Movie Reviews: The Wretched

The Wretched
directed by Brett Pierce and Drew Pierce

This is a new horror movie that simultaneously hearkens back to some favorite low budget cheesy 80s films but at the same time is inventive enough to give me hope that horror movies can simultaneously be fun, scary and intelligent. 

It's also quite obviously set in my home state of Michigan though I can't remember if the story made that explicit. It was shot in Michigan.

It might as well have made its location explicit as there is plenty of expository dialogue about people maintaining vacation homes and farms in the north of the state. That's what lots of Michiganders, including some of my family and friends, do. Boating is also a big part of the story.

After some spoilerish events which I won't mention open the film we see that the film's default hero, troubled teen Ben (John-Paul Howard), has moved in with his father Liam (Jamison Jones). Liam is a usually genial man who is going through a divorce with Ben's mother. Ben was implicated in some minor criminality which is why his mother has temporarily sent him up north to live and work with his Daddy. 

Well Liam is less interested in playing strict paterfamilias than in trying to convince Ben to accept that Liam has swiftly moved on to a new significant other, Sara (Azie Tesfai), who works with Liam at the marina which he owns/runs. 

Movie Reviews: Marked Woman

Marked Woman
directed by Lloyd Bacon

It is always somewhat startling and sobering to realize that people you always remember as aged and decrepit were young and vibrant once. Time waits for no one. We will all eventually meet our maker. 

Still it is jarring to see Bette Davis, who I remember as a bug eyed chain smoking elderly woman, take the lead in this film. Although I don't think anyone could ever describe Davis as beautiful, she was striking playing a role that was not subtle in its sexuality. 

I didn't know it before watching the film but this movie is based on the downfall of Mafia Boss and vice lord Lucky Luciano, who had just received a thirty to fifty year sentence for extortion and prostitution about a year before this film was released. 

Much as mob film or television auteurs such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola or David Chase would do fifty years later, Bacon hired some real life mob hoodlums to give the film some verisimilitude. Another fun fact about this film is that one of the supporting actresses, Lola Lane, was the inspiration for the comic book character, Lois Lane. As you might expect the fast paced version of the Mid-Atlantic Accent is widely used in this film, primarily by Bette Davis but also by a few other actors and actresses.

Although some people see this as a film noir because of the presence of Bette Davis and of course Humphrey Bogart, I don't. It's just a Warner Bros. crime drama, a good one perhaps but there is no moral ambiguity. There are no conflicted heroes or femme fatales. This film is a morality play. Either because of enforced censorship or studio squeamishness about making heroines out of prostitutes, the film alters the stated occupation of the heroine and her friends from their real life inspirations.

Movie Reviews: The Invisible Man (2020)

The Invisible Man

directed by Leigh Whannell

This movie is a retelling/reboot of the original old Hollywood movie based on the H.G. Wells sci-fi story of the same name. It takes place in modern times. 

The biggest difference is that whereas the original movie and story were both parables about an arrogant male scientist fooling around with subjects better left to God and causing suffering to himself and others as a result, this story incarnation makes it clear that the arrogant scientist in question was already a bad man who enjoyed dominating people, especially women.

Invisibility didn't drive him insane or make him worse. It just gave him additional tools to use. This film is primarily an extended lecture on why and how domestic abuse, particularly gaslighting, is a bad thing.

I think that everyone should already know this. I don't mind message films but felt that this one, despite being entertaining, was a little heavy-handed and literal in its approach. The horror is not the invisibility but the fact that the man is controlling, bullying, condescending, dismissive, contemptuous and capable of violence when challenged. 

I'm no physicist but if someone or something is invisible then that would seem to indicate to me that the spectrum of light which is visible to humans is either passing through the object completely or being bent around it. So to me that would mean that the person would be blind. Dunno. I will need to look more into it.

The movie opens with a mousy woman, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) escaping the home of her rich genius optics engineer boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). I say escape because Adrian is apparently not the sort of man who will take kindly to a Dear John email or meekly accept a "We need to talk" short unpleasant one way discussion. 

Movie Reviews: Ready or Not

Ready Or Not

directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

This horror/dark comedy movie has a lot in common with a movie previously reviewed here, You're Next. 

Both films invoke some pretty common horror motifs before simultaneously upending them or playing them for some twisted laughs. 

If you're not a horror film fan then this movie is simply not something that you should be watching. If you are among that group of people who enjoy watching such movies then this low budget but high quality film is definitely something that should be on your to watch list.

As with You're Next, Ready or Not imagines that a young woman, Grace (Samara Weaving) of modest means has gone to her fiancee's venerable family home, actually a mansion. Yes I know there are some people who would never ever do such a thing. Grace and Alex Le Domas (Mark O'Brien) are to be married. They are in love you see. And Grace not only comes from modest means, she grew up in foster homes. 

Grace is eager to become the latest official Mrs. Le Domas and do the do. Grace also wants to get acquainted with all of Alex's oft eccentric relatives, many of whom don't exactly appear too welcoming to their formerly impoverished new in-law.

But you don't grow up in foster homes without learning to quickly adapt to new situations and turn the other cheek to snarky comments or pointed snubs. The wedding completes without a hitch. Grace is heads over heels in love with Alex and can't wait to show him how much in a suitably private suite.

Movie Reviews: Cast A Deadly Spell

Cast A Deadly Spell
directed by Martin Campbell

Cast A Deadly Spell is an older HBO movie that I decided to rewatch. It is a rare example of a film that mixes two different genres and mostly gets things right. It's also interesting to see some people (Julianne Moore) just before they became superstars. Cast A Deadly Spell takes itself seriously but not too seriously. 

You can always see the tongue firmly planted in cheek. There is some humor but it's not usually slapstick. It's not everyone who can mix a hardboiled noir detective story with a bit of fantasy but Campbell did it here.  

This movie references the works of H.P. Lovecraft but not too much. Other than the name of the hero (slightly different than the author) and a few of the author's creations this story is not that much in Lovecraft's debt.

In 1948 Los Angeles, magic is real. Not only is magic real but almost everyone uses it for the most mundane tasks. All sorts of supernatural creatures exist and interact with humans, some more peacefully than others. Like the technology of our time that would be considered magic to a human living two thousand years ago, everyone in this world takes magic for granted. Someone who refuses to use magic is considered to be a Luddite. 

One man who refuses to use magic at all is private detective and former cop Harry Phillip Lovecraft (Fred Ward). As he explains to skeptics, his reasons for not using magic are personal and thus none of their ever loving business. Be that as it may, a detective who doesn't use magic in a world where everyone else does is at something of a competitive disadvantage. This means that Lovecraft's paying jobs are rare. 

Movie Reviews: Gretel and Hansel

Gretel and Hansel
directed by Osgood Perkins

The thing about folk tales is that they always mutate in response to the fears and concerns of the people retelling them. The reader or viewer may feel different ways about this, depending on what their preferred version of the tale is. 

One person's reimagined tale or different emphasis on a story's theme is another person's politically driven social justice warrior sacrilege. It is what it is. 

I would guess that almost everyone knows the Grimm Fairy Tale, Hansel and Gretel, which is for most Westerners is very firmly rooted in medieval German stories and legends. The story may or may not have originated in Germany. The tale does touch on some darker concerns about parental abandonment, resulting homelessness, and what would today be recognized as child abusers/serial killers. Heavy stuff for kids. 

This  story version, as you might guess from the reversed names, puts more emphasis on the female sibling. In this movie, Gretel is the elder sibling. The film attempts to tell a story about female empowerment and its costs in a cold cruel patriarchal world. I didn't like this theme, not just because I'm not a feminist, but because a cannibalistic witch is not exactly the best spokeswoman for "You go girl!" messages of independence and self-actualization. 

Movie Reviews: Dracula (1979)

Dracula(1979)
directed by John Badham

I am fascinated by how different people can pull wildly varying interpretations from the same material.  

Despite what some originalists would tell you, complex source materials, whether 18th century constitutions or 19th century novels by Bram Stoker can often support very diverse readings. 

Stephen King was famously inspired to write his vampire novel Salem's Lot after teaching Dracula to high school students and wondering what it would be like if Dracula came to 20th century America. 

King's novel has themes of waste, loneliness and decline that certainly would have resonated with people in 1970s America, dealing with oil crises, the  Vietnam War aftermath and other system shocks. King expands greatly on the horror of the un-dead expressed so strongly in Stoker's novel. I appreciate and respond to that theme of vampire lore and novels.

But there are plenty of other themes. In Stoker's novel, Dracula lives with --well perhaps exists with is a better term-- at least three female vampires. By their descriptions, two may be his daughters. He may have a harem. He may have turned his family. Either way it's a perversion of normal family life that likely would have scandalized the Victorian audience who first read Stoker's work.