Did you hear about the lifeguards that fight crime?
“Wow, that sounds like a really entertaining but far-fetched TV show!”
So says Brody (Zac Efron), one of the new recruits on the super lifeguard team at Emerald Bay, and this very self-aware attitude is the main reason the big screen Baywatch works as well as it does.
Yes, the entire premise has always been a ridiculous excuse to ogle beautiful bodies, so director Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) wisely chooses to have some fun with that and not be stingy with the slo-mo!
Dwayne Johnson is Mitch, head of the Baywatch team and all-around King of the Beach. He’s got Stephanie (Ilfenesh Hadera) and C.J. (Kelly Rohrbach) as his veterans on the squad, while Summer (Alexandra Daddario) and Ronnie (Jon Bass) are rookies who just won their spots during open tryouts.
Then there’s Matt Brody (pinching his character name from two of the lead roles in Jaws is another clue this film’s tongue is in the right cheek), an Olympic swimmer nicknamed the “Vomit Comet” for the way his career flamed out thanks to gold medal partying.
Brody arrives thinking he’s God’s gift to Baywatch, quickly learns some humility, and joins the team just as they’ve stumbled onto another case. Could local business tycoon Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra from TV’s Quantico) really be the biggest drug dealer on the beach?
And she might get away with it, too, if not for these lifeguards and their sexy meddling!
Writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift come from the land of bad horror (Freddy vs. Jason, Friday the 13th reboot) but they’re able to tap into a witty and breezy R-rated vibe that tests some crude waters without ever diving in.
As often as the ladies flaunt buns and cleavage, Johnson and Efron’s suns out/guns out show gets even more attention, which seems only fair as their roles also have the most substance. It helps that the actors share an easy, likable chemistry and neither is above poking fun at their own image. Self-deprecation is usually endearing, and running gags involving Brody’s nicknames and a “mini-Mitch” aquarium decoration are consistent winners.
Hey, it’s summer, the perfect time for a trashy little novel to read by the pool. Baywatch fits that same bill, and ends up all the more fun for not trying to be anything else.
I’ve been friends with a few vegetarians over the years who have made passionate, rational pleas for me to halt or at least cut back on my ravenous devouring of the animal kingdom.
I’ve read books and watched documentaries that explain in detail the often cruel practices that go into raising and processing my protein. And yet, to quote Pulp Fiction, “Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.”
And I can’t help it, I loves me a good steak.
In the 30+ years that I’ve been a carnivore, I’ve never been directly responsible for what I’ve eaten. Delicious meats seem to appear magically.
At the grocery store, animal parts are wrapped up in pristine white paper or in glossy plastic like little delicious presents.
Despite my intellectual knowledge about where my food comes from, I still find myself fundamentally ignorant because I lack a concrete experience of when the animal becomes the meal.
So, I set myself a goal: to kill and then prepare my own dinner.
My initial plan is to bag a fish. But after a day out on the creek, I left with nothing more than a wicked sunburn. Sure, I saw some fish, but only around the marina docks…where you aren’t actually allowed to fish.
Don’t tell me that fish aren’t possessed with some sort of intelligence. These guys know how to hide.
Now, my options are limited. The bunnies in my backyard are too clever and adorable to seriously consider. So I decide to become the Grim Reaper to one of the only live animals sold regularly at the grocery store…a lobster.
The decision is both convenient and light on the guilt meter. Lobsters are tough and pointy and I figure their claws give them a fighting chance.
So I drive myself to the Clintonville Giant Eagle and nervously wheel my cart over to the fish counter.
The helpful fish guy is pretty chatty. “This one,” he said, “I named it Lefty because he was missing his right claw.”
Great, I thought. They have names.
I select two 1 ½ pounders that the guy wrangles out of the tank. To schlep them home I receive a lobster box—the same sort of box my childhood gerbils came in, except without air holes and with a recipe printed on the side.
At home I open the box, experimentally stare into the eyes of the lobster on the top, and poke it gently on the back. Its eyes retreat into its head. I shriek and shut the box.
I’ve read online that you can put lobsters in the freezer to lull them into a dormant state before killing them. Supposedly this helps dull their pain. So, I pop the box in the freezer, pour myself a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and hop on my laptop to research how to kill these beasties humanely.
I watch a few videos demonstrating the technique of splitting their heads in half before boiling. (This severs their nervous system and is apparently a much quicker path out of life than the hot tub version.)
I steel myself for the kill.
I extract the lobster box from the freezer and open it on the counter. The lobsters have shifted position. Now they seem to be hugging each other with their rubber-banded claws. The scene is full of pathos.
Placing a cutting board and a chef’s knife on the counter, I check that the water is boiling in my big stock pot. I remove lobster #1 and place it on the cutting board.
Tapping the tip of the knife at the center of its head, the lobster’s eyes again retreat, but this time less far. I hope that this indicates less sensitivity. I drag in a deep breath. This is the moment when I discover if I have what it takes.
I look into the beady little eyes of the crustacean and thank it for its service. Then, I angle the knife up and plunge it down.
My aim is bad.
Either I winced or the knife was too dull. But instead of a nice, neat slice right between the eyes, the cut is too far too the left. A third of the thing’s head is now flopping to the side, still kind of connected to the body.
I scream.
There is diluted bloody water streaming off the cutting board and onto the countertop.
“Is anything wrong?” my husband calls from the living room.
I jump up and down quietly in socked feet, flapping my arms around, the knife flinging droplets of lobster blood across the kitchen. I swallow a squeal.
“Everything is fine,” I choke out.
The lobster is starting to wiggle on the counter. Clearly it’s starting to thaw out and is probably at the very least inconvenienced by the massive head wound. My hand clenches on the knife and I approach the counter, taking careful mincing steps to avoid the lobster blood now pooling on the linoleum of the floor.
I reposition the knife. The lobster squirms in a seeming attempt to flee.
“There is no escape,” I mutter as I swing the knife down.
My next cut is cleaner and I sever its head lengthwise and throw all the lobster bits in the boiling water.
I turn to lobster #2.
“Sorry you had to see that,” I say.
“Are you talking to me?” my husband hollers.
I ignore him, trying to think my way through my next kill.
All the experts say that the clean slice through the head is the best way to go. But probably not if you botch it. I look back over my shoulder at the pot. Any more delay and I’m going to have to deal with two separate cooking times. I’m already feeling stress about having to clean up so much lobster blood.
So, I pick up lobster #2 and dump it, still wriggling, into the pot on top of the body of its mangled companion. Its legs wiggle. Its tail flexes and curls around the edge of the pot. Is it attempting to climb out? I wonder. I stab at the tail with my knife and poke it down into the pot.
Slamming the pot lid on and slumping against a section of unbefouled countertop, I realize my heart is thumping against my ribs and my hands are trembling with an excess of adrenaline.
Twelve minutes later dinner is served, bright red and steaming. As we crack open the lobsters with kitchen shears and a garlic press (not owning the correct tools) my husband turns to me and tells me I did a very good job with dinner. Then he screams when he discovers a greenish bit inside his lobster.
“Is this his guts? Is this his guts?” he asks.
I have no idea.
This dinner is tasty and somehow more real than any other dinner I’ve ever had.
I don’t think I have it in me to become a vegetarian. But I might have it in me to become a murderer.
One special girl + a solitary, attentive, very cute boy + contrivance that keeps them apart = every single adolescent drama made in the last decade.
Director Stella Meghie can do that math. For Everything, Everything, she works from the YA novel by Nicola Yoon, adapted for the screen by the adequate emotional manipulator J. Mills Goodloe (Best of Me, The Age of Adaline).
The film updates that Boy in a Plastic Bubble TV movie John Travolta made back in the day, here with a perky adolescent girl named Maddy (Amandla Stenberg) whose rare immune deficiency keeps her locked away inside her sterile home.
Then Dreamboat Olly (Nick Robinson) moves in next door.
Meghie and her cast deserve credit because their film has a sweet if utterly artificial charm to it. The handful of fantasy sequences set inside Maddy’s architecture models are appealing, as is the awkward and innocent chemistry between the leads.
Not one human being on earth has ever been this wholesome and adorable, but as YA lit flicks go, it could be much worse.
Tragedy looms darkly over most young adult romances – like a watered down Nicolas Sparks movie. Maddy’s ailment keeps death always in the periphery, but the film zigs when you think it will zag.
Meghie keeps almost everything restrained, which is both the film’s blessing and curse. Too often in movies of this ilk, the drama becomes so soapy as to be intolerable. Maddy’s coming-of-age choices feel more self-empowering than love struck, and her easygoing, forgiving nature keeps the tone just this side of angsty.
Thank you.
On the other hand, when the narrative takes a bizarre – almost diabolical – turn, that laid back approach feels neutered. Real rage is called for. Police intervention. A good slap, anyway.
But Meghie doesn’t indulge our lust for drama, which would be admirable if her film weren’t so bland.
“Do you want to serve in heaven or reign in hell?”
That’s just one of the big, existential questions Alien: Covenant has on its mind, though there’s plenty of blood as well, for those who thought Prometheus was a bit too head-trippy.
Director Ridley Scott returns to the helm of the iconic franchise he started, proving the years have done little to erode his skills at crafting tension or delivering visceral thrills.
Covenant picks up roughly ten years after the events of Prometheus, and this many sequels in, its inevitable that the franchise would fall victim to formula: a crew, most of whom we get to know only through intercom banter, lands somewhere, picks up an alien (or several), tries to get it off the ship. Quarantine protocol is rarely followed. (It is there for a reason, people!) Folks die in a most unpleasant way.
When Scott made Alien back in ’79, he made a straight genre flick, working from a script by horror go-to Dan O’Bannon. It gave Scott a career, though he didn’t return to the horror game for more than another two decades.
Meanwhile, the franchise took the action path, devolving eventually into the modern day equivalent of Werewolf Versus the Mummy.
Scott redirected that ship in 2012 when he regained control of the series, throwing off any ugliness in the sequel universe by making a prequel – one less interested in monsters than in gods. Prometheus may have been a mixed bag, but if there’s one thing this franchise delivers, it’s a great synthetic. Hello, Michael Fassbender.
Fassbender returns in Scott’s latest, bloodiest Alien effort, and he’s a lunatic genius. Playing both David, the synthetic from Prometheus, and a newer model named Walter, Fassbender delivers weighty lines with tearful panache, becoming more colorful, layered and interesting than anything else onscreen.
Strange then, that his charismatic performance almost hurts the film.
Why? Because we’re here for the aliens!
Yes, it is tough to keep a good xenomorph fresh for eight episodes, and Scott gives it a shot with new alien forms that wade into Guillermo del Toro territory . But there are too many variations, the incubation and bursting process is too expedited, the sources are too numerous – basically, there’s too much going on here and it’s diluting the terror.
And it is terror Scott is going for. There’s more carnage in Covenant than in Scott’s previous two Alien films combined, but he hasn’t entirely thrown the existential crisis overboard. Suffice it to say that we’re lead to a crossroads where a dying species is “grasping for resurrection.”
Scott wants us to ponder those themes of death and creation while we’re running from bloodthirsty monsters. It’s not always a perfect fit, but Alien: Covenant combats the overreach with enough primal thrills to be satisfying.
“Life’s a riddle” croons the opening song of Buster’s Mal Heart. Hoo boy, it sure is.
At the start, two shadowy figures sit in a small row boat on the open sea. Despite being the first image of writer/director Sarah Adina Smith’s existential delight, this scene is one of the final pieces of the puzzle she creates.
Looking back, the plot is simple, in its bizarre sci-fi short story kind of way. But the resulting film is not simple. The order of events has been jumbled and small interactions are dragged out only to be pumped full of paranoia.
Each moment of Smith’s film is tense, uncomfortable and absolutely lovely. The soundtrack is a character all its own, often transitioning between different covers of the same song as scenes change from one reality to the other. The camera constantly finds an interplay of light and dark, whether bare trees against a winter sky or a glowing TV in a dimly lit office.
Buster’s Mal Heart contemplates the claustrophobia of working a dead-end job inside the machine of modern society, and Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) is the perfect canvas. You can see the quiet rage within him long before he lets it slip. He plays both cautious and wildly consumed by conspiracy with equal commitments. I would’ve watched him sit at his dingy concierge desk for the whole hour and a half.
DJ Qualls (The Man in the High Castle) is not to go unmentioned either, as The Last Free Man. He delivers wild cosmic theories with enough sanity to make them sound almost plausible. And in Buster’s Mal Heart, almost plausible makes the leap to utterly real without breaking a sweat.
This film begs to be consumed as a whole, a new rarity in our distracted age. There is no moment for you to sneak out for a bathroom break or check your texts. Even shots of Buster simply vacuuming the dining room somehow feel important and are key to mood that Smith has crafted.
Imagine the universe. It is impossibly large. Infinitely large. We exist within the universe, and yet have only theories of how it works. Allow yourself to panic at this idea, to become uncomfortable. Allow your own smallness to make your heart race and your brain stutter. Think about the things you do, every day, that have no consequence at all on existence at large.
Now, before you sprint headlong into the woods, go see this movie.
Norman (The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer)
by George Wolf
“What do you need? I’ll help you get it.”
When does Norman Oppenheimer ever sleep? He’s always there in that same coat and hat, stalking New York City for more people to connect, more circles to infiltrate, and more favors to curry.
But beyond mere social status, Norman (Richard Gere) wants to be a part of something that matters, and he thinks he’s finally found it after “betting on the right horse.” In Norman’s world, that means doing a favor for Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi-terrific), a struggling young politician, at precisely the right time.
It takes three years, but Norman’s long shot pays off when Eshel becomes Prime Minister of Israel. Suddenly, after a lifetime of exaggerating his influence and connectivity, Norman really does have a friend in a very high place.
People begin paying more attention to Norman, which isn’t always good news for his powerful friend.
Writer/director Joseph Cedar skillfully creates an utterly fascinating character who maneuvers through an equally intriguing web of politics, friendship and desperation. And Gere, as good as he’s ever been, makes it feel authentic.
Much as Bruce Dern dug deep into the lead role in Nebraska, Gere relishes his chance to flesh out a character as ripe as Norman Oppenheimer. He’s pushy, pathetic and often socially awkward, yet endearing in his tireless quest to seem worthwhile, both to others and himself.
It’s a performance that should not be forgotten come award season, and it anchors a smart, detailed film as compelling as any political thriller, yet as familiar as your last little white lie.
Filmmaker David Lynch is nearly as enigmatic a cultural fixture as his films. Indeed, as is the case with most of his cinematic output, you might be tempted to assume that his own folksy exterior covers something dark and lurid.
The new documentary David Lynch: The Art Life does what it can to confirm that impression. While it hardly resolves anything in a concrete way, if Lynch’s art imitates the artist, then this film imitates both.
Co-directors Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes and Olivia Neergaard-Holm recorded Lynch as he mused on childhood stories and the events that led him into the world of art and film. The audio is used to narrate footage – some recent, some archival – working together to illuminate the artist and his work. To a point.
Nguyen, who produced the doc Lynch about the making of the auteur’s 2006 film Inland Empire, has created another appropriately Lynchian film.
Once again there is a sweetness, almost innocence, about the filmmaker that feels wildly at odds with the darkness and macabre of the art we watch him create – and at the same time, seems fitting.
Much of the film is spent with Lynch in his studio as he molds, spreads and sculpts materials for art pieces. His artwork is far more immediately disturbing than his films, which tend to situate the horrifying inside a landscape of beauty. On canvas, the horror is right up front.
The work and process behind it give the film a wonderfully tactile quality and the team of directors frame and shoot the proceedings in a style Lynch himself would appreciate.
The doc takes us through Lynch’s artistically formative years and ends somewhat abruptly around the time of Eraserhead. The goal is not to document his life’s work, nor even to truly shed light on the conundrum of his particular artistry.
Instead it is a fascinating and beautifully filmed piece of what you might expect. You’ll find a lot of cigarette smoke and Coke bottles, unassuming odd-duckery and gruesome imagery.
But if you’re hoping for insight into what exactly inspires David Lynch’s fears, obsessions and grim work, be warned: The Art Life does more to continue the mystery than to solve it.
Next weekend we finally fit George’s Harley with a sissy bar. For me. The sissy.
So George is already planning our open road getaways. One option he’s suggested is the Easy Riders Rodeo.
We went several years ago, and I don’t recall that it went well enough to recommend a return visit.
Back when George was on a country station (in that time I now blissfully call the past), a listener learned that George was a licensed rider without a bike. This generous soul offered to lend George his own motorcycle, but there were strings.
George sprung their idea on me, saying Easy Riders was a big biker holiday kind of thing, and that the listener thought we might drive to his house, borrow his bike for the weekend, head out to Easy Riders on Saturday, and camp with him and his.
I adore strangers, country music and camping. I was totally in.
I said no.
If there is one thing I will not do for love or money, it is camp.
Eventually we compromised. We decided to borrow this generously offered loan, get the chance to ride a motorcycle on a beautiful late summer weekend, meet this man and his family, hang out for a few hours, try not to get killed, and then go home.
George mentioned our plans to attend the Easy Rider festival to our friend Richard, who responded with terror.
“You’re going there?” he queried, his face drained of color. “I’ve heard it gets pretty rough.”
My mind immediately flashed to that scene in the cinematic classic Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, with Harley dudes shouting, “I say we stomp him, then we tattoo him, then we hang him, and then we kill him!”
George was sure it wouldn’t be so bad. He could protect us with the Big Shoe Dance, if need be.
We got a little lost finding the event, somewhere in the Chillicothe area of southern OH, so we pulled into a gas station where several very hard looking couples on motorcycles were fueling up.
Thinking we were all headed in the same direction, George asked.
“Oh, no,” one grizzled, scary man answered, eyeballing me with a smirk. “That place gets a little wild for us.”
Oh, this sounded promising.
He wasn’t going, but he did direct us to the fairgrounds that would be scene to a sea of campsites and a midway with food, tattoo artists, vendors of assless leather goods – that kind of thing. Outstanding people watching.
We lined up with other incoming traffic, and as we moved slowly between the chain link fences outlining the fairgrounds, my eyes wandered to some of the officially posted signs.
They said things like
no in and out on a single ticket
no firearms
no below the waist nudity
I’m sorry, what?
That last sign was reposted about ever 50 feet or so.
Below the waist – should that level of specificity be necessary? And how comfortable are we with above the waist nudity?
Apparently, quite comfortable.
As my mind pondered what it could possibly mean that this crowd would need so many reminders to keep their junk covered, I saw the day’s first visual encounter with out-in-the-open intercourse, just the other side of the chain link fence.
Perhaps they’d forgotten about the holes in that specific type of fencing?
The balance of the afternoon went far more mildly. We enjoyed fun carny food, looked at some nice bikes, shared the company of the very friendly family and the man who’d lent us his ride, and basked in the beautiful weather.
Everyone was very polite. I wouldn’t quite call this my crowd, but who is, really? I must admit I was on the receiving end of an awful lot of weird smirks, but still, every person there was exceptionally nice, chatting pleasantly and passing out beers.
Then, at about 7pm, a parade of sorts hit the midway, and those interested in showing off their wares hopped on a bike and made the circuit.
By wares I mean breasts.
Every single female – young, old, matronly, overweight, mild mannered – every last one took her shirt off. Boobs ahoy.
Mardi Gras has nothing on Easy Riders.
You have never seen me run for an exit so fast.
So, I have found the one thing that freaks me out more than camping.
Horror has not always treated the mentally ill very well. Many filmmakers twist notions of “crazy” into varying degrees of evil, but rarely with any real thought to the pathology behind it.
Some films and filmmakers make an attempt to examine illness and mine it for both humanity and fear, since nearly all illnesses of any kind are marked by both. Here are our five (OK, maybe six) favorite films dealing in mental illness.
5. The Crazies (1973/2010)
We’re cheating here, but George Romero’s 1973 insanity plague flick offers much, as does its 2010 reboot by the otherwise useless Breck Eisner, so we’re combining.
Just three years after Night of the Living Dead, the master found himself interested in taking his zombiism concepts in a different direction. Two combat veterans are at the center of the film, in which a chemical weapon is accidentally leaked into the water supply to a Pennsylvania town. Those infected go helplessly mad. Military incompetence, the needless horror of Vietnam, and the evil that men can do when ordered to do so are all central conceits in this film.
Romero may not have always had the biggest budget, best actors, or best eye for composition, but his ideas were so far ahead of their time that modern horror would not exist in its current form without him. His ideas were not far-fetched, and they fed the imaginations of countless future filmmakers. You can see Romero’s ideas and images from this film repeated in 28 Days Later, Return of the living Dead, Signal, Cabin Fever, Super 8, even Rambo – and, obviously, in the remake.
Eisner’s version offers solid scares, inventive plotting, and far better performances than expected in a genre film. Both films begin by articulating humankind’s repulsion and fear of infection before introducing the greater threat – our own government. Eisner’s greatest strength is his cast. The eternally under-appreciated Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell, unerringly realistic as husband and wife, carry most of the grisly weight, aided by solid support work from folks who are not afraid to be full-on nuts.
4. Split (2017)
A transfixing James McAvoy is Kevin, a deeply troubled man harboring 23 distinct personalities and some increasingly chilling behavior. When he kidnaps the teenaged Casey (The Witch‘s Anya Taylor-Joy) and her two friends (Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Suva), the girls are faced with constantly changing identities as they desperately seek an escape from their disorienting confines.
Meanwhile, one of Kevin’s personalities is making emergency appointments with his longtime therapist (Betty Buckley, nice to see you), only to show up and assure the Dr. everything is fine. She thinks otherwise, and she is right.
The split personality trope has been used to eye-rolling effect in enough films to be the perfect device for Shyamalan’s clever rope-a-dope. By often splitting the frame with intentional set designs and camera angles, or by letting full face close-ups linger one extra beat, he reinforces the psychological creepiness without any excess bloodshed that would have soiled a PG-13 rating.
Still, it all might have gone for naught without McAvoy, who manages to make Kevin a sympathetic character while deftly dancing between identities, often in the same take. He’s a wonder to watch, and the solid support from Buckley and Taylor-Joy help keep the tension simmering through speedbumps in pacing and questionable flashbacks to Casey’s childhood.
3. The Voices (2014)
Director Marjane Satrapi’s follow up to her brilliant animated Persepolis is a sweet, moving, very black comedy about why medicine is not always the best medicine.
Ryan Reynolds is Jerry. And Mr. Whiskers. And Bosco. Which is appropriate, because all three characters are all the same, too. Jerry hears voices. They are the voices of his pets a kindly dog (Bosco) and an evil cat (Mr. Whiskers).
As Jerry sees it, his house is a cool pad above a nifty bowling alley, his job is the best, his co-workers really like him, and his positive disposition makes it easy for him to get along. Bosco agrees.
But Mr. Whiskers thinks Jerry is a cold blooded killer, and though Mr. Whiskers is OK with that, Jerry doesn’t want to believe it. So he should definitely not take his pills.
An outstanding cast including Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver and Gemma Arterton join Reynolds in a really touching film that looks sideways at mental illness. While the film certainly find reason to fear the outsider, it’s also surprisingly sympathetic to his plight.
2. They Look Like People (2015)
Christian (Evan Dumouchel) is killing it. He’s benching 250 now, looks mussed but handsome as he excels at work, and he’s even gotten up the nerve to ask out his smokin’ hot boss. On his way home from work to change for that date he runs into his best friend from childhood, Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews), who’s looking a little worse for wear. Christian doesn’t care. With just a second’s reluctance, Christian invites him in – to his apartment, his date, and his life.
But there is something seriously wrong with Wyatt.
Writer/director Perry Blackshear’s film nimbly treads the same ground as the wonderful Frailty and the damn near perfect Take Shelter in that he uses sympathetic characters and realistic situations to blur the line between mental illness and the supernatural.
Wyatt believes there is a coming demonic war and he’s gone to rescue his one true friend. Andrews is sweetly convincing as the shell shocked young man unsure as to whether his head is full of bad wiring, or whether his ex-fiance has demon fever.
The real star here, though, is Dumouchel, whose character arc shames you for your immediate assessment. Blackshear examines love – true, lifelong friendship – in a way that has maybe never been explored as authentically in a horror film before. It’s this genuineness, this abiding tenderness Christian and Wyatt have for each other, that makes the film so moving and, simultaneously, so deeply scary.
1. Psycho (1960)
Was Norman Bates psychotic from the start? Or was he smothered into madness by his mother?
Hard to say – Mrs. Bates can’t speak for herself, can she? Although Norman’s mother is not a character in Hitchcock’s classic, her presence is everywhere. But to be fair, we don’t get to see her as she was, we only get to see her as Norman sees her.
Whatever the case, Norman has an unhealthy attachment to his late mother, a single parent whose relationship with her son may have driven him to some very bad deeds. Part of Hitchcock’s skill in this film is to play with our expectations of the characters.
The heroine has done some questionable things. The villain is the most sympathetic character onscreen. The most relevant character in the story isn’t even in the film. Was Mrs. Bates really a bad mom, or does she just seem like that to us because we see her through Norman’s eyes, and he’s a psycho?
A ten foot tall demon, devil possessed mistresses, and lizard-like aliens. All promise a terrifying movie experience, but does The Dark Tapes succeed?
Vincent Guastani and Michael McQuown’s film is a found-footage anthology documenting “transdimensional entities.” The first couple stories are enjoyable – I’m glad they reserved the better actors for these sections.
The remaining stories, however, couldn’t keep my attention. Unfortunately, the acting quality distracted greatly from their plots.
It’s a good thing there isn’t much to miss out on anyway. The installment “cam girls” has some of the worst acting in the whole film. I have to give the actors some slack though, seeing as they didn’t have much to work with. The script was unbelievably bland and predictable.
Same goes for “Amanda’s Revenge,” which gives little explanation as to what exactly is going on. This would normally be fine as long as enough is given to allow the viewer to run free with their own conclusions, but there just isn’t enough substance to formulate one’s own theories.
Each storyline in this film goes for the unexpected twist at the end, and these two simply fail to surprise.
With that aside, not every short in the anthology is lacking. The complex science behind the “To Catch a Demon” storyline required all my attention, and the eerily convincing demon was able to keep it. Kudos goes to Guastani for special effects and creature design.
The end of “The Hunters and the Hunted” left me pleasantly surprised. Initially my notes read, “not unlike every other ghost hunting film.” Which I subsequently had to cross out after a major twist.
The Dark Tapes proudly states that it’s the found-footage horror movie with the second most awards and nominations, coming in at 61. As a whole, this film failed to be up to par with others in the genre, such as Paranormal Activity.
It certainly was a valiant effort, but they should have focused on those couple storylines with potential and ditched the rest.
