. The trailer’s beauty was an appetizer for what ended up being the visual feast that is Ryan Steven Harris’ masterpiece. With style to rival the epic Mad God and echoes of Ghost Stories, this movie balanced the scales between gruesome beauty and a compelling idea, executed with unrivalled creativity. Emotional chapters amidst the magic add heart to a visually terrifying and fantastic adventure, making moments rooted beyond the supernatural just as pertinent to the story as Anna’s (Haven Lee Harris) journey through it. Moon Garden crafts unique frights and lasting images with a moody score and a shockingly mature performance from a young actor. This film hits all of the marks, even at its most mysterious points, and leaves you wondering what could be floating in purgatory when we are not quite alive. but haven’t given up yet.
A navy darkness stained with shadows and a melancholy score takes us to the home where Sara (Augie Duke), sleepless, is about to do the hardest thing a person in a marriage with children can do: leave. Courage gathered and with hushed voices, Sara takes Anna to chase the sunrise, but before she can put the car in drive, her plan is undone as her husband Alex (Brionne Davis) emerges, removing Anna and leaving a defeated Sara to return. They fight viciously in the kitchen as Anna tries to play precariously on the stairs and eavesdrop a bit. But back in the bedroom, Anna’s father reassures her that adults, even her “complicated” mother, fix things – and eventually, he mercifully lets Sara get Anna to sleep. The rooting of childhood fears, like the uneasiness of hearing your parents fight, plants worldly anxieties into this very supernatural film that keep you oscillating emotionally. Sleep doesn’t last long for Anna as what I can only describe as a skittering in the ceiling cuts the silence, and when inspected, turns into a full-blown haunting rattle. In a frenzy, Anna goes to her parents, who are still brawling, and in the eruption of the emotion, Anna screams for it all to stop. As she does, she suddenly topples from the landing down a horrifying number of stairs to the floor below, sending her into a coma.
Upon awakening, this isn’t a hospital room; it’s an ominous looking forest somewhere unknown with just enough sparkling distractions to get a child into trouble. In a television set discovered in the trees, Anna can hear the beginnings of panic as we hear police dispatchers, but with the sudden arrival of loud speakers and a humanoid being emerging from the earth, there’s bigger things to consider. In a mysterious set of events (after seeing on the TV what’s happening to her in triage) Anna pushes a button and the humanoid being begins to undulate in strange ways, connecting to others in the forest. After fleeing to a building, bathed in red light, Anna watches through a window as the paramedics tend to her, but she can’t pierce the veil to tell them she’s not yet passed, lamenting her mother’s pain. Colors swell as Anna is both the most and least lifeless thing on screen. As this unfolds, we see in another part of this strange world, a different, more sinister entity is awakening with a simple moniker: Teeth. With the apparel for Jeepers Creepers and an imposing abstract appearance reminiscent of The Babadook, this malignance with its chattering teeth left me feeling uneasy throughout. This movie utilizes its close-up shots with either frightening or emotional efficiency, especially with its monsters.
Still exploring this steampunk fairytale world, Anna briefly sees a figure in white in a corridor before she’s attacked by the toothy ghoul. With fast thinking, she climbs into a well bucket and lowers herself down only to have the monster hurl itself after, and with very tricky fun camera effects, seem to reach beyond what’s physically possible to take hold of her. Pulled under, a pale hand reaches down to seemingly save Anna, but instead she is pulled into a pleasant memory of learning how to swim, before the lesson reverts back to the murky waters of the well where Anna uses the skills her mother taught her to break free. This powerful gesture seems to make it to our world, where Annas hands gently twitch, to her mother’s hopeful amazement.
In another room in the winding steaming corridors of the strange other world, we find a masked man, billed only as “Musician” (Philip E. Walker) ironically, using a sledgehammer and a pinch of magic to reassemble destroyed musical instruments. He silently tunes an old radio and we hear Sara, praying for Anna and singing to her as the masked musician plucks along to her melody. A mistuned string ends the song and broadcast but earns a standing ovation from Anna. The friendly stranger welcomes her into the room, lamenting her situation, and when asked if she can contact her parents, he seems to know a place far off she can use. He encourages her to imagine reaching her journey should she find herself lost again, gifting her the radio. A brief and poignant moment, cut short and darkened by the arrival of clacking jaws and the sudden loss of our friend. It looks like for now, we’re on our own.
I feel like this is a film del Toro might be proud of. Magical elements and colorful characters discovered through the film make it a full visual and emotional pleasure and the fantastical elements of the world, though sometimes grotesque or monstrous, are endlessly interesting. The visuals of this film are truly something to enjoy that you don’t often get to see.
I’m usually sceptical of child actors having to carry the burden of the plot, but Haven Lee Harris does it with talent and control beyond her years. Her innocence never sabotages her savvy and makes her an easy young heroine to invest in, and though the plot may sometimes seem thin as we only follow Anna to her mother’s voice, this is a journey, and we’re watching as passengers. Its villain, in contrast to our tiny hero, is relentless and unnerving, bringing the frights early and often. This exploration of fields of consciousness is a fascinating watch, using an ethereal realm and the parallel world to emphasize the wonder of what and who might lay beyond and what those in the real-world experience when they are facing a catastrophic loss, clueless about the experience of those they fear for. Thankfully, our director has many clever ideas to liven up the deadened world for Anna, with tricks to manipulate geography and perspectives and a little mysticism in her herself that reminds me in some ways of the game Little Nightmares as a small girl navigates a dark, hungry world.
I went in excited and left thrilled with my viewing of Moon Garden. This film was one of those treats you receive and get the privilege of seeing before most. With its grim fairytale storyline, Moon Garden lays out an extravagant journey of frights and the plea to hold out hope. I was taken by this film and the amount of emotion thoughtfully mixed into what is otherwise an epic storytelling endeavor, creating a whole moving universe outside of the usual supernatural rules I’m accustomed to in horror. Unique, brilliantly lit and shot, with sound design to send shivers through your fillings (another credit to Harris as he was sound designer), Moon Garden ranks towards the top of the films I’ve seen this year and I dare other directors to be as bold and imaginative as Harris in the hopes that more works like this can be enjoyed, breathing some enchantment back into the sometimes lifeless, repetitive genre that is supernatural horror. With much praise, I suggest you see this film and treat yourself to a journey through the ethereal and emotional, one with more than enough tension to get your teeth chattering.
Moon Garden (2022) is released in select cinemas on May 19th, 2023.
As we’re introduced to Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix), he’s attending what seems to be an all-too regular therapy session and the talk soon turns to a forthcoming journey to his hometown, where his formidable-sounding mother lies in wait. Beau’s building trepidation about the trip results in an updated prescription, but those drugs are going to have to work overtime as a series of calamities catapult him into an epic and increasingly surreal odyssey to make it to his destination in one piece.
Even if you’ve seen Ari Aster’s previous work and its occasional detours into the world of the strange, it’s scant preparation for the utterly unhinged piece of work that is Beau Is Afraid. The opening stanza, set in the neighbourhood that is home to our middle-aged, unkempt protagonist, is a jaw-dropping collision of bizarre hilarity and terrifying confrontations, populated by a cast of fringe dwellers whose hobbies include selling automatic weaponry from their market stall and charging around in the nude looking for random victims to stab.
Beau’s apartment is in keeping with the madness outside, a barely held together series of rooms in which the utilities function seemingly at random and tenants push notes under the door complaining about escalating noise which isn’t even being generated, let alone escalating. It’s a vivid picture of Beau’s existence and his constant anxiety but as you’re watching the cast of a VHS-era, post-apocalyptic flick gleefully going about their nefarious business, the film is also making you aware of a schism in the proceedings. How much of this is actually taking place and how much is in the mind of our hero? Even if it is taking place, to what extent is Beau’s chemical-addled brain embellishing it all?
To be honest, the use of the word “hero” is pushing the definition somewhat. Beau is a frustrating collection of mumbles and ticks, incapable of making a decision, always choosing silence when a few words would change his course entirely. He’s a thoroughly reactive type who has to be threatened with potential death to make him shift faster than a shuffle. Be prepared, you’re going to be following this guy for almost three hours.
And yet, the gargantuan run time presents few, if any, issues in terms of boredom, as the plot’s episodic misadventures unveil an amusing array of supporting characters. Take Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan, for instance, as far too good to be true Good Samaritans Roger and Grace, whose idyllic homestead is a front for a plethora of goings-on that are, excuse the language in a review, monumentally f***ed up. Things somehow get weirder from there as Beau heads into the wilderness and the story introduces yet another reality before pitching him on an accidental collision course with childhood sweetheart Elaine, now played in grown-up form by Parker Posey.
As if the movie isn’t juggling its timelines and multiverses enough, yes! There are flashbacks! Sweet ones at that, too, as young Beau (brilliantly played by Armen Nahapetian) meets young Elaine (Julia Antonelli, also superb) on a cruise and the two of them bond over their similar familial set-up and the ship’s vast array of desserts. This departure would normally lay the foundation for an emotional reunion and a feel good, romantic payoff, years later, but you wouldn’t expect Aster to deliver something so straightforward. And he doesn’t.
Central to all of those head-scratching developments is Phoenix, delivering a performance that requires handing all of the showier moments to the others in the cast and yet he’s still memorable, managing to keep the viewer on side with a character whom the audience will find increasingly difficult to be sympathetic towards due to his total inability to pull himself together in any given situation. He’s terrific as a shambling, maddening mess of a man and it’s easy to see why Aster wanted Phoenix as his lead. Parker Posey, of course, is reliably great, managing to delight, surprise and shock in her limited time on screen.
It’s hardly a revelation for me to say that Beau Is Afraid is a divisive movie. It doesn’t so much move between humour and horror as have both things running together for the entire runtime, which may prove too much for those who don’t fancy spending a hundred and seventy-eight minutes wondering whether they should burst out laughing or watch through their fingers. There will be walkouts, of that I’m certain. If you loved either Hereditary or Midsommar or both, good on you; however this is an entirely different proposition.
Regardless of the overall experience, I find it encouraging that a major studio invested thirty-five million dollars in this and gave Ari Aster the freedom to make whatever he wanted. Oh my, he’s done that, and then some. His flat out refusal to provide any explanation of what’s real, what’s not and what the hell is happening in general will have some racing to the exit long before the end credits roll. The final act, even compared with what’s gone before, is bonkers. By the end, I was none the wiser. I may have been even more confused than I was after the first hour. I left the cinema in a daze.
I loved it.
Beau is Afraid (2023) is on general release from 19th May 2023 (UK).
There’s a certain feeling you get when you’re caught in a memory, a haziness and nostalgia captured in sense and imagery that’s indescribable. Falcon Lake, in its very first moment, seizes this elusive feeling and continues with an emotional, lingering story that reminds us why writers and directors so often return to coming of age stories for their chills. Inspired by Bastien Vivès’ graphic novel Une soeur, the tale of a young boy with delicate sensibilities, a first love, and a first haunting, make for a memorable debut for Le Bon. With themes and tropes that lands it somewhere on the spectrum between Let the Right One In and Ginger Snaps,Falcon Lake is a romantic, coming of age film that is firmly rooted in sentimental cinematography, raw performances, and human connections from talented young actors. Gorgeous visuals that can send you back to the perils of adolescence bring Le Bon’s debut to life as tenderness and a bit of ghostly lore blend for an intoxicating youthful tale, told through a dark but beautiful lens.
This tonal mixing of love and tensions begins from the very first scene where a girl, first unknown to be dead or alive, floats prone in a lake bathed in golden light. Le Bon is tricky with these shots of the unknown (a suddenly screaming woman in the lake later turns out to be screams of joy) mixed into a stylish landscape of characters. We cut away from the girl to timid 13-year old Bastien (Jospeh Engel) and his French family, arriving at your typical cabin in the woods-setup ripe for a haunting in the Canadian countryside. Even his mother, Violette (Monia Chokri), remarks on the creep factor of the location as they find the power isn’t working on their arrival, as he and his brother Titi (Thomas Laperrière) rush to find bedrooms alongside their old friend Louise (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) and her daughter Chloe (Sara Montpetit), with whom they are staying, and with whom the boys will share a room. After a dip in the lake, it’s off to bed in the midst of a storm. Excellent sound design gives strength to pounding rain but softness to a gentle snore or desk fan, giving life to an otherwise lifeless room, a remarkable technique that follows throughout the film accompanied by a moody score especially noticeable in the dark. This first storm gives us our first fright, as a girl, tattered, filthy, face unseen is suddenly in the room with Bastien and Titi, and crawls under the sheets a few feet away.
Morning comes, quickly restoring vivid colors, and Louise inquires if Chloe woke them last night. Chloe appears, and dismisses her mother as it’s the boys’ fault for being in her room. As the mothers muse age differences, she quickly removes herself from Bastien’s bashful gaze – but is soon brought back. Speaking from experience, the canyon between 13 and 16 is a wide one to jump for a teenage girl, probably why we keep getting the “almost 14” take on Bastien’s age. Forced to take them to the pier by her mother, Chloe is somewhere between curious and judgmental as Bastien is trapped between the polite and dutiful big brother he’s always played and the more daring adult he wants to be (with an obviously blooming crush.) After goading him into the lake, Chloe asks Bastien if he’s aware of the ghost there, that a child’s body part was found in the wilds of the lake. His fears are rooted in more real experiences, like almost drowning when he was young, which fascinates Chloe, who describes it with euphoria (she likes to re-enact death scenes).
As the adults bore, Bastien indulges in childish pleasures, earning an invitation away from the younger group and a little scorn from Chloe. Sharing a drink and cigarettes leads to more of Chloe’s love of the macabre, as she demonstrates a “weird” trick that feels like you’re touching a corpse; she also asks Bastien for more weird knowledge, for which he provides a strange survival fact, right before the pair are found by Chloe’s friends and the moment is ruined. The group goes into the woods and Chloe is found in the presence of some older foreign boys; Bastien is pushed into the background, and he eventually departs after some tasteless jokes. Surprisingly followed by Chloe, with wine in hand, the two head back, drinking until Bastien’s drank himself sick.
As the two develop into friends, shared living and showering spaces makes it difficult for Bastien’s developing feelings towards Chloe, and the scariest thing in this movie besides the jumpers Le Bon ties in, is the reminder of puberty – reminiscing on it is uncomfortable. That night, fetching water in the kitchen, we see a figure move past Bastien in the window after he wakes up to see no sign of Chloe. Curious at the movement, or perhaps the sound, he goes to another darkened window to peer out. We see a figure moving through the trees, then Chloe, floating, mumbling, in the pitch-black water.
Le Bon develops explores character and develops emotion masterfully throughout the film, and the young leads pull off strong material with ease. Feelings of shame and isolation emphasized by gruff soundtracks and polarizing camerawork reminds you of every moment you felt left out growing up. Fears rooted in reality (some TMI work from Bastien about his greatest fears really lets you know you’re amongst teenagers) bring relatability to a story that might have otherwise focused on more supernatural frights, and Chloe’s greatest distress is the teenaged fear to top them all. The themes of trying to break past limits of self-harm and the obsession with mortality lends this love story to being morbid, and most love stories end up becoming ghost stories, as we all know. While this tale may be devoid of a certain presence we expect with ghost stories, the anxieties that remain in this realm, along with its urban legends, are enough fuel to the fire to keep tensions rising and interests piqued, as we try and laze through summer days fraught with teenage trouble.
Falcon Lake is at its core an adolescent love story, but it’s a meaty piece of film exploring the pleasures and fears we start to take on at an early age. This is no doubt a strong start for Le Bon moving forward, and I hope as she continues in the genre she may grow bolder with her delivery of chills alongside the poignance. This movie was paced like an easy summer day, layered with top performances, metaphors for days and a sunny lead-up to what you can only assume will end with the worst. The ghosts of our childhood and teenaged years undoubtedly haunt us all, and however we cope, whether that’s a fascination with death or our own introversion, we will inevitably come to realize how we faced fear. Falcon Lake is a beautiful, touching look at growing up, culture shock, coping mechanisms, rebellion and sexuality. If you’re looking to follow your heart instead of your adrenaline, slow down and take a beat with a serene chiller that gently embraces a memorable romance.
Falcon Lake (2022) is available digitally from June 13th 2023.
Nothing to see here. Just two Nicks, one older and historically fond of saws, the other younger with a traditionally bold appetite, with fascinating and fantastic filmographies, now both vampiric. Renfield is the ambitiously-told tale of a narcissistic, emotionally manipulative Dracula and his insecure familiar, Renfield. Part vampire epic, part relationship comedy, and all spirit, I’m going to diverge from the less than glowing reviews from most critics, and ignore some warnings from credible sources about previous Nicolas Cage vampire fumbles (Vampire’sKiss, 1988), to say I don’t think Renfield deserves its lukewarm reception. Cage shines in a dream role, having seen Nosferatu at age 5 and written his own horror scripts. Chris McKay’s film is a shocking winner for me, with writers Ryan Ridley of Community and Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead, familiar with raising laughs and raising the dead. Clever themes throughout, entertaining campiness, impeccable practical and special effects adding to the kookiness, and incredible leads with a penchant for the freaky can carry some other less-inspiring characters and a wild storyline. I think Renfield is a destination for horror fans who want the drama of a priest exploding from the inside out and a recognizable monster, without the gravity of a typical horror film.
It took me a second to deduce our location, but with the bad snacks and motivational posters, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), looking perfectly sickly, is sitting in a recovery group for toxic relationships. Formerly a traveling real estate lawyer long ago, Renfield (Robert Montague Renfield) thought he could make a life-changing deal with Dracula (Nicolas Cage). In flashbacks we see various phases of manipulations: wooed like all the other members of the group, made to feel important, and then when the time was right he was turned to a “familiar”—a servant gifted with a tiny portion of his master’s powers and tasked with errands and procuring “meals.” Renfield also seems to be unfortunate in that while Dracula gains power from blood, Renfield gains power from consuming bugs (ew, I’d rather stay weak, but I respect these details ripped from straight the 1897 novel). Though Renfield chooses not to share with the group immediately, he uses their secrets for relative good, hunting down those exes that caused harm for food. As the movie keeps excellent pace, Renfield attacks an ex with ruthless efficiency as Hoult shows off his capabilities for combat.
After collecting the undesirables, Renfield returns to Dracula, in hiding in New Orleans, healing from life-threatening burns from the sun after a clash with hunters some time back. Renfield’s own clash earlier that night sends a dealer, Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) from a well-known gang, speeding into the arms of Rebecca (Akwafina), an officer anxious to make a name for herself and determined to know what the frantic criminal, who aided in the death of her father, was running from—putting more unwanted eyes in the vampires’ direction. In a scene with some wicked makeup effects, somewhere between What We Do in the Shadows and Horrible Bosses, Dracula makes it clear by rejecting Renfield’s food offerings and his idea of a less violent life, as well as mutilating him, what makes him so dreadful to serve. His lack of morality and condescension may be funny to us (maybe nuns do taste better than men and we have to take Dracula’s word it’s not a sex thing), but to Renfield, it’s hardly worth his soul or his innards. As Renfield struggles, Teddy Lobo and his mother, Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo), worry about what must be done to keep their empire secure, and Rebecca begins her own investigations away from the department’s eyes.
Later, tensions rise for Renfield at a bar as he’s surrounded by snacks – nuns and cheerleaders – and his desire to please his master seems to overtake him. Not far behind him is Rebecca, and behind her Lobo, determined to prove he can do the dirty work. As Renfield’s chloroform plan to catch a meal gets nixed when Lobo takes over the bar, Rebecca’s boldness inspires Renfield to act. With a quick munch of a fly, forks, serving trays, and silver platters suddenly turn deadly, and Rebecca and Renfield find themselves fast friends having cleared the assailants. Amazed at her courage staring down a barrel in the face of mockery and death, Renfield wants to know how to find bravery and independence, and feels seen by Rebecca for the first time… and the moment’s over, cut short by the rasping voice of Dracula calling to his servant. Called back to their lair, Dracula has been musing, and has realized: he is a god. Now, after years healing, he has a plan. The world is a dangerous place for mortals, a place longing to be controlled, a world built by “Renfields” that should have to adapt to Dracula, not the other way around. The new world order will be filled with followers, or food, run by Dracula and Renfield, until the end of time. “Bloody hell,” indeed, Renfield.
Obviously, the star of the show and the biggest draw to Renfield is the eccentric, excellent portrayal of a modern-day narcissist Dracula by Cage. Born to play the role, right down to his miniscule facial expressions, he moves, speaks and gesticulates in ancient flamboyant fashions that make his performance too good to ignore. Cage has reached “full power” in this role, as the support group would awkwardly phrase it. His chemistry with Hoult is magical considering they haven’t worked together in almost two decades, but the stars’ energetic banter as dominant and submissive play well with fun dialogue, and Hoult’s hopeful journey is a strange cheery one to watch, even as Dracula employs DARVO. Even if you can’t get into the side stories such as Rebecca’s or Lobo’s, Cage and Hoult can keep you grounded in the larger arc of Renfield, and their performances and the visuals keep you fixated. Oscar nominee and legend Marco Beltrami (Fear Street, A Quiet Place, World War Z, Blade II) lends his musical genius to Renfield. Pinched strings and humming or thundering brass can break through like old monster movies of the past and set a perfect soundtrack to mimic how the old vampires may have been scored. Together, this makes Renfield a sensory delight as well as a comedic one.
Before I began I was ready to heed to warnings and braced myself for so much camp I couldn’t handle it, but I was wrong. Renfield is undoubtedly silly, but it leans into this strength and lets its talented cast and original premise we can all relate to (who hasn’t felt under someone else’s control? Glanced at a self-help book?) carry the burden of keeping the laughs coming through the action and outrageous horror ruthlessness. I left this film with a different appreciation for the vampire genre and another credit to Cage for taking on a unique role and making it all the more defined. This is our generation’s Dracula in bold colors, using welcome mats, with a bad attitude played by a star that’s studied the monster since he was a child, so I trust that Cage delivers a portrayal that fits the times. If you’re looking for a serious story, look elsewhere; just glancing at the casting list you’ll see this is a group of actors that’s not afraid to have a good time while also making some genuine pieces of film. Renfield just hit home release and if you’re feeling like Renfield himself and want to be a bit brave and independent, give it a try, and maybe you’ll surprise yourself doing what the bosses and experts recommend not to…
Women are compared to many things, both complimentary and insulting. We can age like a fine wine, or spoil like milk; in this instance, we are a ticking clock. Alexis Jacknow’s Clock discusses a woman’s “biological clock” and the theory that, for women who don’t naturally desire children, that this clock has malfunctioned. Driven by the same anxiety-ridden, passive aggressive pressure that family, friends and doctors apply to women who desire independence over motherhood, Clock creates a paranoid psychological thriller that compares a woman’s longing to be childfree to an assault against nature severe enough that it could be considered not only the ultimate form of selfishness, but a form of mental illness. Filled with tension, this edgy internal conflict between fixing something that isn’t wrong to placate those you love and staying true to your own needs, treads some familiar but mostly fearful grounds.
Clock’s opening scene leaves little context before it dives into its story. An unknown woman stands on a swing-set, bleeding profusely. She wavers before climbing up onto the contraption, wrapping the chains around her neck and ending her life, a small, indistinguishable metal object falling to the ground into the pool of blood below. It’s a very dark entrance to what transitions into a very colorful, lively introduction to our characters. A baby shower, where even the snacks appear to have a color scheme, is where we find Ella (Dianna Agron) trying to enjoy the fare while listening to horror stories of mommies and mommies to be. Ella is an unlikely star of the show, designing the nursery for the mother to be but finding herself in the crosshairs: why hasn’t she had children yet? Why doesn’t she want kids? What does she do all day without kids? Ella isn’t taken by the imagery of pregnancy (tiny underdeveloped hands pushing through a stretched stomach? No thank you…) and a montage of a day in her admittedly productive and enviable life doesn’t suggest it has missing pieces. A child falling out of a tree suddenly and injuring themselves in the midst of Ella’s daydream only confirms the suspicion that Ella’s life is a dream compared to the parental nightmare.
Ella’s annual OBGYN appointment, due to fears of breast cancer, only meet her with more mommy talk as Dr. Webber (Nikita Patel), her husband’s colleague, suggests her biological clock is “broken” and that she is out of time to try for a family. Social media littered with children makes individual personal accomplishments feel hard to celebrate when everyone feels they aren’t meaningful without children. That night, at what starts as an energetic dinner with her father Joseph (Saul Rubinek) and husband Aiden (Jay Ali), Ella attempts to celebrate and entertain. By the time the food touches the table however, her father begins to discuss the empty chairs at the dinner table and how the story of family is “bigger than her.” Her family comes from a long line of Jewish heritage and a large amount of guilt has also been placed on Ella as the only child, and a daughter at that, who, to his despair, has not had children. “She’s the reason my heart aches,” her father says.
After one last bout with her husband is too much to take, Ella turns to a resource from her OBGYN: a clinical trial is being conducted about the female biological clock being treated as a “fertility problem.” She sacrifices an important lucrative job and leaves in secret to attend the trial. Clean, comforting neutral palettes make this look more like a day spa than a medical facility when Ella arrives, except for the stack of papers that indicate how much responsibility there will be, and tells us how much there may be hiding in the trial. Enter the all too calm to be trusted Dr. Elizabeth Simmons (Melora Hardin), an OBGYN with a background in the “cognitive issues” of fertility, whatever that means. Simmons believes this is fixable, as our purpose as humans is to procreate, and with hormones and cognitive behavioral therapy a woman’s clock can be reset: she can desire children.
As therapy and hormones begin, we start to see more clearly what’s tugging at Ella’s psyche and the theme of mental illness begins to play out in a sinister fashion. In one therapy session, a form of Rorschach is used and the images become quite lifelike. Ella sees in them a grandfather clock, a family of dead spiders and an eerie, tall woman. From this session, deep seeded fears and historical connections spring to life, and Ella’s history and relatable feelings of guilt and self-doubt start to make sense. Clock takes several turns throughout its second half that I wasn’t expecting and kept me on my toes of who to believe and whether or not I could trust my eyes or my heart with certain characters. Some outright spooky imagery is used as well as some simple use of implied brutality that gets the job done. I unfortunately can’t go deeper without revealing several twists you’ll have to discover for yourself.
With a charged performance by Agron leading the way, Clock is a bodily and psychologically unnerving look at the innerworkings of our “biological clocks” and by default our desires. A somewhat confusing and possibly divisive ending leads you to take a look at the film from start to finish and decide what’s actually come to pass, making Clock’s conclusion one to be pondered rather than immediately satisfying. This, neat, colorful piece of film is sometimes thoughtful and sometimes scary, but has taken a look at pregnancy and motherhood in a way I haven’t: something that can be forced through internal mechanisms and that a lack of desire can be classified as a medical disorder. Clock’s creepy approach is effective and anchored with strong performances and interesting, tricky imagery, and it’s enough to leave me shaken, like most maternal horror tales do. I guess by Clock’s reasoning I am disordered in my fears and desires, and after that watch, I will happily remain so.
Clock (2023) is available to watch now on Hulu, Disney+ and other streaming platforms.
Everyone’s familiar with all the vampire and superhero tropes by now; thank you Michael Morbius for doing all of them poorly. But almost a quarter century ago, as the nineties drew to a close, Marvel rolled the dice on this pitch-black hero horror film that would reshape its relationship with the R rating, blood, sex, drugs and the mouths on its characters. It was a left turn that brought Marvel critical and box office successes that would allow it to reach farther, creating the early successful blockbusters responsible for its ubiquity today. Blade was a rare gem that exists in a mostly brightly colored humorous universe that thrives on the “good guy” and violence that never pushes past CGI battles or intensely-thrown blows. It broke through failing box office predecessors, some so bad they couldn’t even survive the trip to video, but instead of worrying, Blade took a talented cast of stars and rewrote the comic book script to create a bloody mess where fans are still waiting for more.
In August of 1998, director Stephen Norrington released a Marvel-inspired movie on what would now be considered a meagre budget of $45 million dollars (adjust for inflation) – considering today’s Marvel movies clock in at a budget around $190,000,000 on average, as my research suggests. Headlining Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson and Stephen Dorff, Blade was the first horror film and the first rated R feature the company would ever gamble on (sorry Deadpool, you weren’t first) after a short string of critical and box office failures. It was a bet that would garner them over $130 million at the box office ($70 million domestic, $60 million worldwide), positive critical reception, sequels, a reboot slated for 2024 starring academy award winner Mahershala Ali, and solidified cult status globally.
The iconic opening scene adeptly named ‘the blood bath’ is filmed in a dizzying meat packing warehouse and which was created once in Amsterdam, once in New York, god knows where else, with between 1,300-1,500 gallons of fake blood per party to simulate this dramatic entrance. We are introduced to our titular villains in an icy color palette, strobing lights and the reverberating bass of this dance party as the menacing pale faces of Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) and Quinn (Donal Logue) can be seen, stone cold and arrogant, surveying the club (it is their party after all). 90’s goth fashion has never been better: meshes, see through, all solid black and white outfits, blazers, bombers, bras and cowboy hats. This leather and latex period of style influence seen from films like The Matrix to Underworld permeates the Blade films too.
Blade, or Eric (Wesley Snipes) as we seldom hear him called, is another sad superhero tale of lost family. Bitten and killed by a vampire whilst pregnant, Blade’s mother is the first casualty of the film and a driving force behind his hatred for the beings. Due to her being bitten while pregnant, he has inherited some of the gifts vampires have: speed, strength, agility, but also the thirst. This tragedy and curse has earned him the moniker “The Day Walker.” With this, the aforementioned iconic bloodbath takes the time to show us some of our characters and introduce us to this predatory world, which soon turns into a different kind of blood bath when Blade arrives solo, exponentially outnumbered, but obviously not outclassed. The tools and skills that make Blade a deadly hunter are soon put on working display. Viciously sharp silver stakes and boomerangs turn bones to ashes and shotgun blasts disintegrate bodies as crowds flee. As a final parting gift, Blade traps one of his greatest foes, Deacon Frost’s right hand man, and sets him ablaze, alive, as a message.
In a city hospital, Quinn’s body is being looked at by hematologist Dr. Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright) who finds many irregularities and asks her ex, Curtis (Tim Guinee) to look at the body. As the two of them bicker back and forth about what might be causing all of the abnormalities in Quinn, he springs back to life, murdering Curtis, and biting Karen. Blade arrives and cuts off one of Quinn’s hands before he leaps from a window and into an ambulance (yeah, it’s fun to watch) and he turns to Karen. Faced with a choice, Blade sees the image of his mother in the dying woman’s face and risks being killed by the police to take her back to his safehouse to treat her bite and potentially reverse the transformation – with the aid of his mentor Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). Even at 25 years old, I’m reluctant to give many more spoilers as a new generation could watch this film in advance of the reboot.
Hard to Like, Easy to Love
Thor travels the universe with the Guardians of the Galaxy; Moon Knight has two wonderfully quirky alter egos; Blade is a less sensitive character. His rare smiles are usually brought on by being right, busting someone’s balls, or having a particularly satisfying kill. He’s not easy to relate to since he doesn’t volunteer much emotionally or give much in the way of “what are you thinking?”, and you can’t blame him for having attachment issues. Blade’s devotion to his cause and the trauma he suffered does give him some relatability however, and his past shines through in moments like when he spares Karen, and his fierce hunt through the second movie for Whistler.
Blade is not only faced with a mockery of his Dhampir origins by Deacon in the first film, but also his race. “Spare me the Uncle Tom routine,” Deacon casually shouts in a crowded park. He doesn’t care who hears; he’s attacking both Blade’s role as the Day Walker while also making it about race, similarly referring to all people as “pieces of meat.” The irony with Deacon in the film being that Deacon is also ashamed of his identity, as he is not a pure blood aka a “vampire by birth” and was merely “turned.” This theme follows into the sequel where a group of vampires led by Ron Perlman, The Blood Pack, confront Blade not about his role in the mission, but ask him first, “Can you blush?” This shows that not only do they look down on him as a pestilence to their kind, but they also disapprove of his skin color. They hate him to his core, and you feel anger or disapproval in moments on his behalf, as he is unshakeable in both instances, making him all the more admirable in his stand against the creatures and their prejudices.
Blade uses people to get what he wants: he steals, he kills, he destroys, all in the name of ridding the world of the plague that is vampirism, “cancer with a purpose,” as it’s referred to in the second film. The moral construct in Blade is always hazy, in that he is always looking for a means to an end. He may sometimes be hard to like, but in moments when he sees Karen suffering, or when Whistler is in agony, you do feel your emotions being pulled at. Blade has a heart he guards carefully with good reason, and we can all relate to that feeling of needing to keep a poker face and never tip your hand that something has moved you or something might be gnawing at you. Blade is still the wounded child somewhere within, but who wants to wear that as a mask? We’ll take his generally cold and apathetic temperament instead.
From the Comic Book…
Originally appearing in 1973, Blade was a side character in Marvel Comics’ The Tomb of Dracula #10 that went on to tell his own story. Blade is called a “Dhampir” in these comics, the “result of a union between human and vampire”, which gives him his enhanced abilities. Blade was edited throughout his conception to solidify his powers, and was initially written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Gene Colan. Significantly adapted for the big screen, the comics tell a completely different story.
Across the pond, 1929, London, England is supposedly the birthplace of Eric Cross Brooks, born in a brothel. Due to complications with her labor, a doctor is brought to see Eric’s mother, who ends up being Deacon Frost, one of his most prominent foes in the comics and obviously in the first film. After she is killed and Frost is driven away by the other brothel workers, the workers then help raise young Eric. At age nine, returning to the brothel one night, Eric sees a man attacked by several vampires and helps distract the attackers while the hunter, as it turns out, Jamal Afari, kills them with a sword. This leads to a father-son like union between the two, as Afari teaches him music (he poses as a Jazz musician) and the methods to fight and effectively kill vampires. Eric’s skills with hand to hand combat and melee weapons earned him the moniker “Blade” as he uses knives, daggers and swords against his hated foes, who soon learn that Blade is someone to fear.
Blade engages with familiar characters like Dracula, Morbius, and Deacon Frost in these comics and paints a picture of a universe that could have been, including an alternate ending with Michael Morbius portrayed by Norrington himself. Deacon Frost was similarly heavily edited from comics to big screen, and I’m a fan of what they did. Originally an older man with light hair, in his middle age, with red eyes and a specifically German wardrobe. He is far more powerful in the comics than what we see on screen. The film ditches this image of Deacon, replacing him with Dorff’s youthful façade. He is more ancient and menacing in the comics, more of a “traditional” Anne Rice style vampire. The film spins Deacon as James Woods did with Hades, originally written as serious and somber in Disney’s Hercules but turned into the devil as a salesman. Dorff similarly reinvents and plays the role as a slick, manipulative young blood ready to kill and take anything he wants. I had the opportunity to meet Dorff this year and he still honors the role, as well as in interviews making no secret of his confidence in Ali’s ability to play the role. Asking politely how I spelled my name, showing his security my Blade tattoo (his personal glyph from the film adorns my leg) and signing off my poster with an all caps “Deacon Frost” in silver sharpie, he’s very much the charmer he portrays. This autograph is now the only thing I’d carry out of my burning house and made me all the more devoted to the film, meeting such a genuine person who still enjoys recounting his past performances.
To the Big Screen…
Blade, much like Deacon, arrives on screen with a full character overhaul. Snipes fits the vision for the tattooed and stone-faced hunter with the athletic build Blade is supposed to have. It’s those around him that have been changed. Afari, the father figure in the comics, is replaced by a familiar Kris Kristofferson playing Abraham Whistler, who supposedly discovered Blade as a teenager, feeding in the streets, and took him in after his own family had been murdered by vampires years ago. Whistler fills the role nicely as I imagine the back story and inevitable killing of Afari would have taken an entire movie and robbed Blade of a mentor figure that Whistler provides through all three films.
The comic books suggest Blade had more of Marvel’s resources, like S.H.I.E.L.D., but in the film Blade is part of a small operation. Him and Whistler craft and repair their own weapons and vehicles, with the aid of some suppliers that help create the serum created in the films that keeps his thirst at bay. “How do you think we fund this operation? We’re not exactly the March of Dimes,” Blade quips as Karen comments on him robbing one of Deacon’s familiars. Their methods are dirty but successful, using witnesses as bait and hunting Deacon’s human henchman with cold efficiency. He is a detective, a scavenger and a hunter packed into one supercharged being. This serum is used throughout the films but not the comics and it’s implied that Karen improves upon it from the first to the second movie, as Blade has developed a tolerance, also showing how different characters carry value from film to film.
The vampires themselves are also redone. Blade rejected the Interview with a Vampire style blood sucker in exchange for a more modern, seductive appearance. There are hardly any older vampires seen out and about, and these are not monsters trying to hide. Deacon and his accomplices are costumed perfectly for their screen time and behave in more contemporary ways. On top of this, they are given some expensive CGI to work with – considering when this was made – for some of the film’s later scenes. They have their own technology, their own glyphs and their own language spoken behind closed doors. The actual language is supposedly peppered with real Russian and Czech words and phrases and is theorized by fans to be Eastern European in origin, possibly Slavic or Romanian. Even with all of this history, the vampires don’t feel stale or dated and nor do their familiars. Blood consumption is rare in the film for Blade himself, except for dire circumstances, showing Blade’s vampire nature and how it accelerates and enhances his superhuman abilities.
I still vividly remember the first time I heard the bone shattering, pulse pounding Pump Panel Remix of New Order’s Confusion blasting during the opening scene of Blade. Music included or done specifically for the films also elevates fight scenes and night-time meetups, with a hard-hitting soundtrack that can play a soothing “Dig This Vibe” by DJ Krush at a quiet party or “Playing with Lightning” by Expansion Union during the climactic final fight. The music, from Mark Isham, can range from the gothic, soaring strings and brass you imagine for an ancient evil such a vampire rising from the darkness, to the more modern, intensified beats that include prominent artists such as Massive Attack, Mos Def and the Crystal Method later in the series. These movies have soundtracks to make your playlist, and tracks to make a statement for whichever scene they accompany.
Final Thoughts…
Closing, you can probably guess this is my favorite movie and also the first horror movie I ever saw as a child. I have immense hope for the future of Blade, as I believe the trilogy ended on a weak note that deserved more. Blade landed in the final moments of the nineties and was a snapshot of the culture in film and fashion with its time period’s stars immortalized in the style. Blade couldn’t have happened without Marvel’s position to gamble on something out of the ordinary, and Blade couldn’t have thrived without the unique time period in which it was conceived between VHS and fiber optics, fighting between past and future much like its monsters. I believe its positive reception showed that darker heroes could have a place in the limelight both for critics and especially audiences, but its execution is so difficult (looking at you again Morbius) that gambling on the undertaking is a difficult risk to consider for studios, I would imagine, when the standard formula works.
After Blade, we see Marvel turn to a more family friendly image for over decades, only breaking tradition with Deadpool and a slightly edgy Moon Knight for its darker story lines and its only other R-rated franchise to date. This shows it still has cold feet, despite its successful past and a cast of stars willing to take the plunge into a project such as Blade. One of these stars, unsurprisingly, was a hunter named Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) from Blade III, prominent in the comics, who would go on to star as Deadpool. Keep that in mind if you, like me, wonder if there’s interest in livening up the universe.
With Mahershala leading, rumors of Kit Harrington joining, and “it girl” and certified scream queen Mia Goth generating buzz as one of the cast members, I’m hopeful Blade will come back as dark and brooding as ever, still committed to the mission. Currently being directed by Yann Demange (a producer of Lovecraft Country) after original director Bassam Tariq dropped due to “continued shifts in the production schedule”, I wonder if the introduction of more dramatic and famous actors and a more decorated director won’t shift the tone too intensely away from what the cinematic universe created prior, favoring rising stars like Dorff, Logue and Norman Reedus to fill major supporting roles. However, I’m open to new ideas, new or old characters from the films or comic books and a fresh journey I’ve been waiting on for decades. Blade opens next year against some fierce competition, and I’ll be in theaters rooting that it cuts down the competing Marvel films and re-establishes what made it the standard for hero horror.
