Monthly Archives: October 2022

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Sisyphean Strain

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Hinterland

by Tori Hanes

The fresh, filthy face of a collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire lays the backdrop of this twisting thriller from seasoned director Stefan Ruzowitzky. Weaving through the Tim Burton-esque sets with recently released POW Peter (Murathan Muslu), we experience the growing pains of the newborn society through Peter’s archaic eyes. While acclimating to a new existence in an unknown home, Peter must solve a string of serial murders closely related to him.

The immediate allure of this film is its artistic and fantastical surroundings. Ruzowitzky and cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels dive into the eerie pales and grays of a war-torn country, careful to showcase the pains of progress. While the crumbled empire charges ahead with blinders glued to its eyes, the history of the city remains looming – a visual concept the director and cinematographer ensure is consistently highlighted. 

The vision conjures a particularly moody 1980/1990’s Tim Burton. That comparison looms as evidently as the misshapen buildings, occasionally confusing the dark narrative in the semi-silly surroundings. Alas, though, this is perhaps an overly American way of viewing Ruzowitzky’s artistic choice.

The heightened demand of concentration on aesthetics masks some left-footed storytelling. Hinterland attempts to tackle a mountain of content: a rebirth of a nation, a traumatized POW’s place in his new society, a string of murders, romance, heartbreak – the list goes on. 

While the film never fully falls, there are stumbles and skips due to this oversized load. Eventually, Hinterland transfers the burden to the audience, who must decide if their concentration will go to the scenery, the intense performances, or the weaving story. You may feel your knees buckle and legs shake under the heap.

This does not equate to unpleasant viewing. If you’re willing to carry the pile, like Sisyphus, you may find enjoyment in the strain. 

Shudder Premiere

Monster House

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Deadstream

by George Wolf

If you’re old enough to remember Al Franken’s “one man news gathering unit” bits on SNL, you’ll get an extra few kicks out of Deadstream, a Shudder original that packs smart, sarcastic, silly and scary into a fun 87 minutes.

Joseph and Vanessa Winter share writing and directing duties, with Joseph also starring as Shawn Ruddy, a disgraced internet personality. After seven years hosting his “Wrath of Shawn” livestream stunt show, Shawn’s trying to win back the followers lost through a series of ill-fated hijinks (such as paying a homeless guy to fight him).

So Shawn figures there’s only way to pull off “the biggest comeback event since the first Easter.” He will confront his greatest fear live on camera.

Ghosts.

Strapping on a Franken-worthy solo streaming outfit, Ruddy begins a live broadcast from inside Death Manor, “the most haunted house in the United States.” Of course, the one man nature of Ruddy’s show means Joseph is the only actor in the early going, and he proves to be a naturally engaging and amusing guide through the possibly supernatural.

Even as the film’s pace moves from calm to chaotic, Joseph gives Ruddy some sharp comic timing, reacting to viewer comments with deadpan asides and his own accidental expletives with pleas of “don’t demonetize me!” Joseph is able to find that middle ground between clueless douchebag and lovable goofball, enough to make gags like Shawn’s cringe-worthy apology for a racist stunt land with a satirical LOL.

And just when you think this premise might be treading water, a Ruddy superfan (Melanie Stone) crashes the live stream to take the fear factor up more than a few notches.

The Winters also handled the film editing, which may be the real MVP. The multiple cuts between Ruddy’s camera, his computer screen, and security cameras in the house often come in a fast, furious nature, but the technical craftsmanship and narrative integrity never waver.

Deadstream is a slick piece of work. It lands solid wink-wink zingers at the expense of both horror tropes and internet culture, while earning the “horror” in horror comedy with some serious haunts in the house.

Log in, and smash that “like” button.

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I Guess This Is Growing Up

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Bromates

by Matt Weiner

Not to go Don Draper over a movie with an extended gag involving a dog and a condom, but Bromates isn’t a buddy comedy… It’s science fiction, letting us travel back to the early 2000s. This is a heady time, where men need a romantic contrivance to show emotion, women are cardboard cutouts and all manner of sin will be forgiven once you put on a shirt with buttons and confess to having “grown up.”

The ties to the past are strong, if not deep, with Bromates writer and director Court Crandall serving as one of the writers for Old School. And Bromates offers a superficial nod to that kind of throwback comedy, only with an even more threadbare setup.

Solar panel salesman Sid (Josh Brener) gets talked into moving in with his close friend Jonesie (Lil Rel Howery, one of the few bright spots in the movie) after both men are dumped by their girlfriends. Sid, consummate nice guy and eco-do-gooder, discovers his influencer girlfriend has been cheating on him with their next-door neighbor. And Jonesie is too immature, although for some reason the story codes “immature” as “hiring a sex worker while his girlfriend is out of the apartment.” (The nerve of that harpy to break up over a peccadillo.)

It’s important to stop here to point out that this is, without exaggeration, the extent of character development we get for the rest of the film. Jonesie concocts a plan to help Sid get over his breakup, there’s an impromptu trip to Texas that takes up a good chunk of the story but seems to exist solely to set up a Snoop Dogg cameo (which at least makes some sense, as he produced the film), and the rest of the time is devoted to Sid’s workplace drama. Also, somewhere along the way, Sid falls in love with a woman who is onscreen for maybe 5 total minutes.

Bromates is less a fleshed-out movie and more a series of bits, tossed out at a pace that feels desperate rather than zany. It’s a pattern that repeats itself so often that it goes from disorienting to discouraging. Nothing gets developed, nothing gets heightened. Ostensibly, this is a movie by people who understand this kind of comedy, but Crandall shows no interest in establishing an internal logic even by the low standards of the tropes the film leans on.

It’s not all bad. There’s an end credits bit that’s funnier and more pointed than what made it into the main movie. Plus the runtime is barely an hour and a half, so you don’t have to wait too long to get there.

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Which Witch

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Two Witches

by Tori Hanes

From first-time feature director Pierre Tsigaridis, Two Witches follows the familial inheritance of witch powers from grandmother to granddaughter, sparing no gory detail while examining the pair’s reign of terror. From eating babies to sexual satanism, Two Witches straps horror fans in and puts a cement block on the gas.

The first of two chapters starts without a bang- in fact, it fully embraces the mundane horror tropes of the past: haunted, creepy entity only visible to the hauntee, overly skeptical boyfriend, goofy nonbeliever friends. It dutifully, albeit spookily, hits the key beats of any witchy tale. If the film had stayed on this trajectory, the review would likely end here. 

Thankfully, Tsigaridis veered off course. The second chapter highlights the newly christened witch granddaughter (Rebekah Kennedy) and spins into a freshly horrifying tale, chalk to the brim with overt and delicious camp. Whether the film took the first chapter to find its footing or whether the sharp turn into camp was purposeful by Tsigaridis is unclear, but one thing is obvious: the first and second chapter feel almost like entirely different films.

Is the presence of two tonally different chapters in one movie jarring? Yes, a bit. Is it the best choice to create a continuous flowing narrative and feel? No, probably not. Is it interesting and largely unseen in the horror genre? Definitely. 

A struggle unique to this dramatic shift of tone is performance evaluation. Due to their largely different styles, holding performances to a consistent level is nearly impossible. While pregnant Sarah (Belle Adams) of the first chapter plays the disturbed victim well, witch Masha (Kennedy) delivers her newfound inheritance with intriguing camp in the second chapter. The two performances could not feel further from each other, though they both hold the title of protagonist for their respective stories. This confusion in differing performances inherently elicits an opinion of uncertainty from audiences. Unfortunately, ambivalence and uncertainty are perhaps the worst reactions a film’s protagonists could garner. 

For the most adrenaline-seeking among us, Two Witches has enough genuine scares to smooth over the narrative bumps. For the rest, the winding story may lead you off course. If audiences can embrace the uniqueness of the camp, however, it may be a welcomed detour.