Y'all, I am way behind on my reviewing, so here is one big catch-up post.
***
Speak No Evil
Released both in theatres and on the streaming service Shudder, this Danish film is a nasty little movie about the consequences of not enforcing boundaries. A Danish family and a Dutch family, each with one child, meet on a holiday in Italy. They get along so well that the Dutch family invites the Danish family to come stay with them for a weekend.
During the visit, the Dutch family begins to push the Danish family's boundaries. For example, they repeatedly ask the mom of the Danish family, who is a vegetarian, to "just try" various meat dishes. They invite the Danish family out to dinner but then expect them to pay. The Danish family, after one pretty bad violation, leaves...but then returns to the house when their daughter realizes she left a favorite stuffed animal behind. Bad decision.
The Dutch family asks them to stay and apologizes while also implying that the Danish family are the ones with the hang-ups. The Danish family is too polite to leave, so they stay. And it gets so, so much worse from there on out.
Speak No Evil is an excellent psychological horror film in the vein of Funny Games. It is a "feel bad" movie, through and through, but it is so good. Definitely recommended, but proceed with caution.
Grade: A-
***
No Exit
This is film adaptation of a very good book by Taylor Adams. As is often the case, the book is far superior.
A young woman, Darby, is driving home to Utah to visit her estranged mother who is in the hospital and in critical condition. However, a snowstorm forces Darby to stop at a visitor's center, where four other strangers are also stranded.
As Darby walks outside in the parking lot, hoping to get a cell phone signal, she happens to spot a little girl tied up in the back of a van in the lot. She does not know which of the strangers has kidnapped the girl, but she knows that whomever is responsible is likely armed and dangerous. So begins a cat-and-mouse game between Darby and the person or people responsible.
This is definitely a movie to skip--but read the book if the plot sounds interesting. The film itself isn't bad, per se, it's just not as thrilling as the novel.
Grade: C+
***
You Are Not My Mother
An Irish film about changelings. Char is a young woman living with her mother, Angela, and grandmother, Rita. Angela suffers from depression and one day straight-up disappears. When she returns home, she is notably different--more energetic and happy, but also not quite the same person as before.
Eventually, Rita reveals to Char that when she (Char) was a baby, Rita realized that she was taken by faeries and swapped for a changeling. Rita did a ritual to bring the real Char back. Rita now believes that this new version of Angela is actually a faerie intent on taking Char back to the faerie realm.
When Char is nearly killed by some bullies, the faerie Angela comes to her rescue. In the ensuing chaos, faerie Angela is killed and Char is saved. However, this means that the real Angela returns and Char is grateful for her imperfect, yet real, mother.
This film was ok. It didn't blow me away, but if you're into Irish lore you might enjoy it.
Grade: B-
***
The Lair of the White Worm
Directed by Ken Russell, The Lair of the White Worm is a very bizarre horror-comedy about a mythical giant snake that lives in the hills of Derbyshire. Basically, there is a sexy lady trying to kidnap virgins and feed them to a snake god. And Hugh Grant is the lord of a nearby manor whose family is part of local legend--one of his ancestors slew "the white worm". So, naturally, it falls on him to kill the snake again. Peter Capaldi (aka the 12th Doctor Who) is also in the movie as an archaeologist.
I watched this movie a couple times as a kid when I was going through my Hugh Grant phase, but I barely remembered any of it. Tonally, it's kind of all over the place. It's got horror, sci-fi, a sexy lady wearing dominatrix-type clothes, humor that is both dryly British and also just straight-up slapstick. It's an interesting movie, but I don't really think it sticks the landing. Ken Russell also directed The Devils (see below), which is a much better movie.
Grade: B-
***
The Blair Witch Project
This was a rewatch for me. The first time I saw it, I was like "pretty good, but not really that scary". This time around I thought, "pretty good, kind of annoying, and not really that scary". As far as its importance within the horror genre, Blair Witch is canonical. It was a HUGE game changer, especially in the subgenre of found footage. It was an example of a horror movie being made on a shoestring budget and looking like a piece of shit but being actually good. Also, it did the whole thing where it was marketed as a "true story" and had a website with a whole backstory which was straight-up marketing genius.
If I had seen it in the theatre in 1999, I probably would have shit myself. Watching it today, in the comfort of my own home, knowing that it is not a true story and also seeing memes and jokes about it for two decades...it's not scary at all. Other than the idea of being lost in the woods, which is inherently scary. But I still have to respect it as an OG of found footage with some excellent acting by the three unknowns in the lead.
Grade: B+
***
Deadstream
This film, which is streaming on Shudder, is a found footage horror comedy. Shawn (Joseph Winter), is a "canceled" YouTuber trying to make a comeback. Shawn's YouTube schtick is facing his biggest fears, so for his return to streaming, he decides to spend the night in a haunted house. He creates rules for himself--for example, if he hears anything strange during the night, he must investigate it--and if he breaks them he won't get paid by his sponsors.
Deadstream is both legitimately scary and legitimately funny, which is a difficult line to walk. The use of multiple camera makes the film ripe for jump scares, and I did indeed jump (or watch the movie through my fingers) many times. But because Shawn is ridiculous, it also felt like the scares were kind of low stakes. This is a really inventive movie and I would recommend it.
Grade: B
***
Practical Magic
My friend and I "swapped" spooky season movies recently--meaning I showed her a movie she hadn't seen before (It Follows) and she showed me Practical Magic, which is an entry in the "movies that millennial women know and love" genre that I somehow managed to miss.
Knowing me, you might think a movie about a sisterhood of witches in idyllic New England would be my jam, but Practical Magic has the problem of being too cozy (even though it's about abusive relationships). It has the same problem as Schitt's Creek, which is a show I WANTED and TRIED to like, but ultimately didn't: it's too dang nice! When I think of all the media I like, there's always an edge to it: either through violence, irreverent humor, sexuality, or ambiguity. Movies and shows that are kind, earnest, straightforward, and cozy always feel like an itchy sweater to me. Like, it should be comfy, but it's not (there are some exceptions, of course).
That said, I appreciated the vibes of Practical Magic. I totally get why so many people (mostly women, and probably mostly white women) love it. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are great in it and the message of "sisters over misters" is always an important one, especially for young girls.
Grade: B
***
Hellraiser (2022)
I followed up Practical Magic with a movie about sadomasochistic demons from hell! But, damnit, the Hellraiser reimagining (directed by David Bruckner) just wasn't that great. Now, I haven't seen the original, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. And it wasn't bad, per se. I just expected more.
This iteration of Clive Barker's book series focuses on Riley (Odessa A'zion), a recovering addict who is talked into committing burglary by her shitty boyfriend to make a few extra bucks. They break into a safe in an abandoned warehouse and find...a puzzle box. The box has a few configurations and when you solve part of the puzzle, a blade pops out--if it sticks you and you bleed on the box, these things called Cenobites come out and basically rip you to shreds and act like you should be happy about it.
I've read The Hellbound Heart by Barker, but I haven't read any of his other books or watched any of the other Hellraiser movies, so I don't know a lot about the "lore". But basically, Cenobites are creatures from another dimension where pain and pleasure meld together so that they are indistinguishable. They offer "rewards" to humans who solve the puzzle, but it's always a monkey's paw situation. For example, in this movie a billionaire named Roland Voight (Goran Visnjic...who, interestingly, is also in Practical Magic), solves the puzzle and asks for a reward of "sensation", thinking he's going to end up experiencing a constant orgasm or something like that. Instead, the Cenobites hook him up to a device that twists his nerve endings, causing him constant, horrible pain. When he begs them to remove the device, they're like "what the fuck dude, this was a gift".
So, Cenobites are cool. But Hellraiser is waaaayyy too long. It's 2 hours, where it should be 90 minutes. It's not gory or sexual enough, which is weird given that the whole point of the Hellraiser franchise is to mix gore and sexuality. Bruckner is a really talented director, but this iteration of Hellraiser is just ok. Pinhead said "I have such sights to show you", but this movie ain't one of them.
Grade: B
***
The Devils
The Devils, directed by Ken Russell, is CUH-RAY-ZEE. Filmed in 1971 and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, The Devils is based (loosely) on true events. Reed plays Urban Grandier, a 17th century Catholic priest in Loudun, France.
A nun, Sister Jeanne de Agnes, is sexually obsessed with Grandier, and after finding out he married another woman in secret, she accuses him of being a witch and possessing her. Since Grandier has a lot of political enemies in France, her accusations are taken seriously and a witch hunter is brought in to investigate. The other nuns in the convent also accuse Grandier of possessing them and begin acting out sexually.
The Devils faced censorship, primarily for a scene where an orgy breaks out in the convent and leads to the nuns pulling down a statue of Christ and masturbating all over it. I've seen a LOT of freaky shit in movies and I was surprised at the amount of sex and violence in this film, especially for a 1971 movie. It reminded me a lot of A Clockwork Orange, which also came out in 1971 (and, like The Devils, was stamped with an X rating).
The final third of the film is Grandier being tortured, shaved, and burned at the stake, which is incredibly brutal. I thought the movie would be a light-hearted sex romp, but damn. The ending is similar to The Wicker Man with an innocent man being burned alive--only more violent and more harrowing.
The Devils is a lot. It did not disappoint. Words like "hysterical", "frenzied", "chaotic", and "hypersexual" come to mind. It's really good, and I recommend it, but obviously it will not be for all tastes.
Grade: A-
***
Night and Fog
Night and Fog is a 30 minute documentary about concentration camps directed by Alain Resnais. It is probably one of the most, if not the most important documentaries of all time and should be required viewing for every human on the planet. The film came out in 1956, only a decade after the end of WWII, with memories of the Holocaust still fresh in collective memory.
The film is narrated and shows increasingly distressing imagery, starting with the trains to the camp and ending with piles of bodies being thrown in ditches. I believe that there is a moral imperative for everyone to watch this movie, or similar films (I will be watching the 9 hour documentary Shoah at some point in the future). There are some things in life that people should not be allowed to opt out of seeing, and genocide is one of them. To look away is to be complicit. It doesn't matter how triggering or painful it is, I believe it is our duty as human beings to bear witness to such atrocities...and also to understand how they happened and that they can happen again.
Grade: A+
***
Fright Night (2011)
Wow, I was disappointed in this 2011 horror-comedy. Despite a great cast, Fright Night--a remake of the 1985 film starring Chris Sarandon about a teenager who must contend with a charming vampire who moves in next door--was limp, unfunny, and not scary.
Anton Yelchin (RIP--he died tragically in 2016) plays Charley Brewster, a high schooler living in the suburbs of Las Vegas. His friend, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), becomes convinced that there is a vampire in their neighborhood because kids from their high school keep going missing. Specifically, Ed thinks that Charley's new neighbor, Jerry (Colin Farrell, whose unbelievable good looks were one of the few good things about this film), is the bloodsucker.
After Ed goes missing, Charley becomes fully convinced that Jerry is responsible, and he and his girlfriend, Amy (Imogen Poots), seek help from Peter Vincent (David Tennant, excellent as always), a "Criss Angel" type Las Vegas performer who claims to be a vampire slayer. It's a race against time to slay Jerry before anyone else gets bitten by the charming, sexy bloodsucker.
As mentioned above, the cast of Fright Night is stacked (I didn't even mention that Toni Collette plays Charley's mom). But the writing is unfunny at best and downright misogynist at worst. Despite coming out in 2011, Fright Night has the very distinct stank of early 2000s "ironically offensive" comedy on it. And it ain't a good stank. Women are called "bimbos" and "skanks" throughout, by multiple characters (except Charley, because he's the Nice Guy, you see). Jerry tells Charley that women who "look a certain way" need to be "managed" before he murders a stripper. Ed refers to Charley's girlfriend as a "skank" and then later makes a "no homo" type joke.
Sometimes I'm ok with edgy and politically incorrect humor when it's done well or has something else to balance it out. For example, I still love The 40 Year Old Virgin which is filled with outdated jokes, mostly because Steve Carell's inherent sweetness and innocence holds up a damning mirror to the crude characters who make the jokes. But Fright Night is just...not funny. I also found myself playing on my phone during the final third.
I'd skip this one. Like Jerry, it sucks.
Grade: C
***
The Skin I Live In
This intense, shocking film by Pedro Almodovar is based on a novella titled Mygale (which means "Tarantula") by French writer Thiery Jonquet. I read the novella long before the movie was made, so I knew the central twist of the film, and I am indeed going to go into the twist here, so spoiler warning!
Antonia Banderas plays Dr. Robert Ledgard, a plastic surgeon developing an artificial skin that is resistant to burns and insect bites. He lives isolated in a mansion with his loyal housekeeper, Marilia (Marisa Paredes) and a woman named Vera Cruz (Elena Anaya), whom he is testing the new skin on.
Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Vera is a captive. Years ago, Robert's wife was in a horrible car accident that left her alive but burned beyond recognition. One day, when she accidentally saw herself in a reflection, she jumped to her death in front of Robert's daughter, Norma. Seeing this mentally destroyed Norma to the point where she had to stay in a mental institution for years. When she was released, she and Robert attended a wedding and at the wedding, Norma met Vicente (Jan Cornet).Vicente and Norma went into the woods during the wedding and began making out, but Norma has a PTSD reaction and began to scream, causing Vicente to slap her and for Norma to pass out. Vicente left quickly, but Robert saw him leave. When he went to wake up his daughter, she woke up and apparently assumed her father had just raped her, which sent her spiraling back into her mental illness. A year later, she killed herself.
If this all sounds like a wildly convoluted soap opera, well, welcome to the films of Pedro Almodovar! And the craziest part is yet to come...
Robert, believing that Vicente actually did rape his daughter (he didn't, to be clear), kidnaps him and....hoo boy...gives him vaginoplasty surgery. But not just that. He feeds Vicente hormones, does plastic surgery on him, puts the new artificial skin on him, and gives him a new name: Vera. So the woman who is mysteriously trapped in Robert's mansion is Vicente...after being transformed against his will into a woman. Well, into having the body of a woman.
I'm sure you can imagine why this movie is difficult to watch and tricky to talk about. Almodovar is queer and his movies are all about queerness, including trans and gender-nonconforming identities. I personally do not see The Skin I Live In as transphobic and, in fact, I think it shows how detrimental to a person's well-being it is to be forced to live as a gender one does not identify with. I think that such a movie perhaps helps cisgender people get the smallest glimpse of the pain trans people have to live with when they can't transition in whatever ways feel right to them.
While The Skin I Live In is not transphobic (in my opinion), it is certainly verging on exploitative. Basing a film around a forced gender reassignment surgery is A Choice! But because this is Almodovar, a filmmaker who is deeply empathic and a master of High Camp (basically, campy movies but done very artfully), the movie just works. We feel immense sympathy for Vicente, especially since he didn't do anything. I mean, he slapped Norma, yes, but he didn't rape her. But we also are encouraged to have some sympathy for Ledgard who lost both his wife and daughter in horrible ways and is so angry that he seeks revenge on an innocent person. But don't worry: Ledgard and his loyal housekeeper don't make it out of the movie alive. Vicente/Vera strategically gets closer (erm...REAL closer) to Ledgard and then when the opportunity to kill him and escape arrives, Vicente takes it.
This is a great movie, but of course I only recommend it with strong trigger warnings, especially around gender and body dysphoria.
Grade: A-
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