Shudder Premiere

La Vida Loca

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Crazy Old Lady

by Hope Madden

In a provocative and assuredly nuanced riff on the old hagsploitation genre so popular in the Sixties and Seventies, Martín Mauregui’s Crazy Old Lady dares you to look away.

The agist, often misogynistic originators of the genre—What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Straight-Jacket—eventually made way for more thoughtful, but no less terrifying, meditations on the horrors that await us all. The heartbreaking nature of dementia in Natalie Erika James’s Relic and Adam Robitel’s The Taking of Deborah Logan struck a nerve.

Crazy Old Lady traps us in a home with a dementia sufferer who’s stopped taking medication and has embraced a violent unreality. But Marengui, an Argentinian filmmaker, is less interested in what the future holds as what the past hides.

The great Carmen Maura is Alicia. Alicia has her daughter Laura (Augistina Liendo) worried. By the third time Alicia calls Laura inside of ten minutes, always asking for the same recipe, Laura panics. Hundreds of miles from home with no one else to turn to, she phones her ex-boyfriend Pedro (Daniel Hendler) with a desperate request: stay with Alicia until Laura can get back home tomorrow morning.

Pedro complies. But he’s not Pedro to Alicia. He’s Cesar, her first love, an abusive man with whom Alicia shared dark, even brutal secrets.

Mauregui takes a Death and the Maiden approach to the balance of the film. The result is a profoundly uncomfortable, breathtakingly performed exhumation of the kind of dark past that refuses to stay buried in the garden.

“People disappeared every day back then,” Alicia casually recalls.

Through most of the film’s runtime, we’re alone with Alicia and Pedro. Maura’s masterful performance hardly comes as a surprise. Broken, seductive, self-righteous, naïve, sinister—the veteran weaves from one tone to the next with alarming flexibility.

Hendler keeps pace. There is such humanity in his performance, confusion and terror and, most heartbreakingly, empathy. It’s a beautiful, aching turn. Though both actors are aided immeasurably by Mauregui’s deft writing, their chemistry and deeply felt performance elevate the film far beyond its genre trappings.

Mauregui builds tension, delivers unexpected shocks, and lets his exceptional cast compel your attention. Despite its exploitation title, Crazy Old Lady delivers a gripping tale.

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Let Him Eat It

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The President’s Cake

by George Wolf

After winning two awards last year at Cannes, The President’s Cake missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature. That says much about how stacked the category is this time, because writer/director Hasan Hadi’s feature debut is an absolutely wondrous mix of empathy and gut-punch heartbreak.

In 1990s Iraq, nine year old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, in a remarkable debut of her own) lives with her feisty grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibet) in the poverty-stricken marshes. As “draw day” approaches at Lamia’s school, Bibi teaches her little tricks to avoid getting chosen for the compulsory “honors” of providing various items at the local celebration of President Saddam Hussein’s birthday.

But Lamia’s stern teacher sees through the scams, and the girl is picked for the most scrutinized task of all: baking the birthday cake.

Needless to day, failure would bring about some harsh consequences.

Though Bibi thinks she knows the best way forward for her granddaughter, Lamia strikes out on her own. Clutching her favorite rooster and conferring often with her friend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), Lamia desperately seeks ways to acquire the precious baking ingredients that she cannot afford.

Buoyed by the two remarkably assured young performers, Hadi crafts the film with a delicate balance between childlike journey and harsh reality. Though Lamia’s travels through her homeland’s corruption, casual cruelty and degradation may recall The Painted Bird or Come and See, Hadi protects the innocence as fiercely as Lamia protects her rooster. His film’s heart aches for the plight of these people, even as it’s providing sly reminders that aspiring dictators share similar playbooks.

There is a tender, poetic beauty to be found here as well. The President’s Cake signals Hadi as a filmmaker full of insight and compassion, with the storytelling instincts to mine universal resonance from a uniquely intimate struggle.

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Play Thing

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Dolly

by Hope Madden

Fans of Savage Seventies Cinema, rejoice. Filmmaker Rod Blackhurst channels The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tourist Trap, and even a little bit of Ted Post’s 1973 freak show The Baby for his wooded horror, Dolly.

Macy (Fabianne Therese) and Chase (Seann William Scott) hike through the woods to a breathtaking overlook where Chase will pop the question. But they probably should have turned back at the first sign of those baby dolls nailed to the trees.

Soon enough, they meet Dolly (Max the Impaler, that’s quite a name), an enormous person whose whole noggin is hidden inside a cracked ceramic doll’s head. Dolly has a shovel, puts it to unusual use, and soon enough it’s just Dolly and her new baby, Macy, back at Dolly’s house.

Blackhurst nails the look and vibe of a 70s grindhouse horror show. And it’s not just tone, it’s also the content. Dolly gets nasty. Blackhurst intends to horrify you far more than frighten you. Whether it’s blood or body fluids or rancid food stuffs or broken bones that trip your gag reflex, he’s aiming to find it.

Ethan Suplee—you remember, the happy singing football player from Remember the Titans–cuts a far more intimidating presence as Daddy, and you can’t help but wonder about the backstory here at Dolly’s place. Kudos to Blackhurst, who co-writes with Brandon Weavil, for keeping it ambiguous.

Yes, if it’s an indie Seventies horror aesthetic you’re after, and logic and common sense are of less importance, then Dolly is for you. But if you crave one single scene of realistic behavior, the movie comes up short.

Therese can’t be blamed. She does what she can, her attempts at carving a heroic character are in and of themselves heroic. But Macy’s every action is made exclusively to further the plot and never, ever to create a believable character. If you have a tough time watching a person constantly abandoning weapons along with common sense, this film will frustrate you.

The excellent grindhouse violence and style are only equaled by the utter and distressing ridiculousness of the plot. So, even Steven, I guess.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: How to Make a Killing, Psycho Killer, Man on the Run & More

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On this week’s Screening Room podcast, Hope & George break down this week’s new releases: How to Make a Killing, Psycho Killer, Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, The Oscar Nominated Short Films, This Is Not a Test, The Last Sacrifice, The Dreadful, Diabolic, Kokuho, and Ghost Train.

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Teenage Wasteland

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This Is Not a Test

by Hope Madden

Take The Breakfast Club, eliminate the humor and add zombies and you’re headed in the direction of Adam MacDonald’s This Is Not a Test.

Olivia Holt is Sloane, an utterly miserable teenage girl. Her older sister took off, leaving her alone with her abusive dad. And if that’s not enough, the zombies are here. And not that slow, rambling kind. It’s the red-eyed, fast moving, pissed off kind.

MacDonald, working from a script he co-wrote with Courtney Summers, pays tribute to his Z-film inspirations the moment Sloane steps out onto her front porch to take in the suburban carnage.

So, yes, both Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake—among others—get a nod. Which makes you wonder, as you must wonder every time somebody makes another zombie movie, why do it? What new idea can you bring to the genre?

I suppose it’s the teen angst angle that John Hughes exploited for an entire career. And though there are cinematic pauses (human reactions lagging to frustrating slowness so the camera can witness the unfurling action), stupid choices (almost a necessity in most horror flicks), and a lot of shouty drama, somehow it feels likelier given that our protagonists are all high school seniors.

They can be dramatic with their friends, that’s all I’m saying.

Holt is solid and the young cast around her ably handles the melodrama and action. Corteon Moore is particularly impressive in the kind of Alpha male jock character rarely allowed nuance.

Likewise, Luke Macfarlane pops in mid film to be unseemly, desperate and creepy in equal measure.

Sloane’s arc is not with her classmates, though, but with her sister. There’s a simplicity to the arc that allows the carnage to get showy without overpowering it. But that simplicity adds to the film’s relative ordinariness.

There’s nothing bad about This Is Not a Test. Yes, character behavior is often frustrating, but not in a way that makes caricatures out of characters. The problem is that there’s nothing exceptional about the film, either.

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A House Divided

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Kokuho

by Matt Weiner

A sprawling epic about the orphaned son of a yakuza boss and his single-minded dedication to becoming the greatest kabuki actor of his era is now Japan’s highest grossing live-action movie. After three hours of near total immersion in the kabuki world, it’s easy to see why.

Sang-il Lee’s adaptation of Shuichi Yoshida’s novel Kokuho kicks off with a gripping gangster showdown that leaves Kikuo (Ryo Yoshizawa) without a family or direction in life. An impromptu performance on that fateful night provides a lifeline to a different path when his innate acting talent is recognized by the revered kabuki actor Hanai Hanjiro II (Ken Watanabe).

Hanjiro offers the boy a home—along with a rigorous, even physically abusive apprenticeship—much to the chagrin of Hanjiro’s son, Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama). Where Kikuo has the otherworldly talent and dedication of an outsider, Shunsuke is cocky and lazy, his status protected by the conservative traditions of kabuki and family bloodlines.

When Kikuo’s fortunes rise as Hanjiro’s favorite heir, a confrontation with Shunsuke seems inevitable. And so it is, but in ways that end up being far more complex, moving and unexpected than the pair’s rivalry first suggests. The story (adapted by Satoko Okudera) has the length and breathing room to pack in its fair share of rises and falls, but a deftness is always there to defuse the melodrama in favor of a slow burn that the rivals carry with them across decades.

Kokuho is after a more spiritual catharsis, made all the more potent with the demanding strictures of kabuki that fill almost all the time spent with the stage actors. Lee provides only glimpses of a rapidly modernizing country beyond the walls of the stage. And yet the weight of these changes is felt all around, as patrons come and go, living legends die and families grapple with what this artistic pursuit means and whether or not it’s worth it.

Watanabe is born to his role, with an uncanny ability to summon warmth, fear and regret with the briefest of expressions. His sons, both chosen and adopted, are locked into a replay of the sins of the father, and Yoshizawa and Yokohama play off each other to heartbreaking effect.

Kokuho devotes extensive time to the kabuki performances themselves, not just the rehearsals. The art direction from Yohei Taneda is a stunning highlight of the film, and goes a long way toward explaining even to an audience unfamiliar with kabuki why Kikuo believes the sacrifice to be worth it in the name of art. And that is the question being asked, by Kikuo and those whose lives he alters for better and worse. What if we’ve misunderstood the Faustian bargain all these years? Maybe the devil can have our best interests at heart too, if it means achieving the sublime for even a moment.

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C’est Ce Se

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Psycho Killer

by Hope Madden

Gavin Polone’s Psycho Killer had one strike against it going in, for me. The film takes us along for the ride on the Satanic Slasher’s cross-country killing spree.

And while James Preston Rogers cuts an impressive figure as the serial killer at the center of this cat and mouse chase, a Satanic murderer is a conservative straw dog cliché as tired and damaging as witches, maybe worse.

That aside, Polone, working from a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, The Killer, Metalocaplyse: Army of the Doomstar), crafts a taut thriller.

Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) is Trooper Jane Archer. After witnessing her husband’s murder, Archer determines to take the shot she missed and put an end to the Satanic Slasher.

Campbell delivers a properly heroic performance. Smart, driven, and with an aggressive lack of cooperation from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies but nothing to divide her attention, Archer figures out the psycho’s trajectory.

And though her story involves one almost inescapable cliché, having a woman play the cop who misses the shot that could save their spouse and then, job be damned, scours the country to kill the bastard—it’s a nice gender role reversal.

The villain’s concept impresses: the hair, the mask, the coats, the voice. His mythology is sometimes clunky, other times lazy, but it’s rarely the backstory that makes a villain memorable. This guy’s creepy.

Logan Miller offers solid support with limited screentime. Likewise, Malcolm McDowell lends his unmistakably infernal voice to great effect, providing the film with a bit of dramatic flourish. But otherwise, Psycho Killer blends police procedural and revenge flick with plenty of tension and not a lot of fanfare.

There’s fairly little onscreen violence. Though an awful lot of grisly carnage is mentioned, there are only a few scenes in the film depicting it. Two of them are grimly subversive and worth the ticket price.

The third act comes seems to come from nowhere, but it’s a big capper to the slow building momentum of the Slasher’s bloody journey. Psycho Killer isn’t perfect, but it’s a tight, entertaining bit of a thrill.

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Monster-in-Law

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The Dreadful

by Hope Madden

Have you ever seen Kaneto Shindô’s1964 masterpiece Onibaba? Dude, you should!

Writer/director Natasha Kermani’s latest film, The Dreadful, reteams Game of Thrones stars Sophie Turner and Kit Harington, alongside the flawless as ever Marcia Gay Harden, in a medieval retelling of the same Buddhist parable that inspired Shindô’s tale.

Turner is Anne, a pious young woman whose husband Seamus (Laurence O’Fuarain) has been called up to fight in 15th Century England. She lives on the outskirts of a tiny hamlet near the sea, in a hovel with her mother-in-law, Morwen (Harden).

Times are tough for the two women, and before too long, Morwen’s exploiting Anne’s naivete with ever darker schemes to earn money. But when Seamus’s friend returns home without him, Morwen sees a future without a son, without Anne, and with very little hope for survival.

Morwen tries to convince Anne that leaving her would be an unforgivable sin, damning Anne to hell. Out of the other side of her mouth, Morwen contends that the increasingly bloody criminal activity the women are involved in is, in fact, entirely forgivable.

Seamus’s friend Jago (Harington), the bearer of bad news, has other plans for Anne and they definitely do not include her mother-in-law. Because Kermani’s take on the parable sees Anne as the protagonist, the battle then is her own fight between piety, devotion and pity, and a second chance at love.

Unfortunately, Anne is an impossible character. There is no conceivable logic to a choice to stay with Morwen, so no real conflict of any kind. While she seems to feel pity and some fear for her mother-in-law, she doesn’t seem to harbor any guilt for her own complicity in the crimes, or worry over punishment of any sort, criminal or spiritual.

If Turner never manages to convey a clear character, Kermani seems equally mystified. The final act of the film is unearned and unsatisfying.

It might be too much to hope for some of the visual majesty and honest to God horror of Shindô’s film, but Kermani can’t find her own way through the parable well enough to leave an impression.

You should definitely watch Onibaba, though.

Outtakes

Off the Rails

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Ghost Train

by Rachel Willis

Several strange incidents at a subway station spark the curiosity of a YouTube content creator in director Se-woong Tak’s film Ghost Train.

To understand the real issues surrounding the rash of bizarre occurrences, Horror Queen Da-kyeong (Joo Hyun-young) bribes tales from a station master (Jeon Bae-soo) with fancy spirits (some of which I wouldn’t mind trying).

As the station master spins each yarn, we’re privy to what really happens to each person at the center of the individual tales. At times, what we’re shown during the movie is not what appears on the surveillance tapes the station master shows to Da-kyeong.

There are several unsettling concepts at work to help unnerve the viewer. A woman who repetitively bangs her head against the train door sends passengers scurrying to another car. This is a motif that pops up at different moments, helping to create an atmosphere of dread.

Each of the station master’s stories has a uniqueness that makes the movie flow like an anthology horror. However, the style and atmosphere remain consistent, setting a creepy tone throughout.  

The framing story is the movie’s weak link. The Horror Queen herself isn’t nearly as compelling as the individuals in the station master’s tales. Da-kyeong’s nemesis at work is a stereotypical mean girl, and her work love interest is about as interesting as a blank sheet of paper. It’s with impatience that we wait for the next of the station master’s tales.

However, as the film enters the final act, the framing story picks up steam. As Da-kyeong learns more about the station and its history, her story starts to get its teeth.

Unfortunately, those teeth are never quite sharp enough to explain the overall mystery around the ghost train. While there are a lot of memorable and interesting parts, they never quite come together as single narrative. That said, the movie is creepy enough to remain interesting, and overall, an intriguing series of ghost stories.

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I’m With the Band

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Paul McCartney: Man on the Run

by George Wolf

A seasoned filmmaker like Morgan Neville is smart enough to know that with Paul McCartney as your documentary subject, you gotta pick a lane and focus.

For Man of the Run, Neville picks a good one: how on Earth do you approach following up your stint in the most culturally significant band of all time?

Think about it. If you count Pete Best (first drummer), plus Stu Sutcliffe (original bassist) and even Jimmy Nicol (temporary tour replacement for a sick Ringo), they’ve been only seven souls in history who faced life as a “former Beatle.”

And McCartney is the most commercially successful, by far. Man on the Run takes us inside Paul’s strategy for that second act.

Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Piece by Piece, Steve! and the Oscar-winning 20 Feet From Stardom) keeps mainly to the ten year period after Paul’s first solo album in 1970 officially signaled the end of the Beatles. Using archival photos, videos, interview clips and animation, Neville plays with an engaging audio/visual style that often mirrors a mixed-media scrapbook.

He also keeps a tight reign on the time stamp, limiting more recent interview clips (from Mick Jagger, Chrissie Hynde, Paul’s adult kids and others) to audio only, so as not to break the immersive spell that keeps us close to McCartney’s head space at the time.

And we hear and see much from the man himself. His thoughts on forming Wings with first wife Linda are endearing and self-reflective. He was seeking to combat his crushing fame by surrounding himself with bandmates, but couldn’t completely quell the ego and drive that made many of them feel like mere sidemen.

Home movies from down on his farm are warm and loving, much like the sentiments on John Lennon and some very early days with the Fab Four.

And you’ll probably learn a thing or two you didn’t know about the infamous pot bust in Japan.

But above all, Man on the Run succeeds in its mission to reconsider an important decade in the life of an icon. We see a man seeking a new kind of contentment at home and on the run, making music that only became more impactful and influential as the bands played on.

In theaters 2/19 and on Prime Video 2/27.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?