Gareth Tidball wowed the two of us a few years back taking on the role of Stephanie in our film Obstacle Corpse. Since then, she’s gone on to star in about a dozen feature films, and even shared a scene with Tom Hardy in Havoc. In this bonus Fright Club, we’re delighted to check in with Gareth about her latest feature, The Withering.
Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I Want Your Sex, Nightborn, Son of Sara: Volume 1, and The Withering!
by Hope Madden
It’s hard to do something new with the “pregnant with Satan’s baby” formula. There are only so many ways it can go, and you can’t hope to unseat Rosemary’s Baby. But writer/director Houston Bone and a game cast breathe weird life in this oft-told tale.
Sara (Chloe Van Landschoot) is very pregnant. Overdue, huge, and constantly vomiting, she’s ready to be done. Her devoted girlfriend Carol (Tymika Tafari) takes good care of her. Still, Sara’s definitely not entirely OK.
She runs into Troy (Garrett Hnatiuk), the pre-Carol fling and baby daddy, and feels strangely compelled to take him up on his offer of dinner. Back at his house. Out in the middle of nowhere. With his mom (Jane Moffat).
While moments of Act 1 smack of cliché —certainly that package of bloody ground chuck in the refrigerator—Bone’s script and his actors’ talent, plus Sara’s convincing pregnant state, keep you invested.
Bone gives his cast breathing room, never rushing a scene, always lingering just long enough for someone to be intriguing. That could be Hnatiuk’s awkwardly seductive dancing, Tafari’s disdainful glare, Moffat’s contemptuous sneer, or Landschoot’s childlike gesturing. The chemistry between and among the actors is top notch, and the way they inhabit their characters ensures even formulaic scenes feel unusual and fresh.
Son of Sara is not a spendy affair, but it rarely feels trapped by its budget. Bone and crew make great use of what funds they do have, and the filmmaker’s instinct for relationship-driven humor and discomfort overcome nearly every cinematic setback.
Even if a few beats buckle under familiarity, the underlying change in theme quietly upends a status quo expectation in enormously enjoyable ways. Son of Sara has an F-you quality to it that doesn’t draw attention to itself and is all the more satisfying for it. It’s fun, tightly constructed, compellingly performed horror and you’re out in under 90 minutes. What do you have to lose?
by Hope Madden
Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm (Hatching) once again explores horrific maternal themes with Nightborn. Don’t confuse it with Neil Blomkamp’s soulless AI short film. This is not that.
Bergholm’s film stumbles into a classic Finnish folktale. Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her husband Jon (Rupert Grint) move to her grandmother’s old, long vacant home deep in the forest. Gran was a bit of an eccentric. She kept old junk—tractors, machinery, wire—around the property because the creatures in the woods hated cold iron.
What a nut!
Saga and Jon settle in to reclaim the cabin from the encroaching woods and to start their family. Jon is immediately besotted with little Christian regardless of how hairy he is. Saga can’t seem to bond with him, although she does try to find her place as a mother, first by asserting that his name is Kuura.
Bergholm’s film, co-written with Hatching writing partner Ilja Rautsi, takes us deep into a post-partum nightmare. While the film is far less original than Hatching, examining maternal horror from the mother’s perspective gives the film dimension.
Haarla looks and acts the part perfectly. Bergholm and Haarla work together to bend your expectations and sympathies. There is something wrong with this child and we’re as frustrated as Saga with the way she’s dismissed as being depressed and exhausted. The next minute, we see Saga as a narcissist whose personality disorder is now on display because she can’t find love in her heart for her baby. Then, clearly Saga is just delirious and exhausted and suffering from post-partum, all issues exacerbated by society’s demand that motherhood is precious and perfect.
Nightborn weaves these likelihoods without asking us to turn against anyone. The film empathizes with Saga, even when her behavior does seem too prickly. Likewise, we’re never asked to hate Jon—a good thing because Grint is endlessly sympathetic as a man who wants desperately to be a good dad and husband.
Though Nightborn is not perfect—the creature and baby effects leave a bit to be desired—its exploration is fascinating. Never tidy, never patronizing, but not quickly forgiving, the film embraces what’s monstrous in us. It’s not the complete success of Hatching, but it’s a vivid nightmare worth your time.
This week, Hope & George review Her Private Hell, Hadestown: The Musical, Motor City, The Dink, Cruel Hands, and What Tomorrow Brings, PLUS News & Notes with The Schlocketeer Daniel Baldwin!
by Hope Madden
I was cautiously optimistic about The Dink, Josh Greenbaum’s feature that pits the elegant sport of tennis against goofy good time of pickle ball. It seemed like a funny concept.
Jake Johnson plays one-time tennis phenom Dustin Boyd, also known as the Hammer because that was the name his dad (Ed Harris) gave him as a kid due to his incredible serve. But now, rolling through his 40s in his 1998 Dodge LeSabre and working at his dad’s country club as the junior tennis instructor, the Hammer’s hitting some hard times.
As luck would have it, Dad has hatched a plan to rid the club of the goofy menace that is pickle ball. Does it involve a tournament, one pickle baller vs one tennis player? Will the Hammer somehow screw up his opportunity to be that tournament tennis pro? Will he somehow find himself falling for pickle ball?
I’m not saying, but if you’ve ever seen either a sports film or a comedy, you may be able to guess. No, Sean Clements’s script doesn’t feel terribly fresh, but the sort of Dodgeball meets Caddyshack concept is immediately appealing.
Lower your expectations and you might enjoy the movie.
Johnson’s built a career on the likeable goof character, and he’s as endearingly off-putting here as anywhere. Greenbaum surrounds him with solid support. Harris, obviously, but the ensemble teems with comic talent: Mary Steenburgen, Patton Oswalt, Ben Stiller, Chris Parnell, and even more veterans in cameos.
The Dink opens on its funniest scene, of the Hammer and his sidekick bestie (Aaron Chen) regaling two unimpressed kids with tales of their instructor’s youthful glory. Both kids (Indiana Elle and Cayden Romero) are dry, droll comic gold.
Everything after that is formula broken occasionally by random comedy bits. Stiller’s doctor is preoccupied with the “stickyhoney” dating app. Oswalt’s pickle ball advocate wastes a lot of tiny paper cups. John McEnroe brings his own concessions. Nothing is laugh-out-loud funny, but all the silliness is delivered by such pros that you chuckle regardless.
The Dink doesn’t rank among the great sports comedies, surely, but you’ll crack a smile.
by Hope Madden & George Wolf
Christopher Nolan likes a big room.
A massive cast, incredible set designs, far flung locations, 70mm IMAX cameras, The Odyssey has it all. And why not? Homer’s story is among history’s first ever epics.
And it’s quite a tale, trailing Odysseus (Matt Damon) as he struggles to return home to Ithaca after his savvy strategy leading to the defeat of Troy. Nolan, who adapts the 2700-year-old tome, finds echoes of Oppenheimer in Odysseus’s struggle. It’s a haunting narrative choice that gives the ancient proceedings a relevance that transcends time.
Damon is magnificent, wily and honorable, humble and arrogant, and Nolan surrounds him with a jaw-dropping ensemble. Anne Hathaway is bracingly wonderful as Penelope, the wife pushing off suitors circling the throne Odysseus left empty nearly two decades ago. Tom Holland, John Leguizamo, Mia Goth, Corey Hawkins, and Robert Pattinson join Penelope in the castle, and while the entire cast is solid, Pattinson again carves out unforgettable screentime.
Out in the wild world, Charlize Theron offers a beautiful dash of melancholy as Calypso, who prods Odysseus to search his memories and tell the tale. Himesh Patel is also exceptional as Eurylochus, Odysseus’s second in command. Elliot Page delivers a heartbreaking turn as Sinon, a youngster who follows Odysseus into battle, Jon Bernthal crafts a perfectly hardened King of Sparta while Samantha Morton finds remarkable depths as the witch Circe, given her limited time on screen. With even less screentime, Lupita Nyong’o and Zendaya leave an emotional mark.
And that’s not even the full cast, each of them bringing vulnerability to scenes of remarkable staging. The Trojan horse, the ship at sea, scenes of war, of mutiny, scenes confined to a banquet hall or strewn across the black embers of hell—this is Nolan at not just his most imaginative, but his most insightful as he finds relatable humanity inside even the grandest of moments.
He also mines new relevance from this ancient text, increasing the narrative weight with each spectacular step on the journey. Set in “a time of apparent magic,” Nolan doesn’t let us forget that the sacred bonds between people are still very fragile indeed, and breaking them can still have haunting, tragic repercussions.
The Odyssey casts such a mesmerizing spell that its three-hour runtime seems inconsequential, and the occasional lapses into more contemporary types of dialog and phrasing are rendered mere curiosities. Even those who may not be quite scholarly in Greek mythology will find a rich, rewarding story to get lost in, one that is anchored in storytelling itself as a reminder of what power the ancient art can hold.
Expect witchcraft and monsters (maybe a horror film next, Mr. Nolan?), war, brutality, political skullduggery, love and longing, revenge and regret, sacrifice, cowardice, honor and visual wonder.
The magic here is more than apparent, so don’t cheat yourself by waiting for the streaming date. The Odyssey is a true cinema experience, and a reason to seek out IMAX, 70mm, the whole fantastic shebang. This trip of a lifetime deserves nothing less.
Temptation is a big, big topic in horror. All sin begins with temptation and all horror begins with sin. But we narrowed down the list of our favorites so we didn’t focus exclusively on one kind of temptation. Which means we had to leave LOADS of movies out, including Nosferatu, The Lure, and Def by Temptation. But hopefully we made up for it with variety!
5. The Untamed (2016)
Sexual frustration leads to a lot of bad choices, but sexual satisfaction may be the real monster in Amat Escalante’s wild scifi/horror flick.
Alejandra (Ruth Ramos) is one of the sexually frustrated. Veronica (Simone Bucio) is not. Angel (Jesus Meza) is making bad choices. But there was this meteor, and it landed out by this isolated farm. What if the answer to all their problems is there?
Taking direct inspiration from Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession, Escalante reframes the taboo-defying frenzy of unbridled sexuality. Where Zulawski’s surreal, antiseptic environment suggested absurdism, Escalante grounds the fantasy in profoundly ordinary and relatable human drama. The result is horrifying.
4. Jennifer’s Body (2009)
The central premise in this succubus horror: Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them. Better still, lure them to an isolated area and eat them, leaving their carcasses for the crows. This is the surprisingly catchy idea behind this coal-black horror comedy.
In for another surprise? Megan Fox’s performance is spot-on as the high school hottie turned demon. Director Karyn Kusama’s film showcases the actress’s most famous assets, but also mines for comic timing and talent other directors apparently overlooked.
Amanda Seyfried’s performance as the best friend, replete with homely girl glasses and Jan Brady hairstyle, balances Fox’s smolder, and both performers animate Diablo Cody’s screenplay with authority. They take the Snaps conceit and expand it – adolescence sucks for all girls, not just the outcasts.
3. The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Who tempted us first? It was that clever snake. And who better to turn Bram Stoker’s abysmal novel The Lair of the White Worm into a blasphemous, hedonistic blast than Ken Russell?
Hugh Grant’s unibrow! Amanda Donohoe’s serpentine strap on! Peter Capaldi’s impenetrable accent! It’s all here, with as much subtlety as you might expect from Russell. Campy fun from the opening credits (that font!), this one’s a hoot!
2. The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
Al Pacino is subtle as ever as the devil himself, here to tempt Keanu Reeves with power. Though carnal temptation does make a number of visits, it’s greed and ambition that drive this film.
Is this Taylor Hackford vehicle a campy act of excess? It is! Gloriously, absolutely ridiculously so! The acting is over-the-top, though Reeves is characteristically cardboard. But both Charlize Theron and Connie Nielsen are exceptional and the wretched excess is a kind of joy.
1. Raw (2016)
In a very obvious way, Raw is a metaphor for what can and often does happen to a sheltered girl when she leaves home for college. But as writer/director Julia Ducournau looks at those temptations and the excesses committed on the cusp of adulthood, she creates opportunities to explore and comment on so many upsetting realities, and does so with absolute fidelity to her core metaphor. She immediately joins the ranks of Jennifer Kent (Babadook) and Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) – all recent, first time horror filmmakers whose premier features predict boundless talent.
This week, Hope & George review Moana, Evil Dead Burn, The Invite, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, The Outer Threat, Night Nurse, Mockbuster, and The Isolate Thief. PLUS! Movie News & Notes from The Schlocketeer Daniel Baldwin!
by Hope Madden
Nasty. Relentless. Grim.
Evil Dead Burn saw me coming!
Say what you will about the Deadite franchise, but you’re not likely to use the adjective “boring.” One of the reasons it’s remained relevant over six films and a 3-season TV show is that the team behind the bloodshed is not afraid to switch things up. Sam Raimi’s original, Stooges-inspired trilogy and the Bruce Campbell starring TV series were more grossout comedies than anything.
But the films took on a darker tone with Fede Alvarez’s 2013 reboot, a style that continued with Lee Cronin’s 2023 episode, Evil Dead Rise. For their latest installment, Executive Producer Raimi tapped French filmmaker Sébastian Vanicek.
Vanicek’s 2023 arachnid horror Infested was an impressive exercise in claustrophobic terror. He brings with him the flavor of French Extreme Cinema, so vital and gruesome in the early 2000s. What he abandons is the underlying, though ever darkening, humor that has always marked the franchise.
That or it just doesn’t work this time.
In what is essentially a metaphor for abusive relationships, Evil Dead Burn follows one family in the wake of their eldest son’s ghastly vehicular death. Naturally, the family gathers to mourn in their dead grandpa’s old farmhouse. He used to travel the world collecting creepy stories, kept a journal scribbled with incantations. You know the drill. It stars with “kanda” and ends with serious carnage.
Vanicek writes the script with Raimi and Florent Bernard, who co-wrote Infested. The story is tight enough, and solid performances quickly carve out recognizable characters who still manage not to feel flat or cliché.
Souheila Yacoub is Alice, the deceased’s widow and our central figure. Her tortured past sometimes threatens to weigh down the mayhem, but it never drags anything to a stop. How could it? Vanicek opens hard and never slows down.
The action choreography is fascinating. Cinematographer Philip Lozano (MadS, Cobweb) takes inspiration from the Raimi classic, his camera snaking and stalking its way through scenes. But this camera rolls, dips, and flies, all of it in service of the slaughter.
The film’s humorlessness and its somewhat tortured (ha!) central metaphor keep it from feeling truly at home in the franchise. But for an hour and fifty minutes of unforgiving butchery, you could do worse.
