Keep the River (of Blood) On Your Right

I have a soft spot for horror movies about pretty, awful (meaning both physically pretty and morally awful) people fighting for their lives in beautiful jungles. River of Blood, could your premise be more me?

Quick Plot: Somewhere in southeast Asia (for some reason, that's as specific as we get), white men are plowing down some trees when much more athletic natives take them down. 

It's a river of blood!

Nearby, two attractive couples are enjoying their vacation breakfast at a luxury resort before heading out for a boat -- excuse me, kayak -- excursion with tour guide Nick. Ritchie has just sold his company and is eager to lord it over the bitter Ajay. Ajay is having an affair with Ritchie's wife Jasmine and is eager to keep it quiet so he can hold onto his job working for his wife Maya's father. 

Do all attractive person friendships involve so much backstabbing and bitterness? Or is this just a White Lotus effect?

The couples embark down the river under Nick's guidance with strict warnings about the dangers of the nearby cannibal tribes, who not only hunt outsiders, but do so in a slow, terrorizing way to keep their prey alive for training purposes. 

You can guess where it goes from here. 

Written by Tom Boyle and directed by Howard J. Ford, River of Blood is a tricky sort of film. Much like Ford's The Ledge and The Dead series, it's shot beautifully and seems to have great reverence for just how powerful its setting is on film. As an actual viewing experience, it's quite lovely to look at.

The characters, on the other hand, are pretty darn challenging. 

From a performance perspective, everyone is doing their job. But couldn't their blueprint be better?

Louis James's Ajay is one of the most insufferable characters I've seen onscreen in quite a while. Again, the acting is FINE. But why do I have to watch him play THIS PERSON? 

I know what you're thinking: so we can root for him to experience a ridiculously elaborate and painful death. Well...

SPOILER ALERT

One of the strange things about River of Blood is the actual pacing of its latter half. We expect our quintet to start shrinking til we keep a final girl or two, but instead, for all the buildup of how this tribe plays with its prey, we get two fairly quick, low tension kills and one dramatic self-sacrifice that doesn't add up when you do the fight math. 

There's something slightly admirable about River of Blood ending with an otherwise irredeemable (and always insufferable) character making a selfless decision. But this movie isn't really complex enough to make that hit. I spend 88 minutes hating Ajay and powering through the action knowing that surely, he'd get a violent comeuppance. Instead, he makes a noble decision that has that-Titanic-raft-could-have-held-Jack logic to it and we barely see him suffer. Come on!

High Points

Did I mention that River of Blood looks really, really good?

Low Points

Did I mention that the characters in River of Blood are incredibly unlikable?

Lessons Learned

Karma means that even if you can't find a bowl of rice in the jungle, if you're a horrible person, your cell phone can be dried out just in time to reveal your secrets

Blond hair does incredibly well in humid southeast Asian jungles

Baby pythons are harmless and also rather adorable

Rent/Bury/Buy

I watched most of River of Blood on an elliptical machine at the gym, because few things are more motivating for a workout than a movie where fairly fit people are put to a physical test to not be eaten (my fear of cannibals is merited because I'm fairly certain my foodie appetite means that I would be absolutely delicious). As that kind of watch, this was entertaining. It's also frustrating, especially being now the fourth Ford film I've seen where I've found myself wishing it focused on characters that weren't so stomach turning. Make of that what you will! The movie is streaming on Amazon Prime. 

I Thaw the Thaw

Remember when there was basic cable, and then slightly fancier cable channels, and then REALLY gourmand stuff like HBO? And then those became artifacts because the world turned to slightly fancier cable channels to Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime? Well are you ready to now know that it's not even Amazon Prime anymore, but Prime, or MGM+, or something called Howdy?

Yeah, I don't know what it is either, but I had a 7-day test run so why not watch one of its titles before catching the email reminder I set for myself to cancel?

Quick Plot: After a cold open where Val Kilmer reads to us from his journal, the credits give us a Dawn of the Dead 2004-style montage (sans Johnny Cash) of the world on decline due to global warming and bioterrorism. Is this the end of times?

Just just yet. Up in the Canadian arctic, Dr. David Kruipen is doing field studies with his team, waiting on the arrival of a few college students and his estranged daughter Evelyn. When the untimely death of a polar bear leads to the discovery of a near-the-surface wooly mammoth, David freaks out. Some kind of parasite is lurking just under that ancient skin, and it's not here to make friends. 

David tries to cancel the school trip but it's too late. Evelyn hitches a ride with pilot Bart and students Ling, Frederico, and Atom only to arrive and find a near-empty station. The only sign of David's group is a dying Jane, David's partner. She's not looking good. 

Things get pretty The Thing-y quickly. Turns out, the polar bear and mammoth carcasses are riddled with tiny bugs that quickly reproduce and lay eggs under their targets' skin. Unable to resist a wilderness selfie, Bart is already infected, with Ling following quickly. Frederico calls in a helicopter rescue much to the protests of Evelyn and Atom, who realize their escape could lead to global infection.

I watched The Thaw on a lazy Sunday morning with fairly low expectations.  It came out during Val Kilmer's unremarkable straight-to-streaming era from a writer/director (Mark A. Lewis) with a pretty skim resume. Also, it was streaming on Howdy, which I will continue to say, whatever that is. 

Imagine my glee at realizing The Thaw was okay! Sure, the bugs are as CGI as you'd imagine from a lowish budget Canadian sci-fi horror of the late aughts, but Lewis wisely doesn't lean too hard on these critters as its main source of terror. There's some pretty gnarly, possible practical effects showing the actual eggs and bites that are far more horrifying. 

Perhaps more importantly, The Thaw has a very clear point of view. Yes, its global warming stance is pretty heavy-handed but...you know, we're 17 years removed and it's not like things have gotten better. There are worse things a horror filmmaker can be than politically charged about a genuine environmental concern and how society continues to ignore it. 

High Points

Having seen my share of these kinds of movies, I assumed that Evelyn was being set up as the prissy spoiled teen ill-equipped for the arctic. Between the writing and Martha MacIsaac's performance, it was refreshing for her to quickly reveal more layers. Yes, Evelyn has what it takes to be a physically strong and clever final girl, but we also get to see a surprisingly rich understanding of how she sees the world, one that actually informs the overall theme

Low Points

I can understand the thought process of having hot young people in your movie for the sake of, you know, hot young people, but aside from Evelyn and a little bit of Atom's quick backstory, it feels like The Thaw might have worked better sticking with the adult characters

Lessons Learned

An phobia is something you have since you're a kid

Nothing is worse than still hating your dad after he dies

You can't just chop off body parts

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, I'm not suggesting anyone should pay for Howdy or risk a free trial and forget to cancel, but I would certainly recommend The Thaw for, you know, a lazy Sunday morning. It's not necessarily a hidden gem, but for 94 minutes, I was mostly entertained. 

But Do Any Raccoons Live In This City?

 

I tried to play the original Resident Evil Playstation game once. It did not go well.

The opening? Awesome. A full zombie setup dropped into a spooky gothic mansion? SIGN LATE TEENS ME UP.

There was a small problem: I couldn't get past the very round. 

After a few years away from Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, my video game skills had decayed. Have you SEEN a Playstation control? A plane's cockpit has fewer buttons!

Needless to say, I have next to no experience with the Resident Evil games. I've seen (I think?) all of the live action films up to this one, and generally had a good, occasionally great time, even without any narrative context. To see a new zombie movie in the theaters in 2002 was a shockingly exciting moment in time. It was a subgenre that had, for so long, been restricted to VHS rentals. This was before 28 Days Later made it across the Atlantic Ocean, before The Walking Dead would turn civilians into undead obsessives. 

The world was a different place.

I sound very old.

Quick Plot: Young Claire and Chris Redfield are growing up in the Raccoon City Orphanage with only each other to lean on. When she realizes she's about to become a test subject, Claire runs away, returning some years later via hitchhike in the form of well-dressed and ridiculously well-haired Kaya Scodelario. 

Chris had stayed behind under the care of orphanage president/mad scientist  Dr. Dirkin, played by the always ominously Aryan Neal McDonough. Now a strapping young man, Chris is part of the local special ops force with pals Jill Valentine and Albert Wexler. Also in town is Chief Irons and rookie cop Leon Kennedy.

My understanding, based on how the movie always slows down when a character's name is stated, is that these names are very, very important for those who have played the video games. For Luddites like me, they just sound a little silly.

It doesn't take long for hell to break out in town. Claire has some insider information from online forums that Raccoon City, about to become a ghost town once Umbrella Corporation relocates, has a sordid history of dangerous pollution and illegal medical experimentation. Naturally, she arrives right in time for the town's remaining residents to start turning.

 

Set in 1998, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City admirably commits itself to using CGI technology fitting of its era. Some quick research reveals the film's budget was continuously reduced from conception to filming, apparently forcing the hand of director Johannes Roberts (he of the slightly disappointing 47 Meters Down and surprisingly great The Strangers: Prey At Night) to make constant cuts. That might also explain the dialogue.

No, you don't necessarily need dollars for good writing, but if your movie keeps losing scenes and transitions, then your script simply has to include exposition. Does it have to be handled as clumsily as this movie? Probably not. By the third time a character stops to say, "You might be wondering how I know so much about this," the only way forward is to imagine an onscreen ticker digitally added that reads "JUST KEEP REMINDING YOURSELF: IT'S BASED ON A VIDEO GAME. IT'S BASED ON A VIDEO GAME. IT'S BASED ON A -"

I say this all with a fair amount of affection because you know what? I enjoyed this stupid movie!

Is it at the level of Street Fighter? Nothing is. Is it many sonic booms above Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li? Well yes, but really, what isn't?

This movie does not look very good. Its screenplay went through dozens of rewrites and every frame seems to still show a red pen edit. There is no real world where a dignified person could call Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a good movie. But much like (most of) the original Paul W. Anderson series, it's fun. As the kids never seem to tire of saying, it understands the assignment, even if its studio could only scrounge up a few broken pencils to complete it. Sure, I was never scared, but I was also never bored. That's something!

High Points

I don't envy any actor trying to balance their performance in a video game genre movie, but for the most part, the cast manages to maintain some form of dignity, occasionally as human beings (Tom Hopper's Wexler), comic relief (the always welcome Donal Logue as Irons), or in the form of the reliable coolness of Kaya Scodelario

 

Low Points

I don't see a reason to harp on the same things any real critic would call out here (the fact that the movie isn't, you know, traditionally very good) so instead, let's point out something that will never not infuriate me: that every character behind the wheel cannot keep their eyes on the road. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING FROM THE DESCENT?

Lessons Learned

A chat room is a place on the internet where people chat

You never know what you'll find in first class

Nothing feels better than your big brother's football helmet

Rent/Bury/Buy

It's hard to know who will or won't enjoy this iteration of Resident Evil. Fans of the game will likely spot every easter egg faster than Gaston when hungry, but does that mean this is a good adaptation? I have no idea. Is it a good action horror movie? Not really, but it's never dull! For me, this was a satisfying 100 minutes, and I'm disappointed that there won't be a sequel from the same team. 

I Was Made for Loving You

My opening line for the Companion writeup was going to reveal something about the film that you probably already know. But what if I'm the one who ruins it for you? I STILL haven't forgiven [NAME REDACTED] for spilling the ending of Fight Club in my 1999 high school philosophy class without warning. 27 years is a long grudge to hold, but as someone with a good 1/8 to 1/4 of Sicilian blood flowing through my veins, I must use caution.

Companion's 'twist' (sold in the marketing and introduced about 20 minutes into the film) will be mentioned below. So if by some chance you're able to approach the film like an innocent baby doe with no semblance of the world around you or the movie, watch it first.

Onward to the rest of us hardened hags.

Quick Plot: Iris is a beautiful young woman happily reminiscing about the two best days of her life: when she met-cute her boyfriend Josh at a colorful but poorly constructed grocery store, and when she killed him.

Yes, we're still in this very frustrating era of horror films not trusting their audience and assuring them that THINGS WILL GET VIOLENT while spoiling the actual trajectory of the story.

Anyway, Iris is reluctantly accompanying Josh for a weekend getaway at a glorious lake house owned by Sergei, the shady Russian boyfriend of pal Kat. Iris knows Kat doesn't like her and feels a little uncomfortable around Josh's friendlier pals, couple Eli and Patrick. Still, she loves Josh too much to let it show and they settle in for some fun.

In the morning, Josh's hangover keeps him inside while Iris heads to the lake alone. Sergei, already a bit flirty, seizes his chance to put on some moves. Iris resists.

Covered in blood, Iris returns to the house to plead her case of self defense. Josh shuts it down.

Literally.

Because she's his robot.

Much like Abigail and a slew of recent genre films whose early twists are too key a selling point to hide in marketing, Companion lives in an uncanny valley with audience awareness. Every ad I saw about Companion seemed to pretty clearly indicate that Iris wasn't human, yet the script is rather shockingly able to have it both ways. The first 20 minutes are playful about Iris's identity in a way that makes the reveal still shocking for someone who didn't know, but not a waste for those who do.

This is a clever film, which makes its decision to open by telling us its ending all the more frustrating. 

Writer/director Drew Hancock has a great touch. His script is snappy, and his talented young cast has the exact right energy to deliver it with panache. As Iris, Sophie Thatcher finds a beautiful balance of humor and hurt. You care about this darn robot, and not just because her human is such a jerk. 

I don't always love a story about humans abusing robots. Despite (and maybe because of) my luddite rage over current society's ill-informed reliance on AI, I sometimes have a hard time feeling much sympathy for a soulless machine. Iris was built and programmed. It's gross to see how Josh treats her, but do we feel bad for Barbie when a kid rips her head off? 

Companion doesn't quite get over that hump for me, mostly because Iris feels unresolved on the page. Thatcher is absolutely wonderful in the role, but her actions (particularly towards the movie's end) don't quite add up in a way that lets me understand her. Maybe that's part of the actual story (she's still in beta), but it does make aspects of the story a touch unsatisfying.

Still, this was a fun, breezy watch. Hard to nitpick when I had such a good time. 

High Points

As a big What We Do In the Shadows fan, I'm not surprised that Harvey Guillén is a delight here, but I was rather tickled at how his subplot with boyfriend Lucas Gage played out

Low Points

Without spoiling (although again: the movie does this in its first five minutes), the last act's final violent conflict doesn't really make sense with who Iris is at this point in time. Hancock had somewhere to get and had to have his characters make some nonsensical decisions in order to get there

Lessons Learned

Not bad doesn't necessarily mean good in Russian

You never don't take a Xanax

Automatic wine openers are more than just white elephant gifts

Rent/Bury/Buy

I found myself really enjoying Companion. The script has some shortcomings, but as a debut, it makes a great case for Drew Hancock's future. You can find it on HBO or Hulu. 

Brought to You By Task Rabbit

A few years ago on a long plane ride, I had myself a ridiculously fun time with Searching. The gimmicky setup of "movie told by a laptop" isn't new to most horror fans (many of us were unimpressed by Host when we'd already enjoyed two Unfriendeds) but when done well, it can be a truly fun time. 

Quick Plot: June has a serious case of senioritis, perfectly timed for her mother Grace to take a Columbian vacation with new boyfriend Kevin. After throwing a vomit-stained house party, June makes it to the airport to retrieve her mother only to discover she's ...

MISSING

Some savvy Gen-Z sleuthing puts June on the case, with minor assistance from the FBI and major help from Javi, a Columbian Task Rabbit with fatherhood issues that make him a helpful ally from a few thousand miles away. 

To go into any more detail of Missing's story would start to give away clues, dead ends, rerouted dead ends, and more. Like Searching, Missing is 'told' entirely from the POV of technology: several laptops, digital security cameras, news footage, Netflix streams, texts, and so on. Real brands are used, making the film a decent marketing tool for various Apple products. Chekhov's Smart Watch is indeed ready for his closeup.

I guess you would refer to Missing as an extended universe sequel to Searching. It follows the same template and even makes reference to the previous film in fairly clever ways. Directors Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick came straight from the editing room of Searching, which makes sense in keeping the style tight. 

I would be thrilled to see the -ing series continue. Missing doesn't quite reach the same heights as Searching, but it's still incredibly watchable. I was occasionally annoyed by some of the plotting, but ultimately, I kept moving closer to the screen to catch all the clues I could find. That's as good a sign of a good mystery as I can fathom. 

High Points

Without a traditional narrative, a movie like Missing desperately needs to find some emotional weight behind its tech-driven storytelling. While I do think June is a bit underwritten, Storm Reid's performance more than makes up for it. She has undeniable charisma that comes through a laptop, and she manages to keep us fully invested every step

Low Points

Missing's power is in its twisty storytelling, so it's quite a shame that the final act has to turn into a rather weak action sequence

Lessons Learned

Kids, I know voicemail isn't cool, but please, for the love of all plot contrivances, do not let that inbox get full

You don't have to use Siri for everything

If you don't want a teenager to be able to hack into every part of your virtual life, do not have a virtual life

Rent/Bury/Buy

Missing didn't thrill me to the same level that Searching did, but it made for a highly entertaining 100 minutes. Find it when you're feeling that very specific computer screen itch.