Why is it that so many kids’ toys are creepy? Not that you should call The Monkey a toy. You should not, ever. Because this windup organ grinder monkey, with its red eyes and horrifyingly realistic teeth, is more of a furry, murder happy nightmare.
The film itself is a match made in horror heaven. Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, Gretel & Hansel, The Blackcoat’s Daughter) adapts and directs the short story by Stephen King about sibling rivalry and the unpredictability of death.
The delightfully low-key Christian Convery (Cocaine Bear) carries the first half of the film as young Hal and Bill, twins who discover their dad’s old closet full of knickknacks and collectibles, one of which will indiscriminately kill a lot of people. They boys eventually believe they’ve eliminated the beast, but decades later, the adult brothers (played with deadpan precision and one impressive mullet by Theo James) must contend with bloody monkey business once more.
Perkins surrounds his deliberately low energy leads with bizarre, colorful characters—even more colorful when they catch fire, explode, are disemboweled, etcetera. The film is laced with wonderful bursts of Final Destination-like bloodletting, as the Monkey’s executions are carried out via Rube Goldberg chain reactions that quickly become fun to anticipate.
Yes, fun. And funny.
There is a different tone at work here for Perkins. It’s one that is somehow both bone dry and silly, creating a dark humor that wallows delightfully in the pulpy carnage. His usual aesthetic of dreamy Gothic beauty is replaced by a more grimy, Earth tone palette that seems purposefully at odds with the stated time stamps.
And yet, underneath all of it you’ll find a meaningful layer that speaks to absentee fathers and generational trauma. There are disjointed moments, but only a few, thanks mainly to grounded reminders about the monkey’s shoulder-shrugging mantra: “everybody dies.”
Indeed. And if sometimes they need a little help, well, you can always wind up Furious George and take your chances.
Just months ago, Netflix thriller Carry-On rode a serious Die Hard vibe for a ridiculous bit of popcorn fun. Cleaner has much of the same in mind, borrowing some more specific plot points for Daisy Ridley’s turn as the fly in some terrorist’s ointment.
Ridley plays Joey Locke, an ex-soldier who still carries scars from an abusive childhood shared with her autistic brother Michael (newcomer Matthew Tuck). Joey is already struggling to hold on to her job as a window cleaner and make sure Michael is cared for, but her day is about to get much worse.
Joey’s latest gig is cleaning the windows at the London high rise where the Agnian Energy Corp is holding their annual gala. No, it’s not Nakatomi Plaza and it’s not Christmas Eve, but Marcus (Clive Owen) and his group of environmentalist activists crash the party with a plan to expose Agnian’s history of crime and corruption.
At least, that what Marcus thinks. His buddy Noah Santos (Taz Skylar) has more extreme plans, violently hijacking the operation and the building, with 300 hostages (including Michael) inside.
Their best hope? One pissed off Joey, right outside the glass, dangling high up on her cleaning platform.
At first, Joey is only thinking of Michael’s safety. But once inside the building, the anti-authority streak that got Joey kicked out of the military pushes her to go after the bad guys, and Ridley sells it with gusto.
Veteran director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Goldeneye, Memory) doesn’t waste time in getting down to business, and engineers some effective action set pieces both inside and outside the glass. And the team of screenwriters does arrange a surprise of two amid the mash of recycled ideas.
But when you have someone as talented as Ridley cast as the everywoman trying to save the day, the idea still works. She seems especially energized at the chance to get physical, and manages to pull the unmemorable Cleaner up to satisfying new heights.
Aaah, the old “video nasties” — movies banned from view to protect us from the untold damage they would do, their ruinous images. The idea that watching something could be our end is a fantastic source for horror. Horror filmmakers have taken that idea and run wild with it. Watching could make you mad. Making one could make you mad. Hell, just listening could do irreversible damage!
Thanks to Greg Hansberry of The Empty Coffin podcast for filling in for George this week! Today we celebrate the nasty videos that have propelled some of our favorite flicks.
6. Red Rooms (2024)
True crime culture. Serial killer groupies. The Dark Web. Does all of it seem too grim, too of-the-moment, too cliché to make for a deeply affecting thriller these days? Au contraire, mon frère. Québécois Pascal Plante makes nimble use of these elements to craft a nailbiter of a serial killer thriller with his latest effort, Red Rooms.
Plante expertly braids vulnerability and psychopathy, flesh and glass, humanity and the cyber universe for a weirdly compelling peek at how easily one could slide from one world to the other.
His real magic trick—one that remarkably few filmmakers have pulled off—is generating edge-of-your-seat anxiety primarily with keyboard clicks, computer screens and wait times. But the tension Plante builds—thanks to Juliette Gariépy’s precise acting—is excruciating. They keep you disoriented, fascinated, a little repulsed and utterly breathless.
5. Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Madman Peter Strickland (In Fabric) made an entire film about sound, and it gets so much right. Not just about sound—about the era, the equipment, giallo sensibilities and moviemaking.
Strickland, working with a sound department of 34, creates a psychological experience through sound almost exclusively. The amazing Toby Jones plays Gilderoy, flown in specifically to helm the sound in a horror movie.
“This isn’t a horror movie. This is a Santini movie!”
Gilderoy’s arc is profound, and sound is our only window into what is changing him. We don’t see what he sees, only his reaction to it and the sound of it that makes his psychological breakdown believable.
4. The Ring (2002)
Gore Verbinski’s film achieves one of those rare feats, ranking among the scarce Hollywood remakes that surpasses the foreign-born original, Japan’s unique paranormal nightmare Ringu. Verbinski’s film is visually arresting, quietly atmospheric and creepy as hell.
This is basically the story of bad mom/worse journalist Rachel (Naomi Watts) investigating the urban legend of a videotape that kills viewers exactly seven days after viewing.
The tape itself is the key. Had it held images less surreal, less Buñuel, the whole film would have collapsed. But the tape was freaky. And so were the blue-green grimaces on the dead! And that horse thing on the ferry!
And Samara.
From cherubic image of plump-cheeked innocence to a mess of ghastly flesh and disjointed bones climbing out of the well and into your life, the character is brilliantly created.
3. Censor (2021)
Writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond crafts such a stylish, unsettling film with her ode to Britain’s “Video Nasty” era and the theme that censoring something ugly can somehow make it disappear.
Naimh Algar astonishes as Enid, a film censor whose childhood trauma and guilt resurface when a producer (Michael Smiley) invites her to watch a movie. A mystery—and Enid’s fragile sanity—unravel as Bailey-Bond develops a murky, fantastical and wildly horrific atmosphere that leaves you guessing and disturbed.
2. Videodrome (1983)
Videodrome was the last true horror and truly Canadian film in David Conenberg’s arsenal, and it shows an evolution in his preoccupations with body horror, media, and technology as well as his progress as a filmmaker.
James Woods plays sleazy TV programmer Max Renn, who pirates a program he believes is being taped in Malaysia – a snuff show, where people are slowly tortured to death in front of viewers’ eyes. But it turns out to be more than he’d bargained for. Corporate greed, zealot conspiracy, medical manipulation all come together in this hallucinatory insanity that could only make sense with Cronenberg at the wheel.
Deborah Harry co-stars, and Woods shoulders his abundant screen time quite well. What? James Woods plays a sleaze ball? Get out! Still, he does a great job with it. But the real star is Cronenberg, who explores his own personal obsessions, dragging us willingly down the rabbit hole with him. Long live the new flesh!
1. Peeping Tom (1960)
Director Michael Powell’s film broke a lot of ground and nearly ended his film career. People tend to react badly to horror movies that unnerve them, which is really odd given that this is the entire point of the genre. Peeping Tom pissed everybody off, maybe because—like Michael Haneke’s films Funny Games—Peeping Tom implicates you in the horror.
Mark (Karlheinz Bohm) had a difficult childhood, developing a bit of a voyeuristic hobby to help him cope. He starts off with prostitutes, filming them, capturing their terror as he kills them. He’s a voyeur, but who can throw stones? Didn’t every one of us who’s ever watched this film— or any other horror movie, for that matter—sign up to do exactly what Mark was doing?
Bohm’s great success is in making Mark unsettlingly sympathetic. Powell’s is in using the audience’s instincts against us. Bohm makes us feel bad for the villain, Powell makes us relate to the villain. No wonder people were pissed.
Look out! There’s a bloated menace wreaking havoc at the White House, throwing temper tantrums, creating enemies of allies, and ruining everything he touches.
But wait, could there be some nefarious, nerdy, unelected mastermind behind the villainy destroying the United States of America?
Art imitates life in Marvel’s latest big screen attempt, Captain America: Brave New World. Anthony Mackie picks up the shield as Cap. We’ve known Mackie could act since his 2009 breakout, The Hurt Locker, but can he carry a franchise film?
As a rule, franchise films are helped by the addition of Harrison Ford. He loses the mustache and picks up the mantle carried by Sam Elliott and William Hurt, playing Thaddeus Ross, newly elected President of the USA.
The President has done some pretty horrible things, though, and should really be in prison. Instead, he’s in the White House. Pair that with a mysterious villain trying to orchestrate a war, and the end of the world could be in sight.
But the movie has bigger problems, starting with its script. Writers Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson stuff the film with repetitive dialog and endless exposition. Not sure what just happened or what’s about to happen? No need to fret, somebody’s about to explain it again.
Director Julius Onah (Luce, The Cloverfield Paradox) strings together a few impressive action sequences, but the momentum always gets derailed by needless explanation and – especially in the third act – some bland CGI visuals. Even the cameos and end credits scene are less than inspiring.
From the beginning, the Captain America character felt like the moral compass of the MCU. The best films in the franchise have found ways to balance the super-heroics with timely questions about power and responsibility. Brave New World creates the opportunity but never allows Cap to follow through. Instead, complexities are neutered in favor of easily digestible answers and the next weakly earned plot point.
That’s what makes the film so disappointing. A deserving new hero and a solid cast are given a narrative treatment usually suited to streaming audiences who are looking at their phones or getting up to feed the dog.
Above all, this new world seems satisfied with playing it safe. And that’s not brave at all.
So what has Paddington bear been up to in the eight years since the classic Paddington 2?
Well, he’s got a new director (Dougal Wilson in his feature debut), a new Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer steps in for Sally Hawkins), and a brand new British passport (with an unusual photo)! And that legal ID comes in mighty handy when Paddington (perfectly voiced again by Ben Whishaw) gets a mysterious letter from Peru.
Aunt Lucy is missing!
So what’s there to do except pack up the Browns, Paddington, and Paddington’s brand new deluxe umbrella and head out to solve the mystery. After meeting with the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman, always a plus) and collecting clues at the Home for Retired Bears, the gang hires dashing Captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter Gina (Carla Tous) to take them up river and straight into a jungle adventure.
Because while Paddington and family may be searching for Aunt Lucy, certain other parties are searching for El Dorado, the mythical lost city of gold!
The bar set by Paddington 2, an honest to God masterpiece, is very high. Dougal and team had their work cut out for them, and the Browns’ Peru visit is never quite as intricate, clever or transcendent as the last installment. But Colman’s comedic genius, lushly crafted scenery, meticulous CGI, and the cast and filmmakers’ commitment to the earnest charm characteristic of the franchise guarantee a delightful cinematic experience for every member of the family.
Dougal keeps the pace and perils lively, while the new screenwriting team (Mark Burton, Jon Foster and James Lamont) delivers sweet family fun that weaves in some warm furry feelies before the credits roll and a surprise guest appears.
If you’re the parent of young children, your first reaction to troubling accusations against them is likely to be denial.
There must be some mistake, right? My child would never do such a thing.
It’s a catalyst that almost demands taking sides, and one that writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel explores to unique effect in Armand.
The mesmerizing Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World, Handling the Undead, A Different Man) is Elisabeth, a Norwegian actress who is summoned to her son’s school for an urgent conference. Six year-old Armand has been accused of bullying his friend Jon in the boys restroom. The incident apparently involved acts of “sexual deviation.”
Jon’s parents, Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) are waiting at the school with two administrators and the boys’ teacher. And what begins as a calm attempt at fact-finding slowly dissolves into a fascinating unraveling of mystery, fantasy, and outright curiosity.
Ullmann Tøndel and cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth keep us inside the sterile school building for nearly all of the film’s two hours, puncturing the strained decorum with an array of devices. There are persistent nosebleeds, the sound of heels echoing on hard floors, moments of psychological performance art, and one alarming fit of laughter that purposely strains your patience.
It all helps to distinguish the film from similarly themed dramas such as The Teacher’s Lounge or even Mass, but also threatens to keeps us detached through self indulgence. The can’t-look-away excellence from Reisve never lets it happen, and Armand – which won the Caméra d’Or, for Best First Feature last year at Cannes – rewards audience commitment with a satisfying, if not exactly revelatory, resolution in Act Three.
The characters may be talking about children, but the film is talking about adults. Armand presents a challenging, but ultimately haunting take on the lingering dangers of convincing ourselves that everything is fine.
Just weeks ago, Christopher Abbott was wrestling with wolves. Now it’s sheep, and the bloodlines still get bloody.
In Bring Them Down, Abbott is Michael O’Shea, a sheepherder who lives with his ailing father Ray (Colm Meaney) in the Irish countryside. Their farm shares a grazing hill with the Keelys – Gary (Paul Ready), Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone) and their son Jack (Barry Keoghan), and Irish eyes are seldom smiling.
Michael and Caroline share a past, as well as a painful tragedy that the villagers still whisper about. So relations are already chilly. But when Michael catches the Keely boys trying to sell two O’Shea rams as their own, things escalate quickly.
This is grim stuff, as desolate as the Irish landscape. And much like the bare-fisted feuds that the Irish travelers in 2011’s Knuckle cannot exist without, the Keely and O’Shea men seem held by an enabling bond of generational trauma shattered only occasionally by the more pragmatic Caroline.
In a feature debut that fluctuates between the English and Irish languages, writer/director Chris Andrews crafts a taut family drama fueled by pain, violence and a tight circle of engrossing performances. Abbott’s intensity shows Michael has learned to navigate his guilt and anguish with quiet resolve, while Keoghan again proves adept at fleshing out the vulnerable shades of a dangerous character.
These are deeply committed and affecting turns, consistently elevating a story that’s left searching for that final thread to make its truly memorable. And in the third act, Andrews does introduce a sudden time shift, rewinding to reveal new angles of previous events. The attempt at an added layer of narrative depth is warranted, but this one lands with a curious and negligible effect.
Still, with a solid sense of setting, cast and framing, Bring Them Down heralds Andrews as a filmmaker of great potential. Once his actors get a little more character to chew on, he may start building his own legacy.
Mohammad Rasoulof’s films have shown him to be an insightful storyteller. His backstory reveals a courageous activist who continues to endanger his own life and freedom in support of artistic expression.
His latest, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, weaves in important details and actual footage from protests that erupted in Iran after the government’s brutal killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022. As the narrative evolves from hushed family drama to frantic thriller, writer/director Rasoulof again shows his skill at turning intimate details into an allegory for oppression from a religious patriarchy in his homeland and beyond.
Iman (Missagh Zareh) has just been promoted to an Inspector’s post in Tehran (on the court that actually sentenced Rasoulof just three years ago). It’s a big moment for the family – Inspector is just one step below a judge – and Iman’s wife Najmeh (Sohelia Golestani) is hoping they’ll soon be awarded an apartment big enough for their teen-age daughters to each have their own bedroom.
Instead, Iman is awarded a gun.
Inspectors are involved in very serious cases. So serious that Iman must watch his back, Najmeh must not ask questions, and daughters Sana (Setareh Maleki) and Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) must choose their friends very carefully and stay off of social media.
Naturally, the girls have trouble adjusting and plead with their father to help when their friend Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi) gets caught up in student protests and is arrested. This is a delicate issue, indeed, but it is when Iman’s gun turns up missing from the home that fear and suspicion completely overtake the household.
The loss of his gun could ultimately send Iman to prison, and the father turns to desperate measures against his own wife and children to root out the culprit.
Often filming in secret, Rasoulof assembles the escalation of events so carefully, and the performances are so achingly real, that nearly every frame of the film’s two hour and forty-five minutes seems necessary. The young daughters ask the defiant questions their parents abandoned long ago, supported with subtlety by an Iranian filmmaker daring to show women without head coverings (even in their homes).
Rasoulof has now fled Iran, while Zareh and Golestani have both been banned from travel. The Seed of the Sacred Fig stands as a testament to their courage, and as a sobering act of revolution.
