Tag Archives: Hope Madden

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best Horror Movies of the 1930s

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We dig deep into the history of horror to pay tribute to some of the true cinematic breakthroughs – films that defined horror and are still imitated and adored today.

5. Dracula (1931)

Oh, Bela. When Lugosi took the screen in 1931, no one was yet tired of Dracula. It was still a literary property only made once into a film, albeit illegally and under a different title by F.W. Murnau. (If you haven’t seen the masterpiece that is Nosferatu, please do.)

Bela, alongside director Tod Browning, got to create the image that would forever define the most mimicked, reworked, revamped – if you will – monster in cinema.

4. The Black Cat (1934)

Rocky Horror owes a tremendous debt to Edgar G. Ulmer’s bizarre horror show. The film – clearly precode – boasts torture, tales of cannibalism, and more than the hint of necromancy.

Plus Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff?! What is not to love? It looks great, as does Karloff, whose lisp is put to the most glorious use. What a weird, weird movie. So good!

3. Vampyr (1932)

The well-groomed if aimless dreamer wanders with what appears to be a fishnet to a secluded little inn. But trouble’s afoot.

And dig those crazy shadows!

The great Carl Theodor Dreyer co-wrote and directed this gorgeous black and white fantasy. The painterly quality of Dreyer’s frames and the bizarre character behavior give the film a surreal atmosphere you can’t shake. His decision to limit dialog to a minimum and craft the movie with traditional silent film gimmicks benefitted the dreamscape atmosphere.

2. Freaks (1932)

Short and sweet, like most of its performers, Tod Browning’s controversial film Freaks is one of those movies you will never forget. Populated almost entirely by unusual actors – midgets, amputees, the physically deformed, and an honest to god set of conjoined twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton) – Freaks makes you wonder whether you should be watching it at all. This, of course, is an underlying tension in most horror films, but with Freaks, it’s right up front. Is what Browning does with the film empathetic or exploitative, or both? And, of course, am I a bad person for watching this film?

Well, that’s not for us to say. We suspect you may be a bad person, perhaps even a serial killer. Or maybe that’s Hope. What we can tell you for sure is that this film is unsettling, and the final, rainy act of vengeance is truly creepy to watch.

1. Frankenstein (1931)/Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

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.

Four years later, James Whale and Boris Karloff – with tag along make-up man Jack Pierce – returned to Castle Frankenstein for another tale of horror. What makes this one a stronger picture is the dark humor and subversive attitude, mostly animated by Frankenstein’s colleague Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger).

The sequel casts off the earnestness of the original, presenting a darker film that’s far funnier, often outrageous for its time, with a fuller story. Karloff again combines tenderness and menace, and Elsa Lanchester becomes the greatest goth goddess of all film history as his Bride.

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Dead Horses and Where to Find Them

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Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

by Hope Madden

After much delay, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore comes to big screens this weekend. The film is the needless third installment in a 5-part series based on a single 2001 guidebook that walked readers through the various magical animals of the Harry Potter universe. The guidebook’s “author” is Newt Scamander, and Harry Potter has jotted notes throughout it.

That’s it. No narrative, no characters, really. It’s like a little, pretend textbook from Hogwarts.

The book was a semi-adorable cash grab — one additional little scrap to throw the hungry Harry-heads at the height of Pottermania — meant to raise money for charity. And now it’s a planned 5-part series, each installment thus far clocking in at well over two hours.

Oof.

The new adventure catches up with Newt (Eddie Redmayne) assembling a ragtag band of witches, wizards and muggles to help mentor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) fight the dark magic of Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen).

Grindelwald hates muggles (non-magical losers like us) and wants a war. He’ll deceive, bully, appeal to baser instincts, and when it comes down to it, cheat the election to take over the wizarding world.

It’s a good guys v bad guys tale with loads of Trumpian nods (keep an eye on that newspaper), but that feels hollow given creator/co-writer J.K. Rowling’s history of bullying vulnerable populations. A main role for the recently shameful Ezra Miller (who plays forlorn baddie Credence Barebone) doesn’t help those optics, either.

As superficial spin goes, though, it is nice to have Mikkelsen on board. He replaces Johnny Depp (easily the best thing about the previous installment) as the film’s villain. Where Depp embraced the magical elements and leaned into camp, Mikkelsen is all elegant, understated menace.

The cast boasts a lot of solid, wasted talent. Law continues to charm as the unflappable Dumbledore, Redmayne’s quirk tests patience, Dan Fogler’s a bright spot.

Director David Yates — who directed four HP movies as well as the previous two installments in this franchise — struggles this go-round to even conjure much visual panache to distract from the bloated, overpopulated and underdeveloped script.

Rowling co-writes for the screen again with Steve Kloves, her scripting partner for every Potter and Fantastic Beasts installment. The Potter films often suffered from unimaginative adaptation, which could be chalked up to the writers’ tough time pruning the source material.

No idea what’s to blame here, but these movies are not getting any better.

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And I Feel Fine

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Wyrmwood: Apocalypse

by Hope Madden

Back in 2014, co-writer/director/Aussie Kiah Roache-Turner brought new life to tired ideas. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead took an old-school Australian road movie and littered it with some undead. The two went well together. The result was a novel, often funny, action-packed splatter fest.

The original braided ideas from Romero and others, but somehow the amalgamation felt fresh. Zombie movies are rarely fresh. Same can be said for sequels. Zombie sequels — very hard to say something new.

For his sequel, Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, Roach-Turner writes again with brother Tristan. They return to the post-apocalyptic Outback to catch up with zombie/human hybrid Brooke (Bianca Bradey), her scruffy brother Barry (Jay Gallagher), and whatever’s going on at those military outposts.

As this is a zombie movie, assume the worst about those outposts.

Roache-Turner leans a little more heavily on dark humor for this one. The previous installment was brighter with its laughs, while this go-round finds comedy mainly inside the viscous filth of the laboratories.

Nicholas Boshier, returning as The Surgeon, gets to even wink and nod toward the Evil Dead franchise.

Meanwhile, outside the barracks, brothers and sisters are duking it out with everyone and everything to save or avenge one another.

Bradey and Gallagher take a backseat this time to Rhys (Luke McKenzie), a skeptical soldier whose twin was slain in the last film. He teams up, somewhat reluctantly, with Maxi (Shantae Barnes-Cowan), whose sister is inside one of those nasty labs.

A couple of intriguing kills (or near-kills), a little loose-end tying, and a few laughs keep this one from disappearing completely from memory. The inspired lunacy of Roache-Turner’s original is gone, replaced with entertaining if forgettable fun.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ambulance, Sonic 2, All the Old Knives, Cow & More

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Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ambulance, Sonic 2, All the Old Knives, Cow, Midnight, Coast, Agent Game

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All the Small Things

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

by Hope Madden

The Daniels do not make ordinary films. In fact, they tend to make extraordinary films. While their charming 2016 fantasy Swiss Army Man slipped toward sentimentality, Daniel Scheinert’s remarkable 2019 solo follow up The Death of Dick Long did not.

Nope.

Co-director Dan Kwan and his brand of sweet-natured lunacy are back for the duo’s big, big new effort Everything Everywhere All at Once. The result is an endlessly engaging, funny, tender, surprising, touching maelstrom of activity and emotion.

Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang, and today is not her day. She has to meet an IRS auditor (Jamie Lee Curtis, priceless) about the lien on the coin laundromat she owns with her “silly husband” (Ke Huy Quan, nice to see you!). Meanwhile, she’s planning a big party for her judgmental curmudgeon of a father (James Hong, amazing). Instead of helping, her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is clearly planning to come out of the closet. Today, of all days.

And then the multiverse shows up.

This is a hard movie not to love.

The Daniels find the absurd in the ordinary, wring emotion from the most mundane moments, and manage to create something adorable even when really large items are entering or hanging from — I don’t even know how to end that sentence.

On an unrelated note (I swear to God, it’s unrelated), what they do with hotdogs is inspired.

At the heart of the insanity lurks a spot-on depiction of a midlife crisis, and Michelle Yeoh’s depiction of that crisis is revelatory. The formidable veteran brings physical prowess and nuanced drama to the screen, as you might expect. She’s also really funny, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to hold this manic experience together. Yeoh convinces while Evelyn arcs as no character has arced before.

Curtis, Hong, Hsu and Quan all provide excellent support in role after role after role. The real stars are the Daniels, though, who borrow and recast and repurpose without even once delivering something derivative.

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Her Hidden Life

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You Won’t Be Alone

by Hope Madden

To suppose that filmmaker Goran Stolevski is a fan of Terrence Malick seems fair. His tale of 19th century Macedonian witchery offers the same type of visual aesthetic, whispery voiceover and absence of dialog in much of Malick’s work, especially 2018’s A Hidden Life.

You Won’t Be Alone follows Neneva (Sara Klimoska), a teenager raised in isolation, hidden from the Wolf-eatress (Anamaria Marinca) who’s claimed her. Freed from hiding, the teen shapeshifter takes on different forms (Noomi Rapace, Felix Maritaud, Alice Englert) and learns of life.

The vast majority of the film’s spoken language comes in the form of Neneva’s thoughts via voiceover. Having grown up alone and unable to speak, Neneva’s language is disjointed and poetic, her musings untouched by traditional socialization.

These reflections are periodically punctuated by the bitter logic of her lifelong tormentor, the Wolf-eatress, whose own upbringing among the human race has left her horribly scarred, literally and metaphorically.

Sections of the film are quite lovely. Admirable performances all around help to keep you engaged. Klimoska’s physical performance reflects the primal beginnings of Neneva’s explorations. Rapace brings an awkward adolescence feel to the character’s early interpretations of normal human behavior. Englert carries the character into adulthood with quiet curiosity, never losing that animalistic inquisitiveness carried throughout the earlier performances.

Stolevski’s cast gives him all he could have hoped. Unfortunately, he doesn’t entirely deliver on his end. The story free floats, its style often overwhelming its substance. You feel every minute of its running time.

That’s not to say Stolevski’s approach is a failure, only that it’s taken too far. His fractured storytelling suits his purposes of exploring gender identity and the nature of humanity. He builds dread well and his fluid camera allows his tale to cast a spell.

The result is mainly entrancing, but too often frustrating.   

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It Takes a Village

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Nitram

by Hope Madden

About a decade ago, director Justin Kurzel made one amazing true crime film. Working from a script by Shaun Grant, Kurzel took a notorious crime spree and created the most realistic and unnerving film of 2011 in Snowtown.

The pair reteamed for 2019’s underseen treasure based on true Australian events, True History of the Kelly Gang. They are back, once again digging into the seedier side of Aussie history with another true crime in Nitram.

In 1996, Martin Bryant murdered 35 people, injuring another 23 in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The horror led to immediate gun reform in the nation, but Kurtzel and Grant are more interested in what came before than after.

Playing the unnamed central figure (Nitram is Martin spelled backward), Caleb Landry Jones has never been better, and that’s saying something. He is one of the most versatile actors working today, effortlessly moving from comedy to drama, from terrifying to charming to awkward to ethereal. There is an aching tenderness central to every performance. (OK, maybe not Get Out, but that would have been weird.)

Kurzel surrounds him with veteran talent at the top of their games. Essie Davis matches Landry Jones’s with a fragile, winsome turn as the older misfit who becomes his friend. Anthony LaPaglia creates a believable, gentle presence as Martin’s father, while the formidable Judy Davis nails every nuance as his complicated, hard mother.

She’s mesmerizing and award-worthy.

Looking at the making of the monster is no new concept in film, and it’s often a misfire, either romanticizing or relishing in the lurid. Nitram does neither. Grant’s greatest gift as a writer may be his ability to mine difficult terrain without sentiment. (His script for Cate Shortland’s crushing 2017 thriller Berlin Syndrome is his greatest triumph in this area.)

Nitram looks at how nature and nurture are to blame. Socialization plus parenting plus bad wiring is exacerbated by the isolation and loneliness they demand. Everyone is to blame. It’s a conundrum the film nails.

But it’s Landry Jones you’ll remember. He’s terrifying but endlessly sympathetic in a bleak film that’s a tough but rewarding watch.

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They’re at the Gate

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Barbarians

by Hope Madden

Why is the dinner party such a ripe concept for horror? Or at least trauma?

Indies It’s a Disaster and Coherence bend time and space. The Invitation takes things in a bloody direction, The Humans picked more familial scabs. What they all have in common is that intimate gathering where familiarity breeds contempt.

They also require few locations and minimal cast, so they’re not too tough to mount on a small budget.

Director/co-writer Charles Dorfman takes all that into consideration with his feature debut. A veteran producer, Dorfman co-writes this fearsome tale with another longtime producer making his creative debut, Statten Roeg.

Together they spin the story of birthday boy Adam (Iwan Rheon, Game of Thrones). He and girlfriend Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno) await their two guests. Eva is a sculptor, and she and Adam have been living in the first of what will be many exclusive new homes developed on ancient, isolated, mystical UK land.

The developer, Lucas (Tom Cullen and his exceptional beard), is Adam’s polar opposite: narcissistic, ambitious, full of shit. Today Eva unveils her big sculpture, she and Adam sign final paperwork to own the house, and Adam blows out the candles on his dream of making it as a director in London in favor of quiet country life.

Well, maybe not because a) Lucas has had another offer, and b) masked intruders threaten the whole evening.

Part comedy of manners, part home invasion thriller, Barbarians finds itself on uneven footing.

With its monolith and fertility festival masks, the film not-so-subtly conjures 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Wicker Man. It can’t deliver on either promise, though.

More problematic is the way Dorfman discards the themes and character development so carefully articulated in the first half of the film. The fact that the invasion itself never matches the tension of the simple dinner —what with its evasions, lies, manipulations — becomes Dormfan’s biggest problem. At dinner, the filmmaker tends to the themes of the film, twisting discomfort into a knot that’s too easily untied by some intruders in animal masks.

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Gun for Hire

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The Contractor

by Hope Madden

Chris Pine is Hollywood’s unsung Chris, isn’t he? Under-sung, anyway. Just because he’s not an Avenger. He is a dependable, charismatic presence in any film, though, which is why each of his efforts deserves a little optimism. Even one as seemingly unremarkable as The Contractor.

Pine plays James Harper, a Navy Seal with 5 tours under his belt. One shredded knee, one worthless lung and a host of other physical consequences from his time under fire mean that Harper is no longer of use to the US military. Debts at home have him entertaining offers he probably shouldn’t.

After too lengthy an Act I, The Contractor pivots to tight action thriller. Pine delivers vulnerability and honor as the damaged service vet, and director Tarik Saleh surrounds him with able support.

The great Ben Foster arrives about 20 minutes into the feature, and that’s never a bad sign. The film’s biggest draw is the chance to see Pine and his Hell or High Water co-star reunite. Foster is among the most effortlessly authentic actors working, every character’s backstory hanging on his face and haunting his eyes.

He and Pine have a lived-in camaraderie that goes a long way toward deepening the emotional underpinning of what is otherwise a blandly repetitive, unimaginative military action flick.

The real surprise is that Saleh — who began his career with the bizarre and amazing dystopian fantasy Metropia — couldn’t produce something a little more intriguing. The by-the-numbers script from J.P. Davis doesn’t help, but aside from a handful of decent fisticuff sequences, Selah does not prove himself as an action director.

Gillian Jacobs, Fares Fares, Eddie Marsan and Kiefer Sutherland — all underused — do what they can to bring nuance to underwritten characters, but it’s not enough to salvage the film.

Rather than elevate a bland picture, the performances feel wasted in this derivative and formulaic thriller.