As Huesera: The Bone Woman opens, women climb the 640 steps leading to the world’s largest statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, located in Ocuilan, Mexico. Valeria (Natalia Solián) and her mother are among the pilgrims, their goal: a blessing leading to Valeria’s fruitful womb.
As writer/director Michelle Garza Cervera’s camera pulls back and back and back, suddenly the 108’ virgin looms like a serene-faced golden Godzilla above a woman who no longer looks so certain about her prayer.
It’s a confident opening to the entirely assured feature debut from Cervera. Her maternal nightmare is bright and decisive, pulling in common genre tropes only long enough to grant entrance to the territory of a central metaphor before casting them aside for something sinister, honest and honestly terrifying.
While it toes certain familiar ground – the gaslighting of Rosemary’s Baby, for instance – what sets Huesera apart from other maternal horror is its deliberate untidiness. Cervera refuses to embrace the good mother/bad mother dichotomy and disregards the common cinematic journey of convincing a woman that all she really wants is to be a mom.
There’s complexity and subtlety in the various relationships as well, elevating the material above standard horror fare. Valeria has real, joyous chemistry with husband Raúl (Alfonso Dosal). And if he’s weak in the face of his mother’s wishes, Valeria is hardly standing up to her own mother or sister. The ways in which we all dodge family conflict feed into the writing, helping ground the larger metaphor in reality.
Solián’s performance weaves effortlessly and authentically from one family dynamic to the next, each presenting only opportunities to submit, to accept or to be ostracized and rejected. Huesera’s metaphor is brave and timely. Brave not only because of its LGBTQ themes but because of its motherhood themes. It’s a melancholy and necessary look at what you give up, what you kill.
Time to set your phasers to “5” Marvel Fans, and hope for better days ahead. Because Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania is a messy, lackluster kick-off to the new stage.
After the prologue and before the two end stingers, Quantumania is bookended by two winning sequences, both set to the theme from “Welcome Back, Kotter.” They’re self-effacing and full of the unique charm that has defined Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man/Scott Lang character since the first installment. And the rest of the film can never quite measure up.
While Scott has been off Avenging, his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) has grown into an impressive young scientist herself. In fact, the new sub-atomic telescope she invented seems pretty nifty, until a family pizza party ends with Scott, Cassie, Hope/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Hank (Michael Douglas) and Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) all sucked back into the Quantum Realm.
And it turns out, there’s plenty Janet didn’t let on about the 30 years she spent down there. Some of it involves Krylar (Bill Murray, channeling Criswell). But the life-threatening details revolve around how Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) wound up there, and why he must never make his way out.
Director Peyton Reed returns from parts 1 and 2, but his powers are more limited in the quantum realm than Kang’s. Without city landmarks and average Joes to ground the comedy, the Ant-Man dorkishness falls flat.
The writing doesn’t help, although it’s tough to blame series newcomer Jeff Loveness in his feature debut. The first film was written by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish and Adam McKay, for Pete’s sake. But Loveness cannot find a groove, throwing comedy bits that suit Aqua Teen Hunger Force into hyper-serious melodrama with a Barbarella backdrop.
Much of the film is blatantly Star Wars, with attempts at Ragnorak humor that run headlong into extended exposition and Kang’s quest for dominating multiple plexes. None of it works.
Rudd’s a doll, per usual, and Newton’s a charmer. Pfeiffer continues to have charisma to burn, which is a good thing because Lilly’s as engaging as a paper sack and Douglas is mainly wasted. But the real pity is Majors, another profound talent floundering in an underwritten villain role that relies on speechifying rather than acting.
There are some big ideas here, and the attempts at world building are ambitiously borrowed, but much the same as its unlikely Avenger, Quantumania comes up small.
Killer crushes, literally – that’s what we’re talking about this time. We also run down our own biggest celebrity crushes, because why not? And we talk about the best horror films to capture the moment obsession turns dangerous.
5. Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)
Adrian is a Romanian filmmaker who likes girls and cats. He does not like dogs or boys. His favorite thing? Anne Hathaway as Cat Woman.
He was so inspired by her performance that he knew he had to make a film with her. To convince her, he’s lured three actresses to shoot a film with him. That film is really just to convince Anne, his beloved, that she should star in the real movie.
She’s not going to want to.
This movie works on the sheer, weird charisma of writer/director/star Adrian Tofei. He is pathetic and charming and terrifying as he documents his direction as a kind of “behind the scenes” for Anne, so she can understand how truly perfect she is for his film and he is for her artistic future. The result is unsettling, unique and wildly entertaining.
4. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
You know the story – a shadowy figure haunts the Paris opera house, demading that the object of his affection, Christine, be given the lead in Faust. In what amounts to a cautionary tale about women prioritizing career over family, the story revolves around a masked and disfigured madman and the singer who is easily duped, then saved by righteous men.
The reason this particular version of the film works so well is, of course, Lon Chaney’s now-legendary look. The actor devised his own make up and underwent painful tricks of physical contortion, succeeding in shocking audiences with a ghastly but very realistic visage. His flair as an actor is also on display, and though other versions sometimes mine for a bit of empathy or heartbreak as this hideous creature connives for a love triumphant, Chaney delivers menace and horror.
3. The Fan (1982)
The first thing Eckhart Schmidt’s film has in its favor is that the audience is meant to empathize with the fan, Simone (Désirée Nosbusch). Generally, we see the fanatical from the celebrity’s point of view, but this makes more sense because every member of the audience is more likely to have lost their shit over a teen idol than they’ve been worshipped themselves.
And yet, Simone clearly has a screw loose. Schmidt’s approach to her obsession as seen through the eyes of worried parents, apologetic postmen and other adults is confused and compassionate. Teenage girls – who can understand them? The tone is ideal to set up the explosive heartbreak you know is coming, as well as a third act you couldn’t possibly see coming.
2. Antiviral (2012)
If you could catch Kim Kardashian’s cold, would you?
This is the intriguing concept behind writer/director Brandon Cronenberg’s seething commentary on celebrity obsession, Antiviral.
Young Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works for a clinic dealing in a very specific kind of treatment. They harvest viruses from willing celebrities, encrypt them (so they can’t spread – no money if you can’t control the spread), and sell the illnesses to obsessed fans who derive some kind of bodily communion with their adored by way of a shared herpes virus. Gross.
But the ambitious Syd pirates these viruses by injecting himself first, before the encryption. Eventually, his own nastiness-riddled blood is more valuable than he is, and he has to find a way out of quite a pickle. Maybe vitamin C?
1. Misery (1990)
Kathy Bates had been knocking around Hollywood for decades, but no one really knew who she was until she landed Misery. Her sadistic nurturer Annie Wilkes – rabid romance novel fan, part-time nurse, full-time wacko – ranks among the most memorable crazy ladies of modern cinema.
James Caan plays novelist Paul Sheldon, who kills off popular character Misery Chastain, then celebrates with a road trip that goes awry when he crashes his car, only to be saved by his brawniest and most fervent fan, Annie. Well, she’s more a fan of Misery Chastain’s than she is Paul Sheldon’s, and once she realizes what he’s done, she refuses to allow him out of her house until she brings Misery back to literary life.
Caan seethes, and you know there’s an ass-kicking somewhere deep in his mangled body just waiting to get out. But it’s Bates we remember. She nails the bumpkin who oscillates between humble fan, terrifying master, and put-upon martyr. Indeed, both physically and emotionally, she so thoroughly animates this nutjob that she secured an Oscar.
Consecration is another Catholic horror movie full of potentially vengeful nuns.
Yawn.
It stars Jena Malone and Danny Huston and was directed by Christopher Smith, whose Severance is one of the best horror comedies ever.
Go on.
Malone plays Grace, a woman called to Scotland to identify the body of her brother, a priest who killed himself after murdering another priest in front of a gaggle of nuns. But the Mother Superior (an effectively chilly Janet Suzman) tells the story a bit differently than handsome local detective Harris (Thoren Ferguson). She knows Grace’s brother was possessed by a demon and had the strength to end his life to protect the convent.
Grace is having none of it. What she is having are hallucinations and blackouts, which should probably concern her more than they seem to. But that’s just the beginning of Consecration’s problems.
Malone – a generally welcome sight in any film – is as unconvincing. Her amateur atheist sleuth is as believable as her Scottish accent. The gritty charm and sly intelligence she’s used to mischievous and mysterious effect in so many films evaporate in the face of this super serious if frequently lightheaded character.
Much of the ensemble fares better. Huston’s spot-on as the priest determined to find a solution to this convent problem. Meanwhile, Eilidh Fisher blends warmth and weirdness, creating the film’s sole memorably tragic figure.
But Smith’s script, co-written with longtime collaborator/first-time writer Laurie Cook, leaves too many gaps in logic for its tale to take hold. Most of these holes concern Grace, which is no doubt among the reasons Malone struggles to create a believable character.
The scenery is gorgeous and there is an interesting time/space twist that’s a bit of good fun. But it’s not quite enough to salvage a tired idea told with pretty images and little enthusiasm.
There are not nearly enough horror films based in Jewish folklore. Have you ever seen a dybbuk movie? You should. So far, I’ve seen three – Marcin Wrona’s beautiful 2016 haunting, Demon; Keith Thomas’s 2021 horror, The Vigil; and writer/director Gabriel Bier Gislason’s latest, Attachment.
The thing about dybbuk stories is that I’ve never seen one go well for anyone. Fun!
On the surface – and even just below – Attachment is an astute observation on being new to the family, particularly in a situation where the relationship itself is probably not that welcome. All families are weird, but they are weird in such individual ways. Gislason picks that scab effectively, as does his cast.
Josephine Park is Maja, a Danish actress best known – really, only known – for playing Santa’s Elf in a long-defunct TV series. She literally runs into Leah (Ellie Kendrick) at a bookstore. Leah is in from London doing some research, the two fall quickly in love, and after Leah is injured during a seizure, Maja offers to return with her to London and her mother’s care.
There is something quietly astute about the way Gislason sets up the dynamic: the willfully oblivious love interest, the domineering parent (Sofie Gråbøl) unwilling to be gracious, and the insecure new love unsure how to make herself fit into the family. All of it feels authentic, even if the stakes and weirdness are clearly ratcheted up a few notches.
Attachment delivers slow-burn horror that repays close attention but never falls to gimmickry. Yes, the situation is absurd, but everyone behaves in a way that is rooted in real-world expectations and experiences.
When the film changes its point of view, you realize where its compassion really lies. Attachment is a nightmare about parenting, about releasing your everything – your beautiful, tender baby – into a vast and brutal world. At the center of the entire nightmare is love, of course, because there is no real horror unless love is at stake. It’s that knowledge that makes the film hurt.
Back in 2001, Brad Anderson scared the living shit out of us with the ingenious institutional horror, Session 9. He followed this up with the utterly remarkable The Machinist, and a few years later, the mind-bending thriller, Transsiberian.
Things began to peter out for Anderson as a filmmaker by 2010’s Vanishing on 7th Street, and as he found more success with episodic programming, he more or less stayed there, popping over to film every few years with routinely middling results.
Such is the case with his latest, the supernatural family drama, Blood.
Michelle Monaghan is Jess, a recently sober, recently divorced, harried nurse settling her pre-teen children into their new home, an isolated farmhouse owned by her aunt before she passed. But Pippin, the golden lab, knows something’s wrong out in them woods.
Whatever’s out there ends up in Pippin and then, shortly, in Jess’s 8-year-old, Owen (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong). The obvious tension is amplified by the fact that Jess is desperately afraid to lose custody of her children, so she is loath to admit there’s anything seriously wrong. But things are seriously, seriously wrong with Owen.
Writer Will Honley hits on a topic that was really popular in the genre maybe five years ago (The Hole, The Prodigy, Brahms: The Boy 2, Z, Brightburn).His updates actually recall slightly older films – Grace (2009), It’s Alive (the 2009 remake), even 1990’s nutty Baby Blood to a degree. What Blood is saying is not original at all, so to make it relevant, Anderson will need to mine Honley’s script for some real relevance.
The family dysfunction and addiction angle could be it. There’s an undercooked metaphor here concerning addiction and heredity. Owen’s bratty behavior buoys the film’s darker qualities, and that business down the basement is especially gruesome (as “down the basement business” so often is). But none of it pans out. In fact, some of it – the least forgettable bits – are forgotten entirely as the film delivers a kind of final grace that is wildly unearned.
Had that moral ambiguity felt intentional the film would have been at least provocative. The fact that it does not is alarming, but not in a way that makes the film more enjoyable.
All the performances are solid. Monaghan and June B. Wilde spar beautifully with each other. Meanwhile, Skeet Ulrich (nice to see you!) and young Skylar Morgan Jones fill out the problematic family well. They just won’t help you remember the movie.
You check in. You assume the best. You’d never think, as you doze off in total helplessness, that maybe the last guest is still lingering in spirit, or was fed to gators, or that the hotel itself may be the doorway to hell.
In all likelihood the worst thing you’ll bring home with you is bedbugs, but I’ll take the gators.
For this episode we’re joined by our dear friend Jamie Ray from the Fave Five from Fans podcast and, at his behest, we will run through horror cinema’s best – or worst? – hotels.
Listed below are our five favorites, but honorable mentions go to Eaten Alive‘s Starlite Hotel, Basket Case‘s Hotel Broslin, Hotel Quickie from Killer Condoms and Slausen’s Oasis from Tourist Trap.
5. Motel Hello (Motel Hell, 1980)
It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters, so swingers looking for a cheap motel in which to swing – be warned! Fifties heartthrob Rory Calhoun plays Farmer Vincent, who, along with his sister Ida (a super creepy Nancy Parsons) rid the world of human filth while serving the righteous some tasty viddles. Just don’t look under those wiggling, gurgling sacks out behind the butcherin’ barn!
Motel Hell is a deeply disturbed, inspired little low budget jewel. A dark comedy, the film nonetheless offers some unsettling images, not to mention sounds. Sure, less admiring eyes may see only that super-cheese director Kevin Connor teamed up with Parsons and Calhoun – as well as Elaine Joyce and John Ratzenberger – for a quick buck. But in reality, they teamed up to create one of the best bad horror films ever made.
4. White Lovers’ Inn (The Happiness of the Katakuris, 2001)
Guests rarely come and a strange fate awaits them.
Takashi Miike is an extremely prolific director. He makes a lot of musical films, a lot of kids’ movies, a lot of horror movies, and then this – a mashup of all of those things. Like Sound of Music with a tremendous body count.
The Katakuris just want to run a rustic mountain inn. They’re not murderers. They’re lovely – well, they’re losers, but they’re not bad people. Buying this piece of property did nothing to correct their luck, either because, my God, their guests do die.
You might call this a dark comedy if it weren’t so very brightly lit. It’s absurd, farcical, gruesome but sweet. There’s a lot of singing, some animation, a volcano, a bit of mystery, more singing, one death by sumo smothering, and love.
3. Hotel Ostend (Daughters of Darkness, 1971)
Seduction, homoeroticism, drowsy lustfulness – this one has it all.
Countess Bathory – history’s female version of Dracula – checks into an all-but-abandoned seaside hotel. The only other guests, besides the Countess’s lover, Ilona, is a honeymooning couple.
Effortlessly aristocratic, Delphine Seyrig brings a tender coyness, a sadness to the infamous role of Bathory. Seyrig’s performance lends the villain a tragic loveliness that makes her the most endearing figure in the film. Everybody else feels mildly unpleasant, a sinister bunch who seem to be hiding things. The husband, in particular, is a suspicious figure, and a bit peculiar. Kind of a dick, really – and Bathory, for one, has no time for dicks.
Caring less for the victims than for the predator – not because she’s innocent or good, but because her weary elegance makes her seem vulnerable – gives the film a nice added dimension.
The accents are absurd. The outfits are glorious. The performances are compellingly, perversely good, and the shots are gorgeous. Indulge yourself.
2. Bates Motel (Psycho, 1960)
It doesn’t look like much, but the old Bates place used to be something before the new highway. Now it’s really just Norman, some dusty bungalows, that ice machine, swamp out back, some stuffed birds and, of course, Mother.
Anthony Perkins was the picture of vulnerability in Hitchcock’s horror classic, but the motel itself is also about as benign as a spot can be. Hardly the downcast, shadowy, menacing lodging you think of today when you think of low-rent motels. It’s bright, clean and empty. Lonesome, but hardly frightening. Just like Norman.
1. The Overlook Hotel (The Shining, 1980)
You know who you probably shouldn’t hire to look after your hotel? Jack Nicholson.
A study in atmospheric tension, Kubrick’s vision of the Torrance family collapse at the Overlook Hotel is both visually and aurally meticulous. It opens with that stunning helicopter shot, following Jack Torrance’s little yellow Beetle up the mountainside, the ominous score announcing a foreboding that the film never shakes.
The hypnotic, innocent sound of Danny Torrance’s Big Wheel against the weirdly phallic patterns of the hotel carpet tells so much – about the size of the place, about the monotony of the existence, about hidden perversity. The sound is so lulling that its abrupt ceasing becomes a signal of spookiness afoot.
Nicholson outdoes himself. His early, veiled contempt blossoms into pure homicidal mania, and there’s something so wonderful about watching Nicholson slowly lose his mind. Between writer’s block, isolation, ghosts, alcohol withdrawal, midlife crisis, and “a momentary loss of muscular coordination,” the playfully sadistic creature lurking inside this husband and father emerges.
