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Bite Club

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Bit

by Hope Madden

There is something appealing to the glam trainwreck that is Bit, Brad Michael Elmore’s anti-Twilight.

An angsty adolescent fresh from high school graduation voice overs: “You know those teen vampire movies that feel like the horny soap opera fever dreams of an 8th grade diary? Here’s how mine began.”

Like it. It’s self-aware, a little deadpan funny, a little whatever. Go on.

Laurel (Nicole Maines), the recent grad, packs up her Oregon-plated car and takes off to spend the summer with her brother in LA. On her very first night in town, she’s hit on by  the super hot girl Izzy (Zolee Griggs), brought to an after hours full of incredibly cool people, and immediately she feels as if she’s found acceptance, found home.

Naturally, Izzy and her also-hot friends are lesbian vampires who see Laurel’s specialness and invite her to Bite Club.

First rule of Bite Club: No. Fucking. Boys.

Maines is a transgender actress, a fact that elevates Laurel’s angsty “oh, high school was kind of a horror show” schtick because it probably was. Maines does not show an enormous amount of range, unfortunately, and Elmore’s script offers her few opportunities to shine.

She’s entirely convincing with her eyes at half mast, enduring the well-meaning but clueless affection of her family. But Elmore penned very few realistic reasons for Laurel’s behavior and Maines is left struggling to convince us, simply repeating the phrase “I’m fine” ad nauseam.

Diana Hopper, on the other hand, cuts an impressive figure as Bit’s Tyler Durden. Hopper elevates Elmore’s sometimes weak dialog (there are times when it works) with wearied badassedness.

It is fun and sometimes really witty the way Bit mocks boys, though, even if Elmore’s core theme is, “Some of us are OK!” Indeed, Bit undercuts its feminist intent as often as it offers genuine insight.

But maybe its main thesis is that kids are stupid, because Laurel’s philosophy for the future of the human race is…well, it’s stupid.

Still, there’s low-rent garbage fun to be had with this. Everything about it could have been better, but like most guilty pleasures, it appeals in a sugar high kind of way.

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Dishonor Among Thieves

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The Wild Goose Lake

by Brandon Thomas

A vicious fight breaks out between rival gangs. Chairs fly. Knives are pulled. A spectator takes a bite of a pickle. A man has his prosthetic leg pulled from his body. 

And this is all within the first 10 minutes of The Wild Goose Lake.

Small-time mobster Zhou Zenong (Hu Ge) finds himself in the spotlight after mistakenly killing a police officer during a turf dispute with another gang. With dozens of police searching for him, and rival gangs looking to collect the bounty on Zhou’s head, he’s forced to team up with a mysterious woman (Gwei Lun-mei) and go on the run.

In the grand tradition of so many other neo-noir films, Wild Goose Lake walks a tightrope of mood and style. Many scenes play out long and with few cuts – drawing out the tension. The maze of buildings, streets and corridors are shot deep in shadows. The visual claustrophobia unsubtly mimics that of the main characters. And when the violence hits – it hits quickly and brutally. 

The depiction of violence is where the black humor comes out. There’s more Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson in the violence here than there is Francis Ford Coppola. A killing involving an umbrella had me hooting and clapping my hands in delight. Not to mention the inventive decapitation via forklift.

Hu Ge makes for a stoic lead as Zhou. At the beginning of his story, Zhou is a perfect example of cool, calm, and collected. In the opening fight, he casually dispatches opponents in a flurry of fists and kicks. Sharp contrast to later in the film when Zhou more or less resembles a trapped animal.

Gwei Lun-mei is equally impressive as the standard femme fatale, Liu Aiai. Like any good noir femme fatale, Liu’s motives remain murky at best. Like Zhou, Liu’s resolve begins to crumble as the weight of their situation bears down on her. Gwei does a terrific job of adding subtle layers to Liu. 

It’s hard to look at Wild Goose Lake and not be reminded of Fritz Lang’s noir masterpiece M. In M, Peter Lorre famously plays a serial killer hunted by both the police and the criminal underworld. The narrative themes and strong visual cues helped shape the noir genre as we know it today.

By embracing what makes film noir so riveting, Wild Goose Lake manages to satisfy movie lover’s expectations, and sometimes soar above them. 

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Kelly Green

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True History of the Kelly Gang

by George Wolf

Planting its flag unapologetically at the corner of accuracy and myth, The True History of the Kelly Gang reintroduces a legendary 1870s folk hero through consistently bold and compelling strokes.

His death imminent, Australian outlaw Ned Kelly (1917‘s George MacKay in another impressive turn) is writing a letter to the daughter he will most likely never see. With a promise to “burn if I speak false,” Kelly wants his child to separate fact from fiction in the family history.

It’s an audacious, somewhat cheeky opening from director Justin Kurzel, considering that the film itself is based on a historical novel. Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant – the duo behind the true crime shocker The Snowtown Murders nine years ago – go bigger this time, trading spare intimacy for a tableau of grand visual and narrative ideas.

After a heroic act in childhood, Ned gets the chance at a proper education. That offer is spurned by his angry and defiant mother (Essie Davis, terrific), who instead passes Ned off to notorious Aussie bushranger Harry Power (Russel Crowe in a sterling cameo) for an intro into the outlaw life.

With a direct nod to the moment when “the myth is more profitable than the man,” Kurzel spins an irresistible yarn that manages to balance the worship of its hero with some condemnation for his sins. And as the road to Kelly’s guns-blazing capture unfurls, the film incorporates elements of both a tense crime thriller and a Nightingale-esqe reminder of savage colonialism.

Does the legend of Ned Kelly owe more to history or myth? Hero or murderer? True History…. aims higher than one word answers, with storytelling that often soars before landing.

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Sloppy Dead

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Why Don’t You Just Die!

by Hope Madden

Given that 75% of writer/director Kirill Sokolov’s Why Don’t You Just Die! takes place in a single apartment—one room of that apartment, really—you might be surprised to learn that it’s an action film.

It’s pretty heavy on the action, actually, amplified by inspired framing, kinetic cinematography, sometimes hilarious but always eye-popping choreography, and blood.

Just a shit ton of blood.

This movie is a hoot!

And, yes, it is Russian, so there will be some reading. Not a lot, honestly, and Sokolov’s grasp of visual language is so firm that you really would not have to read a single word to understand every nuance of the film.

Scrappy thug Matvei (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) waits outside an apartment door, wary to ring the bell. Behind his back he hides a hammer, tightly gripped. When the door opens, the imposing Andrei (Vitaliy Khaev) looms. Suspicious, big, bald, effortlessly alpha (just ask the neighbor’s yipping dog), he eyes Matvei.

Matvei eyes back.

Things move inside.

Sokolov sets up a raucous mystery. Why is Matvei here? What does Andrei’s daughter have to do with it? Why isn’t Natasha in the country? How can Yevgenich help?

Does every single one of these people have reason to want Andrei dead?

The answer to the last one is yes.

As these characters limp into and out of the apartment (or don’t), Sokolov helps you keep track by virtue of theme music. Each character has his or her own. The quiet, brooding Matvei’s music, for instance, soars like a Morricone Western theme.

But is he a black hat or a white?

With a spare script, visual wonder and energy to burn, Why Don’t You Just Die! promises to snatch your attention like a duffle bag of cash and hang on until exactly enough blood is spilled.

That’s a lot.

Shudder Premiere

Pop Goes the Scary

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0.0 Mhz

by George Wolf

Imagine it’s 1984.

One of the members of Banarama has joined one of the members of Duran Duran in the cast of a new horror movie. That movie is assembled with the ideas and scenes from much better films, but young pop music fans probably haven’t seen any of ’em, so who cares?

Now, put on your mask and join us back in 2020. A similar mindset seems to propel 0.0 Mhz, a Shudder original that brings two stars of the South Korean K-Pop phenomenon to the screen.

Jung Eun-ji, lead singer of the band Apink, also takes the lead here as So-hee, the newbie in a teen team of ghost-chasers known as “Club 0.0 Mhz.” See, that’s the best frequency to call ghosts (don’t argue), and So-hee’s first outing with the group is to a supposedly haunted house in the woods where the kids aim to dial up a little necromancy.

But what Sang-Yeob (Lee Sung-yeol from the band Infinite) and the rest of the gang don’t know is…their new recruit comes from a long line of dead people-seers.

The local at the general store who tells them all not to go to there is just the first in a string of heavily borrowed narrative checkpoints. Pulling from The Grudge to Elm Street to The Conjuring to The Exorcist, first time director Sun-Dong Yoo adapts Jang Jak’s popular webcomic with barely a whisper of originality or visual flair.

But 0.0 Mhz is clearly aimed a notch below anyone who has seen those films. This is strictly teenage fare, content to provide good-looking idols to swoon over and warmed-over scares for kids who want to scream but not have nightmares.

It accomplishes that, and not much else.

So when get-togethers are all good again, 0.0 Mhz will be more than ready to slumber party!

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Fright Club: Masks in Horror

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It is creepy when you can’t see someone’s face, unless it’s hidden behind one of those big horse masks, which forever tickle George. But whether the voice on the other side of that mask is asking if Tamra’s home or is telling you where to find your missing daughter, whether that mask is made of burlap, human flesh or the NHL standard fiberglass/Kevlar mix, murder is highly likely.

Here are our favorite masks in horror.

6. The Wicker Man (1973)

There are so many reasons to love this movie, but the fact that it started that incredibly effective trend in horror movies: the anonymity of the group mask.

It was done again and to magnificent effect in The Purge films, Strangers, and You’re Next. But what Robin Hardy does with it gooses the macabre, medieval nuttiness of his story. A bunny has rarely looked so menacing.

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

What made Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic the unnerving, even scarring, savage film that it was? The meat hook? The slam of that heavy metal door? The sound of the chainsaw?

There are so very many moments of terror, so many reasons to scream, you can almost overlook the fact that the main character, though he delivers no lines at all, is wearing somebody else’s face. In fact, depending on the scene (or his mood? his outfit?) he could be wearing any one of three different faces.

How messed up and genius is that?

4. Eyes without a Face (1960)

Director Georges Franju casts a spell with the haunting Christiane (Edith Scob). Graceful and lifeless, the mask hides Christiane’s flaws and her humanity. She is otherworldly.

Unlike the grotesque image often drawn by a mask in a horror film, Christiane’s smooth, colorless visage is as lovely and melancholy as it is terrifying.

3. Halloween (1979)

Thematically, it makes sense. Young Michael Myers is wearing a mask, looking through those little false eye holes, when he commits his first, soul-deadening murder. So when he comes home to pick up where he left off, naturally he’d need another costume.

But what John Carpenter created with his altered William Shatner mask was the prototypical boogeyman for all slashers to follow and for all retro horror after that. The soulless, colorless, unmoving face perfectly matched the lifeless killing machine, transforming Michael Myers into The Shape and changing the shape of horror as it did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKvxAvkJkac

2. Friday the 13th, Part 3

First of all, the sack head Jason from Part 2 is so much creepier than the hockey mask Jason of Parts 3 – X and beyond. That burlap sack has been a terrifying look in horror movies (from The Town that Dreaded Sundown to Nightbreed to The Orphanage to Trick or Treat).

But it’s the hockey mask you remember. That’s the image that became iconic. Hell, it even made goalies seem cool. (Yes, they stole the idea from the old Martin Landau/Jack Palance/Donald Pleasance film Alone in the Dark, released earlier the same year), but still, who wore it better?

Jason did.

1. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

The original Phantom’s mask may not be the coolest. In fact, his mask has evolved over the decades and iterations into something way, way cooler looking. But back in 1925, it was the mask and its removal that made this film a heart attack in the making.

Director Rupert Julian and star Lon Chaney used that mask and its removal to deliver one of cinemas first great scares.

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Grade A Entertainment

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Selah and the Spades

by Brandon Thomas

High school has always been ripe for depiction on the silver screen. The drama, comedy, absurdness and horror of social structures and adolescence has gifted us classics like Carrie, The Breakfast Club and Heathers. While Selah and the Spades might not exist in the upper echelon of high school cinema, it is a strong newcomer in its own right.

At Haldwell School, five factions run the elicit world of parties, alcohol and drugs. The most powerful of them, The Spades, is led by Queen Bee, Selah (Lovie Simone). Selah and her second in command, Maxxie (Jharrel Jerome of Moonlight), rule Haldwell’s underground with an iron first. Selah’s facade of cool, calm and collected begins to wane as she tests a potential replacement (Celeste O’Connor), and as she hears rumblings of a potential snitch.

Writer-director Tayarisha Poe jams a lot of style into her debut feature. The camera work is methodical and at times dreamy. The soundtrack, like any good high school mix, is wonderfully eclectic: jazz band cuts to modern pop sounds with a dash of Bing Crosby. Tonally, the film is reminiscent of Rian Johnson’s Brick. While that film did deal with life or death through a delightfully hip noir tale, Selah is content to revel in the cool without being bothered by plot. 

Dangling story threads of “What if…” pepper throughout Selah and the Spades. Most interesting being the almost brushed aside story of Selah’s former protege, and the incident she vehemently refuses to discuss. The brief glimpse of vulnerability in Selah’s character comes in a singular scene where we see her home life, and the pressure from her mother that has undoubtedly molded her into the emotional grifter she is now.

When the main character’s name is in the title, you better make sure that character delivers, and Simone commands the screen with a kaleidoscope of emotions. Selah’s power comes from the ability to adapt her behavior for each situation. She can be cunning, trustworthy or vulnerable – depending on her need at that particular moment. The complexities of the character threaten to overshadow her humanity at times, but Poe’s terrific script and Simone’s complicated performance help maintain a line of empathy for Selah.

Through an ambitious and original sense of style and character, Selah and the Spades positions itself as a high school movie for more than just a high school audience.