There's a Snake In My Runtime

 

Sometimes, you see a search bundle for "under 90-minute films" and thank the gods of Netflix for taking most of the thinking out of your brain. 

Quick Plot: Katrina is on a long road trip with 5-year-old daughter Clara. Just as her phone loses service, her car gets a flat. If only that was the worst thing that happened to her in a day.

Clara is exploring the grass when a rattlesnake lunges and chomps on her leg. Katrina finds a nearby trailer occupied by an elusive woman who assures her she's treated these bites before. Katrina quickly replaces her tire and returns to discover the woman gone...along with Clara's bite. It's a good, albeit weird problem to have. 

At the nearest hospital, Katrina is relieved to see no evidence of Clara's bite. That is, of course, until a well-dressed man appears to collect her payment. What's worse than the American healthcare system? That of the Texas wilderness. 

The terms are clear: Katrina must take a human soul before sunset or watch Clara die a horrific death. Some quick googling (in the now 5-bar desert) confirms this town of Trulia has a long history of random murders from passerbys just before 6PM. 

Katrina is not a killer. She doesn't even eat meat! But with her daughter's life on the line, she quickly springs into action, trying to find someone close to or deserving of death. It's a lot harder than it looks. 

Written and directed by Zak Hilditch, Rattlesnake has a wonderfully concise premise. Unfortunately, it still struggles to package that effectively in its runtime. The opening act moves quickly and establishes everything we need to know for Katrina to get through the day. Then, we have the day.

We know that things have to culminate at the last minute. We've seen movies before, and anything with a ticking clock simply has to end when that last second strikes 12. That in itself reduces quite a bit of Rattlesnake's tension. An early afternoon diversion to a comatose patient's room is obviously NOT going to solve Katrina's dilemma. The audience knows this. There's is no reason for Hilditch's camera to have to spend 10 minutes going through the motions. 

It's not that Rattlesnake is completely devoid of tension. The early appearances of this curse's messengers are genuinely creepy, and the fundamental stakes are effectively high. How does a normal, pleasant woman go from changing a flat tire to executing murder over the course of 8 hours? According to Rattlesnake, the key is to throw on a baseball hat and hit a dive bar.

It's there that Katrina conveniently lands on the perfect victim: a sadistic wife beater who clearly would do the world good by not being in it. And yet...AND YET. 

There's nothing wrong with a character being indecisive. Heck, there's nothing wrong with a character not wanting to shoot someone. But if your entire movie is about how this person HAS TO SHOOT SOMEONE, then why do you keep dragging your feet, other than to make your audience scream in annoyance. 

I was deeply moved by writer/director Zak Hilditch's These Final Hours, an end of the world road trip that showed tons of promise. It's a shame that Rattlesnake feels like such a step back. Lead actress Carmen Ejogo is given virtually nothing to work with other than indecision. This probably would have been an excellent segment of an anthology, but even with its (Netflix promised) short length, it still just doesn't work. 

Hight Points

It's a good idea for a movie

Low Points

I'm a David Lynch fan who sees no flaws in Dougie Jones' slow crawl through season 3, and yet you can bet your Texas spurs that I was screaming for Katrina to GET A F*CKING MOVE ON as the sun set over her last chance. Remember how in The Mummy 2, Brendan Fraser outruns the sun, and it's the dumbest thing that can possibly happen? This comes a bit close

Lessons Learned

Believe it or not, even Texas has gun laws

A comatose grandpa isn't going to live forever

Always be aware of the local fauna on your road trip

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was enthused by the first twenty minutes of Rattlesnake, then realized quickly that this move had virtually nowhere to go. For me, this was a bland disappointment, but it's, you know, a professional looking little thriller (how can I not say that when this is the same destination that got excited by Things?). So...it's better than Things. But more entertaining? In no world. 

We're Opening Doors!

 

As a 44-year-old, I'm not exactly sure when I was supposed to have learned about liminal spaces. Obviously, it's a big thing! Backrooms? Kids love these backrooms!

I'm still trying to figure out what they are. 

I think today's film lives in this universe. But I don't know, because I'm rather old. 

Quick Plot: Brian is filming his graffiti artist pal Emily at work in an abandoned building when she discovers a perfectly clean white door standing in the middle of rubble. She enters, only to disappear as Brian spots some kind of red-eyed create inside.

One month later, filmmaker pals Sam and Ash discover the footage online and decide to investigate for their next documentary project. They start by interviewing Brian, who fears the worst. That doesn't stop the women from finding the door and bringing it to their very own apartment.

At first, Sam and Ash are still convinced it's all a trick. By the second door opening, they realize they're very, very wrong.

Something is happening on the other side. There are dead loved ones, chatty Malteses, and mirrors that are not quite mirrors. After post-it'ing out all the possibilities, the women decide their only real option is to go inside. 

Armed with their cell phones, they discover a sort of children's play area with shades of Squid Game's production design. Signs guide them to free hugs dispensed by a giant stuffed panda...who then reveals spidery tentacles and chases them outside. 

Back in the real world, Ash and Sam team up with college professor Innis, a specialist in these kinds of altered realities. He helps lead them to some important conclusions: these doors are gateways to other dimensions (obviously) but more importantly, the person entering has some sway over its design. 

That's important when these places might require some kind of human sacrifice.

At barely 80 minutes, Hostile Dimensions wastes little time plunging us into its weird little worlds. Writer/director Graham Hughes, with some great help from lead actors Annabel Logan and Joma West, nails his unique tone. Hostile Dimensions is horror with an undercurrent of comedy that somehow works so much better than my description would probably have you believe. 

By this point in time, found footage is a familiar genre that still remains incredibly tricky to pull off well. Hostile Dimensions manages to succeed with an intriguing story, natural actors, and a willingness to embrace the absurd. 

High Points

I love a short movie, and I love a short movie even more when it ends and I want more

Low Points

While I was intrigued by one of our main character's pretty big choices in the end, I did feel (maybe because of the 80 minute runtime) that we didn't quite get to a point where I understood it

Lessons Learned

When something tells you it's dangerous, you should believe it

A talking dog is scary in any size

There's not much of an audience for stories about boutique teddy bear manufacturers

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had a great time with Hostile Dimensions. It's as unnerving as it is funny as it is, simply, very strange. Find it on Shudder.

At Least We Don't Have to Study

 

Sometimes you just need some zombies. It's just life.

Quick Plot: Sloane is having a rough December morning. Her butter is hard, her father abusive, and her suicide note still needs one more draft. It's almost a relief when fast zombies show up to sprint through her small Canadian town.

She manages to make it to her school where a few classmates have found safety. There's some cafeteria food, running water, and windows that are fairly easy to secure. Also, depression and the justifiable dread that life is short.

Based on Courtney Summers' 2012 novel, This Is Not a Test is written and directed by Adam MacDonald, the prolific creator of Slasher who demonstrated a great understanding of teenage angst in Pyewacket. On paper, this movie offers a LOT: the charming Olivia Holt in the lead, a nostalgic 1998 setting, and a good old fashioned simple zombie story that can always serve as a solid background.

So why is This Is Not a Test so...blah?

It starts with the timeline. A December date is great for giving us some sad snow and tonally conflicting cheery holiday decorations, but This Is Not a Test barely acknowledges it. The kids wisely keep the lights off in their school to not call attention to their hiding space, but this also means the film's coloring is unbearably, glumly gray. 

The young actors try, but they're not served well by a script that can't seem to decide who any of them really are. Early ringleader Cary shows some shifty morality in the beginning, butting heads with a town mother in a way that makes for the film's most interesting conflict. But that's done before Act 2, and Cary seems to spend the rest of the movie in the background before making a grand but confusing choice in the finale. 

The rest of the kids aren't given much more. Olivia Holt feels miscast as the shy, suicidal Sloane. There is some complexity in the relationships between the kids (a sibling pair, some romance, the addition of a teacher to really twist things around) but there just isn't any real development between them. I'm guessing the novel had more heft that the film kind of assumes without providing. It's just an extreme lack of anything definitive to give a perfectly fine group of young actors.

I didn't necessarily dislike This Is Not a Test. It held my attention, but by the end, I felt so disappointed by what I didn't get, especially considering the talent here.

High Points

While not groundbreaking, the zombie action is generally handled quite well (especially when you've seen as many low budget genre movies as I have). There are even some interesting ideas about how they seem to be evolving in 'napping' to wait out their prey

Low Points
I've said it before and I'll most certainly say it again: I hate blood spatter on a camera. All it does is call attention to the fact that you're watching a movie and the director thought this was cool

Lessons Learned

When you're smart you don't have to cheat on a test

Just because you're no longer someone's teacher doesn't mean you should instantly comment on how pretty she is

You can always find extra clothes in the drama department

Rent/Bury/Buy

This Is Not a Test is a slightly better-than-average zombie movie, but that's in part because there are a LOT of very cheaply made zombie movies. It will certainly scratch that very particular undead itch that most horror fans experience every few months, but once you sit back to think about the film, it dwindles. Find it on Shudder if you're curious. 

Hello Mudduh

 

Summer means a lot of things, including me using it as a reason to watch any horror movie set in a sleepaway camp.

Quick Plot: Our backstory comes via a creepily enthusiastic local news anchor reporting about the anniversary of the massacre at Camp Twilight. Seriously, she's REALLY excited about it.

Some years earlier (if I'm understanding this movie's timeline?), a young couple disappeared while skinny dipping. The next night, another pair (bitter middle aged moms who hate their families) were enjoying some much needed beers in the same spot when a figure in black drops by to murder them.

The keystone rangers are fumbling through some clues, but not quickly enough to stop the next visitors: a batch of failing high school students forced to attend a weekend trip at the same cursed location under the watch of principal Warner and enthusiastic teacher Miss Bloom (producer and co-writer Felissa Rose, who obviously knows a thing or two about sleepaway camps). 

The teens grumble and grope while their numbers begin to dwindle. Who could it be prowling the campgrounds in a sweatsuit that looks like it had to have the logo ripped off right before shooting?

Woof, Camp Twilight is not good. The acting makes RuPaul's Drag Race sketches feel positively Shakespearean, while the violence is so quickly staged that we barely register a character's in danger, let alone already stabbed to death. And the reveal...oh my, the reveal.

I actually won't spoil Camp Twilight, because honestly, while you might see the ending coming, it's probably the only real interesting thing the film has going for it. But let me discuss, without naming names, the coda.

After the massacre ends, the film goes on for another five minutes with audio newscasters telling us more developments in the case as the camera watches a car drive on a coastal highway. Over the course of these five minutes, we learn that our killer escaped, a survivor was institutionalized, our killer was spotted, our survivor was released from custody and then arrested (seriously, that one happens in one report), and that our killer was spotted again. I understand any low budget film cutting corners, but by god, there has got to be a better way.

High Points

Felissa Rose seems like a very cheerful and lovely person

Low Points

She's in a very bad movie

Lessons Learned

Just because you're a good enough athlete to have a full athletic scholarship doesn't mean you're able to outrun a slasher walking briskly

The best place to keep your convenience store gun is right in an open cubby

Florida detectives are not only bad at their jobs: they're also terrible at hemming pants

Rent/Buy/Buy

I'm sure there's a small contingent of horror completists who feel compelled to watch every slasher. That's really the only type of person who should watch Camp Twilight. It's on Amazon Prime if you're that kind of weirdo, or, I guess, if you're a parent to one of the actors? 

Of Course He Doesn't Look Like His Profile Picture

It's inevitable that any streaming service will start to make its own content (yes I hate that word, but in this scenario, it feels correct). Occasionally, word on the internet is that they're surprisingly good. Thus, I queued up one of the more notable new entries. 

Quick Plot: Like many young women, Paola stumbles through the world of app-based dating with high hopes and deep disappointments. Finally, she seems to have found a classy, attractive, and normal match. 

Considering this is a horror film called "Match", you'd be correct in having your doubts. 

Paola and mystery date Henry agree to meet at his house. He's a caring guy who doesn't like to expose his ailing mother to COVID germs, which Paola finds charming. When she knocks on his door and meets aforementioned mother, things are less so.

Clad in a dingy bathrobe, Lucille is not immediate mother-in-law gold. She's rude and clearly racist. After a glass of wine and awkward conversation, Paola catches on: she hasn't been texting Henry.

Before she can swipe right, Paola passes out. She awakens in restraints as Lucille wheels her into Henry's room to start making grandkids. 

Henry doesn't quite look like his picture. 

Henry looks like Elizabeth Sparkle's little brother on an off day.

Trapped in a house that might have shared an architect with the setting of The People Under the Stairs, Paola struggles to escape in time for her father's surgery. Outside, her sister Maria suspects the worst.

Refreshingly, Match did indeed meets the expectations I had in being better-than-you'd-expect-when-you-hear-the-words-'Tubi original.' Director Danishka Esterhazy strikes a tricky horror comedy tone that's quite careful about balancing the awfulness of Lucille's crimes with the absurdity of the situation. The script felt zany in an interesting way, so I wasn't too surprised to discover it came from Al and Jon Kaplan, the same team behind the hilarious Silence! The Musical parody of Silence of the Lambs.

Match isn't perfect. The story gets a bit bumpy by the third act, and I thought the ending (no spoilers) was slightly darker than it needed to be. That aside, this was indeed a refreshing watch. The film even manages to navigate its offscreen sexual violence in a way that doesn't feel exploitive. There's a lot working here.

High Points

Sure, those of us watching a horror movie are probably screaming "FINISH HIM" at our expected final girl after she knocks her tormentor out, but Match actually uses this early moment to make a point about Paola. She can't just kill a deformed man she barely knows because she's a kind human being who isn't necessarily prepared to, you know, murder. Humberly González sells this decision quite well, and it goes a long way in us understanding what kind of person Paola is

Low Points

I understand the need to up the body count, but throwing new characters in at the last minute has mixed results. Natalie is a blast and brings out more of Lucille's awfulness, but Ryan's presence is just confusing

Lessons Learned

Watching too much TCM will lower your guard around romantics

Remove wine stains by dabbing, not wiping

Life is easier when you have good vomit aim

Rent/Bury/Buy

Match is a high recommend, and guess what? It's free with a few commercials on Tubi. Have at it. 

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.