Northern Exposure

Good gosh do I love a period film set in the freezing waters of absolute doom. We get so few. We need so many more. 

Quick Plot: Welcome to the 19th century Arctic, an easy-living destination filled with fresh fish and jolly drunken cheer.

Oh, how I kid.

Life is miserable. Young widow Eva manages a sad fishing outpost once run by her late husband Magnus. Eva and her crew pass the time with ale and ghost stories told with panache by the superstitious cook Helga, but it's a rough routine. 

One fateful afternoon, helmsman Ragnar spots a sinking vessel stuck in The Teeth, the same treacherous rocks that claimed Magnus some years earlier. With their own resources so limited, Ragnar refuses to lead a rescue despite good-hearted sailor Daniel's plea to do the right thing. Eva reluctantly agrees with Ragnar's decision, but when some delicious salted pork from the doomed ship rolls onto their land, the group decides to investigate. 

It doesn't go well. Though they find a few barrels of lamp oil, they also discover some rightfully frantic survivors trying to hitch a ride onboard. Ragnar tries to fight them off but ends up pulled into the water. Daniel hammers one in the face to save Eva. It's ugly and no one feels very good about their choices...especially when the bodies wash up on shore the next day and strange signs point to a haunting. 

Hungry, cold, and terrified, the team quickly descends into chaos. But are they being hunted by a wronged draugr, or their own madness?

The Damned is a rich slice of period horror that falls short of greatness in part because, well, it's simply too short. At just 90 minutes, the film moves fairly quickly, even if it also has the feeling of a slow-burning ghost story. The problem is that its big finale culminates in a twist that should hit hard before the screen fades to a silent black. Instead, it had me scratching my head. 

I won't spoil The Damned's ending, as I do still recommend this as a worthy atmospheric watch. But the fact that I sat through the end credits tossing things over in my head, then pounced on internet threads to see if there was a consensus is telling. And that most Google searches that start "the damned movie" include "ending explained" and descend into arguments isn't something to be ignored. 

Director Thordur Palsson clearly has talent. Even in its warranted literal darkness, The Damned looks and feels like a much grander period film than its fairly low budget would normally suggest. There’s not a bad performance in the bunch. Tension is built effectively. And yet, when all of these things are put together and add up to a truly confusing end note, it’s hard to give the film a full pass. 

High Points

Come on, it's a sleek horror film set in the 19th century arctic! What's not to enjoy?

Low Points

It's often the nature of snow-set ensembles that characters in heavy layers and tightly wound scarves are hard to differentiate. This is in full swing in The Damned, where we're stuck with a whole crew of frost-faced white men who blend together so quickly that I never really had a footing of anyone’s individual identity, making it difficult to even do a head count as the terror grew

Lessons Learned

Ocean-bloated corpses make cozy hideaways for eels

Always listen to the cook

A stopped watch is haunted at least twice a day

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’m very glad I watched The Damned. It was a great moody way to spend a late Sunday afternoon in the dark, and the fact that its first 89 minutes was so strong makes me almost forgive it ending so poorly. If you’re the kind of forgiving genre fan who can look past an unresolved (and I don’t mean ambiguous: I mean genuinely undecided) ending, this is well worth your eyes. 

Just a Friend You Haven't Met

 

If you had asked me two days ago what my life was missing, I might have said something silly like "world peace."

Now that I've watched Never Talk to Strangers, it's clear that the answer was in front of me all along (or at least since 1995):

a slow motion montage of sex and trust falls

Quick Plot: Dr. Sarah Taylor is a criminal psychologist currently in the middle of evaluating an accused rapist murderer Max Cheski (the always welcome Harry Dean Stanton). Following the disappearance of her fiance one year earlier, Sarah's personal life mostly involves gently fighting off neighbor Dennis Miller, until one fateful evening when she meet-cutes Tony Ramirez in the wine aisle.

This is a man who knows his cabernet and looks and sounds like Antonio Banderas. How can she resist?

Sarah and Tony begin a steamy relationship that quickly fizzles out when she reacts weirdly to him shooting a moving clown target at a carnival. It only takes one reminder of Tony's luscious body hair to send her straight back to his industrial loft, because it's the 1990s and every sexy mysterious man lives in an industrial loft. 

While her personal life is on the ups, her work days are a bit scratchy. Sarah's estranged father shows up in his Willy Loman drag to restart their rocky relationship. Cheski makes a few veiled threats. Then she gets a few presents: a bouquet of dead flowers, her own published obituary, and her precious orange tabby Sabrina cut up in a gift box.

The police give the super helpful and comforting advice that they can't do anything about this, and that Sarah's best bet is hire a private detective (the more things change...). He reports some unpleasant details about her new beau, but this being a '90s erotic thriller, there's always a whole lot more to the story.

And whoa boy there is! I would never dream of spoiling this oddball slice of Snackwell's era junk food. Director Peter Hall had a long career in theater, and he doesn't quite seem to know how to make Jordan Rush and Lewis A. Green's messy script come together (would anyone?). But then there's Rebecca DeMornay's steely blue eyes running down Antonio Banderas's bare chest, while slow motion flashbacks, and the kind of twist ending that sings like a soap opera aria. 

High Points

The world has never fully appreciated just how sexy a screen presence Antonio Banderas has. Never Talk to Strangers gets it

Low Points

I think it simply has to be a tradition that anytime Dennis Miller plays an ex-boyfriend in a '90s thriller, he comes off as the kind of scummy toxic male who would whine about being in the friend zone and is easily the worst part of his respective film

Lessons Learned

We're all just animals with beepers

There's no such thing as a good domestic pinot noir

Electric heaters are always dangerous, even more so when INSTALLED OVER A BATHTUB 

Rent/Bury/Buy

Never Talk to Strangers is a terrible exploration of mental health, and a damn fun watching experience. You can find it streaming on Tubi in all its sexy saxophone-scored glory. 

Bobo Calling

 

About every 9 episodes or so of any Law & Order installment, something truly beautiful happens. The detectives are investigating some clue, maybe a leftover receipt or diary entry, when they find themselves entering the kind of storefront you can smell from behind your television screen. 

The shop proprietor is almost always a portly, fiftysomething man with a belly bursting out of his stained silky shirt's bottom and chest hair knotted through a gold chain or three. If we're lucky, he's eating a sandwich.

The kind of sandwich that makes a movie mortician drool.

Our ridiculously good-looking detectives are never charmed, not by his affable manner nor offer for a discount on some new gold watches. "Cut the crap," they say, only to prompt the kind of sentence that calls for a cheer and toast.

"I RUN A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS."

Sometimes the show does a remix, putting the same words in the perfectly lipsticked mouth of a well-dressed madam insisting her escort agency provides companionship without anything illicit. It hits just as hard. 

Anyway, can't say WHY I thought of that when watching Out of the Dark. Is it because we have TWO instances of this? And they come in the form of Paul Bartel as a seedy motel manager and Karen Black as a glorious manager at a phone sex hotline?

Quick Plot: It's a regular late night at Suite Nothings, where beautiful women humor their callers while filing their nails and reviewing their taxes. The job is fairly easy, though nobody enjoys it when frequent customer Bobo rings in to discuss mutilation while referring to himself in the third person.

Employee Jo Ann leaves the office for a late night dog walk and stumbles upon a playful man dressed in a clown mask. While most single ladies would quickly exit that kind of situation, this one plays along until he brutally murders her. 

The detectives are on the case, though not before Bobo kills again. Some signs point to Kevin, Suite Nothings' Kristi's photographer boyfriend. There's also Stringer, the weird little accountant who helps the ladies get maximum state and federal returns. Since he's played by Bud Cort, you certainly can't rule him out.

Out of the Dark is an odd little film. There's a sort of New York Ripper-ness about its attitude towards violence against women in that it wants us to find its killer pathetic, but the actual reveal is so clunky and nonsensical that it left me more confused than triumphant. It also suffers from underserving its charismatic cast. Karen Black has one scene of character building establishing her as a fascinating working mother going through a messy divorce, and...well...that never comes up again. There's an interesting dynamic between the female detective who sees things far more clearly than her older, embittered, and very male partner, but guess who gets to save the day?

Ultimately, there's a whole lot that is deeply unsatisfying about how Out of the Dark ends. At the same time, you get Divine!

It's a mixed bag. I enjoyed this movie more than its quality probably should allow. Make of that what you will!

High Points

I wouldn't call Out of the Dark a feminist masterpiece, but director Michael Schroeder does a refreshing job of showcasing his sex workers as smart, fun, and simply cool women. It's not the kind of thing I expect from a 1980s slasher

Low Points

I know cultural sensitivity is an evolving thing, but in any world, was it necessary to play mariachi music during the one scene of dialogue with a Mexican woman?

Lessons Learned

Nobody gives great accounting quite like a weirdo

Animated creatures weren't in demand for phone sex in the late '80s

When in doubt, stick with the utility stocks

Rent/Bury/Buy

Out of the Dark doesn't really come together in the end, but it's a genuinely fun ride along the way. The film treats its female characters well (well, when not killing them) and has enough familiar faces to satisfy fans of camp. Fun fact: I watched the first half of this on Shudder, then turned on that network the next day to find out it was no longer available. Thankfully, if there was ever a movie that screamed, "this is probably on Tubi," it's Out of the Dark. So find it there!

She Loves Jesus, And Her Boyfriend Too

 

There are some movies you watch and immediately know that in one year's time, you will be very hard-pressed to remember a single detail to describe it to a police officer. It's not a bad film or even a boring one. It just feels forgettable.

What were we talking about again?

Quick Plot: Sarah arrives at her parents' vow renewal to a grim discovery: her mother, clad in a wedding gown, stabbing her father before slitting her own throat. In a haze, Sarah finds herself in a bathtub with her wrists sliced up before one more wakeup to her adoring, controlling, clearly evil husband Nick.

The first problem is that Sarah has no memory of marrying this man, or, well, anything, save for the fact that she has a sister. According to Nick, said sister Julie is a monster who manipulated things to inherit most of the family, leaving Sarah only with the large house.

And a servant.

And a lot of very fancy dresses.

I don't know guys, I don't think this couple is poor.

Anyway, Nick is busy writing a book while Sarah floats through her estate, occasionally bristling against the housekeeper Rose and taking the mysterious pills Nick pushes. A dinner party with insufferable but well-dressed pals turns into something of a bacchanal before Sarah finally discovers the truth of her situation.

I won't spoil that here, as the reveal is kind of the only real point of interest The Free Fall has going. It certainly helps to add a clever reinterpretation of the film's events. It would have felt pretty fresh had I not recently caught another low budget little thriller on Tubi that did the same thing (again, so as not to spoil, I'll link to the title here if you're dreadfully curious).

Ultimately, I was left pretty underwhelmed. There's nothing specific that I can put my finger on as to what doesn't really work, but The Free Fall just feels a bit too small and sparse to ever find its high gear. 

High Points

For what I imagine was a very small budget, The Free Fall is a genuinely beautifully looking film. Considering the film's gothic horror mood, it's important, and goes a long way in bulking up the atmosphere

Low Points

When your film already has a big twist, tacking another one on at the end feels more annoying than neat

Lessons Learned

Nothing brings your hair to Pantene PRO-V level glory than being a kept woman

Don't you dare help a woman who doesn't need help

Never trust a maid who looks like Jane Badler. We all know what's under that pristine bone structure

Rent/Bury/Buy

I didn't find The Free Fall to have much to offer, but it looks pretty, and the twist might satisfy certain viewers. Find it on Hulu if you're in that kind of mood. 

Changing the Menu

Considering how ubiquitous fine dining culture has become, it makes perfect sense that we'd get more genre movies set in that world. As someone who will don a s'more suit in full defense of The Menu (but will also wince at the shouting in The Bear) I'm all for this development in horror. Bring on the colorful closeups of rainbow produce I say!

Quick Plot: Finally ready to make it on her own, Chef (Ariana DeBose) leaves her sous position job at an extremely renown New York restaurant to plan the menu for a different type of venue. Located in a small rural upstate town, the new spot is intended as the kind of "experience" that Bon Appetite will put on its cover. 

Chef is working the details out with business partner Andreas, but she's well-aware that she wasn't the first choice for the position. Magnus, a better known chef, left under fuzzy terms. We'll obviously find those out later.

At first Chef is excited by the new locale. It has its own blooming garden and a few nearby local shops that offer the perfect ingredient selection for her first big meal: a tryout with their biggest investor and an uppity food journalist. The morning of, Chef walks into her kitchen and discovers nothing but mold and bugs. Even the garden has shriveled beyond salvage. 

She's able to pivot with a juiced up boxed meal, but the damage is done. Andreas gives her two weeks to come up with a banger menu, while Chef takes a chance to connect more deeply with her new surroundings. The property is filled with touches from the original owner, a mysterious woman deemed a human-sacrificing witch by the locals. That may be, but this human-sacrificing witch also left some pristine recipe books and an exotic garden loaded with the kind of flavor bombing produce that catches food critics' hungry eyes. 

Things are improving as Chef and sous chef Lucia develop their new plan, but Chef gets cold feet when she discovers what actually happened to her predecessor. Was it the workings of the witchy former owner haunting the grounds? 

House of Spoils is an unusual genre film, but to explain why would, pun intended, spoil much of it. Written and directed by the team of Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, it's a bit of a bait and switch in terms of what kind of story it's telling. 

Oh fine, I'll just do the thing:

No, the other one

Despite the maddening, moldy foreshadowing, House of Spoils is ultimately not trying to scare you. The twist, which comes a bit abruptly, reveals that the mysterious figure with some killer recipes was wrongfully hunted as a witch when she was actually a healer. Her deep connection to the earth and its gifts is ultimately what Chef needs to break through her own hard shell and create something transcendent.

It's a bit jarring when you realize that the giant bonfire Chef is raising in the middle of some very flammable woods is NOT going to become a mass grave for foodies, and that the ghost of a recipe developer isn't molding food out of spite. Considering all of the toxicity of the restaurant world, there's something quite admirable about what Cole and Krudy are trying to do. It's almost as if they're pulling out the weeds to find a way to cultivate something pure.

High Points

Having only seen Ariana DeBose's incredible West Side Story performance and incredible in a very different way BAFTA rap, I knew her as a theater kid with outstanding dance skills. As Chef, she goes for a very different type of performance. It's easy to not actually like the character (who's kind of an a$$hole) but impossible to not believe this person. It makes the ending that much more interesting, as it really does feel like Chef has gone from something of an empty shell to a far more organic substance

Low Points

There's something very interesting going on between Chef and Lucia and how differently they carry themselves as women in this industry, but the film never has the chance to really dig into that. It's deeply frustrating to feel so unresolved

Lessons Learned

All chefs are either addicts or head cases

People from Newark don't garden

Risotto has a better track record in horror than Top Chef

Rent/Bury/Buy

House of Spoils isn't going to scratch the kind of itch served well by The Menu or The Feast, but if you're looking more for a kind of magical realism meal, it's certainly a unique and well-executed tale. Find it on Amazon Prime.