An effective scary movie is one that haunts your dreams long after the credits roll. It’s that kind of impact most horror buffs are seeking, but even the most ardent genre fan will hope out loud that Rodney Ascher’s new documentary The Nightmare doesn’t follow them to sleep.
His film explores sleep paralysis. It’s a sleep disorder – or a label hung on the world’s most unfortunate night terrors – that’s haunted humanity for eons. Most sufferers never realize that others share their misery.
Sleep paralysis is the phenomenon that inspired Wes Craven to write A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s a clear creative root for Insidious, Borgman and scores of other horror movies. But it isn’t fiction. It’s a sometimes nightly horror show real people have to live with. And dig this – it sounds like it might be contagious.
Ascher’s a fascinating, idiosyncratic filmmaker. His documentaries approach some dark, often morbid topics with a sense of wonder. His films never seem to be pushing an agenda, he doesn’t seem to have made up his mind on his subject matter. Rather, he is open which, in turn, invites the audience to be open.
It’s not all earnest sleuthing, though, because Ascher is a real showman. What’s intriguing is the way he draws your attention to his craftsmanship – like framing a shot so you see the speaker not head on, but in a large mirror’s reflection, then leaving the reflection of the cameraman’s arm in the same shot. Touches like this never feel amateurish, but they don’t really feel like a cinematic wink, either. Instead they seem intentional, as if he may just be playing.
Coyness suited his Shining documentary Room 237 pretty brilliantly. Here it feels almost like a way to release the tension, remind you that you are, indeed, watching a movie… a heartbreaking, terrifying movie.
I spend a great deal of time watching horror movies, and I cannot remember an instance in my life that I considered turning off a film for fear that I would dream about it later. Until now.
Love and Mercy is a music biography that doesn’t follow the standard playbook. More abstract than similar films in the genre, its dual narrative approach is not only welcome, but one that feels entirely appropriate for the life involved.
Even if you’ve never heard a note of Brian Wilson’s music, one listen to “God Only Knows,” “Good Vibrations,” “Caroline, No” or countless other Beach Boys classics reveals a musical visionary like none other. His success, and inner turmoil, have both become legend, and director Bill Pohlad utilizes an ambitious script and fine performances to make Wilson’s story resonate with heartbreak and hope.
Rather than a complete overview of Wilson’s entire life, acclaimed screenwriter Oren Moverman (Rampart, The Messenger, I’m Not There) anchors the film around two watershed periods: the late 1960s, when Wilson stopped touring to concentrate on recording, and the late 1980s, when questionable treatment for psychological issues left him an emotional invalid.
Paul Dano is flat out fantastic as the younger Wilson. Beyond the considerable physical resemblance, Dano is able to mine multiple layers of wonder, inspiration and doubt, as Wilson struggles to follow his vision in the midst of those who can’t understand it.
Pohlad, a veteran producer directing his first film in nearly 25 years, turns to John Cusack for the role of the older Wilson, and it pays off. Though not the physical match Dano is, Cusack nails Wilson’s speech pattern and hesitant gait and more importantly, he projects the weariness of a decades-long torment. Terrific support comes from Elizabeth Banks as the girlfriend who helped Wilson toward a breakthrough, and her chemistry with Cusack conveys a tender desperation.
Beyond some basic introductions of family and band members, Moverman’s script isn’t interested in spoon feeding. A degree in music history may not be necessary, but viewers already familiar with names such as Van Dyke Parks, Hal Blaine and Dr. Eugene Landy (a perfectly slimy Paul Giamatti) will feel even greater appreciation for the film’s disinterest in pandering.
Pohland crafts the studio segments with precision and an eye for detail. Rather than a greatest hits musical revue, we hear segments of the songs as they’re being constructed, and glimpse Wilson’s obsessive innovations in the studio, tirelessly directing the famed “wrecking crew” of studio musicians until he gets the perfect mix.
There are only minor bumps along the way. Pohland is a tad too preoccupied with time stamping via TV news reports and top 40 hits, and really, one closeup of Wilson trying to follow the sounds inside his head is enough to get the point across.
Variations on the Brian Wilson story have been attempted before, but Love and Mercy is an original tune that won’t need to be covered for quite some time.
It’s been more than a decade since Vincent Chase hit LA, buddies in tow, to make it big and reap the benefits of stardom. Writer/director Doug Ellin checks back in on Vincent, Turtle, Drama, E and Ari with the unnecessary Entourage feature.
Now a full-fledged movie star, Vincent (Adrian Grenier) wants something more. Because Ari (Jeremy Piven – still the reason to watch) is no longer an agent but a major studio head, he’s in the position to offer Vincent the opportunity he craves – to direct.
Meanwhile, a Texas oilman’s son (Haley Joel Osment) wants the movie shut down, E’s (Kevin Connolly) sex life is spiraling out of control, newly rich and thin Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) has a crush on Ronda Rousey, Vince’s movie might suck, and Drama (Kevin Dillon) may become Hollywood’s biggest joke.
The fellas’ arrested adolescence feels less forgivable ten plus years on. There’s something sad about 35-year-old skirt chasers. What could once be chalked up to youth and ignorance now looks like stagnation and misogyny.
Returning to the role of a lifetime, though, Piven crushes it. He’s hilarious, horrible, and yet somehow likeable, and his bombast alone carries 90% of the film. Ellin pads that with dozens of cameos, hundreds of bare breasts, countless insider jokes and plenty of camaraderie – giving you basically the TV show on steroids.
A lot of films look at Hollywood from the inside out, only to find something repellant. Entourage isn’t so cynical. The boys from the neighborhood are still geeked to be able to take advantage of every opportunity. Their routine feels pretty stale as they mosey toward middle age, but fans of the series might enjoy this brisk and relatively painless check in.
Senior Gay Correspondent Jon Theiss joins us this week to talk through our five favorite horror films with gay themes. To narrow down, first we threw out all films with girl-on-girl action intended to titillate a heterosexual male audience. We could dedicate an entire show to the female vampire and her ripe bosoms. We’re not going to, though.
What were we looking for? Films that – whether intentionally or not – seemed preoccupied with homosexual themes. In some cases, gay characters get to be actual characters and not just props for vilification or comedy. In others, teenage boys pretend to date Jami Gertz just to be closer to Kiefer Sutherland.
5. The Lost Boys (1987)
Out and proud Hollywood director Joel Schumacher spins a yarn of Santa Carla, a town with a perpetual coastal carnival and the nation’s highest murder rate. A roving band of cycle-riding vampires haunts the carnival and accounts for the carnage, until Diane Weist moves her family to town. While hottie Michael (Jason Patric) is being seduced into the demon brethren, younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) teams up with local goofballs the Frog brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander) to stake all bloodsuckers.
Sure, Schumacher finds sex appeal in the vampire tale – who doesn’t, though?
What’s interesting is that he finds sexuality that swings. This would certainly become somewhat standard fare in later works (the image of an evil, blond vampire seducing an introverted brunette innocent certainly informed the 1994 Tom Cruise v Brad Pitt bite-off Interview with a Vampire). But back in ‘87, The Lost Boys was sort of the Top Gun of vampire films. (Oh, like that movie wasn’t gay!)
Though it’s Michael and David (Kiefer Sutherland) who do the “will he or won’t he?” dance, it’s Corey Haim’s character that puts this over the top. The androgyny, the shoulder pads! Is that a Rob Lowe poster?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_lwtRMg0ts
4. Night Warning (1982)
Here’s a weird one. And convoluted, too. Orphaned Billy (Jimmy McNichol) lives with his horny Aunt (Susan Tyrrell), plays basketball, and necks with his girlfriend Julia (Julia Duffy). Aunt Cheryl kills the TV repairman, claiming he was trying to rape her. When police realize the TV repairman was actually the longtime lover of Billy’s basketball coach, an evenhanded treatment of homophobia arises – surprising, given the time period. Not that it’s the point of the film, but it is the biggest surprise.
No one is really trying to unravel the murder mysteries piling up here. Aunt Cheryl is too busy trying to keep Billy to herself while small town cop Joe Carlson (go-to bigoted cop figure throughout the 70s and 80s, Bo Svenson) just wants to know whether or not Billy’s gay.
This is very definitely a low budget, early Eighties horror flick. Don’t get your hopes up. But it is such a peculiar movie. Everyone – the cop, the girlfriend, the aunt – seems to want to have sex with Billy, except his coach, who loses his job over the fear that he might want to. Longtime character actor Steve Eastin offers a commendably layered performance, given the film itself. His Coach Landers is the only genuinely decent adult in the entire movie, which really says a lot for the film.
Susan Tyrrell is fascinatingly unhinged and so, so creepy that you cannot look away, and if you’re up for one hot mess of a movie, this is an especially absorbing time waster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL8pbcWPk28
3. Sleepaway Camp (1983)
A seriously subversive film with blatant homosexual undertones, Sleepaway Camp is a bizarre take on the summer camp slasher.
It may be the shocking finale that gave the film its cult status, but it’s writer/director Robert Hilzik’s off-center approach to horror that makes it interesting. Dreamy flashbacks, weirdly gruesome murders, and a creepy (yet somehow refreshing) preoccupation with beefcake separate this one from the pack.
It’s not scary, certainly, but it is all manner of wrong. Let’s take the honest to god awesome Aunt Martha – I have looked and looked, and I can find no evidence in real life that Desiree Gould is a drag queen. Aside from the obvious evidence of this particular film.
The kill sequences are hugely imaginative, and the subversive approach to the entire film makes it hard for me to believe more people haven’t seen this gem.
2. May (2002)
How about a tale of a wallflower, the blossom of new love, and the efficient use of veterinary surgical equipment and a good-sized freezer? Few horror films are as touching, funny, heartbreaking or bloody as May.
As the title character, Angela Bettis inhabits this painfully gawky, socially awkward wallflower with utter perfection. Director Lucky McKee’s screenplay is as darkly funny as it is genuinely touching, and we’re given the opportunity to care about the characters: fragile May, laid back love interest Adam (a faultless Jeremy Sisto), hot and horny Polly (a wonderful Anna Faris).
By day Polly flirts with a confused but needy May during their workday as veterinary assistants, and by night May pines for her tragically hip and beloved Adam. May just really wants somebody who will love her.
McKee’s film pulls no punches, mining awkward moments until they’re almost unendurable and spilling plenty of blood when the time is right. He deftly leads us from the sunny “anything could happen” first act through a darker, edgier coming of age middle, and finally to a carnage-laden climax that feels sad, satisfying and somehow inevitable.
1. Calvaire (The Ordeal) (2004)
That’s right – it’s Calvaire again. We come up with topics just so we can talk about this movie.
The backwoods horror subgenre is often driven by a rape hysteria – either those giant, illiterate, inbred freaks are going to rape our women, or they like the look of Ned Beatty’s purty mouth. It is not homophobia, exactly – more of a fear of losing our place atop the food chain. So, why put Calvaire atop this list?
Because writer/director Fabrice du Welz takes a somewhat familiar idea and infuses it with so much fascinating, subversive, unexplained insanity – and he examines sexual identity, love, longing, masculinity, femininity, and dance while he’s at it.
Delicate Marc (an absolutely perfect Laurent Lucas) performs as a semi-amateur, highly bedazzled crooner. We open during a show at a retirement home, where the elderly women swoon and one nurse does more. Marc is compassionate but uninterested.
Later his van breaks down well off the beaten path and we learn that basically everyone is sweet on Marc.
The unanswered questions in this film create the most bizarrely mysterious environment – there’s a backstory here that you just feel sure you don’t really want to know. What we do know is that, somehow, there’s not one human female for miles. How the men of the area have compensated is a deeply peculiar tale to unravel, and it’s the absence of the feminine that makes Marc’s presence so volatile.
Whether Marc is gay or straight is beside the point, but the fact that his own sexuality is unclear helps du Welz sidestep the patriarchal, mainstream dread usually generated by this type of film. Lucas’s delicate, supremely compassionate performance and du Welz’s use of darkest humor give the entire film a “what next?” quality that is absolutely unshakable. It may not be the gayest movie on this list, but it is absolutely the best.
Aloha slips quietly into theaters this weekend. How is it that a Cameron Crowe film starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, and Bill Murray could fly under the radar with no critic screenings and barely a blip of an ad campaign?
Not a good sign.
No, on that cast alone this movie should have worldwide buzz. It should be the movie grown-ups see this weekend instead of San Andreas. Instead it’s an unwieldy, herky-jerky romantic comedy that leaves the romance and comedy behind in favor of goofy mush.
And what a waste of a cast! Hell, the sheer talent wattage nearly salvages the effort. Cooper is reliably compelling as military contractor Brian Gilcrest, a piece of seriously damaged goods with a chance to get back in with the big boys on this trip to Hawaii. McAdams shines as his former flame, and Murray is great as the charming, eccentric, billionaire villain.
Stone, however, drew the short straw with a wholly unrealistic character who’s equal parts Navy hutzpah and dreamy eyed innocent. Her hyperactive Captain Allison Ng, the Naval airman assigned to keep tabs on Gilcrest while he’s in town, rarely breaks beyond caricature and when she does it feels all the more inauthentic because of the broadly drawn comical foil we first meet.
Crowe’s writing is as likeable as ever, leaving cynicism behind and populating his islands with odd but lovable characters. He’s just not making any choices. Is this a romance? Because there’s a love triangle happening here that actually keeps your attention, under-developed as it is. Or is that cast aside in favor of one man’s dramatic attempt at redemption? Because that doesn’t work, either, as Crowe introduces a dark, political storyline that he tidies up with almost laughable convenience.
Crowe’s best work ranks among the better films you’ll ever see, but his last worthwhile film was 2000’s AlmostFamous. Since then, his unchecked sense of wonder in the face of a cynical society has overtaken every film, none more so than Aloha.
Although, let’s be honest, it’s better than San Andreas.
If current events haven’t satisfied your appetite for stories of cops behaving badly, take a trip back to the 1980s with The Seven Five. It’s a sobering look at the man dubbed “the dirtiest cop in history,” as well as the law enforcement code of silence that still appears shockingly prevalent.
Officer Michael Dowd joined New York’s 75th precinct in the early 80s, when the growing crack epidemic sent the crime rate skyrocketing and turned the Seven Five’s territory into what Dowd called “a war zone.” Starting out with the good intentions of a rookie cop, it wasn’t long before Dowd felt underpaid and under appreciated, and had a hard time finding reasons to think his work made any real difference.
The anxiety he felt after taking that first bribe didn’t last, and in the years that followed Dowd became head of the Seven Five’s very own crime family, brazenly involved in burglary, drug dealing, kidnapping and murder.
Dowd was eventually brought down, and director Tiller Russell uses footage from Dowd’s 1993 hearing testimony as an effective bookend to current interviews with Dowd and several of his cohorts. The chill that comes from a younger Dowd testifying that a good cop means “being 100 percent behind anything another cop does” only intensifies when you hear one of his old partners recalling the prevailing attitude of their criminal heyday.
“Prove it. You got me on video? It’s your word against mine, and I’m a cop.”
Obviously, the story crackles with urgency and timeliness, but Russell sometimes get carried away with the Goodfellas nature of it all. Dowd’s trail of lawlessness left countless victims behind, yet Tiller sometimes allows an air of perverse hero worship to creep into the film. No doubt this tale could be worthy of a Hollywood adaptation, but The Seven Five falters only when it gets too caught up in being the trailer for that non-existent film.
San Andreas is a film made with the utmost commitment to artistic vision. It is the work of a director fully invested in the task at hand, and confident enough to never waver from the mission. Director Brad Peyton knows what he wants and explores every opportunity to get it in on screen as often as possible.
He wants cleavage.
And if there’s time, some nifty earthquake effects.
He gets both, along with the gun show that is Dwayne Johnson starring as Ray Gaines, an LA firefighter who specializes in helicopter rescue. Ray’s already dealing with his daughter Blake’s (Alexandra Daddario) plan to move away, when he learns his soon-to-be ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino) is moving in with her uber-rich, ultra douchy new boyfriend Daniel (Ioan Ruffud).
So Ray’s feeling blue, and as he drives away from Emma we see her framed squarely in his rear view mirror. That’s the level of subtlety you can expect from San Andreas: zero.
Then the big quake hits, and there’s no more time for talk. Ray has to jump into the role of superhero, rescuing Emma from the top of a crumbling LA high rise, and then heading off to go get their daughter in San Francisco. We know this from the number of times one of them looks at the other, pauses, and says, “Let’s go get our daughter!”
The quake is presented in often spectacular fashion, and the effect it has on the buttons of Gugino’s blouse is not ignored, either. Of course, that’s only after she’s spent the required amount of time running in a super tight tank top.
From the opening (and admittedly effective) sequence showing a young girl rescued from a wrecked car, straight through to the rubble-strewn, flag waving finale, nearly every female with a speaking role (and Daddario especially) wears a tight, often wet shirt while being framed at an angle high enough for optimal oogling. Sure, the tight tank is old hat for PG-13 jollies, but even Michael Bay might find this excessive.
Johnson has become a charismatic star, Gugino is always a treat, and the film should get some credit for actually pairing two age-appropriate leads. Paul Giamatti even shows up as a seismologist, but that ultimately just solidifies the point that no amount of acting talent can raise San Andreas much above the mindless threshold of blowing stuff up and catcalling the babes.
The Poltergeist reboot has us talking about the great haunted house movies over the years and how much they’ve changed. From the creaky old mansions to suburban horror to the curse that will stay with you even after you leave, ghosts have always been able to scare moviegoers and us. Here are our 5 favorite ghost stories:
5. Poltergeist (1982)
This aggressive take on the haunted house tale wraps director Tobe Hooper’s potent horrors inside producer Steven Spielberg’s brightly lit suburbia.
Part of the original’s success emerged from pairing universal childhood fears – clowns, thunderstorms, that creepy tree – with the adult terror of helplessness in the face of your own child’s peril. JoBeth Williams’s performance of vulnerable optimism gives the film a heartbeat, and the unreasonably adorable Heather O’Rourke creeps us out while tugging our heartstrings.
Splashy effects, excellent casting, Spielberg’s heart and Hooper’s gut combine to create a flick that holds up. Solid performances and the pacing of a blockbuster provide the film a respectable thrill, but Hooper’s disturbing imagination guarantees some lingering jitters.
4. The Conjuring (2013)
James Wan built an old fashioned ghost story from the ground up to push buttons of childhood terror. But don’t expect a long, slow burn. Wan expertly balances suspense with quick, satisfying bursts of visual terror.
Ghost stories are hard to pull off, though, especially in the age of instant gratification. Few modern moviegoers have the patience for atmospheric dread, so filmmakers now turn to CGI to ramp up thrills. But Wan understands the power of a flesh and blood villain in a way that other directors don’t seem to.
Claustrophobic when it needs to be and full of fun house moments, The Conjuring will scare you while you’re in the theater and stick with you after. At the very least, you’ll keep your feet tucked safely under the covers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjk2So3KvSQ
3. The Orphanage (2007)
Laura (Belén Rueda) and her husband reopen the orphanage where she grew up, with the goal of running a house for children with special needs – children like her adopted son Simón, who is HIV positive. But Simón’s new imaginary friends worry Laura, and when he disappears it looks like she may be imagining things herself.
A scary movie can be elevated beyond measure by a masterful score and an artful camera. Because director Antonio Bayona keeps the score and all ambient noise to a minimum, allowing the quiet to fill the scenes, he develops a truly haunting atmosphere. His camera captures the eerie beauty of the stately orphanage, but does it in a way that always suggests someone is watching. The effect is never heavy handed, but effortlessly eerie.
One of the film’s great successes is its ability to take seriously both the logical, real world story line, and the supernatural one. Rueda carries the film with a restrained urgency – hysterical only when necessary, focused at all times, and absolutely committed to this character, who may or may not be seeing ghosts.
2. The Innocents (1961)
Quietly desperate and delicately high strung, Deborah Kerr’s performance is the perfect central image in The Innocents, the best of many screen adaptations of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Is Kerr’s hypersensitive governess turning delusional as she spirals toward spinsterhood, or are her angelic charges in danger of becoming possessed by the spectral lovers who seem to haunt the property?
Thanks to Kerr, the wickedly cherubic turn by Martin Stephens as young Miles, and Freddie Francis’s gorgeous black and white photography, this eerie ghost story is a glorious study in the shadowy line between reality and imagination. Countless films – good ones, like The Orphanage and The Others – have walked similar, spooky hallways, but The Innocents will always be the standard bearer.
1. The Shining (1980)
A study in atmospheric tension, Kubrick’s vision of the Torrance family collapse at the Overlook Hotel is both visually and aurally meticulous. It opens with that stunning helicopter shot, following Jack Torrence’s little yellow Beetle up the mountainside, the ominous score announcing a foreboding that the film never shakes.
Let’s not forget Jack. Nicholson outdoes himself. His veiled contempt early on blossoms into homicidal mania, and there’s something so wonderful about watching Nicholson slowly lose his mind. Between writer’s block, isolation, ghosts, alcohol withdrawal, midlife crisis, and “a momentary loss of muscular coordination,” the playfully sadistic creature lurking inside this husband and father emerges.
What image stays with you most? The two creepy little girls? The blood pouring out of the elevator? The impressive afro in the velvet painting above Scatman Crothers’s bed? That guy in the bear suit – what was going on there? Whatever the answer, thanks be to Kubrick’s deviant yet tidy imagination.
Listen to the whole conversation on our FRIGHT CLUB podcat.
Slow West is just that. Quiet by summer blockbuster standards, but a solid piece of filmmaking, flush as it is with understated writing, authentic performances and stirring panoramic visuals.
16 year-old Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a young man on quite a mission. He set out from his home in Scotland, traveling alone across the frontier in 19th century America, with hopes of joining his beloved Rose (Caren Pistorious) for a new life in a new land. But there are complications to this true love story. A nasty bit of drama back home earned Rose and her father a price on their heads, which means plenty of outlaws are hunting them as well.
One of those is the strong, mostly silent Silas (Michael Fassbender). After crossing paths with the naive teenager and hearing his story, Silas secretly thanks Lady Luck and offers Jay a bit of protection on his slow journey to Rose.
Writer/director John Maclean, in his feature debut, taps into the spirit of classic westerns with an impressive level of confident restraint. These themes of innocence amid moral decay, of lost souls seeking redemption, are genre benchmarks, but Maclean knows they can still be effective.
He’s right. His script isn’t wordy, and his camera isn’t showy, but both set a solid foundation to make two outstanding shoot-out sequences that much more effective. Maclean’s instincts for actors isn’t bad either. Smit-McPhee is a believable babe in the woods, Fassbender delivers non-stop steely charisma, and Ben Mendelsohn, showing up midway through the film with an attitude as big as his fur coat, brings a fresh set of questionable allegiances.
Like its characters, Slow West is a film determined to make the destination worthy of the journey. Buoyed by talented actors, pristine cinematography and a filmmaker smart enough to know when less is more, it is.
Thirty three years ago, Steven Spielberg unleashed two tales of supernatural contact in anonymous, suburban neighborhoods. Things went better for Elliott.
Between producer Spielberg’s sense of awe and director Tobe Hooper’s capacity for imaginative terror, the original Poltergeist far exceeded expectations, and though several sequences have not aged well, it remains a potent horror show.
A generation later, we return to Glen Echo Circle, now the victim of a downturned economy, as are the Bowens. Sam Rockwell and Rosemary DeWitt play the parents unwillingly relocating their three kids to the neighborhood to accommodate their now-more-modest means. Their son Griffin (Kyle Catlett) doesn’t like his room because of the creepy tree outside, but little Maddie (adorable Kennedi Clements) is already making friends.
This is a tough film to remake. The original combined superficial thrills with primal fears and offered the giddy mix of Spielberg’s wonder and Hooper’s twisted vision. Wisely, director Gil Kenan started with a solid cast.
Rockwell is always a good bet and DeWitt is fast becoming the go-to for authenticity in the suburban mom role. Jared Hess offers a little panache as the medium who cleans houses, and the supporting performers turn in respectable work.
Kenan can’t seem to decide whether or not to embrace the original’s more iconic moments, and his revisions feel more like obligation than inspiration. What his version lacks is a big punch. He’s hampered by audience expectation – we kind of know what’s coming, after all – but that doesn’t excuse his lack of imagination.
The director proved a savvy storyteller with his Oscar-nominated animated nightmare Monster House, a film that was surprisingly terrifying for a kids’ movie. That kind of exuberance could have infected this production, but the sequel lacks energy.
Poltergeist is not a bad movie, just disappointing. A lot of reboots are, but there are some that feel like one filmmaker’s love letter to a movie. Films like The Ring, The Crazies, Dawn of the Dead, and more recently, Evil Dead work as reboots because they inhabited an old story but found a new voice. Kenan doesn’t find his. The result is entertaining and forgettable.
