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  • Son: Review

    Son: Review

    Laura (Andi Matichak) has just given birth to a beautiful baby boy named David (Luke David Blumm) and she’s overjoyed and will do anything to protect him. The problem is that she has to keep David safe from a satanic cult who want to take him as they believe he is the devil’s spawn.

    Laura’s only friend is Paul (Emile Hirsch) who may or may not believe Laura’s story, but as David becomes sick and starts displaying cannibalistic behaviour, Laura realises that she doesn’t only have to keep him safe, but that she has to satisfy her son’s hunger.

    Son is a satanic horror movie exclusive to Shudder which continues a rather family horror story. Most horror fans will know of Rosemary’s Baby and where that story left off, Son continues. However, there’s an added twist as to whether Laura is really being chased by a satanic cult or whether it’s all in her head. Sadly, Son is quite formulaic and so audiences will soon find that it becomes quite predictable, even when it thinks it’s being clever.

    The relationship between mother and son can be quite sweet and realistic at times, with both Matichak and Blumm playing their roles well. The element of a mystery chronic illness is also played quite realistically as well. This leads the audience to think that either Laura is delusional and has a chronically ill son, or that she really is in danger from a cult.

    However, with those two options it doesn’t really leave much for the audience to go on. Because once they’ve made up their minds then they will either be gratified or unsatisfied that they saw a twist coming from a mile away.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwNszlfMlM

    It also doesn’t particularly help that the film seems rather disjointed, with Paul and his cop partner trying to track down Laura and her son, it only seems to heighten the idea that either Laura or her son are extremely dangerous. It’s also not all that tasteful using mental health as a plot device in a modern horror movie.

    Son is something many horror fans have seen before and that’s where the problem lies. Because once you know where it’s going then there are no surprises.

  • Our Friend: Review

    Our Friend: Review

    The classic tearjerker is often so much more now. The psyche of sadness has become much more of a focus, and the grand melodrama that made countless tears fall for decades are becoming rarer and rarer. Of course, they still exist, they’ve just been enhanced. Take Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (2019) or Barry Jenkins’ If Beal Street Could Talk (2018). Both are setting out to make you cry, but they also do so much more than that. The classics I’m talking about are Titanic or The Notebook; they don’t make em’ like that anymore. And whilst not quite so epic, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s The Friend is a heartbreaking true story presented through the lens of the classic tearjerker. 

    Our Friend is about a trio of people connected through the hardest period of their lives. Nicole (Dakota Johnson) and Matt (Casey Affleck) seem to be living their dream; married, kids, a house, and jobs they have a passion for. Then it happens. In one moment, the dream is shattered; Nicole is diagnosed with cancer. We see all this as a mosaic, jumping through time to ultimately gain the full picture. And the most important part of that picture comes when, while caring for his two daughters and his ailing wife, everything becomes too much for Matt. Enter Dane (Jason Segel), Nicole and Matt’s best friend from college. From here begins the evocative tale of a man doing all he can to hold the pieces of a struggling family together for no personal gain. 

    This specific type of heartbreak is not easy to turn to film. There’s something cruelly personal about cancer despite its all-encompassing nature. So, showing this intense distortion of family life can be hard to make watchable. But with an ever-steady hand, Cowperthwaite skillfully finds the balance between emotion and perversion to deliver a raw and moving experience. And the key to this success lies in the ever-capable hands of the brilliant Jason Segel. Yes, this is a role very much cast to type, but when an actor exudes so much kindness as he does, why not keep him in similar roles? It is this very kindness that flows through Our Friend like a soothing current, ushering it into the realm of genuine poignancy.

    Beside him, Johnson and Affleck are unflinching in their depictions. This is still very much a sanitised movie depiction of cancer. But, two or three moments arise where the pair, alongside Isabella Kai and Violet McGraw, who play their daughters, create evocative moments, highlighting where Our Friend is at its strongest. Not when dealing directly with the consequences of having cancer on an individual, which is only really shown at the end. But more how cancer destroys everything on the periphery as well: picking up the kids late from school, not cleaning the house in months, and most harrowingly of all, having to explain it all to your children. In those moments, Cowperthwaite finds true insight and justifies telling this story the same way the original article did.

    The issues arise in the length of the picture. On paper, 124 minutes for such a story seems justified, but once you’re in the midst of it, things begin to drag ever so slightly. This is most felt anytime the characters deal with the affair subplot Nicole and Matt take us through. It’s handled with the least gravitas of any aspect of the movie, and it fails to amount to anything important. And while it’s a vital part of the true story, I can’t help but feel it should have been cut and replaced with more on how Dane gave up his life and home to help his friends, a subplot only briefly dealt with. 

    Our Friend is a powerful true story of human kindness. And although it may drag, the exceptional work of three leads makes it well worth watching.

  • The Night House: The BRWC Review

    The Night House: The BRWC Review

    The Night House Synopsis: Beth (Rebecca Hall) is left alone in the lakeside home her husband built after her husband’s unexpected death. As she continues to mourn, disturbing visions of a presence in the house beckon towards her. But the harsh light of day washes away any proof of a haunting. Against the advice of her friends, she begins digging into his belongings, yearning for answers.

    As one of the last unreleased remnants of Sundance 2020 (Fox Searchlight acquired the film for 12 million), The Night House finds director David Bruckner continuing the trend of arthouse horror efforts. The results serve as an inconsistent reminder of festival film’s best and worst aspects, but star Rebecca Hall’s powerhouse performance thankfully carries this so-so effort across the finish line. 

    Hall – who has made a career out of elevating Hollywood shlock (Godzilla vs. Kong and The Gift) and low-budget indies (2016’s Christine remains an underrated powerhouse), imbues her usual unrelenting conviction into the mourning widow Beth. Every longing stare and erratic emotional shift works naturally to sell the character’s slipping grasp on reality. Hall portrays Beth’s spiral with empathy and nuance, allowing both forces to ground the supernatural narrative in genuine human pain. The actor’s emotive work sets the groundwork for the entire film, often gluing the story together as it threatens to fall apart around her. Supporting players Vondie Curtis-Hall and Sarah Goldberg also offer assured performances as Beth’s empathetic friends. 

    The Night House is the definition of a mixed bag, but the film is an admirably composed mess at that. Bruckner’s brand of atmospheric dread fits the foreboding material like a glove. Similar to his last film, The Ritual, Bruckner utilizes dreary visuals and unnerving camera movements to dig his claws under the audience’s skin. I can’t tell you how shocked I was to see a director use the maddeningly cheap jump scare tactic for thoughtful reasons, with the chaotic jumps skillfully representing the jostling between two spectrums of reality. Teamed with Cinematographer Elisha Christian’s precise framing, the duo conveys the surrealist shocks while also capturing Beth’s emotional whirlwind with poignant intimacy. 

    Like so many indie genre efforts before it, The Night House stumbles in its blending of theme and horror. Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski draw a screenplay full of potent ideas. It’s just a shame that they rarely color the film’s ruminations on grief, depression, and the ways we confront those personal demons. Much of the film rests its laurels on surface-level representations of ideas, leaving little room for interpretive audiences to sink further past the obvious. I can’t imagine what this film would have looked like without Hall’s commanding performance, as many of the dramatic notes feel overly simplified despite the complex array of emotions.  

    Horror can work as an effective tool for intensifying and manifesting personal demons, yet the film’s screenplay rarely engages with the genre’s core tenets. Attempts at marrying the film’s themes with needless lore and overworked setpieces work to detract rather than enhance the ideas under the surface. This dynamic becomes especially true with the film’s oddly bombastic final third, which throws out the patient character-building for a rushed and over-simplified conclusion that doesn’t earn its dramatic crescendo.  

    Part of me wants to see a version of The Night House that leaves the supernatural elements behind in favor of more intricate character building. Still, this uneven genre fusion works ably enough to elicit an engaging descent into grief’s overwhelming hold on its victims. 

    The Night House is now playing in theaters.

  • Jakob’s Wife: Review

    Jakob’s Wife: Review

    Anne Fedder (Barbara Crampton) is the wife of Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden) and that’s all that she feels she’ll ever be. She used to have dreams and aspirations, but life had other plans and she finds herself stuck in a rut where her husband takes her for granted. Then one day she meets up with an old flame and finds that there’s still an attraction between them.

    However, after a horrific accident, Anne finds herself under the control of a vampire who’s closing in on her location at home. Anne was longing for a change in her life, something that made her feel more alive, but this was hardly what she was expecting.

    Jakob’s Wife is a horror comedy from director and co-writer Travis Stevens. Starring one of the queens of horror, this seems like the perfect vehicle for fans of Crampton’s work and her legacy in horror. Starting out slowly, the audience gets to see Anne’s life and what she has to contend with.

    Whereas Jakob isn’t an abusive or uncaring man, it’s easy to see how they’ve come this far in their marriage and how Anne feels like second best to Jakob’s work. This lays the groundwork for what could have been an interesting marital drama, but this being a horror movie, after Anne has her illicit meeting the tone of the films shifts radically.

    Another direction that the film could have gone in was a full-on comedy about a woman who thinks she’s losing herself in her marriage only to be bitten by a vampire and see life in a totally different way. Jakob’s Wife does indeed do this and there are some funny moments, but it seems like the movie doesn’t want to stay there for that long.

    After a while it shifts in tone yet again and where it seems like the script has run out of jokes on an original premise, it goes back to the standard and predictable hunt to bring down the master vampire. The trouble is that the tone is so inconsistent throughout.

    There are some good jokes and the metaphor is clear although it’s not subtle, there are even some nice moments between Anne and Jakob as they rekindle their marriage, but it feels like the movie should have picked one theme and stuck with it. There are some ambitious ideas behind the concept and some great visual effects for those horror fans who like buckets of blood, but Jakob’s Wife could have been more streamlined to tell a more satisfying story.

  • The 12 Day Tale Of The Monster That Died In 8: Review

    The 12 Day Tale Of The Monster That Died In 8: Review

    What did you do during the coronavirus pandemic? A lot of us waited it out by watching every streaming show known to man or finally get around to reading those books you kept putting off getting around to. A band of special effects artists from Japan, under the stewardship of director Shunji Iwai, decided to pass the time by making a film. The result is The 12 Day Tale of the Monster Who Died in 8, a take on the traditional Kaiju film for a very different time.

    This film was shot entirely during the first wave of the pandemic, indeed the opening shots show near-empty Tokyo streets with announcements over loudspeakers informing people to avoid unnecessary outings. Unable to continue working in their full capacity, the film’s subjects connect via Zoom meetings and in doing so were able to piece together all the clips needed for the finished product.

    It is an admirable effort on behalf of its makers to not let lockdown time go to waste and to be so industrious with restrictions on them and limited tools at their disposal. While the film is not a total success, it does more than expected while always being open and honest about what its and trying to do.

    Stuck in his apartment, Takumi Saitoh (playing himself) communicates with his friends and co-workers about their disappointment and uncertainty of the global situation, as well as everyday mundanities like cooking and moving house. The main thread is Saitoh procuring some monster seeds with which to grow a so-called ‘Capsule Monster’ which could save the world from its current predicament.

    Speaking to camera, Saitoh keeps the audience updated on the progress of his monster’s growth. With events increasingly restricted almost entirely to this subject matter, the film starts to feel more and more samey as it goes on. For audiences outside of Japan it may also become a bit confusing, as many references are dropped to pop culture little known outside the country, in particular Japanese cultural touchstone Ultra Seven.

    He also shares his monster’s progress with his ‘director’, Shinji Higuchi (also playing himself, also the film’s co-writer), which isn’t as amusing or interesting as his conversations with actor Rena Nonen (As herself). She tells him she has adopted an alien, which can not be seen on camera, which makes for the most amusing diversion as she tells of their escapades together, including plans to visit the invisible alien’s home planet.

    While sluggish and scattershot at times, the narrative starts to gain steam when Saitoh starts to believe his monster is growing into an uncontrollable enemy rather than the avenging hero he wants it to be. This causes him to make a decision that leads to the brilliantly clever ending, where monster does turn into something that can save the world – but not what you would expect it to be.

    Some may very well lose patience with it before getting that far, but it is the film’s conclusion that makes it worthwhile. Though it may not be an ending everyone will agree with it has an important final message which, regardless what anyone says, is right. If there ever was a time to see The 12 Day Tale of the Monster Who Died in 8, it would be now.