Review Category: Movie

SUITABLE FLESH

by Martin Unsworth

Joe Lynch (Mayhem) heads to H.P. Lovecraft territory with this adaptation of the short story, The Thing on the Doorstep and crafts a disturbing shocker destined to be a cult favourite.

Heather Graham is Dr Elizabeth Derby, a psychiatrist who becomes a little too involved with her enigmatic patient, Asa (Judah Lewis). Asa has a multiple personality problem, which Elizabeth thinks might be down to his possessive father, Ephraim (Bruce Davison). The truth is much stranger and deadly as Ephraim is, in fact, possessed by an evil entity that allows him to switch into his son’s body. He has his sights on using Elizabeth to keep his essence alive. Elizabeth’s long-time friend and colleague, Dr Dani Upton (Barbara Crampton), might be the only hope of saving her soul.

Suitable Flesh opens at a moment in the story where Graham’s character is in a padded cell, frantic and accused of murder, with Crampton listening in disbelief at what has happened. We then flashback to the first meeting with the troubled Asa. While this might take a little bit of the surprise out of the tale, it’s an instant hook that draws the viewer into the action nicely.

Lynch shows his flair for being inventive with the camera, which is quite dizzying in places. (Hats off to cinematographer David Mathews!) It’s something that elevates what could have been a routine body-swap story to something much more interesting. There are plenty of gnarly moments and touches of humour (particularly from the morgue attendant, played brilliantly by genre favourite Graham Skipper). It’s Heather Graham who shines, however, seemingly relishing the chance to ramp up her performance as the evil slips in and out of her body. It’s always a delight to see Barbara Crampton, particularly when her role gets more physical in the climax.

While things don’t get as cosmic as some Lovecraft adaptations, there’s certainly enough strangeness to keep fans happy.

Suitable Flesh is in UK cinemas and VOD from October 27th.

RETRIBUTION

It would seem that this writer is in an ever-dwindling minority, as they remain seated in the waiting room for entry to the growing bored of the Neeson season action films club. Indeed, we certainly aren’t there yet. True, of late, some of the Irish hard man’s recent films like Memory and Blacklight may have fallen flat, but his always reliably sturdy work in the lead and his chosen filmography’s throwback charms keep winning us over. And this remake of the 2015 Spanish thriller El Desconocido is another to add to the collection.

His latest action vehicle (literally) is kind of like Speed in the family Mercedes, and by golly gosh, it is another ‘90s thriller blast! The story sees Neeson play Matt Turner, a financier at Nanite Capital in Berlin, whose job is straining his relationship somewhat with his wife and kids. However, one morning on the school run, Matt is contacted by an anonymous caller, who has informed him that there is a pressure-triggered explosive under the car seat that will go off unless Matt does exactly as this mysterious bomber asks.

Some of the story beats probably won’t hold up to intense scrutiny (of course), but like Non-Stop, Unknown, Honest Thief, The Ice Road, and The Commuter before it, this writer was having too much fun to really care about that. Hey, sue us; this stuff is still working for many of us in that apparent minority!

The sterling work of both director Nimród Antal (Predators) and Neeson conjure some real thrills out of this zippy, blowy-uppy plot device, while the story actually works relatively hard in getting you to care for the family in crisis and not just see them go kaboom. There’s even a pretty decent twist and some good lines of dialogue thrown in for good measure.

The ending itself may be a bit spontaneous (with closing credits radio news reports filling in any gaps), though fair play for how they actually found a somewhat bonkers way out of this seemingly inescapable situation, and the concise and energetic 90 minutes getting there flies by like one of those mad drivers trying to beat the morning traffic. Though they don’t have a bomb under the car seat as an excuse!

Of course, you have seen some of this stuff before, but our reliable hero still looks good doing his thing, while there are some slickly-delivered thrills to enjoy that will eventually be right at home on those Saturday night action seasons on the classier TV Channels. Preferably while enjoying a nice takeaway meal or some snacks. That said, seeing Retribution on the big screen feels equally just right… if not more so.

Liam Neeson will return… probably in another deadly vehicle trap, trying to clear his name against another barmy bomber or criminal madman, and we will be seated right there for every minute of it. There is something comforting about these types of movies, which rarely are made at all nowadays, let alone so confidently and efficiently.

Retribution is in UK cinemas from October 27th.

NIGHT OF THE HUNTED

Holed up inside a remote gas station in the dead of night, social media manager Alice (Camille Rowe) falls prey to a sociopathic sniper with a massive chip on his shoulder and an even bigger mouth than that.

Trapped between the aisles with only cans of Spam and a growing pile of dead bodies for company, Alice kills time conversing with the killer via walkie-talkie. Between futile escape attempts, the pair trade ideological debate, the highlights of which you’ll recognise from Trump rallies, Fox News, and the darker recesses of social media.

Thankfully, director Franck Khalfoun’s nihilistic thriller (based on a Spanish film from 2015) is more than just Phone Booth with updated buzzwords vomited all over the screenplay. While the battle of the ideologies is real – and may turn off the more politically disaffected – it’s backed up by well-staged action, a smart use of the setting, and a pervasive sense of claustrophobia.

If the sniper’s yapping gets tiresome after a while, violent diversion comes from the unsuspecting cannon fodder who are unfortunate enough to stumble onto this bullet-ridden battleground. Meanwhile, Rowe gives a phenomenal performance as the killer’s would-be victim, while Stasa Stanic does great things from the other end of the sniper’s scope, believably inhabiting the role of MAGA nut/anti-vaxxer/war veteran/gun nut and managing to deliver the unhinged rants at hand with charisma.

This is well-trodden ground to anyone who has been paying attention to the state of the nation since, oh-say, January 2017 (and going back even earlier than that to Sandy Hook and subsequent national tragedies), but this well-aimed thriller still finds plenty to say.

NIGHT OF THE HUNTED is out in UK Cinemas and Shudder from October 20th, 2023

THE OTHERS (2001) [Blu-ray]

There’s a fascinating insight included in one of the extras in the new Blu-ray release of The Others, 2001’s supernatural thriller with a killer twist ending starring Nicole Kidman. As the production was about to begin, The Sixth Sense was released to film festivals, and the word about a supernatural thriller with a killer twist ending began to take hold with some force. For a while, it looked like The Others may not get made at all. Fortunately, the decision to go ahead with The Others was a very good one indeed, its $17m budget garnering a worldwide box office of over $210m.

Just after the war in 1945, a lonely, isolated woman awaiting the return of her husband, living in Jersey with her photosensitive children in an old, dark, rambling family home, starts to believe that her house is haunted. When new servants arrive, strange episodes escalate. Is the family going mad, or are other unexplained things happening?

In his first English language film, writer, director, and even score composer Alejandro Amenábar certainly had a very clear vision of what he wanted The Others to be and, crucially, what it should not be. With influences such as The Haunting, Turn of the Screw, and The Innocents permeating the pace and atmosphere of the film, The Others isn’t about fast-paced action or jump scares. It’s a slow-burn character study where fear comes from the reactions of the characters finding terror in the shadows and from the slow reveal of what is actually going on.

Central to all of this is the great performance from Kidman, a total contrast to the role she had just completed filming in Moulin Rouge. She’s ice cold at first, harsh, controlling, desperate not to fall apart as she grieves a probably lost husband. And a life she could have had. It’s a star-making turn. Of course, much of the success of The Others lies in its revealing finale, but a surprise ending is nothing unless everything that comes before adds up, and here, just as in The Sixth Sense, the shocker makes you want to watch the whole thing again knowing what you now know.

With its very specific look and lighting, The Others doesn’t benefit a huge amount from this 4K upgrade. It’s a great-looking film anyway. However, new interviews with Kidman, Amenábar (why isn’t he a huge director now?), co-star Christopher Eccleston and producer Fernando Bovaira provide great background and reveal a genuine pride in the finished film. Interviews from previous releases are included, as is a short documentary about the music composed for the film and a slightly dull look at some of the film’s green screen effects.

The extras knock a star off what is a five-star film.

THE OTHERS is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD.

DREAM SCENARIO

Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario stars Nicolas Cage as Paul Matthews, a frustrated writer/ professor who, for no apparent reason, starts appearing in people’s dreams. As the phenomenon becomes more widespread, Paul finds himself trending, and our reluctant hero attempts to utilise his new-found fame to kick-start a writing career.

Kristoffer Borgli blends biting satire with surreal comedy into a warped flight of fancy, which burgeons into a noggin-bothering nightmare when the dreams turn bad and Paul’s life falls apart. Topped with a career-best performance from Cage, whose whining, cranky angst makes him at times both lovable and loathsome, Dream Scenario is a tantalising near masterpiece in its melding of multiple genres with flecks of Woody Allen, Charlie Kaufman, and Paul Verhoeven throughout.

Painfully funny family drama bleeds seamlessly into fantasy/horror, enriched with subtexts, themes and social commentary about cancel culture before going paradoxically sci-fi at the end. Subplots involving Paul being plagiarised by a colleague, seduced by a PA and prostituted into advertising by a soapy publicity manager (Michael Cera), all add to the A24/Ari Aster produced cacophony; for Dream Scenario subverts, bamboozles, deviates, then defies expectation while being beautifully batshit with a knack to constantly captivate.

Despite a slightly elongated narrative (it could’ve been a tighter 90 minutes, and maybe a masterpiece), Borgli’s second feature, after 2022’s Sick of Myself, is an exquisitely twisted, face-achingly funny and explosive visual delight, laced with warmth, wry irony and surprising frights. With so many mid-budget movies being shunted onto streaming platforms, it’s a blessing to see this trippy, cerebral cortex-kneading treat beam with such brilliance on the big screen.

DREAM SCENARIO opens in UK cinemas on November 10th

THREE BLIND MICE

Horror films based on fairy tales, nursery rhymes and children’s stories are enjoying something of a renaissance at present. Movies like Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey are able to appropriate characters and settings from a fully formed fictional world. The producers of Three Blind Mice have only a six-line stanza to work with. That might be quite challenging if they were interested in bringing that short story to the screen. But they’re not. Which means that you’ll await the arrival of a knife-wielding farmer’s wife in vain.

Addict-in-denial Abi is forced to join her family on a rural retreat. All attention is focused on getting Abi clean, which means that the arrival of three grotesque creatures initially goes unnoticed. Part human, part vicious vermin, these animalistic killers cannot see but hunt their prey by sound and smell. As the night unfolds, more of Abi’s nearest and dearest succumb to the rapacious rodents, and there’s every chance that no one will escape the deadly mouse trap.

The design of the murderous mice’s latex masks and the physicality of the three actors underneath their mouse attire are the film’s selling points. The ‘meeces’ who tear people into pieces do make good baddies. There’s no shortage of gushing blood, either. But writer David Malcolm and director Pierre B fail to build in anything like a coherent mythology. Swarms of CGI “mini mice” do the story no favours, nor does the inclusion of a single refrain of the rhyme at the film’s midpoint. Kudos to May Kelly (Abi), who screams herself hoarse as her character’s miseries multiply. But her commitment is not enough to stop Three Blind Mice from feeling pretty cheesy.

THREE BLIND MICE is released on streaming platforms and DVD in the US on October 17th, 2023

15 CAMERAS

Voyeurism and domestic surveillance remain popular sources of inspiration for indie horror filmmakers. 15 Cameras, the latest entry in what’s currently a trilogy, mixes in elements of both genres with the motifs of two others: the ‘hider in the house’ and the serial slasher. That kind of mash-up clearly gives writer PJ McCabe and director Danny Madden a lot of source material to work with. But the result is a pretty tasteless blend of the four ingredients.

Young couple Cam and Sky are delighted by the purchase of their new duplex home. To help with costs, the pair will rent out the ground floor. As they refurb the residence, they discover security cameras throughout the building. Cam then uncovers a hidden CCTV control centre, from which he plans to spy on the two young women he persuades Sky to rent to. Cam’s scheme is soon upended when he realises that the deranged, murderous landlord who installed this system might be planning a homecoming to retrieve trophies and exact retribution.

There’s no need to have seen either 13 Cameras or 14 Cameras to make sense of the storyline of this latest instalment. Cam’s comeuppance is inevitable from the outset, as are the home invasion and the bloody knifings that accompany the film’s closing act. But it’s difficult to work out what McCabe and Madden are trying to say – if anything – about actions that would put Cam on the sex offenders’ register. His voyeurism is framed as a kind of lecherous ‘prank’, with which the viewer is made complicit. For a film all about observation, that’s a pretty big thing to lose sight of.

15 CAMERAS is released on streaming platforms in the US on October 15th, 2023

PET SEMATERY: BLOODLINES

Taking place in 1969, years before the original story, this prequel sees a young Jud Crandall – played by Jackson White, who’ll grow up to be Fred Gwynne or John Lithgow, depending on which version you prefer – who’s set to leave Ludlow to join the Peace Corps. This doesn’t go down well with some of the locals, particularly Bill (David Duchovny), whose son Timmy (Jack Mulhern) has served in Vietnam. Timmy is due back after being honourably discharged, Bill tells him scornfully. In reality, Timmy was killed in action, and Bill has buried his son in the infamous graveyard.

On the road out of town with his girlfriend, Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind), a huge bird smashes into Jud’s windscreen, and they come across Bill’s dog, which looks a little off. They take it over to Bill’s and see Timmy, who isn’t the friend that Jud remembers. To make things worse, the dog attacks Norma, ripping a hole in her arm. It soon becomes clear that strange things are afoot in the cursed town, and the curiously misspelt cemetery is to blame.

Despite the best efforts from Duchovny and White (and the addition of the legendary Pam Grier, Samantha Mathis, and E.T.’s Henry Thomas), this prequel never really hits strong enough to justify its existence. That said, there are enough shocks and jump-scares to entertain the undemanding horror fan.

This is the directorial debut of Lindsay Anderson Beer (co-writing with Jeff Buhler), who does her best to weave a tale that brings points about the early colonialists and the Vietnam War into play amongst the usual morality tale of tampering with death while staying as true to the original themes and the book’s tale of Timmy Baterman as possible. The biggest problem lies in that it’s an unnecessary prequel, arguably made to cash in on the ever-growing remake/franchise crowd. Beer would be better served with an original property, but then there’s sadly no money in that, is there?

Stream Pet Sematary: Bloodlines now on Paramount+. Try it FREE!

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER

For a franchise fraught with flawed yet fascinating prequels/sequels (The Exorcist III; Dominion), wonky weirdness, mishandled madness (Exorcist II: The Heretic), mind-numbing mediocrity (Exorcist: The Beginning) and multiple versions, it has all been often, oddly interesting. Now, producer Jason Blum and writer/director David Gordon Green’s attempt to do justice to William Peter Blatty’s novel and William Friedkin’s original film with side-step sequel/franchise reboot, The Exorcist: Believer, but tragically flub it right up.

Peter Satler and Gordon Green’s script starts strong in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where a holidaying couple, pregnant with their first child, are injured in an earthquake. The story picks up thirteen years later in Percy, Georgia with single father Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett). When Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) are found in a farmhouse, after missing for three days, the girls start showing signs suggesting they might be possessed. Victor and Katherine’s parents seek help outside the medical profession when doctors are confounded, so contact exorcism expert Chris MacNeill (Ellen Burstyn) for advice.

An intriguing first half boasts nifty plot turns, unique locales, and subtle hat-tips to the original, but The Exorcist: Believer deteriorates into bunkum when genre chestnuts, drudge dialogue, and marred drama/horror resound like ill-conceived DTV trite, doing away with what came before it. Some jump-scares strike and the cast do their best, but The Exorcist: Believer feels too by-the-numbers, and does a major disservice to the original by coddling a key plot point. While this may not be the most irrefutably turgid Exorcist film, it all too often feels like it, and is certainly the most squandered and monotonous.

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER opens in cinemas on October 6th

THE WAIT [Fantastic Fest 2023]

Javier Gutiérrez (Rings) returns to his Spanish roots with this rural shocker that takes its time to burrow into your head before unleashing a surreal and nightmarish finale.

Set in the ‘70s, Eladio (Victor Clavijo) has taken a job as a groundskeeper that will set him and his family up for the next few years. While planning an annual hunt, he reluctantly takes a bribe to increase the number of shooting stands. When tragedy strikes, his life becomes an increasingly living hell.

The Wait (La espera) is the sort of story that thrives from being in a foreign language. With the rugged expanse of the Spanish countryside as its backdrop, the tale gradually unwinds before us, moving from a heartbreaking family drama in the vein of Jean de Florette to a demented piece of folk horror. Clavijo is captivating as a good man who makes one wrong decision, albeit against his better judgement. The class system is part of the real horror here, too. The landowners and his acolytes visibly have a superiority over the much more moral menial worker, something that’s brought to a head in the shocking climax.

Miguel Ángel Mora’s cinematography makes the most of the rural landscape, and this creates a vivid contrast to Eladio’s grace-and-favour, basic home, which gets more oppressive and claustrophobic as events unfold. The nightmarish scenario he finds himself in is all the more believable, thanks to Clavijo’s impressive, relatable performance.

The Wait is a brooding, potent tale of calamity, loss, revenge, and class divides. It would do it a disservice to call it merely a horror film, as there is so much more here and plenty of food for thought.

THE WAIT screened at Fantastic Fest 2023.