Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, Normal, Roommates, Balls Up, Ballistic & Screams from the Tower.
Tag Archives: Hope Madden
Walk Like an Egyptian
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
by Hope Madden
So, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. You may be wondering, who is Lee Cronin? Do I even know that guy?
You probably do, if you saw 2023’sEvil Dead Rise, the story of a family trapped in their apartment as their mother turns Deadite and tries to murder them all.
You may have missed his 2019 Irish horror, The Hole in the Ground, where a changeling takes the shape of a woman’s young son, traps her in a house and tries to kill her.
Now Cronin takes on a mummy’s curse, trapping a family inside a house with their daughter, who is now a monster out to kill every one of them. By the third time, you have to think that the idea of an evil entity taking over the body of a loved one is a real fixation for the filmmaker. Lucky for us!
Jack Raynor and Laia Costa are the parents of three: little Maud (Billie Roy), tween Sebastian (Shylo Molina), and their oldest, Katie (Emily Mitchell, then Natalie Grace). Katie went missing in Cairo 8 years ago, but she’s been found and she’s ready to come home. It’ll just take some adjusting.
The trailer for the film gave it the look of a PG13 horror—quick cuts, jump scares, and black vomit. I’m pleased to report that this is not the film at all. Cronin mines the situation for grief and sorrow before descending into body horror. It’s a wild line he crosses, manipulating your emotions and then throwing gross-out body fluid horror all over the deviled eggs.
It’s nasty. Like almost early Peter Jackson nasty.
And Cronin is not afraid to take the film places you may not want to go. The darkest, sloppiest comedy butts up against emotional horror so moving you may want to look away. Or if that doesn’t make you divert your eyes, the pus, eyeballs, tongues, and unspecified body fluids will.
It’s a mixed bag, this one, and it gets a little tedious toward the end. Plus, Cronin doesn’t always balance the tone effectively. This is very much an R-rated horror, at times taking itself too seriously and at others, delivering some of the nastiest comic gags you’ve ever seen during a funeral.
I was unsettled at times and grossed out at others, but I must say, I was thoroughly entertained.
Anything But
Normal
by Hope Madden
Do you know what’s especially fun about watching Normal? It’s not seeing Bob Odenkirk crack heads and blow stuff up. I mean, that’s always fun, but it’s nothing new. Nor is it new to see what fresh fisticuffs and cutlery mayhem writer Derek Kolstad (John Wick [all four], Nobody [both], Ballerina) can dream up. We’ve seen his dreams. They’re somewhat similar.
What is especially fun about watching the star of Nobody and its writer team up again to drop a middle aged schmo into a sudden and unexpected explosion of violence is that Ben Wheatley is directing. We haven’t seen Ben Wheatley get really nuts in a bit.
Odenkirk, who co-writes the script with Kolstad, is Ulysses. He used to be a real sheriff, but now he takes interim sheriff gigs around the country and leaves rambling accounts of his days on his estranged wife Penny’s voicemail.
His latest assignment: Normal, Minnesota.
The town of about 1500 people and one moose looks…strangely prosperous. Not like the small towns shuttering due to a poor economy. When two good hearted, down-on-their-luck bank robbers roll into town, Ulysses gets a glimpse of the what’s really going on.
That leaves us with about 45 minutes of handguns, rifles, Tommy Guns, knives, fists, rocket launchers, chains, dynamite, and knitting needles. Plenty of time for Wheatley to help us remember what a blast he had directing 2016’s Freefire.
Odenkirk’s ideal as the begrudgingly heroic schlub, and Normal surrounds him with eclectic characters and solid comic performances. But there’s no question the relish Wheatley takes in wry, witty bursts of extreme violence, each gag its own punchline, is what delivers the film’s fun.
There’s a touch of Fargo, a smidge of Hot Fuzz, a bit of the filmmaker’s own Freefire, and maybe a hint of his Sightseers. These borrowed flavors blend favorably with the inescapable familiarity of the concept—Bob Odenkirk, badass—as well as Kolstad’s routine action beats.
Normal is a ton of bloody fun that you’ll kind of remember later but you’ll laugh and enjoy yourself now.
Fright Club: Budding Physicians
I don’t think these people are board certified! Really, a lot of harm can be done by medical hobbyists. Whether you’re still studying, gave up studying, or just really like sewing stuff together, that doesn’t make you a doctor.
Here are our five favorite horror movies where the one doing the surgery is almost certainly not licensed.
5. Tusk (2014)
The basic idea for this film came from one of writer/director Kevin Smith’s actual podcasts. He found online a letter from a man seeking a lodger, and read it aloud and mocked the man. But somewhere in all that, Smith found the story of a man losing his humanity.
Tusk is a comic riff on The Human Centipede. It’s also an insightful kind of stress dream, so close to home for Smith that, even with all its utter ludicrousness, it feels almost confessional.
The film’s greatest strength is a hypnotic performance by Michael Parks as the old seafarer with nefarious motives. He’s magnificent, and co-star Justin Long’s work is strongest when the two share the screen.
There is no film quite like Tusk, certainly not in Smith’s arsenal, which, I suppose, means this is not a traditional Kevin Smith Movie. And yet, there’s more Smith in this film than in anything else he’s made.
4. Re-animator (1985)
Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator reinvigorated the Frankenstein storyline in a decade glutted with vampire films. Based, as so many fantasy/horror films are, on the work of H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator boasts a good mix of comedy and horror, some highly subversive ideas, and one really outstanding villain.
Jeffrey Combs, with his intense gaze and pout, his ability to mix comic timing with epic self righteousness without turning to caricature, carries the film beginning to end. His Dr. Herbert West has developed a day-glo serum that reanimates dead tissue, but a minor foul up with his experimentations – some might call it murder – sees him taking his studies to the New England medical school Miskatonic University. There he rents a room and basement laboratory from handsome med student Dan Caine (Bruce Abbott).
They’re not just evil scientists. They’re also really bad doctors.
Re-Animator is fresh. It’s funny and shocking, and though most performances are flat at best, those that are strong more than make up for it. First-time director Gordon’s effort is superb. He glories in the macabre fun of his scenes, pushing envelopes and dumping gallons of blood and gore. He balances anxiety with comedy, mines scenes for all they have to give, and takes you places you haven’t been.
3. American Mary (2012)
Jen and Sylvia Soska have written and directed a smart, twisted tale of cosmetic surgery – both elective and involuntary.
Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) stars as med student Mary Mason, a bright and eerily dedicated future surgeon who’s having some trouble paying the bills. She falls in with an unusual crowd, develops some skills, and becomes a person you don’t want to piss off.
The Soskas’ screenplay is as savvy as they come, clean and unpretentious but informed by gender politics and changing paradigms. They also prove skilled at drawing strong performances across the board. Isabelle is masterful, performing without judgment and creating a multi-dimensional central figure. Antonio Cupo also impresses as the unexpectedly layered yet certainly creepy strip club owner.
Were it not for all those amputations and mutilations, this wouldn’t be a horror film at all. It’s a bit like a noir turned inside out, where we share the point of view of the raven-haired dame who’s nothin’ but trouble. It’s a unique and refreshing approach that pays off.
2. Excision (2012)
Outcast Pauline (a very committed AnnaLynne McCord) is a budding surgeon. She’s not much of a student, actually, but she does have an affinity for anatomy. Especially blood. Pauline really, really likes blood.
Her sister – the favorite, for good reasons, truth be told – is slowly dying. And somewhere in Pauline’s odyssey to lose her virginity, inspire her mother’s love and do the right thing, she always seems to do the wrongest possible thing.
Writer/director Richard Bates, Jr. takes an unusual course with this coming-of-age horror. I’m not sure we’ve seen it handled quite like this before, although to be fair, it’s definitely in keeping with the peculiar and beautifully realized character he and McCord have created.
1. Eyes of My Mother (2016)
Francisca’s mother had been an eye surgeon back in Portugal.
“We used to do dissections together. She always hoped I’d be a surgeon one day.”
Though Mom appears only in Act 1 of writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s modern horror masterpiece Eyes of My Mother, her presence echoes throughout the lonely farmhouse Francesca rarely leaves.
Yes, the skills her mother imparted coupled with the trauma Francesca faced bleeds together to create a character whose splintered psyche keeps her from seeing that she’s taking some extreme measures to cure her lonliness.
This is one of the most beautifully filmed horror movies ever made, and as impeccable as the cinematography, the sound is even more important and magnificent. Together with restrained performances and jarring images, Eyes of My Mother is a film that sticks around even after it’s gone. Like a mom.
Screening Room: Faces of Death, You Me & Tuscany, Exit 8 and More!
On this week’s Screening Room Podcast, Hope & George review Faces of Death, You Me and Tuscany, Exit 8, Beast, Hunting Matthew Nichols, ChaO, Hamlet, Outcome, and Newborn!
Downbound Train
Exit 8
by Hope Madden
Horror video game movies are having a moment. And the simpler the video game, the more unsettling the film adaptation.
Though the unendurable Return to Silent Hill might have sapped your will to live, both Iron Lung and The Mortuary Assistant honored their games’ uncomplicated storyline and reliance on viewer attention to generate dread and entertainment.
Perhaps the simplest and most unnerving is Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8, a captcha experiment in proving your humanity.
A minutes-long opening POV sequence announces the film as a video game, the first-person experience wearing thin just as Kawamura’s cinematic style alters. What has altered it? Our hero, faced with a deeply human choice, enters the bowels of the metro and loses his phone signal.
Kazunari Ninomiya is “Lost Man.” Buds in his ears, his eyes on his phone, he’s almost entirely unconnected from humanity. Even with no reception, he’s so oblivious that it takes him quite a while in the underground passages to realize he’s walking in circles, forever finding himself back at the exact same spot in search of Exit 8.
Finally, he notices an information sign. If you see an anomaly, backtrack immediately. If there’s no anomaly, keep moving forward.
The monotony and claustrophobia build as white tiled, fluorescently lit hallway after hallway deliver oppressive tension. As the numbers ascend—Exit 1, Exit 2, Exit 3—you may find yourself yelling at the screen. Slow down! Don’t get sloppy now! Because if Lost Man misses one anomaly, one misplaced doorknob, one altered advertisement, it’s back to Exit 0 and the whole nightmare begins again.
And nightmare it is. Blackouts, crying babies, frozen smiles, giant hairless rats with human noses are some of the more obvious anomalies.
It would all become too monotonous to bear were it not for the chapter breaks, which allow us to shift perspective briefly. Yes, the other two characters—Walking Man (Yamato Kôchi) and The Boy (Naru Asanuma)—are likewise trapped in the labyrinthine underground. But their presence offers some clues beyond the surface level anomalies, some hint at the quest to find our humanity.
Kawamura doesn’t dig too deep for character development, but the spare setting and liminal hellscape bring it forth. Exit 8 seems not like a game you play again and again. Likewise, the film is unlikely to be one you revisit every spooky season. But it is a uniquely challenging effort and another surprising win for horror video game adaptations.
When Sorrow Comes
Hamlet
by Hope Madden
Filmmaker Aneil Karia concerns himself with the curious, sometimes questionable responses of individual men to escalating tensions. After 2020’s Surge followed a remarkable Ben Whishaw through a harrowing, disorienting descent, Karia won an Oscar for the short film The Long Goodbye. The live action short kept its eyes on Riz (RIz Ahmed) as the dystopian present came for him and his family.
If one man’s reaction to an overwhelming situation is Karia’s passion, Hamlet seems like a proper inspirational match.
Paired again with his Long Goodbye collaborator, Karia sets Shakespeare’s great tragedy in modern London. Hamlet returns from abroad for his father’s (Avidjit Dutt) funeral. The family’s ruthless development company, Elsinore, must now change hands to the patriarch’s brother, Claudius (Art Malik), who intends to marry his widowed sister-in-law, Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha).
Though much streamlined, the Bard’s drama is not rewritten for the times. Karia’s instincts for visual storytelling provide enough imagery to understand the modernized context, and Shakespeare’s dialog proves timeless as ever.
Karia’s dizzying visual style gives Hamlet’s psychological descent an urban flavor, while graffiti and billboards provide cheeky reference points. The entire ensemble, especially Chaddha, excel. But you will not be able to look away from Riz Ahmed.
The role of Hamlet has been a make-or-break role for actors for four centuries. Ahmed makes it look effortless, so convincing is he in the grief of losing a father, the horror of a mother’s betrayal, and the pressure of tradition.
Joe Alwyn (Hamnet – guy likes this story, I guess!) as Laertes and Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) as Ophelia bring depth and pathos to minimized characters.
Michael Lesslie adapts the tragedy. Though the writer’s gone on to blockbusters and superheroes, his first feature length script was Justin Kurzel’s impressive 2015 take on Macbeth. Once again, Lesslie proves adept at pruning what’s necessary only for the stage, giving his director room to tell the tale cinematically.
Reconsidering the cultural background within a South Asian culture doesn’t just freshen up the familiar. It impresses the universality and timelessness of the original work upon the viewer. The play within a play—Hamlet’s gift at the wedding—is the film’s showstopper. But Karia imaginatively stages some of the play’s most remembered scenes, adding vitality and action that takes advantage of the freedom from the stage while still amplifying the hero’s anxiety.
Screening Room: The Drama, Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Pizza Movie & More
On this week’s Screening Room Podcast, Hope & George review the new releases: The Drama, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Pizza Movie, Blazing Fists, & Two Prosecutors.
Pipe Dreams
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
by Hope Madden
As brightly colored, sugary, and likely to cause hyperactivity as anything in your kids’ Easter baskets, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters this weekend. Sequel to the 2023 The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the new animated film boasts more characters, more planets, and more animation styles. No Bowser (Jack Black) solo tunage, though, which is a decided bummer.
Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, and Pierre Leduc return to again direct a script from Matthew Fogel. The result is a vibrantly colored, manically paced series of video game levels aimed at those with a short attention span.
Brie Larson is Princess Rosalina. She’s been kidnapped by Bower’s son, Bower Junior (Benny Safdie), in an attempt to impress his father and, naturally, destroy the galaxy.
Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day), and Peach’s sidekick Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) set out to save the day. They get separated, make dumb choices, chase a monkey, reunite, crash land, and finally work together to save Rosalina and a galaxy full of adorable little mushroom, star, turtle, and skeleton people. Plus, dinosaurs!
The filmmakers toy with various animation styles. When introducing Han Soloesque rogue pilot Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), TSMGM goes full anime. Nintendo-styled sequences—we watch the action on the screen as if it’s being played out in the old school, 2D, pixilated Nintendo video game animation—is a frequent and fun go-to.
The overall, Illumination style of animation benefits the kid-friendly games, and the filmmakers make no bones about their audience. While the movie will likely entertain longtime fans of the video games, it is aimed squarely at little kids. Nothing too scary, lots of cute, and constant, dizzying action.
We could have used some Donkey Kong, though.
There’s less depth and next to no character development here, and the peril never feels particularly peril-ful. Though Keegan-Michael Key gets off a handful of funny lines, the comic vibe of the film is more blunted than in the franchise’s first effort.
And again, no song.
But, if you have time to kill with kids this week and the weather’s not cooperating, you could do worse.
Hits and Misses
Blazing Fists
by Hope Madden
Just when you think you’ve figured filmmaker Takashi Miike out, he does something to remind you that, with more than 100 films to his credit, crossing every conceivable genre and several languages, you probably have not.
This week’s feature, Blazing Fists (also known as Blue Fight: The Breaking Down of Young Blue Warriors) delivers a weird mix of the ponderously earnest, the slyly comical, and—at long last—smashingly choreographed violence.
The film is loosely based on the autibiography of Mikuru Asakura, who serves as producer. We follow Ikito (Danhi Kinoshita) and Ryoma (Kaname Yoshizawa), who meet in juvenile detention. Things are terribly tidy and motivational speakers come by. One guard is rude.
Onward! Ikito’s father is in prison awaiting trial but never mind that because it goes essentially nowhere. The point is, the young men’s motivational speaker has convinced them that if they are undeterred in their preparation, they can do anything. So, they’ve decided to make it to the speaker’s MMA show, Breaking Down.
Cue the training montage (the first of several). On release, Ikito and Ryoma take jobs close to a gym. Job skill and training montage! But a colorfully dressed gang of bullies wants them gone. And there are love interests, but only for the bullies. Plus some kind of insane, leather clad Yakuza style gang, and a snotty rich kid who kickboxes for college. Everyone wants to fight!
There is too much Karate Kid style “boys learning something today,” too much bruised masculinity, and enough dialog heavy/reaction heavy scenes to bring every hint of momentum to a screeching halt.
Blazing Fists does boast a handful of Miike’s playfully weird scenes with random characters—usually oddly dressed old men—to inject a bit of fun into the film.
Miike can do just about anything: horror, samurai action, kid-friendly action, police procedurals, yakuza, fisticuffs action, historical drama, supernatural, grindhouse, surreal. He’s even done a musical! But the straight up sports drama does not seem a good fit for the genre maestro.
Miike avoids the obvious rags to riches climb to the top story arc that serves so many sports films. Instead, he squeezes in every possible beat and cliché into his 2-hour running time. Each trope is placed willy nilly. They certainly feel less predictable, strung together with no discernible rhyme or reason. They also never serve their generally accepted purpose of building tension.
Blazing Fists feels either like a long-form episodic program smashed into 2 hours, or like every sports film ever made, also smashed into 2 hours. Neither option makes the film any easier to watch.
