Monthly Archives: October 2023

Nightmares Film Festival

The Wheel of Heaven

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by Hope Madden

The Wheel of Heaven delivers oddball charm and horror in equal measure.

What’s it about? That’s an excellent question, and not a simple one to answer. We seem to be stuck on late night, all access TV, which is running through a wild set of programs and sponsors. (My favorite sponsor is Rad Abrams, Skateboard Attorney.)

And my favorite show is undoubtedly The Uncle Bobbo Show, which was also the focus of director Joe Badon’s 2021 short, The Blood of the Dinosaurs.

Kids’ TV host Uncle Bobbo (an eerily unblinking Vincent Stalba) wants to teach us where oil comes from. With assistance from his vampire puppet co-host Grampa Universe (voiced by John Davis) and his young helper Purity (Stella Creel), he seeks to enlighten and entertain. And misinform. It’s sort of a Pee-wee’s Playhouse for sociopaths. If that does not seem like a ringing endorsement, you’re not reading it correctly.

So, we’re watching highly local TV programming. Or are we? Maybe each story is a little diorama dreamt up by local artist Margaret Corn (Kali Russell)? Or perhaps we may instead be reading along with Marge the Mechanic (Russell again), who picked up a “choose your adventure” book at a thrift store.

Russell plays at least half a dozen distinct but related characters, each a fully formed and often bizarre individual. Her range and effortless skill with characterization ground the segments in something tangible, however goofy the character.

Whether these characters are part of a book, TV programming or one artist’s imagination is irrelevant. Badon’s upended the concept of a framing story for what is essentially an anthology of short films. Every tale, including the framing stories, morph and mutate and as each folds in on itself, Badon and his crew appear to emphasize the illusion versus reality of this absurdist storytelling.

What else does Badon hit on? Birth. Death. Choice. 3D glasses. Kitch. Homage. Dinosaurs. Storytelling. But mainly creation and how the act of creating is linked to all of these. The Wheel of Heaven throws a lot at you and not all of it hits, but Badon’s instinct for the bizarre, humorous and horrific generate a wonderfully oddball effort.

Nightmares Film Festival

Departing Seniors

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by Hope Madden

With her feature debut, director Clare Cooney skates some familiar ice but tweaks the high school slasher enough to produce a charming, compelling and strangely fresh slasher with Departing Seniors.

Jose Nateras’s script centers on Javier (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), a high school senior who loves his best friend Bianca (Ireon Roach) and his gig on the high school paper, and maybe new guy William (Ryan Foreman). Otherwise, high school blows, but it’s almost over and then – even if Ginny (Maisie Merlock) steals his slot as valedictorian – he and Bianca will be out of this Podunk town and on to better things.

Graduation can’t come soon enough, though, because Ginny and her letter-jacket buddies have amped up the bullying. Things are so bad Javier barely even notices when the first of the popular jock dumbasses dies in the pool of apparent suicide.

At its best, Departing Seniors breathes life into the tropes of coming-of-age horror films. Cooney has gathered a truly talented and memorable group of young actors to elevate a clever if somewhat predictable take on the high school slasher. This cast, top to bottom, impresses and Nateras writes characters that they can sink their teeth into.

Diaz-Silverio reimagines the bullied teen with tenderness, resilience and humor. An exceptional, empathetic central figure, it is impossible not to root for Javier. 

Roach continues her streak (after Jennifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin and Perpetrator as well as Nia DaCosta’s Candyman) of carving memorable characters regardless of screen time. She brings a relatable, cynical humor that also emphasizes Javier’s kindness.

The traditional plotting eventually limits the film’s creative success and the speechifying undoes a lot of the nuanced storytelling that preceded it, but you never stop caring about the characters. Departing Seniors subverts every one-dimensional high school slasher cliché to deliver a startlingly empathetic and effecting thriller.

Nightmares Film Festival

Cryptids

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by Rachel Willis

In the anthology horror film Cryptids, horror veteran Joe Bob Briggs plays radio show host Major Harlan Dean. Dean hosts the call-in show, The Truth Serum. With that kind of name, you might suspect a show dedicated to all manner of conspiracy-style neuroticism. However, in the episode we’re privy to, Dean’s focus is cryptozoology – he wants callers to recount their encounters with cryptid creatures. 

By setting up the framing story this way, each call into the radio show becomes its own entry. As with any anthology horror, some of the shorts are better than others. In this case, all deal with creepy creatures – some familiar beasties, like chupacabras, and others that are unique to this movie. 

The first segment is a bit of a stretch for its inclusion in a film about cryptids since the creatures in question are technically human. However, they’re creepy and unnerving enough that you probably won’t mind their presence. The first short is also a nice warm up for what’s to come. It’s not the best of the bunch, but it’s fun and just a little creepy.

Since each mini movie has only so much time to work with, every short opens with a call into Dean’s show before jumping right to the heart of the matter – the monsters.

The movie’s best aspect is the creature effects. Each creature has its own unnerving features, and each is unique, though some resemble monsters you may have seen before. Little creatures that hatch from a giant egg were my personal favorite beasties as they were both creepy and adorable (something only a mother could love?).

There is always a certain amount of enjoyment that comes with anthology horror since you’re not always sure what will come next. While in this case, it’s clear to be some kind of creature, what they are and what they do is where the fun comes in. Some of the creature antics are gruesome, leaving no shortage of gore and carnage in many of the segments. While the writing can sometimes leave a little to be desired, the film’s overall effect is entertaining. If you like creature features, each of Cryptids little creature slices is enjoyably nasty.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Hats in Horror

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Hats! They tell you a lot about a villain. Norma’s lightning bolt hat in Carrie tells us that she lacks fashion sense. Leprechaun’s golden buckled hat tell us that he’s sassy. Art the Clown’s tiny little hat lets us know that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. The Wicked Witch of the West wore the greatest, most iconic villain hat of all time, but The Wizard of Oz is not horror, so she didn’t make this list.

Who did make our list of best use of hats in a horror movie? Let us share with you.

5. The Grabber, The Black Phone (2021)

Ethan Hawke’s look for Scott Derrickson’s adaptation of the Joe Hill short story is epic. The constantly evolving, endlessly sinister mask is the push over the cliff, but it all starts with that hat. A black top hat not unlike the one that brought Frosty to life, this hat means magic.

He is a part time magician, after all! And in 1973, I guess people did not se magicians or clowns as scary. But they should have.

4. Mr. Dark, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Another dark top hat, Mr. Dark’s headwear of choice also conjures the image of magic. But somehow, even in Green Town, Illinois, Mr. Dark doesn’t look out of place with so formal a look. Sure, every other Joe wears something less fancy, but on Mr. Dark, the hat seems perfectly in place.

That’s all part of his charm.

3. Alex, A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The bowler – headwear of choice for Alex and his Droogies. You have to look sharp when on the prowl for a bit of the old in and out.

The iconic costuming in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece adaptation of Anthony Burgress’s novel creates the mood for the piece. Somehow retro and futuristic, elegant and brutal, punk rock and Ludwig Van all come together in this one ensemble: white trousers, white shirt, white cod piece, and suspenders, black boots, one set of black lashes and that spiffy bowler. Welly, welly, welly, welly well.

2. The Babadook, The Babadook (2014)

If it’s in a word, or if it’s in a book
you can’t get rid of the Babadook.
He wears a hat
he’s tall and black
but that’s how they describe him in his book.
A rumbling sound, than three sharp knocks
you better run, or he’ll hold you in his locks.
ba-ba-ba-dook-dook-dook…
Your closet opens
and your honestly hopin’
that he won’t hear a sound
but that’s when you know that he’s around.
The book close
you have an itch under your nose
and that’s just how the story goes.
So close your eyes and count to ten
better hope you don’t wake up again.
‘Cause if it’s in a word, or if it’s in a book
you can’t get rid of the Babadook
…. you’ll see him if you look

1. Rose the Hat, Doctor Sleep (2018)

Possibly the hottest villain since Salma Hayak wrapped a yellow python around her neck, Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) will swallow your soul.

Ferguson’s performance is eerily, hauntingly believable in Mike Flanagan’s courageous take on Stephen King’s The Shining sequel. Of his many successes with this film, his villain ranks highest. Rose the Hat is savvy, strong, and more than anything, merciless.

New In Theaters

Let’s Go Bowling

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Saturn Bowling

by Matt Weiner

The sins of the father might be laid upon the children. But it’s the women who suffer the most in Saturn Bowling, a tight and gripping French noir from director Patricia Mazuy (Paul Sanchez Is Back!).

Police detective Guillaume (Arieh Worthalter) inherits a bowling alley from his late father. Too busy to run the business himself, he allows his estranged half-brother Armand (Achille Reggiani) to oversee the alley’s operations.

While Guillaume tracks a brutal serial killer who is violently attacking and murdering young women, he must also juggle a new relationship with animal rights activist Xuan Do (Y-Lan Lucas) while keeping his father’s rowdy hunting buddies happy at the bowling alley.

It’s not a murder mystery—we know right away who the killer is, even if it takes Guillaume too long to realize the suspect is someone close to home. But it’s the killer’s motivations (as well as the unflinching misogynistic rage) that makes Mazuy’s thriller so deeply discomfiting.

Saturn Bowling is also sumptuously filmed, with the bowling alley’s seedy nighttime scenes bathed in deep blacks, reds and blues. And the daytime offers little respite. As befits this neo-noir, there are no heroes to be found.

Worthalter and Reggiani are well-matched to fill in the blanks in the brothers’ long-estranged relationship with their demeanors. The grizzled detective is a familiar character, but it falls to Reggiani to turn the cryptic Armand into a fully absorbing (if detestable) person. The film plays it coy at times with just what is haunting Armand, natural or otherwise. Which makes it incredibly effective and hard to watch when Reggiani unleashes the full extent of Armand’s perversity. The brothers’ fates take on almost Shakespearean proportions in the shadow of their dead father. Mazuy and co-writer Yves Thomas construct a seamy world where predators are constantly on the hunt, driven by almost supernatural forces that are beyond their grasp to understand, let alone stop and imagine what a less hateful existence may look like.

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Feeling Miskatonic

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Suitable Flesh

by Hope Madden

I’m going to guess Joe Lynch is a Stuart Gordon fan.

Who isn’t?!

The Mayhem director returns to the horror genre with a Lovecraftian fable, but this is no garden variety Lovecraft. Lynch’s vibe and manner – not to mention co-writer and cast – lean closer to Gordon homage than outright cosmic horror.

Lynch loosely adapts Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep, writing with Stewart’s longtime collaborator Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak, Dagon). Their tale shadows psychiatrist Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham), who – against her own better instincts – takes on a new patient. Asa (Judah Lewis) believes his father is trying to steal his body.

Cleaving to science and yet inexplicably attracted to the young man, Derby fails to understand her patient’s claims until it is too late – an evil entity has moved from Asa’s father into Asa and is now threatening to take over Dr. Derby’s body.

Graham’s a bit of campy fun in a dual role – far more fun when she gets to dig into the hedonistic villain character. It’s a performance that lets the actor stretch a bit and she seems to relish the darker side of the role. Likewise, Lewis excels in particular when the sinister force inhabits meek and terrified Asa.

Of course, no Gordonesque Lovecraftian flick is complete without the glorious Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak). Crampton’s Dani, Derby’s uptight colleague and best friend, becomes an ideal foil for the transformed psychiatrist. Graham and Crampton vamp it up as the demon oscillates between them, which is as much fun as it sounds like it would be.

The film feels very much like a Dennis Paoli film and fans of his Gordon collaborations have reason to celebrate. But Suitable Flesh doesn’t entirely deliver on its promise of mayhem. It never quite leaps off that cliff the way Paoli films usually do and for that reason feels a tad tame.

But a game cast and a bit of 80s inspired lunacy ensure a good time is had by all. Plus, that’s a great title.

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Kings, Queens and Pawns

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Killers of the Flower Moon

by George Wolf

“Can you find the wolves in this picture?”

The question comes from a book on Osage Indian history that Ernest Burkhart is perusing, and it’s one that lingers throughout Martin Scorsese’s triumphant epic Killers of the Flower Moon.

After serving as a cook in WWI, Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) has come home to work for his uncle William “King” Hale (Robert De Niro) on an Oklahoma ranch. But while King is a wealthy powerbroker in the town of Fairfax, he laments that his “cattle money” is nothing next to the oil money of the Osage tribe, at that time the richest people per capita on the face of the Earth.

The Osage natives are worried, too, about the price of assimilation, the dangers that come with the comforts of wealth, and the white men eager to marry into their money.

King assigns Ernest a job driving for the reserved, pensive Mollie (Lily Gladstone). And when the couple marries, King calmly explains to Ernest how much closer the legal union puts them to the oil shares in Mollie’s family.

But Ernest has trouble “finding the wolves,” and as unsolved murders of the Osage people begin to mount, Ernest is drawn into a quagmire of lies and killings that eventually brings federal investigator Tom White (Jesse Plemons) and his team to Fairfax.

Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth adapt David Grann’s nonfiction book with an engrossing mix of true crime fact-finding, slow burning thrills and devastating heartbreak. The characters are rich in culture and in shades of human grey, each one caught in an infamous crossfire of American envy, arrogance, bigotry and greed.

Expect multiple notices in the coming awards season.

Editing from three time Oscar-winner Thelma Schoonmaker is subtle and patient, every frame buoyed by a mesmerizing, evocative score that is sure to land the legendary Robbie Robertson posthumous nominations, right beside those of an acting ensemble that is don’t-forget-to-breathe tremendous.

De Niro makes King a scheming sociopath hiding in plain sight, with his kindest words saved for those he is most gaslighting. DiCaprio has never been better, as the simple Ernest’s journey from war hero to murder suspect is both a singular character study and a broad personification of confident ignorance.

Every member of the cast, from familiar faces such as Plemons, John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser to lesser known actors like Jason Isbell, Cara Jade Myers and William Belleau, brings limited roles to wonderfully realized fruition.

But it is Lily Gladstone who carries the very soul of this film. Mollie is a woman very aware of the daggers that are out for her people. She wants desperately to trust in her husband and their future, and the deeply held emotion that Gladstone (Certain Woman, First Cow) is able to communicate – often with her eyes alone – is a masterful thing to behold.

Scorsese and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Barbie, The Irishman, Brokeback Mountain, Silence) find beauty in the expanse of the landscape, intimacy in moments of violence and betrayal, and a purposeful sense of history in the way numerous snapshots are held for an extra beat.

Still, not one moment of the film’s three hours and twenty-six minutes feels like filler. This is majestic, vital storytelling, from a legendary filmmaker who has not lost the drive to push himself. Beyond his clickbait comments about superhero franchises, here is proof that Scorsese still finds plenty on the big screen that inspires him.

He has given credit to Ari Aster for Flower Moon‘s committed pacing, while the film’s surprising finale feels directly influenced by Spike Lee’s success with connecting past and present via bold and challenging choices.

Like Lee, Scorsese is out to document American history while pointing out why so many look to bury it. The correct answer isn’t that there are no wolves in the picture, and Killers of the Flower Moon is a searing reminder that we can’t move forward together until we’re brave enough to confront where we’ve been.

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Munchausen by Comedy

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Sick Girl

by Christie Robb

There’s gotta be a better name for a woman suffering from Peter Pan Syndrome than “Princess Pan.” Whatever it is, Wren Pepper in first-time writer/director Jennifer Cram’s Sick Girl has a terminal case.

The last single party girl left standing from a formerly tight squad, Wren watches her besties growing up and growing apart. Two are moms struggling through the fog of fatigue caused by cute but demanding young children. One is wrapped up in her boyfriend and training for a marathon.

No one wants to get drunk and hit the club anymore.

So, in a desperate bid for her friends’ attention, Wren invents a cancer diagnosis. Cause nothing brings folks together quite like the big C.

That this is an effective strategy is undeniable. Keeping your girlfriends company during chemo is the middle-aged equivalent of the early 20s puke vigil, where you hold a pal’s hair back as they vomit up too many sugary cocktails and you make sure they fall asleep on their side.

The problem is that lying about a cancer diagnosis is something that’s damn hard to come back from once the truth is out there.

Sick Girl is often charming. Nina Dobrev (the CW’s Vampire Diaries) imbues Wren with a reckless self-centered charisma that makes it tough to look away. The chemistry between the reconnecting girlfriends is delightful. And it’s satisfying to watch Wren squirm as the guilt about her lies mounts.

But, even though I wanted to take my disbelief and give it some drawing paper and a pack of crayons to keep it busy in a corner, it kept wandering back demanding attention. Cause a lie on this scale isn’t an aw-sucks wacky personality quirk. It’s too big. Too devastating. There’s a clinical diagnosis for faking an illness to get attention: Munchausen’s Syndrome. So wrapping the story up with a nice little bow at the end doesn’t really work. The ending feels unearned.

I don’t know how you can redeem Wren, short of her going to medical school, kicking all manner of ass, and actually finding a cure for cancer.

Still, if you can successfully distract your sense of disbelief, there’s a lot to enjoy in Sick Girl, including  Wendi McLendon-Covey (The Goldbergs) as Wren’s mom, Wren’s reaction to children in general, and watching this deluded narcissist suffer her way into personal growth. But, the film whiffs on opportunities to flesh out the personalities of the other three friends and show what Wren is bringing to the friendship table besides tequila shots and chaos.

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Proceed with Caution

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Waiting for the Light to Change

by Rachel Willis

The quarter-life crisis. From the hindsight of middle-age, it seems an enviable position to be in. Yet, the memory is fresh enough to recognize the anxiety, loneliness, and a certain longing for direction. Director Linh Tran captures the feeling with heartfelt tenderness in her film Waiting for the Light to Change.

Falling between the ages of 23 and 25, several friends, including Amy (Jin Park) and Kim (Joyce Ha), have gathered at a beach house. Kim has a boyfriend, a career, and enough money to allow Amy to join the group. Amy, on the other hand, is single and back in school because she couldn’t find a job.

Kim’s cousin Lin (Qun Chi) has recently broken up with a beloved boyfriend because the distance between the United States and China was too great.

Tran mines the tumultuous years after college to examine characters on the verge of their adult lives. Amy’s loneliness pushes her to do things she might not otherwise do. The aimlessness Jay (Sam Straley) feels leads him to make decisions he later regrets.

And though they have the connection of a lengthy friendship, Amy and Kim’s conversations are often fraught with tension. The early- to-mid 20s is a period when many start to realize a friendship made in youth may be toxic.

The film loses its momentum as it moves toward its climax. The group’s apathy starts to manifest in more solid ways, which detracts from the affecting dialogue. As images take the place of realistic and uncomfortable moments between characters, the movie flounders.

A few moments try too hard for profundity and instead stumble over stereotypical conversation. It’s disappointing that these unnatural moments shoulder their way into a film more notable for its naturalism.

However, Waiting for the Light to Change rights itself as it progresses. As relationships rupture, we’re drawn into the turmoil that often plagues adolescents as they struggle to find their way into adulthood.