Review Category: Movie

DIRECTOR:  JENNIFER REEDER | SCREENPLAY: JENNIFER REEDER | STARRING: RAVEN WHITLEY, TY OLWIN, MARIKA ENGELHARDT

A pretty little majorette stands with her lover against the night sky. He wants her to remove her glasses, but she won’t. She inscribes her mark upon his head before she falls down dead. For once, we can spoil you without spoiling you because the plot is immaterial. The remainder of writer-director Jennifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin dances around what has killed the girl, or rather why.

Knives appears in the mould of, or rather desperately echoes, Twin Peaks. Unlike Lynch’s masterpiece, it’s less a story with a beginning, middle and end (in whatever order), more a series of snapshots as the community spend their time picking each other apart in typical arthouse suburban America while the little rustles of the disappearance fracture the world around them. The girl’s body lies in the bulrushes while her classmates face her empty chair. Gem hues and snatches of occasionally poetry add to the Lynchian effect, but the idiosyncrasies of Agent Cooper et al flips here into occasional outright surrealism where the CGI budget pops for images announcing the characters’ paranoia and guilt. In a gloriously bizarre sequence, a t-shirt logo outdoes its own dime-store iconicity. It really shouldn’t work, but manages because the acting is pitched between exaggeration-as-metaphor and the believably strung-out of munching uppers, downers and weight pills like Polos.

The cast are so uniformly excellent, with Marika Engelhardt as the distraught mother and (an underused) Marilyn Dodds Frank as one of the community’s few genuine individuals. Special mention should go to choir sequences that recall all from The Wicker Man to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in demonstrating peer groups and attempts to communicate across community boundaries. The costumes mix impressively wearable cyberpunk for the kids who want to change their landscapes and a level of drab your average teenager probably wouldn’t brook for those who feel they are doomed.

The problem is it gets carried away with itself. It feels incredibly long and the cast’s number means you’re hard pushed to note what has happened and for whom. Furthermore, despite its diverse actors discussing gender, sexuality, appropriate conduct, and fractured families, it follows in the shadow of a million other features. At one point even those piercing choir sequences devolve into endless interlaced a cappella-singing, floating faces, veering dangerously from American Beauty to the lovelorn twee of High School Musical.

Knives and Skin is a visually fascinating and beautifully acted evocation of loss in a place whose values are changing. However, it is several films in one, with the confusion and running time to match.

CRAWL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ALEXANDRE AJA / SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL & SHAWN RASMUSSEN / STARRING: KAYA SCODELARIO, BARRY PEPPER / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 23RD

After a category 5 hurricane threatens Florida; an aspiring swimmer must battle the elements to save her father from certain death, only to be presented with a much more terrifying foe lurking in the murky waters in Alexandre Aja’s Horror Thriller, Crawl.

This edge of your seat thriller follows Haley (Kaya Scodelario), a pro swimmer who sets off to find her missing father (Barry Pepper) in the midst of the most devastating hurricanes seen on film (that doesn’t contain sharks, zombies or any other strange items). Unbeknownst to Haley, her dad is trapped beneath his battered suburban home and two quickly have to fight to survive against not only the rising water that is flooding the house but a pack of hungry alligators who have escaped from an enclosure nearby.

Even though a lot of the story beats are rather predictable such as the foreshadowing of Haley’s profession which will ultimately be used to her advantage throughout the film, the setting and unrelenting tension more than make up for that. Having the film set in Florida lays the perfect foundations for the thrills that director Alexandre Aja wanted to bring to the screen. Couple that with the fact that the street the majority of the runtime takes place in was a giant water tank set that was built for the film, the realism coming from the actors being able to freely swim in the environment adding raw grit and was immensely impactful.

Throughout the story, the tension and stakes are never lowered as soon as the metaphorical ball starts rolling. After Haley and her dad overcome one hurdle, another much larger obstacle reveals itself, sometimes will a well executed jump scare – For example, during the film as they try to survive, they must essentially transcend three stages of hell as they attempt to work their way up the levels of the house – small spaces and large obstacles creates some truly terrifying moments.

Aja’s direction and attention to detail really shines and fully absorbs the audience in the claustrophobic scenarios that actress Kaya Scodelario was really placed in for the intense shoot. For the full runtime, you are firmly by the side of Haley and on multiple occasions will forget to breathe due to the atmosphere.

That’s not to say that everything is perfect. As previously stated, the foreshadowing of Haley’s skillset did add predictably along with some instances of clunky dialogue which did detract a little from the pacing but ultimately, the fierce performances of Scodelario and Pepper and the realistic actions of our scaly antagonists made up for the minor nit-picks.

Crawl is the definition of good solid B-movie summer fun. Aja’s brilliant world and tension building along with a sensational lead performance from Kaya Scodelario (that rivals Blake Lively in The Shallows) culminates in a thoroughly enjoyable thriller that gives you the perfect excuse to escape from the scorching sun into an air conditioned cinema.

DIRECTOR: LINO DISALVO | SCREENPLAY: GREG ERB, JASON OREMLAND | STARRING: ANYA TAYLOR-JOY, JIM GAFFIGAN, GABRIEL BATEMAN, ADAM LAMBERT, KENAN THOMPSON, MEGHAN TRAINOR, DANIEL RADCLIFFE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

First up, a personal admission: when this writer was little, he preferred Playmobil to Lego. Yes, I know Lego is infinitely repurposable, with blocks that can be fitted together into countless shapes to make whatever you choose, and Playmobil comes in static, fixed shapes onto which you may impose character or story but not form but… well… I just liked the toys more. They were bigger.

Now, we don’t know if you’d noticed, but there was a Lego movie that came out a while ago, which was funny and clever and hit adults and children alike right in the feels while simultaneously delivering a relentless stream of whipsmart jokes. The Playmobil movie isn’t that. Where The Lego Movie saw a film that played with the form of the toy it was based on and constructed a narrative around how children, and adults, interact with that toy, imaginatively and physically, the people behind the Playmobil: The Movie have created… er… some brand extension. Some not very good brand extension.

The film starts with a human, a not-even-animated human come to that (Marla – played by Anya Taylor-Joy), which threw us; a human who breaks into song before the credits have even finished rolling… She then plays Playmobil with her brother for a bit before a knock comes at the door, and the film becomes inexplicably intensely bleak. We then fast forward four years to an even bleaker future, with still no animation in sight, where Marla is the sole carer for her frankly horrible younger brother (now a different actor) who sneaks out to a big toy fair for reasons that are never explained. In an attempt to recover a lost ten-year-old (like the snarky, shrivelled old witch that she is, the film implies) Marla finds herself, with brother Charlie, getting sucked out of the bleak real world into a colourful Playmobil world full of unremitting violence, inhumanity and falling over. Lots and lots of falling over. ‘Cos kids dig that, right?

Through Marla’s adventures trying to rescue Charlie, we learn that… erm… a greedy shyster hippy guy she meets is good at cooking and… er…. that… that she should have more adventures, rather than just selfishly being the sole carer for a ten-year-old…? Maybe? That really is about the size of it.

If you try hard you can spot some almost good bits in the film, particularly Daniel Radcliffe as a cheesy super-spy, and a couple of enjoyably camp villains with the odd one-liner that lands, but by and large it feels like it’s been written by people that don’t really understand what made The Lego Movie work but who really want to make The Lego Movie without having to think too hard about it. There are about two stars-worth of entertainment to be wrung out of this film but only if you like people falling over (so much falling over…) and don’t, even for one second, imagine that this is The Lego Movie. As Marla says at the bleak start of the film “Life is made of crushed dreams and disappointments”. There’s a woman who was expecting The Lego Movie if ever we heard one!

HAIL SATAN? / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: PENNY LANE  / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 23RD

Penny Lane’s documentary on the Satanic Temple, Hail Satan?, is always fascinating and frequently frustrating. The organization is swathed in mystery, to the point where the group’s spokesman and co-founder, Lucien Greaves, has a pseudonym for his pseudonym. Various members interviewed are shown in shadow, so as to hide their identities.

It’s a novel concept, but it means that Hail Satan? is less a straightforward story of the Satanic Temple, and more of a tone piece, wherein the viewer is introduced to various members of the Temple, and taken through the group’s various legal battles. This leads to an interesting film, but one which might leave the viewer with more questions about the history and story of the Satanic Temple as a whole.

A stunning example is the fact that Jex Blackmore, founder of the Temple’s Detroit chapter, is shown at one point speaking at a ceremony, wherein she emphatically states, “We are going to disrupt, distort, destroy. We are going to storm press conferences, kidnap an executive, release snakes in the governor’s mansion, execute the president,” after which Greaves makes a comment that she was asked to leave the Satanic Temple.

It’s not followed up on at all, and presented as a short aside in the grander story of the Temple’s legal battles regarding freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Director Lane keeps to those who support the Temple, making Hail Satan? what is basically a propaganda piece. The voices of dissenters are presented peripherally, as part of interactions with Temple members — frequently Greaves or Blackmore — or in news clips, as the Temple attempts to refute Ten Commandment monuments on government property with their own Baphomet statue.

As a matter of fact, the use of film clips in the earlier moments of the documentary are some of the most effective arguments Hail Satan? has for their free speech arguments, as the point of the documentary is essentially that Christianity in America has presented any dissenters to its point of view as evil and dangerous. Scenes from Fantasia’s “Night on Bald Mountain” segment, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, and Rosemary’s Baby all enforce this argument, and do it well.

Were that the rest of the film would interpolate more counterpoints to reinforce the argument being made by the Satanic Temple. By film’s end, the viewer’s been given a cozy, warm depiction of the group in Hail Satan?, but Penny Lane fails to really hone in on any particular aspect of the Satanic Temple with effective accuracy. It’s intriguing, but any number of readily Google-able articles will provide a deeper dive in five minutes than the 90-minute runtime of the film.

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ANDRÉ ØVREDAL / SCREENPLAY: DAN HAGEMAN, KEVIN HAGEMAN, GUILLERMO DEL TORO / STARRING: ZOE MARGARET COLLETTI, MICHAEL GARZA, GABRIEL RUSH, AUSTIN ZAJUR / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 23RD

Before Goosebumps and Point Horror assisted many a teenager in soiling their pants, there was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And before that there was The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and numerous horror comic books, the influence of which is omnipresent in André Øvredal’s adaptation of the book of the same name.

Teenagers battling horror is all the rage at the moment (see Stranger Things, the IT remake) and Øvredal’s latest offering gives us a new band of likeable misfits. Stella (Colletti) and friends Auggie (Rush), Chuck (Zajur) and Ramón (Garza) battle to save themselves from a dead witch after stealing her book of stories from a haunted house. Their fears are exploited in short stories magically appearing in the book, freshly written in blood, of course (and nothing to do with Clive Barker). And wouldn’t you know it, they start to come true!

The film has a great premise, blending classic horror tropes, and that’s all set against the backdrop of a 1969 Vietnam-war era America about to be ruled by Richard Nixon. Despite this, a lot of the film seems very similar to Øvredal’s last film, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, albeit a toned-down PG-13 version. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but if you’ve seen it you will notice the repetition. Scary Stories also has strong similarities to Tales from the Crypt but does have the added bonus of imaginative monsters more often found in the movies of producer Guillermo del Toro.

Scary Stories is very imaginative but hardly original, meshing together clichés in a fashion last seen in The Cabin in the Woods. The film is genuinely creepy as an adult so God knows what it will do to today’s generation of tweens. However, there’s an over-reliance on jump scares and the CGI monsters and effects aren’t as scary or convincing as the more old-fashioned practical techniques (hello Javier Bodem and Mark Steger).

The only other let-down is the underwhelming ending, but there may well be more stories to come.

Being pitched as “Jamaica’s Buena Vista Social Club”, this is a documentary film following the creation of an album by a group of reggae pioneers. The title of the film is both the name of the collective and also a reference to their album’s recording location out on the veranda of a house in the hills above Kingston.

The setting is perhaps unexpected – whilst it’s hot and humid down in the city centre, up in the hills at the recording location there is lush greenery and a refreshing coolness in the air. Filming the performances as they are recorded, director Peter Webber (The Girl with the Pearl Earring) uses the tracks to both frame and reflect the narrative.

As a collective who have been recording albums and gigging together since the early years of the 21st century, the membership of the group has a certain fluidity, with members joining or leaving depending on availability and their changing family situations. The album being made in this documentary is a stripped back acoustic collection of ‘greatest hits’, which allows Webber to focus his attention on four members whose work will hopefully be most known to UK audiences.

The collective nature of the endeavour also allows the next generation of artists to contribute comments and reflections, paying homage to their musical forefathers whilst they accompany them as backing musicians.

In a series of vignettes, Webber focuses his attention on Ken Booth, Cedric Myton, Winston McAnuff, and Kiddus I as they relate the stories of their lives, their careers, and their family histories. This allows Webber to introduce some truly astonishing footage of Jamaica from the 1950s and ’70s, and even some images from the early years of colonisation when huge numbers of Africans were shipped to the island to be sold as slaves. Indeed, there’s no shying away from the legacy of Jamaica’s existence as a former British colony, and the inescapable fact that for many of the island’s population, independence has brought poverty and lives blighted by crime.

That the film manages to make us consider these issues without becoming a scathing polemic is testament to the positive attitude conjured by the musicians and vocalists, even in the midst of immense personal anguish.

If we have to take issue, then it is with the use of subtitles throughout the film. The patois of the Jamaican musicians has been ‘translated’ into standardised English, and it feels like an insult – both to the participants and to us. To change the words being spoken takes away from the stories being told, and presumes that the audience is not intellectually capable of understanding the accents – this wouldn’t happen with Shakespeare, and it feels wrong that it happens here. The only consolation, if there is one, is that the clipped English RP tones of the archive footage of crisis-torn Jamaica in the 1970s are also subtitled – also with adjustments that don’t accurately reflect what was actually said.

Whilst the history of the island and of these performers is fascinating and compellingly told, it is in the musical segments that this film excels. We were tapping our feet as the opening titles rolled, and still bopping along as the final frame faded to black. It’s not just reggae which features here, but also the related forms of ska and rocksteady, and the frequent scenes of the collective on tour at Le Trianon in Paris show that these are musical forms which are not merely a part of Jamaica’s history, but that they remain popular, relevant and accessible to modern audiences. There’s also an acoustic performance of Everything I Own by Ken Boothe which sent shivers down our spines.

This documentary is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Reggae, the social history of Jamaica, or music generally.

Inna De Yard will be on general release in the UK from August 30^th. A screening of the film, introduced by the director Peter Webber and featuring a performance by Winston McAnuff will take place at Somerset House in London on Wednesday 21^st August from 7pm. Details are available on the Somerset House Website

: Inna De
Yard is available now on digital, DVD and Blu-ray

NEFARIOUS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR:  RICHARD ROWNTREE  / SCREENPLAY: MATTHEW DAVIES, RICHARD ROWNTREE / STARRING: JON VANGDAL AAMAAS, TONY SANDS, TOBY WYNN-DAVIES, NADIA LANIN / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Nefarious begins with a prolonged start sequence, flashing graphics in your face until it finally cuts to a blackened room with two police officers interviewing a suspect in what feels like a theatre production. So far so bad, especially as it’s hard to tell the genre. Are we in a British gangster movie, or is something else going on? Luckily, the film does pick up and, when we reach true horror territory, there is actually quite a bit to enjoy.

Nefarious uses the police interview scenario as a narrative structure throughout the film, quite cleverly using bit-part characters to tell the story. We are introduced to Darren and Lou, who are surviving in a sparsely populated flat on a council estate. Darren has a menial job while Lou prefers to spend her days in a drug-fueled haze. When Darren discovers that Lou owes their local drug dealer two grand, he also discovers that their fellow flat mate Jo, cleans for Darren’s mentally-challenged co-worker Clive’s wealthy brother. On top of that, Clive has recently won big on a scratch card. Clearly the only thing to do is rob their house. What could go wrong?! The involvement of the police means it isn’t going to end well, however the final act reveal is genuinely well done, with a couple of twists for good measure.

Apart from a couple of pieces of clumsy foreshadowing, it is hard to tell that we’re watching a horror movie, feeling more like a script that Danny Dyer turned down. It wants to surprise the audience, but it feels like such a struggle to get there. A film with a running time of 1 hour and 10 minutes desperately needs to get on with things, but one too many police interviews and a whole section of Darren and co. walking around Clive’s garden in complete darkness really start to try your patience. It feels like director Richard Rowntree, who has a decent cameo as a taxi driver, was influenced by films like From Dusk Till Dawn, which gleefully flips its genre half way through to really subvert audience’s expectations. Nefarious doesn’t manage to do this but, when it does stray into the horror genre, it really comes alive – once the shackles are off, we experience well-shot and well-executed scenes that keep you gripped.

British horror is wildly under-represented, so any new player is welcomed. Rowntree (who was part of the art department on Ex_Machina) and his writing partner Matthew Davies (who also wrote 2017’s Dogged with Rowntree) have a lot of potential and, with the right backing, could produce some exciting horror in the coming years, but Nefarious feels like a show reel of what could be achieved in the future.