New In Theaters

Nothing New to See Here

Leave a comment

Birthrite

by Hope Madden

There’s no limit to the number of horror films that begin with a family inheriting a secluded house that’s not all they hoped it would be. How many are there? Dozens? More? In just last couple of years: Mother May I, Abandoned, The Front Room, The Visitor.

But maybe Birthrite does something different. Surely Ross Partridge’s film won’t contain a couple, one of whom believes something uncanny is unfolding while the other believes it’s all in their head.

Oh, is that the plot? Well, the important thing is that the main character does not keep saying “I’m not crazy” to allay skepticism cast because of some prior trauma or depression. Because that is pretty worn out, plot-wise.

Oh, is that the whole conflict? But characters are developed organically, correct? We’re not expected to piece it together with glimpses of prescription bottles, right?

Yikes. Please don’t tell me there’s a pregnancy.

Sigh. Is there a chance that the mystery at the center of the tale could be easily resolved with proper communication between the partners, but instead, the story involves a creepy townie (Michael Chernus), a librarian (Owen Campbell), a spooky little girl (Elsa Parent), and a lot of exposition? Because that is just lazy writing.

Damn it!

Leads Alice Kremelberg and Juani Feliz deliver committed turns, while the criminally underused Chernus and Campbell elevate the material when given the chance. Jennifer Lafleur is an imposing presence, and the film looks great, a number of scenes punctuated with creepy imagery. But it’s hard to figure out why anybody made Birhtrite, and harder still to understand why actors as talented as Chernus and Campbell contributed, considering their limited screen time and impact.

Presumably everyone involved read the script before shooting began, and that’s where the problem begins. Writers Patch Darragh and Erin Gann conjure up not a single new idea, and those borrowed thoughts they introduce they don’t follow through to any logical or even interesting conclusion. The writing is lazy, and no amount of beautifully creepy landscape, atmospheric interiors, or thoughtful performances can overcome that.

It’s not that Birthrite is terrible. There’s just nothing new to see here.

Outtakes

On a Mission from God

Leave a comment

Shaman

by Hope Madden

Director Antonio Negret and writer Daniel Negret have something interesting to say. Unfortunately, they can’t find a consistently interesting way to say it with their latest film, Shaman.

The film shadows an American Catholic missionary family working with an Ecuadorian priest in a mountain village. Candice (Sara Canning) teaches catechism and English, and she and husband Joel (Daniel Gillies) help Father Meyer (Alejandro Fajardo) with baptisms, school and church maintenance, and they serve meals to the community.

Out playing with his friends, preadolescent son Elliot (Jett Klyne) enters a cave, though warned by the two locals he hangs out with. He comes home carrying something much older than Jesus.

Candice notices immediately and blames the shaman who lives in the mountains, while Joel scolds her to stop giving them power they don’t have. Meantime, with something afflicting her own family, Candice finds that her own faith may be more of a false front, a façade of superiority and benevolence.

What is weird about Shaman is that both Klyne and Canning co-starred in Brandon Christensen’s 2019 possession horror Z, a film where a mother watches helpless as something ugly takes hold of her innocent son (Klyne).

At times, the atmosphere Negret creates offers a subtle but worthwhile change in the missionary horror of the past, which told of either a white savior discovering primitive evil, or in more recent years, a white savior who is, in fact, the evil. Negret combines the two tropes in ways that are sometimes provocative, sometimes predictable, sometimes tone deaf.

Solid performances all around, plus gorgeous locations and some genuine surprises elevate the proceedings, but the pace is slow, the FX are weak, and the story too often falls prey to the cliché it’s trying to expose.  (They also don’t get any of the Catholic stuff right. There, I said it.)

Outtakes

Drunkula!

Leave a comment

Weary of the nightly chase for a meal, a vampire begins picking drunks off at last call in a neighborhood pub. Though it makes it easier to acquire a meal, eventually the blood alcohol content gets to him.

Behind the Scenes!

New In Theaters

The Call of the Wild

Leave a comment

Folktales

by Brandon Thomas

Roger Ebert was once quoted as saying, “No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmett Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.” I don’t have a particular actor or two for whom this rule applies, but I am a tad biased when a film features a slew of good boi doggos and Folktales has them in spades.

Folktales tells the story of Norway’s Pasvik Folk High School. This school caters to young adults in a “gap year,” teaching them survival skills in the rugged Arctic region of Northern Norway while also relying on them to help train sled dogs. The film focuses on three specific students: Hege, Romain, and Bjorn. Each of them has their emotional reason for coming to Pasvik for the year, yet despite their desire to experience something truly new, each one struggles with the baggage they carry into the wilderness.

Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have already shown their prowess in documenting young people’s journeys away from home with The Boys of Baraka and Jesus Camp. While not quite dealing with the same heavy topics as those two films, Folktales still delves into the lives of young people at a crossroads. The obvious stakes may not seem high, but to them, this year in rural Norway is a last-ditch effort to regain – or find for the first time – some sort of normalcy. 

Rarely relying on typical talking heads, Ewing and Grady instead allow the camera’s observations to do most of the talking. There’s a calm and stillness to Folktales that echoes the quiet winter air. The beauty of the film’s cinematography is matched only by the beauty of the changes the audience gets to witness in the three students. None of them leave Pasvik with their trauma and struggles behind them, but what they do gain is the notion that things can get better and that they can be the catalyst for said change. 

Did I mention the dogs? The way the film – and the school – use the dogs to unlock something within students is a thing of beauty. These gorgeous animals are there to work, and they often sense the unease and insecurity of the students. The steely blue gaze of a Siberian Husky is ominous and beautiful all at the same time – something Ewing and Grady’s camera never forgets. That mix of visual metaphor and real-life struggle of young people pays off as we see the students earn the trust of these animals and find comfort in their presence. 

Folktales doesn’t strive to stir up unnecessary drama or strife in its subjects. Instead, the film revels in the beauty found all around us as we try to recapture happiness, catharsis, and confidence.

New In Theaters

Drawn This Way

Leave a comment

The Bad Guys 2

by Hope Madden

Nothing promises irresistible fun like a heist movie. That, plus a remarkable voice cast, elevated 2022’s animated adventure The Bad Guys above its sometimes convoluted writing.

Well, those bad guys gone good—Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina)—get sucked into one more heist in The Bad Guys 2.

The team of, let’s be honest, felons is having a tough time finding work since they served their time. And these copycat crimes are only making it harder for them to be accepted back into normal life. Well, a little blackmail and suddenly it looks like maybe the bad guys turned good guys might turn bad guys for the good of the planet, or maybe just turn back guys again for good.

As delightful as the sequel is, the plot is often as cumbersome and complicated as that last sentence.

The voice cast continues to be on point, though, strengthened by additions Danielle Brooks and Natasha Lyonne, who has a voice for animation as perfect to the task as Awkwafina’s. There are sly references, including a fun Silence of the Lambs sequence, plus Colin Jost playing a guy marrying out of his league.

The kids in my screening were mostly delighted, although the sheer volume of kissing made a nearby 9-year-old audibly upset. (Three smooches, and it was the third that seemed to just be too much.) But the romantic side plots are as adorable as the film’s focus on supportive friendship is sweet. (The redistribution of wealth angle is worth a smile as well.)

The snappy visual aesthetic and mischievous energy perfectly suit this cast, and the film feels like a fun and intriguing steppingstone for a franchise or TV series. It’s smarter than it looks and goofier than it needs to be. We’re in too short a supply of both of those things, so I’m happy to report that The Bad Guys 2 delivers the goods.

New In Theaters

Cloudburst

Leave a comment

Cloud

by Hope Madden

The films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa distinguish themselves with a sense of human dread in a larger, inhuman, often digital landscape. They unsettle with notions of something or someone beyond that organic veil able to exact harm. Sometimes the realm is more unworldly than digital, but the result is often the same: there is something out there, and it might even be us, but it’s not good.

The third of the filmmaker’s 2024 features, Cloud, makes its way to American screens this weekend. Riffing on the same idea, Kurosawa follows Yoshii (Masaki Suda), an online reseller who’s made some enemies.

The detached young man goes through his day nabbing and reselling bulk items—knock off designer bags, “therapy machines”, defective espresso makers—while quietly impressing at his day job in the factory. But once his manager pegs him as leadership material, Yoshii quits, uproots his spendy girlfriend (Kotone Furukawa), and leaves Tokyo for someplace a little roomier and more isolated.

Because there are signs that Yoshii should probably not let his true whereabouts known to his buyers.

Kurosawa sews together pieces of a mystery in what feels more like a character study for about two thirds of the film’s running time. An assortment of oddballs orbit Yoshii, but his gravitational pull is never entirely clear until the filmmaker takes a wild turn in Act 3.

The result feels like two separate movies, one meditative and mysterious, the other, slaphappy and frenetic. And while they don’t pair especially naturally, the fun of the final act makes up for the tonal stumble.

Kurosawa’s pervading themes of loneliness and disconnectedness in a connected world take on an almost satirical edge in Cloud. As forces close in on Yoshii, his own personality becomes less and less evident while those around him take on comedically odd characters. Rather than elegant melancholy, Cloud devolves merrily into sloppy chaos. And it’s a blast.

This may not be the film he’s remembered for, but we already have so many of those (Pulse and Cure, obviously, but so many more!). Still, for a step outside the expected and an unexpected burst of giddy, messy violence, Cloud shouldn’t be forgotten.

New In Theaters

Daddy’s Girl

Leave a comment

She Rides Shotgun

by George Wolf

She Rides Shotgun sports a passionate performance from Taron Egerton as a desperate man on the run. It also features John Carroll Lynch – one of the most reliable character actors around – digging into the role of a crooked sheriff carrying a very nasty streak.

But it’s the nine year-old girl you’ll be talking about long after the movie ends.

Ana Sophia Heger delivers one of the most impressive child performances in years as Polly, a young girl who hesitantly gets in the car with her dangerous father Nate (Egerton) when her mother doesn’t show after school.

You can probably guess why Mom is late, and Polly could be next unless Daddy and daughter make a blood-soaked road trip through the Southwest toward a chance at settling old scores.

Director and co-writer Nick Rowland adapts Jordan Harper’s source novel, a story that shares the roots of generational violence that propelled Rowland’s brooding and excellent 2019 feature, Calm With Horses. And while that film was deeply and unmistakably Irish, this time Rowland crafts some sharp edges from the tragically familiar American meth epidemic.

Egerton is intense, taut and terrific as a father with one last shot at redemption, while Lynch, as the sadistic “God of Slabtown,” mines tension and terror through a measured commitment to brutality. This is just the latest version of a tale that’s been told in countless crime thrillers, but Rowland works levels of camerawork, pace and performance that give familiar themes relevant life.

Heger (Things Seen and Heard, TV’s Life in Pieces) simply amazes, displaying a wonderfully authentic chemistry with Egerton that shines from their very first moments together. And though it’s hard to know in what order the scenes were shot, you start to wonder if Rowland began pushing Heger once he realized just what he had in the little powerhouse.

The violence, tension and dramatic intensity get heavier, and this girl does not shrink from it at all. Far from it. Rowland trusts her enough to deliver his parting shot via a gradual, extended close up that will leave you astonished at Heger’s level of emotion and control.

It’s a gripping reminder that one young actor has a seemingly boundless future, and that She Rides Shotgun conjures an effective remedy for some old wounds.

New In Theaters

Paint It Black

Leave a comment

Sketch

by Hope Madden

When I was 10, I wrote and directed a school play. In it, a babysitter and her charges are murdered by a roving madman. I got in a lot of trouble.

Young Amber Wyatt (Bianca Belle) knows my pain. To the dismay of her out-of-his depth dad (Tony Hale) and protective if clueless brother Jack (Kue Lawrence), Amber draws scary monsters capable of murder. Mainly they murder Bowman (Kalon Cox), the b-hole from the school bus who is on Amber’s last nerve. But with their teeth, tentacles, hook feet, and sword arms, they could murder anybody.

Could they? We’ll, we’re set to find out when Amber Wyatt’s sketchbook makes its way into a magical little pond and all her beasties come to life.

Writer/director Seth Worley’s Sketch is the latest Angel Studios release, but don’t hold that against it. Yes, that’s the studio responsible for the irresponsible, illogical, and terribly acted Sound of Freedom and a host of other mediocre-to-awful inspirational films. Still, Sketch is a charmer, family-friendly but unafraid, forgiving and funny.

The message is clear but not too blunt: stop freaking out about the kids who are examining their pain. Worry more about the people who are silencing theirs. Part of the reason the themes resonate without wallowing is the banter between the always reliable Hale and D’Arcy Carden, as his sister.

Belle struggles from time to time with the heaviness of the character, but both Lawrence and Cox deliver silly fun as a couple of dumbasses out to save their town from day-glo chalk monsters belching glitter.

Worley’s writing is on point, rarely (though occasionally) drifting into maudlin territory. But even at its weakest, the script benefits from Carden’s crisp comic turn and Hale’s effortlessly empathetic pathos.

Plus, the imagination that is celebrated onscreen with macabre whimsy articulates a kind of acceptance rarely emphasized in films that begin with a teacher worrying a parent over creepy kid drawings.

There’s a lot beneath the film’s surface that feels too familiar, but a game cast and directorial commitment to childish creativity elevate Sketch. It’s a good one to watch with your kids. Even better if you’re kind of afraid of your kids.

New In Theaters

So Happy

Leave a comment

Together

by Hope Madden

Horror has always trodden the terror of losing your identity, of losing your very personality or individuality, of what makes you you. From Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to every Invasion of the Body Snatchers iteration (including The Faculty) to most zombie horror, horror fiction and cinema reflect our own worry that there is something out there that will steal from us what makes us ourselves and turn us into something else.

The anxiety of losing your identity to coupledom is just as real, though few films (horror or otherwise) have depicted this relatable, perhaps primal fear as adorably, as authentically, or as grotesquely as Michael Shanks’s Together.

The writer/director’s feature debut benefits enormously from the lived-in camaraderie of its leads. Alison Brie and Dave Franco, married in real life, play Millie and Tim. They’ve been together for nearly a decade, but this new chapter of their lives marks a distinct step. Millie took a job teaching in Upstate New York, two hours from NYC where Tim sometimes plays guitar with a band while he tries to finish his solo EP, to be self-released.

Millie has grown up. Will Tim? Can he? Or is he abandoning himself, giving up on his dreams and forgetting who he is by moving with Millie? If they don’t split up now, it’ll just be harder later.

Much, much harder. Stickier too.

Something happens as the pair explore the woods around their new home and, little by little, it draws their two bodies together, attempting to fuse them into one thing. It’s a delightful metaphor played joyously and goretastically, the body horror and humor fusing just as readily as Tim and Millie’s extremities.

Brie and Franco are perfect, and Damon Herriman lends his considerable, understated talent to develop the plot and keep you guessing.

Though Shank’s writing sometimes lands heavily (past trauma exposition), and other times leaves you disbelieving (why on earth is she still with him?!), the sweet, romantic believability of the performances charms you into sticking it out. And you’ll be glad, because once the film hits its stride, it is a wild, funny, charming, repulsive ride.

What Shanks manages with his film is to be overtly romantic, never cynical, consistently funny, and gross as hell. It’s the perfect date movie. But maybe go on an empty stomach.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?