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  • Demonic: The BRWC Review

    Demonic: The BRWC Review

    Demonic Synopsis: Terrifying demons confront Carly (Carly Pope) when she visits her comatose estranged mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt) via technology connected to her consciousness. 

    Through meteoric successes and disjointed failures, Neill Blomkamp has established a career out of bold risk-taking. His debut feature, the best picture nominee District 9, was a true breakout, meshing inventive science fiction and Apartheid-era politics to create a rare commercial and critical success. Blomkamp’s success placed him on every executive’s radar, with several studios offering the director tentpole brands like Halo and Alien for his follow-up projects. 

    Instead, Blomkamp continued to embrace his singular storytelling perspective. Follow-ups Elysium and Chappie were similarly ambitious, but neither fully connected in their blend of storytelling and theme (no one has before or since thought to put Die Antwoord as the stars of their movie). After a six-year hiatus, Blomkamp returns in low-budget form with the sci-fi/supernatural horror hybrid Demonic. Blomkamp’s creative spirit radiates in full force, but this inert genre hybrid never congeals its plethora of ideas. 

    Even when his films aren’t jiving, Blomkamp still incites excitement from audiences. His marriage between supernatural horror and futuristic technology creates an intriguing blend of science and faith – two ideas that present intriguing thematic potential through the writer/director’s clever world-building devices. Whether it’s militant religious units or the metaphysical perspective of Angela’s comatose state, Blomkamp colorfully draws his world outside the conventions of standard genre fare. He and Cinematographer Bryon Kopman’s craftsmanship also excels at maximizing their low-budget assets. An assured mixture of ambient handheld camera work and sensible uses of CGI imbues the horror frames with a much-needed visceral spark. 

    Demonic’s surface-level intangibles are bursting with promise. It’s just a shame that Blomkamp’s film never connects on a fundamental level. Carly’s intimate journey through trauma and tragedy should serve as a magnifying force behind the film’s visceral horrors, but her central arc never generates much interest. The deficient character beats leave Demonic desperately lacking nuance and emotional sincerity, with the familial rift between Carly and Angela stagnating before it ever finds a rhythm. Neither Carly Pope nor Nathalie Boltt receives enough dramatic range to personify Carly and Angela past their surface-level emotions – a questionable decision considering the film’s reliance on off-screen backstory to connect the dots. The lack of investment constantly keeps audiences at bay from Blomkamp’s noble intentions. 

    Demonic’s breathless 104-minute experience never finds cohesion amidst its array of genre influences. The horror setpieces are admirably composed, but Blomkamp’s strict adherence to jump scares and conventional horror tropes detract from his filmmaking verve. As a piece of contemplative science fiction, Blomkamp confuses being cerebral as being emptily straight-faced. Neither conceit is executed to their fullest extent, creating a familiar problem of overindulgence for the admirably inventive filmmaker. 

    A lack of cohesion and emotional hook derailed Demonic for me, although I wouldn’t rule out Blomkamp’s latest from finding a supportive audience. I implore Blomkamp to continue to pursue innovative risks, even if the results continue to wain from his standout debut.

    Demonic debuts in select theaters and VOD on August 20th.

  • Don’t Breathe 2: The BRWC Review

    Don’t Breathe 2: The BRWC Review

    Don’t Breathe 2 Synopsis: The Blind Man has been hiding out for several years in an isolated cabin and has taken in and raised a young girl orphaned from a devastating house fire. Their quiet life is shattered when a group of criminals kidnaps the girl, forcing the Blind Man to leave his haven to save her.

    Sequels typically strike while the iron is hot for their successful brand, but others clunkily stagger towards their eventual release. Don’t Breathe 2 is a prisoner of this conundrum, following up its critically and commercially prosperous predecessor five years after the fact (2016 feels like a lifetime ago, I literally started and completed a Bachelor’s Degree in that time). 

    Featuring a new perspective and a first-time director (Don’t Breathe helmer Fede Alvarez switches to a producer/writer role), Don’t Breathe 2 attempts to further the original’s balance of thrills and nihilistic dread. The results are painfully misguided in nearly every facet. 

    Don’t Breathe received universal acclaim upon release, but Avalrez’s swift feature lost me within its gratuitous edge. The film threw shocking revelations at audiences without ever wrestling with the human ramifications, relying more on funhouse thrills to push along its inconsistent narrative. If Don’t Breathe was just all right, Don’t Breathe 2 feels like a tremendous step backward – and the film essentially makes that error from jump street. 

    The original’s vile antagonist Norman takes the protagonist seat as he manages a creepily protective relationship with his so-called daughter. Jane Levy’s performance in the original at least built a foundation of empathy with audiences, but Norman’s grotesque and underwritten backstory makes him a bland creep to follow. I credit Stephen Lang for imbuing Norman with physicality and presence. It just doesn’t mask the character’s flat sense of misery. The film’s introductory act introduces painfully inert melodrama between Norman and his daughter, never developing the naturalistic core that kept audiences invested in the original. 

    Once the carnage begins, it’s more of the same over-the-top violence. New helmer Rodo Sayagues admirably pulls from gritty home invasion thrillers of yesteryear, sinking his teeth into bloody kills and swift camera movements to display the claustrophobic struggle. While the execution is commendably visceral, the violence’s brooding brutality largely left me cold. Most horror setpieces rely on uncomfortably predatory dynamics to cause tension, cheaply throwing helpless characters in distress as mere pawns. Considering both films are severely self-serious, the lack of meaningful steaks drastically detracts from any investment. All the brutal combat is hilariously fictitious, turning Norman’s blinds state into superpowers that would make Daredevil blush. 

    As the narrative drifts down twisted detours, Don’t Breathe 2 justifies no reason to exist. The original felt like a sincere twist on the home invasion concept, turning the poverty-ridden bandits into earnest losers trying to survive against an unlikely source of evil. Alvarez and Sayagues’ screenplay take audiences to grotesque places that linger with a pungent mean-spiritedness. I expect some audiences to enjoy the film’s brand of unrelenting dreariness, but there isn’t enough gravity or creativity to justify the shock factor for me. 

    Don’t Breathe 2 left me bewildered with its dour brand of horror. Even fans of the original will recognize this poorly conceived effort as a downgrade from its predecessor.

    Don’t Breathe 2 is now playing in theaters nationwide.

  • Kandisha: Review

    Kandisha: Review

    Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse), Bintou (Suzy Bemba) and Morjana (Samarcandi Saadi) are all friends that live in a council estate in France. They’re just like any other teenage girls and like to have fun with drugs, alcohol and men, but they have a real talent for art and graffiti and use their talents whenever they can. However, their world turns upside down when Amelie comes across a name on a wall ‘Kandisha’.

    They learn that Aicha Kandisha is a Moroccan urban legend about a woman betrayed and tortured by six men who comes back from the dead when summoned in order to kill six more men for her sacrifice. Although intrigued by the idea of a female vengeful ghost, the girls laugh it off, never thinking that such a thing could really happen.

    Then while on her way home one night, Amélie is accosted by her ex-boyfriend who is finding it hard to move on, they get into a fight and Amélie bites him. Covered in blood, she goes home and as if possessed by a spirit, starts drawing a symbol on her bathroom wall and chants Kandisha’s name over and over.

    Then the next day Amélie gets the news that her ex-boyfriend has died in a tragic accident and despite her denial that Kandisha is real, she can’t shake off that she may be responsible.

    Kandisha is a French horror film which evokes Candyman in the way of a new urban legend that’s seemingly created in order to spawn a franchise. While Kandisha may be an original idea for a vengeful spirit which may sit alongside the Nineties horror classic, it’s unfortunate that so many of the finer details are left out.

    Whilst Amélie does unleash the demon by painting the symbol in her ex’s blood and despite the detailed exposition about where Kandisha came from, there really isn’t anything else to go on. There’s little to no explanation as to why Kandisha attacks her victims other than that they’re connected to the main characters and no reason for the solution to banish Kandisha other than ‘it is written’.

    Despite some interesting visuals and creature design, this makes Kandisha a formulaic and somewhat disappointing slasher movie.

  • Respect: The BRWC Review

    Respect: The BRWC Review

    Respect Synopsis: This biopic follows the rise of Aretha Franklin’s (Jennifer Hudson) career from a child singing in her father’s church choir to her international superstardom.

    Nothing says Oscar gold like biopics. Studios pump out an onslaught of posh semi-true stories in shameless attempts to garner acclaim from critics and award pundits. While some filmmakers push the subgenre to innovative places (Steve Jobs and Love and Mercy fully inhabit their subjects through their thoughtful forms and intimacy), a majority regurgitate the same by-the-books conventions without much artistry. 

    The latest biopic Respect places the spotlight on Aretha Franklin’s illustrious career. The soulful singer’s tumultuous journey should be ripe for poignant storytelling. Instead, studio heavy-handedness and disjointed storytelling leave audiences with a frustratingly inconsistent experience. 

    An Arethra Franklin biopic holds strong relevance to our trying times. Her evolving career radiates as a symbol of long-standing faith, female independence, and progressive civil rights ideas still to this day. Respect elicits its most effective frames when it leans into those conceits. I give screenwriters Callie Khouri and Tracey Scott Wilson credit for never shying away from Franklin’s hardships, creating painfully intimate scenes to show the personal obstacles Franklin overcame while becoming a transcendent presence in music. 

    While most biopics generate poignant performances, Jennifer Hudson truly embodies Franklin through her dramatic intimacy. The Oscar-winning actress imbues the singer’s range of experiences with raw emotional sincerity, never straying into the overworked theatrics that often defines performances of this elk. I would be remissed to ignore Hudson’s opulent singing abilities. Her beautiful range of vocals brings Franklin’s resonant tracks to life in ways few others could replicate. Co-stars Forrest Whitaker and Marlon Wayans also help in elevating their one-note roles. Both serve as damaging male figures to Franklin, ranging from an initially easy-going charm to abusive menace without feeling false in those drastic shifts. 

    Respect kept me semi-engaged throughout its lumbering 145-minute runtime, but the film never escapes the blandness of its trite formula. Like so many failed biopics before it, the bloated narrative sledgehammers Franklin’s rise to fame into a dissident series of marquee events. Few of these overdramatized landmarks register genuine impact, with the screenwriters relying too much upon the checklist deja vu devices to relay her journey. Whether it’s corny vignettes that dumb down Franklin’s songwriting process, oversimplistic speeches, or the overuse of busily crafted yet empty montages, Respect settles for the bare minimum far too often. 

    The overwhelming blandness is also apparent from a visual perspective. Director Liesl Tommy deserves praise for her sensitive handling of the film’s quaint moments, but she and Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau’s blaise aesthetics create the equivalent of a Lifetime TV movie. The duo rarely indulges in inspired techniques, shooting Franklin’s sobering highs and lows with the same stagnant framing and drained energy. Just a little visual vibrancy could have gone a long way in masking the material’s factory-produced aroma. 

    The audience I saw Respect with ate up its crowdpleasing formula, cheering during the resounding music numbers while reacting with dismay to each stumble Franklin makes along the way. I am glad the film is resonating with audiences, but the lack of originality and authenticity derailed the experience from honoring Franklin’s storied legacy.

    Respect is now playing in theaters nationwide.

  • Confetti: Review

    Confetti: Review

    Confetti – a film about a traditional working class Chinese family’s struggle to receive guidance and education with their daughter, who has recently been diagnosed with Dyslexia.

    Written and directed by Ann Hu, the film is split into four chapters, and set across China and New York.

    Meimei, a clearly intelligent and creative child, is exposed at school for her inability to write her name or read any basic words. Her mother Lan (Zhu Zhu), a cleaner at the school sees her daughter chastised and ridiculed by the teacher and kids and reports her fears back to her father Chen (Yanan Li), a tailor who works from home. Thomas (George C. Tronsrue), an American teacher, recognises that she shows similar traits to his cousin and highlights to the family that he believes her to have Dyslexia, an unknown condition in China. Facing adversity and lack of knowledge, Thomas helps the mother and child relocate to New York to give her a chance to receive the support needed to give her the opportunity to integrate into society and formal education and have the same opportunities a person without this condition has in the world.

    The trials and tribulations faced by mother and daughter during their desperate situation, are spurred on by an initially reluctant writer friend of Thomas’s, a strong-willed lady in a wheelchair called Amy (Helen McClellan). As the film progresses, we learn that Meimei’s struggles stem from her mother’s own hidden illiteracy. 

    This is a hopeful film, about the determination of a mother to give her daughter all the opportunities she herself lacked. Worldwide 1 – 10 of the population are dyslexic, and many of those go unrecognised and often end up in dead end jobs, far beyond their abilities. I found this film heart warming, and as a fellow dyslexic (I wasn’t diagnosed until my late twenties) can fully empathise with how much more difficult life is with this condition, and how important it is for people to recognise that it doesn’t make you dumb or abnormal, just makes the ordinary tasks of life a hell of a lot harder and longer. 

    A well constructed, well made film that would be enjoyed by all who watch it.