Monthly Archives: March 2024

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Reptiles Never Say Die

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Riddle of Fire

by Matt Weiner

An inseparable band of foul-mouthed children drawn into a fairytale-like quest might sound very of the moment, but Riddle of Fire shows how much richness there is to explore in the hands of a unique voice that doesn’t settle for pastiche.

It’s hard to pin down any single genre that gets loving attention from writer-director Weston Razooli, but imagine the Goonies adventuring through the world of Mandy… and it only gets dreamier from there.

Children Alice (Phoebe Ferro), Hazel (Charlie Stover) and Jodie (Skyler Peters) liven up their summer vacation by stealing a video game console, only to be thwarted by a lock on the family television. In exchange for game time, the kids must bake a blueberry pie to cheer up Hazel and Jodie’s sick mother (Danielle Hoetmer).

When a key ingredient gets snatched up by John Redrye (Charles Halford), the trio—who call themselves the Immortal Reptiles—follow him back to his house, where he lives with the cult-like Enchanted Blade. When they accidentally stow away in the cult’s truck on a trip into the woods to hunt a prized stag, the group hardly notices that their afternoon has gone from whimsical fetch quest to life-or-death survival.

As the kids play a game of cat and mouse with the cultists, Razooli heightens the fairytale elements. The cult leader, a witch named Anna-Freya (played with beguiling menace by Crazy, Stupid, Love.’s Lio Tipton ), figures out they are not alone. It is only with the help of her daughter Petal (Lorelei Mote), a princess with powers of her own, that the children manage to outsmart the gang and escape back into town—but not away from danger.

Razooli’s mix of humor and danger ratchets up the suspense for any adult watching the movie even as the young heroes remain defiantly unbothered. It’s a proper fairytale, and also a stylish throwback to an era of movies that delight in the mischief of featuring young kids getting into real trouble.

But Riddle of Fire rises above other nostalgic retreads in the way it commits to the mystery and unease of the world Razooli creates for a remarkably assured feature debut. The film captures the spirit of adventure for weird kids in a grown-up world. And how sometimes it’s worth risking everything to play a cool video game.

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Our Lady of Fury

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Immaculate

by Hope Madden

Does Immaculate benefit from low expectations? Maybe, but I’ll tell you what, I did not hate this movie.

First of all, it looks great—and not just because it stars Sydney Sweeney. Sweeney plays Sister Cecilia, a Michigander transplanted to rural Italy in time to take her vows to become a nun. Her Italian is not very strong, and she sometimes feels like she’s being left out of conversations intentionally, but she takes her vows anyway: poverty, chastity, obedience.

For a lot of people, those first two seem like the tough ones. Nope. It’s the last one you have to avoid. (Note for the uninitiated, priests do not have to take a vow of obedience. And I don’t just mean in this movie.)

Anyway, miracle of miracles, Sister Cecilia finds herself pregnant.

Immaculate is not the first film to tread such unholy ground. Agnes of God, The Innocents, Deliver Us­—it’s actually a pretty long list. And sexy nuns, well that list is even longer and more sordid. Though Michael Mohan’s film certainly falls into the sexy nun trap (because it is, in fact, possible to hire women between the ages of 19 and 45 who are just ordinary looking), it’s rather surprising all he gets right.

The science gets dumb, but the self-righteous torture, that is spot on.

Working from a script by Andrew Lobel, Mohan mines the desperate helplessness of Rosemary’s Baby. And Sweeney does a fine job of swimming the murky waters of faith, innocence, and the wisdom born of innocence lost.

What’s most stunning is how well two male filmmakers channel female rage. And I don’t just mean the rage of having to sit through beautiful, nubile virgins bathing together in soaking wet white nighties. That too, but also the good kind of female rage.

Immaculate digs into the way organized religion constrains, punishes, silences, bullies, vilifies and oppresses women and then unleashes glorious fury. Fearless, cathartic, bloody, beautifully sacrilegious fury.

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After the Break: Dr. Joyce Brothers and a Demon!

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Late Night with the Devil

by George Wolf

Who remembers The Amazing Randi?

He was that magician, author and “professional skeptic” who would come on the Johnny Carson show to debunk anyone claiming to have supernatural, paranormal or occult powers.

Memories of Randi aren’t required to feel the pull of Late Night with the Devil, but if you grew up around 1970s TV, you’re likely to have an even deeper appreciation for this high-concept homage from filmmakers Cameron and Colin Cairnes.

The Australian brothers who gave us the terrific low budget horror 100 Bloody Acres have essentially crafted their found footage genre entry, all centered around broadcast and BTS footage from the last episode of Night Owls with Jack Delroy, a nighttime talk show trying to compete with Carson.

The film’s prologue—featuring foreboding narration from Michael Ironside—tells us that by the late 70s, Delroy (a terrific David Dastmalchian) had been worried about the future of the show, which led to a fateful gamble.

Cue the footage!

Delroy’s “Randi” is Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss, perfectly smug), who condescendingly debunks the show’s first guest, clairvoyant Christou (Fayssal Bazzi). Haig is then ready to do the same to Dr. June Ross-Mitchell’s (Laura Gordon) claim that her young patient Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) is possessed by a demon.

But Lilly’s got a surprise for sweeps week.

Cameron and Colin share the writing/directing duties, and they set an effective time stamp early on through solid production design and patient editing. The mood is one of appropriately cheesy humor amid some uneasy dread.

After all, we know what these wide-lapeled jokesters don’t: something nasty is about to go down.

The Cairnes boys take their time getting there, letting Dastmalchian reel us into Delroy’s easy charm and increasingly questionable backstory. Dastmalchian—a longtime supporting MVP blessed with a memorable face—is finally getting his chance to carry a film, and he does not disappoint.

Kudos also go out the effects department, rolling out a (mostly) practical finale that serves as a perfect capper to the film’s finely tuned aesthetic. Computer wizardry has no place in this world, and the Cairneses keep it refreshingly real.

Ultimately, what Late Night with the Devil has in mind is more like an R-rated Twilight Zone, with a twisty moral backed up by blood. Expect devilish fireworks and frisky throwback fun, even if you’re not scared out of your bellbottoms.

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Singing in the Rain

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You’ll Never Find Me

by Hope Madden

A somber experiment in atmospheric horror, Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell’s feature You’ll Never Find Me waits out a storm with a couple of curious characters.

Patrick (Brendan Rock) sits quietly if unhappily in the kitchen of his trailer. It’s late—after 2 in the morning—and he seems a tad morose. When a persistent knock on his door punctures the noise of the storm, he ignores it as long as he can.

Eventually, he admits a stranger (Jordan Cowan), barefoot, drenched and shivering. She was caught in the storm and just needs a ride to town.

At this time of night?

What’s really going on here?

The film feels lost in a dream—the lighting, the silences, the pair’s lonesome and broken expressions. The co-directors linger on the actors’ faces, allowing the paranoia to shift so you’re never fully sure of either character.

Everybody in You’ll Never Find Me moves slowly. Everything moves slowly. You don’t know who to trust because neither of these two seems to trust the other, and you can’t judge either of them for it. Surely, they’re not both up to something nefarious.

Maxx Corkindale’s sometimes roving camera reveals something creepy in the trailer’s tidy, tightly enclosed ordinariness. The sound design is hushed and foreboding, blending with Darren Lim’s score to work the nerves. The result allows the film to suggest something supernatural, although all other signs point to very human crimes.

A slow boil like this requires committed, compelling performances and both Cowan and Rock deliver. Eventually the gender politics on display unnerve, and what’s what the film is more than truly scary. It’s unnerving.

The third act doesn’t entirely deliver on the promise made earlier in the film, but Bell and Allen have crafted an unsettling and spooky feast for the senses.

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Fierce Love

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Coming to You

by Christie Robb

Writer/director Gyuri Byun’s Coming to You is a monument to the love and support families can provide for their children even if it takes the older generation a minute to get there.

The Korean documentary follows Hankyeol, a person who is gender-fluid, but pursuing a legal identification change from female to male. This requires the partnership of his mom, Nabi. (In Korea, up until 2019, this process required filling out 18 different legal documents—including parental approval regardless of the child’s age. So, even if you’re an adult in your 30s.)

Sharing the spotlight is Yejoon, a gay man, and his mom, Vivian. Initially, Vivian thought Yejoon would be better off living abroad for the rest of his life rather than living in a homeland that lacks same-sex marriage rights.

Right now Korea isn’t a super-friendly space for the LGBTQ+ community. But PFLAG (an international organization dedicated to support, education, and advocacy for LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones) and other groups are working to change that.

Coming to You, a documentary years in the making, illustrates the challenges and struggles of parents in a conservative society when they find out their kid doesn’t fit society’s expectations for who they are and/or how they behave. A society that can be hostile and violent. Homophobic. Transphobic. A society where suicide is the leading cause of death of people aged 10-39 (BBC).

But, it’s not all struggle. There’s hope and joy here, too—changes in the legal system, evolving attitudes after challenging conversations, fierce love and devotion. Support. Allyship. Love.

Centered on the mothers’ journeys to acceptance, the film could have benefitted from a deeper exploration of the children’s experiences. A few more interviews with them would have really strengthened the project.

But the moms are raw and honest, flawed but trying. And the extent they are willing to listen, love, and change to support their kids is just beautiful.

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Juiced Up and Sloppy

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Love Lies Bleeding

by Hope Madden

Awash in the stink and the glory of new passion, Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding treads some familiar roadways but leaves an impression solely its own.

Lou (Kristen Stewart) and her mullet work a shitty job in a low rent gym in a nowhere town, looking with disdain toward essentially everyone. Until Jackie (Katy O’Brian) blows into town from wherever and Lou can’t take her eyes off her.

But every stranger has a backstory, and that’s the rub of romance movies, isn’t it? Everybody’s fresh and clean. Not Lou and not Jackie, but for now, it’s all good. Jackie wants to go to Vegas and compete in body building finals. Lou wants Jackie.

Glass blends and smears cinematic gender identifiers, particularly those of noir and thriller, concocting an intoxicating new image of sexual awakening and empowerment. She routinely upends images of power and masculinity, subverting expectations and associations and fetishizing the human body anew.

For Lou and Jackie, love is a wild and dangerous drug, heady and unpredictable. The same sentence describes Glass’s film. She likes to make you uncomfortable, and as soon as you acclimate to one type of confrontation, she’s on to the next. But her style has energy to burn, and her leads are just as explosive.

The supporting cast—Jena Malone (obviously destined to play Stewart’s sister at some point), Dave Franco (with an even more impressive mullet), and the great Ed Harris—command attention with dimensional, damaged and damaging performances.

Glass is not out to break new ground, plot wise. The story is rock solid but delivers essentially a smartly crafted hillbilly noir thriller—a la Red Rock West, Blood Simple, Killer Joe— but with few truly surprising plot turns. The execution, however, is something you’ve never witnessed.

Anyone who’s seen Glass’s magnificent 2021 horror Saint Maud may be better prepared for the third act than newcomers to the filmmaker’s vision, but it’s a wild and unexpected turn regardless.  It’s quite something—bold, original, and wryly funny in the most unexpected moments. There’s heartbreak and horror, sex and revenge, a little magic and a lot of steroids. Glass’s juice has the goods.

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

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The Animal Kingdom

by Brandon Thomas

The relationship between Francois (Roman Duris) and his son Emile (Paul Kircher) isn’t just strained, it’s virtually broken. A mutation has swept the planet causing some people to transform into human-animal hybrids and Emile’s mother sits in a hospital as one of those affected. As Francois obsesses over treatment for his wife, he fails to notice the significant transformations occurring in his own son.

The Animal Kingdom surprises from the start with a focus squarely on the characters and their relationships, not the genre elements. What easily could have been typical genre fodder (and there’s nothing wrong with that from time to time) instead grapples with complex emotions and real-world metaphors. While the elements surrounding the mutations are visually impressive and interesting, Francois and Emile’s relationship anchors the film.

Speaking of the visuals, the make-up and added CG effects on the mutated are outstanding. The emphasis is placed more on the practical work, but the almost seamless blending of the two styles makes for an incredible final product. Not only do the character designs have an intriguing originality to them, but they also allow the characters’ humanity to bleed through. It’s an approach to visual effects that is unfortunately not the norm for these types of films. 

The Animal Kingdom’s commentary on real-world events is presented front and center, but not in an overly heavy-handed way.

Writer/Director Thomas Cailley and co-writer Pauline Munier have crafted a story that works on an emotional and visceral level, but also as a broader comment on newer diseases and the fear that it brings to the surface. It never feels like Cailley is preaching to the audience even when the film’s point is hard to miss. 

Audiences looking for more emotional genre fare will be quite pleased with The Animal Kingdom and its emphasis on character.

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Tin Roof, Rusted

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Snack Shack

by George Wolf

Four years ago, Adam Rehmeier’s Dinner In America arrived as a delightfully subversive 90s punk rock rom-com. Snack Shack finds the writer/director still navigating the 90s with hilarious R-rated delight, even as the punk rock ‘tude has been usurped by capitalistic dreams.

It’s 1991 in small town Nebraska, and teen best friends A.J. (Conor Sherry) and Moose (The Fablemans‘ Gabriel LaBelle) are coming hot into summer with some big plans. They score at the dog track, market their own homemade beer and are working more than enough angles to please the Gordon Gekko poster hanging on the wall.

But then an unexpected new hustle presents itself. The boys’ older friend Shane (Nick Robinson) – who’s a bit of a local hero thanks to his service in Kuwait – is home to manage the local pool, and he gives the foul-mouthed young Gekkos a tip on how to win the city council’s summer contract for the poolside snack bar.

Before long, business is booming, and that 75-cent upcharge for using ketchup to write “fuck” on a hotdog (a “fuckdog!”)is paying off big time. Will success go to their heads? Will A.J. earn enough cash for his Alaskan trek with Shane, AND earn the respect of his parents (David Costabile and Gillian Vigman, both priceless)?

And what about Brooke, the hot new lifeguard (Mika Abdalla)? Could she actually come between these hometown homies?

You’ll know where some of this is going, but Rehmeier’s script delivers foul, horny hilarity, and outstanding turns by both Sherry and LaBelle stand out in a letter perfect ensemble. The time stamp is again spot on, with Rehmeier’s freewheeling style crafting an infectious mashup of The Way Way Back, Superbad and Project X.

And most importantly, Rehmeier captures that zest for life on the cusp of adulthood without a whiff of pandering or condescension. The boys will do some growing up during this one crazy summer, and the film will grow up with them. Slowly, parents don’t seem quite as lame, the hijinx aren’t as silly and some important lessons about love, sex, death and friendship hang in the air just long enough to hit just hard enough.

Fuckdogs are still funny, though, homie, just like a surprise punch to the nuts.

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Self Portrait

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Frida

by Rachel Willis

Director Carla Gutiérrez lets Frida Kahlo speak through her words, photos, and most movingly, self-portraits (including images from her illustrated diary) in the documentary Frida.

The film moves through the years of Kahlo’s life, weaving in her own words and images from her young life. Film from the time period helps set the scene of Frida’s childhood in Mexico. Photos of Kahlo and her parents illustrate her spoken memories.

The documentary makes impressive use of Kahlo’s paintings to bring the legend to life. This is a documentary that puts the soul of the artist front and center of her own story.

When Frida tries to bring in its own artistry, it suffers by comparison. The choice to highlight certain sections of black and white film in bright colors feels tacky compared to the rich paintings. Used to better effect are animations that enliven the artist’s works.

In addition to Kahlo’s own words, voices from those who knew her pepper the film. Classmates, former boyfriends, and friends add layers to the portrait the film paints.

It is impossible to study Kahlo’s life without examining her relationship with fellow artist Diego Rivera. His influence on her life was profound, as was hers on his.

Kahlo’s emotional highs and lows allow the audience to know her in a way that enhances an understanding of her art. Like so many artists, the true impact of her work would only be understood after her death. But in life, it brought her joy.

For those unfamiliar with Frida Kahlo, this is a lush and impressive introduction to her life and art.