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Scary Sea Shanty

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Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea

by Hope Madden

Inspired by the British folklore they’ve explored in two features, Hex and The Droving, director George Popov and writer Jonathan Russell turn away from fiction, delivering spectral dread in truer tales.

Their second documentary in less than a year, Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea swims dark waters alongside ghost ships and sea monsters.

Popov’s voiceover establishes a Twilight Zone quality: Truth and lies do not relate in such a simple equation when the line between fact and fiction is enshrouded in mist and shadow. Beyond that threshold is a place that can change our perspective on everything we think we know. I call this place the Sideworld.

Earlier this year, Popov and Russell led us into this mist and shadow with the first installment of their doc series, Haunted Forests of England. Their second effort opens with more of their characteristically haunting cinematography.

The film breaks into four chapters: Ghost Ships, Sea Monsters, Spectral Sailors and Mermaids. Each chapter consists of a number of tails, always highlighting one in particular with some primary or secondary source material to mine.

Though the Flying Dutchman has its fame, the majority of the stories spilled on these shores are little known legends with historical documents for basis. The Wildman of Orford and other tales offer fascinating historical curiosities, while outright ghost stories delight in their sad, scary way.

Popov’s voiceover remains somber throughout, avoiding the campfire fright style of storytelling and instead rendering his tales with reverence. In fact, Popov and Russell’s sympathetic point of view continually asks whether the monsters in these tales are not actually the humans.

Brisk, informative, creepy fun, Sideworld: Terrors of the Sea uncovers welcome treasures of haunted folklore.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: DC League of Super-Pets, Vengeance, Not Okay, Resurrection and More

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DC League of Super Pets, Vengeance, Resurrection, Not Okay, My Donkey My Lover and I, American Carnage, Neptune Frost, Fox Hunt Drive

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Woman on the Verge

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Resurrection

by Hope Madden

In 2020, Rebecca Hall starred in The Night House, a nice little haunted house tale. That movie worked, partly because it was filmed gorgeously, but mainly because Hall herself elevated all the little contrivances with an awe-inspiring performance.

It’s 2022 and she does it again, this time in writer/director Andrew Semans’s psychological horror, Resurrection.

Hall is Margaret, and as the film opens, she’s sitting on her desk, looking benevolently at young intern Gwen (Angela Wong Carbone), patiently offering advice. Margaret’s wisdom feels earned, but it’s hard to imagine this competent and controlled woman was ever weak.

What follows is the unearthing of a backstory that might seem maudlin and ludicrous in other hands. In these hands, though, Resurrection becomes unnerving and horrifying.

Semans’s film walks that worn path: is she crazy or is this really happening? Has Margaret’s past finally found her? Or has the prospect of watching her daughter (Grace Kaufman) turn 18—Margaret’s age during her own trauma—fractured her psyche?

Kaufman, along with Michael Esper as harmless love interest/office bestie Peter, offer grounded, tender performances that strengthen the film’s “is she or isn’t she” vibe.

Enter Tim Roth as the mysterious David. Roth channels the understated approach he used to great effect in Sundown and Bergman Island. Only here, the result is chilling.

On the surface, The Resurrection is a stalker thriller, bearing all the markings of the subgenre. But there is a deeply weird story unraveling here and Hall’s performance ensures that it leaves a mark. The lingering monologue where Margaret reveals the source of her panic is the kind of material that would break a lesser performer. It builds, as the camera closes in, to a reveal so bizarre it could easily become grotesquely silly. But you believe Hall.

And that’s the heart of Resurrection’s effectiveness. The fact that both Hall and Roth take the story seriously, never play it for laughs, and remain so understated in their performances creates a diabolical atmosphere. You’re as unmoored as Margaret.

You will squirm and look away long before the film’s bloody climax because watching Margaret come undone is traumatizing. Semans’s wrap-up is not as successful, but the damage his film does can’t be undone.

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Not Bird nor Plane nor Even Frog

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DC League of Super-Pets

by Hope Madden

Y’all should have a pet. That’s the message of the feel-good, sometimes surprisingly dark, wildly well-cast animated feature DC League of Super-Pets.

It’s not a tough lesson, really. That’s why one pet has to learn something different. Krypto (Dwayne Johnson), Superman’s dog, doesn’t really know how to be a dog. He figures out something about pack animalhood when he’s robbed of his superpowers, Superman goes missing, and the shelter animals up the road develop their own special skills.

Who’s to blame? Is it evil Lex Luthor (Marc Maron)?

Oh, no. No, this villain is a far, far more dangerous creature. Look out for Lulu (Kate McKinnon), a hairless Guinea pig once saved from experimentation in Luthor’s lab!

Guinea pigs have not done this much animated damage since that South Park episode.

There are lessons aplenty in this film, but just one I want Hollywood to take away from it: McKinnon should voice all animated bad guys forevermore. She couldn’t be more perfect, couldn’t be more fun.

She’s not alone. The supporting voicework in this film delights. Other scene stealers include Keanu Reeves as a brooding (what else?) Batman and Natasha Lyonne as a cantankerous yet horny turtle.

Sure, the actual stars are Johnson and Kevin Hart, and they’re about as fun an odd couple when they’re cartoon dogs as they are when they’re CIA agents or board game buddies. But the real story here is the supporting cast, which also includes John Krasinski, Diego Luna, Jemaine Clement, Daveed Diggs, Vanessa Bayer, Dascha Polanco, Jameela Jamil and Olivia Wilde.

Wow, that’s a lot of people, which indicates that DC League of Super-Pets suffers from the same bloat as almost all DC films. There are too many characters, too many tidy endings, too little for everyone to do.

Co-directors Jared Stern and Sam Levine, along with co-writer John Whittington (writing with Stern) have collectively created a solidly unremarkable set of animated films and episodes. This is no different.

There’s a lot going on with not much really happening. It looks good, not exceptional. It’s fun and almost immediately forgettable. It does expose the diabolical side of the Guinea pig, though. Fear them!

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Non Binary

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Neptune Frost

by Hope Madden

Drawn by common dreams, individuals from all around post-war Rwanda journey to a place, time and reality they can call their own in Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams’s Afrofuturistic musical, Neptune Frost.

The nightmare of war in the recent past, the oppressive religion, and the reality of the economy take shape on the screen. What is Rwanda today?

Williams and Uzeyman use something that feels like performance art to depict Africa’s place in technology’s journey to consumers. Tech’s raw materials—from the coltan (a raw material used in electronics) characters mine to computer refuse strewn and useless across the landscape—are woven into different character costumes.

Visually stunning, the aesthetic emphasizes the story’s earthy yet techno quality. Bursts of color and texture in costume design, in particular, along with surreal, day-glo dream sequences are gorgeous.

At the same time, the filmmakers braid together varying uses for the word binary. An obvious term in relation to the lo-fi tech landscape, the word takes a more complicated meaning with the fluid presence of Motherboard, played at first by Elvis Ngabo and later by Cheryl Isheja. The word is again reexamined as Motherboard is received by Innocent (Dorcy Rugamba), and then Matalusa (Bertrand Ninteretse).

Traveling from one age to another, one realm to another, one gender to another, Motherboard is an agent of transformation. They tell us they see through what blinds others, they see the past and present and future altogether.

In time, the very word binary becomes meaningless, a limitation. Frequent mention of binary crime theory, a concept deepened by the line “to imagine hell is privilege,” offers stark reminder that this is a Rwandan film.

For Neptune Frost, there is not one or the other, not past or future, not good or evil, not male or female, not miner or mine. This fluidity makes the film tough to properly summarize, and the ambiguous and ambitious plot structure becomes frustrating during the middle section. But Neptune Frost is never less than fascinating.

Rich with symbolism that brings past to present and reinterprets it for the future, the film speaks of resilience and power. And it does it like no film you’ve seen before.

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Travel Companions

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My Donkey, My Lover & I

by Hope Madden

Unabashedly romantic and decidedly French, My Donkey, My Lover & I follows Robert Lewis Stevenson’s journey through Cevennes National Park as walked by Antoinette (Laure Calamy) and Patrick, her donkey.

Antoinette is no hiker, no trail-wizened traveler. She’s a schoolteacher smitten with a student’s father (Benjamin Lavernhe). When he cancels their romantic trip to instead vacation with his wife and daughter, Antoinette decides to crash.

She doesn’t find him immediately. What she does find is that very few people travel with a donkey nowadays, she’s ill-prepared to actually hike 220km with or without a donkey, and that early oversharing with other hikers will make her a bit of a celebrity along the journey.

Aah, romance!

Writer/director Caroline Vignal keeps it breezy, never vilifying the married Vladimir nor seeing Antoinette as a stalker. A bright, earnest turn from Calamy is hard to resist. She gives Antoinette a good humor that brings a little cheer to even the most embarrassing of situations.

The countryside is gorgeous, the cast of French vacationers and waylayers disarm, and Calamy charms her way through it all. On paper, Antoinette is a fool—a superficial, self-centered fool at that. But Calamy, whose game performance won a Cesar (the French Oscar), keeps the character open and vulnerable.

Still, the star here is Patrick. Vignal has remarkable instincts for animal-related comedy. Yes, we know from the first moment Antoinette can’t get the ass to move where we’re headed. They will reluctantly become best friends, she’ll learn something about independence and things will end well.

But by underplaying the donkey for so long, delaying the reaction shots and obnoxious braying, Vignal manages to swing from charming romantic trifle to slapstick comedy and back with weird grace.

The whole affair feels as slight and ultimately unessential as the one shared by Vladimir and Antoinette. But there’s something forgiving about it that’s appealing. Rather than judge or deny or even truly mock a middle-aged romantic’s starry-eyed quest for love, My Lover, My Donkey & I sees value in it.

Plus there’s a funny donkey.

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Great American Melting Pot

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American Carnage

by Hope Madden

“I’m an a**hole, JP, not a quitter.”

This, I think, is my favorite thing about director/co-writer Diego Hallivis’s sociopolitical horror American Carnage. Rather than setting up one-dimensional, morally impenetrable heroes, Hallivis—writing with his brother Julio—delivers likable but flawed, and therefore realistic, characters to root for.

Those characters are mainly the offspring of immigrants: JP (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Camila (Jenna Ortega), Big Mac (Allen Maldonado) among them. Governor Harper Finn’s (Brett Cullen) election-friendly executive order not only deports all illegal immigrants, but also detains their US-born children for failing to turn their parents over to authorities.

Some of those kids can work off their sentence by providing elder care at the Alcove, an institution run by the benevolent Eddie (Eric Dane).

Though the comedic writing is never as sharp as it should be, Hallivis’s cast supplies charm and sarcasm in equal measure. Unsurprisingly, Ortega stands out as the group’s unofficial badass. Her scowl and unlikeable demeanor are the perfect offset to Lendeborg Jr.’s good-natured tenderness.

Maldonado works hardest to elevate tepid dialog, delivering the film’s most consistent comic relief with a jovial, lovable character.

The villains, on the whole, are not the over-the-top psychopaths of traditional horror. This is no doubt intentional. Racist danger, especially as it was uncovered and amplified during Trump’s reign (the film’s title comes from his inaugural speech), is a kind of walks in broad daylight, may be your neighbor, blends into the background reality.

Other than one little dance of evil, the villain performances are somewhat understated.

The villainy is not. There’s a metaphor at work, and though it doesn’t entirely work, the goodwill Hallivis’s cast generates keeps you interested in their journey and eager for comeuppance.

What starts off with a nearly The Forever Purge vibe takes a sharp turn into creepier John Hughes territory, then another dramatically Romero pivot. American Carnage looks good and performances are solid, but the movie can’t overcome those tonal shifts.

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Rideshare Terror

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Endangered (aka Fox Hunt Drive)

by Brandon Thomas

Expectations are a hard thing to contend with when watching movies. Whether it’s the actors present or the filmmaker’s previous work, one can’t help but think something along the lines of, “Oh, well I know where this is going.” Many movies don’t subvert those expectations, but thankfully there are enough of them out there that do throw exciting curveballs at the audience. While not a new cinematic classic, Endangered offers up a compelling twist on the hostage thriller.

Alison (Natalie Zerebko) is making ends meet as a rideshare driver on the roads of Orlando, Florida. Most of her passengers are the standard fare of obnoxious young people, talkative oversharers, and silent couples. Alison’s monotony is doused one evening after picking up a secretive passenger (Michael Olavson). The passenger looks nothing like his account picture, and his stand-offish demeanor instantly puts Alison on the defensive. As the night wears on, these early red flags will only mark the beginning of a chaotic night.

From the start, it was hard not to think of Michael Mann’s Collateral while watching the first half of Endangered. There aren’t very many thrillers that predominantly take place in a car, but out of those that do, Collateral stands heads and shoulders above the rest. Thankfully, the setting is where the similarities cease and Endangered is able to carve out an identity all its own.

Circling back to expectations, director Drew Walkup wisely shakes things up early. We’ve all seen hostage thrillers like this before, and some well-placed surprises rocked me back on my heels just a little bit. These twists – if you will – never cheapen the narrative momentum and feel lock-step with where Walkup was driving the story from the beginning.

The chemistry between Zerebko and Olavson is the glue that holds the film together. Without their tandem captivating performances, the film simply wouldn’t work. Both are able to draw empathy and fear at different times. To say more would potentially spoil the back half of the film.

While maybe not the most technically polished thriller of the year, Endangered makes an impression through clever plotting and two strong leads.

Outtakes

Today’s Lesson

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The Blood of the Dinosaurs

by Hope Madden

Joe Badon seems like an odd duck.

Or so his films would suggest. The director/co-writer’s latest absurdity, The Blood of the Dinosaurs —which appears to be related to an upcoming short The Wheel of Heaven—delivers oddball charm and horror in equal measure.

What’s it about? That’s an excellent question, and not a simple one to answer.  

Kids’ TV host Uncle Bobbo (an eerily unblinking Vincent Stalba) wants to teach us where oil comes from. With assistance from his vampire puppet co-host Grampa Universe (voiced by John Davis) and his young helper Purity (Stella Creel), he seeks to enlighten and entertain. And misinform.

What else does Badon hit on? Birth. Death. Choice. 3D glasses. Kitch. Homage. Dinosaurs.

Badon, writing with regular collaborator Jason Kruppa, riffs on old school kids programming almost along the lines of Turbo Kid, Psycho Goreman, maybe even Strawberry Mansion and last year’s Linoleum. The Blood of the Dinosaurs, running a brisk 30 minutes, is far more confined and targeted than these. It feels a bit like an actual episode of something, but something terribly wrongheaded. Sort of a Pee-wee’s Playhouse for sociopaths.

If that does not seem like a ringing endorsement, you’re not reading it correctly.

The film throws a lot at you and not all of it hits, but Stalba’s central performance jibes perfectly with the weird concept to create a show that, quite honestly, I’m sorry I can’t watch every Saturday morning.