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Fright Club

Fright Club: Backwoods Messiahs in Horror Movies

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What is it about one charismatic leader that can cause so much devastation? Horror filmmakers have long dug into the narcissism, vanity, and downright evil that lurks within these figures. Here are our five favorite films about a backwods Messiah.

5. The Sacrament (2014)

Ti West dives into Jim Jones territory in probably his most assured film prior to X. A cast of West regulars Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen join the great Gene Jones for a tense news event.

West mines tensions, upends ideas of safety and power, but never dismisses the vulnerability that draws people toward charismatic figures like Father (Jones). It’s this openness that creates room for the real frights in the film.

4. Jug Face (2013)

Writer/director Chad Crawford Kinkle brings together a fine cast including The Woman’s Sean Bridgers and Lauren Ashley Carter, as well as genre favorite Larry Fessenden and late-life scream queen Sean Young to spin a backwoods yarn about incest, premonitions, kiln work, and a monster in a pit.

As a change of pace, Bridgers plays a wholly sympathetic character as Dawai, village simpleton and jug artist. On occasion, a spell comes over Dawai, and when he wakes, there’s a new jug on the kiln that bears the likeness of someone else in the village. That lucky soul must be fed to the monster in the pit so life can be as blessed and peaceful as before.

Kinkle mines for more than urban prejudice in his horror show about religious isolationists out in them woods. Young is particularly effective as an embittered wife, while Carter, playing a pregnant little sister trying to hide her bump, a jug, and an assortment of other secrets, steals the show.

3. Luz: The Flower of Evil (2019)

As colorful as a dream, Juan Diego Escobar Alzate’s feature film debut Luz: The Flower of Evil looks like magic and brims with the casual brutality of faith.

Set inside a religious community in the mountains of Colombia, the film drops us into ongoing struggles with the group’s religious leader, El Señor (Conrad Osorio). No one knows the devil as he does, he reminds his daughter Laila (Andrea Esquivel).

She lives contentedly, devoutly, along with her two adopted sisters. El Señor and the villagers consider the trio angels—just as they believe the little boy chained up out back is the Messiah who will deliver the community from its recent calamities.

2. The Other Lamb (2019)

The first step toward freedom is telling your own story.

Writer C.S. McMullen and director Malgorzata Szumowska tell this one really well. Between McMullen’s outrage and the macabre lyricism of Szumowska’s camera, The Other Lamb offers a dark, angry and satisfying coming-of-age tale.

Selah (Raffey Cassidy, Killing of a Sacred Deer, Vox Lux) has never known any life except that of Eden, the commune where she lives with the sisters, the wives, and the Sheperd (Michiel Huisman, The Invitation).

Szumowska doesn’t tell as much as she unveils: Selah’s defiant streak, Sheperd’s unspoken rules, what puberty can mean if you’re a good follower. She strings together a dreamlike series of visions that horrify on a primal level, the imagery giving the film the feel of gruesome poetry more than narrative.

The Other Lamb does not simply suggest you question authority. It demands that you do far more than that, and do it for your own good.

1. Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

Writer/director Sean Durkin took essentially the Charles Manson story, set it within modern privilege, and swapped the point of view to create an unnervingly realistic look at the reasons people find themselves drawn to cults.

And then, once we relate to Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), he sets the true terror in motion.

This film – through brilliantly written and beautifully directed – benefits from perhaps the best ensemble of 2011: Sarah Paulson, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet, Julia Garner, Hugh Dancy. But Olsen’s fearless, vulnerable turn as the woman who just doesn’t fit is only exceeded by the great John Hawes in the most mesmerizing, blistering turn of his magnificent career.

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Put to Pasture

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Herd

by Brandon Thomas

To give their crumbling relationship one last shot, Jamie (Ellen Adair) and Alex (Mitzi Akaha) head into the wilderness for a weekend of camping. After a canoeing accident leaves Alex injured, the two make their way out of the woods in search of medical help. Instead, the couple finds that society in their immediate area has crumbled due to a localized outbreak. Infected people are roaming the countryside, murdering and spreading the infection. 

The idea of a zombie movie with a message feels like a drinking game at this moment in time. Take your first drink when the surprised heroes stumble upon the outbreak already in full effect. Toss back that second drink when the movie muses that – gasp – mankind might be the real monster. Then make sure you have a hangover in the morning by polishing off the six-pack when one of the main characters hides that they’ve been bitten or scratched by the infected. Movies in this subgenre are basically about checking boxes at this point, and Herd is unfortunately no different. 

The film opens promisingly enough by focusing on Jamie and Alex’s relationship. The two actors are more than up for the challenge even if the writing isn’t. Both Adair and Akaha handle the emotional tension with ease well before anything horrific begins. It’s a shame that the film becomes too preoccupied with 3 or 4 other plot threads later in the film to truly give these characters their due. 

Herd never quite knows what it wants to do other than offer up reheated ideas and sequences from better films. The drama within the human survivors is telegraphed a mile away – or longer depending on how many seasons of The Walking Dead you’ve seen. Even the zombies – or infected? – feel like a much too recent rip-off of The Last of Us. The lack of originality makes for the worst kind of horror movie: a boring one.

Director Steven Pierce does at least deliver an aesthetically pleasing film. It’s well-shot, the assembled cast is professional, and Herd even has a few decent action sequences. However, a polished exterior isn’t enough to hide a script full of incomplete thoughts. 

The one bright spot is the inclusion of rising genre favorite Jeremy Holm (The Ranger, Brooklyn 45). Holm’s presence in the film produces certain audience assumptions early on, so it’s doubly satisfying when the character ends up being one of the more morally upright in the movie. 
With a half-baked script that relies too heavily on decades-old ideas, Herd is another recent zombie movie that’s D.O.A.

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Sea’s Bounty

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Mami Wata

by Hope Madden

Almost Shakespearean in its scope, with a bold visual style that stands on its own, C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata delivers a spellbinding folktale of power, of matriarchy versus patriarchy.

In the mythical village of Iyi on the West African coast of a time period that could be today, or could be the recent past, Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) has lost patience with her mother, Mama Efe (Rita Edochie). Mama Efe is the village intermediary to Mami Wata, the sea goddess who protects and provides for them. Zinwe is eager to become intermediary.

Zinwe is not the only villager growing restless with Mama Efe. Wild, angry Jabi (Kelechi Udegbe) is calling for a revolution against the madness of the Mami Wata followers. But Prisca (Evelyn Ily Juhen) believes in her village and her people and hopes to resolve the conflict.

As is the case with most fairy tales, Mama Wati is symbolic, the story itself a simplified, magical version of life. In this case, a story of power and powerlessness is reminiscent of communities across West Africa over the decades. When Jasper (Emeka Amakeze) drifts ashore, with his outsider views and experience of war, a spark is ignited that Mama Efe will not be able to drown.

Obasi amplifies the tale’s cinematic quality with breathtaking visual instincts. The costuming and makeup – magnificently structured hairstyles, incandescent makeup and boldly patterned fabrics – give the story a hypnotic feel. Cinematographer Lílis Soares ­– whose work here earned her Sundance’s special jury prize – capitalizes on the film’s gorgeous production design as well as the expressionistic black and white to create a spellbinding vision suited to the tale.

Mami Wata is a spectacle of water and light. Raindrops on a forehead, seashells in a braid, sea spray as day turns to night – Obasi builds an otherworldly atmosphere from moments like these.

The action sequences feel a little out of place, and performances can sometimes come off as stilted. But the core themes take on heartbreaking relevance, and both Ily and Amakeze offer compelling turns. Plus, you will not see another film quite like Mami Wata.

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Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

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Eismayer

by Rachel Willis

Based on a true story, writer/director David Wagner’s Eismayer explores themes of repression and masculinity.

Our introduction to Sergeant Major Eismayer (Gerhard Liebmann), notorious hardass, is a conversation in the bathroom between several Austrian soldiers giving newest recruit Falak (Luka Dimic) a lesson in the man’s terrorizing behavior.

When we meet the Sergeant Major himself, he oversees a locker inspection and harasses Falak. He is strict and cruel and the talk from the previous scene has not been exaggerated.

At home, he is affectionate with his son, but there is tension between him and his wife. As the film unfolds, a fight between Falak and another soldier reveals that Falak is gay. This puts new pressure on Falak, as well as Eismayer.

Though Eismayer’s coldness and cruelty could be written off as a reaction to his self-repression, the film doesn’t rest on such a simple explanation. His attitude isn’t just about his homosexuality, but his ideas about what it means to be both a man and a soldier.

Liebmann excels. He brings multiple facets to what could be a simplistic or stereotypical portrayal. Dimic initially has less to work with. However, as the film unfolds, the two characters begin to dance around the complexity of their situation.

More of the film’s underlying tensions would come across with a robust knowledge of Austria’s history and culture, including the implications of Falak’s Yugoslavian background. But there’s no missing the discrimination he faces.

Even as Austria and the army move forward, there are some that would hold both back. Eismayer, himself, resists change, even as he’s pushed toward accepting himself for who he is. That men and women still fear repercussions for embracing who they are is both heartbreaking and infuriating. It’s why stories like Eismayer’s still need to be told.

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Corn Stalkings

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Dark Harvest

by George Wolf

Director David Slade came out of the gate strong with his first two features, Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night. Then came the downturn of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in 2010, and Slade has been mainly a TV director ever since.

Dark Harvest finds Slade back on the big screen, and back among teens and monsters, for a gorgeous and often brutal creature feature with a winning throwback vibe.

Adapting the 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel with author Norman Partridge and screenwriter Michael Gilio, Slade blends the period pastiche of The Vast of Night with narrative nods to The Lottery, The Hunger Games, and a few choice slices of Pumpkinhead.

It’s the early 1960s in the small midwestern town of Bradbury, and smoldering teen Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) is not having a happy Halloween season. It’s 5 days until Bradbury’s annual October run, and since Richie’s older brother Jim (Britain Dalton) won last year, Richie has to sit this one out.

And that means no chance at the $25,000, the new Corvette, or the one- way ticket out of his one-monster town.

The monster is Sawtooth Jack (Dustin Ceithamer) who returns the same time every year, rising from the corn stalks. Three days before each run, the young men in town are sequestered and starved, until they’re finally let loose to fanatically hunt down Sawtooth Jack before he can reach the town church.

But Richie is eager to prove himself and claim his destiny, teaming with restless theater clerk Kelly Haines (Emyri Crutchfield) on a quest to break the rules, win the run and earn a new life together.

There are secrets hiding in this local tradition, to be sure, but even though we’re not sure exactly why the prisoners of Bradbury are prisoners, the metaphors here are effectively drawn without heavy hands. Slade leans on cinematographer Larry Smith (Only God Forgives) and the production design team to give the film a wonderful vintage look, with terrific use of backlighting that sets an imposing mood – especially deep in the corn stalks.

And once ol’ Sawtooth comes calling, the effects department earns that R rating, with some vicious bloodletting that proves Jack can be a very naughty boy.

The tale wraps some familiar Young Adult themes around equally familiar creature feature lore. And though Slade flirts with over indulgence on both sides, he’s ultimately able to walk a line that allows Dark Harvest to reap some tasty Halloween treats.

Outtakes

Good Bones

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15 Cameras

by Hope Madden

There have been a lot of movies that tread the same water as 15 Cameras: true crime, new homes, unannounced cameras, creepy guys, basements – among them, Victor Zarcoff’s 2015 thriller 13 Cameras.

I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for this one, honestly, but director Danny Madden (no relation), working from a fine script by PJ McCabe (co-star of 13 Cameras and writer of the criminally underseen The Beta Test), layers themes and ideas to develop a rich picture of villainy.

There’s a little hitch to the starter home recently purchased by Sky (Angela Wong Carbone) and Cam (The Wolf of Snow Hollow’s Will Madden, also no relation to me, but he is the director’s brother). They got the duplex pretty cheap, but that’s because the former owner is the famous Slumlord from a popular true crime show (full of footage from 13 Cameras), who’d wired all his homes up with many cameras, watched victims to get their habits down, then kidnapped and killed at will.

Sky can’t get enough of the show. She binges it, finishes it, and binges it again. It’s a huge turnoff for her ignored husband, and more than a little creepy to her sister Carolyn (Hilty Bowen), who’s crashing while she tries to get a restraining order against her ex.

And there you have it: one location (duplex), a handful of characters (those mentioned plus two tenants), and a found footage/true crime sensibility. Efficient, logical, but never boring and though inevitable, rarely truly predictable.

The slyest thing about 15 Cameras is the way it shows the distance between nice guy, abusive boyfriend and all out monster in inches. By keeping us with Cam’s perspective, that continuum takes on an even more powerful feel.

Will Madden does a fine job of developing an uncomfortable, believable arc for Cam. Likewise, Carbone allows her character enough space to be occasionally unlikeable, while often quite tender.

Indeed, all the performances have texture and depth, even those that might have been considered throwaways in other horror flicks. (Shout out to a very brief but memorable turn from Jim Cummings.) And the storyteller in Danny Madden knows how this should play out.

There’s nothing groundbreaking about 15 Cameras, but what it does, it does well.

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Shots in the Dark

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When Evil Lurks

by Hope Madden

Just when you thought no one could do anything fresh with a possession movie, Terrified filmmaker Demián Rugna surprises you.

Well, fresh may not be the word. Indeed, you can almost smell this putrid tale. I mean that in the best way.

Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) and his brother Jimmy (Demián Salomón) hear shots. It’s late, and the sound is far – somewhere between their land and their neighbor Ruiz’s (Luis Ziembrowski) farm. The way Rugna reveals what the brothers find, where it leads them and what it unleashes is a tale so masterfully told you almost miss the underlying character study and the blistering performance that brings it to life.

When Evil Lurks does sometimes feel familiar, its road trip to hell detouring through The Crazies, among others. But Rugna’s take on all the familiar elements feels new, in that you cannot and would not want to predict where he’s headed.

As choices are made and usually regretted, Rugna propels his heroes onward, each step, each choice, each misstep adding pressure and confusion, unveiling the character beneath even as bits of the brothers’ history organically comes to light. This is a magnificently written piece of horror, and Rugna’s expansive direction gives it an otherworldly yet dirty, earthy presence.

The entire cast is wonderful, each one cracked and poisoned just a bit. But Rodriguez sears through the celluloid with a performance so raw, frustrating and full of rage it makes you uncomfortable.

His counterpoint, Salomón’s younger, gentler brother Jimmy, infects the film with enough tenderness to make the wounds hurt. And in creating injury, Rugna is fearless. No one is safe, not even the audience.

The inexplicable ugliness – this particularly foul presence of evil – is handled with enough distance, enough elegance to make the film almost beautiful, regardless of the truly awful nature of the footage. And Rugna never lets up. Each passing minute is more difficult than the last, to the very last, which is an absolute knife to the heart.

In case Rugna’s 2017 treasure Terrified didn’t solidify his place among the greats working in the genre today, When Evil Lurks demands that recognition.

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Killing Time

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Totally Killer

by George Wolf

The quickest description is Back to the Future meets a mash of Scream and Happy Death Day. But Totally Killer offers a funhouse full of other genre wink-winks in a violent, raunchy, rollicking good time that often works in spite of itself.

Director Nahnatchka Khan and a writing team relatively new to features riff on everything from the Disney Channel to Sixteen Candles to Ace Ventura and beyond as a terrific Kiernan Shipka leads us on a life-saving mission back to the late 80s.

Shipka is Jamie Hughes (natch), a high school junior who is completely dismissive of her mom Pam’s (Julie Bowen) plea for caution on Halloween night.

See, back in late October 1987, three of Pam’s friends were murdered, each stabbed 16 times by a still-unknown masked assailant dubbed the “Sweet 16 Killer.” A true crime podcast host (Jonathan Potts) clues us in on the details, and the reasons why Pam is still skittish this time of year.

But Mom is one of the many townsfolk Jamie scoffs at, until her best friend Amelia’s (Kelcey Mawema) photo booth time machine turns out to actually work! So Jamie steps out of it and into ’87, where she’ll try to infiltrate her teen Mom’s (Olivia Holt) clique “The Mollys” (in tribute to Ringwald) and prevent those infamous murders from ever taking place.

And then, of course, she’s got to get back to…that place that is forward in time.

“I hate time travel movies. They never make any sense!’

So says the 80s sheriff (Randall Park) when Jamie tries to explain her predicament via Michael J. Fox, kicking off a self-aware string of consistently clever gags. And the veteran Shipka (Mad Men, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) proves charmingly adept at navigating the two generations with determined sass.

Jamie’s got a mission and she won’t be distracted by these oversexed heathens and their lack of boundaries!

“Hey, inappropriate touching!”

“This mean girl schtick is really outdated.”

And don’t even get her started on the lack of wifi or having to watch her future parents get handsy!

Shipka is irresistible, and she goes a long way toward keeping this mix of blood, sex, nostalgia, a Mandela effect discussion and F-bombs on the rails whenever it flirts with flying off. And there’s plenty of flirting.

But even when things get stabby, Khan brings a bright and shiny touch. There are helpful reminders about who these oblivious teens are young versions of, and some earnest explanations about what Marty McFly got wrong about time travel.

Totally Killer wants to play by its own rules of inspiration, tell you about it in advance and then yell “high five!” when it all works out.

Don’t leave ’em hanging. It’s a bloody fun time.