Home Sweet Smart Home

 

I have a smart oven. It's nice. I can turn the preheat function on while driving home to save some cooking time. I can turn the oven off without getting up from my chair to save my body from putting in a tiny bit of physical effort. I can turn the light on when I'm not home just to confuse my husband, which is fun.

Sure, life has been made about .00000000000275% easier by this addition to my life. 

I realize that when 'smart homes' are discussed, the stakes are a bit higher. Alexa calling emergency services or adjusting your thermostat for better efficiency is a bit different, and certainly has some genuinely helpful tricks for its inhabitants. But also, every aspect of our days do not require the intervention of a computer code.The obsession with turning more and more simple actions more complex so long as we don't have to do them is, to me, silly.

Onto the smart house horror movie. 

Quick Plot: Our prologue introduces us to a relaxing couple whose evening hits a roadblock when Margaux, their smart home hostess, goes homicidal.  

Somewhere a road trip away, graduating college senior Drew has corralled his scholarship buddies for one last weekend together in the aforementioned smart house. Among the crew are lovebirds Kayla and Devon, stoner Clay (Final Destination: Bloodlines' Richard Harmon), and programming whiz Hannah. 

The gang is happy to reminisce about their freshman year over Pringles bongs and beers, but their rhythm gets interrupted by the last minute crashing of Drew's influencer girlfriend Lexi. This is especially frustrating to Hannah, who's clearly been nursing a crush on Drew since orientation. She also has the added stress of being a computer nerd with a strong (and wise) distrust of AI and data collection. Margaux isn't exactly her dream home. 

At first, the house is splendid. Clay gets treated to the perfect buffet to satisfy his munchies. Kayla and Devon have a honeymoon suite perfectly stocked with their favorite sex accessories. Lexi thrives under the perfect lighting for selfies. What could possibly go wrong?

Obviously, everything. 

Directed by Steven C. Miller from a script credited to Chris Beyrooty, Nick Waters, and Chris Sivertson, Margaux is way better than you probably expected when I said, "today's movie is about a killer smart house." The concept is perfectly fine, even if Margaux's motives are a little fuzzier than they should be (considering Margaux likes to talk a LOT). What makes Margaux such a joy comes down to its characters.

Movies about pretty young people in peril are a standard in the horror genre. Often what separates the good ones from the bad isn't the creativity of kills, but the plain likability of a cast. In the case of Margaux, these young actors are quite good. They're all funny (not surprising if you've seen Richard Harmon's wonderful turn in that Final Destination MRI room) but more importantly, their actual relationships are real.

Take Kayla and Devon, the hot and horny couple obviously marked for an early end. They serve a time-honored role that's so familiar in teen slashers that we know not to be invested. AND YET! Phoebe Miu and Jordan Buhat are so charming that it's impossible not to be gutted when Margaux inevitably has her way. They establish such a believable chemistry that it makes their fully expected death scene have a deep impact.

It would have been so easy for these characters to be silly one-note stereotypes. Some movies seem to even encourage actors to push audiences to root for their deaths. But that's really not the case here. Even interloper Lexi (gamely played by Vanessa Morgan) doesn't deserve Margaux's cruelty. I really wanted the best for these kids!

There are also plenty of good ideas and creativity at heart in Margaux. I liked some of the third act's twists, although the biggest one feels a bit impossible to track in a frustrating way (that will likely make sense if you've seen it). With a bigger budget and maybe a tad more time, I think this could have truly been great. Those details aside, Margaux was satisfying for me from beginning to end. That's not something I expected to say about the killer smart house movie nobody talked about.

High Points

Seriously, this young cast is simply filled with fresh talent that I'm excited to see again. Go Canada!

Low Points

You can cover up a low budget in a lot of clever ways, but Margaux's cartoon CGI robot arms feel bargain bin even by, let's say, SyFy Channel standards

Lessons Learned

The smarter you are, the dumber you will act in the face of emergency

Never mess with a brand ambassador

Nobody is impressed with smart houses

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had a blast with Margaux. It has a great young cast, sharp writing, and some genuinely creative sequences that felt fresh. It's a big recommend (currently streaming on Amazon) and the kind of movie that makes me really excited to see more from its team. 

Marsha Marsha Marshes

 

I will give almost any Shudder release that sounds mildly intriguing a chance...particularly if said film is short.

Quick Plot: Pria and Ben are microbiologists vying for the same university promotion. Tensions are high, but they have to team up for a weekend in the titular marshes to collect some samples, with undergrad Will tagging along to assist. Along the way, Pria runs afoul of a local couple who don't take kindly to scientists clogging their hunting grounds.

That turns out to be the least of their problems. Around the campfire, Ben tells Will and Pria a ghost story about a Wolf Creek-ish spirit that haunts Australia's wilderness. The next morning, the group awakens to discover something very wrong. 

Just don't ask me to explain what it actually is. 

The Marshes is a strange little movie. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, you'd expect a fairly tight package. The result is anything but. 

Writer/director Roger Scott has a decent touch with actors and a beautiful handle on his visuals. Mostly shot in broad daylight, The Marshes (both the film and literal marshes) look great. The story...less so.

I like ambiguity when done well. The Marshes does not do this well. It throws a dozen threats at us and never actually explains which ones are even happening. There's a supernatural monster...or just a human hunter? The environment may be trapping them in circles...or they may just have a very, very bad sense of direction. 

For scientists, our characters are excessively stupid. While the actors are doing their best (particularly Dafna Kronental) it's hard for us to root too hard for their survival when they're so very bad at it. And when we don't even understand what's hunting them. 

High Points

I'm always in favor of daylight horror, and if nothing else, The Marshes has a nice amount of it

Low Points

This is a movie where someone outruns a sadistic killer only to immediately sit down, look at his friends, and say, "I'm going to go over there to poop now." It is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen happen in a horror movie, and I have, without exaggeration, watched thousands of not JUST horror movies, but very dumb ones

Lessons Learned

Science is the best way to disappoint your parents

Knife-wielding pig hunters are scarier than most ghosts

A grad school education will tell you that it's not normal for a compass to spin like a wheel of fortune

Rent/Bury/Buy

Sigh. I was rooting for The Marshes. It was nicely shot, decently acted, and seemed to demonstrate some promise for its writer/director. Unfortunately, the script is a mess. I found this film incredibly unsatisfying.

Time for a Good Wax

 

Is there a horror fan alive who doesn't love a wax museum?

I'd guess not, even though there's a good argument to be made that we've never actually had a great wax museum movie. Yes, the Waxwork flicks are fun and every variation of House of Wax is melty in all the best ways, but you know, neither franchise really produced an actual GREAT film. 

IS THIS THE DAY THAT ALL CHANGES? 

Quick Plot: At the start of the 20th century, Parisian police discover a grisly crime scene that turns their stomachs. A couple has been brutally slain, body parts scattered around the room or missing. The only witness is their young daughter Sonia. Inspector Lavin vows to solve the crime, but twelve years pass without a lead.

Grown and gorgeous Sonia is now on the job hunt in Rome, where she lands a wardrobe position at the city's newest attraction: a wax museum specializing in violent tableaus. The spot has already been in the news after a young man of leisure died inside after taking on a dare to spend the night.  

Surely there's nothing to worry about! It's just a wax museum! That ... focuses on violent tableaus, including the murder of Sonia's parents.

It doesn't take long for Sonia to suspect curator Boris and his creepy assistant Alex. She quickly teams up with reporter Andrea to investigate (along with some other things). Meanwhile, good old Inspector Lavin comes to town determined to help. Along the way, a few Romans of all ages disappear, with oddly similar faces debuting later in waxy glory.

Made in 1997, Wax Mask (not "Wax Max", as I keep writing, which feels very Rural Juror of me for those who understand) is gooey and gross and feels wonderfully out of time. There's a true Hammer Horror style in its bones, but those bones are also covered in wildly grand practical monster makeup and random callbacks to The Terminator.

I loved it.

Wax Mask apparently began as a Lucio Fulci project, but his death saw producer Dario Argento pass the reins on to special effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti. There was certainly some heft lost in the transfer. The acting is a bit stiff, even if you push most of that blame onto weird dubbing. Perhaps more importantly, Fulci (admittedly my personal favorite of the genre's Italians) might have come at the material with something to say. 

Instead, we get something that looks really, really cool.  

High Points

Seriously: Stivaletti holds nothing back in giving us hot acid baths, robot hands, essence-sucking waxing, and so much more

Low Points

I still don't understand the exact connection between Sonia and Boris, or Alex's actual opinion on things, or, you know, anything about the characters. Thankfully, I don't really care

Lessons Learned

Being an investigative photojournalist was a lot harder when cameras were the size of Warwick Davis

Every movie set in a wax museum must end with a very drawn out fire (I don't make the rules, but I do love them)

I never thought this had to be said, but here we go: when conducting an autopsy, it's important to check for a heartbeat before, you know, slicing into a possibly living chest

Rent/Bury/Buy

I flipped on Tubi one morning when I was frustrated with having to think too hard, and what a perfect decision I made. Wax Mask is silly and gross and in a word, grand. Have fun.

I'M GEEKING OUT IN BROOKLYN!

It's happening!

Time for me to guest at another Kevin Geeks Out show here in New York. Yes, every now and then, the city of Brooklyn decides that I'm just cool enough to enter for 20 minutes, talk about killer dolls, and drive back to the nerdy suburbs where I belong.

This is your big chance to watch a whole COLLECTION of witty, funny people talk about dolls. American Dolls, stretchy dolls, Barbie dolls, action figures that are indeed dolls, and so much more. I'll be documenting my own personal history with a short redhead who changed the course of my life in 1988 and made me, well, the weirdo doll-obsessed blogger you know today. 

If you're anywhere near New York this April 23rd, be sure to grab your ticket! 

The More Things Change...

 

One of our last few beautiful natural resources remaining on this rapidly declining planet is Turner Classic Movies, aka TCM, the cable channel that airs such a glorious grab bag of film. Whenever a genre title I haven't seen comes up on the guide, you can bet my DVR I'm going to record it. 

Quick Plot: Four very white men embark on a mission to circle Mars. The trip is uneventful until their attempted return, when they hit whatever you call the space version of turbulence and land on an earth-like planet that doesn't feel too friendly.

First comes the dog-sized paper mache spiders (ADORABLE). Then the one-eyed neanderthal-ish gang. Finally, the real horror: a cemetery with gravestones proving this is earth, but an earth a few hundred years in the future following a nuclear holocaust. 

The men are saved by the more "civilized" survivors, a prissy collection of helmet-wearing nerds and Judy Jetson-styled sexy ladies who have formed a society underground. While they're safe in the bunker, there's a clear problem: the men are so weak that reproduction rates are at an all-time low. We need testosterone, STAT!

Did someone say shirtless Rod Taylor? Because we can all certainly use some shirtless Rod Taylor.

Watching World Without End, it's hard not to imagine it framed with silhouettes of a few robots and their human friend. This is a film that SCREAMS Mystery Science Theater 3000 because it hits all of those trademarks that make for a great riff: hand-made special effects, goofy but earnest dialogue, and careful violence that feels cute. This has such a '50s sci-fi vibe that I started watching it in jeans and when it ended, I somehow was wearing a poodle skirt.

Just kidding. Who the hell wears pants in their home?

I enjoyed World Without End. The film was written and directed by Edward Bernds, a man who spent a whole lot of time on Three Stooges projects (which might explain his confusion on how violence works). It's kind of a delight. 

There's some drama and heaviness. One astronaut leaves behind a wife and kids and has to accept that they're long gone, while the very threat of nuclear war underlines the entire story. I don't love how those left on the surface are treated as wild animals, but the film makes a tiny effort towards the end to suggest a brighter future for all. So long as you don't think too hard, World Without End is a pretty fun time.

High Points

Yes, the actual monster makeup and crafting could have used some darker lighting, but this is a movie that just feels so visually fun, especially when we go underground and are treated to, well, this

Low Points

Not surprisingly, the gender balance of a 1950s sci-fi film don't really feel great some decades later

Lessons Learned

The ancients kept most of their secrets in caves

The most effective way of shooting is to put your whole body into it, pushing that gun in the same direction you're firing

Astronauts are very good at understanding the differences between optimists and pessimists

Rent/Bury/Buy

World Without End doesn't have a lot on its mind (although one can always appreciate the unfortunately never-not-relevant nuclear war warning) and that's okay. This is a charming little bite of '50s science fiction that will scratch a very particular itch. 

Carnival of Soul[Survivor]s

 

We've talked a lot here about that strange time in genre history when hot fully clothed CW Network refugees would star in forgettable PG-13 to the occasional light R-rated slasher. Scream's success had a long but weakening tail effect that put quite a few mid-budget thrillers on the big screen. You usually discovered these from newspaper ads that had a V-formation of attractive young people staring straight at the camera with a look of mild fear.

One such film: Soul Survivors (not o be confused with the near plural homonymic  Sole Survivor). 

Quick Plot: Cassie is ready to start college with her bad girl* best friend Annabel, ex-boyfriend now entwined with Annabel Matt, and soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Sean who's heading in the other direction to Harvard. The group enjoys their last night together by partying at a closed church, but things take a dark turn, literally, when Cassie crashes the car while taking a dark turn.

*we know Annie is a bad girl because she smokes, wears black, and is played by Eliza Dushku in full Faith Lehane drag 

Sean is killed, Cassie, devastated. Annabel tries to cheer her pal up but also starts hanging out with some goths, much to Cassie's horror. Matt becomes more convinced that he and Cassie are meant to be together. Halo-lit priest Luke Wilson shows up to dispense wisdom. 

It's something.

Written and directed by The Power's Stephen Carpenter, Soul Survivors feels like an earnest teen drama forced wearing slasher drag. I hate spoiling a film (albeit a poorly received one from 22 years ago), but as you probably can gather from this post title or, you know, from watching 5 minutes of Soul Survivors, Cassie is not quite in the same realm as her peers with a regular heartbeat.

Maybe this was more of a surprise in 2002. Even so, I can't imagine an early 21st century audience getting that much more out of Soul Survivors. It's sleek-looking in that way most mid-budget theatrical slashers of the era were, but it never comes close to being scary or even that suspenseful when the truth is so obvious. The performances are fine (well, the female ones) but the script doesn't find any interesting angles into the actual characters. 

Or maybe I'm just giving this movie a severe disadvantage because it's no Sole Survivor.

High Points

There's really not much on paper to the character of Cassie (she ... swims) so it speaks to Melissa Sagemiller's performance that we're still invested in her safety and sanity

Low Points

Trying to separate my dislike of Casey Affleck with his actual presence in the film, but you know what? I don't have to because he has so little of it! Wes Bentley fares better, save for the fact that his character is actually a creep

Lessons Learned

When looking for study help, never start with the mean blonde

Nothing is worse than the I Care For You But Speech

Always choose the college that puts freshman in dorms that have their own bar

Rent/Bury/Buy

As with most movies of this era, there is certainly some charm to be found in the style of the aughts. But the movie doesn't offer too much else. If you go in expecting a thriller over a horror movie, you might leave slightly more satisfied. You can find this one on Amazon Prime (and probably Tubi, because, you know, Tubi).