Review Category: Movie

PENALTY LOOP

With a trailer that sets the film up as a blood-thumping, pulse-pounding Groundhog Day loop of bloody revenge, Penalty Loop does indeed fulfil the bare bones of this premise, with protagonist Jun (Ryuya Wakaba) trapped in a cycle of repeatedly killing the murderer of his beloved, but while simultaneously subverting every other expectation that this conceit (and the trailer) would have you assume.

Writer and director Shinji Araki handles the violence deftly, gruesomely and with frequent humour, but the killings are brief punctuation points in a glacially slow-paced film more interested in the process of grief than the nature of revenge. Araki makes acute use of stillness and negative space, often composing shots that have you checking the film isn’t paused, which allow time both to reflect on Jun’s isolation and impotent frustration and to leave the viewer as trapped in space and time as he is. Wakaba is more than capable of holding these still moments with his quietly expressive gentle demeanour; as he increasingly engages with the murderer (Yusuke Iseya), a striking and complex chemistry emerges between the two.

[Spoiler Alert!] There are no great reveals or twists to Penalty Loop, but through a lean and surprisingly straightforward story (considering its time loop premise), Araki creates a film that is funny, tender and merciful in all the ways that life often isn’t. In a film that is set up to be about revenge, the central characters and audience alike learn more about forgiveness and surrender. The story refuses to give up every secret or to make everything right, through vengeance or any other act, when being okay with things being wrong may be the only possible outcome.

MOTHER FATHER SISTER BROTHER FRANK

Every family has that one relative that they would prefer wouldn’t call around. And there’s nothing worse than them arriving when you’re having a Sunday family dinner. Especially if that person is out to take everything from them. Writer/director Caden Douglas takes the simple concept and ratchets the familial horrors to an absurd degree.

Overbearing mother of the Jennings family, Joy (Mindy Cohn), and father, Jerry (Enrico Colantoni), are having their weekly dinner with their son, Jim (Iain Stewart), and daughter, Jolene (Melanie Leishman). Things are strained as it is, but when Jerry’s brother Frank (Juan Chioran) turns up and reveals a secret, the parents keep putting the night into deadly turmoil.

Surprises and murder are the order of the day as the evening swings from an unbearably awkward family dinner to a farce level (a pie to the face has never worked so perfectly). Familiar family relationship behaviours (if overly exaggerated) come under the spotlight in this funny, gory romp. Each member has something to hide, and the razor-sharp dialogue keeps things zipping along, and the unorthodox method of bonding might be messy but seems to do the job. The cast is superb, and they are aided by cameos from Mean Girl’s Sharron Mathews, whose lost dog causes more trouble for the Jennings, Jim’s husband Pete (Izad Etemadi), and a police officer (Matthew G. Brown). Naturally, they all add an extra strain to the unfortunate predicament.

Special mention must go to the often discordant score by Adrian Ellis and Walker Grimshaw. It adds another level of anxiety to the beautifully shot visuals. However dysfunctional, the family at the heart of Caden Douglas’s movie come together through honesty and real love. A lesson to us all… just without the murder.

MOTHER FATHER SISTER BROTHER FRANK is available to rent and buy digitally now.

BLACKWATER LANE

Adapted from BA Paris’s 2017 novel The Breakdown, this less-than-thrilling psychological mystery has the unthreatening ambience of a made-for-TV movie. Blackwater Lane lacks tension or much in the way of genuine surprises, but before it fritters the effort away, it does start to build a sense of disquiet and dissociation.

Forty-something secondary school teacher Cass (Minka Kelly) enjoys a comfortable life as the owner of the impressive country estate she shares with her husband Matthew (Dermot Mulroney). Driving home from end-of-term staff drinks one night, she takes a shortcut through the woods. She passes a parked car in which a woman is slumped motionless in the driver’s seat but leaves without investigating. When she learns the next morning that a dead body was found on the spot, she becomes a ‘person of interest’ in police enquiries. But as alarming incidents begin to disrupt home life, her memory appears to fail. Despite the help of best friend Rachel (Lost’s Maggie Grace), she starts to doubt her sanity, fearing that some ghostly entity is now seeking vengeance for her culpability.

Unfortunately, despite the potential of the premise, there’s little in Blackwater Lane to get the blood pumping. Characterisation remains superficial, so it’s hard to invest in anyone’s fate. The ‘home alone’ scenes, during which Cass is menaced by unseen forces and unsettled by memory lapses, lack impact. Any unease surrounding the creeping supernatural threat evaporates in an unexpected turn of events late in Act Three. Its conclusion – complete with flashback do-overs – draws heavily on the Scooby-Doo school of criminal deduction and is woefully implausible. Director Jeff Celentano and his team tick all the contractual boxes, but it’s clear that everyone involved is capable of far better work.

BLACKWATER LANE is available now on digital platforms.

STREAM

Boasting plenty of the behind-the-scenes crew from the Terrifier movies, Steam has enough pedigree to make it a must-see for gore fans.

Forcefully taking over a remote hotel, ringleader Mr Lockwood (an always brilliant Jeffrey Combs) organises an online game in which the guests are the prey for four masked killers. The winner is the one who slays in the most creative way while viewers on the dark web place their bets.

The premise of Stream might be very familiar, there’s still plenty to recommend. The kills are nastily inventive and executed well, which is what we could expect with Damien Leone as FX supervisor. Art the Clown himself, David Howard Thornton, embodies Player 2 as lithely as he does the Terrifier killer, which is a little too on-point, highlighting the crossover of talent with the popular indie franchise. The main victims are a family (headed by Charles Edwin Powell and new wife Danielle Harris, her wayward daughter Sydney Malakey and young son Wesley Holloway) who are likeable enough to root for, while the other guests don’t get enough screen time to register before their inevitable slaughter. The use of streaming, which has come a long way since the Hostel days, gives the youngster a way to become a saviour rather than mere axe fodder (early on, we see him being interrupted while streaming his gameplay). Ultimately, the visceral thrills make us feel as guilty as the killers on screen and gamblers watching – and that is the point of the satire.

Like the Terrifier sequels, Stream runs a little long, but there’s always something going on. Combs delivers his own brand of scene-stealing weasel-ness perfectly, and some of the other cameos thankfully serve more than fan service (it’s now poignant to see Tony Todd, his unmistakable voice resonating wonderfully). While we’re not sure it deserves to become a franchise, Stream is an entertaining diversion.

CREEP BOX

In the near future of 2029, a private company known as the HTDA delivers closure to the recently bereaved through a simulation of their recently departed, a voice emerging from the titular Creep Box. Overseeing this procedure is neuroscientist and parapsychologist Dr Caul (Geoffrey Cantor, as seen in Marvel’s Punisher and Daredevil), a man tortured by the past but also by a growing concern over how far these voices are purely simulations.

Both written and directed by Patrick Biesemans, don’t expect any jump scares or gore from Creep Box, a slow-paced film filled with silences and contemplations of empty spaces, which is more interested in the philosophy of consciousness and the afterlife than ghosts or monsters. In fact, in a world otherwise made up of cold, harshly lit and sterile offices, boardrooms, workspaces and empty homes, Dr Caul’s darkly stygian laboratory, as creepy as it is, is one of the few lively interiors, filled with scrolling code, flashing lights and a multitude of eerie voices. With a central philosophy questioning what it is to be alive after death, Creep Box‘s most alive characters are often the dead themselves.

Much of this film is beautifully shot, with the camera work doing much of the storytelling, and the sound design with the ‘simulated’ voices is superb. There are also flashes of excellent, understated acting from all of the main cast. However, Biesemans seems more confident with constructing images and atmospheres than with capturing performances and so the characterisations can seem uneven or even frustratingly underplayed at times.

Creep Box asks a lot of questions and leaves many hanging threads, but it is also somewhat haunted by its own emptiness, feeling in some ways more like a short in its lean storytelling than a feature film. At best, by the end of the film, we know a little more about the central character, but he seems barely changed by the experience, and our understanding of his world is too, leaving behind a whisper of creeping existential dread but sadly little lasting impact once that whisper dies away.

CREEP BOX is released on digital platforms in the US on January 24th.

INTO THE DEEP

The tidal wave of new shark movies shows no signs of slowing, with many small-budget films eager to use increasingly affordable CGI technology to render Great White antagonists on screen. Many recent filmmakers have recognised the need to bring something distinctive to their own story of shark-based shenanigans: a new context for the jeopardy, an unusual and conducive location, or a never-before-seen underwater breed. The makers of Into the Deep mix together three new ingredients in the hope of serving up some irresistible screen seafood.

Cassidy (Scout Taylor-Compton) is a marine biologist, dealing with the childhood trauma of witnessing the death of her father in a shark attack by committing her life to the study of these creatures. She is mentored by her thoughtful grandfather (Richard Dreyfuss), who offers her advice and support in overcoming her fears. Heading out on a research trip, her hire boat is seized at gunpoint by drug smugglers, led by Jordan (Jon Seda), determined to retrieve a cocaine shipment from the sea bed. (No, this doesn’t turn into ‘Cocaine Shark’.) Will Cassidy find the courage to dive beneath the waves to bring back the drugs, or will the lives of everyone on board be sacrificed if she refuses?

Despite the inclusion of its three storytelling novelties (shark-phobic diver, presence of Jaws‘ icon Dreyfuss, and drug pirates), Into the Deep relies on the familiar shark tale template – killing off secondary characters in quick succession as compound perils multiply aboard ship. But there’s little tension in the way this unfolds, not least because the cinematography (including the studio water tank work) is so flat, but also due to some sketchy characterisation. The CGI shark effects rarely convince, and it’s telling how often a thick cloud of digital blood is rendered to cover up a lack of visceral detail. There are occasional bright moments, but even Cassidy’s newfound respect for her shark nemesis ends up feeling fishy. Dreyfuss’ character (Seamus) does not leave shore at any point, but over the closing credits, the actor delivers a lengthy and articulate speech about the need for shark conservation. It’s notable then that the film itself, leaning into all the standard ‘man-eating shark’ tropes, does so little to challenge the dominant cinematic narratives that depict the creature as a vindictive and remorseless killer.

INTO THE DEEP is released on digital platforms on January 27th and Blu-ray/DVD on February 3rd.

COME HOME

An atypical take on the cabin-in-the-woods premise, small-scale ensemble indie flick Come Home eschews all the predictable through-the-window voyeurism and serial killer ‘jump scare’ clichés to offer a slow-burn and off-kilter tale of supernatural malevolence deep in the American wilderness.

Come Home’s disarming early scenes introduce four millennials (two couples unaware of how ill-suited their partnerships are) preparing to enjoy time together in the great outdoors. Newlyweds Mel and Ikenna have given up on the turmoil of New York to embrace the rhythms of rural life. They are joined by friends Taylor and Arjun, all seemingly in awe of the rugged beauty of the Adirondack Mountains. The other three are dismissive when Mel light-heartedly shares a fireside story of the spirit roaming the woodland and the lake, drawing the unwary to their doom. All four soon discover the true horrors lurking in the forest.

The stunning cinematography, excellent sound design and well-crafted musical score all build a sense of unease. The naturalistic performances of the four leads and the everyday dialogue – which feels largely improvised – all suggest that the conceit at the heart of the movie will ultimately have a reasoned, grounded resolution. But as the pace slows and the focus wanders, directors Zoz and Purcell introduce a sense of dislocation, dispensing with rationality and ending the need for characters’ behaviour to be explicable. This awkward tonal shift dilutes the impact of the mystery and ends matters without attempting to explain what’s happened. This unformulaic and unusual ghost story has a winning immersive ambience, but in sacrificing clarity in favour of confusion, it leaves the audience struggling to differentiate the wood from the trees.

COME HOME is available now on Prime Video and other streaming platforms

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER

Despite many mockingly dismissing The Last Voyage of the Demeter as “Dracula on a boat”, that is kind of a literature oxymoron, because this is not a gimmick but an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s enduring tale itself, albeit one often skimmed over chapter of it (The Captain’s Log), more specifically referring to the doomed (for the ship and crew that is) sea voyage to England.

The film dwells almost entirely on the Demeter, the merchant ship carrying cargo to England from Bulgaria, in the summer of 1897. Clemons (Corey Hawkins), a young doctor, finds his way on board with the crew, who are hoping for an easygoing journey to collect their bonus, but when their livestock is found drained of blood and the crew begin seeing nightmarish things play out, they realise that something evil is on board with them.

It is such a shame that The Last Voyage of the Demeter sunk at the box office, because this gory, dark and atmospheric adaptation of this excerpt of Bram Stoker’s tale is what the failed 2017 Dark Universe should have been going for. It’s a gothic claustrophobic horror tale that presents us with an animalistic and genuinely scary Dracula, brought to aggressive life by Javier Botet.

Troll Hunter and Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark filmmaker André Øvredal has crafted a distinctive vampiric tale, which strands you on board the rough seas with its crew. Despite the fact you know the endgame, the film has some fierce tricks up its sleeve, thanks in no small part to some strong characters and emotional beats that pay off as a result of the connections we form along the way.

There are standout performances by a likeable and noble Corey Hawkins, a brilliant Aisling Franciosi, who becomes the heart of the film as Anna, and especially the frightening Botet, who takes on the iconic part and gives us a ferocious Dracula to relish. Additionally, there are some great supporting turns by Liam Cunningham as the Captain and David Dastmalchian as first mate Wojchek.

There are elements here that will of course be familiar to the seasoned monster movie viewer, but the gothic cinematography by Tom Stern and Bear McCreary’s escalating score put you right in the dark headspace of this accursed vessel’s crew, and this is an effective voyage into hell as a result.

The fantastic (largely practical) sets are impressive, just as the creature design is genuinely unsettling and ghoulish. A lot of work has clearly gone into this, and despite the temptation to go – ahem – overboard always being there, Bragi Schut Jr. and Zak Olkewicz’s longtime-coming screenplay never sinks into those murky waters, and Øvredal expertly steers things forward.

Even if the final tease is now leading nowhere, you ought to be along for the throat-ripping ride all the same. We can see this film attaining a real following somewhere down the line, and it most assuredly deserves to.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER is released on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 3rd.

THE DAMNED

Blending psychological horror with classic Gothic supernatural tropes, The Damned offers a chilling look at isolation, guilt, and grief in the perilous backdrop of a 19th-century Icelandic fishing outpost. Directed by Thordur Palsson, the film follows young widow Eva (Odessa Young) who, after the death of her husband Magnus a year prior, has taken control of an isolated fishing outpost and its fisherman, led by Ragnar (Rory McCann). After a shipwreck in the ocean, Eva is faced with the gut-wrenching decision between saving the crew or prioritising her community’s survival by using the drowning sailors’ rations through the winter. She decides upon the latter, but when they find survivors on the wreckage, tragedy strikes as Ragnar and the remaining shipmates are lost to the sea. Wracked with guilt, Eva and the members of the outpost begin experiencing heightened paranoia as strange phenomena and visions lead them to believe they are being punished for their choices.

The vast, snowy wasteland the group lives in, as well as the thrashing tides and crashing waves, are as much antagonists in The Damned as any other, adding to the heightened sense of dread palpable from its opening scenes. While the descent into madness and otherworldly visions are haunting, the very real, impending danger the elements pose act as the source of much of the film’s tension. That is not to say The Damned lacks in ghostly frights, offering plenty of spine-chilling scares that blur the lines between reality and surreality as Eva and the community’s guilt begins to consume their every thought. This guilt and the moral conundrum faced by the group is at the heart of The Damned, exploring a catch-22 situation in which Eva must decide between further depleting the village’s resources and condemning them all to starvation or choosing to let a group of innocents die. It’s impossible not to ask yourself what you would do in the same situation, making the events that unfold feel all the more horrifying. At times, The Damned suffers from the many paths it treads, with the narrative lulling in the second act to a point it almost derails entirely before plunging toward a somewhat predictable ending for genre fans.

Young’s performance as Eva is captivating, bolstered by impeccable supporting performances from Joe Cole and Siobhan Finnernan as Daniel and Helga respectively. Eva acts as the grounded voice of reason among the village, attempting to calm those who spread tales of the undead and ancient spirits that could be behind their misfortune. Coupled with the beautiful yet deadly landscape, moody lighting, and eerie score, The Damned is an effectively unsettling psychological horror that explores the monsters we can become when faced with a fight for survival.

MONSTER (2003)

Initially released in 2003, Patty Jenkins’ heart-wrenching biopic Monster follows the story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who murdered seven of her male clients between 1989 and 1990 before being executed in 2002. Charlize Theron stars as the killer, a role which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress as well as a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award, and a BAFTA nomination. More than 20 years after its release, boutique label Second Sight Films has re-released the heart-wrenching drama with a whole host of extras that further highlight the masterful attention to detail that went into Monster’s creation.

Monster tells the story of Aileen from her meeting with her girlfriend Selby Wall – based on her real-life lover Tyria Moore – to her attempts to ‘go straight’ and give up prostitution, and the savage beating and rape she endures from one of her clients that sees her commit her first murder. From there, Aileen kills six more clients before she is apprehended by law enforcement in a biker bar and tried in court. After a lengthy court case, she is found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to death.

Theron’s portrayal of Wuornos highlights her troubled and unpredictable character while never losing sight of the human behind the crimes. Her nuanced performance adds to the tragedy of Monster and the failings Wuornos faced throughout her life from loved ones, police, clients, and the systems that should have been in place to help her. Similarly, Christina Ricci is a force to be reckoned with as Selby, Aileen’s devoted girlfriend who soon realises she is in far too deep in a dangerous situation that threatens the stable, comfortable life she craves.

Monster explores Wuornos’ relationship and struggles to fit into society after enduring years of abuse from those she should have been able to trust, as well as the savage crimes she claims were all in self-defense. The juxtaposition of these facets of her life never lets the audience feel comfortable, creating a palpable sense of dread and a ticking time bomb ready to explode. Jenkins’ approach to the case does not justify Wuornos’ crimes, nor does it paint her as a psychotic killer who revels in death. Monster treads the line between horrific and devastating, culminating in its emotional final scenes which see Wuornos walking toward the final days of her life in prison.

Second Sight’s release includes a stellar array of extras, from an audio commentary with Jenkins, Theron, and producer Clark Peterson, to new interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of the making of Monster that showcase the unbelievable amount of research into Wuornos and her life that informed the film. The label has once again produced a must-have for physical media collectors who revel in the art of filmmaking, as well as firm fans of the film or true crime as a whole. It highlights an incredible film that garnered overwhelming critical attention at the time of its release and provides a unique, intimate look at the making of the highly emotionally charged film like never before.