Yes, We've Reached a Verdict

There is horror in receiving a jury summons, mostly due to the amount of time you know is going to be wasted sitting in stuffy rooms with strangers as you wait to be called. In the rare event that you find yourself on an actual murder case with the death penalty in play, I imagine there's an added level of stress.

Quick Plot: Five years after a highly publicized trial, the jurors who convicted the "Midnight Murderer" are dying mysteriously. Juror #1 is in a fatal car accident, while the foreman, who made a career writing about the experience, plunges from his building. Juror #3 (played by the delightful James Hong) has a possible heart attack in his senior living facility. #4 is a healthy mom whose sudden suicide seems a bit, well, sudden. With her number up, #5's Laura grows suspicious that she's next on the list.

Detective Mike stumbles onto the case, convenient since his own partner, Detective Callendar (Cube "Show Me the Oscar" Cuba Gooding Jr.) investigated the Midnight Murderer. It also helps that Laura is single and ready to jingle.

Sorry for that. See, while Summoned is a supernatural thriller (I think?), it's also loaded with cozy cardigan Christmas romance energy. Leads Ashley Scott and Bailey Chase have starred in a LOT of Hallmark and Hallmark-adjacent holiday fare, while writer/director Peter Sullivan steadily rotates his filmography between Lifetime-ish thrillers (Sister Wife Murder) and chaste Lifetime-ish lovers (Love Accidentally). Occasionally, he finds himself in a Fly-esque transporter and creates beautifully weird hybrids that combine both (Christmas Twister, Silent Night, Fatal Night).

Summoned is not as much fun as Christmas Twister. With its experienced cast, the movie plays a little more earnest than its very dumb story merits. That's fine for the actors' pride, but it also means Summoned never quite clicks into a place of actual entertainment. A confusing finale doesn't help anything.

High Points

Laura's house has a lot of character. That's something, right?

Low Points

I looked away from Summoned to check my phone and when I looked back, the SPOILER ALERT killer was revealed to be...someone. I still don't understand who, or what, or why. Yes, film deserves a viewer's full attention, but also, I...still...don't...understand (or care)

Lessons Learned

You don't need to sell art if you've got alimony  

If you think you're next on a murder list, consider wearing sensible shoes so you can move a little quicker when the murder inevitably finds you

Police interrogation videos include are recorded via multiple angles 

Rent/Bury/Buy

I've seen hundreds of movies worse than Summoned, but I still can't think of anyone I would say, "Hey, you should watch Summoned" to. It exists on Peacock and some resumes. That's all I've got. 

Take the Bus, Take the Bus, For God's Sake, Take the Bus

 

How to get me to watch your low budget horror movie, a play in three acts

Act I: Get dropped on Peacock close to the Olympics, when some cheapskates finally splurge on the ad-free premium option

Act II: Give yourself the perfect dumb-pun title

Act III: Clock in at just 72 minutes

I am, and will always be, a simpleton at heart.

Quick Plot: Tommy is a rideshare driver who picks up passenger Theresa, then sneaks into her home and does things so terrible that the police who show up at the crime scene have an audible vomit party. 

Nearby, newly divorced Jolene is dealing with a handsy boss and flat tire in the middle of an empty industrial area of Atlanta. Tommy comes to her rescue, even being so kind as to turn the driving app off for her return trip and save Jolene a few bucks. What a prince!

Well, more a homicidal lunatic, but maybe it just depends on your filter. 

Jolene quickly finds herself locked inside her business complex playing mouse to Tommy's lumbering ginger cat. She manages to call low budget cinema's stupidest police officers (and boy is that saying something) but all that seems to do is provide some bodies to trip over. 

Across town, the detectives finally get the idea to check their murder victim's cell phone for recent activity. Wait, no, that would make too much sense. It's apparently easier to have Theresa's mom describe the man who picked her daughter up to a sketch artist, then pass that around the precinct. The fates align when one of the cops happens to spot Tommy driving a popular influencer around during a livestream. 

Somehow these aren't even the dumbest police officers in this movie.

Written and directed by Eduardo Castrillo, Ride Scare's budget was, I'm guessing, a lot less than one rush hour trip during surge pricing. The audio is occasionally fuzzy and the actors, while enthusiastic, don't necessarily scream experienced. At least the production managed to score a pretty large empty office for most of its action!

Much like The Girl In Cabin 13, reviewing Ride Scare is a bit of a chore. If a studio invests millions into a lazy remake, it feels like my duty (and sometimes joy) to tap into my inner mean girl and make petty jokes. When you swap out the overfunded studio for what you guess to be a team of dedicated amateurs culling favors from friends to just make a gosh darn movie, it feels like bullying.

Ride Scare is not good. The stalking scenes lack tension, characters lack brains, and the story unfolds so clunkily that you wish it would pull over for an oil change. Worst of all, Ride Scare ends on a ridiculously nasty note that feels ripped out of the year 2008. Downbeat conclusions can certainly work, but when your movie has just about nothing going for it, the least you can do is not end so cruelly. 

High Points

THE TITLE IS RIDE SCARE! WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?

Low Points

Well, a semi-decent movie would be nice

Lessons Learned

Jehovah's Witnesses are always in full effect

In Georgia, it's considered rude to close a door behind you when behind chased by a homicidal maniac

Hence, the leading cause of death in Georgia is being hacked to death by homicidal maniacs

Rent/Bury/Buy

You know what's a good horror movie about a violent and unhinged driver? Spree. Yes, Spree, oddly hated upon its release, is quite good. Granted, it doesn't have anywhere NEAR as good a title as RIDE SCARE, but, you know, it's also not the movie Ride Scare. If you're a low budget horror or rideshare driver-based completist, you can find this one on Peacock and watch during the time it takes to make a nice roast. 

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.