Tag Archives: Brandon Thomas

Nightmares Film Festival

The Beast of Walton St.

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by Brandon Thomas

A good creature feature is hard to do on an indie budget. Many filmmakers have tried – and failed spectacularly – to bring monsters to life with little money and even worse, little imagination. The Beast of Walton Street bucks that trend by delivering thrilling monster mayhem and a steady supply of wit and heart. 

In a nameless Ohio town, a beast is roaming the Christmas decorated streets and picking off the most vulnerable: the unhoused. Friends Constance (Athena Murzda) and Sketch (Mia Jones) live on the fringes of society – barely scraping by and living in an abandoned auto repair shop. As the two notice more and more of the city’s at-risk residents disappearing, they decide to take matters into their own hands and defend their town from the ravenous beast. 

There’s a palpable level of energy that flows through the entirety of The Beast of Walton Street. Director Dusty Austen’s competency behind the camera is evident and admirable. The level of care and skill shown toward the craft of filmmaking is immediately recognizable in the editing, blocking, lighting, and shot composition. Craft is something that unfortunately falls to the wayside in many indie films, but in The Beast of Walton Street it’s on full display.

Austen is wisely economical when it comes to showing the titular beast (which is actually a werewolf). How Austen chose to shoot and edit around the beast is truly impressive. This reviewer was reminded of Ridley Scott’s Alien on more than one occasion. The ferocity of the werewolf is never lost on the viewer and so much of that is due to Austen’s confident handling of craft.

On the flip-side, the human element of Beast of Walton Street is just as impressive. While Murzda carries the film as the lead, both she and Jones have a delightfully charming chemistry that makes the beast-less scenes just as fun. While neither actor has a long resume (yet!), their comfort and flexibility in front of the camera is evident. 

The Beast of Walton Street doesn’t reinvent the werewolf wheel, but what it does is offer up an Amblin-esque punk rock creature feature, and that is more than enough for me.

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Put to Pasture

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Herd

by Brandon Thomas

To give their crumbling relationship one last shot, Jamie (Ellen Adair) and Alex (Mitzi Akaha) head into the wilderness for a weekend of camping. After a canoeing accident leaves Alex injured, the two make their way out of the woods in search of medical help. Instead, the couple finds that society in their immediate area has crumbled due to a localized outbreak. Infected people are roaming the countryside, murdering and spreading the infection. 

The idea of a zombie movie with a message feels like a drinking game at this moment in time. Take your first drink when the surprised heroes stumble upon the outbreak already in full effect. Toss back that second drink when the movie muses that – gasp – mankind might be the real monster. Then make sure you have a hangover in the morning by polishing off the six-pack when one of the main characters hides that they’ve been bitten or scratched by the infected. Movies in this subgenre are basically about checking boxes at this point, and Herd is unfortunately no different. 

The film opens promisingly enough by focusing on Jamie and Alex’s relationship. The two actors are more than up for the challenge even if the writing isn’t. Both Adair and Akaha handle the emotional tension with ease well before anything horrific begins. It’s a shame that the film becomes too preoccupied with 3 or 4 other plot threads later in the film to truly give these characters their due. 

Herd never quite knows what it wants to do other than offer up reheated ideas and sequences from better films. The drama within the human survivors is telegraphed a mile away – or longer depending on how many seasons of The Walking Dead you’ve seen. Even the zombies – or infected? – feel like a much too recent rip-off of The Last of Us. The lack of originality makes for the worst kind of horror movie: a boring one.

Director Steven Pierce does at least deliver an aesthetically pleasing film. It’s well-shot, the assembled cast is professional, and Herd even has a few decent action sequences. However, a polished exterior isn’t enough to hide a script full of incomplete thoughts. 

The one bright spot is the inclusion of rising genre favorite Jeremy Holm (The Ranger, Brooklyn 45). Holm’s presence in the film produces certain audience assumptions early on, so it’s doubly satisfying when the character ends up being one of the more morally upright in the movie. 
With a half-baked script that relies too heavily on decades-old ideas, Herd is another recent zombie movie that’s D.O.A.

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Work Hard, Love Hard

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Fair Play

by Brandon Thomas

Emily (Phoebe Dynever of Bridgerton) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich of Solo: A Star Wars Story) are several years into a whirlwind romance. Despite being madly in love – and newly engaged to boot – they have to be careful about how public they are with their relationship. See, Emily and Luke work for a cutthroat hedgefund firm where relationships among staff are frowned upon. After Emily earns a valued promotion in the firm – and also finds herself Luke’s boss – things between the young couple take a dramatic turn for the worse.

Workplace gender politics have been explored on film for decades and through many different lenses and genres. Films like His Girl Friday, 9 to 5, and Norma Rae all used the interplay between the sexes to craft timeless stories. Some films showed more interest than others in actually commenting on the complexities of these relationships in a place of work. Most, however, just mined it for obvious dramatic or comedic content. In more modern times, movies like Fair Play attempt to make a more complex statement on the mixing of personal life and work life and often from the perspective of female filmmakers. 

So much of Fair Play’s success or failure rides on the relationship between Dynever and Ehrenreich. Thankfully, both bring their A game and end up absolutely sizzling on the screen. There’s a lived-in element to their relationship that feels genuine and passionate. 

Equal attention must be given to writer/director Chloe Domont’s intense screenplay. Her patience as both a writer and director pays dividends in many of the film’s longer scenes – allowing the actors and the writing to shine concurrently. For most of Fair Play’s running time, the story never outpaces the characters and that’s a testament to Domont’s handling of the narrative.

While not at all flashy, Domont’s direction is specific and has an intriguing point of view. Set amongst the hustle-and-bustle of New York City, there’s never a lingering shot of Manhattan’s gorgeous skyline. The direction is often kept tight and claustrophobic – keeping scenes focused on the characters and the chaos bubbling up around them. 

It’s all the more disappointing when Fair Play stumbles late. The complex drama is jettisoned in favor of a more standard thriller that might’ve starred Michael Douglas sometime in the 1990s. The need to make one of the characters a cliched villain feels tacked on and not spiritually in line with the thoughtful nature of the film’s first two acts. 

Despite a less than thrilling conclusion, the majority of Fair Play is a taut drama that puts character before plot.

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A Time to Kill

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Aporia

by Brandon Thomas

Most time travel movies don’t get into ethical dilemmas that going into the past – or future – might cause. The plot is usually too confusing anyway so adding moral problems to the mix might send audiences screaming from the theaters. With Aporia, director Jared Moshe makes the ethics of time travel the centerpiece of the movie and to riveting results. 

It’s been 8 months since Sophie (Judy Greer of 13 Going on 30, Ant-Man, and 2018’s Halloween) lost her husband, Mal (Edi Gathegi of X-Men: First Class and Gone Baby Gone) to a drunk driver. Mal’s loss has had a devastating impact on Sophie and her daughter Riley (Faithe Herman). As the two try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, Mal’s close friend Jabir (Payman Maadi) confides in Sophie that he has been working on a device that could potentially bring Mal back but that it would involve killing someone else in the past. 

Aporia slowly reveals its cards, or genre trappings, if you will. Stylistically the film skews closer to an indie drama than it does sci-fi. This is also the film’s greatest strength. As Sophie and Jabir’s changes to the past take form in the present, it’s not through fancy CGI set-pieces. Clever changes in production design or the cast’s appearance are utilized to showcase the ripple effect in time. These easy gags help keep the film grounded. Moshe refuses to get lost in the complex mechanics of the story, instead leaning into the characters and the roller coaster of emotions they ride through the film. 

The deeper Aporia questions the ethics of changing time, the more interesting the film becomes. Using these characters to ask complex questions about grief and responsibility was clearly where Moshe felt most inspired when making the film. Movies use the scenario of going back in time to kill baby Hitler as the ultimate moral time travel question. Aporia theorizes that this question – and many like it – doesn’t always have simple answers or solutions.

Greer continues to show that she deserves to be seen as more than “Hey, that girl!” Her relatability and charm help keep the character lighter than the subject matter might have allowed. Like the character of Sophie herself, Greer delicately dances between emotions – sometimes in the same scene. Given the small size of the cast, the chemistry between the core three is important and both Gathegi and Maadi also bring a natural gravitas to the film. 

Aporia asks a lot of interesting and important questions but it’s the kind of film that isn’t necessarily interested in following through with answers. Here that isn’t a detriment as the journey through asking those questions makes for one of the smartest time travel films in recent memory.

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Time and Again

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Brightwood

by Brandon Thomas

We’ve all been stuck at a dinner or party with that one couple that seemingly hates one another. The snide remarks, uncomfortable body language, and icy stares create a tense environment that’s almost tangible. Now, imagine that this couple are the only two characters in a 90 minute horror movie. It would be easy to root for their eventual demise, but through clever plotting and character arcs, Brightwood manages to circumvent early assumptions. 

Things are not going well for Jen (Dana Berger) and Dan (Max Woertendyke). Dan’s embarrassed himself – and mostly Jen – at a party the night before, and the hostility between the couple is at a fever pitch. That he’s tagged along on her morning run has only made Jen all the more angry. As Dan tries to match Jen’s pace – and beg for forgiveness along the way – the two slowly realize that their surroundings keep repeating and that odd-looking – but familiar –  strangers are appearing to the both of them. 

Writer/Director Dane Elcar takes his time getting to the genre trappings in Brightwood. The deteriorating relationship between Jen and Dan takes up the bulk of the film’s first act. It’s a portion that may test a lot of viewers as the rage and desperation radiating from the couple showcases two people at their lowest. That Berger and Woertendyke are so good at selling these heightened characters only makes the latter half of the film all the better. 

Elcar keeps things character-centric even as the events around the couple get weirder. Brightwood isn’t a plot heavy film. The strange events happening to Jen and Dan are never explained. The fascinating part of the film is witnessing their arc not only in “real time”, but also through various versions of themselves that come and go.

Things get devilishly funny and violent as the film races (ahem) to its climax. What could’ve at first been a talky relationship drama ends in blood-soaked mayhem by the time the end credits begin the role. Dead Alive this movie ain’t, but Elcar doesn’t shy away from the carnage.

The tonal shifts never feel jarring or unnatural, which is a testament not only to Brightwood’s script but also the actors bringing it to life. 

Brightwood is a clever addition to the time travel subgenre. Instead of getting lost in the mechanics of paradoxes and and alternate timelines, the film wisely keeps its eye on the two characters experiencing this horrifying event.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Meg 2, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Shortcomings, Final Cut, Night of the 12th & More

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TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Meg 2 The Trench, Shortcomings, Final Cut, The Night of the 12th, Rub, Mob Land, Bad City

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Tainted Love

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Rub

by Brandon Thomas

As disheveled loner Neal (Micah Spayer) sits at his work desk scanning through dating site profiles, it’s hard not to immediately think of other cinematic losers. Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, One Hour Photo’s Seymour Parrish, and Joker’s titular character spring to mind first. However, as Christopher’s Fox feature debut Rub plays out, our expectations are slowly thrown out the window and the film unfolds into something completely different.

Neal leads an isolated life. His coworkers don’t take him seriously, his relationship with his family seems to exist only over the phone, and any attempt at a romantic relationship is dismissed. At the urging of a co-worker, Neal visits a tawdry massage parlor where he meets Perla (Jennifer Figuereo). As Neal’s humiliation at the hands of his co-workers boils over, he makes another visit to the parlor – a visit that will wind up with both Neal and Perla on the run.

The way Rub nimbly dances between sub-genres really allows it to surprise. Just when you think it’s going to become Maniac, the film veers off into Taxi Driver territory. However before Rub can fully commit to homaging Scorsese’s anarchic opus, the film takes another hard right into Badlands. Director Fox never lets his film get comfortable in any of these genre-defining areas. Instead, the tone and tenor of the film follows the characters and their journey, not the other way around.

Spayer has the flashier role of the two roles, and he handles himself quite well, but the real fireworks happen when both Spayer and Figuereo are sharing the screen. They are an unlikely pair but their vulnerability shines through to something deeper and more meaningful. Both characters have been discarded by those around them – to be used only as things of either enjoyment or ridicule. It’s a pairing that begs for a happy ending, but the mounting suspense and tension only point to one inevitable outcome.

Rub is the kind of character-centric genre outing that evokes the electric and gratifying cinema of the 1970s. Sure, it’s a low-budget film that’s rough around the edges, but any shortcomings on a purely production level are soon erased by the commitment to surprising storytelling.

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OK with Age

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Aged

by Brandon Thomas

The subject of aging has become a popular trope in the world of horror. Films like M. Night Shyamalan’s Old and the Aussie favorite Relic used our own fears of natural mortality to tap into something more supernatural. Ti West’s X comments on how aging – and the supposed loss of beauty – can have deeper psychological implications. Director Anubys Lopez’s Aged may not reach the highest highs of the aforementioned films, but what it lacks in originality it more than makes up for with old school things that go bump in the night.

Veronica (Morgan Boss-Maltais) has recently taken a temporary job as a caregiver for the elderly Mrs. Bloom (Carla Kidd). Shortly after arriving at Mrs. Bloom’s remote home, Veronica begins to sense a presence in the house. As the strange events in the house escalate, Veronica also begins to suspect that Mrs. Bloom herself might be harboring a sinister secret.

Aged checks a lot of low-budget horror boxes right off the bat. 

Single location? Check. 

Small cast? Check. 

Simplistic story that requires little in the way of production value and special effects? That would be a check. 

These aren’t detriments by any means. The simplicity of Aged is actually the film’s greatest asset… well, except for Kidd’s old-age makeup. That gag is right out of a Spirit Halloween and pretty wince-inducing. 

Lopez aims high with the film’s visuals. The low-budget still manages to shine through here and there, but the emphasis on production design and shooting every nook and cranny of the desolate farm house helps create a real sense of place. Lopez has a good eye – so good, in fact, that it’s a shame much of Aged was filmed in the brightness of day. 

Boss-Maltais and Kidd spend nearly all of their scenes together. Kidd chews up an enormous amount of scenery as the venomous Mrs. Bloom. Boss-Maltais’s Veronica is your standard bland non-personality-having lead. Veronica’s role is to walk the audience through the plot of the movie and not to have any real arc of her own. 

Aged isn’t the first movie you should seek out this weekend – heck it might not even be the 10th – but it is an entertaining enough haunted house flick that’ll keep your attention for 90 minutes.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Boogeyman, Shooting Stars, Esme My Love & More

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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Boogeyman, Shooting Stars, Falcon Lake, The Attachment Diaries, Esme My Love, Follow Her, Padre Pio

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The Politics of Sin

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Padre Pio

by Brandon Thomas

Shortly after the end of the first World War, a priest named Padre Pio (Shia LaBeouf) finds himself suffering an enormous crisis of faith. Having had health issues that kept him from the front lines of the war, Pio’s guilt is slowly consuming him.

Outside the walls of the monastery, a less internal battle is brewing. Many townspeople, upset with fascist landowners and their own working conditions, are drawn to the rising Socialist Party. They see the town’s first free election as a way to make their voices heard. When the old rulers see the tide turning against them, violence becomes their only way of holding onto power.

Director Abel Ferrara made a name for himself by directing some of the most notable exploitation movies of the late ‘70s, ‘80s, and early ‘90s. Films like Ms. 45 and Bad Lieutenant were cultural firestarters in their day, and might even draw the ire of Film Twitter in the present should it stumble upon those seedy gems. However, in the latter half of his career, Ferrara has been drawn to more contemplative works. Pasolini, Tommaso, and Siberia show the filmmaker at his most introspective. Instead of trying to provoke an audience with violence and graphic sex, Ferrara is now trying to get them to look inward through quiet but haunted protagonists. 

Padre Pio is Ferrara’s attempt to subtly blend religion and politics, though neither topic is given its due. Unlike Paul Schrader’s more recent First Reformed, Ferrara’s film is far too disjointed and muddled to prove his own point. The religious fervor found in LaBeouf’s scenes never coherently connects with the film’s political half. There are hints at Ferrara’s initial intentions, but unfortunately very little of that appears on screen. 

LaBeouf’s casting is a major blunder. The actor has turned in very good work in movies like The Peanut Butter Falcon, Fury, and American Honey, but as an iconic Italian priest, he is horribly miscast. While the entirety of the film is in English, the bulk of the cast is made up of Italian and other European actors. LaBeouf’s distracting American accent drags any discerning viewer out of the film immediately. His inclusion, and the messiness of the overall storytelling, makes Padre Pio feel like a bad movie-within-a-movie from an Apatow comedy.

Ferrara’s ideas here are compelling and might’ve worked in movies of their own. When crammed together as competing – not complementary – narratives, the film never finds its footing and feels like a slog even at a reasonable 1 hour and 44 minutes.