Review Category: Movie

The Nice Guys is an action/ buddy film stylishly set in ‘70s Los Angeles, but it’s a film that we’ve seen before that seems like an amalgamation of Shane Black’s superior work on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and his screenplay for The Last Boy Scout.

After an impressive opening sequence involving a centrefold, the plot focuses on an unfortunate meeting with private investigator Holland March (Gosling) and thug/enforcer Jackson Healy (Crowe), who team up to find a missing porn star that is involved in a conspiracy plot with pollution and the auto industry.

The characters are missing some background as information is given, but never concluded giving the viewer to fill in the blanks or speculate, especially with March and Healy regarding their pasts. We don’t know if this was left on the cutting room floor or if this was in the script itself, but I think it would have given deeper insight to the protagonists.

Crowe has his tough guy enforcer image down, He’s solid and bulky which contrasts Gosling’s Slim Callaghan look and they make a good pairing on screen.

Other stand out performances feature hit men, Older Guy and Blueface (Keith David and Beau Knapp) as hired killers who have a few run-ins with our heroes as well as the impressive and perky, Angourie Rice as Holland’s daughter; Holly and the psychotic assassin, known as John Boy; due to his similarity in looks to the character from The Waltons.

The beautiful, Kim Basinger and an unrecognisable Gil Gerard have minor, but pivotal roles that orbit in and out of the detective’s case.

Outstanding cinematography, set design and VFX all capture the mood of ‘70s Los Angeles and Hollywood enhanced by a dynamite ‘70s soundtrack bring back places that don’t even exist anymore. As someone who grew up in that time period, this writer can tell you they did an incredible, authentic job all around.

Shane Black’s crisp dialogue, a gift he uniquely has, is a standout and does a solid job in the directing department and keeps the action moving, but it’s a sense of Deja vu that we’ve seen this all before plot wise in his previous films especially in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

THE NICE GUYS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: SHANE BLACK / SCREENPLAY: SHANE BLACK, ANTHONY BAGAROZZI / STARRING: RUSSELL CROWE, RYAN GOSLING, ANGOURIE RICE, GIL GERRARD, KIM BASINGER., KEITH DAVID, BEAU KNAPP, MATT BOMER / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 3RD

With so much interest in folklore and folk-horror of late, it’s only fitting that the director and writer of Wake Wood would continue the trend with yet another mysterious folk story of devil worship and rituals. Cherry Tree has very similar themes to Wake Wood; death, loss, and resurrection. It has an alluring British cast and many of the typical tropes to expect in a film about cheating death.

Starring Naomi Battrick as fifteen-year-old Faith, a girl in great turmoil after she finds out her father (Sam Hazeldine) has a terminal illness. Faith finds herself befriending her enigmatic new hockey coach, Sissy (Anna Walton), who also happens to be a descendant of a centuries-old witch’s coven. Sissy strikes a deal with Faith promising to save her father but in return, Faith must bear a child. Sissy’s true intentions are soon revealed and Faith struggles to keep her end of the bargain.

It has much of the airy creepiness needed with an evil cherry tree as the source of dark magic, crawling with giant centipedes and hoarding a group of devotees to the hellion. The soundtrack, however, leaves a lot to be desired as it fails to match the atmosphere that the cinematography and special effects has generated. Although it was briefly mentioned at the beginning of the film, it would have been more interesting if the story delved a little deeper into the history of the tree and the coven that planned to evoke the devil for their selfish needs.

Suspenseful throughout, and with brilliant plot twists, it doesn’t always pay off, however, making you wonder what the point of the entire scene was. There are certain moments that feel long drawn with little happening until the final act which builds up to a rather climatic and amusing ending. When we think about folk-horror we come to expect a certain amount of violence, sex, and gore. Director David Keating and writer Brendan McCarthy definitely fulfilled all these aspects with some shocking scenes of violence and gore towards the end, although it took some time to get there.

With a little more imagination and movie magic, Cherry Tree could have been a fantastic modern companion to films such as The Witch, but unfortunately, its plot is too much of a cliché. Despite this and its lack lustre in the music department, it is ultimately a fine folk-tale that for any fan of the subgenre would very much appreciate.

CHERRY TREE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: DAVID KEATING / SCREENPLAY: BRENDAN MCCARTHY / STARRING: NAOMI BATTRICK, ANNA WALTON, SAM HAZELDINE, PATRICK GIBSON, ELVA TRILL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

You have to wonder when James Cullen Bressack finds time to sleep. At just 24 years old this one-man film industry has been attached to over 100 projects in one form or another, and even appears to be increasing his output. The latest film on the production line sees him teaming up with the equally hard-working Zack Ward (who has a mere 121 IMDB credits if you’re keeping score) for the latter’s feature directorial debut on Restoration, a film that almost…almost delivers on its early promise.

The premise is a straightforward one: moving into their new home Rebecca (O’Brien) and Todd (Gaeta) accidentally stumble upon and release the restless spirit of a murdered young woman. With help from their creepily over-friendly neighbours (Ward himself and the sultry Schultz) they try to unravel the mystery while combatting fiery ghouls and malevolent teddy-bears.

Great credit must be given to the filmmakers, but primarily to Ward who belies his inexperience to direct with delicacy and subtlety throughout; until the compulsory brutality in the final act. This “hands-off” approach gives Restoration a naturalistic feel which allows the characters to develop along convincing arcs, and creates an atmosphere of dread that emanates from a largely unknown threat. The performances are collectively excellent delivering barely a mis-step, with Ward in particular enjoying himself as the nuanced nosey neighbour; even wearing his director’s hat through the majority of the film – literally.

There are some issues but these are largely acceptable given the good will the film develops in its early stages. There is an exposition-heavy sequence in the middle that feels somewhat awkward, and one that largely ignores the concept of show-not-tell. As often happens the plot also begins to drift a little towards a final act that feels a little too contrived at times in its need to reference earlier events.

As a debut feature, though, Restoration is an impressive start for Ward, and demonstrates that Bressack can also write with restraint. Regular horror film viewers will spot many of the plot’s twists and turns, but in this case that is not a negative. The film earns the right to delve deep into the well of familiar genre tropes for its finale and unlike many doesn’t abuse that right. Restoration may not be a great film, but it is a very good one and given the number of bland and boring releases that populate the genre, this makes a welcome and refreshing change and is one you should seek out.

Cert: 18 / Director: Zack Ward / Screenplay: James Cullen Bressak, Zack Ward / Starring: Emily Roya O’Brien, Adrian Gaeta, Zack Ward, Sarah Ann Schultz, Anna Har / Release Date: Out Now
 

Decay begins almost exactly like any random slasher movie you could name: two young girls break into the house of neighbourhood weirdo Jonathan for a prank and one soon ends up dead. However, the death was an accident and in the end the girl Kayla is merely listed as missing. Jonathan, the perception of whom as an odd guy is not exactly unfounded, and who yearns for human companionship but lacks the necessary social skills to make real connections with people, decides to keep the body and make her his girlfriend.

A trashier film would have gone down the necrophiliac route for the cheap shock value, but Decay treats the situation with far more tact and sensitivity. Rather than base physical satisfaction, it’s emotional intimacy that Jonathan craves, and as such his actions are geared towards ensuring Kayla remains someone with whom he can maintain a connection.

His perception of her is viewed through a filter of mental duality, on one hand seeing her as a beautiful young woman and wilfully hallucinating an idealistic relationship fantasy, while on some other level also being aware she is dead, and so meticulously maintains her corpse as though she were one of the flowers in his basement nursery, keeping her corpse as fresh as possible to prevent his self-delusion from shattering.

Even if we can’t properly understand Jonathan we still genuinely feel for him, and our sympathy is extended through childhood flashback sequences where we witness the source of at least some of his issues in some unfeeling and overbearing parental work (“Mother didn’t raise you to be a little bitch”). There is a tragic sweetness to his actions, as even though what he is doing is inarguably creepy it’s his way of trying to combat his loneliness trapped in a directionless life governed by an idiomatic code of rhyming couplets.

While the obvious connotation of the title comes from Kayla’s decomposing body, it can also be taken to refer to the accelerated erosion of Jonathan’s sanity as his mind increasingly struggles to reconcile the beautiful and affectionate Kayla he wants to see with the yellowed putrefying corpse that is actually there.

While Decay has an intriguing central premise, you can’t help but feel it lacks the substance to sustain a full length feature, and as such some sequences feel like they are being used as filler to pad out the running time. However, this partially includes some truly beautiful and artful slow motion shots of brightly lit flowers against a black backdrop, water sprayed against them with the sound effect of crackling flames. The effects, like the film itself, are beautiful and captivating, while being indistinct about what they’re trying to say.

Decay / Cert: TBA / Director: Joseph Wartnerchaney / Screenplay:  Joseph Wartnerchaney / Starring: Rob Zabrecky, Hannah Barron, Jackie Hoffman, Lisa Howard, Elisha Yaffe / Release Date: TBA
 

Two years after a mysterious disease called the Drop caused most of the human race to simply drop dead, Astraea and her half-brother Matthew are travelling to Nova Scotia to fulfil a promise to come for Astraea’s grandmother and brother. On the way they encounter siblings James and Callie, and end up waiting out the winter in their isolated but well-stocked cabin.

The end of the world has never looked so peaceful. Most post-apocalyptic settings feature brutal gang warfare or roving mutated chimera threatening the lives of the last few survivors, but Astraea consists of little more than four people in a house, and it’s still utterly engaging.

The film begins with a voiceover by Astraea relating how this empty planet came to be, and during this we see her and Matthew travelling through barren urban wastelands, their isolation emphasising the wide open emptiness of the wintry desolation. The frozen countryside covered in a pristine blanket of crisp snow might as well be a microcosmic representation of the whole world: still, quiet and utterly devoid of the human race doing all they can to disrupt the serenity of nature.

Of course, there is still drama to be had, but it is simple human drama arising from jealousies within the small group and the strain of the constant requirement to make the best of still being alive, as well as an apparent supernatural aspect from the periodic visions Astraea experiences of her grandmother and brother, seeming to beckon her to continue on her journey.

In this age of ubiquitous YA adaptations a teenage girl unwittingly and unwillingly taking on the role of the heart of humanity is in no way unusual, but far from facing a life or death struggle with the fate of the world at stake, Astraea’s straddling of youthful innocence and emotional maturity maintains a fragile equilibrium, her presence seeming to be the one thing that holds everyone together. For all the four know, they are the last people alive, and when the human race has all but come to an end, what does humanity even mean any more?

There is no great revelation over the cause of the Drop, nor is the possibility of one ever even brought up, and the lingering question of the source of Astraea’s visions is likewise unexplored, as for the purposes of the story it doesn’t really matter. The greatest challenge for the survivors is retaining the will to go on in a world nobody can have any realistic hope of rebuilding. The past is gone and the future can take care of itself; there is only the here and now, and what that ultimately means is something only each individual can decide for themselves.

Astraea / Cert: TBA / Director: Kristjan Thor / Screenplay: Ashlin Halfnight / Starring: Nerea Duhart, Scotty Crowe, Jessica Cummings, Dan O’Brien / Release Date: TBA
 

There are some cinematic experiences for which “What the fuck?” doesn’t quite cover it. That overused exclamation of generic mental double-take is reduced to meaningless sounds that are rendered wholly inadequate when attempting a verbal quantification of what in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster it was that was just watched. Which, by definition, may make the writing of a review of said experience something of a challenge. So, here we go.

The plot of Antibirth, such as it has one, sees party girl Lou drinking, smoking and toking her life away in an anonymous Michigan backwater. Becoming mysteriously pregnant despite going through a dry spell is only the beginning of a surreal nightmare as she swiftly swells to the size of a humanoid blimp and her life becomes beset with an assortment of paranoia inducing encounters and body-horror alterations.

That’s the shape of it. Or, at least, the clearest face of its randomly spinning dodecagonal story, but this actually does little to convey what a perfect storm of a beautifully shot clusterfuck the whole thing is. The drab and greyed wintery town contrasts beautifully with the vibrant chaos of Lou’s fevered hallucinations, while even a few occurrences not from her perspective take place against the colourful haze of backlit mist.

A mysterious drifter provides a little exposition late in the day as the film descends into conspiratorial anarchy like the most chaotic episode of The X-Files, but to look for a full explanation is to ignore the appeal of taking on an exercise of absorbing mind-boggling weirdness. It’s sometimes difficult to tell if some visual surreality is the result of the characters’ stoned perception, if it’s a visual stylisation on the part of the director, or if it’s actually happening in the relentless shifting of what the film’s reality considers a plausible occurrence.

What’s more, you can’t even claim the film is incoherent. By logic warped in the white heat of its own weirdness, it does actually make a contextual kind of sense, just not one that stands up to the rigours of external examination of plausibility. It’s entirely possible that the only way to experience the film and believe yourself to have understood it is to watch it in the same altered state as the characters, the only problem being that, like the Withnail & I drinking game, this might actually kill you.

A relentless hyperchromatic trip from altered state start to Cronenbergian and Lynchian finish, Antibirth might be a good film, it’s just difficult to coherently justify exactly why. Cult superstardom awaits.

Antibirth / Cert: TBA / Director& Screenplay: Danny Perez / Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Chloë Sevigny, Meg Tilly, Mark Webber, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Emmanuel Kabongo / Release Date: TBA

A gigantic meathead of a man goes camping with his teacher girlfriend and her photography class. There, they are beset by a tribe of Hillbillies and violent ex-convict cannibals cooking up meth in the woods. When his girlfriend and the kids are dragged off to the monsters’ grisly rape dens, it’s down to jacked John Crenshaw (Paul Logan) to save the day. If only the missus had allowed him to bring his guns, eh.

Ashley Williams, Ellen Ripley and Lefty Enright aside, the legitimate horror badass is a relatively rare treat in genre cinema. After all, it’s easier to get on with the plot if your hero spends most of his or her time running away or hiding – usually before a little burst of competence, right at the end. And then you get a film like You’re Next or No-One Lives, which subvert that victimisation wonderfully, turning the Hunters into the Hunted. Or The Horde, the hero of which is such an ass-kicker that he needs a literal horde of cannon fodder in order for the film to not be over in about twenty minutes. Also, a lack of guns, which would have ended it in even less time than that. 

Crenshaw may have been forbidden from bringing his automatic weaponry, but there’s no separating him from his other guns – a truly hefty set of biceps he wastes little time in putting to good use. Ex-Navy SEAL turned condescending boyfriend Crenshaw is the sort of man who brings MMA techniques to a bar brawl, shrugging off local yokels and vicious ex-cons alike, rarely breaking a sweat. Entertaining as it may be to watch our low-budget Rambo tearing out throats and shooting fiery arrows at people, this inevitably means that there’s a lot less tension than there should be. Even Wrong Turn 2 had the good grace to hamper Henry Rollins’s game, while Leatherface saddled Ken Fioree with a bent rifle. No such fairness here – just Crenshaw breaking limbs and drop-kicking people all over the woods. An even bigger Matthew Willig and typically mumble-y Costas Mandylor (remember him?) at least give Crenshaw something to stumble against, however briefly.

What should be a fun blend of action movie and slasher flick is, sadly, tainted by its idiot politics and repulsive use of rape in lieu of actual scares or atmosphere. ‘There’s no rush,’ the film tells its pretty young nervous virgin. ‘Wait until you’re ready’, it says, before having her gang raped ten minutes later. Crenshaw’s intended is spared, at least: will she get raped before her cut-price Captain America saves her? These are what pass for the film’s stakes, like Liam Neeson trying to rescue his daughter from sex slavery in Taken.

This, combined with the film’s stupid infatuation with its own leading man, leaves something of a sour taste in the mouth. The Horde is fun, but, just as the whole school trip is taken over and undermined by a bulky dick who does more teaching than his teacher girlfriend (because Macho), it tends to be bullied into submission by its own worst inclinations.

THE HORDE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JARED COHN / SCREENPLAY: PAUL LOGAN / STARRING: PAUL LOGAN, MATTHEW WILLIG, COSTAS MANDYLOR / RELEASE DATE: TBA

On the road and desperate for work, an indie punk metal band take a gig at a shady bar in backwoods America. Sounds rough? Even worse, it’s a bar run and populated entirely by violent neo-Nazis. Even worse than that – the band are unlucky enough to witness a murder in the bar’s green room, leaving them trapped and at the mercy of a pub full of furious Nazis determined to shut the poor kids up for good. Worst of all, they’re pit against Patrick Stewart, in a mode of evil we haven’t seen since his Mel Gibson conspiracy theorist torturing days.

Locking themselves backstage with only a burly, terrifying bouncer and the murder victim’s friend for company, the besieged bandmates face the fight of their lives. Of the kids, it’s Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development!) you’re most likely to recognise, so young and wide-eyed that you’ll immediately sympathise with their plight. Stewart (skin) heads off the villains, clearly relishing a role which lets him unleash all of his Shakespearian malice and threat. Quiet yet commanding, it’s a performance to savour, reminding us how scary the man can be when not admonishing mutants or being the best thing on Seth MacFarlane projects.

Even if he weren’t in it though, Green Room would be a treat. It’s a brutal, masterfully tense thriller, its shocking bouts of bloody violence offset against its nerve-jangling stand-offs and cataclysmic aftermaths. Few punches are pulled in depicting the film’s various brutalities, made all the more upsetting for our burgeoning fondness towards the characters and the growing certainty that it can’t end well for any of them. Thankfully, it’s funny too; by no means a comedy horror, but (much like writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s previous work, Blue Ruin and Murder Party) utilising a slick, sick gallows humour, that prevents it from getting too bogged down in misery.

Its setting will win Green Room many fans also, the sweaty punk rocker energy palpable and reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn’s Titty Twister. Add to that the action of Dog Soldiers, the (American) skinhead bovver boots of This is England and the backwoods rural Nazis of (an American) Frontiers. None of this is massively original – its story and character beats remaining fairly predictable to the end – but the writing, performances and sheer bravado of it all more than makes up for its moments of cliché. 

Like being trapped in a mosh pit full of demented punk rockers, Green Room will kick your ass, leaving you beaten, changed and a little bit traumatised. You’ll have had a hell of a time, though.

GREEN ROOM / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JEREMY SAULNIER / STARRING: ANTON YELCHIN, PATRICK STEWART, IMOGEN POOTS, ALIA SHAWKAT, JOE COLE / RELEASE DATE: 13TH MAY

When beloved actress Anna Fritz is found dead at a party, she is whisked off to an undisclosed morgue before the media frenzy has time to deploy itself and broadcast her location to the salivating masses. However, this didn’t count on a skeevy morgue attendant who likes taking pictures of attractive bodies and the appearance of two of his friends on their way to a party loaded up with drink and drugs, who harangue him into being allowed to take a look at the beautiful star’s corpse.

That takes you up to about ten minutes into the film, but to say any more would be too much of a spoiler of what awaits you, and you’re far better off going into it knowing as little as possible, lest the impact of any surprises be lessened by advanced knowledge. Suffice to say that things quickly go bad for the three friends and they find themselves in a situation with no easy way out, the extremes of each of their natures quickly coming to the fore.

While hateful misogyny is often utilised to lazily characterise unsympathetic characters, here its use is a statement of men’s attitudes towards women and the kind of things they convince themselves are justified if they think there will be no consequences. The worst kind of misogynist is one who genuinely doesn’t see himself as a bad guy but just a victim of circumstance, and whose protestations of innocence inspire seething contempt at his repugnant arrogance. The film makes such observations, without requiring them to be explicitly stated, and so avoids getting preachy or condescending about it.

The tension gradually crescendos with each passing minute, and is maintained by the constantly shifting levels of control each character has over the situation and the others. Despite the potential for trashy exploitation, the most deplorable aspects of the story are portrayed with a degree of tact; sometimes merely knowing something is happening is enough, without requiring it to be shown in graphic detail. The simplicity of the story is matched by the single setting, in which most of it is set, and imbues it with an atmosphere of claustrophobia that soon becomes oppressive. Freedom might be just on the other side of a door, but to attain it is far more than a simple case of just walking through.

The Corpse of Anna Fritz unflinchingly delves into the darkened recesses of human nature, where even the most reasonable of us can occasionally find ourselves slipping in our lowest moments. The film is not an easy watch, nor can it be said to be in any way entertaining; it’s short, nasty, brutal and utterly compelling.

THE CORPSE OF ANNA FRITZ / CERT: TBA / HÈCTOR HERNÁNDEZ VICENS / SCREENPLAY: ISAAC P CREUS, HÈCTOR HERNÁNDEZ VICENS / STARRING: ALBA RIBAS, CRISTIAN VALENCIA, ALBERT CARBÓ, BERNAT SAUMELL / RELEASE DATE: TBA