I have seen a lot of horror movies. A lot. You have no idea.
Do you know what I have never seen before? A horror movie that opens with a
quote from Fred Rogers.
Well done, Werewolves Within.
Mr. Rogers is a hero of sorts for Finn (Sam Richardson), new
park ranger for a very small, isolated, snowy mountain town. The townsfolk are
divided on a deal to run a pipeline through their little hamlet. But they will
have to work together despite their differences when it appears that a werewolf
has begun to prey on their town.
Because if left and right cannot work together in the face
of a common oppressor, the oppressor will win. It doesn’t matter what that is:
fascists, greedy capitalists, werewolves. Still, it can be tough to get the two
sides to come together, even for their own good, so Finn channels his hero and
does what he can to inspire the townspeople to look out for each other. He just
wants them to become good neighbors.
It is adorable.
Horror has its share of nice guys, but these are almost
invariably tragic victims, either the first to go because they don’t have the
inner meanness to overcome villainy, or eventual victims because the movie is
so much more emotionally relevant if they sacrifice themselves. The nice guy is
almost never a horror film’s hero, and this is where Werewolves Within
really does depart from standard fare.
Director Josh Ruben—fresh off Scare Me, a clever horror-comedy he wrote, directed and starred in—delivers a forgiving, even sweet tone. There’s cynicism here, and characters are not drawn with a lot of dimension, but the performances are fun and the comedy is good-natured.
Richardson makes an ideal Rogers-esque central figure, his new hometown populated by a talented comedy ensemble: Michaela Watkins, Michael Chernus, Wayne Duvall, Harvey Guillen (TV’s What We Do In the Shadows), and fan-favorite, Milana Vayntrub. (You know, Lily from the AT&T ads.)
Werewolves Within is loosely based on the video game of the same name, which may be why the plot feels so very slight. Still, writer Mishna Wolff displays a flair for whodunnit fun that elevates the film high above 90% of the video game movies that have been made.
A lot of that success lies in Wolff and Ruben’s investment
in the nice guy.
Fred Rogers once said: “When I was a boy and I would see a scary thing in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.’”
The nation was one month into federally enforced integration in 1966 when Gary Duncan pulled his car over to intervene between a group of boys spoiling for a fight. That afternoon, Duncan became a marked man.
Targeted with a litany of false charges, he was arrested again and again. He could have accepted battery charges for a crime he did not commit and paid a fine. But he refused to be painted as a criminal for simply being Black. So he and his Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, took the case to court, stepping to the corrupt titans of 1960s Louisiana, like white supremacist judge Leander Perez.
Remembering
one of his final arrests with tears in his eyes, Duncan recalls “I said ‘I’m
not going to jail. I’m tired.’…I was ready to die.”
Another clip shows young Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend desegregated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Weeping, she tells the interviewer, “I’m not afraid. They’ll have to kill me to keep me from getting my education.” She was six years old at the time.
The most striking juxtaposition in A Crime on the Bayou is the use of black and white footage paired with full color, high-quality interviews. Director Nancy Buirski utilizes a unique handheld technique for the talking heads portions of the film, staying extremely tight on her main subjects’ faces. It reminds us that 1966, and the Civil Rights Movement, was not as long ago as we’d like to believe. Many of the young people immortalized in black and white photos, screaming their protest of the integration of schools, are still alive and well today. They are a part of our society. They are your neighbors. They vote and run for office or lead companies.
Little
Ruby Bridges is still alive too. She’s only 66 years old.
Buirski embraces the setting of the desegregation crisis and resulting Civil Rights movement. She employs drone footage of Louisiana, archived footage of New Orleans, and jazz music interludes. Buirski reminds us that culture cannot be separated from its struggles and ugly parts.
The documentary also explores the struggle of Jewish Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, particularly Jewish attorneys and civil rights lawyers. The holocaust had only occurred 20 years prior, and many Jewish families were relatively newly immigrated and fighting for a new life. With them, they carried their own memories of genocide and totalitarian rule. And while the trauma of the two cultures cannot be compared— you can never compare trauma and come up with a winning outcome—Black Americans and Jewish Americans often found themselves fighting against the same forces.
This moving film is a reminder that the world does change, but slowly. We cannot brush off the sins of the past so easily, as many of us are still living them.
At an hour and a half, this documentary moves quickly and doesn’t languish in the trauma of Black men the way many other films do. Instead, it is honest about the inherited traumas we carry. It methodically exposes how entire systems have been built to suppress minorities. Most importantly, it reminds us that the fight continues, and that whenever possible, we must rise to the challenge of upholding justice.
It’s summertime. Who doesn’t want to look out on the bluest water as little boats rock in the breeze and kids cavort in a tiny seaside villa on the Italian Riviera? Awash in the wonder of childhood, the latest adventure from Pixar follows someone from under the sea who’s lured to dry land—against their parents’ wishes—and finds a whole new world.
Wait, that last phrase evokes a different movie, but Luca – a Disney + release that doesn’t require the Premier Access fee – does share a winking resemblance to Disney’s most famous fish out of water story. Young sea monster Luca (Jacob Tremblay) finds the idea of the world above sea level equally forbidding and fascinating. He discovers, with the assistance of another young sea monster named Alberto (It’s Jack Dylan Grazier), that as long as he stays dry, he can pass for human.
Good thing, since the whole villa where they hide from Luca’s
parents (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) is obsessed with finding and killing
the elusive sea monsters of lore.
Writers Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)
and Mike Jones (who co-wrote last year’s Oscar winner for Pixar, Soul)
essentially turned The Little Mermaid into a buddy comedy. Rather than
digging into a lot of angst, self-sacrifice or villainy, director Enrico
Casarosa— longtime animator and writer/director of Pixar’s lovely 2011 short La
Luna—keeps things light and harmless.
The water here is shallow but bubbling with activity. Luca and Alberto make a friend in the feisty Giulia (Emma Berman), make an enemy of the conniving Ercole (Saverio Visconti), learn a trade, discover a love of pasta, develop a longing to learn, and take part in an Italian triathlon (the middle leg is pasta eating) so they can win enough money to buy a Vespa and see the world.
It’s busy. It looks pretty. The message – embrace who you are – is worthy, but there’s just not much in the delivery for the film to call its own. From any other animation studio, Luca would be a solid summer release, but for Pixar, it’s a middling effort on par with Onward or Finding Dory. It’s a forgettable if lovely time waster.
By now, we can probably guess your age by how you first came to know Rita Moreno.
Singin’ in the Rain?The King and I?West Side Story? The Electric Company? The Rockford Files? Oz?Jane the Virgin?Carmen Sandiego? The One Day at a Time reboot? Even if you just got here, there’s the recent In The Heights Twitter feud and if you’re on your way, it’s almost time for West Side Story again!
The point is, Rita is among the most legendary of entertainment legends, and Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For It is a completely captivating tour through an iconic, trailblazing life.
A Puerto Rico native, Rosita Alverio emigrated to New York with her mother at age 5 – and never saw her native family again. “Rita” made her dancing debut at age 6 in a Greenwich Village nightclub, and by 16 she had landed a contract with MGM Studios.
Through countless “shut up and be sexy” roles that prompted self-loathing, to Emmy, Oscar, Grammy and Tony Awards, an abortion, a suicide attempt, marriage and family, political activism and therapy, her 90th year has found Rita to be a fulfilled, thankful survivor.
And beyond the treasure trove of archival footage, home movies and interview praises from the likes of Eva Longoria, Gloria Estefan, Morgan Freeman, and Lin-Manuel Miranda (also one of the film’s producers), director Mariem Pérez Riera finds the most resonance in the personal journey told by Rita herself.
Looking back on the obstacles she faced and the successes and failures of her life and career, Moreno displays a hard-won self-worth and an honest self-awareness, one that – as evidenced by her In The Heights second thoughts – she continues to probe.
This is not just an entertaining Hollywood story, it’s an inspiring American story and a hopeful human story. It’s just a damn good story, from someone worthy of celebrating while she’s still here.
Horror has a blossoming subgenre that’s particularly spooked
by that inescapable curse of heredity. The metaphorical horror of facing what
your family has to hand down to you whether you want it or not fueled Relic,
Hereditary, The Dark and the Wicked, and now, Matthew Goodhue’s family
horror, Woe.
It’s been a year since his father died, but Charlie (Adam Halferty) still hasn’t seemed to put it behind him. He toils on his dad’s old house but doesn’t ever make any real progress. Same with the backyard. Same with everything. He barely evens speaks to his family anymore, even though his sister Betty (Jessie Rabideau) is about to get married.
Charlie’s not just grieving. There’s something really weird happening to him in that house, and it colors his perceptions of everyone and everything else. Mysterious phone calls and a sketchy meeting out in the woods might set things straight.
Wait a minute, when has that ever helped anything?
Goodhue’s script avoids easy answers or simple metaphors. He evokes an eerie atmosphere, one that seems to envelop Charlie and threatens to take in Betty, but something that everyone else appears to be immune to. That’s especially true of Betty’s well-meaning doofus of a fiancé, Benjamin (Ryan Kattner, as an endearing as any could possibly be).
The three performances sell the story, the Twilight Zone weirdness, and the human pathos that underly everything. Woe is a slow burn, rushing nothing but punctuating its fog of depression and sorrow with bursts of action and brief, welcome splashes of humor.
The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is not a great movie – heck it’s barely a good movie – but it is a fun movie. And that last part means the film does have pretty great timing.
Because with so many of us returning to movie theaters for the first time in a long time, what is the majority looking for?
A good time. And this film does deliver it, even if it is just one Fat Bastard away from parody.
In case you’ve forgotten, this is a sequel to 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and returning writer Tom O’Connor gets us up to speed via Michael Bryce’s (Ryan Reynolds) final therapy session with a doctor who can’t wait to be rid of him.
Bryce has lost his AAA bodyguard license, which is going to make it difficult to win the Bodyguard of the Year award he dreams of. Bryce has also sworn off guns, which becomes a problem once the bullets start flying and director Patrick Hughes (also back from part one) rolls out more direct head shots than a zombie apocalypse.
Bryce doesn’t let the lack of licensing stop him from guarding Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek), a spitfire who has no problem shooting first – from the hip or from the lip. Plus, she happens to be married to Bryce’s old nemesis Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson). So while Bryce and Darius are bickering about old grudges, Sonia and Darius argue about starting a family (don’t bother thinking about their ages – just go with it).
The dangerous games come from an evil tycoon (Antonio Banderas on a steady diet of scenery) who’s fighting back against E.U. sanctions on Greece, and from a frustrated federal agent (Frank Grillo) who decides his best bet is to work with bad guys in hopes of catching worse guys.
Hughes proves adept at quick-paced action and satisfying set pieces full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but excess. There’s plenty of globe-trotting to beautiful locales, lo-cut costume changes for Hayek and enough all around ridiculousness to make you wonder when Reynolds and Jackson are going to switch faces.
But the starring trio seems to be enjoying it enough to be in perfect sync – with each other and the level of material they’ve been handed. All three may be on auto-pilot, but their banter is an expletive-laden, rapid fire hoot that’s consistently mischievous and sometimes downright hilarious.
The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard isn’t high art, but it isn’t trying to be. In the words of Bret Michaels and Sam Jackson: it ain’t nothin’ but a good time, motherf^*%$#.
Medical horror never lacks for really bad doctors: mad scientists, evil geniuses, or just people with more ambition than skill. What these particular folks can do with a scalpel, some thread, and a little imagination impresses. That is to say that it leaves an impression, often on unwilling patients. Here is our list of the best horror films about involuntary surgery.
6. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
After a handful of middling Dutch comedies, Tom Six stumbled upon inspiration – 100% medically accurate inspiration. Yes, we mean the Human Centipede. Just the First Sequence makes the list, though.
For a lot of viewers, the Human Centipede films are needlessly gory and over-the-top with no real merit. But for some, Six is onto something. His first effort uses a very traditional horror storyline – two pretty American girls have a vehicular breakdown and find peril – and takes that plot in an unusual direction. But where most horror filmmakers would finish their work as the victims wake up and find themselves sewn together, mouth to anus, this is actually where Six almost begins.
Although the film mines something primal about being helpless in the hands of surgeons and doctors, it’s Dieter Laser and his committed, insane performance that elevates the work. That and your own unholy desire to see what happens to the newly conjoined tourists.
5. Tusk (2014)
The basic idea for this film came from one of writer/director Kevin Smith’s actual podcasts. He found online a letter from a man seeking a lodger, and read it aloud and mocked the man. But somewhere in all that, Smith found the story of a man losing his humanity.
Tusk is a comic riff on The Human Centipede. It’s also an insightful kind of stress dream, so close to home for Smith that, even with all its utter ludicrousness, it feels almost confessional.
The film’s greatest strength is a hypnotic performance by Michael Parks as the old seafarer with nefarious motives. He’s magnificent, and co-star Justin Long’s work is strongest when the two share the screen.
There is no film quite like Tusk, certainly not in Smith’s arsenal, which, I suppose, means this is not a traditional Kevin Smith Movie. And yet, there’s more Smith in this film than in anything else he’s made.
4. American Mary (2012)
Jen and Sylvia Soska have written and directed a smart, twisted tale of cosmetic surgery – both elective and involuntary.
Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) stars as med student Mary Mason, a bright and eerily dedicated future surgeon who’s having some trouble paying the bills. She falls in with an unusual crowd, develops some skills, and becomes a person you don’t want to piss off.
The Soskas’ screenplay is as savvy as they come, clean and unpretentious but informed by gender politics and changing paradigms. They also prove skilled at drawing strong performances across the board. Isabelle is masterful, performing without judgment and creating a multi-dimensional central figure. Antonio Cupo also impresses as the unexpectedly layered yet certainly creepy strip club owner.
Were it not for all those amputations and mutilations, this wouldn’t be a horror film at all. It’s a bit like a noir turned inside out, where we share the point of view of the raven-haired dame who’s nothin’ but trouble. It’s a unique and refreshing approach that pays off.
3. Excision (2012)
Outcast Pauline (a very committed AnnaLynne McCord) is a budding surgeon. She’s not much of a student, actually, but she does have an affinity for anatomy. Especially blood. Pauline really, really likes blood.
Her sister – the favorite, for good reasons, truth be told – is slowly dying. And somewhere in Pauline’s odyssey to lose her virginity, inspire her mother’s love and do the right thing, she always seems to do the wrongest possible thing.
Writer/director Richard Bates, Jr. takes an unusual course with this coming-of-age horror. I’m not sure we’ve seen it handled quite like this before, although to be fair, it’s definitely in keeping with the peculiar and beautifully realized character he and McCord have created.
2. Eyes Without a Face (1960)
The formula behind this film has been stolen and reformulated for dozens of
lurid, low-brow exploitation films since 1960. In each, there is a mad doctor
who sees his experiments as being of a higher order than the lowly lives they
ruin; the doctor is assisted by a loyal, often non-traditionally attractive
(some might say handsome) nurse; there are nubile young women who will soon be
victimized, as well as a cellar full of the already victimized. But somehow, in
this originator of that particular line of horror, the plot works seamlessly.
An awful lot of that success lies in the remarkable performances. Pierre Brasseur, as the stoic surgeon torn by guilt and weighed down by insecurities about his particular genius, brings a believable, subtle egomania to the part seldom seen in a mad scientist role.
Still, the power in the film is in the striking visuals that are the trademark of giant French filmmaker Georges Franju. His particular genius in this film gave us the elegantly haunting image of Dr. Genessier’s daughter Christiane (Edith Scob). Her graceful, waiflike presence haunts the entire film and elevates those final scenes to something wickedly sublime.
1. The Skin I Live In (2011)
In 2011, the great Pedro Almodovar created something like a cross between Eyes Without a Face and Lucky McGee’s The Woman, with all the breathtaking visual imagery and homosexual overtones you can expect from an Almodovar project.
The film begs for the least amount of summarization because every slow reveal is placed so perfectly within the film, and to share it in advance is to rob you of the joy of watching. Antonio Banderas gives a lovely, restrained performance as Dr. Robert Ledgard, and Elena Anaya and Marisa Paredes are spectacular.
Not a frame is wasted, not a single visual is placed unconsciously. Dripping with symbolism, the film takes a pulpy and ridiculous storyline and twists it into something marvelous to behold. Don’t dismiss this as a medical horror film. Pay attention – not just to catch the clues as the story unfolds, but more importantly, to catch the bigger picture Almodovar is creating.
It’s harder to think of a more respected profession than nursing. This notion might be even more widely shared now, after the past year. Nurses are there during the worst emergencies, and they’re also there to help with recovery. We put a lot of trust and responsibility in them during our weakest moments. Writer/director Martin Kraut’s thriller La Dosis (translation: The Dose) examines what happens when that trust is breached in the worst possible way.
Marcos (Carlos Portaluppi) is a confident and experienced nurse with more than 20 years under his belt. His professionalism and thoroughness make him well respected in his department. Marcos has a secret though. For certain terminal patients, he uses the cover of night to administer enough medication to allow them to peacefully slip away. For Marcos, this is a way to preserve their dignity even if it goes against the ethical nature of working in medicine.
When Gabriel (Ignacio Rogers), a new young nurse arrives, Marcos finds himself threatened by the handsome man. As Marcos’s coworkers and superiors fall under Gabriel’s charming spell, the elder nurse begins to suspect that Gabriel might harbor his own homicidal tendencies.
If there’s one word I’d use to describe La Dosis, it would be deliberate. The film mirrors Marcos’s steady, pragmatic personality by slowly, and methodically, introducing us to the characters and setting. It’s the type of no-frills opening that makes Marcos’s first act of homicide all the more surprising while still seemingly mundane.
Things begin to heat up and get weirder once the character of Gabriel is introduced. Is Marcos’s distrust of the young nurse simply sour grapes or is there a more sinister reason? That’s the question the film plays with momentarily until it’s quickly answered. The suspense of toying with Gabriel’s true intentions is cast aside rather quickly.
La Dosis frustrates more than it captivates. The back and forth between Marcos and Gabriel has all the trappings of an exciting rivalry, except the film refuses to let it happen. Marcos yo-yos between being Gabriel’s adversary and his friend. The film tries to explain this away with tepid sexual tension between the two, but it’s never explored on more than a surface level.
Portaluppi is the film’s bright spot. There’s an inviting casual sadness to the character that never strays into pity. Even when the script falters with Marcos’s questionable behavior and choices, Portaluppi does his all to make it work.
There’s also a level of dark comedy at play that the film never truly capitalizes on. The story is ripe for this kind of approach, yet the filmmakers continue to pull their punches. The hesitancy to go full dark comedy or even full medical thriller hobbles the film in the end.
La Dosis tantalizes with interesting character beats and odd tonal shifts, but in the end, doesn’t quite reach a satisfying conclusion.
Stern, driven Enid (Niamh Algar) takes her responsibilities
seriously. Unfortunately for her, they come at a high price. Enid is a film
censor in the most punishing time and place for such an endeavor: Thatcher’s
England. It’s 1985, an era when controversial films hoping to make their way to
screens big and small found themselves more butchered than their characters.
Co-writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond takes inspiration from this notion in her feature debut, Censor—an immersive era-specific horror. It is especially immersive for Enid.
She spends long hours deliberating on exactly where the line is between danger and acceptability: rewinding, examining frame by frame, if necessary, regardless of the nonchalance and casual derision of her co-workers. Enid is convinced it is her duty to protect people from these images.
As she herself drowns in repeated viewings of the most violent
and depraved material, you have to wonder whether she might be better off
protecting herself.
Bailey-Bond has other questions in mind, like why is it that
Enid is so preoccupied with this job, how might it feed her own darkness, and
what happens when her worlds blend together?
Censor is a descent into madness film—nothing new in the genre. And moments of Censor can’t help but call to mind fellow Brit Peter Stickland’s 2012 treasure Berberian Sound Studio. But Bailey-Bond and co-writer Anthony Fletcher evoke such a timestamp with this film, not just in the look and style, but with the social preoccupation.
As coincidences pile up – a definitive family decision, a horror movie-style murder spree, a film that hits too close to home — Enid seems to suspect that her real motive has been to censor her own thinking.
When she stops doing that, look out.
Algar’s prim and sympathetic, deliberate and brittle. It’s clear from the opening frame that Enid will break. But between Algar’s skill and Bailey-Bond’s cinematic vision, the journey toward that break is a wild ride.