Shudder Premiere

Parent Trap

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Daddy’s Head

by George Wolf

You see the title Daddy’s Head and you might expect a bit of grind house fun, full of schlock and awe and signifying little. But this Shudder original has higher aspirations, as writer/director Benjamin Barfoot pulls off a nifty creature feature steeped in the psychology of grief.

Young Isaac (Rupert Turnbull) lives with his father James (Charles Aitken) and stepmother Laura (Julia Brown) in the English countryside. Life has already dealt the boy a terrible blow with the death of his mother, so James’s fatal car accident weighs heavy with cruel trauma.

Isaac is left with no next of kin, and officials from social services favor Laura taking over as legal guardian, if she is agreeable.

But while Laura is sorting through the legalities, days and nights begin to get bumpy.

Isaac insists that his father has returned. Something breaks through a picture window and attacks the family dog.** A kitchen knife turns up missing. And James’s divorced friend Robert (Nathaniel Martello-White) is always finding reasons to drop by.

As Isaac becomes convinced that is father is calling to him from the nearby woods, Barfoot punctures the questionable realities with some well-crafted jump scares and satisfying practical effects. The frights that come in the third act succeed because of the character dynamics that Barfoot and his talented cast build in the first two. The child-centered mystery and sleek, imposing aesthetics will likely call Goodnight Mommy to mind early on, before giving way to a Babadook-styled struggle with a monster.

But Daddy’s Head tripping is committed to upping the ante, and the escalation ultimately delivers enough to satisfy fans of both blood and metaphors.

**trigger warning: violence to animals

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Holly Jolly

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Terrifier 3

by Hope Madden

Horror cinema has a long, conflicted relationship with Christmas movies, especially those boasting a maniacal Santa Claus. In 1984, Silent Night, Deadly Night found itself yanked from theaters only days after its release. The Netherlands removed every poster of Dick Maas’s 2010 Saint from public display because its depiction of St. Nick was deemed too disturbing for children.

If Christmas horror tends to be the most divisive and the likeliest to offend, then it seems like an obvious choice for the next installment in Damien Leone’s Terrifier series.

Yes, Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) has left Halloween behind in favor of a jollier holiday. But wait, you say. Wasn’t Art decapitated at the end of Terrifier 2?

Please see Halloween H2O and its follow up, Halloween: Resurrection.

Actually, don’t. Resurrection is easily among the worst in the franchise. Suffice it to say, decapitation does not mean the end of a true horror franchise villain, especially when his films are raking in the cash. And there is no doubt that Art has gone the way of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers—silent, deadly, and able to really bounce back from injury. Death, even.

So, it’s Christmas Eve in Miles County and Sienna (Lauren LaVera, decapitator from T2), recently released from a psychiatric hospital, is spending the holidays with her aunt, uncle and little cousin Gabbie (Antonella Rose).

Art’s been waiting (in a nice callback to Black Christmas, among the finest and first holiday horrors). He’s not alone, and that’s too bad because he’s more fun on his own. His guest is part of a convoluted explanation for his re-capitation (I did make that up, thank you). But do we need to understand it?

Weak spots include most references to the magic and mental illness of the tediously long (2 ½ hours, whew!) Terrifier 2. Strengths involve a barroom scene with cameos aplenty, plus a nod to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—once considered the most nihilistic and violent of all horror films. Once.

What has set Art the Clown apart from other unstoppable genre monsters is his sadism. Michael was mainly efficient with his kills. Jason could be inventive. Art delights in the pain and terror, and his holiday killing spree offers loads of opportunities to exercise his depraved imagination.

Thornton is again a charismatic villain, and he gets his own Christmas song this time, which is undeniably fun. The third installment is not nearly as lean and mean as the original, nor is it as bloated and ludicrous as the second. As crazy as it sounds when you’re talking about watching limbs being torn off a screaming human’s body, the carnage does get tiresome after a while.  

If you dug the previous Art the Clown films, you will find endless entertainment in the newest. You’ll also find mediocre acting and dumb plotting but really excellent practical effects. And blood by the bucketful.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Joker: Folei à Deux, Salem’s Lot, White Bird & More

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Joker: Folie à Deux, Salem’s Lot, White Bird, Things Will Be Different, Frankie Freako, Hold Your Breath, V/H/S Beyond, The Platform 2, The Wait, Me Myself and the Void

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Send In the Clowns

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Joker: Folie à Deux

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Five years ago, Todd Philips made a dangerous film, a comic book movie through a fractured Scorsese viewfinder that cried with the clown the world said was not funny. Cleverly bitter, it was an excellent retooling of Scorsese’s violently alienated loner. But mainly it was a stage for the unerring brilliance of Joaquin Phoenix.

Phillips’s sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux (which means “delusion or mental illness shared by two people”) revisits poor Arthur Fleck shortly before he stands trial for murdering five people, including late night talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro).

Fleck is a shell of his former self. No jokes, no laughter. Until prison guard Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) gets Arthur included in a singing class over in the minimum-security ward, where Arthur meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga).

And suddenly, Arthur has a song in his heart.

Phoenix continues to be so good he’s worrisome. Gaga delivers on nearly the same level—which is unheard of—and her spark is sorely missed when she’s not onscreen. Philips flanks the couple with two of the business’s best, Catherine Keener as Arthur’s lawyer and Gleeson, whose brutish jocularity is alarmingly authentic.

Where Phillips found the tone for his alienated white man in Scorsese, his love story takes on the fantastical theatricality of a musical. It’s a choice that works better in theory than execution, mainly because the sequel is almost entirely confined to prison and courtroom drama. The pace is leaden, the grim brutality repetitive. Where the first film used a half dozen or so profoundly human scenes to break your heart, the sequel fetishizes Arthur’s misery to the point of sadism.

Phillips surrounds the terrific ensemble (which includes another memorable turn from Leigh Gill) with several well-staged set pieces, but the ambition of this new vision soon finds itself battling curiosity and tedium.

Phoenix and Gaga make a truly electric pair, but as the courtroom scenes drag on its not hard to side with Lee’s impatience at the strategy in play. What begins as a relevant comment on the blurring of realities descends into a self indulgence that seems to find Phillips still taking on critics of his first Joker film.

The clear Scorsese moments amid all the musical numbers are an appropriate reminder of how the film can’t quite bring its ambitions of mold-breaking to fruition. And as it leaves behind a slightly open door, Folie à Deux exits the stage as a dark, frustrating exercise, as capable of painful beauty as it is of clowning around.

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Beasts of Burden

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Rumours

by George Wolf

Did you know that swag bags at the G7 Summit come with a free copy of Incumbent Life magazine?

That’s just one example of the winking comedy at work in Rumours, which finds Guy Maddin teaming with brothers Evan and Galen Johnson to pen a well-developed satire about the “burden of leadership.”

At this latest Summit, the leaders of Germany (Cate Blacchett), the U.S. (Charles Dance), Canada (Roy Dupuis), Italy (Rolondo Ravello), Great Britain (Nikki Amuka-Bird), France (Denis Ménochet) and Japan (Takehiro Hira) all agree they need to draft a cohesive statement on an unnamed world crisis.

Actually doing it becomes more of a challenge, one that gets even harder when they all find themselves lost in the woods around the German compound. With no servants in sight, the Heads of State grow fearful of Bog Zombies, are perplexed by the oversized brain they come across, and incredulous when the missing President of the European Commission (Alicia Vikander) suddenly reappears.

That’s a busy night.

Evan Johnson directs, putting understandable confidence in these wonderful actors to craft distinct personalities while grounding the comedy with the bone dry delivery required to wring the last ounce of wry mischief from every line. The target is more than just fiddling while the world burns, it’s aimed at those who congratulate themselves just for agreeing that the temperature has changed.

This is high concept satire, for sure, but Johnston doesn’t front load the fun. The steady pace has room for surprises throughout, with enough relatable truth to smooth out the overly goofy spots.

And for those who thought Don’t Look Up was just too obvious and on-the-nose, Rumours may be the perfect blend of comedy and world’s end commentary. It’s quieter, more polite, but still able to wield absurdity as a potent spotlight on the pathetic.

And just look at that big brain near Blanchett!

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Existential Mysteries and the Comedy Life

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Me, Myself, and the Void

by Rachel Willis

Suffering from a tough crowd at his standup show, Jack (Jack De Sena) is surprised when his non-comedian best friend Chris (Chris Smith) shows up to bail him out. He’s even more surprised when the crowd disappears, only to be replaced by a void resembling his own apartment in director Tim Hautekiet’s film Me, Myself, and the Void.

Right off the bat, we learn that Jack has suffered some kind of black out event. He is unclear as to why he’s on the bathroom floor. However, he quickly realizes that Chris is a figment of his imagination, here to help him unpack this mystery.

In addition to the mystery, Jack has to unpack the events leading up to his ungainly sprawl on the bathroom floor. His memory is a bit hazy in the void, but visions quickly start flooding in. This not only helps us learn more about Jack, but also about Chris, and Jack’s ex, Mia (Kelly Marie Tran).

One problem is the film’s assumption that Jack and Chris are familiar to the audience. Some may know their YouTube channel, but for those without prior experience with the duo, the familiarity doesn’t land well. It feels like a vanity project.

However, De Sena and Smith play well off each other, their banter landing like that of two men who are, in fact, best friends. This helps to engage those unfamiliar with their brand. It also works that De Sena takes lead, being the more engaging and natural of the duo.

As we uncover more of Jack’s life, the film attempts heavier material. A particularly touching moment involves Chris sharing a personal detail of his relationship – a moment that then becomes fodder for Jack’s act. It’s a glimpse into who Jack really is, as well as a nod to men’s seeming aversion to therapy.

It’s too bad the film doesn’t stay focused here. That might have given the audience something to chew on. Instead, we get a maudlin mess of a movie.

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Time After Time

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Thing Will Be Different

by Hope Madden

Writer/director Michael Felker has never made a feature film. What he has done is work alongside Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead as editor on every feature they’ve made since 2014’s Spring. It shows.

With Felker’s heady brother-sister time loop twister Things Will Be Different, the filmmaker revisits many of the themes that have marked each of Benson and Moorehead’s features (the duo produces and Moorehead has a cameo). But this film carves out its own identity.

We meet Sidney (Riley Dandy) and Joe (Adam David Thompson) not long after some kind of robbery. We know nothing of the crime itself, just that they’d gotten separated and have reunited at a little diner. From there they’ll head to a house. A house where they’ll be safe.

Sid has a daughter she needs to get back to. Joe doesn’t have much, but he looks forward to making up lost time with his kid sister while they hide out for two weeks. It’s not that the house itself is hidden—hell, they walked to it through a cornfield. It’s that it takes them to a place outside of time.

But the thing is, they’re not supposed to be there, and that complicates things when they want to go back home.

Among the film’s many qualities is the lo-fi time travel. The isolated farmhouse the pair flees to is anything but fantastical. Neither is the combination safe, or the hand-held cassette recorder for communicating across time. It’s all as clever and satisfying as it is budget friendly.

Felker’s writing is consistently compelling, his script offering both leads everything they need to build a lived-in, fractured relationship full of longing and bitterness. The clues concerning the time loop itself are just as clever and satisfying, every element fitting the retro vibe that itself feels delightfully out of time.

Felker’s film is certainly reminiscent of much of Benson and Moorehead’s work, although it also calls to mind a handful of other time benders, from Tenet to Timecrimes. But it never feels borrowed.

Felker uses time travel as an understated and poignant metaphor for the harmful cycles you find in relationships, especially in families. Thanks to sharp writing, stylish direction and a couple of well-crafted performances, he further separates his time travel fantasy from the scores of others and keeps you guessing until the last, powerful frame.

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Crushed Under Fortune’s Wheel

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The Wait

by Christie Robb

The gorgeous, warm, burnished glow of colorist Raúl Lavado Verdú and strategic photography by Miguel Ángel Mora elevates writer/director F. Javier Gutiérrez (Rings) take on a working-class man’s emasculation and subsequent descent into madness.

Three years ago, Eladio (Victor Clavijo) was offered a job as a gamekeeper on a privately-owned 1970s Spanish hunting estate. His wife reluctantly agreed on the condition that the gig was temporary—a two-year isolated hustle up in the mountains that would result in a better life on the other side.

Now, into their third year, she’s no longer talking to him. And their kid is growing restless, too.

When Eladio is offered a new opportunity to increase the size of their growing nest egg, greed overwhelms him. He pushes his luck too far.

Fortune’s Wheel turns and starts to crush him.

But is Eladio’s greed really the root of the evils that beset him? What about the guy who pressured him into the shady deal? And what’s with all the weird shit buried around the property?

The acting is good, and the movie has some genuinely unsettling moments. But it’s a little slow and leaves a subplot about feminine rage on the table like a loaded but unfired hunting rifle in favor of something more para than normal. 

So, it’s good to have pretty shots of the Spanish mountains to look at while you are waiting for the plot to catch up with the unsettling, sweaty, grimy, overripe vibe.

Shudder Premiere

4th Kind’s the Charm

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V/H/S/Beyond

by Hope Madden

It’s that time again. Time to blow into the cassette basket, ignore the blinking 12:00 and press play on another found footage anthology, V/H/S/Beyond.

The seventh installment in the series focuses (mainly) on left-behind evidence of alien encounters, plus one really weird but entirely unconnected doggy daycare nightmare.

This installment’s wraparound story comes not from a horror filmmaker but from award-winning documentarian Jay Cheel. He invites viewers to investigate the “evidence”—videotapes that may or may not tell of visitors—by way of the documentary “Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction.” The primary story under the experts’ eye is of an Ontario home and a missing man.

In between talking head evaluations of that footage, we’re treated to a smattering of other “evidence.”  The most fun is Jordan Downey’s Stork. Downey enlists a first person shooter style to follow a police standoff at a home where missing babies may be stashed. Funhouse gimmicks keep it lively, but the short’s main success is its particular spin on the alien itself.

Virat Pal’s Dream Girl, an interstellar twist on Bollywood stardom, is inventive fun, although the concept of found footage (unretouched or edited footage) is most betrayed in this short.

This brings us to the three most common problems in found footage. 1) How did the found footage get edited together from multiple cameras and angles? 2) Why didn’t the camera operator put the camera down to save themselves and others? 3) How and where was the footage left to be found? To a certain degree, you need to let go of at least one of these details or you can’t enjoy the film. But it gets tough.

Life and Let Dive from Justin Martinez (longtime friend of the franchise) takes us on a 30th birthday skydiving party gone wrong. Shot GoPro style, the short is consistently entertaining, delivers carnage aplenty and one really solid jump scare, plus good-looking aliens. Also, no egregious rule breaking.

The weirdest and possibly most disturbing belongs to directors Christian and Justin Long (the actor, who does not appear). Their short, Fur Babies, has absolutely nothing to do with aliens. Instead, it tails a delightfully unhinged doggy daycare professional (Libby Letlow). There’s also zero integrity in the footage—where it came from and how it was assembled—but there is some wonderfully unseemly stuff happening in the basement.

Kate Siegel’s Stow Away delivers a one-person documentary on recent desert sightings. The segment is strangely fascinating, and Alanah Pearce offers a compelling central performance. Solid creature effects and a logical arc of horror also elevate this one, but you can’t finish it without wondering: how did the world discover this tape?

Found footage horror still manages to strike a chord for a lot of people, and the V/H/S franchise routinely collects an intriguing assortment of films and filmmakers celebrating the form. Beyond is neither the best nor the worst in the series. It does hold some impressive scares and imaginative takes on the old encounter notion.

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Dust to Dust

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Hold Your Breath

by Hope Madden

Among the least examined perspectives in Westerns is the woman’s. In the rare instance that a filmmaker looks closely at what it was like for a woman on the wild frontier, the tale isn’t happy.

Earlier this year, writer/director/co-star Viggo Mortensen’s Western The Dead Don’t Hurt reexamined masculine nobility as abandonment. A decade ago, Tommy Lee Jones’s underseen The Homesman mined a very real phenomenon that befell many brides of the West. But Karrie Crouse and William Joines’s Hold Your Breath—actually set in the 1930s Oklahoma Dust Bowl rather than being a strict Western—feels more akin with Emma Tammi’s 2018 horror, The Wind.

The always magnificent Sarah Paulson is Margaret Bellum, mother to Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins), left to keep the family together while her husband travels to build bridges until the rain returns and their little farm can flourish again. In the meantime, Margaret and the girls are surrounded on all sides, as far as the eye can see and even farther, by dry, useless dirt.

Like Tammi’s horror, Hold Your Breath weaves maternal tragedy with societal pressures and supernatural legend to create a sometimes-hypnotic descent into madness.

Paulson’s brittle sensibility never entirely loses its humanity thanks to her layered performance. Deepening the characterization with genuine tenderness for the girls elevates the “is she crazy or is this really happening” trope.

Supporting turns from Miller, Annaleigh Ashford and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) heighten tensions and call to mind the chill of an effective campfire tale. The filmmakers also capture a fear that permeates the God forsaken region with effective visual moments, often with Margaret and her needlework or a little boy and his makeshift mask. These moments are stark and eerie, but the film can’t seem to hold onto that feeling.

Paulson’s performance aches with a pain that is particular to a mother, and it’s this broken heartbeat that keeps Hold Your Breath compelling to its conclusion. Its horror is touched with a melancholy suited to the genre. The tension comes and goes, leaving you with less than promised, but the film has enough going for it to make it worth your time.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?