Won't You Kill My Neighbor?

“Evil Mr. Rogers” is a concept that screams for the horror treatment. How has it taken this long?

Quick Plot: Young Darren loves nothing more than Mr. Crocket, a Mr. Rogers-y television show that airs during miserable dinners with his timid mother Rhonda and abusive stepfather Kevin. After a tense round of string beans, Mr. Crocket himself shows up for a bite...of Kevin. 

Elsewhere in town, 8-year-old Major is struggling to understand the death of his father, deflecting with video games and outbursts while his mother Summer tries her best to move forward. He's throwing tantrums and making Mom's life pure misery. Self-help parenting tapes do little to aid Summer, but when a clamshell-cased episode of Mr. Crocket shows up in the free mailbox outside her home, she figures it's worth a try. 

Major is hooked, and it only takes a few days for Mr. Crocket to take hold (figuratively and literally). Like Darren, Major seems to have vanished through his living room walls, leaving Summer fraught with an unbelievable story and heavy heart. 

The police don't believe her, even though several other missing children in town have followed the same pattern. A little library research leads Summer to Rhonda and Eddie, whose daughter went missing under similar circumstances. Together, they decide to open Mr. Crocket’s door and retrieve their children.

It’s not quite as easy as one would hope. The bright colors of the VHS set prove to be far darker in Mr. Crocket’s actual hell, a violent landscape born out of the horrors of collective abuse curated by its own Freddy Kruegger-ish host. 

Expanded from a short film, Mr. Crocket is a fabulous concept and a good final product. Carl Reid and director Brandon Espy’s script is filled with clever ideas and clearly has some deep things to explore regarding what it means to grow up in a home marked by violence. Doing so through a murderous Mr. Rogers is pretty genius. 

The film doesn’t quite live up to it. You can feel the budget bursting, particularly in the somewhat muddled finale. I don’t know what the time frame was from short film to feature, but the final script probably needed one more draft or ten more minutes of runtime to feel complete. It’s disappointing only because the idea is so fresh. Overall, this is a solid little film that’s quite enjoyable, even if it doesn’t quite meet its own expectations. 

High Points

As the titular Mr. Crocket, Elvis Nolasco is clearly relishing the opportunity to play such a twisted character. It’s a juicy performance that goes a very long way

Low Points

I realize more and more every day that audiences aren’t quite as smart as I would think, but it still irks me when a movie feels the need to lay out its themes so directly. “I was born in the fires of hell and abuse” should be subtext, not actual dialogue

High/Low Point You Should Only Read To Be Spoiled

I wondered a LOT about Alex Akpobome’s choices in playing Eddie. Bad casting or bad acting? Turns out, neither, because the character isn’t at all what you think (thank goodness)

Lessons Learned

Junk food just makes you sleepy and tired

One should always use some caution with free libraries, but particularly in the 1980s when they weren’t actually a thing

Further Reading

While watching Mr. Crocket, I found myself thinking a lot about Kiersten White’s Mr. Magic, a genre novel that plays with a similar setup involving an ‘80s style children’s show gone wrong. The one is more Mormons meet Romper Room, but if you were looking for another spin on this kind of setup, give it a read.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Mr. Crocket is a little rough around the edges, but it’s such a fresh idea that any horror fan (particularly one who spends far too much time complaining about sequels and reboots) really owes it to the genre to give it a watch. It’s a quick 90 minutes on Hulu.

I'm Geeking Out...About Christmas

We interrupt this regularly scheduled space of movie talk to cordially invite you to see ME, in person!

If you're anywhere near the Brooklyn area on December 5th, consider getting yourself a ticket to, as the poster says, a VERY special evening where I'll join comedian Kevin Maher in bringing you some seasonal entertainment. What does that mean exactly?

THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT! 

London Calling

 

One day, I'll remember which James is the good one and which is the piece of crap.

Considering I get TWO of the good ones in today's movie, maybe that day has finally come. 

Quick Plot: On the 100th anniversary of each of Jack the Ripper's murders, victims are turning up in the same pattern way over in the lower class parts of LA.  

Dr. John Wesford (baby-faced James Spader) toils away at a free clinic, much to the chagrin of his grumpy boss. Having grown up in LA's less affluent area, John cares deeply about the neighborhood and has been paying close attention to the ongoing crimes. 

Right on schedule for the final murder, John catches the clinic's janitor Jack slipping out of a pregnant sex worker's apartment, her body bloodied and pulse gone. Jack claims it's a misunderstanding, but that seems less likely when he follows John back to the clinic and strings him up, staging it as suicide.

To the police, it's a relief. Dr. John Wesford, found hanging and covered in the final victim's blood, was clearly Jack the Ripper 2.0. Case closed!

Not so fast (we're only about 25 minutes into the movie, after all). John's twin brother Ricky, a less successful assistant manager at Foot Locker, shows up in town knowing his better half would never do such things. Most of the detectives are dubious, though the story is just incomplete enough to give Ricky some merit. 

Several MORE investigations proceed. Ricky grows close to Christine, Jack's colleague at the clinic who might be on the next hit list. Lurking in the background is the always welcome, and usually squirmy Robert Picardo as a psychiatrist who specializes in hypnosis. Through it all, James Spader and his stunt double display an excellent knack and possible addiction to leaping out windows and landing safely.

Jack's Back was written and directed by the gloriously named Rowdy Herrington, who followed this up with a little movie you might have heard about called Road House. Jack's Back doesn't reach the campy fun heights of that classic, but considering its low profile in film history, it's a surprisingly interesting little mystery. 

James Spader is incredibly watchable as both John and Ricky, which holds everything together even when the story gets a bit messy. Herrington makes some great moves in the film's first act. We're caught completely off guard by John's early murder. The series of suspects that comes after keeps the story moving, but also never really seems to come together. I was a bit unsatisfied when the very '80s credits music closed in. 

Still, considering those very '80s credits music included sexy saxophone solos, my complaints are minimal.  

High Points

Both John and Ricky don't quite have enough character history on the page, but by GOLLY is James Spader good at captivating the audience. This is one of those "that guy's a star" performances not in scope, but in pure charisma

Low Points

I'm still not exactly sure how some of the characters line up, which is a bit of shame when this is the kind of film that should have a clear, resolute finish

Lessons Learned

The bigger the scar, the higher the fee (at least in Texas)

Rickys are always the naughty ones

The best way to distract an old lady is to ask about her grandkids

Rent/Bury/Buy

Jack's Back isn't a masterpiece, but it's a nice little hidden gem in an era that wasn't really making these kinds of movies. You can find it streaming on Peacock. 

Family Ties

 

Family trees have deep roots in film. Yes, there's an element of nepotism that is incredibly frustrating when you think of how many talented, hard-working creatives you know who simply don't have the same opportunity as someone with a known last name. That being said, it's impossible not to be curious at what kind of filmmakers the children of David Cronenberg have turned out to be. 

Quick Plot: The world is not good. Nature is revolting, and the government's new priorities are to encourage voluntary (for now) conscription. Serving your country is nice in theory, but in this case, you're not signing up for combat: it's voluntary execution. 

Charles York is mildly above it all. A  retired, once celebrated newsman living in awkward comfort with his iron chef wife Dawn, Charles summons his four adult children to a formal home dinner with some news: he and Dawn are going to enlist.

The kids are not all right. Rachel (Schitt's Creek Canada-certified Emily Hampshire) is rocking her way through scandal as a disgraced pharmaceutical CEO. Jared is a government mouthpiece publicly urging "those people" to sign up. Noah is a hardworking recovering alcoholic pianist. And failed actress Ashley's current ambition is to get cast in a video game commercial. 

The servicemen arrive to take care of business right as Dawn (understandably) gets cold feet and scrambles. Supervisor Bob is displeased, and delivers some pretty rough news: backing out of an enlistment contract has consequences. Someone with the last name of York has to make good on the terms. 

The siblings are given two hours to decide. It goes about as well as many Thanksgivings or crowded Christmas dinners do, which is to say there's a lot of screaming, airing of childhood grievances, and a few beatings. 

Directed by Caitlin Cronenberg (daughter of David, sister of Brandon) from Michael Sparaga's script, Humane suffers a bit in timing in being released so closely after Mike Flanagan's Fall of the House of Usher. There are some very specific family dynamics and character beats that feel so familiar, only Usher had the luxury of spreading its twisted humor and eat the rich dinner over eight courses of episodes. 

One of Humane's major drawbacks is that it just doesn't seem to have enough time to really dive into the Yorks' relationships. Noah and Ashley have a fairly clear bond as the two youngest, and for reasons I won't spoil, that serves as a very important factor in how the second half plays out. But Jared is simply all the worst parts of humanity in the frame of Jay Baruchel (who I have to keep reminding myself is not Justin Long) and Rachel simply doesn't have enough time with us for the audience to understand her whiplash journey.

Despite how negative some of these comments might sound, I actually enjoyed Humane. It has a stark and understated approach to a version of a society crumble that we haven't quite seen before, and the sort of clumsy violence is a fresh approach that in reality, makes a lot of sense. People give victims in horror movies a hard time for not always dispatching their attackers, but you know what? Actually killing someone (and in this case, your own sibling) is probably VERY DIFFICULT for most of us, even in the most heightened of genre circumstances. 

Cronenberg is aiming more for dark comedy than spine-tingling horror, and when it works (Enrico Colantoni's Bob has a lot to do with that), it has some pointed things to say about bureaucracy, capitalism, and sibling politics. I found the ending unsatisfying thematically, but the fact that I'm still turning things over in my head is certainly a good sign. 

High Points

Peter Gallagher is, and will always be, a genuine treasure, and while his part is fairly small, it's absolutely key that we understand exactly what kind of man Charles York is (and isn't), both to his family and the public. You get that easily with Gallagher's presence, and he manages to convey both his "great man" and "vain jerk" status in equal measure

Low Points

It's genuinely weird that Baruchel's Jared is never actually confronted about his own hypocrisy in pushing enlistment but doing everything possible to save himself from it. Maybe Cronernberg thought it was simply too obvious to point out, but the idea that his siblings would never call him on it is just, well odd

Lessons Learned

It's not a booty call if you live together

Reading the fine print is never more important than when committing something to the government

One burnt kernel will ruin the whole bag of popcorn (which, sorry to say Bob, is why you should always make yours in an actual popcorn maker and avoid microwaved slime)

Marketing Bonus

Guys, the Instagram account Bob mentions is real, and it's entirely popcorn kernel-based, and it makes me very, very happy

Rent/Bury/Buy

I realize that I had more negative things to say than positive in the above paragraphs, but I still find myself thinking about Humane and wanting to discuss it more. Now streaming on Shudder, it's certainly worth your time.