The Night House rests on a trusted horror foundation that’s adorned with several stylishly creepy fixtures. But it’s a terrific lead performance from Rebecca Hall that becomes the support beam preventing total collapse.
Hall plays Beth, a New York teacher still reeling from the recent death of her husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). As Beth drifts through her impressive lakefront house trying to adjust, new discoveries bring unexpected questions about her late husband’s outside interests.
Though Beth’s neighbor (Vondie Curtis-Hall, always a pleasure) and best friend (Sarah Goldberg) both warn her not to fill the void in her life with “something dark,” the dark keeps calling. The more Beth digs into things Owen left behind, the more signs point to an unsettling secret life, and to the possibility that Owen may not have entirely moved on.
Director David Bruckner (The Ritual, The Signal) and screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (Super Dark Times) each have resumes showing impressive results within limited budgets. Stepping up a bit in class, their metaphor for the fog of grief and depression is familiar but well-crafted, with soft-pedaled jump scares and effectively spooky visuals.
Bruckner fuels the standard what’s real/what’s-in-her-head questions with some nifty camera tricks that make the house come eerily alive with forced perspectives and Dali-esque illusions.
As solid as the film’s construction may be, it falls on Hall to make sure the reveals waiting in the third act land with more emotion than silliness.
She’s more than up to the task. Early on, Beth’s sustained grief, and her indignation toward everyone who’s not Owen, carries an authenticity that gets us squarely behind Beth’s personal journey. And that pays dividends once the film relies on our belief in what Beth believes. Thanks to Hall, we end up buying in.
Looking ahead to 2022, Bruckner, Collins and Piotkowski will team up again for the Hellraiser reboot. That means that while there’s enough in The Night House to satisfy horror fans today, there’s also plenty here to get us hopeful about the future.
They’re powerful, beautiful, but not necessarily benevolent. Horror filmmakers have made great use of the heavenly hosts. Sometimes they arrive to protect us. Sometimes they don’t. Here are our five favorite horror films to bring heaven to earth.
5. The Exorcist III (1990)
Yes, this movie made the list based on a single scene. But that scene is so good! Fabio is an angel, wings and all. Patrick Ewing is the angel of death! There’s a quick glimpse of a young Samuel L. Jackson, and George C. Scott chooses a strangely upbeat delivery for the line, “I’m so sorry you were murdered, Thomas. I miss you.”
It’s a dream sequence, a foreboding scene in which Kinderman (Scott) meanders through a holding station between life and afterlife. The piece is weird, a bit gruesome and gorgeous. Its tone and look differ wildly from the rest of the film, but incredible nonetheless.
4. He Never Died (2015)
With a funny shuffle step and a blank stare, Henry Rollins announces Jack, anti-hero of the noir/horror mash-up He Never Died, as an odd sort.
Jack, you see, has kind of always been here. The “here” in question at the moment is a dodgy one-bedroom, walking distance from the diner where he eats and the church where he plays bingo. An exciting existence, no doubt, but this mindlessness is disturbed by a series of events: an unexpected visit, a needed ally with an unfortunate bookie run-in, and a possible love connection with a waitress.
From the word go, He Never Died teems with deadpan humor and unexpected irony. Casting Rollins in the lead, for instance, suggests something the film actively avoids: energy. The star never seethes, and even his rare hollers are muted, less full of anger than primal necessity.
3. The Prophecy (1995)
Writer/director Gregory Widen’s fascinating story about a war in heaven over God’s spoiled little meat puppets was a wild, innovative concept with a breathtaking cast: Christopher Walken, Virginia Madsen, Viggo Mortensen, Eric Stoltz, Elias Koteas, Adam Goldberg, Amanda Plummer.
So, is it on Widen that the movie is kind of terrible?
Terrible in an incredibly fun and watchable way, though. Somehow the unusually talent-stacked cast doesn’t feel wasted as much as it does weirdly placed.
There is no question this film belongs to Christopher Walken as the angel Gabriel. (Why are filmmakers so willing to believe Gabe will turn evil?) His natural weirdness and uncanny comic timing make the film more memorable than it deserves to be, but when it comes to sinister, Viggo Mortensen cuts quite a figure as Lucifer. Don’t forget, he was an angel, too.
2. Frailty (2001)
Back in 1980, Bill “We’re toast! Game over!” Paxton directed the short music video Fish Heads. Triumph enough, you say? Correct. But in 2001 he took a stab at directing the quietly disturbing supernatural thriller Frailty, with equally excellent results.
Paxton stars as a widowed, bucolic country dad awakened one night by an angel – or a bright light shining off the angel on top of a trophy on his ramshackle bedroom bookcase. Whichever – he understands now that he and his sons have been called by God to kill demons.
Dread mounts as Paxton drags out the ambiguity over whether this man is insane, and his therefore good-hearted but wrong-headed behavior profoundly damaging his boys. Or could he really be chosen, and his sons likewise marked by God?
Brent Hanley’s sly screenplay evokes such nostalgic familiarity – down to a Dukes of Hazzard reference – and Paxton’s direction makes you feel entirely comfortable in these common surroundings. Then the two of them upend everything – repeatedly – until it’s as if they’ve challenged your expectations, biases, and your own childhood to boot.
1. A Dark Song (2016)
Writer/director Liam Gavin also begins his story by dropping us breathless and drowning in a mother’s grief. Sophia (Catherine Walker) will do anything at all just to hear her 6-year-old son’s voice again. She will readily commit to whatever pain, discomfort or horror required of her by the occultist (Steve Oram) who will perform the ritual to make it happen.
Anything except the forgiveness ritual.
What Gavin and his small but committed cast create is a shattering but wonderful character study. Walker never stoops to sentimentality, which is likely what makes the climax of the film so heartbreaking and wonderful.
Filmmakers David Charbonier and Justin Powell know how to do
a lot with a little.
Earlier this year Shudder premiered their tightly packaged
little horror story, The
Djinn—very nearly a one-man, one-set show. Their latest to hit Shudder,
The Boy Behind the Door, is slightly more expansive. A cast of about
five knocks around one big, old farmhouse in the middle of an isolated, wooded
area.
Two of those five are Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra
Dewey, The Djinn), best friends who were kidnapped on their way to a
little league game. Bobby wakes up in the trunk of a car without Kevin. He
breaks free and makes his way clear of the house, but he can hear Kevin’s
terrified cries and he circles back to try and save him.
The filmmakers leave it to Bobby’s sleuthing—and yours–to
figure out what’s going on and how to end it. They make tremendous use of the
hallways, floors and doors throughout their set, plus a well-placed wristwatch unnervingly
ups the ante in a way the audience understands but Bobby does not.
There are times when the writing here hits too hard. I’m not
sure the boys have to say they’ll always stick together quite so often; their
actions speak to that. But the conundrums the filmmakers throw at Bobby as he
tries to figure out what’s going on and how to get to his friend are
believable.
More importantly, Chavis handles them with honest, childlike
panic and courage. His performance would be enough to carry the film, but the
adults around him offer supremely creepy turns.
Dewey’s less effective in this than he was in The Djinn, but it’s not enough to sink the film. The movie’s solid structure, paired with Charbonier and Powell’s gift for dropping clues and following up on threads make for a satisfying but never lurid horror show.
With a title like Danny. Legend. God. you might
expect a movie that’s, well, legendary. Unfortunately, writer/director Yavor
Petkov delivers something far more banal with his first feature film.
A film crew follows city councilor, Danny (Dimo Alexiev),
for a documentary series about money laundering. However, Danny lets them know
they won’t be following any kind of script; they’re making “big cinema.” The three-person
team gets more than they bargained for as Danny takes them deeper into his shady
world.
Danny is a big fish in a little pond, and along with his heavy, Tanko (Emil Kamenov), spends a lot of his time finding ways to impress his importance upon the film crew. Danny’s godson (Borislav Markovski) tags along for a few of his exploits, and it’s a credit to young Markovski that he’s one of the most interesting characters to watch despite having zero lines of dialogue.
But this points to the film’s biggest problem – the lead. For Danny, you need a character who is both repulsive, yet irresistible. Alexiev’s Danny is repulsive, but there is nothing about him – or the film – that compels you to watch. Too much here feels like we’re waiting for something to happen.
There are several scenes in the car that attempt to heighten the tension of being trapped with someone like Danny, but it doesn’t work. No one wants to be in the car with Danny – not the film crew nor the audience. We’re not watching a car crash, but a traffic jam.
There are a few side characters who turn up for a scene or
two that help move the film along. Danny’s irritated wife, the documentary
producer, and an old flame play off Alexiev with conviction. Seeing Danny from
their points of view help sell him as someone dangerous.
As Danny’s more sinister nature begins to reveal itself, the
documentary soundman (James Ryan Babson) becomes more uncomfortable with the
things they record. He insists “we’re complicit!” but within the context of the
film, it’s either an overreaction or a heavy-handed commentary on our societal
tendency to sit back and watch while our politicians play fast and loose with
the rules.
The movie wants us to wake up and find ourselves uncomfortable with those we put into office, but in the context of the real world, Danny isn’t nearly as disturbing as some of the actual people holding power right now.
Early on, plenty in the Shudder original Kandisha is going to remind you of Candyman. The filmmakers wisely address this early as well, and then move right along with a brisk and bloody realization of a Moroccan vendetta born from centuries-old roots.
On summer break from school, teen best friends Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse), Bintou (Suzy Bemba) and Morjana (Samarcande Saadi) are busy practicing their graffiti art in a dilapidated building. Peeling back some rotting drywall, Amélie spots a spray-painted tag of “Kandisha,” and Morjana recounts the legend.
In 16th century Morocco, Kandisha fought the Portuguese occupation that took her husband’s life. She even managed to kill six enemy occupiers before being caught, tortured, and killed.
Now, she roams the netherworld as a half-beast walking upright on hooves, waiting for a summons that will require her to slay six men before returning to her eternal unrest.
And how do you summon Kandisha? You look in the mirror and say her name five times.
“Like in the movies?”
Yes, girls, just like in the movies.
Writers/directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (the unforgettable Inside) are smart enough to take what we’re thinking and make it organic. We instantly relate to the girls’ scoffing, which helps make us feel connected to the journey that will make them believers.
Once Amélie conjures Kandisha to avenge an assault, it’s a trip that doesn’t waste much time getting down to business. There’s no trace of the silly humor Bustillo and Maury added to Inside, but their penchant for grandiose bloodletting is front and center as Kandisha begins counting to six.
The girls turn to an Imam for help reversing the curse, a narrative thread that ultimately provides more than just monstrous thrills. It’s also the chance for international audiences – especially in America – to see Islam depicted as a source for salvation instead of the stereotypical terrorist breeding ground.
If you’re going back to the well of Bloody Mary and Candyman, the water gets finer via each original filter. Kandisha adds a fresh cultural and female-specific lens to a bloody, take-no-prisoners approach that does much to overcome the tale’s familiar building blocks.
It’s Shark Week! What’s the best way to celebrate?
Watching Jaws, obviously. But maybe you just did that because of the mandatory 4th of July weekend viewing. Then what?
Well, there’s a new movie for you to consider: Martin Wilson’s Great White.
There are so many shark movies. So, so many. It becomes
tough to find something new to say.
Some are better than expected (The Shallows), some so
bad they are almost worth watching (Sharknado), some masterpieces (Jaws,
Open Water). Great White is none of those.
Michael Boughen’s script follows an Australian charter boat into unfriendly water. Cruisers include a rich coward, a haunted hero, a woman with history, a cook, a girlfriend, and, of course, a great white.
Wilson serves up a beautiful movie, beautiful people,
gorgeous scenery, Hallmark-channel writing, and a Hallmark-channel score. The
actual undersea footage is very borrowed from stock, although there are some
cool looking aerial shots. Plus, a dude rides a shark, which is never not fun.
Katrina Bowden, as captain’s girlfriend and brains of the operation
Kaz, poses. She exclusively poses and her emoting is so bereft of emotion that
her big crying scene is shot from high above with voiceover wailing. It doesn’t
help that so very much of her emoting has to be done underwater.
So much underwater emoting. So much.
Woman with a past Michelle (Kimie Tsukakoshi) fares better.
Most—though not all—of her emoting happens above the waterline and she proves
to be as competent an actor as this script will allow.
Great White spends most of its time on a life raft with five characters and impending doom. Lifeboat did something similar in 1944—of course that was Alfred Hitchcock directing a script by John Steinbeck, a big vessel to fill.
Wilson fills it with lazy writing, superficial performances, contrivance and conveniences that descend into idiocy, and not the fun Sharknado kind. Just the plain old idiotic kind.
Three characters, and one big house. That’s all that directors/writers Martin Blousson and Macarena Garcia Lenzi need to conjur up a good bit of creepy in Rock, Paper and Scissors (Piedra, papel y tijera).
Jesus (Pablo Sigal) and Maria Jose (Augustina Cervino) are isolated siblings living alone in the family home after the recent death of their father. When their paternal half-sister Magdalena (Valeria Giorcelli) arrives from Spain to discuss the inheritance and plans for the house, Jesus and Maria offer to put her up for the length of her stay.
Magdalena doesn’t want to trouble them for any more than one night, but a nasty fall down the stairs the next morning means little sister isn’t going anywhere.
Suddenly, Magdalena is a captive, and at the mercy of her siblings’ eyebrow-raising eccentricities. Jesus is an aspiring filmmaker filled with questionable inspirations, and Maria is a Wizard Of Oz-obsessed nursemaid who hopes to co-star with a guinea pig named Toto in Jesus’s upcoming film.
Magdalena’s only hope for escape seems to be separating her brother and sister, and probing for ways to work one against the other. Could Maria have pushed Magdalena down the stairs, or is Jesus the real danger in this house? And how did their father really die, anyway?
Blousson and Lenzi move past the Misery-like premise in short order, piling on some surrealistic Lynch-meets-Lanthimos weirdness and bathing it all in a stylistic visual pastiche of earth tone Goth.
The trio of actors reveals their characters’ true motivations at a languid pace that keeps us guessing, right up to the gorgeous closing shot that will leave you looking twice. Maybe three times.
Rock, Paper and Scissors is available on VOD beginning July 6th
Even serial killers need someone to talk to. Just hope it’s
not you.
That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Cody Callahan’s
latest, Vicious Fun.
In this 80s-era horror-comedy, sad sack Joel (Evan Marsh in
kind of a Jon Cryer role) is a nice guy. He’s just kind of an idiot who can’t take
a hint.
One evening he drowns his sorrows, passes out, and sobers up
to find himself in a late-night support group for serial killers. He’s not a
member—a fact the others sniff out pretty quickly—and shit goes south post
haste.
Callahan’s script winks with a kind of embarrassed affection
toward the horror nerd. Joel’s a screenwriter wannabe and is perhaps too proud
of his position as horror journalist for a fan magazine.
The serial killers here are not so much your garden variety psychos
as they are typical horror movie monsters. Vicious Fun shows no end of
self-deprecating charm, and Callahan’s solid cast is in on the joke.
Earlier this year, Callahan impressed with the boozy
Canadian hillbilly noir The
Oak Room, where he took advantage of Ari Millen’s versatility and
peculiarity. Here Millen dives more fully into his peculiar side, throwing
shades of McConaughey at his most unhinged for a character who’s never quite
what he seems but is always attention-getting.
The enormous Robert Maillet (Becky)
fits his character, physically and emotionally, to a tee, while Julian Richings
(Anything
for Jackson) surprises in a dual role. Amber Goldfarb cuts an impressive
presence as the film’s badass, and David Koechner is David Koechner, but when
isn’t that fun?
There aren’t enough nice guys in horror movies. Hats off to Callahan for not only finding a unique and fun premise in an overcrowded genre but for appreciating the precious jewel that is the nice guy.
You’ll find real horror in False Positive. There’s the plot, sure—a woman desperate to conceive, in the hands of a nefarious physician with a God complex—and all the body horror and helplessness that go along with it. But that’s not the scary part.
Indeed, co-writer/director John Lee levels a more comedic
tone to the by-the-numbers premise. Where he and co-writer/star Ilana Glazer
mine unnerving dread is in their observational honesty.
Glazer is Lucy, and she and her husband Adrian (Justin Theroux, slyly wonderful) have been trying to get pregnant for two years. As much as she wants to do this naturally, she finally caves in to Adrian’s suggestion that they visit his med school mentor, Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan – perfection).
Lee’s intention is not to make you wonder whether something sinister is afoot. The Stepford-esque nursing staff and eerily meticulous clinic proclaim it. The sheer number and variety of phallic instruments to be inserted, and the volume of lubricant so very lovingly applied, plays like SNL by way of Cronenberg.
If you’ve ever seen Broad City, Glazer’s groundbreaking Comedy Central sit-com, you may not recognize the performer’s dramatic skills, but you will recognize the writer’s keen eye for everyday absurdities.
Here’s where False Positive’s horror kicks in. It’s the
authenticity, the banal realism of Lucy’s daily condescending, dismissive,
patronizing, smothering, gaslighting humiliations that really eat at you. The low-key
accuracy of it all—from the male colleagues who swear you are glowing as they
leave their lunch orders next to your laptop, to your nurse’s reassuring caresses
and terms of endearment, to your husband’s reminder whenever you’re feeling
down that we’ve been through a lot with this pregnancy.
Tensions escalate as the storyline itself dictates, although
the film is far more surefooted in its observational horror than it is in its
plot. Lucy’s pre-pregnancy character is ill-defined, which makes her descent less
satisfying. The climax is played for comedic value and the final act’s weirdness,
though welcome, holds no real meaning.
Worse of all is the under-developed character of a midwife played imposingly by Zainab Jah. Lee clearly hoped to use this character as a statement on the genre itself but the whole affair feels wrong-headed.
Those are some serious misgivings, I grant you, but there really is something subversive, honest, and horrifying worth witnessing in this movie.
I have seen a lot of horror movies. A lot. You have no idea.
Do you know what I have never seen before? A horror movie that opens with a
quote from Fred Rogers.
Well done, Werewolves Within.
Mr. Rogers is a hero of sorts for Finn (Sam Richardson), new
park ranger for a very small, isolated, snowy mountain town. The townsfolk are
divided on a deal to run a pipeline through their little hamlet. But they will
have to work together despite their differences when it appears that a werewolf
has begun to prey on their town.
Because if left and right cannot work together in the face
of a common oppressor, the oppressor will win. It doesn’t matter what that is:
fascists, greedy capitalists, werewolves. Still, it can be tough to get the two
sides to come together, even for their own good, so Finn channels his hero and
does what he can to inspire the townspeople to look out for each other. He just
wants them to become good neighbors.
It is adorable.
Horror has its share of nice guys, but these are almost
invariably tragic victims, either the first to go because they don’t have the
inner meanness to overcome villainy, or eventual victims because the movie is
so much more emotionally relevant if they sacrifice themselves. The nice guy is
almost never a horror film’s hero, and this is where Werewolves Within
really does depart from standard fare.
Director Josh Ruben—fresh off Scare Me, a clever horror-comedy he wrote, directed and starred in—delivers a forgiving, even sweet tone. There’s cynicism here, and characters are not drawn with a lot of dimension, but the performances are fun and the comedy is good-natured.
Richardson makes an ideal Rogers-esque central figure, his new hometown populated by a talented comedy ensemble: Michaela Watkins, Michael Chernus, Wayne Duvall, Harvey Guillen (TV’s What We Do In the Shadows), and fan-favorite, Milana Vayntrub. (You know, Lily from the AT&T ads.)
Werewolves Within is loosely based on the video game of the same name, which may be why the plot feels so very slight. Still, writer Mishna Wolff displays a flair for whodunnit fun that elevates the film high above 90% of the video game movies that have been made.
A lot of that success lies in Wolff and Ruben’s investment
in the nice guy.
Fred Rogers once said: “When I was a boy and I would see a scary thing in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.’”
