We're Not Going to Talk About It

A '90s horror film I hadn't heard of? Bring it!

Quick Plot: Billy is an American makeup artist working hard on a film shoot in Moscow with her costume designer sister Karen. It's Karen's boyfriend Andy's big break, even if everyone seems to agree that this slasher isn't about to change the industry. 

One night, Billy gets locked on set and catches a show: the camera crew have been pulling a Dracula, only instead of making a superior version of the same film being made in daylight hours, they're producing snuff. Billy barely escapes and manages to bring the police to the scene of the crime, but communicating what she witnessed is pretty tough in a second language. 

Or third, as it were. See, as you might have guessed from the title, Billy can't speak, though her hearing is clear. Karen believes her sister, while obnoxious Andy seems more miffed that the evening's exploits ruined his definitely-would-have-been-terrible dinner. The killers manage to cover their tracks with some tape swapping, but the night is just getting started. 

I don't know that I had ever even heard of Mute Witness until it showed up on Shudder. Like so many horror-adjacent films of mid-90s, it probably felt a bit underwhelming at the time. Nearly 30 years after its release, I found it to be a joy. 

In a lot of ways, Mute Witness is a strange film. It has the dressings of a slasher, but the actual story follows more of a crime thriller narrative with some effective cat-and-mouse hunts. Sprinkled all around it is some clever comedy, usually in the form of bumbling Americans Andy and Karen. Did I mention there's also a Russian crime ring of snuff film production?

Seriously, there's a LOT here in just 90 minutes, and on paper, probably too much. Thankfully, writer/director Anthony Waller has a great hold of all his tools. He stages the violence well, tackles the humor just right, and directs a confident cast. For me, this wasn't in any way what I expected from the two sentence description, but boy did it leave me satisfied.

High Points

As Billy, Russian stage actress Marina Zudina is not only incredibly likable, but also has outstanding chemistry with every one of her costars, right down to the perfect sisterly dynamics with Fay Ripley's very funny Karen

Low Points

While the comedic and almost cartoonish asides worked for me, I can see them grating a bit on some audiences

Lessons Learned

Pockets can hold things your hands will drop, so if your sweaty fingers keep losing a very important key, PUT IT IN YOUR DAMN POCKET

When it comes to self-defense, the hair dryer is mightier than the disposable razor

Chekhov is child's play compared to dying in a low budget slasher

Rent/Bury/Buy

Mute Witness isn't the scariest or funniest movie you'll find on Shudder, but it's such a uniquely balanced ride that you'll find yourself thoroughly entertained. Have a go when you're looking for something fresh (even if it's 30 years old). 

The Wife of (the Devil's) Bath

Horror comes in many forms. Masked giants wielding sharp objects. Shuffling reanimated corpses with a taste for your flesh. Homicidal dolls that share your bed. Ventriloquist dummies that simply exist. There are many, many ways to approach the genre, but setting your story in a time period before indoor plumbing, women's autonomy, and Tylenol might be the most reliable way to keep your modern audience on edge. 

Quick Plot: In one of the cheeriest prologues this side of the millennium, a woman drops her baby down a waterfall, then turns herself into the authorities to be beheaded. Welcome to Europe!

Somewhere nearby, we meet peasant Agnes on her wedding day to Wolf, a pleasant enough fellow who borrows a little more money than Agnes would like to purchase their isolated, roomy forest home. It's the perfect place to raise a family, though Wolf doesn't seem overly interested in the mechanics needed to make that happen (at least with a woman). 

Poor Agnes glumly deals with her new life: sorting out fish, washing what looks to be very itchy clothes, and constantly dodging her mother-in-law's criticisms about how to store cast iron cookware. Not surprisingly, it becomes pretty unbearable. This being the 1700s, the therapy and antidepressants that might improve the day to day come in the form of prayer and leeches. Agnes can't bear it. 

The Devil's Bath is written and directed by the team of Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz of Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge, equally tragic stories that also explore the idea of women who can't seem to exist comfortably in their realities. The style is much more akin to The VVitch and Hagazussa, only even less of a straightforward genre movie. While there are some extreme acts of violence, The Devil's Bath unfolds more as slice-of-life human drama than cover-your-eyes horror.

Still, being a poor farmer's wife in 18th century Austria was absolutely a horror movie in itself. We can complain about the grossness of something like reality TV dating competitions all day long, but if a pre-Bachelor world meant entertainment came from public beheadings and blood-drinking afterparties, maybe we should feel a little comfort. Life is hard, and it's always been so, but at least our prescription for feeling that way isn't to have a hole cut into the back of our necks so we can run early dental floss through the wound to raise our spirits.

As they've demonstrated with the earlier films, Fiala and Franz have a bleak, but kind of beautiful view of the world. It's a terrible place filled with people capable of terrible acts, but there's also a certain victory in how they let their unstable characters make their own choices. Said decisions often lead to painful death, but there's a strange sense of satisfaction for the tortured leads. 

High Points

The Devil's Bath is almost entirely seen from Agnes's point of view, and without a compelling performer in the role, it simply wouldn't work. Anja Plaschg doesn't get to say much as Agnes, but her face is that of a silent film star, and it makes every scene scream. Plaschg also composed the film's haunting score, so double points to her.

Low Points

Aforementioned Hagazussa and The VVitch have similar styles of slow-mounting tension in a harsher time period, but the very fact that they share so many similarities to The Devil's Bath makes some of the latter's weaknesses more apparent. The pacing of those films feels necessary. In The Devil's Bath, there's something a bit too inconsistent in the storytelling that makes the two hour runtime feel even longer

Lessons Learned, the 18th Century Edition

Traditional wedding gifts included the timeless apron, but if you REALLY cared about the bride to be, you brought her the severed finger of an executed murderer

Mother-in-laws know best, then and now

Pin the tail on the donkey's origins involved a lot more chicken blood

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't know that anyone is going to have a great time with The Devil's Bath (and if you do, I don't know that I'm picking you as my next badminton doubles partner). This is a dark, cruel film. That said, it's a very well-made dark, cruel film, and it has more on its mind than simple shock value (even though that's certainly there in spades). If you're in the mood to get brought down a few pegs, find this one on Shudder.

She'll Fill You Up (On Blueberry Pancakes)

As we begin the slow and sad goodbye to summer, it only feels right to end the season with (another) shark attack. Dive in!

Quick Plot: A ridiculously quick prologue shows us a diver getting eaten, only to cut to a credits montage that might have actually been a recycled commercial for a Hawaiian cruise. Hot bodies in water, hot bodies diving for volleyballs, and all the usual activities that involve hot bodies in bikinis.

Elsewhere on the island, a young surfer heads out early to catch some waves, only to quickly be devoured by a very large shark. Her father, Captain Harlan, is furious at how the local authorities are doing nothing to hunt down the creature and serve it vengeance. Apparently, much like Under Paris, it's the scientists and animal rights activists who are now in control, leaving anyone who dares to set their toe in the ocean to become potential fish food.

Cue the disposables! A batch of adult friends (to be clear, they're NOT couples) enjoy a private cruise when, guess what? They meet a hungry shark. Down goes the captain, his partner, and all of final girl Jessie's pals. That includes Shane West, who must have committed some pretty heinous Hollywood crimes for this to be his 2022 resume. 

Ever watch an enjoyably terrible movie only to realize, in between giggles, that it actually has very dangerous opinions? Sure, many a zombie flick plays like a 90-minute commercial for the NRA and the some of your collection basket money at any given Catholic church surely goes to the funding of the demonic possession genre, but sometimes, there are other ominous signs that your filmmaker might have something of an agenda that involves more than attempting to scare you out of the water. 

Harlon, Maneater's hero, is played by country star Trace Adkins, a whiter than mayonnaise man who butts heads with the people of color around him, one of whom happens to be the island's ineffectual police chief. Heroine Jessie is a blond-haired-blue-eyed beauty medical student who takes care of her sick mother and quickly pivots into action lead when the moment calls (the fact that she can't administer year one Girl Scout level first aid on any of her dying friends seems to bother no one). When peace is restored and Jessie sits in shock in Sheriff Kula's office, his suggestion that she speak to a therapist is rebuffed by Harlan's more scientific approach: to overcome trauma, one just needs a big pile of blueberry pancakes. Our traumatized heroine agrees. 

I don't know writer/director Justin Lee's politics, so it's certainly possible that Maneater's anger comes more from innocently awkward storytelling than anger at  strides in mental health and environmental activism. To be clear, Maneater is wildly terrible and even more wildly entertaining. Montages are deployed more frequently than a Hallmark Christmas movie. CGI sharks hunt in knee-high water. Shotguns defy physics. It's very, very dumb.

High Points

About 25 minutes into Maneater, there's a blink-and-you-miss-it shot where a confident young man leaps off a cliff and lands in the jaws of a shark. It's random, never acknowledged, and honestly? A perfect shot.

Low Points

Many a good movie stumbles in its ending. Maneater (not a good movie) stumbles, tries to hold on, then slips on its other foot, goes down, starts to get up, then simply forgets how its limbs actually work. The action finishes, leaving us a good ten minutes of denouement. It's a weird pacing decision, sure, but now understand that said denouement is put into the fuzzy acting skills of Trace Adkins, a "why am I doing this sh*t" Jeff Fahey, and a young actor that I have to imagine was simply the only guy that came into the audition room wearing pants. It's a seemingly endless dialogue scene done to set up a sequel, and written with the mandate to culminate with a poorly worded Jaws reference. It's mind-bogglingly bad. 

I kind of loved it.

Lessons Learned

Tragic deaths involve car accidents or drug overdoses, not shark meals

Dolphins are a good time

The best way to decipher whether a creature is a devil or a fish is to see if it bleeds

The later in life you graduate pre-med, the worse you'll be at helping anyone in a medical emergency

Rent/Bury/Buy

Let's be clear: Maneater is a bad movie. It also might be a bit, well, dumbly conservative, if that makes sense. Still, if you're the kind of idiot like me who relishes this kind of swing, it will likely entertain you. Find it on Hulu and pour on the maple syrup.