Review Category: Movie

Arriving in cinemas stripped of any obvious links to producer JJ Abrams Cloverfield series, Overlord still can’t quite shake the familiar feeling of being a bigger budgeted Twilight Zone episode. This time mixing the sci-fi is with Saving Private Ryan.

After an impressively explosive opening sequence which introduces a plethora of American WWII Paratroopers only to have them ripped apart by anti-aircraft fire, Overlord settles into typical men-on-a-mission format with the surviving troops tasked with taking out a Nazi radio jamming tower, hours ahead of the D-day landings. Unfortunately they find that the French town surrounding their target harbours more horrors than just Nazis, and if you’ve seen any of the marketing for this movie you already know what that is. It’s basically Nazi zombies, which makes it baffling why the film takes so long to get to the monster bash. If the film had been billed purely as a WWII drama then the twist may have been a pleasant M. Night Shyamalan style surprise, but as it is you end up killing time waiting for the characters to catch up with the audience and for the mayhem to begin.

That’s not to say Overlord is in any way a bad film. It looks great and the actions sequences are decent, but none really stick in the mind. The performances are all solid, with Jovan Adepo providing an honourable if reluctant hero, butting heads with Wyatt Russell’s Sergeant (who will constantly remind you of his father Kurt). John Magaro fulfils the apparently obligatory Italian wiseguy role with aplomb, and Ghost in the Shell‘s Pilou Asbæk provides a fittingly hateful face to the Nazi forces.

The film just can’t seem to decide whether it wants to embrace the schlockiness inherent its concept and turn into a period version of Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers, or play it super straight, adding the horror of the monsters on top of the already horrific realities of war. The pacing also feels a little off with the band of brothers hanging out in an attic until what feels like the last possible moment to achieve their mission, while Boyce fumbles his way in and out of the heavily guarded Nazi encampment. This detour feels like it’s only there so the characters can catch up with the audience on the monster front, but it’s too early in the movie for the final assault.

Overlord is an enjoyable action film but falls just short of greatness. It’s not quite the Castle Wolfenstein movie you’ve been waiting for.

OVERLORD / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JULIUS AVERY / SCREENPLAY: BILLY RAY, MARK L. SMITH / STARRING: JOVAN ADEPO, WYATT RUSSELL, MATHILDE OLLIVIER, PILOU ASBAEK, JOHN MAGARO, IAIN DE CAESTECKER / RELEASE DATE: 7TH NOVEMBER (UK), 9TH NOVEMBER (US)

Writer-director Lorena Villareal’s Silencio sets itself at the heart of a real-life spiritual phenomenon in the heart of Mexico. According to the film-makers, the Zona Del Silencio (The Zone of Silence) yields the same mystique that many of the Seven Wonders of the World hold. It is a region in Mexico with the same capabilities as the legendary Bermuda Triangle, a place that has been used a number of times for great dramatic effect in both film and TV.

Ana (Melina Matthews) is a psychiatrist and single mother who is caring for both her son Felix and grandfather Dr. James White (Lord Of The Rings actor John Noble). White is now suffering from dementia, but back in 1970 he discovered a mystical stone in the Zone of Silence with his apprentice Dr. Peter (Sherlock‘s Rupert Graves). Ana is also grieving over the death of her family, and her grandfather has also had visions of the incident when the stone yields its power.

The stone becomes a major source of value, not only to Ana and Dr. Peter, but when Felix is kidnapped by a mystery man the true power of its worth begins to unleash crucial potential in terms of destiny and fate.

This is a carefully underplayed sci-fi time displacement drama in the realm of The Butterfly Effect and Quantum Leap and, like the very best examples, much of it has to be carefully thought out for the core idea to be pulled off. Director Villareal has certainly got that down pat and creates an excellent ensemble of performances, notably from Matthews who commands a dual dialect with confidence and competence.

Silencio also has a solid human heart throughout and provides food for thought to more intellectual sci-fi fans who will appreciate a more well-worked narrative like Ex Machina or Inception. It’s an interesting effort and Villareal has much to be pleased with, as does the target audience after they watch this.

SILENCIO / CERT: UNRATED / DIRECTOR: LORENA VILLARREAL / SCREENPLAY: LORENA VILLARREAL / STARRING: NOVAK RICARDO CANAMAR, ANNA CETTI, MICHAEL CHAUVET / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Written and directed by Mamoru Hosada, Mirai of the Future is a charming story about a 4 year old boy who grows jealous of his newborn baby sister. Fighting for his mother’s affection, Kun becomes agitated by his perceived neglect and resents the fact that he is no longer the centre of attention. Angry and confused, Kun stumbles across a magical garden where he meets his future sister, Mirai, and a host of other family members from the past. Through each encounter, Kun begins to learn what it means to be a brother and to cherish the moments he has with his family.

Having previously directed The Boy and the Beast and Wolf Children, Hosada has had plenty of experience when it comes to helming fantasy-driven films that contain a family theme. With his latest venture being more of a grounded affair, there are still fantastical elements sprinkled throughout which manage to sweep the viewer into an imaginative adventure. Written from the perspective of a child, we’re able to see life through Kun’s eyes and witness all of the complicated emotions he goes through. Feelings such as love, jealousy, fear and anger are all prevalent as he tries to make sense of everything that is going on around him.

With family life changing rapidly, his mother and father are busy trying to find a state of equilibrium. As Kun continues to travel through time, his mother and father are going through their own journey of self-discovery. With his mother having given birth and quickly returning to work, it’s up to Kun’s father to take more responsibility around the house. Whether it’s cooking, cleaning or looking after the children, it’s clear to see that he’s out of his depth and we soon start to realize how much of a big role Kun’s mother plays in everyday family life. Hosada’s script effectively conveys how stressful it can be for everyone involved when bringing up a child, and shows the kind of situations a family has to come up against. By working together and becoming more open with each other they soon start to form a closer bond and gradually learn what it means to be a family.

As Kun travels through time we’re able to see how his family tree has grown over the years and the important events that have taken place. Masakatsu Takagi’s music is the perfect accompaniment for these moments as it perfectly captures the magic and, at times, melancholy of each scenario. Whether it’s meeting his rebellious mother as a child or riding a motorcycle with his grandfather, these scenes are drenched with the sentimental offerings that we’ve come to expect. The animation does a great job at bringing the characters to life and manages to capture the finer details to much success. Whether it’s capturing a child’s walk or a fathers uncertainty, the animation never fails to enrich the characters with personality.

Overall, Mirai of the Future is a film which manages to appeal to the whole family. Funny, heartfelt, and full of emotion, Hosada has created a film which intelligently touches upon parental guilt and childhood fears through a fantasy-driven narrative. A relatable story which is bound to resonate with all who watch, Mirai of the Future shows how childhood can at times be a selfish endeavour.

MIRAI OF THE FUTURE / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MAMORU HOSADA / STARRING: MOKA KAMISHIRAISHI, HARU KUROKI , GEN HOSHINO, KUMIKO ASO / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 2ND

If the original Suspiria is some Alice in Wonderland-esque dream, then Guadagnino’s Suspiria is the stark reality, set in a divided Berlin during the German Autumn that reverberates with the grief of its past, where trauma haunts citizens like a ghostly ectoplasm, where every corner the debris of repression is felt, a dilapidated prison, the same Berlin that possessed Adjani in Zulawski’s 1981 Possession, brutalist and controlled. Even in its form of six acts and an epilogue, its restraint a form of deceit.

This Suspiria is at once a more fleshed out psychoanalytical reading, with Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy taken to the utmost degree.

Here, Suzy Bannon (Johnson) is no meek victim, but fully in control, renouncing her mother and her Mennonite past to gain control of her body and herself. As an ambitious young dance student at the Markos Dance Academy, she catches the eye of Madame Blanc, played by Tilda Swinton as an ageless cold blooded vampire, all porcelain skin and simmering emotion underneath layers of marble.

Colour was a main character in Argento’s world. Here, colour is subdued to a Fassbinder palette in order to give full prominence to the workings of the body, in all of its gruesome power; in the spectacle of high art -ballet – as a mode of moulding the primitive into the civilised. The grim nature of bodily dedication, the sacrifice that comes with athleticism, is almost beautiful, until it’s not as bodies contort like something out of Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs. One particular scene stands out: a dizzying ritualistic display of movement, poised and violent at the same time. As Suzy becomes more confident in her dance, another student is literally torn apart. Women are literally pushing one another out of the way to make room for the next, brightest young thing. If this is Guadagnino’s current comment on the state of feminism, then it still works, even as everything seemingly ends in destruction.

Female sensuality and desire is fought with the rigidity and discipline of dance, where passion is channelled into pain, where the ecstasy of both desire and pain are dances in themselves, and these scenes focusing on dance land with a thud. Connotations of ballet-nimbleness, light on the feet-are replaced with a ferocity made all the more violent for the lack of music.

The dance school itself is tucked away from the world of civilisation and men, existing on its own axis of stifling, hidden, female power. Operating alongside this narrative is the psychiatrist, Dr Jozef Klemperer (played again by Swinton – so it’s not only a world but a film operating on female power), who believes that the school is governed by a coven of witches and inadvertently becomes their pawn, as well as being tormented by a vision of his deceased wife, killed in a concentration camp.

Suzy’s memories of the past are presented as Lynchian fragments, whilst still managing to be wholly original, representing the psychic brokenness of a people that have war, pain and sexual repression hanging over them. The relationship between Suzy and Blanc and Suzy and her roommate Sara (Mia Goth) is transgressive, climaxing into an orgiastic ritual of movement and flesh that rivals Gaspar Noé’s Climax and Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, whilst managing to be an amusing melding together of female power instead of an apocalyptic explosion.

Guadagnino has succeeded in making a Suspiria that is genuinely sinister, a work of art that is terrifying for how well he can penetrate the subconscious fears of fourth wave feminism, showing a vision of femininity that is threatening and exhilarating. Paradoxically, by creating a ‘stripped back’, bare-bones Suspiria, the blood is warmer, sharper, the violence announced with an electric vehemence, left to linger.

SUSPIRIA / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: LUCA GUADAGNINO / SCREENPLAY: DAVID KAJGANICH / STARRING: DAKOTA JOHNSON, TILDE SWINTON, DORIS HICK, ANGELA WINKLER / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16TH

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Empathy, Inc. taps into the generation-old concept of VR and AR personified in films like Brainstorm, Videodrome and last year’s Incontrol. Joel (Zack Robidas) is part of an investment firm that suddenly finds itself on the scrap heap due to a business transaction gone wrong. All things being equal, he and his actress wife Jessica (Kathy Searle) move back in with her parents, and discussion towards how he’s going to get it all back takes precedent over his own feelings.

While at a bar to clear his head, Joel bumps into an old acquaintance, Nicolaus (Eric Berryman), who is working on a new concept – with his company Empathy, Inc. – by the name of XVR (Xtreme Virtual Reality) which gives people the chance to live the life of others who are less fortunate than themselves. Naturally there are rules to how this works, and before long Joel finds his desire to live in ways beyond that which he is so comfortable.

Empathy, Inc. takes a well-known and well-liked concept and pushes it a little bit further. Thanks to director Yedidya Gorsetman’s assured and taut direction and a confident, competent screenplay by Mark Leidner, this is a movie that works exceptionally well. The black and white cinematography takes us into classic David Lynch territory a la Elephant Man and Eraserhead-type visuals.

The film also taps into the Philip K. Dick mantra of fantasy vs reality as realised in Verhoeven’s Total Recall and, right up until the very end, it will keep you in thrall with a couple of nice twists shaped by the concept the film is asking us to buy into. Granted, a little bit of suspension of disbelief is needed, but since when was that an issue when millions thrilled to the worlds of Michael Crichton and The Matrix?

If you value your clever, smart sci-fi in the style of Ex Machina, then Empathy, Inc. is a movie to behold. A neat gem of an experience, but keep your thoughts in check.

EMPATHY, INC. / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: YEDIDYA GORSETMAN / SCREENPLAY: MARK LEIDNER / STARRING: ANTHONY MANGANO, KAREN LYNN GORNEY, JAY KLAITZ, AJ CEDENO / RELEASE DATE: VOD OUT NOW

Getting an October US and Canadian VOD release on key platforms after winning an award for Best Cinematography at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, Elizabeth R. Schuch’s The Book of Birdie is a gothic fairy tale which taps into the same psychological traumas that defined films like The Exorcist and The Omen amongst other religion-focused horror offerings.

Teenage girl Birdie (llirida Memedowski) is brought by her grandmother to a Midwest convent, where she is taken in by the nuns to try and overcome some key problems in her life. Her goal to overcome these traumas is compounded by the fact that she has visions of a nun who has hung herself on a nearby tree who talks to her and also has taken up a relationship with the groundskeeper’s daughter, Julia (Kitty Hall).

Before long, however, her own problems have extended within the rumours and thoughts of the order, who are in themselves suffering with the fact that the convent might well be closing down itself….

The Book of Birdie is not your average scare-fest, with none of the shocking moments that elevated the Friedkin and Donner originals to almost-legendary status amongst fans. Rather, it plays on the characterisation and perception that all the characters feel as they embark on life in seclusion.

As a result, fans expecting jump moments and leaps out of the closet will not be satisfied by this. However, if you are looking for a more compassionate analysis of how people see the world, then there is something of appeal in the film. There is blood on show, but people expecting a spider-walk down a stair or two and a creative death may feel cheated.

That said, the film is worth seeing.

THE BOOK OF BIRDIE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: ELIZABETH E. SCHUCH / SCREENPLAY: ELIZABETH E. SCHUCH, ANAMI TARA SCHUCART / STARRING: SUZAN CROWLEY, KYMBERLY MELLEN, KATHRYN BROWNING / RELEASE DATE: TBC