One of the year’s boldest films and certainly among its most impressive directorial debuts makes its way to your home this week. Also, a lackluster sequel. Not that we’d judge you depending upon your choice.
Click the film title for the full review.
The Screening Room breaks down the new Halloween, talks through The Oath and the new YA The Hate U Give. Plus, we’ll run through what’s worth watching in new home entertainment releases.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden
Any sequel to an iconic horror—particularly one that introduced a nightmarish, game changing villain—is bound to disappoint in some fashion because our imagination has attached its own terror to the story and the boogeyman that no one else can match.
Though they certainly tried their best with the Michael Myers franchise, to the tune of seven sequels and two reboots preceding this 40th anniversary comeback, Halloween.
Wisely, director/co-writer David Gordon Green and his writing partners Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley ignore all those other films, creating a universe where only John Carpenter’s 1978 original exists.
Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the star-making role of Laurie Strode, Carpenter’s final girl who has spent the last 40 years struggling to recover from the trauma of that Halloween night by stockpiling guns, booby-trapping her home and alienating her family.
She’s not the only character with a one-track mind. Myers’s attending doc, Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) thinks of, studies and devotes himself to nothing else but his star patient.
“You’re the new Loomis,” Laurie Strode quips upon meeting him—exactly what we were thinking. And though Bilginer’s performance borders on camp (and not in that respectable way Donald Pleasance had of overacting), his musings articulate the film’s basic principles. After 40 years of obsessing over having failed to achieve their goals—neither killed the other—Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are as connected as they might be if they were still siblings.
See, that came up in 1981’s Halloween II, so no longer canon.
Green’s direct sequel is, above all things, a mash note to the original. Visual odes continually call back to Carpenter, often in ways that allude to an intriguing about face the film is leading to.
Aside from Bilginer and Andi Matichak—unmemorable as Strode’s high school-aged granddaughter, Allyson—the cast is far stronger than what any of the other sequels could boast.
The humor peppered throughout the film, mainly as dialog between characters about to be butchered, too often undermines the tension being built. But Green, whose style refuses to be pinned down, embraces the slasher genre without submitting to it.
Kills—more numerous and grisly than the first go round—are often handled offscreen, just the wet thud or slice of the deed to enlighten us until the corpse gets a quick showcase. The result is a jumpy, fun, “don’t go in there!” experience reminiscent of the best of the genre.
The film takes it up a notch in its final reel, as tables turn, panic rooms open and cop heads become Jack-o-lanterns. The result is a respectful, fun and creepy experience meant to be shared with a crowd.
by Hope Madden
The Oath, writer/director/star Ike Barinholtz’s deep, dark comedy of manners and political upheaval, almost feels like a prequel to The Purge franchise.
As Kai (Tiffany Haddish, criminally underused) and Chris (Barinholtz) prepare for the yearly celebration of family dysfunction that is Thanksgiving, pressure within and outside the house builds around the US government’s new Patriot’s Oath.
This oath is a pledge of unfaltering dedication to the president. It is voluntary—and anyone who loves America would certainly volunteer. Deadline for signing is Black Friday.
The premise allows Barinholtz to mine the old dinner table comedy concept for insights about a divided nation. As lead, he creates a self-righteous liberal who’s quick to judge, blindly passionate and dismissive of other opinions.
Chris’s opposite this holiday season is not exactly his conservative brother Pat (played by actual brother Jon Barinholtz) as much as it is Pat’s Tomi Lahren-esque girlfriend, Abbie (perfectly played by Meredith Hagner). The rest of the family —played by Nora Dunn, Carrie Brownstein, and Chris Ellis —fall somewhere between the two on the political spectrum. Mainly, they’d just like some quiet to enjoy their turkey.
The Oath exacerbates tensions with an all-too-relevant and believable horror, but makes a wild tonal shift when two government officials (John Cho, Billy Magnussen) arrive on Black Friday to talk to Chris, who hasn’t signed.
Barinholtz’s premise is alarmingly tight. Equally on-target is the tension about sharing holidays with politically opposed loved ones, as well as the image of our irrevocably altered news consumption. But beyond that, The Oath doesn’t offer a lot of insight.
It makes some weird decisions and Barinholtz’s dialog—especially the quick one-offs—are both character defining and often hilarious. But as a black comedy, The Oath can’t decide what it delivers. A middle class family comfortably in the suburbs faces the unthinkable: potential incarceration and separation with no true justice system in place to work for their freedom.
Unfortunately, this actually describes far too many immigrant families for the film to pull that final punch. Barinholtz settles, offering a convenient resolution that robs his film of any credibility its first two acts had earned.
What’s new in home entertainment? The most likable Avenger comes home, as does one underappreciated horror and one doc destined for Oscar contention. Let us help you choose.
Click the film title for a full review.
We run down so many movies this week, most of them great and well worth your time. Check out our thoughts on First Man, Bad Times at the El Royale, Goosebumps 2, Old Man & the Gun, All About Nina, The Sisters Brothers and everything new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden
How many Jacques Audiard films have you seen? You should probably see all of them, including his latest, The Sisters Brothers.
Like his previous films (Rust and Bone, A Prophet, Dheepan), The Sisters Brothers starts out as one film, inserts another fascinating story, and as those two come together the movie unveils its true intent. Unlike Audiard’s other films, The Sisters Brothers is a Western.
We open with Charlie and Eli Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, respectively), two gunslingers for hire on the job. Their next big gig assigned by The Commodore (Rutger Hauer) will put them on the trail of a prospector in the 1850s West.
Phoenix, who is having a banner year even for him (if you haven’t already seen You Were Never Really Here and Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, please do), plays the loose cannon brother. Making trouble is in his blood—a fact his brother is trying to forget.
Eli longs for something better for himself, something settled and adult. But he is bound to his brother and their friction bristles with the bonds and bondage of family. Reilly’s conflicted tenderness and responsibility mingle with a genuine longing that offers an emotional center for the film.
A few days’ ride ahead of the brothers is the tracker The Commodore hired to assist in the deed. Jake Gyllenhaal’s John Morris is an observer and a loner, a man who believes in his own intellect but is willfully blind to the consequences of his career choice—until he befriends the object of The Commodore’s interest, a chemist with ideals and a compound that seriously simplifies the act of finding gold.
Good-natured chemist Hermann Kermit Warm is played by Riz Ahmed (also having quite a year, back to back this week with his strong turn in the overly criticized Venom). He and Gyllenhaal remind you of the amazing chemistry they shared in 2014’s Nightcrawler. Though their characters couldn’t be more different this time around, the two actors again share a natural rapport that makes you a believer.
Peppered with fascinating images, intriguing side characters and the lonesome beauty that infects the best Westerns, Audiard’s film embraces a genre without bending to expectations. Does it all come down to daddy issues? Yes, but the longing for camaraderie and the quest for redemption has rarely been this charming.
The film meanders intentionally, serving the rugged outdoorsiness required of its genre, but relies on its four leads to craft fascinating characters whose relationships and destinies infect you with a hope often lacking in Westerns.
by Hope Madden
We’ve seen a lot of movies about astronauts, loads of sometimes great films about the US space race and the fearlessness of those involved. Director Damien Chazelle’s First Man is something different.
Chazelle strips away the glamour and artifice, the bombast and spectacle usually associated with films of this nature. His vision is raw and visceral, often putting you in the moon boots of the lead, but never quite putting you inside his head.
The director’s La La Land lead Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong in this biopic of the first human being to set foot on the lunar surface. It’s another of Gosling’s impressive turns: reserved, with an early vulnerability that hardens over time to a protective stoicism.
A no-frills Claire Foy plays Armstrong’s wife Janet, and the characters the two actors carve share a bristly chemistry that adds to the film’s committed authenticity. It also provides some kind of emotional center for the story.
Chazelle’s observational, unhurried style doesn’t draw attention to the drama. There is nothing showy about this film. That understatement allows the most startling, horrifying and awe-inspiring moments their own power. The approach also quietly reminds you of the escalating pressures shouldered by Armstrong as he and NASA faced tragedy after tragedy in the name of space exploration.
Gosling shares screentime with an enormous and talented ensemble boasting many fine performances and just as many welcome surprises. Though most roles are very small, Shea Wigham, Jason Clarke and Corey Stoll stand out.
Stoll, playing a socially obtuse Buzz Aldrin, offers an enjoyable foil to Gosling’s composed Armstrong, sparking one of the film’s only real grins.
Though Gosling’s distant performance and Chazelle’s near-verite style mirror Armstrong’s increasingly walled-off psyche, it becomes difficult to connect with characters. First Man deposits you inside the action but keeps you at arm’s length from Neil Armstrong.
As gritty and unpolished as the film is, Chazelle never loses his sense of wonder. The jarring quiet, the stillness and vastness are captured with reverence and filmed beautifully.
Those images of silent awe are as stirring as anything you will see, but it’s the visceral, queasying and claustrophobic moments underscoring the death-defying commitment to the cause that will shake you up.
One of everything this week in home entertainment, from the best you will find in 2018 through a couple of hotel-related adventures to a towering inferno adventure. You can choose from exquisite to dumb fun, from family to noir. Who can take that kind of pressure? Don’t stress! We will walk you through it.
Click the film titles for the full review.
Horror movies mirror the anxieties of a population. If you look at the best horror in any decade, what made it relevant, what gave it punch, was that it spoke to the anxieties of the society at that point in time.
Case in point: Godzilla. Not long after the end of WWII, a Japanese filmmaker spun a yarn about the end of civilization as a giant kaiju brought about by atomic bombs. You can see how that spoke to folks at the time.
You can also point to one particular film that changed the trajectory of the genre. To use Godzilla as the example again, after that film, you were hard pressed to find a horror film that was not a creature feature.
Here’s our quick primer, decade by decade, on the films that marked the genre, predicted the coming decade’s cinematic output, and articulated the social anxieties of the day.
1914 to 1918 saw the first global war. Germany, France and the US also happened to be the three countries investing the most in film. And while many in the US protested the idea of paying our money to see German films at the time, the most interesting horror was coming from German writers and directors who could feel the ideological changes that would inform not only WWI, but the more horrifying underpinnings of the next generation’s war.
Required viewing:
• Nosferatu (1922)
• Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Era defining film:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Non-practicing Jewish/German director Robert Weine would eventually escape from Germany and make films in Hungary after the Nazis came to power. His expressionistic presentation in this film, much of it owing to an ingenious way to deal with a limited budget, had a lasting impact on cinema worldwide.
But it was the writers of Caligari – Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz – who bring the social anxieties into focus. Both were in the military in WWI and both had a profound distrust of power, which influenced this amazing film.
This was the calm between world wars. Advances in medicine meant that more soldiers came home from WWI than what would have happened in any earlier war. Many of those people were physically disfigured to a degree that we would never have seen before these medical advances.
The films of the 1930s—Universal’s sweet spot—focused almost exclusively on shady Eastern European evil that unleashes disfigured monsters, often sympathetic monsters whose pain and ugliness are no fault of their own, on an unsuspecting population.
It played on audiences fear of the sinister European other, that mysterious presence of evil that they could never hope to fathom. It also picked those scabs of seeing the monstrous in their own home towns.
Required viewing:
• Dracula (1931)
• Vampyr (1932)
• Freaks (1932)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Era defining film:
Frankenstein (1931)
James Whale’s brilliant take on Mary Shelley’s novel looked at Frankenstein’s monster and saw the cruelty humanity was capable of committing. For him, the monster was the central and most interesting figure. Unlike Shelley’s antihero, Whale’s creature was utterly sympathetic, an oversized child unable to control himself, making him simultaneously innocent and dangerous.
Barons and aristocracy, the European setting – the film distrusts scientists and public officials as fools unable to reign in their own ambitions no matter the dire consequences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McUce_xwxeA
WWII was in full swing and Americans were looking for escapism. In a way, though, the 40s were more of the same. Still monster movies, mostly based on Universal’s success. RKO began its run with Jacques Tournier/Val Lewton films that- because of smaller budgets – relied on audience audience imagination over pricey make up effects. The success resulted in a change, however temporary, toward smarter, suspenseful films.
But the real enemy was German. While most of the monster movies of the decade saw some kind of shadowy European figure of power or evil, one really exemplifies the era and where it is.
Required viewing:
• Cat People (1942)
• I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
• The Uninvited (1944)
Era defining film:
The Wolf Man (1941)
For George Waggner’s 1941 classic, Lon Chaney Jr. plays the big, lovable lummox of an American back in his old stomping grounds—some weird amalgamation of European nations.
In a real sense, this film was the answer to a formula, an alchemy that printed money. The Chaney name, Bela Lugosi co-stars, and we pit a sympathetic beast against some ancient European evil. But it’s much more pointed than it seems. The evil is purely German, gypsies sense it and yet can do nothing but fall victim to it, and it is an evil with the power to turn an otherwise good man—say, your average German man—into a soulless killing machine.
Few eras have earmarked their horror output with social anxiety as thoroughly as the 1950s. The war was cold and it was everywhere.
You were hard pressed to find any horror film in that decade that were not specifically about fear of the Communist and/or atomic threat unless you looked overseas. Those who needed a minute away from the mutant monsters that followed Godzilla to box office gold found it in England’s fledgling horror company, Hammer.
Required viewing:
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
• Dracula (1958)
• The Bad Seed (1956)
• Diabolique (1955)
Era defining film:
Godzilla (1954)
More than any other film in the genre, Godzilla spoke directly to global anxieties, became a phenomenal success, and changed the face of horror.
As Japan struggled to re-emerge from the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, director Ishiro Honda unleashed that dreaded kaiju—followed quickly by a tidal wave of creature features focused on scientists whose ungodly work creates global cataclysm.
Far more pointed and insightful than its American bastardization or any of the sequels or reboots to follow, the 1954 Japanese original mirrored the desperate, helpless impotence of a global population in the face of very real, apocalyptic danger. Sure, that danger breathed fire and came in a rubber suit, but history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.
Civil Rights, Vietnam, women’s rights, the pill—the Sixties was a decade that changed an awful lot. And with change comes social anxiety.
A woman’s right to control her own body became front page news with the release of the birth control pill, and worries generated there spilled into horror, the best of these being France’s Eyes Without a Face and Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby.
The decade saw a slew of other true classics, from The Innocents to Psycho and more, but the effects of the social change – which would become even more pronounced in the cinematic output of the next decade – was articulated best by the bargain basement budget zombie film that changed every single thing.
Required viewing:
• Psycho (1960)
• Eyes Without a Face (1960)
• The Innocents (1961)
• Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Era defining film:
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Romero’s first zombie film – the first proper zombie film – hit upon cultural anxieties aplenty. The war in Vietnam – televised almost constantly, and for the first time – was reflected in Romero’s onscreen broadcasts of unimaginable horror. He depicts the changing paradigm of the generations in the power struggle going on inside the besieged house.
More than anything, though, Romero hit a nerve with his casting. The filmmaker has long said that African American actor Duane Jones got the part as the lead because he was simply the best actor in the cast. True enough. But his performance as the level headed, proactive, calm-under-pressure alpha male – followed by Romero’s gut-punch of a finale – spoke volumes and is one of the main reasons the film remains as relevant today as it was when it was released.
The rise of independent film in the US in the Seventies led to maybe our greatest era in film. Taxi Driver, The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now, Chinatown, Mean Streets, Rocky—it’s dizzying to think of the filmmakers who established themselves in that decade with fresh, gritty, realistic, genius films.
Horror benefitted from the same boon in independent filmmaking. Some of what would become the strongest voices of the genre were making their first sounds: David Cronenberg, Stephen King, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, among others.
It’s a time when the TV coverage of Vietnam has begun to dull the population’s senses to violence. We saw horror movies that did two things. First, filmmakers came up with a way to wake people up to violence, either with extreme violence or with larger-than-life violence.
The second thing was a sense of pitting evil against the status quo. People were wearying, as the decade waned, of the constant state of flux. They longed for simple, wholesome answers. Sue Snell challenged the status quo by showing kindness to Carrie White, and look what happened. Teenagers rebelled in suburbia by partying and having sex when they were supposed to be babysitting, and Michael Myers appeared to punish their unholy behavior.
The most iconic film of the Seventies—horror or otherwise—saw just one way to contend with modern evils.
Required viewing:
• Deliverance (1972)
• Jaws (1974)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• Carrie (1976)
• Halloween (1978)
• Alien (1979)
Era defining film:
The Exorcist 1973
A single mother, a daughter on the verge of puberty and sexual awakening, an opening for evil—much of the grounding concepts of William Friedkin’s masterpiece is simply that the status quo in the Seventies was being challenged and we needed God to come straighten things out again.
The concept that the Catholic Church will save us now seems almost so quaint as to be offensively naïve. But at the time, Friedkin combined this sensibility with an impeccable script, uncompromising direction and breathtaking performances (the film raked in two Oscars and another 8 nominations) to scare the hell out of viewers.
Conservatism, consumption, capitalism—the Eighties had it all. Everything was bigger, splashier, louder. Music videos and their phenomenal influence on teenage buying habits meant movies catered more to a younger audience, partly by ensuring that a short attention span could be kept engaged.
Thanks to the rise of VHS, everybody learned that you could turn a profit more easily with horror – the go-to rental property – than with any other genre of film. They could be made cheaply and they were the most likely to be rented, immediately and repeatedly.
The slasher was king – there were 8 Friday the 13th films in the decade, 4 Halloween films, 5 Nightmares on Elm Street alone. There were also some good movies, but the one that looks the most like the Eighties is one that comes from the era’s most iconic icon, Spielberg
Required viewing:
• The Shining (1980)
• American Werewolf in London (1981)
• The Thing (1981)
• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Era defining film:
Poltergeist 1982
Tobe Hooper’s love child with Steven Spielberg may not be the best or most important horror film of the Eighties, but it is the most Eighties horror film of the Eighties. In both of Spielberg’s ’82 films, the charade of suburban peace is disrupted by a supernatural presence. In E.T., though, there’s less face tearing.
Part of Poltergeist’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.
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.
The Nineties was a fairly calm time, although the angst in the music suggests otherwise. More than anything, the social anxiety of the Nineties was more about rebelling against the conservative, self-centered, larger-than-life Eighties. And without a single, overarching, global worry to inform horror, the output of the decade was a mixed bag.
The decade started off with the best film horror may ever see. The Silence of the Lambs won all 5 major Oscars that year – actor, actress, film, screenplay, director – absolutely unheard of for a horror film. It is a perfect movie, and its success led to more heavyweight directors working with a big budget.
The decade would end with a phenomenon that created its own subgenre: The Blair Witch Project. Takashi Miike’s Audition was one of the burgeoning J-horror genre that would have a huge influence on American horror in the next decade.
But the film that reestablished horror among fans and changed the entire trajectory of the genre was Wes Craven’s Scream.
Required viewing:
Era defining film:
Scream 1996
In its time, Scream resurrected a basically dying genre, using clever meta-analysis and black humor. What you have is a traditional high school, but director Wes Craven’s on the inside looking out and he wants you to know it.
What makes Scream stand apart is the way it critiques horror clichés as it employs them, subverting expectation just when we most rely on it. We spent the next five years or more watching talented TV teens and sitcom stars make the big screen leap to slashers, mostly with weak results, but Scream stands the test of time. It could be the wryly clever writing or the solid performances, but I think it’s the joyous fondness for a genre and its fans that keeps this one fresh.
Here’s where things get nutty. New technologies made filmmaking more affordable and made it easier for US audiences to access foreign films.
What we learned with the insane financial success of the bargain basement Blair Witch Project is that horror turns a profit. Netflix, on-demand viewing, online viewing – all of which was in its infancy in the last decade – meant that these outlets needed content.
In terms of high quality horror, we saw an incredible influx from abroad, mainly visceral foreign horror.Required viewing:
Era defining film:
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.
The film announced Verbinski as a filmmaker worthy of note, brought Naomi Watts into our consciousness, and unleashed countless (sometimes fun) copycats. We saw more PG-13 horror, more remakes, and so many J-horror remakes.
We’ve settled into a world where you can find dozens of brand new horror films from anywhere on earth at any moment of the day or night via countless channels. This means we benefit from a bounty of possibilities never before seen. In this decade, horror has spawned some of our biggest blockbusters.
Horror is suddenly not only a realistic go-to for studios looking for a blockbuster, it’s also become one of the more highly regarded genres for quality, though-provoking, challenging and brilliant content.
The Babadook deals unapologetically with something we’d honestly never seen in film before. It Follows deals with the changing paradigms of adolescence in a way that was fresh and devastating. Hereditary looks at family dysfunction, The Witch contends with the roots of radicalization.
But the movie we’re proudest to call horror is Get Out. Blockbuster, Oscar winner and a brilliant slice of social commentary made by a filmmaker who clearly loves the genre, it will change the face of the genre.
Required viewing:
Era defining film:
Get Out (2017)
What took so long for a film to manifest the fears of racial inequality as smartly as does Jordan Peele’s Get Out.
Peele writes and directs a mash up of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Rosemary’s Baby and a few other staples that should go unnamed to preserve the fun. Opening with a brilliant prologue that wraps a nice vibe of homage around the cold realities of “walking while black,” Peele uses tension, humor and a few solid frights to call out blatant prejudice, casual racism and cultural appropriation.
Peele is clearly a horror fan, and he gives knowing winks to many genre cliches (the jump scare, the dream) while anchoring his entire film in the upending of the “final girl.” This isn’t a young white coed trying to solve a mystery and save herself, it’s a young man of color, challenging the audience to enjoy the ride but understand why switching these roles in a horror film is a social critique in itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JbO9lnVLE
