THE PALE BLUE EYE

pale blue eye

By John Townsend

The Pale Blue Eye, the latest collaboration between director Scott Cooper and Christian Bale, is a moody, Gothic expression of atmosphere and melancholy. There is a mystery – or perhaps two? – at its cold heart, but Cooper understands that location and character are more important in instilling fascination in his audience.

Based on a 2003 novel by Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye follows retired detective Augustus Landor (Bale) who is drawn into investigating the murder of a cadet at the nearby United States Military Academy of West Point. And this was a grisly murder, with the hanged cadet having had his heart removed, the body left on display to be discovered. The confrontational Landor growls his way through the early stages of the investigation before encountering one Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), who he enlists to help.

The mutual fascination between these two characters – the educated Landor revealing very little while Poe’s dialogue is peppered with profundity and monologue – seems to be what excites Cooper, and scenes of their verbal jousting are among the most interesting in the film. But there is still a mystery, and while it’s slow, rather formulaic reveal is abundant with more grisly murders and miserable confessions, it’s entirely secondary to the relationship of the two leads. Bale does what Bale does, inhabiting a brooding, secretive character similar to many he has played in the past, while Melling’s Poe is superb, flirting with camp caricature yet remaining nuanced and unpredictable.

This may not be Cooper’s best film, but it is another example of how much of an expert he is when it comes to creating a tangible atmosphere.

The Pale Blue Eye is streaming on Netflix.

THE MENU

If you’ve slept on The Menu until now, it’s probably because, like everyone else, you assumed it was a typical cannibalism horror comedy. The marketing team presumably avoided the low-hanging fruit of selling it with the phrase “eat the rich” specifically in an attempt to avoid misleading people on just this front. Without giving too much away (The Menu rounds out a fantastic year of horror films that fall squarely into the category of “the less you know going in, the better”), this film is not about cannibalism. It’s far, far more interesting than that.

Using a preposterously high-end restaurant as its in-point, The Menu is a genuinely hilarious send-up of everything in the world of art, from those who create to those who consume. While this isn’t unique subject matter, the way that the plot unfolds is.

It helps that everything about the film is constructed with the same degree of care and attention you’d find in a Michelin star dish. The cinematography is far better than it almost has any right to be, and the writing has a surprising amount of depth to it. There are numerous points where utterly insane, villainous characters speak with such eloquence and poetry that you almost start to side with them before realising that you’re being taken in by their pretension and are just as much a part of the satire as anything else. And rounding all of this out is the cast.

Anya Taylor-Joy can seemingly do no wrong at the moment. The Menu does nothing to change that. Ralph Fiennes, the restaurant’s chef, is his typical, wonderful self, imbuing his role with a great deal of nuance and subtlety while still playing the horror and the comedy up whenever the film calls on him to do so. Nicholas Hoult gives a terrifically funny performance, rounding out a brilliant cast of diners. 

And it really can’t be overstated how funny The Menu is. While it’s a horror film first and foremost, it might well be the funniest theatrically released film of 2022. A handful of moments seem almost guaranteed to elicit belly laughs based on the cinema-viewing audiences we’ve experienced.

Expertly juggling numerous, disparate ingredients in tandem, The Menu is a truly delicious concoction of a film.

stars

THE MENU is in select cinemas and streaming on Disney+

THE HARBINGER

Here’s a side effect of COVID-19 that no one saw coming – the birth of a whole new subgenre of horror. Since the planet was stricken by the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, there came a rash of horror films attempting to make sense of this strange new world. Rob Savage’s Host, for example, used the now-omnipresent Zoom interface to make a new kind of found footage film; then, later, his Dashcam explored what it might look like to be an asshole in this new world of ours.

Andy Mitton’s The Harbinger forgoes the found footage in favour of a more traditional gothic horror approach. Set during the first months of COVID’s USA adventure, the film follows Monique (Gabby Beans) as she leaves her household bubble to care for an old college friend. Mavis (Emily Davis) is plagued by horrific dreams, haunted for days on end by a terrifying masked figure. Entering this household of waking nightmares and sinister dream demons, Monique is about to learn that Corona isn’t the only thing that’s contagious…

In The Harbinger, Mitton delivers a new Candyman/Freddy Krueger/Babadook myth for our time. A Pandemic on Elm Street, if you will. The parallels to each are clear, and Mitton uses his characters’ loneliness and increased fragility as a springboard to tell a story about Corona and its continued impact. Those who would prefer to keep the blinkers on may not appreciate the reminder, but it’s a story worth telling, especially given how well Mitton tells it.

At the same time, certain horror movie conventions transcend even Corona, and The Harbinger trades in timeless jump scares and unsettling nightmare sequences. Bedecked in a black cloak and wearing a 17th Century plague mask, its monster is instantly memorable; a modern Boogeyman for an age of lockdowns, surgical masks and raging pandemics.

FrightFest Presents and Signature Entertainment release The Harbinger on Digital Platforms January 23rd.

WOLF MANOR

wolf manor

Director Dominic Brunt’s previous film, Evie, was a seriously creepy affair. With Wolf Manor, he returns to the lighter-hearted range of 2017’s Attack of the Adult Babies, albeit without being as outrageously scatological.

At a remote country house, a film crew are settling into shooting some pick-ups on a vampire film with respected but boozy veteran actor Oliver Lawrence (James Fleet). What they don’t yet realise is that the expected press visit won’t happen as the main writer has been attacked by a werewolf, which will soon be coming to feast some more.

Unapologetically presented as an ode to An American Werewolf in London (you’ll lose count of the number of nods and riffs to John Landis’ classic plus there’s also a nice Harry and the Hendersons moment as a bonus), Brunt’s lycanthrope tale also takes swipes at independent filmmaking, and ‘luvvie’ actors as the tired crew gradually begin to realise that the body parts found around the place don’t come from the special effects department. The werewolf itself is an impressive creation and being humanoid, owes more to the creatures of The Howling than the all-fours beast of Landis’ film. The only thing we’re missing is a transformation scene, but Joel Ferrari and Pete Wild’s script doesn’t provide the chance for that. There are some chills among the humour, though.

The film is clearly aimed at the ‘couple of beers and a takeaway’ crowd, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Genre fans will have fun with the references and the gore, and the more casual horror viewer will enjoy it as an undemanding diversion. A lengthy post-credits origin scene (shot by Ashley Thorpe in the same style as his Borley Rectory) is a little out of place (and will likely be missed by most) but has a nice role for Rula Lenska as a Maria Ouspenskaya-type character.

While Wolf Manor doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it has mainstream appeal and is certainly an entertaining ride.

 

Wolf Manor is out now on DVD and digital.

SORRY ABOUT THE DEMON

Sorry about demon

When their daughter is possessed by a demon and insists on a sacrifice to vacate her body, the Sellers family decide to rent their dream house to recently single Will (Jon Michael Simpson), a toothpaste customer service guy, who seems to be the perfect host for the resident evil force. It’s not long until strange things start happening and freaking him out. A friend, Patrick (Jeff McQuitty), tries to set him up with Aimee (Olivia Ducayen), who, as it turns out, used to ‘cleanse’ houses when she was younger, so the trio attempt to exorcise the demon.

Sorry About the Demon is a light-hearted spectral romp written and directed by Emily Hagins (My Sucky Teen Romance) that manages to deliver the scares when it needs to. Beautifully shot in a large, creaky house full of ghosts that are restless because a demon demands a vessel to possess, there are a few effective jump-scares, but for the most part, everything’s handled for laughs. It may not be laugh-out-loud funny throughout, but the likeable main characters keep things engaging.

 

Sorry About the Demon is on Shudder from January 19th.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

glass-onion-a-knives-out-mystery-starburst-magazine-review

At one point in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Daniel Craig’s detective extraordinaire Benoit Blanc says, “It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth.” And my word does that feel like a timely statement now, then and likely for a long time to come. Writer/director Rian Johnson’s star-studded follow-up to his terrific Knives Out ironically enough really does get the knives out for our current climate, and the fools that keep popping up in the daily headlines nowadays. 

This film sees Blanc unexpectedly grouped in with a varied bunch of celebrities, social media stars, scientists and businessmen, as he is invited along with them to the Greek island private paradise of hailed creative billionaire genius Miles Bron (Edward Norton), for a murder mystery evening. However, as Bron has gathered some of his closest friends/associates, Blanc’s mysterious invite may well be a blessing in disguise, as this alcohol-fuelled themed party becomes very real indeed. 

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is just as fun as the marvellous first film, and cements Johnson’s Benoit Blanc whodunnit series as one that is most welcome to expand for as long as Daniel Craig wants to deliver the drawl. 

Brilliant, twisty and surprising, this sequel is the yang to the first film’s ying, bringing the genre to the modern age (where the last leaned into its traditions) and instead of showing how a nefarious deadly game was beaten by being a good, hard working, person, this takedown of the ultra rich and their unfair and preposterous systems shows how idiots bring themselves down eventually, even if their mind numbing stupidity can complicate the narrative. 

You may well have a few real world figures in mind while viewing this, and despite being delayed by COVID, Johnson’s film is still ferociously timely in its observations. Perhaps even more so after this year. Particularly its depiction of wealthy and social media amplified foolishness. As Blanc himself says in one of his many delightful exchanges, “it’s so dumb”, “it’s so dumb, it’s brilliant!” a character retorts, “No! It’s just dumb” Blanc responds. Bang on. 

Glass Onion takes audiences on the same journey as Blanc himself, misdirecting us beautifully and making you intentionally overthink the story, toying with your expectations for a clever mystery, when at heart, the nature of this particular mystery is something far more ridiculous. Its many turns peel back more compelling layers of an ingenious story, which really is part vindication tale and part whodunnit, but it’s all such an enjoyable experience.

Full of Johnson’s excellent direction and sharp writing, Glass Onion is marvellously funny and relevant but as intricate and stylish as those Miles Born sent invite boxes at the start of the film. And once more, his delicious ensemble cast are all up to the task at hand.

Craig and Janelle Monáe are particularly excellent, and rather dominate the head of the story, with Craig’s eccentric, witty and flamboyant detective being a constant source of excellence, and Monáe’s character being regularly surprising and her performance so very layered and impressive. Meanwhile the likes of Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn and Leslie Odom Jr. are having a ball in their parts, and it is brilliant to see. Much like the fun little cameos from some truly major names that are dotted throughout the film too.

Like the extravagant structure from which the unusual title attains its name, Johnson has constructed a well crafted and visually impressive film event for us all to take part in, but this structure has a most crazy core, which shows us just how powerful and convoluted silly people can be, but also how you can disrupt such a system built on folly.

Devilishly clever and worryingly truthful, Glass Onion is one of 2022’s most delightful and stylish movie cocktails. Come back soon Benoit!

SCARE PACKAGE II: RAD CHAD’S REVENGE

This anthology sequel begins as a group of characters from the first film convenes for the funeral of horror film fan and failed video shop owner Chad Buckley (Jeremy King). Rather than paying respects, the assembled bunch are not particularly fans of the deceased. And this malevolence is reciprocated, as Chad has something sinister up his dead sleeve, as a video message instructs them that they will have to go through a series of tasks.

What follows is four stories and plenty of homages to other horror films and tropes. These are entertaining enough, but the spoof element is a little too on the nose at times. Lifting entire set pieces from popular movies might be fun but does come across a little lazy.

That said, Aaron B. Koontz’s wraparound story is full of gore and Saw-type shenanigans as Chad becomes a Jigsaw-like character, and the film becomes the Airplane! of horror comedies. Of the individual shorts, Alexandra Barreto’s Welcome to the ‘90s lampoons the final girl motif perfectly, and each of the other tales poke fun at the familiar, and often lazy, things the movies try to sell to us. Jed Shepherd’s Special Edition invokes the infamous Three Men and a Baby ‘ghost’ (which was just a cardboard standee of Ted Danson), and is the only segment that doesn’t reference sequels.

It’s as meta as you’d expect, but like the sequels it spoofs, doesn’t live up to the promise of the original film. It’s an entertaining diversion, though, if you want to play ‘spot the reference’.

Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge is available to stream on Shudder.

EXPIRED

Expired

Australian indie sci-fi flick Expired (aka Loveland) is not an easy film to characterise. Yet any credit writer-director Ivan Sen might be given for the movie’s distinctive ambience, has to be weighed against the fact that this is a style of filmmaking seemingly unconcerned with the need to engage an audience.

Set in near-future Hong Kong, assassin-for-hire Jack (Ryan Kwanten) finds himself strangely drawn to April (Jillian Nguyen), a singer-for-hire in a seedy but sterile pseudo-brothel. When he approaches her outside the safety of the club, she accepts his advances, and the couple begins a gentle courtship. As Jack’s health worsens, he goes in search of a doctor named Bergman (Hugo Weaving) – a mysterious recluse immersed in the science of extending natural lifespans. As the lovers unearth long-buried secrets, they consider what free will they still possess and what the fate of humanity might ultimately be.

If that all sounds a little overblown and pretentious, that’s because it is – at least in the way that Sen approaches the material. The extensive location filming does deliver evocative, atmospheric visuals. But the city framed on screen is very clearly present day Hong Kong with a few CGI embellishments (“a Poundland Blade Runner” as one critic rather harshly suggested). And, presumably at Sen’s insistence, Kwanten and Nguyen both rein in their performances to such a degree that even the fragile romance at the centre of the story seems almost devoid of emotion. Only Weaving gets any real chance to emote, balancing that against his character’s responsibility to articulate the plot’s sketchy technobabble. Even though it’s reasonably pretty to look at, Expired still ends up feeling oddly vacant.

EXPIRED is available in the UK on streaming platforms including Prime Video https://amzn.to/3HSPN4U

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

Avatar The Way of Water Starburst Magazine Review

Very often we get movies that come and go. Other times you get ones that remain. Every now and then you even get a film that comes along and shakes things up. Then you get an Avatar. Whatever your opinion on James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster, it is a film that not only attained legendary box office status, but one that ingrained itself into a modern generation’s cinema language. To the point that even those who haven’t seen it, know it fairly well. So, 13 years later, following up such a lightening in a bottle film Goliath would be no easy task.

It is somewhat crazy to call Avatar: The Way Of Water a risk, considering James Cameron’s legacy and results but that is precisely what it is. A mega budgeted, long awaited, sequel that has the unenviable task of following up a movie that many thought should have received a sequel far earlier and is one of the largest films ever made. Time will tell (probably quite quickly) if this film will recapture the box office magic, especially at a time when that is considerably harder to accomplish, but does the film itself manage to justify the return to this dazzling CGI world? 

Yes. It. Does. 

Catching up with Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), as they now have a family together and live as proud, fierce, Na’vi warriors and leaders. But the threat of humanity is returning and in a way that is far nastier, more deceptive and more deadly, as Jake’s family and Pandora itself, will be tested in far greater ways than they could ever imagine.

Avatar: The Way of Water is seriously spectacular on every conceivable level. So many doubted what we would see, and you might say we were foolish to doubt that James Cameron could do it all again…let alone do it bigger, deeper and better. After all Terminator 2 and Aliens are the sequel blueprints for a reason, are they not? 

This sequel improves upon the mighty first film in every single way, with recent Planet of the Apes trilogy scribes Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver’s fingerprints clearly felt on Cameron’s already ambitious screenplay. 

Thematically timely and powerful, The Way Of Water has a story that expands characters old and new, and in turn opens out this breathtaking world of Pandora. Fatherhood, grief, culture and companionship are all aspects to this story which play a vital part, amidst the prevailing eco-identity of this massive motion picture.

Using the latest tech to reconnect audiences with the power and joy of nature, The Way of Water is a very spiritual film, with a great big green heart beneath its gorgeous exterior and its comes with the biggest jump out of chair moment of comeuppance we can recall in quite some time onscreen. In a sequence clearly intended to call out mankind’s abuses of the sea and the intelligent creatures beneath the waves.

Meanwhile those above the waves onscreen very much standout too. The characters and cast are excellent, with the returning players being most welcome and more importantly necessary to many developing plot lines. While some of the fresh faces make a very important imprint on the franchise immediately and – fingers crossed – going forward. No spoilers here folks!

Visually never less than astounding and groundbreaking, you can see and more importantly feel where every cent has gone here, in this film’s painstaking decade plus construction. This is assuredly a 3D HFR showcase (boy is it) but even without the added dimension, it is an environmental blockbuster that sees a legendary filmmaker using technology unlike any other director out there.

This is a pure cinema experience, not to be missed, and Cameron never resists the urge to throw absolutely everything he has into this clear work of passion. As do all involved along with him. 

Avatar: The Way Of Water is emotional, exciting, immersive spectacle certainly, but with way more than just amazing audio-visual punch to wow you and connect with you.

The wait was worth it. Now breathe. And take it all in.

THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MAGIC FLUTE

nutcracker and the magic flute starburst magazine review

We have seen a great number of films based on the Tchaikovsky ballet, itself adapted from the E. T. A. Hoffmann short story. Some magical, some missable. But this latest animated feature from director Viktor Glukhushin is sadly one that falls into the latter category. 

This version sees ballet dancer Marie (Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld), on Christmas Eve, potentially forced to wed a despicable pawnbroker to save her family from financial ruin. When she makes a magical wish and is no sooner shrunken to doll size and goes on a journey to an otherworldly kingdom, where she must assist Nutcracker (who is really a prince) George (Dan Edwards) in stopping his wicked stepmother from attaining a magic flute to enslave humanity to rat-kind.

Faithful in some ways to the source material, one thing this Russian animated adaptation can be commended for is its classic fairytale nature (free of many modern adaptation’s painful attempts at “getting down with the kids”) but unfortunately this muddled festive film is an utter bore, that feels a good ten times longer than its brief running time.

It is somewhat cruel to give a Christmas kids film a kicking but it is hard to feel any sense of warmth for a feature that will likely struggle to make any kind of impact with audiences of any age. 

Blending Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe fantastical thrills with the classic story, this animated tale just feels awkward and stilted.

The animation is passable at best, while the ear-gratingly bland musical numbers just stumble into the plot here and there randomly and awkwardly like a drunken uncle at a family wedding, and despite featuring a cowardly Ostrich and Elvis-inspired Ram as animal sidekicks, this film just cannot get the energy levels to raise at all. No matter what it tries.

The characters and their story do not have any kind of memorable feel and when a sequence in a kitchen sees an angry chef get ready to cook some unlucky turkeys, it is hard for the viewer not to think that the biggest turkey is the film they are watching. 

Yes, we should obviously consider the target audience when looking at a film like this but it is hard to think that even the youngest of kids will be getting all excited over such a mundane offering. Especially when there are countless better alternatives available out there.

Far from magical.