In 2019, filmmaker Jayro Bustamante traced a history of state-sanctioned horrors exacted on Guatemalan women with his superb supernatural tale, La Llorona. With his follow up, he mines far more current history to uncover troublingly similar horrors.
Rita is a fairy tale told from the perspective of the titular 13-year-old (Giuliana Santa Cruz). As Rita tells us in the beginning, her story—like any fairy tale—is true, but it didn’t happen exactly this way. Remanded to a state-run institution for girls, Rita describes the palace she believed would be her sanctuary, but it was run by ogres and witches.
The girls in the shelter are divided into cliques, each with its own costume. The fairies are very young; the dogs are wild and muzzled; bunnies are pregnant. There are also princesses and star lights. Rita is an angel.
It’s one way in which Bustamante—like the world at large—defiles images of innocence linked with girlhood. But the filmmaker never veers from his protagonist’s perspective, and to her, the inmates are mystical creatures, each type with its own power, each transcendent no matter the evil.
The young cast, exclusively newcomers, impresses with every character’s unseasoned choice, every child’s brutish and childlike reaction. Their wisdom feels unforced, never the product of a screenwriter needing to provide exposition. Santa Cruz is stoic, her character interior, while Alejandra Vásquez’s Bebé is charmingly blunt, Ángela Quevedo’s Sulmy is tenderly optimistic and Isabel Aidana’s La Terca is protective and gruff.
No one’s fully dimensional, but fairy tale characters never are. Bustamante’s dialog blends childlike inexperience with tragic notes of experience in ways that feel right at home in this polluted playground.
Because Bustamante’s film never leaves the grimy physical reality of Rita’s world, Rita leans closer to Issa Lopéz’s Tigers Are Not Afraid than del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, but all three recognize the toll of systemic oppression on the most vulnerable and powerless.
Rita, though it barely qualifies as true horror, is a tough watch, especially because it is based on true events. It’s moving and debilitating at the same time, but it’s a beautiful and powerful work.
In 1987, J. Michael Muro unleashed a colorful, sloppy bit of nastiness in bottles labeled Tenafly Viper. Street Trash was unlike anything you’d seen, sort of fearlessly nasty and endlessly goopy, in a way that rejected the notion of a remake.
Wisely, Ryan Kruger (Fried Barry) doesn’t remake it. His new film Street Trash is a sequel of sorts, set in present-day Cape Town. He retains the underdog spirit of the original, injecting it with equal parts irreverence and social commentary.
A repugnant, hateful, spray-tanned dictator in the pocket of billionaires has caused a boom in the population of homeless due to his one-sided economic policies. To clean up the streets so rich people don’t have to see the unhoused left behind by their greed, the politician gleefully greenlights the use of a new agent derived from the old Viper.
If you’ve seen Muro’s original, you know what happens to the poor sods sprayed by the politician’s drones. If you have not, it’s tough to describe, but it is brightly colored and highly viscous.
We tag along with a little band of buddies living on the street and trying to survive. Many alums of Kruger’s lunatic 2020 gem Fried Barryjoin this party, including ringleader Ronald (Sean Cameron Michael), 2-Bit (Fried Barry himself, Gary Green), Society (Jonathan Pienaar), Chef (Joe Vaz), and Kruger himself as the voice of the possibly imaginary and very horny blue gremlin, Reggie.
Muro sprinkles nods to the original throughout, although I do miss that toilet scene. The acting is sometimes fun, sometimes bad. The writing is also not great. But nobody looking for Shakespeare ever tuned into a movie where street people turn the tables on the 1% and melt them down into vibrant puddles of goo.
The film splashes vibrantly colored innards across the scene with abandon and delivers a message we can all get behind. This gooey mess may just be the healing balm we need right now.
One fateful day at work in St. Petersburg, Russia, engineer Henry (James McDougall) finds himself in a very bad situation. Armed men enter the office where he works, take Henry and his co-workers hostage, and cart them off to a labor camp. Not exactly the kind of workplace surprise that anyone wants to have to deal with.
The captors say that everyone will be released if their company is willing to pay a ransom for them, but that’s of little concern to Henry. The more pressing concern is whether or not he can survive the camp itself. Between the grueling labor, harsh weather, violent guards, and violent campmates, this is not an environment in which one thrives. Luckily for Henry, the higher-ups need his engineering skills to repair some equipment, which gains him access to an office. What lies within that office? Keys!
After being talked into a desperate escape plan by some fellow prisoners, Henry steals said keys, allowing them to escape their confines, grab some weapons & supplies, and break out of the camp. Of course, as one of his compatriots puts it, they have now traded the prison of the gulag for the prison of the wilderness. In addition to being chased by their captors, this ragtag group must brave the terrain, the weather, and each other if they want to regain their freedom. Making matters worse, Henry isn’t exactly built for this kind of endeavor, be it physically or emotionally.
Director/co-writer Derek Barnes and star/co-writer James McDougall have put together a solid right-down-the middle survival thriller in Whiteout. There aren’t too many surprises to be had, so don’t go into it expecting to have the subgenre’s wheel reinvented. Still, there are enough moments of sharp intensity for it to be of worth to survival thriller fans. If you fall into that category, you may find something to love here. If not, Whiteout won’t move the needle for you much, but it will still entertain.
Do I want to see J.K. Simmons as a swole, supercool Santa? Yes, I do.
That sounds fun, right? It does, so it’s a big letdown when Red One becomes a soggy holiday slog that feels like way too much like one of Tropic Thunder‘s parody trailers come earnestly to life.
It’s two days before Christmas at the North Pole and Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) lets Santa know that this will be his last midnight ride. Callum has been Papa Noel’s security chief for centuries, but this year the naughty numbers have finally eclipsed the nice, and he’s had it.
But just when Callum wanted out…dark forces pull him back in, by kidnapping Claus and hatching a Thanos-like plan to reign punishment down on anyone who’s ever so much as sniffed that naughty list.
So yeah, pretty much everyone.
Callum’s boss Zoe (Lucy Liu) turns to Jack O’Malley – the “world’s greatest tracker” – as an unlikely ally. Jack (Chris Evans) has never believed in Santa, is estranged from his own son (Wesley Kimmel) and doesn’t shy away from naughty, but Callum shoots him a steely glare and says those magic words.
“Let’s save Christmas!”
That one moment shows a glimpse of the self-aware romp that Red One might have been, but director Jake Kasdan and writers Chris Morgan and Hiram Garcia bury that promise under an avalanche of exposition and hokey CGI world building.
With Santa under wraps, we get the Johnson and Evans show, and while they’re both likable performers, the odd couple chemistry never quite clicks. Johnson’s uber-seriousness and Evans’s smart-assery both feel forced, while other notable performers (Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus, Kiernan Shipka as the Christmas Witch and Kristopher Hivju as Krampus) are wedged into an already overstuffed narrative.
Any bits of momentum the film can build are undercut by constant speeches explaining the North Pole’s corporate-ready acronyms or Santa’s extensive mythological backstory. Kasdan’s pace is frustrating and inconsistent, with none of the winking fun that gave his Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Jumanji: The Next Level their most enjoyable moments.
The third act rallies a bit, as Simmons/Santa gets back in the saddle and requisite Christmas sentiments of human kindness and full hearts are unwrapped in full. But much like Santa for most Red One‘s two hours, the moviegoing joy is missing in action.
Underdog may be only 82 minutes, but by the time those minutes are up the film offers you a few possible motivations for its title.
Doug Butler is an underdog in life. His sled dog team is an afterthought in the big race. And the American family farmer faces a constant struggle to survive.
Documentarian Tommy Hyde gives all these themes enough space to hit home, taking an immersive and observational approach while introducing us to one memorable man with a dream. Hyde gives us no setup or leading narration, he just drops us off on a rural farm with Butler and his 22 uniquely named dogs.
We meet the affable Butler as a diary farmer in Middlebury, Vermont. His debts are piling up, his doctor is worried about his health, but the man has a passion for mushing that will not be denied.
“Mushing” is another term for dog sled racing, and Butler feakin’ loves it. “Shit, I’m getting an erection!” he yells as he rides with his pack through the Vermont snow like Santa’s weather-beaten black sheep of a cousin. Still, Butler’s been harboring a dream to take his shot at the big race in Alaska for over thirty years, and Hyde makes us feel lucky that we get to come along for that ride.
I’ve got family in Vermont, and I’ve spent some time visiting a small town about 40 minutes away from Butler’s farm. These people are a breed apart, and Hyde not only frames the landscape well, he lets the locals shine their own subtle light on the way of life they are proudly fighting for.
And Butler is just a GD hoot – a “party on a sled” as one race organizer calls him. Bills be damned – he’s gonna drive his beloved dogs to Alaska, jam out to some classic rock on the way, and charm every last soul he meets.
The guy loves his dogs, he loves his mushing, and he loves his family farm. Underdog makes it nearly impossible to root against him.
There is nothing quite like an Andrea Arnold film. The writer/director sees through the eyes of cast aside adolescent girls like few other filmmakers, and her own eye for color and detail behind the camera creates transcendent cinematic experiences.
Her latest effort, Bird, represents something closer to magical realism than anything she’s done previously (American Honey, Fish Tank), but her generous nature with characters and her impeccable casting are present, as always.
Bailey (newcomer and treasure Nykiya Adams) is a 12-year-old bored and frustrated with life. She lives with her father, Bug (Barry Keoghan, magnificent as ever), who intends to start making real money with the “drug toad” he’s just brought home. (An actual toad. It “slimes” a hallucinogenic when it hears earnest music.) Across town, her mother’s abusive boyfriend is a threat to Bailey’s three younger half siblings.
Somewhere between the two, Bailey meets Bird (Franz Rogowski). Bird is unusual. At first, she quietly follows him out of curiosity, then a kind of protectiveness, and finally friendship.
Rogowski’s enigmatic performance never patronizes, never bends to the noble outsider cliché.
Keoghan—easily among the most fascinating actors working—exudes a childlike charm that makes Bug irresistible.
Bailey’s life with her father—though hardly a safe or comfortable environment—takes on qualities of a fairy tale, or at least the absence of an adult world. In many ways, Bird tells of his coming-of-age even as it follows his daughter’s.
What makes the third act such a standout—whether you can get behind its surreal quality or you cannot—is the unerring authenticity of the first two acts. And what makes that authenticity so magical in itself is the way Arnold and her cast mine it for beauty.
Arnold is forgiving, though never naïve. There’s plenty of ugliness as well, but spray painted eyes and matching purple jumpsuits have rarely seemed so beautiful.
“My pain is unexceptional, and I don’t feel the need to burden everybody with it.”
It’s a revelation articulated by David Kaplan (Jesse Eisenberg), and just one of countless memorable insights in the screenplay Eisenberg penned for his second feature behind the camera, A Real Pain.
David and cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) are traveling together to Poland to honor their recently deceased Grandmother Dora, who’d survived the Holocaust by “a thousand little miracles” and left her grandsons funds to make the trip.
David’s been busy with work and family. Benji has not. The odd couple—one reserved and polite, the other charming and wild—join a tour group and embark on their adventure.
Culkin is excellent, delivering a masterful performance that oscillates between charming emotional manipulator and hard-core emotional basket case. The relationship between the cousins is lived-in and fraught. Benji plays Dave, plies him with intimate attention, prods him with tenderness then punishes him the next second. But thanks to Culkin’s raw performance, it’s hard to hold anything against Benji.
Eisenberg’s performance meshes with Culkin’s, reflecting the authentic yin to his yang. In Eisenberg’s hands, Dave’s manipulation is quiet but pointed, his sympathy condescending. The two actors—much thanks to an observant script and delicate direction—carve out the recognizable patterns of family.
Screenwriter Eisenberg complicates characters. The enjoyable verbal sparring between two bright, witty buddies keeps the film entertaining, but the tremendous depth of both performances unearths something surprisingly moving.
Eisenberg’s work as a filmmaker here is very sharp, never taking the cheap shot. Both characters are held to account, but there’s a generosity of spirit in the film that’s equally forgiving. The result is a poignant treasure.
As an actor, Eisenberg has never been better, truly, and one of his many strengths (as an actor and a filmmaker) is to just let Culkin steal this movie. Benji is recognizable and unforgettable in a film that wants badly to embrace the uncomfortable complications of family, if only it could.
I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Teen Wolf. The Craft. Even Carrie. Horror moviemakers have long equated coming-of-age with otherness, monstrosity. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s tragic, but whatever the result —the witches of The Craft or the mermaid of Blue My Mind, the zombie of Maggie or the werewolf (it’s so often a werewwolf!) of When Animals Dream, it’s a ripe metaphor. Here, recorded live at Gateway Film Center at the heart of The Ohio State University Campus, is our list of the five best teenage monsters in horror movies.
5. Jennifer’s Body (2009)
If Ginger Snaps owes a lot to Carrie (and it does), then Jennifer’s Body finds itself even more indebted to Ginger Snaps.
The central premise: Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them. Better still, lure them to an isolated area and eat them, leaving their carcasses for the crows. This is the surprisingly catchy idea behind this coal-black horror comedy.
In for another surprise? Megan Fox’s performance is spot-on as the high school hottie turned demon. Director Karyn Kusama’s film showcases the actress’s most famous assets, but also mines for comic timing and talent other directors apparently overlooked.
Amanda Seyfried’s performance as the best friend, replete with homely girl glasses and Jan Brady hairstyle, balances Fox’s smolder, and both performers animate Diablo Cody’s screenplay with authority. They take the Snaps conceit and expand it – adolescence sucks for all girls, not just the outcasts.
4. Fright Night (1985)
Fright Night takes that Eighties, Goonies-style adventure (kids on an adult-free quest of life and death) and uses the conceit to create something tense and scary, and a bit giddy as well. The feature debut as both writer and director for Tom Holland, the film has some sly fun with the vampire legend.
Roddy McDowall got much deserved love at the time for his turn as a washed-up actor from horror’s nostalgic past, and Chris Sarandon put his rich baritone to campy, sinister use.
Still, everyone’s favorite character was Evil Ed, the manic, pitiful loser turned bloodsucking minion. Credit Stephen Geoffreys for an electric and, at least in one scene, heartbreaking performance.
3. The Faculty (1998)
The film exaggerates (one hopes) the social order of a typical Ohio high school to propose that it wouldn’t be so terrible if all the teachers and most of the students died violently, or at least underwent such a horrific trauma that a revision of the social order became appealing.
Indeed, in this film, conformity equals a communicable disease. Adults aren’t to be trusted; high school is a sadistic machine grinding us into sausage; outcasts are the only true individuals and, therefore, the only people worth saving. Director Robert Rodriguez pulls the thing off with panache, all the while exploring the terrifying truth that we subject our children to a very real and reinforced helplessness every school day.
Interestingly, the infected teachers and students don’t turn into superficial, Stepford-style versions of themselves. For the most part, they indeed become better, stronger, more self-actualized (ironically enough) versions, which is interestingly creepy. It’s as if humanity – at least the version of it we find in a typical American high school – really isn’t worth saving.
2. Ginger Snaps (2000)
Sisters Ginger and Bridget, outcasts in the wasteland of Canadian suburbia, cling to each other, and reject/loathe high school (a feeling that high school in general returns).
On the evening of Ginger’s first period, she’s bitten by a werewolf. Writer Karen Walton cares not for subtlety: the curse, get it? It turns out, lycanthropy makes for a pretty vivid metaphor for puberty. This turn of events proves especially provocative and appropriate for a film that upends many mainstay female cliches.
Walton’s wickedly humorous script stays in your face with the metaphors, successfully building an entire film on clever turns of phrase, puns and analogies, stirring up the kind of hysteria that surrounds puberty, sex, reputations, body hair and one’s own helplessness to these very elements. It’s as insightful a high school horror film as you’ll find, peppered equally with dark humor and gore.
1. The Transfiguration (2016)
Milo likes vampire movies.
So, it would seem, does writer/director Michael O’Shea, whose confident feature debut shows us the relationship between the folklore and the life of a forlorn high school outcast.
Eric Ruffin plays Milo, a friendless teen who believes he is a vampire. What he is really is a lonely child who finds solace in the romantic idea of this cursed, lone predator. But he’s committed to his misguided belief.
O’Shea’s film borrows ideas from George Romero’s Martin, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, and openly gushes over Murnau’s Nosferatu. Inside and out, the film draws on the best in vampire cinema to help Milo deal with a world in which he is a freak no matter what he decides to do.
