Island Living (& Dying)

A tense star-studded triangle on an isolated island involving paranoia about contagious disease? 

This is my love language.

Quick Plot: Kate and Martin are an unhappily married but excessively attractive couple taking a quiet break on the isolated Blackholme Island. They spent happier times there some years before and are hoping to recover from the recent tragedy of Kate's miscarriage.

Obviously, that goes swimmingly.

Kate is distant. She pounds away at an anonymous article on her laptop, keeping Martin at arm's length. He tries to make the best of it (mostly by frying messy eggs) but it's clear a weekend trip is no marriage counselor.

Even though the sweaters can do a LOT of work. 

Things are looking even dimmer after the cottage's generator fails and a mysterious soldier washes up on their shore. 

Armed and covered in blood, Jack awakens to deliver some bad news: there's a deadly outbreak on the mainland. Jack aggressively boards up the cottage while Martin and Kate try to figure out if they've found a savior or psychopath.

I love a story like Retreat. The plot synopsis immediately called to mind Right At Your Door, one of my favorite modern Twilight Zone spins. We know as much as Martin and Kate, so we're equally torn between Jack being the danger or being right the whole time. 

Director Carl Tibbetts (best known to me from the brutal White Bear installment of Black Mirror) seems fairly at home with his tension and setting. Retreat is both claustrophobic and wide open, which is how any isolated island thriller should be.

It's also, unfortunately, incredibly unpleasant. 

Retreat is a dour, dour film. Thandiwe Newton and Cillian Murphy are incredible performers, but they're playing characters who haven't cracked a smile in ten years. Their relationship is all tension even BEFORE Jamie Bell shows up with a gun.

For a bit during its middle stretch, Retreat is quite involving. Those of us who have seen these kinds of movies before have plenty of ideas about which way things might be going, but that doesn't stop us from constantly shifting our alliances and theories. The reveal (no spoilers) even packs in a nice twist that I didn't quite anticipate. So that's...good.

Retreat is...good. It's fine. It's beautifully shot, well-acted, and gets its job done in just over 90 minutes. Unfortunately, its job is just misery.

Scotland can be dreary, and it feels like that mood just coated all of Retreat's spirit. It's a mean film. To its credit, it doesn't fall victim to every pitfall (Martin and Kate's relationship, for example, proves to be stronger than you might think) but there's simply pure darkness once the film hits its last act. I simply didn't need this. 

High Points

When your cast is basically three actors, it's really, really helpful for them to be very good actors

Low Points

Boy did I not need this level of absolute misery in my life today

Lessons Learned

When spilling your deepest secret on a laptop, it's probably a good idea to enable some password protection

Chekhov's Inhaler will always be in play for any film featuring an asthmatic 

Never take a cottage vacation without packing a few board games

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't know who Retreat is really made for. It's made WELL, but it's sad and mean and never gives you that real bit of tension you might get from similar stories. It's there on Hulu if you feel like you need a mood killer. 

Play Ball (Amongst Other Things)

A murder mystery starring Roy Scheider set around the Astrodome? Color me intrigued.

Until I watched the actual movie.

Quick Plot: Things are grave in Galveston. Attractive blond women are turning up dead on the beach, each one sliced up with a large hook and leaving a pocket filled with a cryptic handwritten note. 

On the case is Detective Mike Seaver, a former minor league ballplayer who still has a deep affection for the Houston Astros. Work is hard enough without the complications of his engagement to Roxie, a woman young enough to be the daughter of his high school ex-girlfriend. He can still remember the day they met: she was learning how to ride a tricycle. 

Yes, it's icky, and no, the film doesn't really seem to understand that. It's so much more fun to make mother-in-law jokes!

Mike is on the case, along with a corrupt and/or cowardly police force and a LOT of sexy tenor saxophone. Will he be able to stop the killer before he inevitably targets Mike's own young blonde? And what does it all have to do with the Houston Astros?

Directed by Peter Masterson, Night Game feels like the kind of movie made for tax credits. Its most defining feature is the fact that it's filmed in Texas, which certainly has some humid charm. Scheider is playing a role far less interesting than Brodie or Fosse, but he manages to maintain our attention by finding the right chemistry for each of Night Game's many subplots.

And there are so many! 

The script (by Spencer Eastman and Anthony Palmer) feels like several pages of airport paperbacks were tossed in the air and someone frantically shoved a few into a binder while rushing to catch a plane. There's a running storyline about salvaging the honor of Mike's long-dead dad that goes absolutely nowhere. Mike's annoyance at wedding planning with a mother-in-law from hell (or, you know, HIS OWN HIGH SCHOOL). Even the fact that Mike once had major league dreams barely seems to matter for the case which, in case you forgot, should be a pretty big deal.

There is a certain joy to be found in some of Night Game's very dated rhythms. Cops eating ice cream cones while interrogating suspects. Coroners who love their jobs and the other patrons at the bar who would rather not hear why. '80s wedding attire.

This is not a good movie, and it's frustrating because it has a shocking amount of talent and opportunity at play. Still, even when the story is dull, the film is such particular artifact that it somehow never bored me.

High Points

I'm a sucker for an atmospheric funhouse chase (probably a result of me watching Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse and The Care Bears Movie in the same formative year) so I'll give ample credit to Masterson for his staging of Night Game's high point

Low Points

There are so many decisions one can make when it comes to writing a love interest in a thriller that I just can't understand why Night Game decided to commit so wholeheartedly to this one

Lessons Learned

You can tell a lot about a person by their remains

In the late 1980s, being overweight really just meant being brunette

Giving somebody a television set doesn't mean what it used to

Rent/Bury/Buy

Night Game was far from satisfying, but there was something vaguely interesting to me about its time and place (even if it had no idea what to do with either). If a messy, meandering thriller that loosely involves the 1989 Houston Astros has any appeal, find it on Amazon (or Tubi, because not surprisingly, this is indeed on Tubi).

Protein Power

 

My name is Emily, and three things I love are horror movies, cooking, and figure skating drama.

What You Wish For has two out of three, so so far, we're in good shape. 

Quick Plot: Dissatisfied hotel chef Ryan visits his more successful old culinary school pal Jack at a beautiful estate somewhere in South America, where Jack is working a catering gig. The fellas meet an attractive roaming Brit named Alice and promptly take her home to judge their cooking.  

Jack seems to have it made. His bank balance is well into the seven digit range, but he's also quite lonely and sad about the state of the world. After an intimate late night conversation, Ryan awakens the next day to discover Jack swinging from a noose.

Faced with loan sharks hot on his (and mother's) tail, Ryan makes a move. He cuts down his friend and surfs dark net blogs for advice on how to take over Jack's identity and bank account. Things seem to be going well enough until Jack's employers arrive with high expectations. 

As you might guess from the title, Ryan hasn't exactly calculated his plans too well. 

Jack's gig is financially rewarding but morally damning. His company hosts elite tasting menu dinners for extremely wealthy connoisseurs of, you guessed it, human flesh. The protein must be local. The chef must hunt it. And just to be safe, there should always be a backup in case of spoilage. 

Writer/director Nicholas Tomnay's previous work was The Perfect Host, which tread similar territory (though with far less cannibalism). Both films demonstrate a clear, specific aesthetic and fascination with the slippery decisions we make on a complicated moral scale. There are certainly less interesting themes to explore in horror!

High Points

Similar to The Perfect Host, Tomnay's main character is rather carefully drawn in terms of our sympathy. It would have been very easy to make Ryan more or less likable and give the audience a clear direction in how to judge his actions, but What You Wish For is so thoughtful about how to paint him. Clearly, Ryan has made some mistakes in his past, but he also has his mother's life in his hands. It's just enough to keep him understandable in a way that jumps in right as he has to make REAL decisions that truly define who he will ultimately be

Low Points

I suppose it's not their story and therefore of little interest, but it feels a tad off to paint the wealthy diners without any real color

Lessons Learned

Expect a lot of roasted chickens at the Marriott

The best part of cheating is the possibility that you will be caught (perhaps even by a very handsome local detective)

There's no disguise for sashimi

COVID Alert

There's a certain tell for films that were made during the high days of the pandemic, and you'll primarily notice it in 2-person conversation scenes where you find yourself wondering why you only ever see one character speaking in frame at a time. It had to be done at the time, but it's weirdly unnerving now.

Rent/Bury/Buy

As a regular viewer of The Food Network, I found myself really enjoying What You Wish For. Tomnay shows such a confident hand in exploring these kinds of morality tales while keeping everything visually riveting. It's a high recommend from me and findable on Hulu. 

Christmas With the Satanist Side of the Family

Are you aware of JUST how many cheap horror movies were made in the 1980s? 

Sure, you say. I was a video store kid! I've seen them all!

Unless you actively use tubi, I assure you, sir or madam, you have not.

Quick Plot: Like any smart low budget movie, we open with a remix of public domain holiday music. A group of ominous people clad in robes forms a sacrificial circle where toddler Matthew is led to the center. Cops stop the slaughter right as adult Tom wakes up in bed 40 years later.

This has been his annual Christmas Eve nightmare, but it doesn't stop his family's road trip. Into the station wagon goes Matthew, his chain-smoking father Henry, wife Kathy, teen daughter Erin, and bratty son Billy. Along their route, a pair of policemen stumble on a mysterious vagrant (possibly named Clarence) squatting in an abandoned hotel in the ghost town of Sutterville. The cars pass each other just long enough for the stranger to do some telekinetic ubering, detouring Tom's car to Sutterville as the cops take their prisoner into custody.

At the station, Clarence uses his powers to send a woman hanging up Christmas lights to her death. No one seems to be too bothered by this.

Meanwhile, Tom's family is not doing so well. Their car now broken down in an empty town, everyone gets a bit irritable. Henry worries about his son's soul (and his own heart problem), Kathy gets snappy, teen Erin is bored, and Billy is befriended by a creepy little girl we last saw push prologue Matthew into the satanic circle. Tom seems ready to snap, and that's before he watches a rattlesnake threaten his daughter only to turn into a rubber toy.

I had never heard of Family Reunion until I shuffled through some horror titles on Tubi. On one hand, I can see why: this isn't a particularly good movie, nor is it so memorably Microwave Massacre bad that it would land on a cult list of hidden gems. 

That being said, I had some fun with this. The early family scenes feel surprisingly genuine, which is especially interesting considering this is the sole credit for both child actors (Kaylin Cool and A.J. Woods). Writer/director Michael Hawes seems to also have limited output to this film and a related one, which is a bit of a shame. 

I'm not saying Family Reunion is a good film. It's not really even 'good' by micro-budget 1987 standards. The second half loses most of the momentum and the 90 minute runtime somehow feels like a typo. But it has an endearing energy about it that will make for a pretty satisfying low expectation watch, providing you have a certain softness for this era. 

High Points

It's not that I actually LIKED the Andrews family (young Billy spends the first half of Family Reunion aggressively trying to give his grandfather a heart attack) but I really did find their interactions weirdly charming 

Low Points

Chekhov's Law of Heart Conditions is pretty clear about foreshadowing, which makes it all the weirder that the elderly Henry simply disappears from the action halfway through the movie

Lessons Learned

All medical doctors can do is diagnose fevers

Bullets can't harm a good satanist, but fists sure can

Vagrants keep history alive

Rent/Bury/Buy

Family Reunion is the exact type of '80s horror movie you hope to discover on Tubi. Yes, that pretty much means exactly what you think. Enjoy!

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Barbi

When summer hits, it's time for sharks.

I don't make the rules. 

But occasionally, I love them.

Quick Plot: It's 1946 down under when a quartet of gangsters crashes their stolen bounty deep into a river. Leader Bull Maddock (played by Jake Ryan who I have to believe is known as the Australian James Gandolfini) hires a struggling and scrappy diving company to retrieve the goods. The price is right, even if the details are obviously sketchy.

On the team is enthusiastic Clara, quiet Jimmy, and kind but usually drunk Ernie. 

In the water is a bull shark. 

That's essentially the plot of Fear Below, a genuinely fun little 90 minutes. Written by Gregory Moss and Matthew Holmes (the latter who also directed), this is the kind of zippy little genre flick that satisfies the exact itch you needed scratched. The good guys are likable and quirky, the bad guys are charismatically mean. The shark action isn't as sharp as you might like in a shark movie, but that's where the genius of the setup comes into play.

Fear Below is the kind of concept I love to discover in a genre film: a threat we know in a setting we rarely see. By placing the action in the 1940s, we get layers of added intrigue that raise this above the usual "there's a shark in the water" fare. Our characters are WWII vets. There are racial and gender dynamics that affect each interaction, and the limited technology means there are never any easy solutions. 

More importantly, Fear Below just has a great attitude. I'll take more please. 

High Points

We don't get too much backstory into our characters, but the scraps and actors' charms are just enough to keep us fully invested and rooting for a win

Low Points

I queued up Fear Below because I saw "heist + shark" and thought it would be a dumb good time. Had I any inkling of its 1940s period setting, I probably would have watched faster. All this is to say that "Fear Below" is a terribly bland title, only slightly more interesting than the even emptier poster art. Where was the marketing department on this one? 

Lessons Learned

It's never too early for nicknames

People are never more creative than when they've got a gun to their head

Working in a river is like working in a cave

Rent/Bury/Buy

Fear Below isn't a new classic, but it's quick and fun watch well worth your time. Find it on Hulu.

Spoiler Alert That the Title Is Not a Spoiler Alert

Sometimes you quickly pick a movie to start your warning and after the two minutes of Amazon commercials, decide it's too late to turn back...even after you see the WWE Studios logo.

Quick Plot: Two very attractive people on a road trip stop for the night to have carefully positioned sex in a dumpy motel. One of them is unnamed but played by Luke Evans, while the other is named Betty. They have some kind of confusingly quiet passion that involves Luke Evans loving another woman and Betty whispering about it.

Nearby, a gang of incredibly stupid thieves begin to rob a large house when the owners show up unexpectedly. Hotheaded Flynn wastes no time shooting them up, much to the chagrin of leader Hoag (the always welcome Lee Tergesen). Later that night, they bump into Betty and Luke Evans at a dive bar. Flynn senses a payday and runs them off the road in the hopes of torturing out some bank passwords. Little does he know what he's gotten his team into.

Turns out, Luke Evans is not just a handsome but quiet lover: he's a cartoon slasher. 

We're talking rip off a guy's ear, stab you with a clipboard, stow away in a giant corpse villain. We don't know why he does what he does, but he's quite good at it. Side hobby? Kidnapping pretty young women to play mind games in the hopes of Stockholm Syndroming them into falling in love/ Or fighting love and wanting independence?

Don't think too hard about this. It will just hurt. 

No One Lives was directed by the very dynamic Ryuhei Kitamura, whose gonzo Battlefield Baseball was a blast (American horror fans would probably know him better for the meh Midnight Meat Train). For me, No One Lives falls somewhere in between. 

I didn't enjoy this movie in the least. BUT, for what it's trying to do, I can't say it doesn't entirely succeed. 

Luke Evans is a star. Classically trained, exceedingly handsome, and boasting of film charisma, he takes No One Lives a very long way to feeling like a real movie. I didn't like the tone Kitamura went for, but I can't say the movie doesn't find it quickly and keep the energy up throughout. 

The characters are stupid. Their actions, pretty senseless. Aside from wrestler Tyrus in a small role, No One Lives doesn't necessarily feel like it should come off as a WWE production except, well, it definitely does. The dialogue might have been written by locking a dozen teenagers in a basement with a copy of Playboy, Nietzsche, and Final Draft. 

For me, that wasn't an enjoyable thing. But if it's YOUR thing, then you'll probably enjoy this movie.

High Points

2012 feels a little late in the torture porn cycle for this level of gore, but if that's what you're looking for, I can't say No One Lives does it poorly

Low Points

Sigh. I'm not generally expecting great dialogue from anything that has the WWE Studios logo on it (though maybe I should since Mike Flanagan's Oculus somehow fits that bill) but let's be very clear: when all of your characters (including the ladies) constantly refer to every female onscreen as a b*tch, you've told me everything I need to know about how the production feels about women

Lessons Learned

A team player and total sociopath are easily confused

If you want to be respected, join a book club

The worst thing about the common criminal is that he's mediocre

Rent/Bury/Buy

No One Lives is a very silly movie that certainly doesn't lack enthusiasm. Watch the trailer to see if it's right for you.