Monthly Archives: January 2023

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best Lakeside Horror Movies

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To some, it’s a lovely spot for a holiday or a proposal or just a little picnic. But we know better. Filmmakers have long taken advantage of the idyllic yet dangerous nature of a lake for horror. Almost always, it’s the irony, of finding death and mayhem exactly where you’re expecting joy and frivolity that makes lakeside horror so compelling.

Here are our favorite horror movies side at a lake.

5. Lake Mungo (2008)

This deceptive slow boil of a documentary is two movies in one: the one you think you’re watching and the one beneath. The obvious film is a clever true-crime bit, constantly introducing new information and fascinating twists, each delivered by incredibly authentic performances.

Alice Palmer drownd. Her parents and brother are having a hard time accepting it, and the noises coming from her bedroom at night promote their skepticism. They investigate, turning up a lot of peculiar intel.

But writer/director Joel Anderson does more than lead you through a surprising mystery. He layers into that the melancholy lonesomeness that any ghost story must have, and the two stories together become one wonderfully sad film.

4. Lake Placid (1999)

Fun! Writer David E. Kelly is known more for his quirky TV series, but he takes the exact same approach –smart, bantering and bickering characters facing a huge challenge – to the big screen with this crocodile hunt.

Veteran horror director Steve Miner (Warlock, House, Friday the 13th parts 2 & 3) delivers thrills and comedy in equal measure, but the film lives and dies with this unbelievable cast.

Betty F. White and Brendan Gleeson! Both! And she tells him to suck her dick!! I don’t know what more you want, but you get Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Bill Pullman and Meredith Salenger in a fun, bloody romp.

3. Friday the 13th (1980)

Before the mask, Sean Cunningham’s 1980 slasher penned by Victor Miller created the splatter-by-numbers blueprint for dozens of horror movies to follow – including 10 of its own sequels. Friday the 13th was a cultural and cinematic turning point that changed horror and the way we thought about summer camp.

With next to no budget but plenty of short shorts, remarkable blood fx by maestro Tom Savini, genuinely original kill sequences, and a masterful twist ending, the film awakened something in moviegoers. It’s been copycatted to death, but upon reinspection, the original is still champion.

2. Funny Games (1997/2007)

A family pulls into their vacation lake home. They are quickly bothered by two young men in white gloves. Things, to put it mildly, deteriorate.

Writer/director/genius Michael Haneke begins this nerve-wracking exercise by treading tensions created through etiquette, toying with subtle social mores and yet building dread so deftly, so authentically, that you begin to clench your teeth long before the first act of true violence.

His 2007 English language remake is a shot-for-shot repeat of the 1997 German language original. In both films, it is the villains who sell the premise. Whether the German actors Arno Frisch and Frank Giering or the Americans Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt, the bored sadism that wafts from these kids is seriously unsettling, as, in turn, is each film.

1. Eden Lake (2008)

The always outstanding Michael Fassbender takes his girl Jenny (Kelly Reilly) to his childhood stomping grounds – a flooded quarry and soon-to-be centerpiece for a grand housing development. He intends to propose, but he’s routinely disrupted, eventually in quite a bloody manner, by a roving band of teenage thugs.

Kids today!

The film expertly mixes liberal guilt with a genuine terror of the lower classes. The acting, particularly from the youngsters, is outstanding. Most impressive, Jack O’Connell’s performance as the young psychopath is chilling.

There’s the slow boil of the cowardly self-righteous. Then there’s this bit with a dog chain. Plus a railroad spike scene that may cause some squeamishness. Well, it’s a grisly mess, but a powerful and provocative one. Excellent performances are deftly handled by the director who would go on to helm The Woman in Black.

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Post Traumatic

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Take Back the Night

by Hope Madden

It’s a story we all know too well, some of us better than others.

With their monster movie/social justice thriller Take Back the Night, co-writer/director Gia Elliot and co-writer/star Emma Fitzpatrick spin a pointed tale about a specific character. But the universality of this monstrous situation is never in question. There is only one character with a name, and that name is Jane Doe.

This could be anybody.

Jane has a lot to drink because she is celebrating. This is a big day. But something horrific is about to squeeze out any memory of the joy of this day as she finds herself alone in an alley with a malignant force.

What sets Take Back the Night apart from other similar films is that the attack itself is not the point. Neither is the attacker. Rather, Elliot and Fitzpatrick smack you with the trauma of surviving what comes next.

Jane submits to tests and procedures, swabs and scrapes, photos and questions — all of it tough to witness — with the resigned belief that this humiliation and pain will be followed by justice. Or at least a little sympathy.

Instead, of course, she finds judgment, harassment, disbelief and the threat of prosecution.

Interesting as well that men are mainly a non-presence in the film. There’s a brief interlude in the first act, although we barely glimpse the man’s face. Jane is later interviewed by a male police officer, although he’s never seen at all, only heard in voice-over. And then there is the attacker.

What we do see are the women involved: Jane’s sister, the detective on the case, the news reporter. There are friends and fans, a woman at the party. Not one of these women does the right thing.

That’s the focus of Take Back the Night. The actions of men are irrelevant in this world of overcoming the trauma of an attack, the filmmakers seem to say. What will kill you is being abandoned by the people who should know better, who should be able to empathize.

Fitzpatrick’s fiery performance gives the metaphor its heartbeat. Flawed and hostile, her Jane challenges status-quo thinking about how victims should behave, or what makes a woman a victim in the first place. Fitzpatrick delivers something raw and believable, anchoring the fable with realism.

Not every performance is as strong and the film’s microbudget rears its head on more than one occasion. But Take Back the Night and its filmmakers deliver thrills and realizations in equal measure in a memorable feature debut.

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Jackass Forever

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EO

by Hope Madden

Little donkeys are having their moment, aren’t they? EO, the star of Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest, has a lot to live up to if he’s going to shine as bright as The Banshees of Inisherin’s Jenny. Of course, he doesn’t have to share the spotlight quite as much.

This is not to say that the little grey donkey is alone for the narrative film’s 90 or so minutes. As he meanders across Europe on a grand adventure – well, life – he does come across any number of souls, some of them human (including a priceless cameo from the great Isabelle Huppert).

As we open, EO is a circus performer, beloved partner of the Great Kassandra (Sandra Krzymalska). But protestors shut down the circus, separating the two, and we follow EO.

Back in 2016, Todd Solondz made a profoundly Todd Solondz movie called Weiner-Dog that followed one dachshund through a number of different owners. Told in vignettes, the film provided a dog’s eye view on a world of pathos and existential dread. It was absurd.

As absurd as EO sounds on paper – a donkey’s perspective on life, more or less – Skolimowski is entirely, often gorgeously serious, and utterly sincere. Our hero – a sweet and good boy if ever there was one – is not anthropomorphized. He’s a donkey, always and only a donkey, but it is his point of view we take nearly the entire tale. The approach generates almost unendurable empathy because things do not always go well for little EO.

Michael Dymek’s camera doesn’t stay strictly with EO’s eye view. At times we soar above the trees with a bird, and there are moments of human interaction that take place just outside of EO’s perspective. These sequences are, above all, stunning to view. Dymek’s cinematography amplifies the danger and joy in freedom with exquisite framing and rapturous movement.

Skolimowski pieces these images together in ways to suggest constant peril as well as beauty. It’s an emotionally exhausting journey, equal parts wonder and pessimism, and it is absolutely unlike any other movie with a dachshund or donkey. It’s unlike any other movie, period.

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Polemic as Poetry

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I Didn’t See You There

by Matt Weiner

Early on in the documentary I Didn’t See You There, filmmaker Reid Davenport says that his new camera allows him to look for shapes and patterns in a way that wasn’t possible when he wasn’t the one physically filming his movies. Davenport succeeds, wildly—and the end result is so poetic, bracing and beautiful that it’s more than a bit of an understatement.

I Didn’t See You There is shot entirely from Davenport’s perspective. Often this is from his wheelchair, with unbroken shots on the streets of Oakland, California, that start to take on their own captivating rhythm. At least until Davenport is nearly taken out by inattentive drivers or forced to stop at a blocked crosswalk.

It’s a deeply personal and unabashedly political film. As Davenport shows, what other choice is there? Every public act, from taking the bus to using the ramp to get into one’s own home, becomes a negotiation with (at best) apathetic parties.

The presence of a circus tent in his neighborhood becomes a jumping-off point for Davenport to tie in the cultural history of the freak show and this country’s treatment of people with disabilities. It’s a connection Davenport can’t avoid—during a trip back east to his family, he points out that he shares a birthplace with P.T. Barnum.

At the same time, Davenport interrogates this throughout the film, his intimate filmmaking and perspective on the environment turn the personal documentary into a visually stunning meditation on the connections we have to our built environments.

Davenport’s eye calls attention to every bump in the street, or shrub encroaching on the sidewalk—there’s a fresh beauty to the tessellated patterns of urban design that he uncovers, and a hostility always there beneath the surface.

I Didn’t See You There presents an undeniably unique perspective. But it also feels impossible to view one’s own environment the same way afterward.

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Self Defense

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Saint Omer

by George Wolf

“I am not the responsible party.”

Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) admits that she deliberately left her 15-month old daughter on the water’s edge to die, alone at the mercy of the tide. But Mlle. Coly tells a court in Saint Omer, France that she is not to blame.

Rama (Kayije Kagame), a literature professor and novelist, has made the trip from Paris to attend Coly’s trial. Rama’s plan is to adapt the case into an updated version of the ancient myth of Medea (calculated revenge against an unfaithful husband). But Rama is now four months pregnant, and like Coly, she is a woman of Senegalese descent in a mixed-race relationship. And the more Coly defends herself, the more Rama feels a deepening kinship.

After a string of documentaries, writer/director Alice Diop moves into narrative features for the first time with her eye for authenticity intact. Coly’s case is based on an actual trial that Diop felt moved to attend in person, and she wrote Rama’s character to reflect her own experience.

Diop’s approach is strictly observational, and mostly anchored in the courtroom where Coly’s story is told, rebutted and debated. And though films with more tell and less show often suffer with emotional connection, Diop mines two impressive lead performances for resonance that comes from the things that are not being said.

Perspectives shift frequently, and an emotionally complex conversation emerges that begs for humanity in the midst of an unthinkable act. But no matter who may be speaking, or what side they may be on, we feel the bond growing between Rama and Coly, which makes Diop’s one overt camera move in the finale all the more worthy.

There is a judge in this French courtroom, but Saint Omer invites us to sit on the jury. It is a thoughtful and sensitive discussion that may surprise you. And it is one worth having.

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Come Upstairs

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Skinamarink

by George Wolf

(Tom Hanks SNL voice) “My name is Kyle Edward Ball…and I’m going to scare the HELL out of YOU!”

And you know what? He just might do it.

Be extra prepared if the title Skinamarink reminds you of those fun singalongs from Sharon, Lois & Bram. Because Ball’s brand of nightmare fuel taps into the very essence of childhood fears, exploiting those exposed nerves with a committed resolve we haven’t seen since Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man.

Is it safe? It is not.

Ball’s premise is brilliant simplicity. It’s 1995, and two young children, Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) and Kevin (Lucas Paul), wake in the night to find they are alone, with the windows and doors in their house suddenly gone. In an instant, the stakes are familiar – but not because you’ve seen this before.

It’s because there’s probably some version of this nightmare in your past. You were just a kid, separated from your parents and trying in vain to reach them or call out for help, or maybe just escape.

Remember how scared you were? Ball and cinematographer Jamie McRae do, and they twist that knife again and again for 100 slightly bloated minutes of dark, disorienting dread.

Cinematography and sound design are intertwined in an analog, cathode-ray aesthetic that recalls vintage, grainy VHS. The children whisper to each other (“Where do you think Dad is? I don’t know.”) as they wander from room to room, with Ball’s camera never allowing you one second of relief.

All through this fright night, familiar sources of comfort such as toys and cartoons turn eerily sinister, accentuating the feeling that it’s not just these kids that are in peril, it is childhood itself. POV is often at floor level, and then tight into a corner of the ceiling or high above the room and rising. You squint in the direction of the children’s flashlight, trying in vain to decipher anything about the house that will give you some sense of its layout, and you strain to separate the cracks of white noise from that deeper voice speaking to the children.

Come upstairs. Look under the bed. Close your eyes.

Ball started down this harrowing hallway by filming 3-4 minute short films of the actual dreams described by viewers of his YouTube channel. Some two years ago, his 29-minute short Heck emerged as the wonder of primal fear that inspired Skinamarink. And though it is a bit disappointing that the single most bone-chilling (and to be fair, most explanatory) moment of the short didn’t make it in the feature, Ball’s $15,000 budget buys much more killer than filler.

More than just nightmarish, this is a literal nightmare onscreen. And the intimate nature of nightmares means that the film’s patient, psychological assault is likely to bring out the “nothing happens!” barbs from those seeking more universally visceral thrills. But for others, the whispers of Skinamarink will hit like a sonic boom.

And they will be hard to shake.

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Hard Where

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Human Resources

by Tori Hanes

Are you one of those unfortunate movie-goers cursed with the gift of common sense? Do you find yourself balling your fists until your palms bleed, cheeks flushed, screaming at your screen: “why don’t you just LEAVE, dammit!” If so, Human Resources may not be the most enjoyable viewing experience for you.

An important caveat to this conversation is the semi-spectacular circumstances surrounding the film’s creation: first-time director Braden Swope wrote and presumably directed this film at the ripe age of 19. When I – and perhaps you – conjure the hazy memories of those formative years, the image of writing, directing, and editing a feature film doesn’t ring familiar. And the competence with which the feature is shot and edited is reason for praise. Kudos given where kudos are due.

Unfortunately, those may be the only kudos Human Resources receives in this review. Almost all the film’s shortcomings can be boiled to one issue: jagged, uneven exploration of tone. Demonic happenings in a creepy family hardware store headed by a clueless coward (Hugh McCrae Jr. playing protagonist Sam Coleman) – this plot synopsis sounds like a lobbed softball ready to orbit into a campy homerun. Sadly, the film is never able to reach that altitude. Instead, it dances ever so delicately around camp’s sharp edges, cutting itself while attempting entry. 

Without a playful side, the story begins to disintegrate into sickeningly serious – and of course, a tale this absurd requires overarching lightness to remain authentic. When the film loses whatever small touch of camp it had, fluorescent light blasts over its many flaws: a silly-but-not-endearing script, often comically bad acting, and obvious story holes. Without the backbone of camp, Human Resources becomes a flaccid mass. 

Human Resources cashes any moment of audience intrigue as permission to veer the wrong way down the road. As the intricate mystery begins to come together in a semi-satisfying way, the film adds on an additional 30 minutes that suffocates the momentum. An unseen twist is teased, and the reveal launches audiences back into eye-roll territory. When yin swallows yang, all that’s left is an unspectacular circle.

If you’re going to invest almost 2 hours in a modern horror flick, pick up something like Ready Or Not. Human Resources will fill you with all of the dread, none of the camp.

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Aimless Butterflies and Deluded Bees

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My Father Muhammad Ali: The Untold Story

by Daniel Baldwin

What becomes of the child of one of the most famous people in the world? What’s it like to have a father who you never really knew, because he was constantly on the road? What’s it like to have a mother that chose the fortune & glory of her husband’s life on the road over you? These are hard questions that this documentary is asking. Ones with very tough answers.

The title points toward a documentary focused on an untold side of Muhammad Ali’s life, but the actual film itself is almost entirely focused on the current life of one of his children, 50-year-old Muhammad Ali Jr. Junior has lived through decades of drug addiction, harassment, abandonment, financial issues, marital strife, etc. This is about him looking back at the trials, tribulations, and mistakes of his own life, in comparison to those of his iconic father.

Others are interviewed throughout – sometimes about Ali, sometimes about Junior – but Junior himself is the primary storyteller. He is an unreliable narrator; constantly dishing out his version of events and frequently dropping into unprompted impressions of his father as a defensive coping mechanism whenever his own faults are focused on too closely for his liking. It’s rather heartbreaking.

If that sounds compelling, it is, at least on paper. The filmmakers never seem to settle on any sort of thematic throughline for what they are showcasing, leaving the narrative (or lack thereof) being spun before us to just meander along in a highly segmented fashion. Because of this, the finished work feels less like a film and more like a miniseries that has been chopped down to feature-length.

The filmmakers know that Junior is often deceiving them, as well as himself, but outside of a few moments with a therapist, he is never called on it. Nor are enough witnesses to the contrary present to fully illustrate this. The sheer lack of voices from his early life leaves us with an unclear picture of his past. Context is key and this film is sorely lacking it.

There’s also the matter of his best friend/manager, who the filmmakers clearly do not entirely trust, but once again, they never bother to fully interrogate that. If they were intentionally leaving room for interpretation, they left too much. In the end, the final question is less “Are the sins of the father repeated by the son?” and more “Why does this film exist?”

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A Signature Challenge

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The Seven Faces of Jane

by Christie Robb

The Seven Faces of Jane is an experimental film made using the technique of “exquisite corpse,” an approach developed by surrealist artists in which a piece is made by multiple people.  Each artist contributes a part of the whole without knowing what the other artists are doing. 

Here, eight directors collaborated to make a film in which most scenes were created by directors largely ignorant of what the other directors were contributing. Each director knew where their scene would appear in the timeline of the film and was given instructions as to the setting and major event to take place.  Otherwise, they were given total creative freedom.

It’s a bit like the restaurant wars part of Top Chef, where contestants try to create a pop-up restaurant with a cohesive concept but each is responsible for one dish and must use it to articulate their entire cooking philosophy—to attempt to stand out and “put themselves on the plate.” This is usually fun and dramatic and results in some…inconstancies in the diners’ experience.  Stuff happens like three chefs will collaborate to make a soul food restaurant while the fourth serves up an Asian dish with a chiffonade of collard greens on the top as a superficial nod to the overall concept.

The Seven Faces of Jane generally works in the same manner. It’s fun to go if you are in on the concept and like seeing what professionals can do when faced with a novel challenge. But if you were just a hungry person looking for a good meal, you might lack the patience for this sort of thing.

Gillian Jacobs stars as the titular Jane and directs both the opening and closing frames of the story in which Jane drops her daughter off/picks her up at sleepaway camp. The other pieces explore, with varying degrees of success, who Jane is outside of her role as “mom.” Jacobs’s presence does a lot to maintain a generally melancholy throughline.

The outlier, the General Tso amongst the mac and cheese,  is the first scene inside the frame, “Jane2”, by Gia Coppola. This one reads as an homage to Guy Ritchie films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but with more surrealist elements. It’s weird and makes you think that the movie is heading off in a certain direction, which in the next scene, it just…doesn’t.  But, as “Jane2” occurs so early in the film and is so different from the rest, the jarring nature of it helps establish the kind of Frankenstein’s creation that is being brought to life. To place it elsewhere in the movie’s timeline would have been a mistake.

Not that there aren’t other weird scenes. There’s one where Jane is called in by her agent to audition for a role in a mausoleum where the casting directors mostly seem interested in what her uvula looks like and how she bleeds. There’s another scene that features a lengthy modern dance sequence.  It’s just that these scenes kinda flow better.

Ken Jeong makes his directorial debut in “The One Who Got Away.” Here Jacobs stars opposite Joe McHale and they get to reprise the chemistry and sharp banter that made them so fun to watch in Community. Overall, The Seven Faces of Jane is a fun experiment, and a great way for Jacobs to show her range, but something that a very small audience will likely be into. If you are just looking for a cohesive story to take you out of yourself for a couple of hours, you are probably better served elsewhere.